First dip into the pool

Thornton Melon : Bring us a pitcher of beer every seven minutes until somebody passes out. And then bring one every ten minutes.

"Back To School"

First foray into the Party waters, and I must admit I was a little surpirsed. There is not as many tournaments running as I had hoped (but I guess with 60,000 people on they would be hard to get into at the lower limits anyway), but I decided to pull up at the $0.50/$1 table for a little while to get the feel of the action, and besides I only have a bankroll of $100 so the $1/$2 or $2/$4 tables could be a little out of my league just yet.

I chose a table with 3 others and started to watch the action. I must admit to a big rookie mistake, the table was limit hold'em and I did not realise this until after a few hands. I know this would be obvious to everyone else who ahs been to Party Poker a lot, but this was my first time there...and my first time playing limit. I prefer no-limit because at these levels I only need to win 1 hand every few orbits to get paid off. Just like I did earlier in the day playing at Aloha at the 5c/10c table - I have the Ace high nut flush, some guy bets into me, I raise, he re-raises, then I re-raise all-in and he follows. Doubled up my buy in on one hand, thats all I need. Back to the Party table, I decided to play tight but agressive when I have the best of it. I did not see many flops, but the few times I did it was weird. I was holding say KT, flop comes AJT with a few raises, that means I'm out of here. What does the eventual winner have when it comes to a three way showdown? A pair of 9's on the river. And that was good enough for a $7 pot. I could not beleive it. About 4 times I folded a winning hand - mind you, the winning hand was 3rd pair or something like that. It was just one of those nights, one player in particular who went to showdown about 80% of the time was just raking it in. He was over $50 from a $25 buy in with crap like bottom two pair or Jack high - yes, I saw a pot taken by Jack high! Now this is where I wished it was no limit, because when I finally did have a hand they called all the way to showdown and my straight won, but the pot was only $8. I managed to get back my buy-in and by then the table was full and I stood up. It was a good little learning session but this calling station was just getting too lucky and the cards were not coming for me. I decided to have a go at one of the Aussie Million's Satelite SNG, and I dropped out just outside the bubble. With AT I saw a flop of 567 rainbow with just me and the big stack in it. I bet, he raised to put me all-in. This was typical of his play and his stack size (I was $780, he was over $6K) so I thought my Ace was good enough to call and what do you know - he flips over 89o. Flopped the straight, sent me packing. Poor play, but I considered it a $10 lesson on Party Poker for the night. All up on the night I was down a few dollars, but it was ok to get my feet wet. Here's hoping when i get a chance to really put some hours in I can get something going.