A Most Unusual Session
Last night was pretty strange. A while back UltimateBet put $10 in my account because I had not played there in forever and now I am trying to grind it up to $50 so I can withdraw it. I have worked it up to about $30 so far playing $10 no limit and some .25-.50 limit hold’em. It is kind of a slow grind because I have very little room for error. Even though that money is less than 1% of my total roll I still want it. I guess I am just a sucker for free stuff.
Most of my regular play has been at the $1-$2 short handed limit tables at Pokerstars for about the last month or so but I have dabbled a little bit with some heads up play as well. Most times I will sit down at an empty table and wait for someone to show up and we get to play one on one for a little bit before another player shows up. When it gets to three handed it doesn’t take very long for the table to fill up and I have to leave and start the process all over again. I noticed last night that UB has a .05-.10 heads up limit hold’em table which looked perfect for my needs. The low stakes would keep me from burning through too much of my tiny roll while getting in some heads up hands and I wouldn’t have to worry about switching tables because nobody else could sit in.
I sat down at the empty table with $5 and waited for an opponent to show up, which took about five minutes or so. He got up about a dollar or so in about 20 hands and then he left the table. Hmmmm….. I didn’t think I would have to deal with a hit-and-run player at this level but I guess I was mistaken. I topped back up to $5 and waited for my next opponent. It took about five more minutes for someone to show, but when the first hand was dealt I knew right away that I was in for a completely different match. My first clue was that my opponent had chose to buy in for $10,000. Yes, he bought in for 100,000 big bets at a limit table. The second clue was the fact that he insta-raised my complete from the small blind, and insta-bet the flop. I found out pretty quickly that was the only action my opponent was taking. He bet every street, every hand, every chance he got. If I raised, he would re-raise until the betting was capped every time no matter what hand he had. It was the strangest thing I had seen at the tables in a long time.
I was not sure what he was doing but I decided to take advantage of it. I quickly adjusted my game to match this insane level of aggression I was facing. I started thinking about how good my hand was against a random hand because that was exactly what I was facing. It was pretty easy to start calling down with anything I though might have a chance of being good, which depending on the board drifted all the way down to about ten-high. Once I hit a pair there was no question, I was going to showdown.
My curiosity got the best of me so I typed in the chatbox “are you a bot?” He quickly responded with a “yes” and then said, “getting a little low, need to top up” and then he added another $3000 to his stack. This was just getting stranger every minute. I typed “what exactly are you doing?” He told me “winning monies” OK, so he isn’t a bot, but it still didn’t explain what the heck he was doing. We chatted back and forth some more but nothing changed about his play, every hand was still autobet/autoraise.
As the match went on, I tried to exploit my opponent to the best of my ability. My biggest decisions where what hands to fold preflop and what hands to push with. I started folding my weaker hands from the small blind and playing every hand from the big blind. Even though I had the button in the small blind, position was of no value in this game. It was simply a matter of odds. It cost two small bets to see the flop, so from the big blind I was getting 3 to 1 on my money every time. When I was in the small blind, I was getting just over even money so I had to really tighten up my hand range. When I did have a good hand I had to decide how much money I wanted to go in the pot on each street. I decided to jam with any decent top pair hand or better and reevaluate after each new street.
It worked out pretty well. I won about $8 off him in just over 80 hands which is a tremendous win rate. I am still trying to figure out what he was doing. Was he trying to clear a bonus? Surely there are better ways than to give away money. I don’t know if it has something to do with the new RAI$E promotion UB is doing or not. Maybe he was trying to throw off anybody data-mining him. I almost think he might have been a prop player trying to get in his daily hand requirements as quickly as possible. I don’t know. It just doesn’t make much sense. I was just happy to be there to take advantage of his generosity. He was giving away money, and I am a sucker for free stuff.
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Be careful about playing HU LHE at the low limits. The rake is in the vicinity of 4-5BB/100, which means that you have to be tremendously better than your opponent. A little edge won’t do it! Only when the rake starts getting capped, then HU LHE is worth it.
If you really want to satisfy your ego, play some HU play money tables on Prima for a certain amount. You decide with your opponent: we are going to wager 20$ for a HU match. You buy in for 2000 Play money (50BB) and play until someone wins the 50BB or until you had enough. Then the winner gets transfered the 20$ (or whichever fraction) on your favorite site. Nobody loses any rake.