Redemption?

This hand happened about 14 hours after the last hand I wrote about. At the time this hand happened, I had been 3-tabling $15/30 on Party for an hour and was down about $1,800 and extremely frustrated with a $3,000+ downswing in less than 24 hours. After this hand, I somehow I managed to finish the session an hour later with a $7 profit. These swings give me indigestion.

A loose and horrible player limped in from middle position, an unknown player who had posted a big blind checked, and I raised with

A♠ K♠.

They both called. 3 to the flop for 6 small bets.

6♦ 9♦ T♦.

The idiot limper bet out and the next player folded. Lots of players will bet at a scary coordinated flop like that with just a big diamond. If he just had a big diamond, he wouldn't fold but I was winning. And if he actually had a pair, he'd be afraid that I had him beat and would revert to check-calling the rest of the way. Taking back control of the hand seemed appropriate here, so I raised. He called the raise and the turn was the

Q♠.

He bet out again, making the pot 6 big bets. My first thought was that he had the Q♦ in his hand, but the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like he'd just check and call with that kind of hand. I concluded that he most likely had either a big diamond or a pair of tens without much kicker, so either I was ahead or I had a lot of top pair or straight outs. So I called. Just like the last hand, the river paired sixes with the same

6♥.

He bet out again. Once again, it seemed like a strong hand would have check-raised me at some point, and a medium strength hand like T♣ 8♣ would have checked the river planning to call a bet. So I called and beat his K♦ 5♠ bluff to win the $302 pot.

Winning is more fun than losing.