Bozo or Pennywise?

I seem to be getting hooked on SkillBet; I'll know I've really got it bad if I ever switch the order up, and play on SkillBet before playing on PokerStars. The title of tonight's post refers to my SkillBet match last night, so I'll just be brief on my PokerStars session. It was another short one; on hand 17, I won a pot worth $73,522 with a full house, fives full of eights, and got out of Dodge.

Even though I don't think SkillBet is real poker, it's immensely fun to play. There's something really empowering about looking at what your opponent is doing when you're already out of the hand; you feel a bit like a god. This partial omniscience can reveal some poker truths to you in surprising ways. Let me give you an example from last night's match.

First, however, I need to fill in a bit of back story. Part of what makes the SkillBet site so entertaining is the graphics; they have a wide assortment of avatars, including the one they pick for each human player. The avatars they use for their poker bots are all over the map, even going so far as to include animals; last night, one of the poker bots had a dog avatar. Comically, they picked a bikini clad female for my avator, since they assumed from my first name (which is a somewhat unusual one in this country) that I'm female. Even though I corrected my gender in my profile, the SkillBet software didn't change my avatar. I have to say, I have a nice set of tatas!

Enough preamble - on to my point. Last night, one of the poker bots had a clown avatar. On one of the hands, I made a small preflop raise and everyone, including the clown, meekly folded. I then peeked at my human opponent's table to see how he was faring. Apparently, he hadn't made a preflop bet, since both he and the clown were still in the hand, and the flop had been dealt. Now, instead of being a lamb, the clown was a real lion, betting out. I'd gotten Bozo the clown with my preflop bet, but my opponent was getting Pennywise, the evil clown from Stephen King's "It". I loved it! I did better than my opponent on that hand, but unfortunately lost the 30 hand match.

It was a great illustration of how aggression in poker can turn on a dime; that part of the SkillBet experience is 100% poker.

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 18 hands and saw flop:
 - 1 out of 3 times while in big blind (33%)
 - 3 out of 3 times while in small blind (100%)
 - 7 out of 12 times in other positions (58%)
 - a total of 11 out of 18 (61%)
 Pots won at showdown - 3 of 6 (50%)
 Pots won without showdown - 1

delta: $33,522
balance: $6,289,522