I finally had a decent session last night, I won about $47 after a couple of hours. (You might notice my bankroll dropped, but that was because I forgot to update the amount in one of my accounts after a losing session last week.) Party Poker made some changes, which has been affecting my table selection. I used to be able to bring up 10 tables to watch, which saved the hand histories to a log file, then would use some software to analyze those logs. I'd let it run for about an hour, then sit down at the table with the best (i.e. worst) stats.
I can't do that anymore, though. They only save hand histories for tables you're actually playing at now, so I can't figure out if a table is good until I sit down. So now I just keep hopping around, trying to get lucky by landing at a good table with a lot of fish. It's been fairly hit or miss, which is likely what resulted in my recent losing sessions. But I got lucky last night. I found a table with some pretty loose players, who couldn't outdraw my winning hands, and I quit with a decent profit.
I've also been going through the hand histories and analyzing my play. I was able to identify a few trouble spots I have. I think my pre-flop & flop play is pretty good and I'm also doing decent on the turn. I'm usually able to tell where I stand and what my odds are at that point. But it's the river where I need some work.
Most of the time, I'm only in a hand all the way to the end when I'm the favorite, so it's my opponents who usually benefit by a scary river card. I'm never really sure what to do when a river card completes a strait, makes it three to a flush, or drops an overcard that my loose opponents are likely to have.
Sometimes I'll bet, but what usually happens is they'll either fold if I beat them or raise if they beat me. The result is that I don't earn any extra bets when I'm ahead but will lose an additional bet when I'm behind. I'll occasionally get raised by a worse hand, but it's rare. But if I fold to that raise, my opponents will pick up on that and start raise-bluffing me. (Hmm... maybe I should fold to a river raise early in the session, to induce more frequent raise-bluffs later? I'll have to think about that.)
Anyway, another line is to just check. If I'm winning, and they check behind, that loses me an extra bet if they would have called. I didn't really like that line much before, it felt too weak to me. But I noticed something last night: when I check to a scare card, my opponents will almost always bet, representing that the scare card helped them. So what I started doing was to just check at the end, let them bet, and then call it. About 60% of the time they were bluffing. That's huge... it let me get one more bet from a weak hand (that would have folded if I bet). And it prevented me from losing that extra bet if the card did help them enough that they would have raised.
I'll have to try that line for a few more sessions to see if I like it. I don't do the same thing every time, of course. I usually use the second hand on my watch to help me randomize my play if I'm up against observant players. I can't be predictable, but as long as I do the right thing about 80% of the time it should work out in the long run. I'll have to add this move to the rotation.