Venetian 2/5

Got back from a three day trip to Vegas recently. Spent most of the trip playing 2/5 no-limit at the Venetian. Ended up down $700 or so. Think I played fine, but just had too many good second-best hands. Main hands I remember are: 1) doubled some guy up with my top two pair against his straight; 2) lost a sizable pot with top two pair against a set; 3) got bluffed off a low boat on a double-paired board; 4) got raised off top-pair-top-kicker by a old nitty guy who said it was a good fold; 5) won with set-over-set; 6) got reraised preflop while holding AJo, AQo and AKo. Folded all of them and got shown AA, AA and AKs; 7) raised preflop w/ TT, led out 66x flop, got raised all-in by short stack ($120 more or so?), called and got shown 76.

I made a few sizable bluffs. Six way limped pot, button raises. I think it's a steal so I reraise from the blind with QT. He calls. Flop comes KJx and I check, planning to checkraise all-in. He checks behind. Turn is a Q. I lead out for $200 (about pot size) and he folds.

I am on the button with KT or something and limp in. Flop gives me an open-ended straight draw. Cutoff leads out, I call, big blind calls. Same action on turn. River is a blank and cutoff leads out again, but only about $80 or so into a $200 pot. He clearly seems weak and the blind seems to have been drawing, so I raise $200. Blind folds quickly, and cutoff folds top pair king kicker.

I raise in early position with 55 and get called in middle position. I lead out the AKx flop and get called. The turn is another K. I lead out again and he thinks a long time and calls. The river is a blank and I lead out again and he again calls after a lot of thought showing K8. I put him on something like AJ/AQ after the preflop, flop and turn action, in which case I would expect the river bluff to succeed. Kind of surprised to see what he actually held. Don't think it's +EV to call my early position raises with K8, unless I suck postflop more than I think I do.

General observations: people weren't terrible. They weren't going broke with overpairs, for example. In fact, I think I need to add to my repertoire the occasional large bluff to push someone off an overpair. Only occasionally, though. Although they don't overvalue their one-pair hands postflop, people play a lot of crap preflop, and will even call raises with their crap. People were playing their big hands fast; not a lot of slowplaying. Big bets ($200 or more, say) were generally real hands (i.e., more than one pair), not bluffs, although not always. I could probably make even tighter folds in those spots than I already do. I need to pay more attention to my opponent's perception of my hand strength though. A big raise when I have shown strength is virtually never a bluff. A big bet when I have been check-calling may be, however. I also think I need to cut down on c-betting into multiple opponents. Or maybe I just need to c-bet smaller - if I'm c-betting half pot, I can still show a profit even if the bet fails most of the time.