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Taking a break from the game

I’ve recently taken an extended break from poker. The main reason for this is that I ran really, really bad for about a month and it really started to effect my play at the tables.

I know that bad beats are going to happen from time to time. This is unavoidable if you play a lot of poker. You just have to not let it bother you. Early on in my poker career, bad beats would really cause me to play poorly. I would tilt easily and just give away money sometimes. Fortunately, I have been able to escape this and I deal much better with bad beats now.

In the past few months though I started to go back to the way I was earlier in my poker career. For about a month, I went on the worst run that I’ve ever had. I can’t even count the number of times that I was run down by one or two outers that took my whole stack.

I even switched to tournament poker for a little while trying to switch things up. Well, things didn’t go much better there. I actually got deep into a tournament as the chip leader which, if I had held on, would have been the biggest score of my poker career. Unfortunately, I was run down by four underpairs when all the money went in preflop. This all happened within an hour and I was eliminated out of the tournament scoring just a min-cash. That was really, really depressing. I really feel like I should have won that tournament.

So, I decided to take a little break and went to visit family for a few weeks. I am back now, feeling refreshed and ready to give it another shot. I have been catching up on some of the cash game action on TV and am starting to feel really motivated.

Let’s get the cards in the air and see what happens.

August 31st, 2010 9:53:53 PM UTC | Posted in Poker by windizzle | No Comments

Poker on television

In my opinion, this is now the best time of the year for poker coverage on television. ESPN just started airing the 2010 World Series of Poker Main Event last Tuesday. From now until early November, Tuesday nights will be “poker night” on ESPN with two full hours of main event coverage. What’s great about ESPN’s coverage is that they not only focus on the poker, but spend time during each broadcast covering the backstories and personalities of the event. It’s really enjoyable to watch.

One other poker show that is currently airing that I really enjoy is the PokerStars.net Big Game. This currently airs early every morning(in the 1:30-2:00 am area) on your local FOX affiliate. The premise behind the “Big Game” is that PokerStars brings in an online qualifier(they call them the “Loose Cannon”) to play in a cash game with five other pro players. They are staked 100K and are allowed to keep anything they make over that amount.

In another twist, the Loose Cannon who earns the most money during their week earns a NAPT(North American Poker Tour) passport which gives them a free entry into each NAPT event during a particular season.

They are currently into the fourth week of the PokerStars Big Game with two more weeks to go. I highly recommend that you watch this if you get the chance. Other than ESPN’s coverage of the WSOP main event, I find nothing more enjoyable than cash game poker on television.

Currently, Poker After Dark is running new episodes on NBC at 2:05 each morning. The problem is that PAD in most cases airs SNG events where everyone starts with 20K in chips with the winner getting 120K. These SNG’s have become very boring to me and where I used to watch every episode of PAD, I now just skip the SNG events.

Where Poker After Dark excels though is when they have a cash game during a particular week. Those are really enjoyable because they usually have the biggest cash game players in the world playing in these. Tom “Durrrr” Dwan, Phil Ivey, Patrik Antonius, Gus Hansen, etc are just some of the big names who play. The next new cash game on PAD won’t air until early October so keep your eyes open for that.

August 14th, 2010 4:29:41 PM UTC | Posted in Poker by windizzle | No Comments

Soft-playing friends at the poker table

I’ve played in many live poker games where friends sometimes soft play each other. I’m really not a big fan of this. In my opinion, it’s a form of cheating. Personally, I’m a really aggressive player who will try and take as much money off an opponent as I can, even if they are my best friend. I’ve even joked before that “I would check-raise my grandmother out of her social security check if I had to.” Now that may not actually be true, but it should give you an idea of how aggressive I am at the poker table.

One particular home game that I play in on a regular basis, most of us have known each other for years and some are really close friends. Sometimes, the really close friends will just check a hand down on one or two streets when after their hands are turned up, at least one of the players should have been betting their hand for value.

The bottom line is that when you soft play friends at the table, other players get hurt by these actions. The ones that suffer the most are the aggressive players who mistake the soft play as playing styles being exhibited by these friends. These actions cause the honest players to make poor decisions during the play of future hands based on the misinformation that they have received. Even worse, soft playing causes aggressive players to not get the maximum value on their big hands because others in the pot who are soft playing each other choose to just bet and call instead of raise as they probably should given the strength of their hand.

As I stated earlier, soft playing is a form of cheating. If you feel the need to do this I would advise you to just stick to the play money games. You won’t upset as many people there.

August 6th, 2010 5:34:27 PM UTC | Posted in Poker by windizzle | No Comments

Playing speculative hands

In my personal opinion, there is no more satisfying moment in poker than when I am able to see a flop cheaply with a speculative hand that flops a monster. It’s even better when your opponent holds a big hand himself and you are able to stack him.

For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, let me define what a speculative hand is. It’s a hand like a small pair, suited connectors(8s9s), suited one gappers(4h6h) and other such hands.

Most of the time, you are going to miss the flop with these hands. This is why you want to see flops cheaply with them. You can then easily fold your hand if you don’t hit the flop hard.

I played a hand recently which illustrates this point clearly. I was playing full ring 50NL Rush Poker on Full Tilt Poker when I was dealt the 4d5d in the big blind. The player UTG min-raised and was called by UTG+1 and another player in late position. I decided to call the min-raise with my speculative hand. I was hoping the UTG raiser had a big pocket pair and that if I hit the flop hard, I could stack him.

Well, the flop came A23 rainbow and I flopped the nuts. The player UTG leads out and is smooth called by UTG+1. The middle position player folds and I decide to raise. UTG then 3-bets small and is 4-bet by UTG+1. All three of us end up getting all in and I stack A2 & A3.

Quite a few times over the years I have been able to flop a big hand by seeing a flop cheaply with a speculative hand. When you do and your opponent also has a big hand, many times they will never see it coming and stack off with a big pair. As I mentioned earlier, if you don’t hit the flop hard, just fold. Don’t get stubborn if you flop a weak one pair hand or a weak draw and decide that you have to go broke with it. This is a mistake that many players make.

July 31st, 2010 4:58:30 PM UTC | Posted in Poker by windizzle | No Comments

How not to play in a satellite

I’ve recently decided to start playing in some of the Rush Poker tournaments on Full Tilt Poker. What I’ve been doing is playing a few of the daily dollar tournaments to see how I like potentially playing for several hours or longer in this format. I don’t mind it in a cash game, however in a tournament, you can’t get up and leave when you want to. In a tournament, you have to stay until you bust out.

Anyway, I’ve been playing some of the one table satellites with my FPP’s to win a seat. The top two finishers win a seat to the tournament. The play is really horrible and I’ve been winning a seat in over half the satellites that I have played in.

I wanted to post a hand that I played in one the other day to give you a true example of how not to play in these satellites. Remember, the goal is to win a seat, not to accumulate the most chips in the end.

Full Tilt Poker Sat to the Daily Dollar Rush No Limit Hold’em Tournament – t150/t300 Blinds – 3 players

Hero (BB): t9876 M = 21.95
BTN: t102 M = 0.23
SB: t3522 M = 7.83

Pre Flop: (t450) Hero is BB with 5 6
1 fold, SB calls t150, Hero raises to t9876 all in, SB calls t3222 all in

Flop: (t7044) 5 T 6

Turn: (t7044) Q

River: (t7044) Q

Final Pot: t7044
Hero shows 5 6 (two pair, Queens and Sixes)
SB shows 2 A (a pair of Queens)
Hero wins t7044

There are 3 people left here and 2 win a seat. Notice the blinds are 150/300 and one of the players has 102 chips left. You can’t see here but he was even sitting out and not playing. So, he would have been blinded out on the next hand.

I had noticed that the player who was second in chips had been playing hands when he didn’t need to so I was just raising all-in every hand hoping that he would make a call and lose his seat to a player who was almost blinded out. I could have lost a big pot and still won my seat so there was no threat to me.

Well as you see he decided to call my all-in bet with A2 and was basically drawing dead when I flopped two pair. If he had not called my all-in, the satellite would have been over the next hand and he would have won a seat.

This is the perfect example of how not to play in a satellite. He should have folded every hand in this situation, even pocket aces. As I said earlier, the goal is to win a seat, not to accumulate the most chips.

July 19th, 2010 5:25:07 PM UTC | Posted in Poker by windizzle | No Comments