Archive for March, 2008
Nice cash bad deal and other stuff
Went down to the casino and played in the daily $60 tournament. I hadn’t played a tourney there since January and now they have added an optional $20 rebuy which I did at the first break so I was now in for $80. They were over 110 runners and I made the final table. 6 hours later and 4 handed I was 2nd in chips. We decide to make a deal and I walked away with almost 1k. I short changed myself a couple hundred by not negotiating like I should have but I was exhausted (that’s what I get for not eating or drinking anything in about 7 hours) and just wanted it to be over. After thinking about all night, I became very disappointed in myself for not negotiating more. I let my physical and mental state get to me and took less that I should have. I won’t make that mistake again. Overall played well, got unlucky then lucky at the final table and walked away with a nice profit. By making the final table I qualified for a free roll in 2 weeks with a prize pool of $12,500.
A Case for Legalized Internet Poker
I was playing cards today at the Venetian when I was introduced to an interesting regular. This guy would just verbally announce his chip bets and then the dealer would push them in.
My first reaction was that I was pretty annoyed by this, since a fairly decent part of my game is determined on chip tells, and asked the dealer why she was allowed to do this.
I think I need a mentor…
Been playing the cash games, I have had a lot of ups and downs. I am trying to avoid the downs and focus on my play and getting better. My game and bankroll has come a long way over the past few months, due to the training I have already started, I just need to continue to tweak my game in order to get better and better.
Vegas Summer in the Cards
Super busy week for your short-stacked friend. Spent the better part of it in windy San Francisco, where I managed not only to play a little live poker but also blogged all week (thanks to a sweet wireless connection in the hotel). Got involved a bit in some interesting PPA-related dialogue as well (see below). The big news, though, was that I found out I am heading to Vegas for the 2008 WSOP to help out with the PokerNews coverage. Will be there for pretty much the whole sucker.
More details on that to come. Meanwhile, here’s what all happened at Hard-Boiled Poker this week:
Squeezing is the Devil, or at least the spawn of the Devil
I say this with all due respect to Azn_cutie’s recent post on squeezing. In fact, I’m really intrigued by his idea of trying to squeeze blind just by recognizing favorable situations.
BUT as someone who only plays online 6-max no-limit, my firm opinion is that excessive squeezing kills games. Once a small-stakes no-limit game has settled into the pattern of raise-call-squeeze or raise-reraise-fold, it becomes very very tedious. I won’t say that the good players don’t still have an advantage. Knowing how to get value out of big hands, and when to four-bet a squeezer are skills that good players possess. But as someone who really enjoys play on the flop and later streets, I find this style of play crippling. It makes small pairs (my favorite hands) much less viable, and it just becomes a tit-for-tat exercise where you squeezes me last time, so I’ll squeeze you this time.
General Poker Articles on General poker articles
This is a plug for Bluff Magazine…I was entertained for 5$.
Believe me I am not much of a magazine reader - yesterday I got to my train early and picked up an issue of Bluff Magazine. I have to admit it was a pretty interesting read.
While most of the writers were more like “Blogs” (lol…poke at us at pokersift) they were still pretty interesting. I won’t go into detail on every article but a few stood out. Justin Bounomo (sic) wrote an article about how on line poker and poker in general is going to be much harder to beat in 5 years….due to the development of the player…very interesting. Its sort of like Who moved my Cheese - an excellent personal growth book that came out a few years ago. If your the mouse not hunting for new cheese well - you better watch out.
Keeping Variance down in PLO
During the pot limit Omaha discussion on this week’s Two Plus Two pokercast Mike said something like, “Most people think of Omaha as that game where pros win or lose millions.” Omaha can have huge swings, but just like any poker game there are ways to keep your variance down.
Below are some tips that will help avoid large swings in low stakes online Omaha games. Using these ideas might not be the most profitable way to play, but at different times we have different goals. Just like playing the stock market, sometimes we need a high risk/growth strategy, but other times we need a safer approach. If you’re just learning the game, or if your bankroll has taken a hit and you want to grind it back up, well then some of these ideas might be right for you.
Why awareness is better than focus, just be the ball Danny!!
OK, the first thing that I want you to do is take this test. It requires that you focus your attention for a about 30 seconds. If you can’t do that then take some Adderall and come back. Obviously I am kidding.
So before you read on click here and take the test and then come back and read the rest of this post.
Playing Blind/Squeezing
If your range for 3-betting preflop are AA/KK/QQ/AK and you are never squeezing in nlhe, you are losing a lot of potential profit. If you played an entire session at a full ring game without ever looking at your cards (and without your opponents knowing you are playing blind), you should still be able to turn a profit simply by utilizing light 3 betting and squeezing.
These are Daniel Negreanu’s words, not mine, and he is talking about levels as high as $25/50. I read this many years ago and had no idea what DN was talking about; However, I see now that his principles are definitely valid and can apply to any level in live play.
Does playing bad players make you a bad player?
I recently bought into Cake Poker; the games there are pretty soft. They bring no fold em hold em to a new level. For example I was called down by a player with K high, against my full house??? I have noticed that I have loosened my starting hands requirements and my GAP is not as wide as it has been in the past. I am now more likely to call pre-flop with a naked Ace, especially when people rarely raise pre-flop.
