General Poker Articles on General poker articles
This is a plug for Bluff Magazine…I was entertained for 5$.
Believe me I am not much of a magazine reader - yesterday I got to my train early and picked up an issue of Bluff Magazine. I have to admit it was a pretty interesting read.
While most of the writers were more like “Blogs” (lol…poke at us at pokersift) they were still pretty interesting. I won’t go into detail on every article but a few stood out. Justin Bounomo (sic) wrote an article about how on line poker and poker in general is going to be much harder to beat in 5 years….due to the development of the player…very interesting. Its sort of like Who moved my Cheese - an excellent personal growth book that came out a few years ago. If your the mouse not hunting for new cheese well - you better watch out.
Another exposed one of my weaknesses…how Tournament Poker is not like a Cash game. Basically the article defined the way I play every hand like a tournament and why I lose. Furthermore - I can win a lot playing like a tournament if I buy in short stacked. So watch out - I might unleash the short stack bigbamboom Tournament game at the local pokerstars NL50.
A few others were the pro’s personal stories like Laak and his girl friend - who are starting to annoy me….talked about their trip to the Aussie Millions. A couple of others like Antonio Esfanidari - who everytime I read - is shit faced somewhere - and Paul Wasicaka (also shit faced) talk about their average week ends. Wasicaka did talk about a few hands he lost in the Aussie Millions so that was interesting.
Finally - their were a few teaching articles which I thought were really well done. The WPT Acadmemy article really stood out and put me in the mood to play some tournament poker. Basically it analzyed a hand from start to finish with some great insight. I got home to late to join the 5$ 9 p.m. tourney at Stars so I jumped in a 180 Man SNG. I was in the mood and playing well when it got down to the short strokes…the bubble dealt me a KK which I milked to perfection to move into contention. I was playing well with an eye on first….but it was not to be.
I was in 7th place with 15k in chips and the big stack was in the BB immediately to my left. In the SB - action is folded around to me and I have KJ offsuit. Blinds were 500/1000 so any 3x/4x/5x raise turns me into a short stack with 10BB. The pot was 1650 chips, no small sum…but in reality not going to make or break me.
I did what all amatuers do - I shoved…was this the right move? Well - lets just say in this case the answer was no. The BB had AJ - instacalled and was insta out in 14th. Whats depressing is that after playing very well for 3 hours, I went out with a 4$ cash prize which really sucks. Instead of a decent score for my efforts - I basically made 1$ an hour….not good. Hard to explain to my wife - who still insists poker is a waste of time.
Perhaps the Bluff magazine article gave me some good karma to play well - I definitely felt like it was worth the 5 bucks and highly recommend it.
The Super Nova Highway continues with some bumps. The Cash Games absolutely slaughtered me - and although I picked up valuable VIP points - it cost me a ton of Bankroll. I have my 3 week plan in place - this week is strictly MTT’s and 180 SNG’s. That way I can focus on my Tournament Game. I plan on playing a few tonight - and hope to make a score to get my bankroll back up.
I hope to continue to develop and improve as a player - and found the 5$ I spent on Bluff definitely made me a better player today.
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Comments
There is a very well-defined optimal strategy for when you get down to this level, if you read Harrington’s books he goes over it a bit and it is even more discussed in the 2+2 forums. KJ is definitely good enough to open with but when you have 8+BBs, you can still just make a standard raise, esp. in a SNG with no antes.
From an opponent’s perspective, let’s say you have a hand good enough to call. In this spot, if you can call a raise of 2500, you can probably call a much fishier-looking raise of 15k all-in. Your hand actually looks a lot stronger by making a smaller raise (would you really try to kill action if you had AA/KK/QQ/AK by pushing?) and you’re getting better fold equity, plus if you fold you still have enough chips to be in contention.
I didn’t read the article, but I think that Bonomo is probably a bit off on that point. The games will cycle through new players, and you have to consider that many people do not ever attempt to get better at poker and as along as they are able to deposit they will and they will supply the game.
Actually - I respectively disagree. I can see his point already.
You’ve got a wave of poker addicts coming up through the ranks…just the on line poker phenomena where players back 20 years ago - only had live poker - now our 10 year olds are playing Xbox Stacked against their friends.
Granted this may not last - but I think in general - the “poker player” is evolving.
At higher levels - all the new texts, video poker sites, and instruction available - makes the games tougher.
And you make a great point - there will also be fish cycling through - but I think his article was a more pointed focus group - the players that do want to get better….so guys like us.
It was interesting and worth a read - and has motivated me to keep learning to stay ahead of the pack….not that I am ahead now.
I agree that the games will be tougher… because of all the kids (and by kids I mean highschool type age and younger) starting to play poker will have a lot more experience and a lot more hands played (though granted not for real money). I have a club where lots of kids come… and often I have had pretty high level poker conversations them. Much higher than I would have ever considered having when I was 16. So I see what Hypnoblaz is getting at… in there will always be new blood, with new money filling up the pond…. but there will also be more better players ready to fleece the fish. So the games will be tougher in general. Just as they are tougher now than they were 5 years ago.
As for your push with KJ… you already know it was an amateur move. Because you know that if you are called you are going to be a big dog. So the decision really has nothing to do with what cards you have… and everything to do with your adversary. What is his VPIP? What is his percentage Folded BB to Steal? What is your VPIP? So if he is very tight and your table image is tight… then make a raise. But if you are going to push allin you might as well do it with 75 (which as it happens in this example is about 10% better than KJ). In this spot against a tight opponent, I would make a min raise and then put in a continuation bet on any flop. This lets you win if he is really weak pre-flop, if he totally misses the flop or if you hit the flop. But best yet if he moves all in to you continuation bet, you fold and still have wiggle room with a 10k stack.
I prefer Cardplayer, but I certainly understand the… mhmm, how can I say it tactfully… the animosity some people may have towards Cardplayer and their once monopolistic views of the poker news.
Bluff and All-In are both decent magazines, but a little too much focused on the tournaments and the “Poker lifestyle” elements than strategy. But both are very readable.
Poker Pro is a joke.
I always read Poker Player newspaper when I’m at a cardroom, Mike Caro’s word of the week is entertaining, but there’s no real value there and mostly I read it because it’s free. Also, when I lived in Northern California, I read the local “The Cardroom”, but mostly because I knew about half the people writing there and I could tilt them by heckling them about the article they wrote. ahhh good times.