My wife would disagree with me, but really, I have thought about other things than basketball (Rock Chalk Jayhawk!) since the NCAA tournament started.
Like poker, for instance.
And, oh, making sure the twins don't crawl down the stairs.
(Really, what is it with a baby's propensity to commit suicide? The population would be much, much lower if babies were allowed to act on their own. Maybe that's why it's an issue: We really all are lemmings at heart and are just trying to control the population, and our parents, because they've spent a few months (make that 10) getting up three times a night, won't let us plunge off the cliff. Maybe if our wives gave birth three weeks after getting pregnant, this wouldn't be a problem, but then again that wouldn't be as much fun as four months of getting yelled at for cutting a grapefruit in front of her, three months of crying jags and two months of snoring loud enough to wake three states.
Dear Girls: The stairs are dangerous. It's also not wise to shove every throat-sized thing you see on the floor, like the dog food, down your throat. Love, Daddy).
Thought #1 - Don't go to bed angry. That's what our preacher told us during those pre-marriage sessions that the Catholic church requires (along with pledging your first born and promising not to use birth control, the last of course we did with fingers crossed). And yet I have had trouble not taking stupid plays and bad beats to bed.
The problem is you're probably going to have one or the other every time you play an hour or more of online poker. I never play a session perfectly, for instance, and suckouts always happen to me, as they do to anyone who understands that if you are re-raised and you are holding J-K os, you should probably fold.
After waking up still mad and frustrated, I've decided that enough is enough. My health is good and I'm in great shape, so it would be stupid to blow up my heart on stress related to poker. Besides, I don't play high limits and poker, ultimately, is about making a little money while having fun. It's not a job. Not even close.
Once I made that resolution - call it my New March Resolution - I had one of my best runs of the year today, almost 12 miles and feeling great. I hope there's a connection there.
I can't say I'll live up to the resolution - most people don't - but I'll continue to try.
Thought #2 - Usually when I have a big hand on the river, I'm having a hard time these days deciding whether to value bet, check and hope for a bet so I can raise, overbet for value (usually just jamming) or bet lightly and hope for a raise.
I'm usually failing on the side of overbetting because I figure the times they do call will make up for the times I get nothing out of the river bet. Skalansky advocates this as well.
I still believe this although lately I'm having a hard time getting my monsters paid, and I don't think I'm playing overly tight (plus I'm playing at the lemming level where they don't pay attention to table image too much), though that is always my nature.
Your thoughts?
Thought #3 - I have been more aggressive lately in cash games and it seems to be paying off, though I'm still jamming at the wrong times occasionally (on the river, when I have no fold equity) and just jamming with high pocket pairs instead of playing them better.
This seems to be making me money, though I've made two bad mistakes lately that cost me more profit, mistakes I would not have made, because I"m trying to be more aggressive.
I suppose this is what we call learning.
Like learning that crawling down the stairs is not a good thing. The trick is for it not to kill you before the lesson is learned.
Showing posts with label poker stragety. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poker stragety. Show all posts
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Let's see just how stupid I was last night...
Details are sketchy given that one of the twins had just started to whimper a bit in her carrier last night:
It's early, blinds are 25/50, you are playing the Mookie, a early position raiser pops you 3xs the BB, and you have K-Q soooted.
I called because I had a few chips, it was double-stacked and it was the Mookie. I don't think it's a bad call.
Flop comes 10,K,Q. Perfect. Initial raiser, a guy who has had success at the Mookie and someone you see as an aggressive player, checks, you bet 295 into the 500-some pot. Third player along for the ride calls and the raiser calls as well.
Hmmm. Still, I don't think the bet is bad here.
The turn comes a harmless...6, I think...and we're all rainbowed now. Raiser checks, I bet 1,000 chips, a little less than the pot. The third guy thinks and folds. The initial raiser raises. You'll have 800 chips left if you call.
I pushed all-in.
Is there ANYONE here who would make that play?
It's early, blinds are 25/50, you are playing the Mookie, a early position raiser pops you 3xs the BB, and you have K-Q soooted.
I called because I had a few chips, it was double-stacked and it was the Mookie. I don't think it's a bad call.
Flop comes 10,K,Q. Perfect. Initial raiser, a guy who has had success at the Mookie and someone you see as an aggressive player, checks, you bet 295 into the 500-some pot. Third player along for the ride calls and the raiser calls as well.
Hmmm. Still, I don't think the bet is bad here.
The turn comes a harmless...6, I think...and we're all rainbowed now. Raiser checks, I bet 1,000 chips, a little less than the pot. The third guy thinks and folds. The initial raiser raises. You'll have 800 chips left if you call.
I pushed all-in.
Is there ANYONE here who would make that play?
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
A little bit of poker in my life
As you may have noticed, this is still a poker blog, but only in the technical sense.
I still write about poker, and I still play poker every night, and I still even consider myself a poker blogger.
But as you may also have noticed, when I'm writing these days, poker doesn't get near as many words as running or the twins or Jayden. There's a lot more there with a pair of newborn ladies and a toddler than writing about how I screwed up A,J in EP yet again and how I suffered yet another bad beat and poor me and I hate our government.
You have, after all, read all that before. Much more eloquently, in fact.
The last thing I do these days is offer poker advice. Let's face it. I'm a good player. I've never deposited past my initial foray of $200 in pokerroom.com (man, that was another world ago), and through a series of withdraws, I've funded Full Tilt, Poker Stars, Bodog and Ultimate Bet accounts from that initial $200. I'm one of the leaders on the Mookie board and won one this year.
But I'm hardly as good as many of you. My thinking rarely travels beyond third level. My highest level of cash games are $50 NL, and I'm currently enjoying three tables of UB at $25 NL. I still play low-level SnGs, and even those lately have sucked. I don't ever expect to win a MTT, and though I have a healthy bankroll, a win in the Full Tilt $26K would probably surpass it.
Yet here I go. If you think this tip is somewhat like trying to teach Miles Davis how to play the blues in B-flat, then by all means, have yourself a chuckle and skip over it. But it's a good tip, and it seems to play out again and again, without fail.
I have KK and $30 in front of me in a $25 NL game. I raise 3x, and I get one caller from a lady who has a $13 stack. She typically buys in short. This, as we'll see later, is important.
The flop is a decent one, Q,9,3, all rainbow. She has position on me, however, so I bet the pot, $2.
She smooth calls. At this point I'm not too worried. I suppose she could have J,10 or maybe a weak Q. She could also have a set but I can't worry about monsters just yet.
The turn is a harmless 2, and I bet $4.50 into the $6 pot. I wouldn't mind a call here but I don't want to give odds out either.
She pushes all in.
What's your move?
• • •
I don't mind it when other blogs make you wait for a day or so to get comments, but what I'm saying here isn't really all that amazing, and in many cases, it probably won't be much of a decision for many of you. So I'll continue here.
What do you think she had?
At that point I was fairly sure I knew what she had.
I put her on Q,J sooted, and that's what she flipped over when I called.
I was sure because of the tip that's coming, and it's a strange trend, in my mind, yet it plays out over and over and over, and I'd be willing to be it plays out at all but the highest levels.
When a player is on the short stack, they are far too willing to gamble with a marginal hand like top pair.
I know. "Wow, thanks Peaker. You're amazing. I'll bet you raise in EP with AA, too, don't you? You should write a book on poker stragety."
But here's the thing. This is a cash game, remember? It's not a tournament. And the "short stack" is relative. Let's say this was a tournament. With the blinds being .10/.25, her M is 37. That's hardly a time to be pushing with only a decent hand.
Yet what I've found, over and over, is if a stack has less than 60 percent of a buy-in, that person will gamble with anything, and usually that means top pair, weak kicker. Sometimes it even means a pair in their hand with overcards on the board, or it could also mean an overpair.
You should call these players more often than not if you have a good hand, but not a hand you would normally blow half your stack with, like just a pair with a great kicker or an overpair that can be beaten by higher overpairs. I doubt this is true at the higher levels, but at $25 NL up to $100 NL, this seems to be the case.
It really amazes me too. It seems like such a dumb play. Apparently there's a school of thought out there that OTHER players are going to be willing to gamble with much less, too, and I do think that's true. If she shoves with $40, totally covering me, I think twice before calling with KK, and unless I've got a good read on her (which I did in this case, she wasn't a good player), I fold.
Yet most of the time, what I've found is I wait for those players to make those mistakes and shove their stacks and I pick them off. I've made more money off these players than any other except for spiking sets or big hands with sooted connectors against a big overpair.
Reckless short stack cash game poker is rarely profitable, it seems to me. But if there are shortstack players who make money off this strategy, I'm willing to listen.
After all, as we've just seen, I'm no poker author.
I still write about poker, and I still play poker every night, and I still even consider myself a poker blogger.
But as you may also have noticed, when I'm writing these days, poker doesn't get near as many words as running or the twins or Jayden. There's a lot more there with a pair of newborn ladies and a toddler than writing about how I screwed up A,J in EP yet again and how I suffered yet another bad beat and poor me and I hate our government.
You have, after all, read all that before. Much more eloquently, in fact.
The last thing I do these days is offer poker advice. Let's face it. I'm a good player. I've never deposited past my initial foray of $200 in pokerroom.com (man, that was another world ago), and through a series of withdraws, I've funded Full Tilt, Poker Stars, Bodog and Ultimate Bet accounts from that initial $200. I'm one of the leaders on the Mookie board and won one this year.
But I'm hardly as good as many of you. My thinking rarely travels beyond third level. My highest level of cash games are $50 NL, and I'm currently enjoying three tables of UB at $25 NL. I still play low-level SnGs, and even those lately have sucked. I don't ever expect to win a MTT, and though I have a healthy bankroll, a win in the Full Tilt $26K would probably surpass it.
Yet here I go. If you think this tip is somewhat like trying to teach Miles Davis how to play the blues in B-flat, then by all means, have yourself a chuckle and skip over it. But it's a good tip, and it seems to play out again and again, without fail.
I have KK and $30 in front of me in a $25 NL game. I raise 3x, and I get one caller from a lady who has a $13 stack. She typically buys in short. This, as we'll see later, is important.
The flop is a decent one, Q,9,3, all rainbow. She has position on me, however, so I bet the pot, $2.
She smooth calls. At this point I'm not too worried. I suppose she could have J,10 or maybe a weak Q. She could also have a set but I can't worry about monsters just yet.
The turn is a harmless 2, and I bet $4.50 into the $6 pot. I wouldn't mind a call here but I don't want to give odds out either.
She pushes all in.
What's your move?
• • •
I don't mind it when other blogs make you wait for a day or so to get comments, but what I'm saying here isn't really all that amazing, and in many cases, it probably won't be much of a decision for many of you. So I'll continue here.
What do you think she had?
At that point I was fairly sure I knew what she had.
I put her on Q,J sooted, and that's what she flipped over when I called.
I was sure because of the tip that's coming, and it's a strange trend, in my mind, yet it plays out over and over and over, and I'd be willing to be it plays out at all but the highest levels.
When a player is on the short stack, they are far too willing to gamble with a marginal hand like top pair.
I know. "Wow, thanks Peaker. You're amazing. I'll bet you raise in EP with AA, too, don't you? You should write a book on poker stragety."
But here's the thing. This is a cash game, remember? It's not a tournament. And the "short stack" is relative. Let's say this was a tournament. With the blinds being .10/.25, her M is 37. That's hardly a time to be pushing with only a decent hand.
Yet what I've found, over and over, is if a stack has less than 60 percent of a buy-in, that person will gamble with anything, and usually that means top pair, weak kicker. Sometimes it even means a pair in their hand with overcards on the board, or it could also mean an overpair.
You should call these players more often than not if you have a good hand, but not a hand you would normally blow half your stack with, like just a pair with a great kicker or an overpair that can be beaten by higher overpairs. I doubt this is true at the higher levels, but at $25 NL up to $100 NL, this seems to be the case.
It really amazes me too. It seems like such a dumb play. Apparently there's a school of thought out there that OTHER players are going to be willing to gamble with much less, too, and I do think that's true. If she shoves with $40, totally covering me, I think twice before calling with KK, and unless I've got a good read on her (which I did in this case, she wasn't a good player), I fold.
Yet most of the time, what I've found is I wait for those players to make those mistakes and shove their stacks and I pick them off. I've made more money off these players than any other except for spiking sets or big hands with sooted connectors against a big overpair.
Reckless short stack cash game poker is rarely profitable, it seems to me. But if there are shortstack players who make money off this strategy, I'm willing to listen.
After all, as we've just seen, I'm no poker author.
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