Not the Way to Play
Friday, May 19, 2006
Hoyazo: J, you have to tighten up, man.
Me: I know. I shouldn't have signed up for the WWdn NOT. It's too late and I knew that when I registered. I was playing like I didn't care.
First off, thank you Hoyazo. You are correct. I needed to tighten up. In a game where you lose by helping your "competition," it is nice to have friends who will offer solid advice to improve your game. I don't think anything is more valuable to a developing player.
Last night was a disaster. It was the second night in a row where I got off to a great start, and then let it all dissolve into an orgy of self-destructive poker play.
It started with a $10 Turbo MTT at PokerShare. I placed 3rd out of 34 players, mostly by playing smart, watching my opponents and staying out of the action. With a $33 profit, I decided to spread some wealth around.
Mistake #1: I was looking to play an MTT, and Weak_Player was online along with some other bloggers who play MTTs fairly regularly. Weak agreed to join me in an MTT, and I settled on the $24+2 HORSE event on Full Tilt. We were on Level 3 when I noticed that it was for a WSOP seat. Joy of joys. What a moron. I lost, and was actually almost happy about it.
Mistake #2: I then went looking for a NLHE table on PokerStars, only to settle on a table that was essentially heads-up. It was a ten-seater, but with only one other player, I had hoped to either dominate his $10 shortstack (.25/.50 stakes) or attract some more players. I was ahead a bit, mostly because he played so freaking tight, folding to any and all bets. But he eventually started playing back at me and took $4.50 off of me before he quickly exited. Doh! I should've chosen my table more carefully.
Mistake #3: I'm in an 18p $10+1 on Stars with Weak, and it's about 11:20pm. The WWdn NOT starts at 11:30. I see that a lot of my blogger bretheren are playing, so I jump in. I immediately regret it because it's late and I have a killer headache. So, I go to click Unregister, but the Unregister button is gone. I close the tourney window and re-open it, but no unregister button.
Mistake #4: Because of how late it is, I'm playing semi-nihillist poker. I'm bleeding chips because players won't fold to me. I hold 99 and raise preflop and get two callers, including Waffles. On the flop, it's all unders with two spades. I make a pot-sized bet and get one caller. Waffles pushes. I fold. He has 37s, for bottom pair, flush draw. The other guy, Bone-Daddy, if I'm not mistaken, has QTs. Waffles rivers 2-pair, so I would've lost the hand. I don't know if I played this well or not...
I do know that I played THIS hand wrong, but, if you ask me, so did my opponent. I get AKc and I bump it up, getting one caller. The flop is 34x, all unders and I think I continuation bet . I get called. The turn is 5. I push (or I re-raise all-in). He has 56 and wins the fooking hand. WHAT IS HE STAYING IN WITH 56o PREFLOP FOR!! Why? Because I STINK!
Mistake #5: So Weak and I are still in the 18 person SNG for $10+1. I'm playing fairly well, giving a lot of action, and bouncing from last place out of 18 to top 3. It's down to 7 players. I lose the WWdn, and then I donk off my chips at the SNG while still tilting. I DOUBLE STINK!
I did, however, win a Peep Sex SNG (i.e., SNG for a token to a $24+2 event at Full Tilt) amidst all of these disasters. I also lost a $20+2 turbo SNG at PokerShare.
What a ridiculous night. Down $47 or so. It would be more, but I count the $6.60 that I used to buy in to the Peep Sex SNG as a loss. Then when I use the $24+2 token (hopefully soon), no matter what, I consider it $0 loss (or a possible win). With clever accounting, I can consider the Peep Sex an $18 win, and be down only $20 or so, but I'm not trying to go that route.
Ernie the kitten had continued to be the bane of my existence. Yesteday she woke me at 3am to play Bite the Flesh. Wifey Kim, exhausted from the night before, was out pretty early, so I took the role of protecting her from the kitten's playful (read: obnoxious) spirit. It's much like my old dog Cassie. I loved Cassie, but I couldn't stand her. Same goes for Ernie. Lesson learned.
My GERD (acid reflux) has also been back with a vengeance this week. I think it might be stress from the office, but maybe it's my eating habits. Nothing seems out of the ordinary though. I also have some silly pressure in my head, and the net effect is that I want to be shot and put out of my misery. The over-under at staying in the office today is 2pm.
All of the above also contributed to my horrible play yesterday. I think I need to reevaluate a couple of things. I need to play less per evening. When wifey Kim falls asleep, I play poker. Instead of playing as much as I did, I should have just played one tournament (the one I won) and then turned it in for the night. If I did this the last two nights, I'd be up about $85 between the two, instead of down $90 or so. I guess that is the most important thing, and I plan on focusing on it for the near future.
Have a great day! I've got my home game scheduled for Sunday (currently 10 players, including Dawn from I Had Outs and F-Train, tentatively). Next weekend, I'll be playing at SoxLover's place with Weak, Garthmeister and, I'm sure, some more bloggers.
The best part of blogging, right there folks. The home games. I'm OUT!
posted by Jordan @ 9:14 AM,
9 Comments:
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At 10:09 AM,
said...
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Hm, yeah. You definitely overplayed AK in that hand. Depending on the size of the pre-flop raise and your continuation bet compared to his stack size, he may or may not have been dumb to make the calls. I will sometimes call with a hand like 4d5d if I think someone is raising with big cards if the stacks are deep, because a lot of people can't get away from TPTK.
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At 10:30 AM,
said...
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Yeah, Tom, but my opponent's 56 wasn't suited. If it were, I'd understand it a lot better. I'm not defending my play though. It was an awfukkit move. I just have to accept that in blogger tournaments I get no respect for my raises, and I must use that knowledge accordingly. I also need to figure out if it is by reputation that I get no respect, or if it is because of how I play early in the games that loses respect. Either way, I suck alpaca balls on this one.
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At 10:44 AM,
said...
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do know that I played THIS hand wrong, but, if you ask me, so did my opponent. I get AKc and I bump it up, getting one caller. The flop is 34x, all unders and I think I continuation bet . I get called. The turn is 5. I push (or I re-raise all-in). He has 56 and wins the fooking hand. WHAT IS HE STAYING IN WITH 56o PREFLOP FOR!! Why? Because I STINK!
I'll field this one, since I was the offender. It was 56s, actually. You raised pretty small and I was in position. I had a huge stack after getting lucky a few hands before and doubling up. I called with two intentions, either fold the fairly small pot on a miss, or stack you if I hit.
The beauty of a hand like 56s against a raise is that you can put your opponent on a hand and he probably won't suspect yours. Plus it's an easy hand to get away from if you miss the flop completely.
I liked your continuation bet, to find out where you were, but when you got your answer you seemed to completely ignore that information.
Yes, I only flopped an open ended straight, but based on the board I thought it wouldn't be tough to push you off a hand like a big ace on the turn if it was another small card.
When you went all in on the turn in front of me, I figured: My big slick read is probably correct and I'm ahead, if not and you actually have a big pair I have redraw outs to the open ended straight and two-pair/trip outs.
I thought I had the lead and I figured I had 13 outs if I didn't, so I called. -
At 10:45 AM,
said...
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My OESD got there on the river, btw, so even if you had AA you would have lost.
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At 11:09 AM,
said...
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Really, Duggle? I thought it was offsuit? But you were the guy holding the cards, so if it was suited, then your play got a lot better. Admittedly, though, my play sucked. When I pushed, I pretty much gave up, saying, "Either I win this pot as-is, or I lose the whole thing and I can go to sleep."
No offense intended to your play. -
At 12:25 PM,
said...
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I'm a huge fan of calling smallish raises with a big stack when you have position in the hopes of hitting the flop hard and stacking an overpair. if you hit two pair or make a straight while holding 1 or 2 gappers.
In fact, I've been reading Waffles blog today because he's getting into it with someone over the same issue -- sort of.
It's a great play because someone might read you as a maniac or very LAGish when you're not making this kind of call as often as they'd think, and so it helps your big hands get paid off that much more.
Plus, most people refuse to believe their Kings or Aces were outdrawn on the flop if no real scary cards come. -
At 2:08 PM,
said...
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Jordan - just noticed you left your email for me. I'll send that Gnarls Barkley cd to you either tonight, or at some point over the weekend.
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At 2:37 PM,
said...
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hey going to AC tomorrow at the Borgota was curious if u knew what the poker rate at the trop and how long do u have to play to get it cause the borgota is 8 hours for 100 bucks...anyways let me know tx
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At 3:02 PM,
said...
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Trop's rate is $112 for Friday (you can check Tropicana.net for Saturday and weekday rates). You must play 4 hours, and have a Poker card AND have an average of 4 hrs/day BEFORE you get the room. So, if this'll be your first time at Trop, you are probably our of luck. I heard that the Hilton has great poker rates though.
