Lowly Adjustment
Thursday, August 06, 2009
God damnit! First off, sorry to the people who held poker games last night that I could not attend. An old fraternity chum, Kennedy, was throwing a home game across the street from my apartment, and from my last trip there, I remembered that the play was fairly weak in comparison to the clubs in the city. Damn. I best do this early. If any of the guys at the homegame last night are reading this, I apologize in advance. I just tell it like I see it, and frankly, take it all with a grain of salt. So, where was I?
Ah, so an old fraternity chum, actually a guy who was in the fraternity after I graduated, mentioned that he was throwing a homegame. I remember the last time I played at his homegame, I was underwhelmed. The stakes were low and the play was even lower. The setup was also pretty amatuer, but I was coming from the Wall Street Game, which had personalized chips and a real poker table, so anything after that would've felt like a step down.
Normally, I would've skipped the Kennedy's game. If memory served correctly, I was out pretty quickly last time I played there (many months ago), because I pushed the action against players who were playing random cards and liked to throw chips around. I simply failed to adjust. But when I found out it was a $50 buy-in, my interest was piqued. Clearly, I'd be able to mop the floor with these guys this time. CLEARLY!
Not so. I was out first, within 40 minutes.
The setup at the Kennedy Game was pretty aweful. I was told they had shitty chips, so I brought chips and cards from my apartment. We were setup in Kennedy's building's lounge, 9 people around a coffee table, so I decided to run home (across the street) and bring back a poker table-top.
I was also asked about my recommendations re: structure. I can admit that here, I just had a brain freeze. The biggest problem was that they played with chip denominations of 1, 2 and 5, and I was so used to 25, 100, 500, 1000 chip denominations that I just couldn't revert back. Back in the day, I used to play with 1, 2, 5 chips too, but I was just out of it. Kennedy wanted a 3 hr. game, but then another player suggested stacks of 50. 50! I thought that was way too low. If blinds went from 1/2 to 2/4 to 3/6, then by the third blind period, the starting stacks would be way short with less than 10 big blinds. Of course, that fell on deaf ears, but when it Rome, you do as the Romans do. I just knew that I had to adjust my game.
FAIL! Just terrible. I got mixed up in a hand early with K9 on an A95 board. Everyone was very passive at this point, so I tried to steal the pot, which was pumped preflop when 6 people limped and one person min-raised from the BB, getting all callers. Of course, the guy on my immediate left is the only caller. On the turn, I bet out again, hoping to scare him, but I had no luck. He pushed, I folded and that's how I lost half of my stack.
FAIL! I mean, just terrible. I pretty much ran full speed into a brick wall. From there, I was so short that I just waited for a decent enough hand to push. Pathetically, at 2/4 blinds with less than 20, I had to push because of the encroaching blinds, and made my stand with A9d. Of course, the guy on my immediate left calls as done Kennedy, but after the turn, Kennedy folded to Lefty's bet, and we were heads-up. He showed J7o, which at the time was top pair of Jacks, and I went home.
So, let's recap. I assume that these guys suck. I then assume I can push 6 players off of a hand. When faced with resistance, I assume I can continue to steamroll over a guy with no real information about how he plays. I then push with a crappy, desperate A9d and get called by J7o (which, frankly, is a bad call by him since there was a lot of action behind him, BUT I did give him a big stack with my early play, so it's all on me), and lose.
I left the room pretty quickly, kinda happy to be done. The amatuer-hour nature of the game is a bit odd for me. People splash the pot every time. No one keeps their bests in front of them. There were other things that annoyed me, but I don't recall them now.
But the bottom line is, I just sucked. I played terribly. As a serious poker player, I'd like to think I can beat any game. That includes the shitty ones. I've heard others say that they'd rather play with skilled players, and that's fine and dandy, but when there is a butter-soft homegame, you need to be able to adjust, and I failed to adjust.
Oh well. $50 lesson learned. Of course, now I have to go back next week....they still have my chips, cards, and table.
Until next time, make mine poker!
posted by Jordan @ 9:55 AM,
1 Comments:
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At 12:46 PM,
Dawn Summers said...
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hahaha happens to the best of us...I mean, so I've heard. Personally, I'm not that good...let alone best.
