Month: September 2016 Page 1 of 3

Personally I like to call an all in with AJ+,  Harrington advised being even tighter when I read his books I’ll need to find his rational again and share it. I will shove any 2 cards into one opponent 10BB deep, however I’ll normally need a decent ace to call. Like all things in poker this is situation dependent, although I feel calling with A3o in my opinion isn’t +EV.

To demonstrate even Ivey will sometimes fold AK pre-flop to a 4 bet his reasoning is villain’s range is QQ+ and against that range AK isn’t doing that great….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bofHh-zBhvU&feature=youtu.be

The Idea of Fancy Play Syndrome (FPS) came from “The Mad Genius of Poker” Mike Caro for overly complex plays that are simply not profitable in the long term.

You should never deviate from the standard play unless you have a good reason.

If the only way to beat an opponent is with level of deception use deception otherwise the standard play is best.

At low levels there is no need for FPS and if your play is ego driven it is a disastrous combination.

See my bust out from the WPT below FPS gone bad!

Rule 22 – Never slow play big hands – Never means never its always a mistake

Others will judge your poker ability on your how well you can describe a hand, you know you’re a good player when you can do this properly.

Here’s how to do it

Unless you’ve lost a million buy in with Aces v Aces you don’t have a story worth telling…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aR52zv1GqBY

Sent: 28 September 2016 18:13
Subject: Grand Prix Leaderboard

Hi,
Congratulations on winning a £550 WPT500 Seat on the £100K Grand Prix Leaderboard.
Your prize will be added as a WPT500 specific ticket to your partypoker in the coming weeks.
You will be able to use the ticket for any Live or Online Day 1!
If you have any questions please feel free to ask!
Kind Regards,
Glenn Townsend
Grand Prix Poker Tour

Play poker when you can tick ALL of this list…STOP when you don’t simples…

1. Rested,
2. No drugs or alcohol in your system
3. Emotionally stable
4. Postive calm attitude
5. Making good decisions
6. In a game you have an edge

Ignore this advice and you’ll only end up with a good story to tell…David Williams came 2nd in the 2004 WSOP main Event. A friend notified him there was a $100,000 pay jump for the next elimination with about 15 left he immediately raised K9 and called a shove that put him all in  to get the bad news he was facing Jacks. Lucked out on the turn when a king came, guy has too much gamble.

I love this hand and I loved Tom Dwan (Durrr) . I remember the Bluff magazine cover “King of the Nosebleeds” with a black and white image with a red trickle of blood coming from his nose.

Playing hands like this may explain why he seems to have become extinct, never try to bluff anyone off an ace. Bluff when the villain has shown weakness not strength, if they called your check raise, keep your powder dry, there are better spots in poker.

Sammy “Any two” George that was a whole different story.

Some more analysis from Doug Polk, notice that even Fedor can’t bluff a guy off an ace!

I was playing a 22$ 10x 109$ tickets gtd tournament 15 left and chip lead. I’m SB and the BB is the second biggest chip stack, I raise with 89 and he calls on an 8 high flop with two hearts. I bet 3/4 pot and he re-raises, I ship “I’m the daddy of this table not you” I think . He calls me with a Queen high flush draw and hits it on the turn. I go from chip lead to 14th with 15 players remaining. A poker table is no place for ego, I screwed 2 hrs work in one hand. I ground my way back up and managed to get a seat, but I was lucky, very lucky. I shoved A6 from the  button and was called by the big blinds A4, he hit two pair on the flop but a 6 on the turn gave me full double up.

Pulp Fiction covered this topic

[Marsellus is telling Butch to take a dive]
Marsellus: The night of the fight, you may feel a slight sting. That’s pride fucking with you. Fuck pride. Pride only hurts, it never helps.

I’m reading the Poker Blueprint which is an excellent book and I thought I’d show you my poker library.

Seems I have lost my Harrington Volume 3 The Workbook. I like the way that Dusty Schmidt writes about the game, he has some great insights. I am also watching some great hand analysis by Doug Polk on YouTube and have joined his Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/UpswingPoker1 .

‘

Played 5 x $22 $109 satellites and didn’t make one ticket

In the last one I came 18th with 10 seats Gtd shoving 15BB into a big stack with A5o when he had KK. Perhaps I should have min raised and folded to a shove. I will review tomorrow.

In another, suspicious of a slightly over min raise I still shoved with AK against my intuition and ran into Kings. I could have folded my way to the money, instead I lost a 3rd of my stack with AK and in the next hand I lost a flip with QQ and then it was all over, penthouse to pavement in 3 hands.

Stack preservation is the key to these tournaments, if you get a double up avoid high variance plays by playing small ball poker.