7 2 BLUFF...Diary of a poker player

Spent the day watching the WSOP £10K heads up on YouTube and then the Colossus. I’m currently reading Johnathan Little on No Limit Cash Games volume 2 The Practice  I’ve also ordered his Secrets of Professional Tournament Poker Workbook . I played 2  x $22 tournaments, in one I folded Kings pre-flop to a raise from the monster stack, I thought I had enough chips to make the top 10 but fell short coming 12th. A poor decision, I figured he’d call any shove and I may find he had 30%  equity with an ace, winning the hand would have 100% guaranteed my win. I played another $22 tournament and made the cut coming 7th for a $109 Golden chip ticket. All set for tomorrow when I’ll play the £110 888 series with £28,000 guaranteed at Aspers Casino Stratford, my game is tight. I’ve installed Poker Hacker on my phone, it seems to be a good application for reviewing shove table situations.

I’ve bought some new poker gear online for the Dusk Till Dawn Grand Prix going for the distinctive look

To be a winning poker player takes a range of skills and a lot of dedication. The poker table’s biggest winner is often the game’s biggest loser due to the fact that they would often have had greater success applying their skills to other areas of life.

All their hours spent at the table and studying the game could have perhaps reaped greater rewards elsewhere, this is certainly true in my case.

As you can see even great players struggle to get in the money, poker is a hard game.

Attempts before cashing in the WSOP Main Event and Hendon Mob winnings

8 Tony Gregg Winnings $11,807,533

8 Tom Marchese Winnings $13,889,777

5 Dan Coleman Winnings $26,039,557

Played the Victoria Casino on Sunday afternoon 3 pm. I was at a table with Albert Sapiano a known regular, he busted 3 times before the re-buy period was over. He called a flop shove with bottom pair holding 4 6 and faced a pair of aces, he felted the guy when the 6 hit the river. He over bets pots and plays any two, a waking ATM unless he felts you, he’s won $359,541 but I think it cost him $2 million in buy ins.

The level of play was awful and I busted when with binds at 300/600 I opened UTG with As9s. I got called in 4 places, the flop came King high with two spades and I over bet shoved  for 7,500 only to be called in two places by K9 and a lower spade flush draw. “I know I’m behind, but I have to call” she said as she put her tournament life at risk with top pair weak kicker. Awful play by her and worse by me. I’m not playing there again, it is always a miserable experience, some locations just don’t work for you. I’ve never got over busting  on the bubble one night, I just missed the last tube and had to spend £55 on a taxi home. The chips are good and apparently they have some new cards with large numbers waiting to be used once their old stock are used up, much to Albert’s annoyance.

There are 4 reasons for betting :

1. To thin the field
2. To take control of a hand
3. To raise for value
4. To get others to fold

I see people bet at the table and achieve none of the above. When 5 people limp into a pot a min raise from the big blind will just get 5 callers and a bigger pot, it is just horrible play.

Raise 3x and add one x for each caller, if you are 3 betting make it at least 2.5 x the original raise in position and 3.5x out of position. You always want to raise more out of position as 2 out of 3 times you will miss the flop and it compensates for the positional disadvantage you will face.

Even Daniel Negreanu get’s it wrong sometimes, his bet on the turn is just horrible.

Check Doug Polk’s videos on YouTube his hand analysis is spot on.

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

Never check your cards until it is your turn to act, watch the other players check theirs and see if you can pick up reads. There is always information to be had by doing this, it is crazy how many players lack this basic discipline to their game.

Check your cards when it is YOUR TURN to act and MEMORISE then.

There should be no need to re-check  your cards to see if you have a flush card or verify you’ve made your straight…this is just bad, bad play. You can do this for deception to sometimes make your set look like a draw.

Even the greats sometimes misread their cards, it cost Eric Siebel the Aussie Millions title in 2008 when he thought he had a nut flush draw and went all in giving Alex Kostritsyn the win.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZplz2lRmQM

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