Last Friday has been a rather weird poker night for me as I was playing with my friends. Believe it or not, for approx 80% of the hands I played, I flopped some kind of big draw; open-ended straight draw, nut flush draw, straight flush draw.. and yes, a royal flush draw which finally killed my bankroll.
At the beginning, I tried to avoid fishing too much. Most of the guys played aggressively so I had to be conservative and fold several drawing hands. To my disgust, running cards would have made me a strong hand.
Therefore, as the game progressed, I decided to shift my style and fish more especially against the few tight players. Even more, I tried to bet these draws, trying to confuse the oppenent and make the pot bigger.
Frankly, it didn't work out. I often ended up looking at the river card and realising I am holding J high. Bluffing worked a couple of times, however I had to admit defeat in many big pots because of my failed drawing hand.
Close to the end of the night, I received K(h) J(h). I was on the button, and raised it 4 times after taking a look at one semi-tight and one loose player to play behind me. Unsurprisingly, both called. Flop is Q(h) 10(h) and 8(c). What do you say, a straight Read More »
Altough I did not get organised in noting my results of the tournaments I play, from time to time I like to sit down and take a look at my perfomance over a particular time.
Naturally, this curiosity mostly arises when I suddenly realise that either my bankroll has shrinked almost to nothing or as happened this time, my bankroll grew fatter.
The S&G I like to play are at the majority $5 Buyin 6 seater, however noted down here are some exceptions:
Nothing is more frustrated in poker then to have to leave the table because of a donkey.
It seems like the donkey spell is working magics on me, because this is happening more and more often. Let me explain myself.
I find myself with a massive hand, something like pocket rockets, K K or AK. I love to play these hands aggresively as I tend to be very selective especially in S&G tournaments. At the exact same time, I find out that a 'donkey' in my table is practicing his newly developed style (!), or else just being plain stupid.
I raise 3-5 times the big blind, according to the situation at the table, and get called by a random player, or even better raised all-in by a short stack.
The flop is nearly always the perfect one for my hand. I continue my aggressive style of betting more then half what there is in the pot. For some reason, which I cannot explain, the 'donkey' calls. Knowing nearly for sure, I am holding the best hand, I feel confident I'm finally going to eat some chips out of this sucker.
However, runner runner cards are bad news for me, and awesome news a stupid grin for my opponent. Loosing against an underdog hand because of running cards which will miracoulusly make my Read More »
Barry Greenstein said in his book Ace on the River:
"I wasn't the best player on the tables. The only difference between me and the others was, that while men used to come and play poker and have a drink after a day of work, I was sleeping all day. And that was the reason why I was winning."
I never had the chance to analyse this statement, until now. As from two months ago, I started an experiment, which confirms what Barry Greenstein explains in his book.
Having started my summer holidays, finding that I have so much more time for poker and other activities, I commited myself to play as much S&G as possible, playing the majority of them first thing in the morning.
The results of my performance, clearly indicates that Barry is onto something. I won 3 out of 5 'first thing in the morning' short handed (6 handed) S&G on various poker rooms with buyins ranging from $5 to $12. Furthermore, my experiment showed, that the other 2/5 of the tournaments i didnt win, I didnt even place 2nd or 3rd, and this is the result of early bad beats or running out of cards.
What have I concluded? I was in a better position to make 'make or break' decisions that most of the other player Read More »
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Joined: 2008-06-22
