Just Stuff, Poker and Other

Congratulations to surflexus for winning the mookie tournament last night. He beat out jjok in a fantastic battle that saw surflexus with an early 2.5-1 lead on to see jjok get it back to even. In the end, an ace on the river meant the end for jjok. I only got to railbird the final table but it was fun.


Diehard Cub fan.

On a personal note, I played both a SNG and a $25 NL table last night while watching the mookie event. This wasn’t hard to do but I found myself ignoring the cash table so I closed it out so I wouldn’t give away my meager gains. The SNG was fun in that it was an easy table to read. I chipped up early before going card dead for a while. One player jumped to 4500 chips within the first two orbits on a donkey play from two other opponents. He held the nut strait and called two all-ins in front of him. One player had top pair and the other had second pair. Why don’t I hit with players like that? Anyway, I stayed steady until I get JT suited. There was a raise in front of me and I smooth call with three seeing the flop. I hit the nut strait and slow play it into a bet and a re-raise when I push. One player calls and I double up. With a nice stack I start buying some blinds and pushing people off hands. The chip leader, being loose/passive was a perfect target for my aggression as I hammered his limp calls and min-raises over and over again. He would only raise if he had a hand and for the most part only with a pocket pair. When we were down to 4 players, I raised his BB 6 times in a row without being challenged. Finally, we get down to heads up and he holds a small chip lead. I continue to make him fold when we reach this hand. I get pocket 9’s and raise and he calls. I know he has a pair but I think it’s small so I raise the TT2 flop and he goes all-in. I thought about his range of hands and call, putting him on 5’s, 6’s, 7’s, or 8’s. He flips over 8’s and I think I’m good. When the hand is over I’m down to 785 chips. I eventually got back to almost even with some luck-box flops but couldn’t over come in the end.



Who is in this picture?


I have a staff meeting today. What makes this interesting is that the new boss is flexing his muscles. He is determined to show that he truly is in charge and that we all report to him. That’s fine and dandy because at least I’m getting direction. The previous owner still hasn’t told me what he expects from me. I actually dread these encounters because they invariably increase my workload by 10%. At some point I will have to put in an honest days work if this continues.



Who am I? From left to right 1 thru 6. You make the call.



I have been experimenting with a new style lately. I guess it’s not a new style but a more logical approach. When I started playing I would often raise on the river on to be beat by the better hand. These bets were either an attempt to take chips from my opponent or buy him off a hand. Are these bets gaining me value?

There are times when a continuation bet is necessary vs. a given opponent. Their willingness to drop a hand or call down, with a draw possibilities, need to be looked at when making these decisions. But making a bet on the river may be harmful. Sure we don’t want to give up are advantage of position but it also gives our enemy a chance to trap us for additional bets. This is exactly the reason we need to look at the tendencies of the opposition. I try to identify the trappers as soon as possible and may give up a river bet to a scary board. This is hard to do against good players who change their style but has been successful recently when the strait/flush draw spiked on the river and didn’t cost me a percentage of my stack. Is this an improvement in my game or an anomaly? Do any of you use a similar method for these situations?



What field is this?

Who's playing in the game?




If any of you have an idea for a picture to place between thought changes I will take it into consideration. I like the one I have but would like to have a rotation of shots.

I have one more thing before I go. I’d like to open a weekly question day of “what about you”. Ask me for my thoughts on a subject or about me and my beliefs and I will dedicate a post to it. Just leave your questions in the comment section and I’ll post a response.