Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Late Night Gambling Degeneracy

Last night ended up materializing into the perfect night for Gambling degeneracy... The home game of poker i was planning to play with friends fell through and the girlfriend was busy for the evening so I grabbed my 2 buy ins ($200) and headed to Morongo.

Something in the pit of my stomach told me this was going to be a night that would test my poker skill/heart/stamina. On my first big blind with $100 I picked up Pocket aces.

Their was a straddle on the pot and two limpers. Of course i made a big raise looking to shove the flop ($26 raise). The straddler instantly went all in with A/Q. At this point i was a 93.032% favorite... Wouldn't you know that poker decided that tonight was not my night.
The Flop came 8/9/6
Turn 10
River J

BINK... Villain has a straight.

O well no tears that's poker so i instantly buy back in

My next good hand K/J i make a standard raise to $9 and get called by the BB=big blind and the fish. Flop comes J/J/9 with two spades. I lead for $20. Get raised by the BB and we get it all in. He has Q/J so he's shit on and I'm a 77.9% favorite... Running 7's on the Turn and River and we chop it up... no justice anywhere.

Overall the table was pretty good had a complete spewtard on my left (the guy who cracked my aces) and ended up finally stacking him 4 hours later the guy who sat to my right bubbled the deep stack tournament after 5 hours of play so he was TILTING (justly so) and he dropped a buy in or two.

But the MAIN FISH... was a SUPER loose SUPER passive old man who had about $400 in front of him when i sat down. I was looking to play pots with this guy every time because he'd call with any piece and would never raise. He ended up running pretty well against me but I value town'd the hell outta him on my big hands and i saw him burn through atleast $800 while i was at the table.

My big hand of the night came when after i had lost the aces/and chopped up the K/J... So i was borderline tilting but i still think my play was good... It's a straddle pot and i have A/Jhh UTG i make it $18 with a little less than $100 left and get 4 callers!

Flop ($72) 9/10/Q(rainbow no flush draw)
I shove my last $80ish and get called in TWO SPOTS.
I WAS PRAYING for the king... but luckily enough when the ace rolled off on the river my one pair was best and i dragged a $300 pot. From their i incurred a few bad beats and never really got anything going and was just staying alive

Things to do better next time:
Stop losing money in limp pots... isolate the limpers. Don't see flops 3-4 ways and not know where you stand this is -EV and best left to the GAMBLOORS at your table. Punish them for this and isolate them. If you're on the button and you see some donkey limp in front of you raise 3 times the big blind + one big blind for every limper (only try this play with 1-2 limpers in ahead of you). They're polarizing what there cards can be... (trash mostly but watch out for trappers). You WANT them to call then fold to your continuation bet on the flop and you pick up ALOT of dead money this way because you AND THEM only have a 33% chance of there cards connecting with the flop so over 65% of the time your c-bet on the flop whether you hit or not will win you the pot and that's a long term winning proposition!!!

Good luck!
-Nate

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

The Do's and Dont's of Playing Poker

Tonight is going to be another night of poker whether I end up at the local Indian casino or a friends home cash game is yet to be decided but regardless I thought I'd talk about a few common mistakes I always see new players making and what you can do to avoid them.

THE #1 MOST STUPID MISTAKE:
"Limping" big hands. And what i mean by that is when people don't RAISE when they have a big hand like pocket aces. You may be saying to yourself "but i can trap them!" WRONG. More times than not you'll end up seeing a flop with 5 other people each of which could hit two pair and then you'll be in big trouble with your pocket aces on the jack high flop and it will be hard to get away from your hand.
Solution: RAISE. If you have aces you want to get as much money into that pot before the flop with AS FEW PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE" Big pairs don't play well in multi-way pots.

Big mistake #2
PLAYING WITH SCARED MONEY: Come properly "rolled" to the game if you're going to play correctly you should have 15-20 buy ins for what ever game you're going to have and 50-100 buyins for what ever "tournament" you're playing. This is due to the fact that even if you're playing 100% correctly you can still lose in the short term so you need to have money available to re-buy in case you're knocked out and need to get money back from the fish(bad players)

More tips soon!

-Nate

Monday, July 11, 2011

Run g00t, running g00t

So I'm a few posts behind... haven't been keeping up as well as i should have, so I've been to Morongo 3 times since my last post. I lost the last two times i went unfortunately... so i was down $200 just bringing a single buy in each time. One losing session happened during a gambling degen trip when i started playing at midnight and busted out around 6AM. The other i just went in the evening and got super card dead and didn't run well but such is poker...


This was the end result(pure profit) of my 2 hour run this last Sunday. I already had $100 in my pocket because some one wanted to buy chips off me as i left the table. So depicted was just pure money in my wallet. I turned $100 into $765. I had some good hands that I played well and got max value and never gave up more money than I should have. I ran pretty well too and only missed one sizeable draw. The table saw me as a total action junkie because i was being friendly with a LOUD guy on my left who was hyping up how aggressive i was to the table when i was playing position and just playing good cards in general. Within the first 10 hands i got K/Jo in UTG+1 (the seat 1 to the left of the first person to act). UTG raised to $6 and i mini-raised him to $12 and got two callers and he closed the action with flat calling the other $6. So their was $48 in the pot going to the flop. He lead the j/j/9 (two spade) board for $10 and i repop'd him to $40 so he shoved all in and i called with trip jacks when he had pocket queens. He was a passive trapper. I would have EASILY folded my hand had he re-raised preflop but he ended up getting punished. He was a terrible player. Against the same guy i had pocket 6's in the small blind and the flop came A/7/6 i lead all three streets and doubled up through him again. I was over $500 at this point. My next big hand i floped top pair and the nut flush draw and i got another ~$200 pot. It was an extremely easy day of poker where i played well. Got away from top pair every time i needed too and didn't get into any crappy spots. My favorite days of poker :)

If you have any questions feel free to ask!
-Nate