For the first time in a long time...

.... I didn't play a single hand of poker over the Christmas break. That's the first in a while and I hope it doesn;t say much about my attitude to poker these days but it feels good not having that nagging urge to play constantly at the back of my mind.

Penance Paid

Ground back up past the $400 mark yesterday and feel I have paid my penance for my tiltage last week! I Will move back up to the $10's but might wait till after chrimbo as I'm very much concentrating on writing at the moment as I have made a commitment to help BurnleyMik over at the RaisetheRiver site to help out with a bit of content for the site.

My first article can be found here;

http://raisetheriver.com/poker-content/blog/2008/12/15/smart-goals/

TILT!

God thought I was learning to get over this, then a few bad beats and I tilt of $70 in about 15 minutes including playing a £20 dollar game breaking the rules. During this time I manage to get it all in with air on at least 3 occasions.

I hate myself when I do this. Going back to the $5's till I rebuild past the $400 mark as a punishment, Im so angry with myself at the moment.

Pretty pictures

Some graph's, Squirmy's doing well from a horrible satrting point on star's, I run super shite on there.

Taylor Caby HUP Video

Probable old news to most, good to see that CardRunner pro's don't just post there winning sessions.

http://www.cardplayer.com/tv/26898

Moving on up.......quick stay though

Reached the first milestone to move up stakes, then went on a turgid run. It started when I had an opponent down to 300 chips and he proceded to get all the money in the middle seven times for the match with by far the worst of it, three times totally dominated. Next ten dollar game follows the same pattern, down to 500 chips my opponent puts three nastys on me, AK v's A3 a personal favourite.

Then my last game at this level before I have to move back down see's JJ get turned over on a 10 high flop with all the money in the middle, opponent hitting a King on the turn for two pair. Fucking gald I won't be playing for a week as im away with work as experience when the bad beat fairy comes to visit it can be a bastard to get her to leave.

TardyPoker.Com

Now we all love bad players don’t we, we never berate there bad play (eye’s roll) instead we cuddle them and nurture them, we try to encourage them to keep playing, In fact we just wish we could take them home with us and protect them from the other sharks out there, so we can eat them ourselves.

There are players out ion the interweb that I just wish I could clone and then create my own poker room with hundred’s of versions of them. I’d call it TardyPoker and wouldn’t let any of you play because I’m a selfish, greedy bastard. The thing is though many of us forget that bad players require us to make big adjustments to our own game and this is something we have to take full responsibility for.

If your opponent isn’t folding when he hits any part of the flop you will have to control pots from the flop onward much better with hands that we might play faster against a better opponent. For example it might be reasonable to commit all your chips with top pair against a flush draw whilst playing a decent opponent, we are after all a 60-40 favourite in most cases and this might well be the best opportunity we get.

But why play the hand to get all the chips in on the flop against a weak player who will give you a number of better spots to win the match? It doesn’t make any sense, now I’m not opposed to calling a shove in this spot, I believe in HUP to abide to the rule of volume and if we are in this spot all day long we are going to make money. I just mean that we should control the size of the pot better to the turn then commit our opponent on turn or river if we like that card.

The thing to remember is that bad players are bad players; they make mistakes that ensure we maintain equity in matches when we shouldn’t have. They miss tons of value bets and they pay too much too often. I played a hand last night where I flopped top pair and let him bet me to the river, on the river he makes second pair and on a non threatening board bets 200 into a 800 chip pot after making bottom two, was awful play and left me get away so cheaply. Within 5 hands I had turned the deficit and won not long after, I could have jammed the flop with top pair top kicker, he would probable have called with second pair and I would have lost.

I knew he sucked hairy nuts so did not want to give him a chance to get lucky, I felt I would win at a canter if we just played through a lot of streets. So few players are used to getting past a flop as most tournaments they play online are 1500 three bets and your in tournament so this is an edge HUP players develop quickly with not that much practise.

PS

I’m having some problems with closing out opponents and seem to be getting ranges wrong when I have my opponent on the ropes, any advice would be greatfully accepted.