Comment Responses

First, Happy thanksgiving all. :)

I was glad to see so much discussion about my 100 hands in Comments, so I decided to respond to the responses somewhat here. I have three windows open now of this one, the original blog, and if the comments, and will respond as I can.

Regarding the pocket Jacks hand from T-Pup. I think the pot is too big for me to fold. There's 11BB in the pot when that turn reraise hits and I think he must have the queen, but technically I only have to right 9% of the time to make calling down at that point the right play, and I don't think I could discount him having AK more than that 9%. That's why I called down instead of folding.

Regarding Ax suited and Kx suited. Ax suited has the added benefit that you can often win when an Ace hits, even with your bad kicker in these games, lord knows why. I submit exhibit A from that history:

RayPowers balance $53.75, bet $4, collected $15.25, net +$11.25 [ 4c Ac ] [ a pair of aces -- Ac,Ad,Ks,9d,5h ]

The disadvantage of Kx suited in this world (at these stakes) is that the hidden Ace for the nut flush will always be played to the bitter end, so now you are in a position where your flush must be exactly a three card flush from the board, or you are still screwed. If the board flops JsTs2s and you have Ks4s, the guy with As is calling you down the whole way. In short I don't advocate the Kx suited at these stakes where there are too many chasers. I do agree with the niceness of being able to get away from Kx suited more than Ax suited.


Regarding me playing tight. Mike, this is purely a playstyle. I play super tight aggressive, normally. There's a couple hands in there where you saw me abandon TAG play, but aside from the first one, where I did it to gain information, I don't think its the wrong way to play because at these stakes, people pay you off with your great hands. Fishing a lot in this field is the schooling mentality of "everyone is fishing so I should too because I have odds" to me is very scary because when everyone is fishing, you have to be fishing FOR THE NUTS (like the Ax vs Kx suited argument above) otherwise you may make a fished for hand only to find yourself losing to a higher fished for hand. You play much more LAG than I do, and I don't think either is right or wrong, its just how we play.

I do have a brief argument for you on fishing in limit vs no limit, however. I think fishing at a passive table like this is INFINITELY better in No Limit vs limit. The implied odds of getting more money out of a made fishing hand in No Limit is MUCH higher than the... one bet you get out of fishing on a limit table. I'm not sure where you were going with that comparison, but I admit I did not get it. (This is the comment you made that throws me off, for reference: "In a limit game, you get paid off a lot making draws to the nut hand (or nearly nut hand) rather than finding a leading flop and trying to hammer people.")

Regarding brain farts from Ogma. This is a problem I have and its a HUGE leak. The problem comes down to the fact that I simply never am able to focus on poker 100%. I have a two year old and a three year old. I have a new puppy. While I was doing that game I was also downloading media to Keller's new web site (coming soon!) and downloading all of our home movies off of the digital tapes. I think if I could ever focus entirely on what I was doing, I do great, but with lack of focus, I have mini "matusow blow ups" that cost me a ton of profit. Dan mentioned as well that those hands read like "good play, good play, good play, give some guy $3 for no reason." If I can get to the point that I can either a) be able to focus on playing only, or b) be able to not have huge brain farts when I am unable to spend 100% of my brain power on poker, then I would do a lot better. I shudder to go back over those hands and count "bets given away for no reason." I bet it would drive me to depression.

Regarding preflop raising, I think I only flat called with a small pocket pair or Ax suited. Every other time I raised or reraised preflop. I am a big believer in flop equity. I think I even raised once with Ax suited because I thought the limper before me was weak.

Regarding the hand with the second 2 hitting when I had pocket sixes. I think the bet on the board pairing is not a bad plan. After all, I bet the scary over card/flush draw card, why not bet the 2? My reasoning really falls under the fact that he had already raised me once, and I felt committed to call down there at that point. Now, let's ignore that I probably shouldn't have called down, because in retrospect, I shouldn't have. If my intention is to call down, then I don't want to put an extra bet in on the turn if he raises me to call down. If your intention is to fold ot his raise on the turn, it's fine. If your intention is to still call down, then you basically can't bet the river unless a six hits... Which I guess doesn't matter as the bets equal out. Ok, I'll concede betting the turn is fine.

Wow, that was good for a whole post. :)

Congrats to Bits for winning the Pub Poker on Wednesday night. I'll be pokering up more this weekend. Maybe I'll do another hand analysis early next week.