Black Wednesday

Picked up my weekly steak n chips from Mrs A's work and headed home with Step A to watch the match. We lost 2-0 in a poor game with little of quality on show from either side.Nice to hear the Gers fans still outsinging TGU at the end despite the score.The manager looked a beaten man at the end and Glasgow is rife with speculation over who will replace him.The Laudrup brothers,George Burley,Otmar Hitzfeld,Didier Deschamps and Alan Curbishley are the main contenders.

After the game I played some Ridge Racer and replied to Juices cheeky comment which I 'll return with interest when Chelsea tank Arsenal on Dec 18th.

After checking with myself that I wasn't too gutted from the football result to play poker I logged onto Pokerrooms full ring $1 nl tables intending to do a lot of folding.I managed that quite easily after being dealt one poor hand after another.I was watching the play quite closely and it struck me just how much information people give with their bets at NL. A flop of 9h 9s 4h gets one small bet which is called by one player.Another player puts in a large raise and its blindingly obvious he has a 9.The two others discover that after calling him down on the river.

Another player raises preflop but checks it round on a low ragged flop and turn only to bet a huge amount when a Jack falls on the river.Didn't get to see whether he had JJ or AJ but either way it was clear he'd hit his card.

For all my close attention I wonder if I should be taking better notes.I seem to look for tendencies in players rather than specifics.I have taken more detailed notes in the past at full ring tables. Player x raised utg with KQ etc but with players coming and going so quickly the chances of a confrontation with player x may be so slim it hardly seems worth so much detail.

In my job dealing with complaints and when I did voluntary work previously I'd like to think I have an ability to empathise with people and really try and look at things from their prospective.My point is that specifics about player x's play are not good enough.Its why they made the play that counts.Maybe he doesn't always raise KQ whilst UTG but when he's lost a few pots and down a bit on his buy-in he has a tendency to play like that.

Im my opinion staying in tune with the emotions of opponents is part of the key to reading them or at least getting some clues to their play.

I've not had any high stakes experience but I would guess that there's a much more by the book strategic approach employed by most players whereas at the low levels temperament has much more of an influence.This may contradict my previous ideas of simply playing tight aggressive poker but used together in the long run I think its a winning formula.

I'll use the next hand as an example.I'd watched a player caller "wrecking cue" lose a few pots.Not sure what he'd bought in with but the buy in was $100 and I'd seen him lose at least $20 and he had $43 at the table when we met across the virtual felt.He was playing too many hands and was the only caller before I check in the BB with 97 o/s.

The flop came 6 10 Q rainbow and I check my gutshot and he bets $1.Against most other players I would have folded.I'm not one to chase 4 outs to the river but on thinking about it I realised if I did hit I could take this player for enough of his stack to probably give me the implied odds to call.

Obviously all this is easy to write when the miracle happens and the gutshot hits but hit it did and I was delighted to see a sexy 8 on the turn giving me the straight.I checked and called his $3 bet and on a blank river I actually managed to check to him and then raised his $4 bet to $15 which he called for an $18 net profit.( he had QJ)

So yes I hit an unlikely draw but it was only worth playing due to the current situation the other player was in.


Oh and I say I actually managed to check on the river because thats probably a first for me.I can never seem to resist betting on the river if I feel I'm ahead even if the villan has been betting out on every street.I just knew the guy in the hand above would bet but I hate it when I check and it gets checked behind me.Something to work on because I can see that if a villan does bet the river its not going to be easy to fold when I then reraise whereas if I'd simply bet big it gives him an excuse to fold without such an ego blow.


I had 44 a few hands later and limped in.Flopped quads and called a $2 bet on the flop and turn but gave in and bet the river too hard.Great hand but probably not an easy one to make a lot of money on given that players would have been worried I had one 4 never mind both.

$20 up for 45 minutes play and managed not to avoid tilting which had happened to me before after watching my team lose.

Ok thats enough witterings for one day! Thanks for reading.