A happy tail

On my way to work this morning when Mrs A called my mobile.Was it an emergency? Had I forgotten my sandwiches? Had the pin number for my debit card finally turned up? In excited tones she told of how she had just signed on Nachos behalf for not one but two packages from Juice and Mr Edge. He's already enjoying the huge bone and has shown great interest in the squeaky shark toy too! If there's anything left by the time I get home photos will follow.Thanks guys.


Before:















After: Nacho cleverly transforms Sharky into a finger puppet!

















Not played much poker over the last two nights.$11 up which hardly seems worth mentioning.Had a frustrating time last night.Found a very juicy .25-.50 6 max table with a high average pot size and a fish with a big stack in charity mode.Sadly while another player won over $150 from the fish my only decent hand against him came when I had only been at the table for 5 minutes and I was still trying to work out if he was a dangerous Loose player who knew when to bet big or the total fish I'd eventually pegged him as.

He raises to $6.75 for about the 3 or 4th time in a row.I look down and see 1010.My first instinct was to go all in or reraise to $24 but I’d told myself to try and sit at any new table for at least 15 minutes to allow me time to settle in and work the table dynamic out.Too often I seem to be too keen to out play unknown opponents and taking some time to get to know them probably isn’t a bad idea.

There was also another player still to act after me so I called as did the other player.Flop came A J 6 rainbow and was checked down to a showdown where my 1010 beat the maniac fish’s 33.

I’ve been too lazy at the tables recently.Not moving if the table isn’t fishy enough and not spending enough time in the lobby seeking the best tables.

I’ve mentioned loads of times how when I’m on my game I prefer to play at tables with freakishly high pot averages.Now at weekend or late at night this can often be against players on tilt or maniacs with too much money and can be very lucrative.Much of the time though I’ve noticed that though these may be .25-.50 tables the players are averaging such large pots because they are mostly all big stacks well over the initial buy- in and are probably better than average players who have been at that table a long time.

Being lazy and staying at these tables costs money.Yes its always good to improve your game playing better players but success in poker is measured by money earned and its always easier to earn money playing weaker players.

After writing this I found an exellent article on line which as well as being a great story contained this gem which sums up the strategy which has served me well in recent months.

" Mason Malmuth has a theory about non-self weighting strategies. The idea is that good gamblers win because they can vary their bets, and so they identify when they have an edge and bet a lot more. They find a few really good situations, and bet them hard. The conventional application of this to poker is the fact that we put different amounts of money in on different hands. However, if we look on a larger scale, at what games we sit down at rather than what hands we play, Mason's concept has obvious applications to the theory of poker game selection. You should be willing to risk a lot more on good bets, which means that you should be willing to play in much larger games when those games are very good."



Last night was games night.Mark came up about 9.30ish and we battered away at Ridge racer and virtua tennis till Mrs A arrived home from work around midnight.

Quiet night planned for tonight.May hit the tables if I feel like a game....