Play the player,not the cards

Enjoyed a nice birthday dinner before coming up the road and hitting the tables late on for some pokeron Sunday night.Crashed out of a sng when Juices KT beat my 22 before two tabling some more £25nl 6 max.For anyone thinking of moving from $25 nl to $50 nl I would recommend trying £25nl ( if available) instead.£25 is almost $50 but I reckon a lot more Brits and Euro players who like playing in their own currency begin at £25nl and so long as you adjust your game accordingly it's jucier than $50nl imo.

I titled this post "Play the player,not the cards" as it's a phrase I've changed my mind on recently.I used to think I never played the person,only the cards and that as online poker saw so many more hands played than live poker,there was really no need to try and get too clever.
The phrase used to conjure up images of players pushing people off hands by making huge raises with rubbish hands because they "sensed weakness" but now I see that while that extreme would hold true playing the player is usually far more subtle than that.

I've not posted a hand history in a while ( have a glance at it then pop back here) so I thought I'd use this one from last night to make my point as my first thought afterwards was that it really played itself ( flopped a straight) and we all just played our cards.

This was my very first hand at this table and it was instantly obvious from watching for five mins before I sat down,that hotchef was the main aggressor both preflop and postflop and that his play was bordering on the maniacal side of the fence.Ok so I had 95 off and for once hadn't waited to post my blind ( usually a sign of impatience for me but it was very late ).I was ready to fold to any bet preflop and had to double check the flop to make sure it really had given me a straight.When hotchef bet out $5 I considered raising him there and then but I'd seen the other players back down in previous hands ( I expected them to fold) and thought if I flat called I could extract more from him if the turn card wasn't too scary.

When s007 went all in for his last $21,hotchef took his time before calling and I considered calling again too before rightly thinking that s007 would have slowplayed it if he had the nut straight ( 9 10 seemed unlikely but possible) and that he was probably trying to protect a top pair,good kicker type hand from hotchef who could have anything.If $21 wasn't a big enough bet to scare hotchef off then I wanted to make him pay if he was drawing which was why I went all in myself.With hindsight I feel that was the best move as the turn and river cards were horrible cards for me but I could have gambled more to try and win a bigger pot by flat calling the all in from s007 myself leaving hotchef and I heads up in the hand after the turn.


** Game ID 554879890 starting - 2006-08-08 01:37:40** King George [Hold 'em] (0.250.50 No Limit - Cash Game) Real Money

- Acornman sitting in seat 1 with $49.50-
professor4 sitting in seat 2 with $68.96
[Dealer]- cityman111 sitting in seat 3 with $42.75 -
soo7 sitting in seat 4 with $21.81-
davyfun sitting in seat 5 with $46.43 [Sitting out]-
hotchef sitting in seat 6 with $100.81

cityman111 posted the small blind - $0.25 soo7 posted the big blind - $0.50 Acornman posted to play - $0.50

** Dealing card to Acornman: 9 of Diamonds, 5 of Hearts

hotchef called - $0.50 ,Acornman checked, professor4 folded, cityman111 called - $0.50 , soo7 checked

** Dealing the flop: 7 of Spades, 6 of Diamonds, 8 of Diamonds

cityman111 checked, soo7 checked, hotchef bet - $5.00, Acornman called - $5.00, cityman111 folded , soo7 went all-in - $21.81, hotchef called - $21.81, Acornman went all-in - $44.50, hotchef folded

** Dealing the turn: 10 of Clubs

** Dealing the river: Jack of Spades

soo7 shows: 8 of Clubs, Queen of Clubs

Acornman shows: 9 of Diamonds, 5 of Hearts

Acornman wins $65.43 from the main pot

I did mention it was late so I played about ten more hands and finally hit the sack after that.The S-man had been round earlier for a fine evening of chat and poker.0/3 $5 turbo sng's at Pokerroom before we played one under the s-mans username and scraped into the money.I also played a £5 sng at Inter but came 5th at a fairly tight table.Interesting to see Tan's comment on MiasDads recent post re £10 sngs at Inter not being too much tougher than the sng's I've been playing.I may just have to test that theory!

Thanks to all for the birthday wishes and comments.Still can't believe a babyfaced youngster like myself is 34.

I've added a link to Derbywhite on my sidebar.Had a quick glance at his blog and I like his style.He's a big Leeds United fan ( Leeds and proud of it!) and whilst my EPL team is Chelsea I have a soft spot for Leeds after Rangers played them in the '92 battle of Britain European Cup games.I still have the video and still get goosebumps watching the goals go in.

Ok that's all for today...