Min Raise...

I rattled through nearly forty sngs on Monday,three tabling the $22’s on Party, four tabling the $16’s on Stars and made a small profit.I gambled on the forecast of more snow blizzards being correct and played through until 2am, expecting to wake up,make a quick call to my work ( one day of annual leave left) and go back to bed.No snow meant that was a coin flip I didn’t win and as a result I spent most of yesterday in zombie mode.To read a far more interesting ( non poker) coin flip tale head over to the Taoofpoker and read today's post about the fatal plane trip Buddy Holly and Richie Valens undertook 50 years ago.

I ended up feeling too tired to go and play live poker as planned and only played a few turbos before getting to bed early last night.( 12.30am is early for me) As the game is always changing and moving on,adapting to trends is essential to try and stay ahead of the pack..I had noticed that many good players min-raise the very top of their range to get action from fish who would otherwise fold to a shove in the mid/late stages of sngs.I reckon more people have caught on to this and I’ve added making min raises with rags ( no more than once per game) to my moves when playing against good players.

My usual mode is extremely tight and if I’ve been completely card dead,the min raise can look very strong indeed and has the added benefit of not costing much if someone comes over the top and I need to fold.Funnily enough I folded 1010 to a top player ( Loxxi on Stars) min raising utg ( first to act), expecting a monster… and watched his A8split a pot with another villains A6 at showdown!

Not a lot else going on just now.I’ve enjoyed following Rossi’s blog posts on cutting down his hours at work and using poker money to make up the difference. Reading his posts really drives home how hard even part-time poker can be when you’re relying on the money.I’ve been vaguely tempted to try and escape at least part of the 9-5 grind by doing something similar.I’m contracted to work a 36 hour week and cutting back to 29 hours would,in theory,allow me an extra day off every week and would cost me just short of £400 per month after tax. (assuming 20 working days) Would I have the discipline to put in 6-7hours of three tabling the $22’s on that day off or would I just cut back on the extra’s poker pays for without playing any more?

If I had any kind of guarantee that I could try it for 6 months and go back to 36 hours if I wanted to then it would probably be a more serious consideration.In some respects though I’m quite enjoying being better off than I’ve ever been thanks in part to my hobby and maybe ,especially in the current climate,it’s better to just keep things as they are and enjoy knowing that if I can’t be bothered playing,I don’t have to.

Thanks for reading.Back soon…