74 o/s:The Nuts

I fired up a couple of $22's last night whilst watching the interviews episode of The Apprentice.( Kate to win!)

I rarely play without also watching tv or surfing the net and I really should try and pay more attention to the poker.Playing ultra-tight and then loosening up as the blinds go up just doesn't seem to require much focus, although I concede that watching the tables does make putting players on hand ranges much easier.

I was paying enough attention to notice a villain raise preflop and bet out on every street with only a gutshot straight draw, before proudly showing 74 o/s when his opponent folded on the river.My guess is that Mr 74 was proud of his "multi-barrelled" bluff and was trying to show the table that he was a player to be feared because he makes mooooves.In reality this was the first hand of the game,the blinds were not worth stealing and I quickly marked him down as a fish.I've played over 5000 sngs in total and never once do I recall witnessing a winning regular make a move like that on the first hand.

Poker is a simple game but there are so many wee hints and clues that people give away when playing.For example someone snap calling a preflop shove from another player almost never has Aces/Kings but does usually have a strong hand of some sort.I find it useful to try and use timing tells to gauge hand strength and conversely I always try and act ( if I'm not folding) as consistently as possible myself when betting.( in regards to time taken)

Another sng turbo topic I wanted to cover is when to try and take advantage of bubble situations by constantly raising to steal the blinds/antes.If I have the biggest stack I used to raise/shove almost every hand as anyone calling knows they are going out if they call and lose.This fear means people don't like calling lightly, ( without a strong hand) however I've found this works far better when the other stacks are not of equal size.If they are then the villains feel they have less to lose and are more likely to call lightly.If though I have 8k in chips,player A has 5000,C has 5000 and D has only 2000 left then I will happily raise Player A and Player B's blinds almost every time with any two cards if it's folded to me.I may even leave the shorties big blind alone and focus on trying to gradually chip away at the other stacks until my stack is big enough to just shove all in on every hand.

Ok,thanks for reading.Back soon...