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…

Nine tabling micro turbs

I was too tired to play much poker on Monday night and last night I decided to have some fun at the tables.I opened nine $1.75,18 player turbos and messed about between tiling and cascading them.I think I played about 20 games in total and made a tiny profit overall.I quite enjoyed the fast paced nature of it all and managed to only time out a couple of times.

These days I wonder why I play poker.I feel like I'm torn between playing for pleasure and trying hard to make some decent ( for a low stakes player) profit for the year.

I did warm up for my nine tabling by playing an $11 turbo on Full Tilt.I'd been watching a cardrunners vid on sngs and the pro was talking about how people shoving all in early in sngs usually have a hand like AK/AQ.I had 99 on the button and when folded round to the cut-off,he duly shoved.I decided he wouldn't do that with AA/KK/QQ and that I'd take a coin flip and try to double.He showed AK and my nines held.It felt good to be right about his hand but I'm not sure that overall it was a wise call.

I did enjoy a situation which developed at one of my $1.75 tables when we reached the bubble and one of the players had been sitting out for most of the game.I had a marginal chip lead and began raising every pot when I was first to act or it was folded to me.

The blinds were high and I soon had double chipstack of my nearest rival and I continued to pound the table,raising almost any two cards.This prompted my fellow donks to get very annoyed, asking if I wanted the player sitting out to win and telling me I didn't know what I was doing.With a big stack on the bubble I'd have played the same way regardless of the sitting out player and eventually the most steamed up donk called light and crashed out 5th which I found highly amusing.

Just back after dinner at Mother Acorns where I had to laugh as my Mum whispered to me that she'd slipped £10 in my jacket pocket to pay for her sngicons subscription for the month!( don't tell Father Acorn!)

Ok,thanks for reading....

Going to bed = +ev

Last nights poker began with an early exit from the RTR league game when Burnley Mik cracked my Aces with his 66.( 6 on flop,I didn't get away from it)

I was extremely tired and didn't feel like launching into $16 multi-tabling mode, so I joined Rosie for a few wee £3 standard speed games at Littlewoods where the play was even worse than the Stars $6.50 and $16 games.

I managed a win,two seconds and a crashout from four games, but the slow speed of the games was beginning to grind me down, so I hit the $16's afterwards where I managed to win one and crash out of five for a small profit overall.I didn't play well in the last two games.It was now 4am and I didn't feel I had much pokery fight left in me.Usually I can rally myself and play the next game with a determined to make the right choices attitude, but my eyes were almost shut and my motivation had gone, so I hit the sack instead.

I suppose winning poker is sometimes about knowing when not to play.I played a ton last weekend but not very much during the evenings over the last week.Tiredness and lack of motivation were the main reasons.Too often in the past I've fired up tables just because ..well probably because I'm a poker degenerate.The point is I've not fired them up because I was in the mood to play good poker.I can play most of the low limit turbo games almost on auto-pilot, but in poker every edge is vital and giving up part of that edge by mindless surfing etc while playing, or by just being too tired to make good decisions ,is like leaving money on the table and I hate leaving my money anywhere, apart from my moth filled wallet.

Ok,I've had a wee lie in today and I'm off to pick Nacho up before coming home and hitting the tabs...