Marginal Moves

Thanks to everyone who showed up for last nights Bloggerment and well done to Rosie for taking it down again after beating Mr Edge ( Mauzj) HU.I finished 7th after running 55 into Aces.Who says presto is gold?!

I played an interesting hand in the bloggerment against Res and Riggstad which caused a bit of debate.Feel free to call me donkey in the comments section!

I had A5 in the sb( 100/200),Res was on the button with 340 after losing a big race a couple of hands previously and Riggstad was in the big blind.Res had just given me a walk in the previous hand ( I had 88 )and when he pushed this time I reckon he thought he would get more respect because he if was pushing any two,he would have been all in on the last hand.He also knows I'm tight and usually don't call lightly.

Anyway I look down to A5,I have 1800 chips and see 640 in the pot including my 100 small blind bet.I reckon Res is pushing an even wider range ( at least 80% of hands) after his last fold.

On checking on Pokerstove it looks quite close.A5 is 55.68% fav v 44.31% if he's only folding the bottom 20% of hands, and fares slightly better at 57% v 43% v a totally random hand.I also didn't expect Riggs to call me lightly (he had K10) as I thought an 800 bet would look like I had a huge hand that wanted to tempt a call.
If I'd shoved it would have looked weaker there.When Riggstad folded it cost me 240 to potentially win a pot of 640.As it happened the board blanked until Res hit his 10on the river.

With 7 or 8 left maybe I should have been focussing on seeing someone eliminated and if it was nearer the bubble I would never have played it that way.As I was relatively shortstacked compared to the rest of the table it didn't matter to me much if there were 7 or 8 in the game.I reckoned if my Ace high held it was worth the extra 640 chips which would have taken me to nearly 2.5k.That would have given me more fold equity and room to play.If my hand had won I'd also hope to be able take advantage of my new crazier image to get action on my bigger hands as I think I'd probably looked fairly tight/agg until that point!

On reflection it's not a move I'd make every time and perhaps it's more for turbo's where there is less time to accumulate chips.I have to confess at that point I hadn't checked to see when the blinds were going up again.

I still think in the context of that game,that it didn't totally suck donkey ass but it was certainly marginal and kept me awake for a while this morning at 6am when I finally went to bed!

That A5 hand did force me to download Pokerstove and learn how to use it properly after messing around cluelessly with it in the past.It was much easier than I expected to use and I'd highly recommend playing about with it.

Later after the Bloggerment I played four $22's at Party and busted one,bubbled,came 3rd and took one down for about $60 profit.I enjoyed using a reverse auto-timing tell trick I've found seems to work quite well.I'm always on the look out for those auto-check button users to take advantage of.If someone quickly auto-checks a hand it's almost certain they have nothing and it's usually worth a bet to steal the pot.

If I notice someone auto-check folding a lot preflop then I will min raise to steal more often.No need to risk more.The reverse move is simply checking a monster as quickly as possible to make it seem like an auto-check.This hand is a good example.The money may well have gone in regardless, but the weak looking quick checks from myself and the other villain ensured the fish went broke.

I ended up winning $116 over 17 games at Stars which was a relief after my recent run there.It was still a struggle though, and it was just before 6am before I managed to turn things around and get into the black for the night.



Ok,off to pick Nacho up,take him for a run and come back and watch more of Euro 2008....

Congrats to Mair the Bloggerment Queen!

Congrats to Mair for taking down the Bloggerment on Sunday evening and thanks to all 30 people who turned out to play in it for making it another fine battle.Bloggerment 26 is now open for registration!

I finished a lowly 17th after folding a medium pair to a reraise preflop and then not being able to fold KK on an Ace high flop when Dull Trev bet into me with his AJ.

Not much else going on at the poker tables as I’ve been very tired over the last couple of nights and haven’t played a lot.


Edit: This post contained the silliest attempt at a strategy post of all time and I've now deleted that part!

It’s funny how the mind works too sometimes.I played a $16 turbo last night ( 11th after losing with KK to Ace rag!) and I limped with 22 then folded without much thought to a decent sized raise.Now with 5 minute blinds everything is a little forced in turbos and many players play AK very hard indeed preflop.It’s not uncommon to see many AK/AQ v Med pairs all in preflop, even quite early on.I may well have gambled myself with AK in that position, but would usually only push if I felt there was a chance the villain may fold ,giving me the chance to win it right there or at showdown.

The point is that 22 beats AK yet I instantly folded it ,despite the fact I may have pushed with Big Slick.Maybe it’s just that if you have 22 and are all in v AK then you have to watch five cards fall and as soon as an Ace or King falls ,you’re dead unless you hit that unlikely two outer.

With AK v 22 there’s always hope until the river card falls that an Ace ,King or ( depending on the board) some kind of straight or flush will save the day and I think that appeals more to the mindset of most people.Maybe it's just me! If so then enjoy the photo....




Anyway,I’ve now got the keys to my flat and have a mate starting the decortating today after my sister and I bought all the wallpaper yesterday.Still tons to do and I’ve realised I've a lot more stuff to move than I first thought.

It's also all going to cost a bit more than I first anticipated and I may need to raid the poker bankroll to some extent.I do have nearly $6k online and taking out $2k should cover it will still leave me 40 buy-ins at $100nl and enough to feel secure with.


Ok,here’s a wee poker related laugh from todays paper...


THE Guinness drinker in a Glasgow bar the other night was explaining that he had a few mates round one night and decided they would catch up with the growing popularity of poker. So when one of his mates was going for the carry out, he asked him to bring back a couple of boxes of matches which they could use as chips.

When he returned he said the shop didn't have matches - so bought him a lighter instead....