2:28am: There’s all kinds of good runs in poker; Good runs with preflop cards; Good runs with opponents; Good runs with cards postflop; Good runs in race situations; Good runs with people just handing you the match. You get the idea. Right now, I’m on a good run in just about every single way I just mentioned.

Not to take anything away from the quality of my play, but I’m either off to one of the best starts even conceivable after moving up in limits (to $100 husngs from $50), or I’m just getting extremely lucky. I’d like the think it’s the former and not the latter.

I’ve had to make a few good calls here and there (see below), but for the most part, people have been just giving away money (also see below), which is something I totally didn’t expect at this level. Here are three hands that are pretty much a microcosm of my experience in the $100s so far:

Donation #1:

PokerStars Game #18546608093: Tournament #94271041, $100+$5 Hold’em No Limit - Match Round I, Level I (10/20) - 2008/07/03 - 02:02:41 (ET)
Table ‘94271041 1′ 2-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: smartass2007 (900 in chips)
Seat 2: trujm (2100 in chips)
trujm: posts small blind 10
smartass2007: posts big blind 20
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to trujm [Ac Ad]
trujm: raises 40 to 60
smartass2007: calls 40
*** FLOP *** [5d Ah Qd]
smartass2007: bets 100
trujm: calls 100
*** TURN *** [5d Ah Qd] [Kh]
smartass2007: bets 100
trujm: raises 260 to 360
smartass2007: calls 260
*** RIVER *** [5d Ah Qd Kh] [8h]
smartass2007: bets 380 and is all-in
trujm: calls 380
*** SHOW DOWN ***
smartass2007: shows [8d Kd] (two pair, Kings and Eights)
trujm: shows [Ac Ad] (three of a kind, Aces)
smartass2007 said, “lol wow”
smartass2007 said, “nh”
trujm collected 1800 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 1800 | Rake 0
Board [5d Ah Qd Kh 8h]
Seat 1: smartass2007 (big blind) showed [8d Kd] and lost with two pair, Kings and Eights
Seat 2: trujm (button) (small blind) showed [Ac Ad] and won (1800) with three of a kind, Aces

Donation #2:

PokerStars Game #18546642807: Tournament #94270330, $100+$5 Hold’em No Limit - Match Round I, Level II (15/30) - 2008/07/03 - 02:05:42 (ET)
Table ‘94270330 1′ 2-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: rydog012 (1255 in chips)
Seat 2: trujm (1745 in chips)
rydog012: posts small blind 15
trujm: posts big blind 30
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to trujm [Qs 7s]
rydog012: calls 15
trujm: checks
*** FLOP *** [6s 4s Ts]
trujm: checks
rydog012: bets 60
trujm: raises 120 to 180
rydog012: raises 120 to 300
trujm: raises 1415 to 1715 and is all-in
rydog012: calls 925 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (490) returned to trujm
*** TURN *** [6s 4s Ts] [7d]
*** RIVER *** [6s 4s Ts 7d] [Ac]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
trujm: shows [Qs 7s] (a flush, Queen high)
rydog012: shows [Js Kc] (high card Ace)
trujm collected 2510 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 2510 | Rake 0
Board [6s 4s Ts 7d Ac]
Seat 1: rydog012 (button) (small blind) showed [Js Kc] and lost with high card Ace
Seat 2: trujm (big blind) showed [Qs 7s] and won (2510) with a flush, Queen high

Donation #3
(had to REALLY think about this one before hitting call):

PokerStars Game #18547386631: Tournament #94274799, $100+$5 Hold’em No Limit - Match Round I, Level II (15/30) - 2008/07/03 - 03:18:19 (ET)
Table ‘94274799 1′ 2-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: trujm (1650 in chips)
Seat 2: tywebb004 (1350 in chips)
tywebb004: posts small blind 15
trujm: posts big blind 30
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to trujm [6s 7d]
tywebb004: raises 60 to 90
trujm: calls 60
*** FLOP *** [As Ah 6h]
trujm: checks
tywebb004: bets 90
trujm: calls 90
*** TURN *** [As Ah 6h] [3c]
trujm: checks
tywebb004: bets 270
trujm: calls 270
*** RIVER *** [As Ah 6h 3c] [5s]
trujm: checks
tywebb004: bets 900 and is all-in
trujm: calls 900
*** SHOW DOWN ***
tywebb004: shows [4c Td] (a pair of Aces)
trujm: shows [6s 7d] (two pair, Aces and Sixes)
trujm collected 2700 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 2700 | Rake 0
Board [As Ah 6h 3c 5s]
Seat 1: trujm (big blind) showed [6s 7d] and won (2700) with two pair, Aces and Sixes
Seat 2: tywebb004 (button) (small blind) showed [4c Td] and lost with a pair of Aces

As stated above, I really had to think about the last hand before I called. My initial read was KQ (possibly KhQh), and in the end I stuck to that read. Turns out I was slightly off, but my read on the weakness was correct.

Anyways, this concludes the night. 4-1, and now 28-7 overall in the $100s. For > 40% roi. This is great and all, but unfortunately the only place to go from here is down. But I’m ready - bring it on!

Graph Updates:

If you have the bankroll to move up to the $100s, maybe you should try it out. Maybe not as many sharks as you think?

*EDIT*, 7:13am: Couldn’t sleep so I decided to play another game, and I won - so that makes me 5-1 on the day.

*EDIT*, 9:45am: Still can’t sleep and played another one and won. 6-1 on the day now.

Start a Clean Slate at a New Room, a New Sharkscope, and Keep HFL Free in the Process

4:16pm: Perhaps one of the most overlooked aspects of heads up poker online is the presence of tells on both sides. Think about it, how many times have you possibly tipped off your hand in the last 6 months or so by betting/raising too fast, too slow, or perhaps by not raising at all? Let’s take a look at which tells are obvious, how you can spot them and also how to conceal these tendencies. Keep in mind these tells are what I call “level 1″ tells, which operate under the assumption that your opponent doesn’t know that you know these are tells. An example of a “level 2″ tell would be something from the perspective that your opponent knows that you know quick betting indicates weakness, so they will quick bet a hand in strength to intentionally give off weakness.

1. Weakness Tells

• Quick bets. Like I mentioned above, those who bet their hand rather quickly are usually holding nothing more than one pair. Betting so firm, so fast is an attempt to communicate to you, “my hand is so strong that I don’t even have to think about betting”. Good players can see through this, and will usually make a play or, at the very least, optimize their play for what they assume their opponent is holding.
• The min bet. Don’t worry if you think that someone is only doing it to trap you with an attempt to force you into a raise. In all likelihood, the person you’re playing is not thinking that much, so if you need to raise for value, don’t be afraid to do so. Also don’t be afraid to try an take the pot from someone who keeps doing it repeatedly.
• Overbetting the pot on the FLOP. When I call this a “weak tell”, I might be using the term loosely, but I consider one pair to be a weak holding postflop, so by definition this tell is spot on. Notice that I emphasized the word flop, which we will get into later. In this case, usually when people overbet the flop, they are usually holding a pair, but are not necessarily looking for a call and are usually dreading a shove. If you can beat one pair in this spot, you are nearly going to be good 100% of the time in this spot.
• Quick checking. Usually when someone checks very quickly, they just want to move on to the next hand. When someone takes less than a second to check, I will usually take a stab at the pot - with probably a 66% success rate, which gives me good faith in this as a tell of weakness.

2. Strength Tells

• 4x raise preflop. Some things in life are given: death, taxes, and the fact that when someone raises 4x the pot preflop, they are probably holding a small to mid pocket pair. People usually raise more with hands that are harder to play, so they really don’t feel like seeing a flop with hands like this most of the time. A lot of people have trouble playing 77-JJ, and they’d much rather take it down uncontested because they won’t know what to do when overcards come out. Only problem with this method is that they will either win a small pot, or lose a big one. Pay attention to this next time because if you have QQ+, you can shove and will almost always get snap called by someone who is behind 4:1 who assumes you have AK or AQ.
• Long delays followed by betting. When people do this, it’s usually an attempt to communicate to you that their hand is weak enough that they need time to think about betting. When someone does this, I try to stay away unless I’m confident my hand is stronger.
• Preflop limp re raises. You’ve got KJoff in the big blind. Your opponent limps, and you want to make him pay for it, because after all you’ve got a pretty good hand heads up. That is, until he comes back over the top after having initially limped into the pot. If this happens, odds are your opponent perceives you as aggressive and knew you were going to raise pre flop. He also doesn’t believe you will have the disclipline to lay down a marginal hand in this spot - which you should - because he is more than likely not bluffing.
• The huge river overbet. Ever find yourself in a situation where the pot is like 150-250, and all of a sudden, randomly on the river your opponent fires out like 540 into a relatively small pot leaving you wondering what in the world is going on? After all, you just rivered two pair - this seems like an easy call, right? Wrong. More often than not, your opponent is holding a minimum of top two in this situation.
• “Just calling” on every street, followed by a huge bet/raise on the river. Good players will do this when they are weak because they will assume that you will assume that you have just been slowplayed, and are attempting to get you to lay your hand down. Most of the time people aren’t this advanced, and being as such you really have just been slowplayed. It’s probably a good idea to lay your hand down in this spot.

If you find yourself doing ANY of the above, drastically cutting these tactics out of your play can work wonders for improving you ROI. Good players can spot these things, and even sometimes average players. What I used to do is to keep a bunch of small post it notes next to my monitor, and anytime I caught myself giving off a tell, I would make a note on my monitor to make a conscious effort not to do it the next time. Tells are nothing more than bad habits, and most of them come natural. This is why you have to literally go out of your way not to do some of these things, until eventually — not giving off tells has now become a good habit for you.

Spotting these basic tells can also improve you ROI much the same way. Since we can’t see things such as facial expressions and body language online, we have to use the only tools we have at our disposal, such as timing tells and betting patterns. The tells listed above are very basic and are only a small part of equation, hence the name “level 1″ tells. Stay tuned later on for some tells on a more advanced level.

Start a Clean Slate at a New Room, a New Sharkscope, and Keep HFL Free in the Process

1:28am: Unfortunately, due to running HFL and also playing live poker 3 nights a week, and running a part time Ebay business 6 months out of the year, I am unable to put in the volume online in heads up sngs that used to. So how did I put in the volume before life got hectic?

By Using the “NFL football season” method.

The NFL is one of the most popular sports leagues in the world. Being as such, most people are aware that there are 16 games in an NFL season. Keeping this in mind, this method would mold each poker session into a microcosm of sorts of an NFL season.

Let me explain. If you follow NFL football with any sort of regularity, then every year you go through the ups and downs that is an NFL season. You also probably don’t panic right off the bat if your team starts out on the wrong foot — say, with a 1-3 record. If they win the next one, they are only one game under .500. The same holds true for heads up sngs. If you pre-commit to this set number of games each day, I find that people usually hold their composure better in a contained environment/system such as this, than they do if they are just arbitrarily playing without any real plan or system.

Any time you get serious and organized about your poker endeavors, it’s almost always a good thing. By employing this method, you’ve basically guaranteed yourself a fighting chance of beating variance because it is focused more on results at the end of the day rather than results by the hour. This is not to say that even less-than-desirable end of the day results mean anything, but it’s certainly better to put more emphasis on doing well over a 16 game stretch than it is to put emphasis on doing well on a game-to-game basis. In addition, this method also helps you stick to volume commitments. So many times we say “if I play X hours per day, and make X dollars per match, I should make X dollars per year”. However, those figures mean nothing if you don’t stick to your volume. This method will ensure that you will make [avg. profit/game] x [16] x [5] dollars per week if you play and “NFL season” per day, 5 days a week.

So let’s say you play $20 heads up sngs, and you average $3 profit per match over a 1,000 game sample size. Using this method, you will ensure that you make $3 x 16 = $48 per day.  Play 5 seasons a week, and you’re suddenly looking at a near guaranteed profit of $240 a week, which is also $960 a month. That’s not exactly chump change.

Like I said before, doing well in heads up is nothing more than a series of mind tweaks and mental manipulations you do with yourself in order to stay in the right mindset, because mindset is everything in heads up poker.

So to this I say at least give it a try - and everyday can be football season year round.

11:16pm: Pick up any poker book — and I do mean ANY — and I guarantee you that you will find written at least five times written in different ways that you should always be raising the button when only the blinds remain, and nearly 100% of the time heads up. Time and time again, you heed their warning, and never stop pounding the big blind with your button raises but it never seems to translate into anything more than you playing a big pot with a hand you have no idea how to play postflop, am I right?

Anyone who has seen my tutorials quickly remarks about the odd number of times I limp (for the most part in the early blinds), and are equally as baffled at how this strategy can translate into such a positively-sloped profit graph.

Raising is traditionally to be taken as a sign of strength, and limping as a sign of weakness. However, recently in poker there has been more of a shift towards each one indicating the opposite. Fortunately for you, most people are still unaware of this fact, which will allow you do this:

Setup Hand #1:

PokerStars Game #18343957608: Tournament #93189771, $100+$5 Hold’em No Limit - Match Round I, Level II (15/30) - 2008/06/24 - 00:03:12 (ET)
Table ‘93189771 1′ 2-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: trujm (2230 in chips)
Seat 2: DGDeuce11 (770 in chips)
trujm: posts small blind 15
DGDeuce11: posts big blind 30
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to trujm [9c 7c]
trujm: calls 15
DGDeuce11: raises 740 to 770 and is all-in
trujm: folds
Uncalled bet (740) returned to DGDeuce11
DGDeuce11 collected 60 from pot
DGDeuce11: doesn’t show hand
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 60 | Rake 0
Seat 1: trujm (button) (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 2: DGDeuce11 (big blind) collected (60)

Setup Hand #2:

PokerStars Game #18343939281: Tournament #93189771, $100+$5 Hold’em No Limit - Match Round I, Level II (15/30) - 2008/06/24 - 00:02:06 (ET)
Table ‘93189771 1′ 2-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: trujm (2585 in chips)
Seat 2: DGDeuce11 (415 in chips)
trujm: posts small blind 15
DGDeuce11: posts big blind 30
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to trujm [7c 9h]
trujm: calls 15
DGDeuce11: raises 385 to 415 and is all-in
trujm: folds
Uncalled bet (385) returned to DGDeuce11
DGDeuce11 collected 60 from pot
DGDeuce11: doesn’t show hand
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 60 | Rake 0
Seat 1: trujm (button) (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 2: DGDeuce11 (big blind) collected (60)

The Kill:

PokerStars Game #18343981563: Tournament #93189771, $100+$5 Hold’em No Limit - Match Round I, Level II (15/30) - 2008/06/24 - 00:04:38 (ET)
Table ‘93189771 1′ 2-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: trujm (2320 in chips)
Seat 2: DGDeuce11 (680 in chips)
trujm: posts small blind 15
DGDeuce11: posts big blind 30
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to trujm [Kh As]
trujm: calls 15
DGDeuce11: raises 650 to 680 and is all-in
trujm: calls 650
*** FLOP *** [4s Tc 7d]
*** TURN *** [4s Tc 7d] [7c]
*** RIVER *** [4s Tc 7d 7c] [9s]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
DGDeuce11: shows [6c Ah] (a pair of Sevens)
trujm: shows [Kh As] (a pair of Sevens - Ace+King kicker)
trujm collected 1360 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 1360 | Rake 0
Board [4s Tc 7d 7c 9s]
Seat 1: trujm (button) (small blind) showed [Kh As] and won (1360) with a pair of Sevens
Seat 2: DGDeuce11 (big blind) showed [6c Ah] and lost with a pair of Sevens

There’s a certain point in a heads up sng where grind your opponent down to the point where they will start open shoving — either on the button or when you limp into the pot. When I limped the first two hands, I was relatively sure he was at this point, and would indeed soon start shoving. I needed to implant the idea that limping equals weakness into his head, so I made some loose calls preflop knowing that I was probably going to have to fold them. This was done, of course, with the hopes that I would eventually wake up with a hand (which I did) and would play the hand the exact same way that I did when I was truly weak — to induce a shove. Our opponent bit, and he put his money in as a big time dog. The hand held, and I won the match.

The moral of the story is that the problem a lot of people have with limping sometimes simply has more to do with ego trips, and commitment to play “power poker” than it does with actually using it effectively. There’s a time and a place to pound the big blind, but you’d be surprised at the whole new set of tools available to you when you limp into the pot a lot. A good portion of the time you will get even more action this way.

Try it sometime.

There’s more than one way to skin a cat.

2:08pm: Everyone who has had some relative success in poker has no doubt at least thought about doing it for a living at some point in time. It’s easy to say “I make $30/hr playing poker, and $15/hr at my job, therefore it would make no sense to continue working hard when I could be hardly working at all”. There’s no question that in life you have to dream big, but you also have to be realistic about it.

First thing to do when making an important decision is to objectively weigh the costs vs. the benefits of making said decision. Let’s take a look at the good and the bad of becoming a professional poker player.

Here are the benefits to going pro:

• Make your own hours
• Be your own boss
• Take breaks whenever you feel like it
• Vacation time whenever you need it
• Poker requires little to no manual labor
• Pay yourself as often as you’d like
• No having to dress up; Wear whatever you’d like to the office

Here are the costs of going pro:

• Lack of human interaction (if you’re playing online)
• Lack of QUALITY human interaction (if you’re playing online AND/OR live)
• On negative swings, bills don’t stop coming just because you’re on a bad run
• Tax issues: keeping up with it; documenting your results/expenses; filing correctly
• Society, in general, “frowns upon it”.
• The pressure to win every day because your livelyhood depends on it
• Guilt associated with all of the above

While the money might be GREAT sometimes, you must be extremely strong-minded in order to consider doing this for a living. You must treat each day as a seperate entity as the day before it, and never ever think about the past.

Someone once told me, “When you play to get even, you get even worse”. I can’t tell you how many people I see playing to get even, both live and online. If you want to find people online who are trying to get even, sharkscope your next heads up opponent. He probably started playing $5 heads up sngs, and the every time he lost he increased the buy in of his next one. One time, in a $50 heads up sng I sharkscoped my opponent and viewed his last 8 matches. It read like this:

1. $33 + 1.50
2. $20 + 1
3. $10 + .50
4. $5 + .25
5. $2 + .25

He started all the way down the totem pole at $2, and had lost each match he played, effectively trying to recover his money back each time he played. Long story short, he lost to me and then went on to play a $100 heads up match. He also lost that one, and decided to play a $200 match where he finally won.

Point being, going pro takes discipline and a lot of structure. Skipping around in game types/limits is fine for the casual player. However, if you plan to become a pro it’s sometimes best to find a “niche” that you excel in - while considering everything I have laid before you above.

12:17am: This was a great post I found on PocketFives, and decided to post it as an article here. If gbmantis has a problem with it, I will remove it no questions asked. I think he hit the nail on the head completely in respect to why we play the game. Someone told me today that they felt I played too passive (no names). If I could have posted a response in the PokerStars chat box, this would be it. Like I said before, grinding isn’t pretty. It isn’t for glory, fame or to live a pipe dream. It’s to pay the bills. Enjoy everyone.

======================

So i took 11th place in a WSOP event the other night (yeah, brag post blah blah whatever), got my heart broke by bubbling the son of a bitch, and my mind got wondering…….Why the fuck do we as poker players put ourselves through this shit? Obviously its all for the glory of the bracelet, or maybe even just the glory of taking down a $3 mtt like when I first started, its all the same…..as Herm Edwards quipped, “We play to win the game!” But are tournies really worth playing for the joy of it when you win? Does the “hapiness” that you receive from winning 1 in 100 or 200 tournies or whatever outweigh the other 99 times or so that end up in failure and frustration?

I went into thought about this at the pool today for quite a while and I really dont think that it is worth it. Or at least it isn’t worth it if the reason you play is to win the game. But what if the reason you play isnt for the win? What if you play to make the most money, to give yourself the greatest amount of total happiness, and improve your life, and give yourself additional freedoms? I think thats the reason why im playing poker professionally these days. Does anyone here honestly think that the most money is to be made in MTTs, whether online or live?

Additionally, is anyone going to make the argument that grinding MTTs professionally is a healthy lifestyle? You arent making your own hours when youre an MTT pro, you’re a slave to the schedule. You play when the big tournies are. If the WCOOP main event falls on your mothers birthday, ….you have to either be a bad son or a bad poker pro that day…. someone is gonna be unhappy, either you or mom. Cash games allow you to schedule your poker around your life. With tournaments, you schedule your life around poker. That’s no life, it really isn’t. It’s hollow.

Poker is a great game, the best one in the world, it really is, but there is more to life than that. I truly believe there are few MTT pros who are truly happy in their life. Many rich, few happy.

So why play tournies? Is the transition to cash games really THAT difficult?

Obviously, “tourney donks” will struggle when they first make a transition to cash games. The whole goal of the game is different, its not even the same game.
But a good poker player is a good poker player, I truly believe that. I think all of the best tourney players would be studs in cash games if they put in the time to learn.

I guess the only reason why I’m not a cash game personally is because of the dreaded downswong. They can be freakin brutal in cash games…..seriously uber freaking brutal, obviously. But you can go busto just as fast playing MTTs if youre not smart with it and play within your roll.

No real reason for any of this, just wanted to share my thoughts on no limit texas hold them tournies on the interwebz (and in real life i suppose).

In the end, I guess I really think tournies are super lame, and they promote and contribute to unhealthy lifestyles. I think after this WSOP im gonna learn cash games and pwn some n00bz. Is that even possible, or should i just stick to my day job?

10:23pm: Professional poker players look for any edge possible to exploit their opponent, but finding an edge may involve nothing more than simply turning on the radio. But does this hold true for everyone? Does music really soothe the soul while playing poker, or is it merely a distraction? This isn’t as easy of a question to answer as you’d think because everyone listens to different types of music for different types of reasons. Let’s look at the different motivations behind listening to music, and whether or not it is conducive to playing a winning poker session:

• To Entertain:

  Music is a great source of entertainment, but this is not necessarily something we’re looking for while conducting business at the poker table. A wise person once told me (as you’ve probably heard before) “never mix business with pleasure”. If you listen to music while playing poker, doing so for entertainment is more counterproductive than anything.

• To Relate:

  People love to have things in common with other people. It’s very reassuring to know someone shares the exact same interests in you. Ever hear the lyrics of a song and think to yourself, “god that sounds exactly like something I’d say”? If so, that’s great, but that means NOTHING at the poker table.

• To Inspire:

  It’s great to be inspired, although this is still not applicable to the situation. To say that certain music inspires you is to assume that you are more likely to be in tune with the lyrics than the melody. You’re better served concentrating on the cards, rather than picking apart each song for meaning while playing poker.

• To Move:

  This is a bit of a no brainer, but dancing and poker don’t mix. Subtle arm movements, and moving to and fro while in the seat is OK. However, an all out choreographical assault on the dance floor (or living room floor) while playing poker is definitely not recommended.

• To Relax:

  Perhaps one can make the argument that relaxation is a good thing while playing poker, but that’s to assume that everyone is hard wired the same way. Some people prefer to be a little “on edge” while playing poker, as it helps them make more accurate decisions. After all, it might not be a good thing to be TOO relaxed at a poker table, right? Therefore, we can’t say with conclusive evidence either way that listening music to relax while playing poker is good or bad.

• To Motivate:

  Now we’re getting a little bit warmer. Poker is a game that must be played without fear, and the only way to lose fear is to lose your inhibitions. There are plenty of songs out there that motivate you to not only become a better player, but also a better person as well.

• To Stimulate the Mood:

  This is starting to make more sense now, isn’t it? I’ve said this many times before: poker is a game of mindset. Those who are able to control their mood and their emotions at the tables are much more equipped to win than those who lack such control. If certain types of music evoke certain types of emotions, simply figure out which emotions put you into the mindset that you need to be in to play winning poker, and you’ve got the recipe for success.

Now that we’ve established a couple of motivations that are conducive to playing winning poker, perhaps we need to establish some particular songs that may evoke these desires. Remember, the type of music isn’t important — only the motivation behind it. Part 2 will feature some particular suggestions from all genres of music.

12:25pm: One of the most common questions I get asked on a daily basis is:

How do you know when to call in tough situations?

The thing is, in some cases I don’t - that is, until I take a second and think about the situation. By and large, one of the biggest mistakes I see people make in poker is to act on impulse, without much logical thought. I’m not saying you have to play Sherlock Holmes and recall every single detail of the hand. However, it is sometimes very beneficial to get into the habit of pausing 10 seconds before every tougher-than-normal situation you make.

What this does is forces you to think about whether your gut instinct has any kind of logical substance to it at all. For example, the other night while at Harrah’s New Orleans for a 2-5 NL session, I almost folded the winning hand. I had AsJc in the cutoff and there was an ace exposed pre flop, which happened to make the hand a lot more complicated than it normally would be. I raised to $30 (standard raise at Harrah’s New Orleans), hoping to take it down right there but was called the guy on the button.

The flop was: Ad Kh 3d

At this point, I usually make a decision whether I think the hand is good, and if I believe it is, then I’m going to play the whole hand under the assumption that I’m ahead. I decide the hand is good (due to the exposed preflop ace) and the fact that I was relatively sure the guy wouldn’t call a preflop raise with A3 or K3. Taking all that into consideration, I fire out $50 on the flop and the guy on the button doesn’t think very long before calling. At this point, I was torn 50/50 between whether he had a king or a flush draw. Either way, I was pretty sure he was weak because quick calls usually indicate weakness, as people who do this usually want you to stop betting.

The turn: 8s

At this point, I’m thinking that the guy is thinking that I probably don’t have an ace because of the one that was exposed preflop, so I felt like if I bet he would call me with an inferior hand. In addition to this, if he happens to have a draw, I don’t want to let him draw for free. Having said that, I would also like to leave myself room to get away from the hand if the guy completes his draw, so I fire out $75 on the turn and was indeed called by the gentleman. At this point, I’m a little bit more convinced that it’s a flush draw than a king because I had been playing with this man for over 4 hours, and he didn’t strike me as the kind of guy who would stick around this long by just calling with middle pair.

The river: Kc

This was the worst card in the deck for me because I knew that if I checked it to him, no matter what he was going to bet. If he had a flush draw, then he would probably attempt to represent the king and if he had a king, he was going to value bet his hand. If I bet, I’m probably facing a large raise and I felt like it would be more beneficial to me to check it to him because on the off chance that he did miss the draw, I could extract more value out of the hand should he decide to bet and falsely represent the king.

I did just that and checked it to the man, and as I expected he starts playing with his chips. He was taking a really long time messing with different configurations of how he was going to stack his chips and place them in the middle. At one point he had $275 stacked, ready to place in the middle but the man thinks about it for 2-3 minutes and then decides to bet $150.

My spur-of-the-moment gut instinct was to fold this hand. However, I decided to just take a second and breathe and think the hand through some more. At this point, I thought back to what kind of night the man was having. Two hours earlier, he had been called down by ace high on an attempted steal and told the man who called him, “You’re a fucking retard. Why’d you call me?” 20 minutes later that same man won an even bigger pot when he called him (all in) with bottom two when he held top two, only to suck out on him when the bottom card hit the river. At this point, I decide that a bluff at this point might indeed be possible as the guy was having a pretty bad night and probably perceives me a solid player who would make a good fold here, figuring that he had the king.

After much thought, I decided that the man had missed his flush draw and was trying to manufacture some momentum by representing that he had the king, so I called. The man dropped his head when I put the chips in the middle, and then mucked his hand.

So you see, sometimes it pays to take a second (or ten) and breathe. Had I acted on impulse, I would have folded the hand.

Keep HFL Free

4:33pm: I saw this article a couple of days ago, and I emailed the author expressing my extreme disagreement with his point of view in this article. I understand that some people multi-table better than others, but to take a firm stance like this and say it’s gospel that people shouldn’t multi-table is completely off base. Check it our for yourself and let me know what you think. Don’t be confused, as he is talking about heads up sit n gos, and not 6/9 man sit n gos (the title of the article is called “Playing Several Heads Up Sit-N-Gos at Once”). This masterpiece was written by Justin Prince of WeDoitAllVegas.com:

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When one plays several sit-n-goes at once, I simply shake my head. All in all, when a player is playing online poker, his or her goal is to increase their bankroll and play good, solid, money-making poker. This objective does not run hand-in-hand with “double barreling”, or also known as multi-tabling. Too often, players whom play online poker tend to make stupid decisions when it comes down to the overall focus aspect of poker. To play your best game, one must fully concentrate on many factors in that specific sit-n-go. For example, one who plays in only one sit-n-go: will understand the players around him better, the overall mood of the table, selective betting patterns of specific players, and other elements at the table. My point is, when one plays several sit-n-go’s (or cash games/ring games) at once, his or her focus is not at one-hundred percent.

As I continue condemning multi-tabling, I must admit the thing that makes me the saddest is when a poker player plays several heads up tournaments at once. This style of play is not of a skillful one. Moreover, it is the perfect example of a “get-rich-quick donkey”. To play several heads up matches at once means only one thing: lack of concentration, more firing when they see solid or premium hands.

Perhaps the reason why I believe playing several heads up sit-n-go’s at once is stupid, is because it has cost me a pretty penny in the past. When I first started playing in online poker rooms for real money, I used to love this kind of action. Tons of cards are dealt to you within seconds, and all in all, its very hard to think in such quick sessions. The objective of a multi-barreler is not to play sound poker. His overall goal is to get rich within a short period of time, thus increasing his bank roll.

Do not resort to playing several games at once. The quality of play that you play poker at will drop as a result.

Keep HFL Free

7:56pm: Everyone has a different way of dealing with frustration. Some people take a long walk, some people go for a drive, some people punch a wall, or even worse: some people take it out on the ones they love. We’ve already established poker as being extremely cruel sometimes. Changing your perspective on the negativity when things turn south can help you not only become a better player, but also a better person.

First thing you need to do that often helps is to change your perspective on bad luck — through word association. When something bad happens, don’t refer to it as bad luck. Instead, call it adversity. If somone’s bad play was rewarded, don’t refer to them as donkeys. Instead, call them clients. Whatever doesn’t kill you in life will make you stronger, and as long as you’re playing within your bankroll you can almost always take the negatives and turn them into positives.

Whatever you do or however you twist it, don’t let poker affect your relationship with those who love you and always try to keep things in perspective. Although there is money attached to it, at the end of the day it’s just a game. Don’t lose track of what’s really important to you in life, and if you find yourself shifting your priorities to suit your poker lifestyle, consider switching them back.

Many a poker player has ruined perfectly good relationships by putting poker in first place and life in second. Don’t be that guy. Always remember where you came from and what got you there in the first place. Life has a funny way of always reminding you that no matter how bad things get, they could always get worse.

The sooner you realize this, the sooner and deeper your appreciation for those things that you may or may not take for granted will grow.