Biggest Pot Ever

I won my biggest pot ever this morning. Keep in mind, that's not really saying much since I almost never play ring games, especially no limit, and when I do, I play at about as low stakes as I can find. Still, its nice to hit something big every once in a while.

I'm still loving Rush Poker. Either I'm getting extremely lucky, or its easy money, or some combination of those two. I moved up from my $.5/.10 all the way to $.25/.50, where the big money is.

The caliber of play wasn't noticeably different. I did find that I was recognizing a few of the players this time around, those with odd names, or huge chip stakes, so I guess you could theoretically try to build an image, but it seems like it wouldn't be worth the effort.

I did notice couple of potential leaks in my game. I checked the best hand on the river on multiple occasions. It makes me nervous when my pre-flop raise gets called, and I get check called to the river. Especially when I only have a mediocre hand. I'm content to check it down at that point instead of risking a check-raise that I would potentially struggle to call. On the flip side, there were a number of hands where my opponent raised me ridiculous amounts when I had pretty good hands, but not good enough to risk calling that type of raise. I don't know what I can do to prevent that situation, other than firing back every once in a while. The problem is, firing back doesn't help because next hand no one will know me, and they may actually have the hand they are representing.

So I know hand replays are probably getting old, but like I said at the top, this was my biggest pot ever so I'm going to go back through it. Feel free to skip ahead.

In the small blind I get dealt Aces, and better yet the player under the gun raises to 3.5BB That means I can just call and disguise my hand a bit. Then the guy one from the button calls. I'm tempted to slow play here, but decide to bump it up to $4.00 hoping one of them will fold. Slow playing aces with multiple players is a great way to get them cracked. In retrospect, I probably should have gone higher if I wanted them to fold, but $4.00 seems like a lot preflop in a 50 cent game. At the very least they should be on the defensive. Both call.

The flop is Qs 2s 8c. Not bad. I could do without the flush draw, but I'm almost certainly ahead at this point. A set of queens is a concern, but I don't think I have to worry about it. I be $8, 2/3 of the pot and both call. Curious. That $8 is more than most hands have in a pot at showdown.

The turn is 7s. Potentially a very bad card. If one of them just hit a flush I'm in trouble. I know if I check here I'm going to have to fold to any bet so I bet $15, less than half the pot, but I large amount for these stakes. UTG calls, and the guy to my right puts his last $6 in. There's now about $72 in the pot. I'm worried about the flush, but I'm still on a nut flush draw and I don't buy that either of them have it. knowing neither of them have the ace makes it hard for me to believe that they've been chasing a flush.

The river is a glorious 6s giving me the nut flush. I bet $25 which puts UTG all in. He calls and the $115.95 pot gets pushed my way. UTG has AQo, no spades so he chased that hand the whole way with top pair top kicker against two players, one of whom was betting fairly aggressively. The guy to my right had KJs, so I ended up getting lucky on the river. I wonder if he had more chips if he would have raised me on the turn. I also wonder what it would have taken to get him out of the hand on the flop.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Rush Poker Part 3

Yes three posts in a row about the same thing. But I probably didn't even have three posts all of last year, so you should take what you can get.

I'm really enjoying rush poker. I hope whoever came up with this at FullTilt got a promotion because its genius and they stand to make a ton of money on it.

I played 150 hands at the micro limits in about half an hour and doubled my buy in. Some more notes:

• Stealing blinds is easy. People seem much less willing to defend their blinds when a better hand is milliseconds away. (small sample size, super low stakes, yadda yadda)
• I always make sure that my preflop raise is the same amount, whether I have aces, or 9Ts, or I'm on a bluff so as not to give any indication of what I have. There's not really a point in doing that in Rush because no one will remember what your normal raise is. Maybe try to squeeze in a bigger raise with your super premium hands.
• One of my weaknesses as a player is that I don't pay attention to my opponents as much as I should. I'll notice certain players, but in general I get distracted by other things than hands I'm not in. The Rush poker format neutralizes that by randomizing your opponent, and I think my skills against a random opponent are better than average.
  
• I'm playing poker somewhat regularly again. Woot. Although Mass Effect 2 comes out tomorrow so this might be a short lived journey back into the poker world.
  

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Rush Poker Part 2

Hey wow two posts in one day! See the post below for an explanation of rush poker.


So I tried a little rush poker. I played less than half an hour at the $0.05/$0.10 table. Big money I know. In that time I played 110 hands playing a single table. Its intense. You fold and split seconds later the action is back on you. Here's some observations from my first exposure.

• Its fast. The average hands per hour at a rush table was around 275 compared to 80 at a normal table.
  
• I couldn't figure out how to leave a table because it won't let you stand up while you're in a hand, and as soon as you fold you're in another hand. (check the sit out next hand box, then stand up)
  
• You can't build an image. There's not really a point in trying to build an image, or play sneaky or opposite what you were playing because you're not going to be at the table with these people next hand.
• Play is tighter. I'm used to micro limit tables having more people see the flop than not. If you can exchange your rags, or even your somewhat playable cards for a new hand immediately why waste time with garbage?
• Its fast.
  
• Sometimes I miss watching a hand to completion. You know those hands where you kind of want to stay in, but know you shouldn't? And you fold, but want to stick around to see what the other players have? You can't. As soon as you fold you're off to a new hand and you don't get to see what happened in the one you just left. I think you can go back and look at the hand history, but by the time you do three or four more hands have completed and you don't remember what you were looking for anyway.
• Its fast. Did I mention its fast? There were some pros playing at the $0.50/$1 tables four tabling. I have no idea how they can do that.
  
• If I remember correctly, they have an iron man promotion that rewards you for getting X number of FullTilt points each day in a month. It wouldn't take long to get there playing Rush style.
• I actually made a profit. I more than doubled my $10 investment. That in itself is a miracle as I am not a good cash game player. I think the tighter play, both for me and my opponents contributed to that. Plus the small sample size and quitting while I'm ahead thing.
  

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Small Blind Call and Bet

While my SNG poker game has been nothing to brag about lately, there is one particular move that I've been using with much success. Its nothing new or mind blowingly clever, but it works well.

The situation is this. I'm in the small blind and it has been folded to me. I hate being in this spot. I feel obligated to raise, yet anytime someone raises in this situation it looks like a steal, and it seems like I get called/raised way more than I should. And I never get a good feel for where I am in the hand because I can't tell if my opponent has a hand or is just putting me on a steal attempt. And yet I can't fold. I'm getting 3:1 on my money by calling and he's not going to even challenge me with most hands.

So if you haven't guessed, I've started just calling and then min-betting no matter what on the flop. The min bet actually ends up being a half-pot sized bet. Sometimes I'll make it a full pot sized bet, but usually not.

I've found that my opponents are more likely to fold in this scenario than if I were to raise pre-flop.

Since I only call pre-flop, they are most likely just happy to see a free flop. If I raise they see it as a steal attempt and try to defend, but by calling they see more cards with no risk. Sure sometimes I get raised in this case, but then I've only lost a half bet, and if that happens five times I've still lost the same amount as if I had raised to 3x blinds and got reraised. So I get to see a cheap flop and they get to see a free one.

The automatic bet on the flop is just hoping that they didn't hit anything. Even if they suspect a steal here, they are less likely to try to call my bluff if they've missed the flop as well. And since I just called they have no idea what I have. If the flop is garbage, its possible I called with garbage and hit. If the flop has scare cards, and they don't, then maybe I was setting them up. Either way I've found that more often than not they fold. And if they do call, or raise, and I have nothing, I've risked very little chips and I can get out relatively cheaply.

Nothing too fancy, but I find that it helps me win more than my fair share of blind battles, in a situation where I'm normally not very confident in my hand.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com