Amatuer Mistakes
By no means do I think that I am a professional, but I think I play solid poker and I know when I can steal and bluff and I know when to pull back.
Our Wednesday night game has brought in a bunch of new players. All of whom have played No Limit somewhere and at sometime have done decent and won. This is always interesting to me, because I enjoy watching people react when playing poker. From how they put their chips into the pot, to how they might sit back, take a sip of their drink, or watch TV while in the middle of the hand. All of which are poker tells, but you need to watch that person while they are playing.
Recently we have had a newcomer named Jane join the group. She is a sound player, but will NEVER call when she thinks you are bluffing. Another tell on her is that she overbets the pot when she has a small pair, and all of the cards on the table beat her. She will stick with her overbetting and will not fold a hand. She likes to play all sorts of cards, but her major tell is that she breaths hard and sit back when she has the nuts. Most of the time she leans forward, as to tell you that she is ready to fight, (another tell that she has a quality hand), but when she catches the best hand, then starts the sit back and more. Again she is a good player, but likes to play a lot of luck. While I understand you need some luck, I think I can almost prove it wrong with our Wednesday night group. Quality poker usually means winning!
The last two weeks has been a little weird for me. I setup a great trap, and got unlucky on the river to loose a huge pot. I went into lock down poker mode, and came back and made it to second. That week 6/18, when heads-up started I had 350+/- chips, going against the leader who had almost 5000+/-. This was the first time I had played against Kirk, but instantly noticed he liked to bluff A LOT!!! With only 20 minutes until 11pm and our cutoff, I really didn’t stand a chance in my mind. I limped in as much as possible to see a cheap flop, which Kirk just wanted to play (mistake number 1), and after the flop if I hit anything, I was all in. It didn’t matter one bit. When play stopped at 11, I was exact 250 chips from leading. I felt very good about my heads-up play. This past week 6/25, I played what I would consider the best I have played to date. I had some of the best reads on players I could imagine. From catching Jane with her pocket 6’s and over betting when I caught 9’s on the flop, to laying down jacks pre-flop because I noticed Nat betting differently and playing with his chip on another hand, and Nat turning over Aces. I picked up Q10 offsuit in the big blind, in which I raise because everyone limped in. All four players called. Flop came out 9JK, making my straight. I checked and my dad bet 60. Jane and Nat both called, turn was a 6 and I checked again. Dad went all in, looked over the cards to make sure their wasn’t a flush possiblity and called. I went from bottom to 2nd chips in one hand. After knocking out Jane again, (second week in a row) and getting heads up with Nat, I wasn’t to far behind in chips, maybe 1500 or so. I had a good feeling about playing against Nat because I think I know his game pretty well. Within 10 minutes game was over and I had won. Last hand was a good one, I picked up A9 and doubled the blind. Nat re-raised to 320 and I called all in. Nat flipped over KJ suitted against my A9 suitted. Ace high took the pot.
More to come…and I’m going to really start updating this a lot more.
Hope you catch aces in the hole!
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