Sometimes it’s a patience game, and not getting yourself worked up.
The Wednesday game has come full circle. I remember the days when people would constantly bluff. Now people are playing super tight and playing much better starting hands. Well some are anyways. :) However, I believe poker comes down to several things, but most importantly patience. If you are not picking up good starting hands, and you are limping into the pot hoping to get lucky and to play, you are making a costly mistake.
Last nights game should have been lights out within 2 hours of play. I often wonder when I am going to have the cards go my way, and instead of outplaying people before and after the flop, that I will look down at huge pocket pairs and win big pots. With the blinds at 10-20, I looked down at Aces and put in a raise to 80. The player next to me, checked his cards and re-raised me to 180. When it came back to me I felt like I only had one play and that was to go all in and show my strength. In most cases when I raise with a big hand and someone comes over the top of me, I figure that they must have kings or aces. If I have AK and they re-raise me, I usually figure the player has queens or jacks, but I don’t like the re-raise play. If the person is pot committed, they have to call with AK, because the odds are against the other player having aces or kings, so you still have outs. The other player said “call” and flipped over Jacks. I had the other player covered by 125 chips, and one of two jacks in the deck came out. This exact play happened 5 times last night, with either Kings or aces, and I doubled 5 people up and still had a tiny stack afterwards.
Last night I picked up aces 3 times, loosing twice with the one win in a limp pot of three and the board coming out with a straight. I picked up Kings 4 times, loosing 3 times, one being a re-raise all in to 105 chips and the player not looking at his hole cards. I noticed the player didn’t check his cards, and with re-raise only 25 more chips, I had to call and thought I still had the best hand. The player turned over 9-10hearts and hit two pair on the river. (another double up)
In most cases playing patience allows you to get through those bad parts of your tournament. If you are not picking up quality hands, lock it down. Play smart poker instead of limping in with terrible hands. But be knowledgable that if someone sees that you are not defending your blind, that people will take advantage of you. With an early chip lead, two players last night locked it down just a little to early. I might have been the only person to notice this, and they were both in the blind at the same time with four people left. Each time I would wait to watch them check their cards, then I would check mine and put in a raise of 4 times the big blind. In most cases, (exactly 12 times) I stole the small and big blind from these two players, and then when I caught a hand and made a raise, they would fold. In essence the players folded their way out of the win. With three players left I was the middle man, and with both wanting to make the money, I continued with my stealing. If they would put in a raise or stay with me, then I knew I was beat. Nate, who pulled off the first of many suck outs on me last night, was eventually blinded out. And Billy, who had the chip lead really wanted to win. Roughly 15 minutes into heads up, I took down another win with AQclubs, where I limped in, against his all in with A3diamonds. As it would stand, I hit a flush on the flop. I was happy to see Billy win second place, and we had agreed to split it when we went heads up. It was by far the best I have seen Billy play, because he layed down top pair 3-4 times last night after the flop against several people including me…..and for the record I said I had two pairs and didn’t hit anything….:) I was on a flush draw, sorry!!!
Hoping you look down at aces, and THEY HOLD UP!!!!!
sc
