How evilbilly got his groove back
I'm baaa-aaack ...
That's the way I feel this morning, anyway. Played a live game last night, which is pretty much the only hold'em I've played since last week. And while I didn't do great -- in fact, things were pretty awful for most of the night -- I did well enough to walk out with a little more than I went in with, which is a vast improvement over the last little bit.
Same cast of characters as last week, with one addition. Heath and Sheldon, my two poker buds, and a fellow by the name of Shannon, who knows nothing about the game but quickly became my nemesis last week with his ability to get lucky at my expense, were the returning players. Heath's dad, Rod, also showed up.
Like I said last week, Heath and Sheldon are both good card players, but their styles differ from mine and from each other. I have been able to be the most consistent winner of our group, but these two finish ahead about every other time they play. Thinking about it over the past week, I guess you could characterize Heath's style as somewhat like Gus Hansen's, in that he is very aggressive and will start with almost anything. Of course, I tend to think that style is more of an all-or-nothing style, in which he will either win big or lose big each time he plays. Sheldon, on the other hand, is more like a Layne Flack. He changes gears quite frequently, so it can be tricky trying to figure out how he's playing at any given moment. He also tries to play the player more than his cards. If he smells weakness, he'll pounce on it.
Shannon, in the two times I've played against him, has been the real loose cannon. I try to be patient with him, since he is just learning the game, but I have to admit he frustrates me to no end. And unfamiliarity with the game causes him to do some truly bizarre things, such as raising a $3 bet another 50 cents (we've given up trying to teach him proper betting) or folding when he could check (we've also given up trying to teach him otherwise). I'll give you an example in just a moment.
But Rod was the new ingredient in the mix, and he truthfully had me confounded most of the evening. I can't really describe his style, because he really seems to have none. And it is impossible to pick up a read from him, because I don't think he views cards the same way as most people do. I think he literally believes any two cards can win, sort of like he's playing the lottery, and he just has to wait and see if his numbers come up. Plus, his most consistent strategy is to keep firing bets into the pot to see if he can make everyone else fold, and he's not shy about showing his bluffs after he's made you fold. That got to everybody at the table last night, myself included, and we all made poor decisions by folding winning hands and calling him down with weak hands only to find out he wasn't bluffing that time.
When I first got there, things were slow going until I picked up AJs on the button. Now while AJ isn't really a premium hand, I felt it was as good as gold at this table. Our blinds are a quarter and 50 cents, but you might as well say it's a dollar minimum, because Rod always raised it preflop. When the action got to me, I raised it to $3 and Rod raised me another $2. Calling his reraise would have meant I would only have $2.25 left, so I just moved all-in. Shannon, meanwhile, called all of this. The flop came all rags. Shannon bet $4, Rod raised another $4 and Shannon called. The turn brought another rag that put two of my suit on the board and Shannon, first to act after having put $15 in the pot on the flop and preflop, folded instead of checking, so Rod won the side pot. The river completed my flush to give me the main pot. Rod had been holding pocket 8s. Shannon then revealed that he had been holding pocket Qs and had folded them without so much as an overcard on the board.
That hand built my stack quite nicely, but I lost quite a bit of it a few hands later when my straight draw became two pair, only to lose to Rod's flopped straight. He actually said out loud that he had a straight when the flop came, but he'd been saying stuff like that all night without it being true, so I refused to believe him. Then, a few hands later, I found myself in a miraculously unraised BB with Q3 and saw a flop of 9-10-J. I decided to bet my open-ender, sensing weakness at the table, and fired out $2. Shannon raised it another 50 cents (eyes rolling). I had nothing except a draw, but his raise was so ridiculous that I had to call. The turn brought a 2. I checked, ready to fold to anything but a minimum bet. Shannon checked. This honestly surprised me. When the river brought another 2, I decided that Shannon very well could have been raising with a draw of his own, so I decided to try to take down the pot. I looked at Shannon's stack and saw it was quite a bit smaller than mine, so I asked him, "How much you got left?" He looks up and says, "Is it my turn?" So I told him, "No. I just want to know how much you have left because that's what I'm betting." He replies with, "Then I'm going all-in." I just sat there disgusted, knowing I was very well beat, but I had already said that I was betting him all-in. I don't think he quite understood that, though, because he pushed his chips in like he was reraising me after I had bet him all-in. I honestly think if it had just been the two of us, I could have told him that I was folding and kept my chips, and he wouldn't have known any better. But I don't play like that. So I was short-stacked once again.
Lesson that I have thus far refused to learn: DO NOT TRY TO BLUFF A PLAYER WHO HAS ABSOLUTELY NO CLUE.
Well, I lost my original $10 buy-in a few hands later. Then I lost my next $10. I looked in my wallet and found only $2 more, so I bought in with that, only to lose that as well. I should have taken more money with me, but I honestly felt like I wouldn't need any more than my original $10. I sat there a few hands when Heath offered to give me $5 in chips I could repay if I won. I gladly accepted the offer, but felt like a fool a few hands later when I was sitting with only $1.50 in front of me. Luckily, I picked up an AQ a few hands later, threw it in and won. I looked over and saw that Shannon was quickly losing all the chips he'd won from me, so I decided to set aside my bloodthirsty thoughts of revenge and quit concentrating on him. It was clear that Rod was the true threat at the table, because his stack just kept growing through bluffs and other people's ill-timed decisions to call him down. Heath took the worst of it from Rod. I think playing his father really affected Heath's game for the worse, and he ended up busting out later (but not before Shannon).
Finally, it was just Rod, Sheldon and I, and I started doing very well. This was a result of making a decision to play a style which is completely unlike I usually play, but is the result of some observations about pot odds and such. First, I gave up any effort to bluff pots. I also stopped waiting for premium hands. With the game three-handed, I would limp to see as many flops as possible and give them up if they missed me. I figured that by playing to get lucky on the flop, I would lose a little on a lot of hands, but would make a lot more on the hands I won, because neither Rod nor Sheldon were playing flop-or-drop. Rod would continue trying to buy pots with bigger and bigger bets each round of betting, so while I'd lose $1 on hands I would have to fold, I would usually pick up $10 or $15 pots when I won.
By the end of the night, I made back the $22 I had brought with me, the $5 Heath had loaned me, and made $13 on top of it. I don't know how much Rod bought in, but he had over $100 when he left, while everyone else ended up with zero.
All in all, I think I ended up pretty well, especially since it seemed early on like I would lose everything. But the small amount of money I was able to win was nothing compared to the sense of accomplishment I felt by finally being able to adjust my game to the circumstances I faced. It took a while and quite a few dollars, but, for me anyway, this was a tough game to crack. By the last hour, however, I had figured out how to approach each individual player and make moves against them to maximize my profits. I've developed a great read on Heath, so that I usually know what he has. For both Rod and Shannon, I just needed to wait for extremely strong hands and either bet strongly into Shannon, knowing he probably wouldn't fold, or just call Rod's bets to avoid tipping him off to the strength of my hand. Beating Sheldon, though, requires a little bit of acting, but I was able to take extra money from him by feigning weakness so that he would try to steal the pot on a few hands.
Last night was good for me. I now feel like I am once again seeing a lot of the subtleties of the game that had disappeared from my field of vision for awhile. Hopefully once we get past The Big Shakedown (aka Christmas), I will be able to get back to playing seriously again, and hopefully heading down the right track on my five-year plan.
That's the way I feel this morning, anyway. Played a live game last night, which is pretty much the only hold'em I've played since last week. And while I didn't do great -- in fact, things were pretty awful for most of the night -- I did well enough to walk out with a little more than I went in with, which is a vast improvement over the last little bit.
Same cast of characters as last week, with one addition. Heath and Sheldon, my two poker buds, and a fellow by the name of Shannon, who knows nothing about the game but quickly became my nemesis last week with his ability to get lucky at my expense, were the returning players. Heath's dad, Rod, also showed up.
Like I said last week, Heath and Sheldon are both good card players, but their styles differ from mine and from each other. I have been able to be the most consistent winner of our group, but these two finish ahead about every other time they play. Thinking about it over the past week, I guess you could characterize Heath's style as somewhat like Gus Hansen's, in that he is very aggressive and will start with almost anything. Of course, I tend to think that style is more of an all-or-nothing style, in which he will either win big or lose big each time he plays. Sheldon, on the other hand, is more like a Layne Flack. He changes gears quite frequently, so it can be tricky trying to figure out how he's playing at any given moment. He also tries to play the player more than his cards. If he smells weakness, he'll pounce on it.
Shannon, in the two times I've played against him, has been the real loose cannon. I try to be patient with him, since he is just learning the game, but I have to admit he frustrates me to no end. And unfamiliarity with the game causes him to do some truly bizarre things, such as raising a $3 bet another 50 cents (we've given up trying to teach him proper betting) or folding when he could check (we've also given up trying to teach him otherwise). I'll give you an example in just a moment.
But Rod was the new ingredient in the mix, and he truthfully had me confounded most of the evening. I can't really describe his style, because he really seems to have none. And it is impossible to pick up a read from him, because I don't think he views cards the same way as most people do. I think he literally believes any two cards can win, sort of like he's playing the lottery, and he just has to wait and see if his numbers come up. Plus, his most consistent strategy is to keep firing bets into the pot to see if he can make everyone else fold, and he's not shy about showing his bluffs after he's made you fold. That got to everybody at the table last night, myself included, and we all made poor decisions by folding winning hands and calling him down with weak hands only to find out he wasn't bluffing that time.
When I first got there, things were slow going until I picked up AJs on the button. Now while AJ isn't really a premium hand, I felt it was as good as gold at this table. Our blinds are a quarter and 50 cents, but you might as well say it's a dollar minimum, because Rod always raised it preflop. When the action got to me, I raised it to $3 and Rod raised me another $2. Calling his reraise would have meant I would only have $2.25 left, so I just moved all-in. Shannon, meanwhile, called all of this. The flop came all rags. Shannon bet $4, Rod raised another $4 and Shannon called. The turn brought another rag that put two of my suit on the board and Shannon, first to act after having put $15 in the pot on the flop and preflop, folded instead of checking, so Rod won the side pot. The river completed my flush to give me the main pot. Rod had been holding pocket 8s. Shannon then revealed that he had been holding pocket Qs and had folded them without so much as an overcard on the board.
That hand built my stack quite nicely, but I lost quite a bit of it a few hands later when my straight draw became two pair, only to lose to Rod's flopped straight. He actually said out loud that he had a straight when the flop came, but he'd been saying stuff like that all night without it being true, so I refused to believe him. Then, a few hands later, I found myself in a miraculously unraised BB with Q3 and saw a flop of 9-10-J. I decided to bet my open-ender, sensing weakness at the table, and fired out $2. Shannon raised it another 50 cents (eyes rolling). I had nothing except a draw, but his raise was so ridiculous that I had to call. The turn brought a 2. I checked, ready to fold to anything but a minimum bet. Shannon checked. This honestly surprised me. When the river brought another 2, I decided that Shannon very well could have been raising with a draw of his own, so I decided to try to take down the pot. I looked at Shannon's stack and saw it was quite a bit smaller than mine, so I asked him, "How much you got left?" He looks up and says, "Is it my turn?" So I told him, "No. I just want to know how much you have left because that's what I'm betting." He replies with, "Then I'm going all-in." I just sat there disgusted, knowing I was very well beat, but I had already said that I was betting him all-in. I don't think he quite understood that, though, because he pushed his chips in like he was reraising me after I had bet him all-in. I honestly think if it had just been the two of us, I could have told him that I was folding and kept my chips, and he wouldn't have known any better. But I don't play like that. So I was short-stacked once again.
Lesson that I have thus far refused to learn: DO NOT TRY TO BLUFF A PLAYER WHO HAS ABSOLUTELY NO CLUE.
Well, I lost my original $10 buy-in a few hands later. Then I lost my next $10. I looked in my wallet and found only $2 more, so I bought in with that, only to lose that as well. I should have taken more money with me, but I honestly felt like I wouldn't need any more than my original $10. I sat there a few hands when Heath offered to give me $5 in chips I could repay if I won. I gladly accepted the offer, but felt like a fool a few hands later when I was sitting with only $1.50 in front of me. Luckily, I picked up an AQ a few hands later, threw it in and won. I looked over and saw that Shannon was quickly losing all the chips he'd won from me, so I decided to set aside my bloodthirsty thoughts of revenge and quit concentrating on him. It was clear that Rod was the true threat at the table, because his stack just kept growing through bluffs and other people's ill-timed decisions to call him down. Heath took the worst of it from Rod. I think playing his father really affected Heath's game for the worse, and he ended up busting out later (but not before Shannon).
Finally, it was just Rod, Sheldon and I, and I started doing very well. This was a result of making a decision to play a style which is completely unlike I usually play, but is the result of some observations about pot odds and such. First, I gave up any effort to bluff pots. I also stopped waiting for premium hands. With the game three-handed, I would limp to see as many flops as possible and give them up if they missed me. I figured that by playing to get lucky on the flop, I would lose a little on a lot of hands, but would make a lot more on the hands I won, because neither Rod nor Sheldon were playing flop-or-drop. Rod would continue trying to buy pots with bigger and bigger bets each round of betting, so while I'd lose $1 on hands I would have to fold, I would usually pick up $10 or $15 pots when I won.
By the end of the night, I made back the $22 I had brought with me, the $5 Heath had loaned me, and made $13 on top of it. I don't know how much Rod bought in, but he had over $100 when he left, while everyone else ended up with zero.
All in all, I think I ended up pretty well, especially since it seemed early on like I would lose everything. But the small amount of money I was able to win was nothing compared to the sense of accomplishment I felt by finally being able to adjust my game to the circumstances I faced. It took a while and quite a few dollars, but, for me anyway, this was a tough game to crack. By the last hour, however, I had figured out how to approach each individual player and make moves against them to maximize my profits. I've developed a great read on Heath, so that I usually know what he has. For both Rod and Shannon, I just needed to wait for extremely strong hands and either bet strongly into Shannon, knowing he probably wouldn't fold, or just call Rod's bets to avoid tipping him off to the strength of my hand. Beating Sheldon, though, requires a little bit of acting, but I was able to take extra money from him by feigning weakness so that he would try to steal the pot on a few hands.
Last night was good for me. I now feel like I am once again seeing a lot of the subtleties of the game that had disappeared from my field of vision for awhile. Hopefully once we get past The Big Shakedown (aka Christmas), I will be able to get back to playing seriously again, and hopefully heading down the right track on my five-year plan.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home