A Change of Diet

I`ve backed off playing Razz and HORSE for a while, I`ve been getting frustrated, especially in Razz. The final straw was a 29 player tourney on Monday where I finished a miserable 20th. Constantly hitting bricks is annoying, if I remember correctly I only needed to hit a 10 or less that didn`t pair my hand and of course 7th street brings me a J.

On the brightside my hold em game is running pretty well. On Tuesday I played an online satellite to gain entry into the Virgin Poker festival. The sat. was arranged by the guys over at UK poker Life and we had a field of 24 take a shot at it. I had a warm feeling about the game as on the 2nd hand I limped in with 33 from late position, flopped a set, and turned quads. Unfortunately the payoff was small as no-one else hit anything but still a nice start. I really can`t fault my play throughout the game. I made very few mistakes, the only memorable one being tangling with the chip leader after I flopped top pair from the BB. I led out and he called, I fired again when a blank hit the turn but he re-raised me and I decided to lay it down. Given his style of play I strongly suspect he was just bullying.

I ended up finishing 4th. No seat but my buy-in back plus change and a thoroughly enjoyable game. I`m feeling lazy so if you want to see how things went down at the final table click here

The Mouse Roars Again

Back in August I posted about a win I`d had whilst sparing in the Poker.com league (The Sweet Smell of Success). I`d ended up against three players from the same team (Blind Bullies) and ended up taking it down. Well I`m now a member of the Bullies, I think at least in part down to that particular game. They christened me the mouse that roared after those events and I managed to do it again yesterday.

It was the 5x5 omaha game against Smoking Aces and it wasn`t looking great for us. We`d lost a few players to some rough beats. SA weren`t particularly taking the game seriously and omaha can be a great game for donking. After our captain went out in 5th place it was just me against 3 of them. I managed to eliminate their captain Jonojazz at the second attempt setting a trap after I`d flopped 2 pair. As expected he bet out and I re-raised to put him all-in, pretty much pot committed he called. He`d escaped a hand or two earlier by hitting running threes but he wasn`t so lucky second time round.

I then found myself in a nice situation, the chipleader GoldAndBlack was on my right and BioRock the shortstack was on my left. If Gold had played team tactics I would have found this much harder to win but several times he raised his own players BB and after I folded my SB they neglected to chip dump (allowable in these team games). When Gold folded I had the option of putting pressure on Bio or trying to see a flop cheaply and I largely ignored my hands when Gold was in the BB, knowing if I limped he`d raise. The real turning point was when Gold flat called my BB, I had Qd 5h 6s 9s and the flop came 9c 8c 7h giving me the ignorant end of a straight. Gold min bet 300 and I re-raised to 1200, he put me all-in and I called. He had 8s Kc 2d Qc for middle pair and a flush draw, the turn was the scarey 8d adding a few extra outs for him but a 5d on the river meant my hand held up and I had the chip lead. Half a dozen hands later I was able to finish him off after calling his raise from the SB and catching 2 pair on the flop, he missed completely but pushed anyway and neither turn nor river helped him after I called. I now had about 80% of the chips in play and it only took 3 or 4 hands to send Bio to the rail and receive my accolade of MOOOOOOOO`s from my team mates. We ended up tying for points with SA in the match but given how bad things looked early on it was a good result.



I wish the rest of the evening had gone as well but we had a disaster in the 40 player omaha MTT with my 26th place our best result. We`ve dropped 4 places on the scoreboard because of it but there`s enough time to recover, especially if we have a good week in the mixed games.

LOL Donkaments

The other night I decided to play a 90 seat sng over at Full Tilt. It was only a $3+30 buy-in but the play was unbelievable. In all honesty the 50 cent sngs at Vegas 24/7 are tighter games than this was. First hand 3 players are all-in, 10-10, 9-9 and A-J. A jack flops but a 9 hits the turn and triples the player up to over 9,000 chips. Now you`d think a healthy start like that would see a player deep into the tourney wouldn`t you? Well not this particular player, by hand number 27 she`d lost the lot!

I actually started off pretty well with AA a couple of times and it won both times. I was cruising along pretty nicely not playing anything stupid when I looked down at KK. UTG and UTG+1 both limp in and from middle position I raise it up to five or six times the BB. All fold round to UTG+1 who calls off a third of his stack. The flop looks perfect for me 10 high and he pushes his remaining chips in. I`m doing my online equivalent of Phil Helmuth, I can`t wait to hit call. He has Q-10 and of course turns another 10. I`m so amazed I can`t even be angry. I was actually laughing because I hadn`t played a hand for at least a couple of circuits and this idiot calls me for a third of his chips with trash like that.

Unfortunately I had to watch as he went on to accumulate more and more chips whilst my stack steadily dwindled away. I kept a close eye on the numbers and after 57 hands we`d lost 65 players. It just amazes me how quickly people lose chips. I mean this was a double-stacked game with reasonable levels.

My own demise came when very short-stacked I pushed in with QQ from early position. I had two callers, one of them Mr Q-10 himself. The flop came A-6-K and I was pretty resigned to losing. The first caller checked and then folded when Mr Q-10 bet out. He showed 66 for a flopped set. I`d like to attack his play but I suppose given the amount of chips he had he was sort of priced in. Anyway no help for me and I exited in 19th place. Sad as it may be I really wish someone else had knocked me out. Giving my last few chips to that muppet was the only thing that stung about losing.

Anyway I`ll finish this post as I started it . . .

LOL Donkaments

Alternative Poker

I`m an avid participant in quite a few poker forums and without exception the game of choice and discussion for the huge majority of players is NLHE. Doyle Brunson described it as "the cadillac of poker" and in fairness to him, in the context he meant, it probably is. It is without doubt the most popular poker game in the world right now and the reasons for this are simple. It`s very easy to learn and it receives a lot of publicity through the medium of television. People watch their favourite players and aspire to play like them.

Like most other players it was the game that drew me into online poker and I still enjoy a good game but it`s no longer my game of choice. You`re far more likely to find me playing one of the many variations of poker instead. The same goes for many professionals that play online. Track them down and it`s much more likely they`ll be playing pot limit omaha or omaha hi/lo.

There are plenty of reasons for this. One is that PL omaha is an action game that generates large pots but a bigger reason is that the professionals aren`t just playing for entertainment. They`re playing to win money and if you want to win money at poker you really want to have an edge on your opponents. There is now so much information out there on NLHE that it`s very difficult to find that edge in either tournament or ring games these days. Add that information to the thousands of hands it`s possible to play in a very short time online and you are looking at educated and experienced players. These facts are the reason we are regularly seeing internet players taking down so many live tournaments.

Let`s take the biggest tournament in the world, the $10,000 buy-in WSOP Main Event. For many years now it has been won by completely or at least relatively unknown players. Every professional out there would like to win it but they know the chances of doing so against such a huge field are very slim. These days many of them seem to regard the $50,000 HORSE event as the real world championship. It`s a game that`s only played by those with the biggest bankrolls and who have skill at all the five variations of poker that are played in HORSE.

The same is true in cash games. The Big Game at the Bellagio is a mixed game. Presuming you have enough money to sit down and play at those nosebleed stakes you`d better have a great all-round game if you want to see a profit on your investment.

What I`m saying is that if you want to consistently make money at poker it`s worth spending some time trying out one of the omaha or seven card stud or draw poker varients. Aside from the fact it might prove a +EV decision you might also discover you prefer one of these games to NLHE. And just think, if HORSE or omaha etc becomes the next big poker craze you`ll be way ahead of the opposition and rubbing your hands in anticipation of the fish about to swim your way.