Grubby at PokerWorks

I think I could give the Amazing Randi a go at claiming psychic powers predicting the river card.

My main leak seems to be luck-based, losing big pairs against a small Ace, big Aces against small Aces, and big pairs against small pairs. Both are usually all-in preflop and they hit. In these situations, if someone were to say poker is skill, I’d have to laugh.

I don’t know how to fix this. On Stars last night, 4 out of 5 pocket Aces were cracked in preflop all-ins. Two were up against KK, which I can’t begrudge because I’d have done the same (though I’d think it’s a little obvious when someone reraises you, you 3bet, and they go all-in — a $500 lost pot in .5/1 NL). My winning Aces were in the BB and folded to me.

Overall, the stats even out, but even though AA wins more than loses, the losses are big pots and the wins are small ones.

I’ve become so gunshy that in a tournament I folded AA for the first time preflop against a raiser, a reraiser, and an all-iner (good fold, I would’ve lost).

An interesting tactic some players use when seeing their small pair is up against my AA: as soon as the cards are shown, they type in chat “nh,” which demonstrates to the poker gods how humble they are, and they’re then granted their two-outer.

The feeling is the same as the blackjack dealer’s 6 showing, a 10 underneath, and whipping out that 5. But blackjack has more outs.

AK or AQ or big pairs I can understand being in an all-in fight. It’s the middling 22 and 33 hands that call or raise with and then suck out that is so aggravating.

Insult to injury, after I lose all my money or am knocked out of an SnG, people chat about just how unlucky that hand was:

omg
lucky you
can i borrow your horseshoe?
wtf
play the lottery

It’d be nice to occasionally see people write these things about me. They say you more remember the bad hands than the winning, and I’ve been keeping track how many times I’ve sucked out in all-in situations.

It’s been very few.

Certainly being listed in Sharkscope as having lost a lot as well as being on Super Tilt doesn’t do me any favors. Whenever someone pauses for a long time before calling my all-in, I have an image of him checking my stats, seeing my negative ROI, and deciding to call.

I’m thinking I might have to put myself in situations where I’m given the opportunity to suck out. A check-reraise all-in with AK or AQ or 22, for example. I usually fold small pairs in early.

I’m not the risky type of player to bust out early or accumulate a big stack early in a tournament.Â

Maybe I need to become that player.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 17th, 2007 at 4:57 pm and is filed under Uncategorized.