Poker Perambulation

Our blogging friend, Michael Craig obsessed a bit in a recent blog. He busted out a pro , Keith Sexton, and attracted a fan base similar to his professional friend, Mike the Mouth. If you have a dollar on deposit at Full Tilt, you can chat in any game going. And people do that all the time. It usually isn’t a thoughtful conversation or one approved by Miss Manners. If you are ‘famous’ or affect ‘the famous’, you’ll get your stalkers. And, there is no Order of Protection available to our lawyer friend.

I wrote an article called Pogo Stick Poker. I did another called Odd Man Out. And just about all the article in my Poker Thoughts section could be brought into the picture to varying degrees. In almost all of them we could propose a corollary that applies to the hand Michael describes. In science, proposals and corollaries require rigorous proof. Poker isn’t that way. All my sometime solid ideas are situational proposals. It can be solid in early play and thrown out with the bath water playing at the bubble or late play … or … or … or.

Michael stated his reasons for the call. I have no reason to dispute any of them. They seem as rigorous as any poker calculator can provide. He introduces the other factors in his decision making process that provides a true hand history — and there aren’t a lot of those out there.

So, lets ask our questions:

1. Can he make the call?

2. Should he make the call?

Number one is a simple yes. It is a coin flip. But, at times we’ll take the coin flips. And Michael provides a good set of reasons he can make the call.

Number two is going to gather ‘number two’ in any poker forum out there. You haul it over to the penultimate home of odds based poker – 2×2 – and the Sklanskyesque minds will rip it to shreds with great passion in high dungeon. You hand it to an aggressive player with a nice stack and get a whole other answer.

The fact is that you can’t evaluate any player on a single hand.

Another article of mine quotes the very first lines in Super System II. Poker is a game of people. That is the most important lesson you should learn from my book. It is Doyle’s concise of a BAPB – big-ass-poker-book. And, one can argue it at their peril — the observer on Full Tilt and around the poker communities do.

The missing ingredient is another question: Why did Keith make the play he made? He had the/a superior hand but, like Michael’s hand, it was a drawing hand. My guess is Keith – who knows Michael – made a poor read. He saw a juicy pot and figured big pot poker could make Michael lay down anything but a very top hand. You can make that play with any two cards. He found out he was wrong. Michael chose to play the hand and had him well covered. Not unusual! That happens to us all. Keith exhibited frustration with making a bad read and not with Michael’s ‘bad call’ that outdrew him. We’ve all been on both sides of that issue. NEVER A BIGGY!

Keith’s pique brought out the lurkers – many of whom get a Walter Mitty type of joy from the play of the pros they admire. And that brings me to the topic about Michael’s play that is pure, unadulterated admiration. Michael didn’t tilt! In a pressure packed period that must have seemed like days, he was abused like a pro and took it like a pro.

So, with sincerity, I’ll say: Well played Old Man! And wear that tee-shirt with pride.

ADDENDUM:

I have a friend playing my account over on Ultimate Bet. Good all around player and a solid tournament player. I suggested watching the guarantees there. UB hasn’t picked up a lot of the players that had to leave Party et al. They grew but not like Stars and Full Tilt. It was always a good place to pick up a decent overlay. My friend is finding that the case still. So, if you want a bit of the house’s money in the pot, stop over there and keep an eye on the guarantee tournaments. If you are around for the odd hour ones that is so much the better. You’ll want to register at the last minute if your only reason to play is the overlay.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 28th, 2006 at 9:02 am and is filed under Journal, Poker Thoughts, Tournaments. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.