Poker Perambulation

Well, there also The Battle of the Bands. Then, there pro wrestling’s Battle of the Belt Holders – all 42 of them. And, of course, famous military battles. They’ve all had a common theme that someone can get bloodied when they were really expecting to triumph.

I’ve written about the silliness of the bluff with a blind that could hold anything. I given my cogent reasons why people of your and my caliber should be on our toes and using our superior skills. Right! And, my next step seems to always be to put down the bet because I know I can pick the ace at Three-card Monte.

You play a good game. You get a nice stack of Tournament chips in front of you. You then become the village idiot and aren’t sure how it happened. Or you do if you are me and using repetition to seal our fate. It happens.

Writing this type of blog makes for clear concise bits of brilliance. It is the book kind of brilliance that we all carried off from college. Over time we added experience and things started to make actual sense. Poker, doesn’t quite work that way. Our momentary lapses are punished at the table like they are in real life. They just happen exponentially faster where the results are always binary.

While poker is a life emulator, it isn’t even close to life. Like our play of a computer game, the results fly by and are graded by the computer or dealer. Yes, the cards speak and they do it in an unequivocal fashion. We have a clearly defined win or loss. Living is analog. The answers aren’t always clear or frequently even knowable at that point in time.

Now that I’ve confused the issue completely, how do we play blinds. As we watch our opponents, the answer there is often poorly. This is especially true as the game progresses and blinds become more and more important. Something works. We’re unbelievably lucky. We are stealing and being a bloody genius. Wash, rinse, repeat. It is a great game until it changes. Repetition is fraught with increasing danger.

Blind play should contain a large degree of small pot poker. Many will couple rote play to that. Some ignore hand potential too far. That can be necessary when one’s stack dwindles. But, many play gamble poker when the opposite benefits. Even the table captain needs to vary his game. If one’s too willing to play that 89-off every time, another player will mark the action and be end up being willing to play his 9Ts or 9A-off back. Rags that normally give one two live cards can become dominated hands. That happens to certain pros as often as you and I.

At middle blind levels we can risk that raise and retain folding potential. Going card dead for a period still lets us play some hands with the infrequent bluff or two. When blinds creep into the upper levels, we must adjust and the adjustment relates to our stack. The key is supposed to be an M = 10. Well, everybody has read that book. They are expecting us to push weaker hands. The objective shouldn’t be to sink to that level. We need to adjust before we telegraph our options. Keep an eye on the other stack; it is often more important than your own.

If we have been observant, we have some reads. Who’s likely to play back at us? So, we assign a danger quotient to the move. But, table luck can negate that and put the danger ahead even when we have normal position. At time the positional advantage will shift and be at earlier positions. And that can also add credence to our play.

At some point in every tournament, you must take risks. Book after book defines how the game is played. Every lost soul has read the same text that gives him the cookie cutter methods to use. “The money approaches. Everyone is tighter. Steal.” Is that the best time to steal? On some tables it is yes and on others a resounding no. Going out saying that you were playing to win and not just money is ok or lame as can be.

Use your brain instead of your book learning. Take advantage of those that are using little more than that. Place reliance on your read along with knowing propensities for the level. Many players follow the guidelines to a fault. Faults should be exploited.

Use your image. A tight image makes a smaller raise possible; maybe even preferable. If you’ve end up looking like a rock through no fault of your own, you can work smaller raises into looking bigger. It is really out of character to turn super aggressive at that point.

Your risk:reward is always moving. Avoid letting it pigeon hole your action. If you make the non-standard move and it backfires, that too is poker. You have nothing to apologize for if your reasoning was sound.

You will often see A-rag end up all-in by a short stack from early position. I am unlikely to be that player. I may be short stacked but it is an easily dominated hand. A likely big stack caller is A-bigger rag. There is a specific hand and that I have tried to avoid — talking actual cards. We can do that over in the forum. I mention it because it is one of those rote plays many make under pressure. Try to be more inventive. When short, I frankly like any two cards about as well as A3 – suited or not — anywhere but late position. And, even with the blind approaching, I can always be sure of being dealt any two on the very next hand.

ADDENDUM:

This addendum is a bit old. But, the blog is a bit old too. I came up with it and then kept pushing it back as other things seemed timely. It was written last week while the WSOPE was playing down.

I mentioned the other day that I followed the WSOPE only lightly. I thought the local hoofers outdanced our U.S. group. Of course punters here need a U.K to U.S. Dictionary. If any of you read this, take Michael Craig out for a Doner Kebab. He loves Brit food so. And what is more British than a Turkish Gyros? I’d love to join you but I am off to my buddy Meitiner’s place for Toad in the Hole Enchiladas.

I thought Snoopy1239 managed the most interest in the realm of dry hand histories. But, that might be because DaveShoelace stayed right on his tail with a similar lack of respect for the fine art of traditionally boring hand histories.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 20th, 2007 at 4:15 am and is filed under Tournaments. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.