Aud Lang Syne

Yes, it is that time of the year. It is New Year’s resolution times. For those who don’t play poker, it is a time to promise to quit smoking or take of 30 pounds. But, we poker players are making our resolutions on a near daily basis. New Year’s day is nothing special in that regard.

I will not draw to an inside straight with horrid pot odds. I will not overplay my flush draw. I, yi, Eye the list is endless. It seems that even when we don’t push our thought into the resolutions category they stagger their on their own.

Over on pokerroad.com is Paul Wasicka’s blog and he’s joining right in:

I’ve thought about my play a lot recently and one interesting trend has developed. I seem to be playing the opposite of what I suggest people do. This isn’t intentional by any means, but I thought it was kind of funny and further goes to show that poker isn’t nearly as black and white as people make it out to be.

That seems to sum up a lot of our angst along with pointing out the reason we enjoy a bit of poker. Poker is a land of gray. Meanwhile, we are all looking for Technicolor results. No wonder we stagger a bit at times.

I watched Paul’s play on the big game at High Stakes Poker’s last few shows. He didn’t seem that comfortable. He did seem to be trying to manufacture a game. We all do that from necessity at times. The cards can be great or lousy. That we don’t control. We’ll sit at a table and with little or no fault on our own do poorly. Or we’ll get the cards and still do poorly and that really shatters our illusions.

My own game is certainly in a state of flux to be kinder than I should. I just keep losing on FullTilt. The site has never been overly kind but who’s fault is that? I can’t say. I do know that winning is a lot easier for me on PokerStars and Bodog. I know that limit isn’t my preferred vehicle and long for one site or another to offer spread limit. I don’t know why they don’t.

I played HORSE almost exclusively before moving to the Stud Hi table. It was interesting that the reason was they were the more profitable side for me when I switched. The aggression would turn up in the Hold’em cycle where people thought the knew the game better. That wasn’t always the case but it was a variance builder. I’ve been only adequate at Omaha. So, the move to the Stud side seemed reasonable. I’d gone through the RAZZ cycle before I started with HORSE and think my selection of Stud Hi made sense.

So, I don’t really have any poker resolutions. Questions? Yes, I have those. Answers are the missing part. I thought I knew how to play SnG’s or tournaments at No Limit. I even was fairly comfortable playing that at ring. It really is more black and white than I’m finding Limit Stud. I think the part that I miss is the ability to punish those drawing and that’s where spread limits would help. Often it is impossible to get someone off a hand at limit – rightly or wrongly, it doesn’t matter when they draw out.

So, don’t expect any bright resolutions from me today. I threw out the scale; continue to smoke; and wonder more than know what to do next in my poker. I burned out in a lot of areas and Stud seems my only life line and that line is pretty flayed.

ADDENDUM:

In the era of political ads that trash everybody else with ignorance of the line that starts out “Let he who is without…”, I thought this was kind of funny.