Clothes rack? No Card rack

I played the Pokerworks Tournament last evening. I was unusually lucky. That was part of the plan, doncha know?

By that I mean I planned a fairly loose game. I also thought I had some good read before the game started. After all, a couple of the players are one’s who’s blog/articles I read. It isn’t super user access (I joked about that.) but showdowns weren’t an early surprise.

The thing about Pokerstars tournaments is that they play a full level before switching games. So, at the end of the hour you’ve played through the games at 12 minutes but only 4 if they give 15. I prefer the way it plays on other sites. The streets aspect normally gives more time but the same number of hands on other sites. We all have strength and weaknesses and the format on P* favors me less.

There were no shy violets playing that I noticed. I don’t recall any of us waiting to get the nuts before betting. That said; the playing quality was better than the normal HORSE 5.50 and by quite a bit. While there was clever or aggressive betting at time, there weren’t the totally silly betters you run into in cheap tournaments.

I was hit over the head with cards. I played the rush. Other than a bit of chasing though, it was mostly ABC with a dash of bluff and show. I showed a lot of hands because of the group. If I show a hand a month under normal conditions, that’d be unusually high.

As I said, I did get hit over the head by the deck. I did things like have 35 in the blind and flop the 6-high straight. I had a hand with about 4 different gutshots going for it at some point and rivered that. I won’t guess at the reads of others but I’d have been salivating after seeing a few of the hands I showed down. I think that might have been applied on a couple of others too.

I really didn’t look up many hands after and was watching the closing ceremony as much or more than the card for the hands I was out of. I didn’t come away with anything beyond cursory reads. If I had to make a general read, it would be that while I could be obstinate over ‘hands in progress’; I was not alone. Everybody seemed to understand how tournaments play.

I don’t know how many play P* HORSE tournaments often. The structure lends itself to a loose-aggressive game. If you look at their 10 minute structure and level 7 to start the second hour, P* is at 150-300 and FT is at 100-200. You get a bit more play at FullTilt. Both move it along fairly quick. If you aren’t nicely overstacked when hour two kicks off, you don’t have a lot of options. With our limited numbers, there really wasn’t a huge amount of play for any of us.

But HORSE tournaments are fun after a few rough sessions of ring. You can at least try to be inventive.

ADDENDUM:

OK, ladies. Any of you feeling less endowed than you should? Is it driving you to drink? Well, a solution is at hand.

Yes, this is “The Wine Rack” and you can rosé your way to twin cups overflowing. Liebfraumilch (Loving Mother’s Milk in German) would seem the most obvious choice to use to size/tank up.

Certainly more stylish than the male tipple:

This entry was posted on Monday, August 25th, 2008 at 3:05 pm and is filed under Journal, Tournaments.