Not a Weekend Update

No Saturday Night Live quality jokes. Just a discussion of my ‘progress’ (jopke?) playing stud. Before you rush to another blog. A lot applies regardless of the type of low rent seat you occupy.These days I’m playing at FullTilt. I’ve pretty much quit at PokerStars over the all-in changes. I’m seeing the occasional loss of connection and that isn’t going to cost me a nice pot at Tilt but would at Stars. But that is a side issue.

Yesterday, I referred to an article on loose play. It sure happened at Stars and it is even worse – so far – at Tilt. The play is amazingly bad. You could call it loose but it often goes beyond that. People show up with the idea they will dominate the table with the betting and they’ll do it over and over with rat cards in front of them. The next guy thinks position means something and will make a late bet with 3-5-offsuit in front of him. There is nothing like getting a nice concealed hand but that doesn’t happen as regularly as they try to represent.

The next guy seems sane and then joins the mayhem. It seems their gambling gene kicks in. They see the calling stations river folks and seem to think they can pull that off. Name a donk idea and you’ll see it practiced at those tables.

I’d like to move up but I don’t have the roll to do it. I could at Stars and was showing a profit a bit higher at 1-2 and 2-4. But, I’m kinda stuck playing .25-50 with the Tilt roll. I give a bit of .50-1 a go but it doesn’t co-operate and I’m back to building.

I’ve gotten comfortable with decisions at stud. It took a while. While we all quickly learn that it starts with a royal and degenerates to an X-high hand, stud’s added feature isn’t your hand’s quality as much as the potential for other’s making a bigger hand. When a good stud player says, “It isn’t what you win as much as what you don’t lose.” he’s referring to that. You pay off concealed hand regularly enough. But making too many crying calls can get deadly.

I can track cards fairly well and guesstimate my odds. I have Stud Inspector installed that does it to perfection with actual odds based on cards in play. I don’t really see a need for it most of the time. But, I’ll occasionally validate a decision. It tells me the exact odds for filling my flush or whatever. I seldom refer to it but it can help at times. PokerTracker for Stud is next to worthless, IMO. It builds a database but there’s very limited analysis and that’s the difference between a simple spreadsheet view and good applications providing info you have to struggle for otherwise.

I guess the annoying part of getting to the point I’m at is reduction in variance. When you figure out how dumb some action is, you get close to being a grinder. Without community cards you learn a lot more about an opponent. My of those are hard to respect. That’s a form of tilt that I can usually avoid. Not always but usually. While the variance of big swings tends to go away, those adrenalin high swings up go away too.

My tendency is toward aggression at times. It is great to promote a perceived advantage. It is fun! But about the only place I can do that is in the bi-weekly HORSE game we’ve been doing. At the normal (aggressive/loose) table, you have to play a more passive game. At times it almost seems that the better your hand the more passive you play. That doesn’t seem close to right but think about it. The mistake most make at doing that is never changing gears. Reads can really approach obvious levels.

I do run into tables where loose and aggressive reach near biblical proportions. Usually, I just go find another table but occasionally hang around. That becomes boring waiting for a hand but it can be a truly lucrative experience. And, if the cards don’t show up, equally frustrating. I can often do well at such tables but it is much fun.

I still haven’t finished the Sklansky-Malmuth-Zee book. I should. It has good info. (I’ll attribute that to Ray Zee… ) It goes beyond West’s Book (which I think is still being remaindered by The Gambler’s Book Store) but West is a much easier read that will get you 80% there in figuring out stud.

So, there’s a bit of my wanderings in the land of Stud. It is still a challenge that I can enjoy. It is a strange enjoyment. I still hate limit play and pray some site well introduce spread limit.

ADDENDUM:

I don’t know about you but I’m ready for the elections to be behind us. I guess I could live with the posturing in the Presidential race. What destructive is the moving around by the congress. Every time they flip-flop it cost us another left lung.

I don’t like McCain but I have to give him props on going back to work on ‘the bailout’ and Obama loses a bit by demanding he stay on the campaign and show up for the debate. Senators have a responsibility and it isn’t small. I guess Obama could be missed here but McCain is a strong member who could make a difference. I just wish I thought it was the right difference.

Obama is right when he says the system needs fixing. But, I have less faith in him and his hidden agenda than I do with McCain and his. And, what little he does reveal scares more than help me have the warm fuzzies.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 25th, 2008 at 3:27 pm and is filed under Other poker.