Maudie at PokerWorks

Saturday I was visited by the Cox Cable-man. No double entendre there. I was really visited by the Cox Cable-Man. My cable internet had been going in and out (okay, eyes front - stop that snickering - back to the classroom, please) all week keeping me off the internets except for work and my trusty ‘lil iPhone.

The connection seems to be hunky-dory so it may be my modem and I could’ve bought one through the Cox Cable-Man for seventy bucks or I could buy one from, oh say, Wal-Mart for twenty bucks cheaper. Totally up to me either way. I decided to live dangerously and stick with the current modem until it dies for good.

I’m loyal that way.

That’s the long way of saying I only had two attempts at the virtual felt this week. The first was Tuesday night when I tapped Mr. Drizz on the YIM shoulder and invited him for a round at a micro stud table at Full Tilt. I tried to play “According to Reese” from Super System regarding Stud/Hi. Simply - you want to see openers that fall in to one of three categories:

Premium Pairs (AA - TT) and Trips
Drawing Hands - three flushes and straights
Small Pairs

Of course the holy grail of opening hands is rolled up trips, but that’s rare. At any rate, once you land one of the above the next consideration is winning the pot, of course, and how you do that is determined by what is going on around you. Reese says to play premium pairs fast out of the gate on third street, which means betting and raising. The goal is to get the draws out of the pot, or to at least make them pay to draw out on you. A not-so-minor flaw in that strategy, which Mr. Drizz pointed out to me, is that at the micro levels, just as in hold-em, those draws and middlin’ pairs aren’t going to fold.

I fell victim to some nasty seventh street beats and dropped nearly twenty bucks before I said sayonara. Mr. Drizz, how-some-ever, wiped up! But suckouts weren’t my only problem. I played too loosely and leaked a bunch of my stack away entering pots I shouldn’t have or chasing rainbows on a fool’s errand.

I returned to Mr. Reese’s advice in Super System and when I was able to get back online on Saturday, I did much better. I tightened way up and applied his third street advice, with a nod to Mr. Drizz’s admonition regarding the level. My goal was to refine my opening hand choices and seek opportunity for plugging leaks. I did fairly well. I paid attention to the information gathered via my opponents up cards - folding if I saw two or more of my outs for a draw or pairs higher than mine.

After some very patient and disciplined play, not to mention a few suckouts of my own, I managed to leave the table with nearly double my buy-in of twenty bucks. I felt rather good about that! For the first time in a long while I’m kinda looking forward to time on the virtual felt again. Very reminiscent of the first visits three some-odd years ago. Exciting again.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 26th, 2007 at 6:41 pm and is filed under Uncategorized.