Why Do I Play Poker?

SNGs used to be the rea­son for the lion’s share of my poker win­nings.  Then I got busy and didn’t play for a cou­ple of years.  When I came back I found myself a loser.  I went from crush­ing $50SNGs to los­ing at $16’s. WTF?  Turns out, in my absence, every­one got bet­ter but me.  I had a good game for 2005.  Not good enough for 2010.

What am I going to do about it?  I’m hit­ting the books. Start­ing with one in particular, Sit ‘n Go Strat­egy by Collin Mosh­man.  It’s a good book. You should buy it. Any­way, here is quick glimpse of what I’ve learned. It will prob­a­bly take four posts to go through the whole book.

Lets get started.

Low Blind Strategy.

For this sec­tion you should assume 8–10 play­ers with low blinds and no antes.

1. Start think­ing in terms of Tour­na­ment Equity.  This is a vari­a­tion on Expected Value.  Basi­cally to uses the Author;s words is your “fair share of the prize money.

2.Play super tight.  But when you do play, be aggressive. Play your pre­mium hands and some coor­di­nated, spec­u­la­tive hands. Now is not the time to make any tricky moves. This is not the time to gam­ble.  That comes later.

3. Label your oppo­nents.  This is key and some­thing I would never do because online I thought I would never see them again and I was wrong.  Truth­fully, it doesn’t mat­ter if you see them again, size them up.  It will get you more involved in the game and play­ing on a deeper level

4. Don’t check mon­sters, bet them.

5. When peo­ple bet into a mon­ster flop they usu­ally don’t have it.

6. Three bet­ting means some­thing.  Usu­ally aces or kings.

7. Aggression Prici­ple.  Sim­i­lar to Gap Concept. Being the bet­tor raiser is bet­ter than being the caller. This is because bet­ting and rais­ing allow the pos­si­bil­ity of win­ning the pot imme­di­ately since every­one may fold.  You can never win imme­di­ately by calling.

8. Hands to play early posi­tion. Pretty obvi­ous but here goes. AA, KK, QQ, AK You should always be will­ing to go all in with a big pair pre flop.  This is one of the only times you want to do this in low blind play.

9. Hands to play in mid­dle late posi­tion. Pre­mium hands plus  spec­u­la­tive hands like suited con­nec­tors and suited aces with the fol­low­ing caveats. Must be in  mid­dle or late posi­tion. It’s an unraised pot and your hand could turn into some­thing that would break your opponent.

10. Late Posi­tion Steal/Value hands cri­te­ria. Play all the hands as in early and mid posi­tion plus

1. You have a decent hand in late position
2. Every­one has folded to you.
3. You think a raise will win the pot right there.

Next time,  we’ll look at mid blind play.  Also, you should get the book.  I skipped a lot.  Any­way, I hope this helps.  Get ready to loosen up for mid and high blind play.

I think some­times I’m too nice.  I like to think of myself as a hard-nosed player.  But I’m not.  Some­times It hits me that I want peo­ple to like me almost as much as I like chips.  Espe­cially at home games.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to be the dick who begrudg­ingly gets an invite when the game is short.  But I’m not giv­ing away infor­ma­tion any­more in the hopes of being liked.

Here’s my pledge.

1. No more show­ing my ace to make my oppo­nent feel­ing good about his fold.
2. No more show­ing my suc­cess­ful bluffs even though it prob­a­bly is the most sat­is­fy­ing activ­ity in existence.
3. No more show­ing my aces in the big blind when every­one folds in hopes of some sympathy.

Truth­fully, I don’t even think show­ing hands gives away that much infor­ma­tion.  It just wreaks of coop­er­a­tion and that has no place  at the poker table.

If there’s still some part of my per­son­al­ity that needs to be liked I will com­pen­sate by bring­ing more snacks, bet­ter beer.  But I will not show my cards.

I used to play poker to make friends.  As of today, I play to win.

Why do you play? Let me know at stories@whydoiplaypoker.net