I have been quiet about poker this week because I didn't want to jinx myself. Monday, when I found out about Joe's bad news I withdrew my poker bankroll. It only added up to about $100, and I left a few odd dollars in my account. There was a forum tournament later that night and an insistent forumer insisted I play and sent me the money to play in it (even tho I resisted). I don't like to borrow poker money for lots of reasons, which would pry be for another post.

Anyhoo, I won that tournament + a $10 bounty giving me an instant $50 bankroll! er well $44.50 cause I sent the original buy in back to the generous effer. Since then I have monied in all but one tournament I've played this week! Which took me up to $113!

I think that is just amazing. After months of losing, I withdraw all my money and win. I just don't get it. So, I went back over everything to see what I was doing different.

1. I played two HORSE mtt's. I had never made it a habit to play in these mtts. I play sngs all the time but not mtts. I made it deep in both, to the final table in one, and even tho they weren't big cashes they did help out.
2. I didn't play ANY ring. Ring games are of the devil. Oh wait I did play ring ONCE and I lost TEN DOLLARS playing Razz.. thx to zooks. Maybe she is the devil.
3. I didn't play any NLHE sngs.
   
4. I had a poker epiphany, which will be explained below.

Anyone who plays low stakes poker online will understand the following scenario:

• You buy into a tournament, get seated, and start to notice that every hand that is shown down is some piece of garbage like K4 sooted, where they won with top pair, even though there was a flush and a straight on the board. AND to top it off, they got called down by middle pair! So, you try to adjust playing your hands like QT, QJ, KT, TJ etc etc. But when you play these hands you're still getting beat! Their hands like K4 are hitting their 3 outers, flushes or 4 card straights.

I found myself in this scenario playing a $4 185 person sng on PokerStars. As usual, I was frustrated and down to about 400 chips when I thought to myself, "Man those people are idiots! If I could just hit a big hand in a pot with (identified specific people that would pay me off) I'd be golden". So, I did just that.

• I identified the people I wanted to play pots with, the 4 people at the table that would pay me off with top pair or middle pair.
• I specifically targeted playing one gappers and two gappers against these opponets.
• I wanted to stay away from hands like TJ or QJ or KT - to get this to pay off I had to hit a non suspecting hand where THEY held the K or Q and I had the nuts.

So, here is an example:

PokerStars Game #6532003314: Tournament #33170378, $4.00+$0.40 Hold'em No Limit - Level III (25/50) - 2006/10/05 - 19:48:30 (ET)
Table '33170378 18' 9-max Seat #4 is the button
Seat 1: Fishermann (2440 in chips)
Seat 2: khanwoman (3725 in chips)
Seat 4: ZDVB (3810 in chips)
Seat 5: the_mats (4360 in chips)
Seat 6: MRvicious666 (3600 in chips)
Seat 7: RColburn (1620 in chips)
Seat 8: gibs852 (1725 in chips)
Seat 9: teamnoack (1055 in chips)
the_mats: posts small blind 25
MRvicious666: posts big blind 50
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to khanwoman [5s 7h] <-- ooh here we go, lets see who gets in the pot.
RColburn: calls 50 <-- this was one of the players I wanted to play with
gibs852: folds
teamnoack: folds
Fishermann: folds
khanwoman: calls 50
ZDVB: calls 50
the_mats: calls 25
MRvicious666: checks
*** FLOP *** [6c 8d 4d]
the_mats: checks
MRvicious666: checks
RColburn: bets 50<-- ahh yes, you bet that A4
Khanwoman: raises 200 to 250 <-- he will call this
ZDVB: calls 250 <-- ooh he called too! I hope he doesnt have a flush draw
the_mats: folds
MRvicious666: folds
RColburn: calls 200<--- good boy
*** TURN *** [6c 8d 4d] [2s]
RColburn: checks
Khanwoman: bets 2140 and is all-in
ZDVB: folds
RColburn: calls 1320 and is all-in
*** RIVER *** [6c 8d 4d 2s] [Kc]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
RColburn: shows [4c As] (one pair, Fours)
khanwoman: shows [5h 7h] (a straight, Four to Eight)

Anyhow, I didn't win this tournament, I ended up losing a race with my 99 and busting out. I`m sure this small pot poker against the donkeys is nothing new, but it finally clicked with me and helped me deal with my table symantics at the time.

Give it a try!

Labels: poker