Sabbatical This may be my last post for a little while as I need to do some work in the Golf Professional Training Program and move from my house to an apartment closer to work. That said, I'll probably still read blogs pretty regularly and maybe post a comment or two, but not to the extent of the last few weeks.
I played poker the other night for the first time in over two months and just absolutely ran over some rich guys at the club. If I could play in a game like this every day, I would probably be able to quit my job and just play poker full-time. I came down to play in the skins game (where I usually make $40-$60) but it got rained out. I was going to go home but my boss covinced me to play and even bought me into the game.
It was a thirty dollar buy-in and there were seven people initially in the game. The first hand of the night (I was in late position) I was dealt Q-J unsuited. The first few players limped in and I raised it five bucks. While my cards weren't that great, I decided to raise to see how much I could push them around and also because you don't have to worry about pre-flop reraises from bad players (generally) unless they hold a huge hand, most bad poker players like to see the flop as cheaply as possible. I got four calls (rich guys generally play pretty loose, especially in a game with re-buys) and the flop came down 4-9-10, all unsuited. It was checked around to me and I decided to push all my chips in. Although I had an open ended draw and a couple of overcards, I felt that this was the right play for a few reasons.
1) I represented a big hand pre-flop and the flop was fairly ragged- most likely no one hit a big enough piece to call it down- plus I'm a slight favorite to draw out if I'm up against a pair.
2) Worst case scenario- I'm up against a set (unlikely since a pair of 9's or 10's would probably have raised in front of me pre-flop) and even then I have a 34% chance of drawing out.
3) It being the first hand of the game, most players (especially bad) don't want to take the chance of busting when calling with a fairly weak hand and having called only one five dollar bet- no one was pot committed. I, however, was doubling up if no one called.
4) and number one reason why I did it- table image. Raising hard pre-flop and pushing it all in on the flop on the first hand identifies me as the most aggressive player at the table. Against bad players, it makes it less likely that I'll be reraised or check-raised and my raises will get more respect (bad players will be less likely to dry to draw out when they know they'll have to call raises down to the river)
Needless to say, everyone laid down their cards and I doubled up. I then used that table image and chip stack to push these rich guys around for the next couple of hours. Having my boss buy me in turned into a bad idea, as I gave him half of what I won. However, walking out with over a hundred bucks while playing in a game with no risk is a win-win situation for anyone struggling to get by on slightly over minimum wage- especially this guy.
I played poker the other night for the first time in over two months and just absolutely ran over some rich guys at the club. If I could play in a game like this every day, I would probably be able to quit my job and just play poker full-time. I came down to play in the skins game (where I usually make $40-$60) but it got rained out. I was going to go home but my boss covinced me to play and even bought me into the game.
It was a thirty dollar buy-in and there were seven people initially in the game. The first hand of the night (I was in late position) I was dealt Q-J unsuited. The first few players limped in and I raised it five bucks. While my cards weren't that great, I decided to raise to see how much I could push them around and also because you don't have to worry about pre-flop reraises from bad players (generally) unless they hold a huge hand, most bad poker players like to see the flop as cheaply as possible. I got four calls (rich guys generally play pretty loose, especially in a game with re-buys) and the flop came down 4-9-10, all unsuited. It was checked around to me and I decided to push all my chips in. Although I had an open ended draw and a couple of overcards, I felt that this was the right play for a few reasons.
1) I represented a big hand pre-flop and the flop was fairly ragged- most likely no one hit a big enough piece to call it down- plus I'm a slight favorite to draw out if I'm up against a pair.
2) Worst case scenario- I'm up against a set (unlikely since a pair of 9's or 10's would probably have raised in front of me pre-flop) and even then I have a 34% chance of drawing out.
3) It being the first hand of the game, most players (especially bad) don't want to take the chance of busting when calling with a fairly weak hand and having called only one five dollar bet- no one was pot committed. I, however, was doubling up if no one called.
4) and number one reason why I did it- table image. Raising hard pre-flop and pushing it all in on the flop on the first hand identifies me as the most aggressive player at the table. Against bad players, it makes it less likely that I'll be reraised or check-raised and my raises will get more respect (bad players will be less likely to dry to draw out when they know they'll have to call raises down to the river)
Needless to say, everyone laid down their cards and I doubled up. I then used that table image and chip stack to push these rich guys around for the next couple of hours. Having my boss buy me in turned into a bad idea, as I gave him half of what I won. However, walking out with over a hundred bucks while playing in a game with no risk is a win-win situation for anyone struggling to get by on slightly over minimum wage- especially this guy.
posted by Justin at 1:30 PM 
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home