MORE Poker

Seems I'm back to writing about poker a touch more frequently these days. It is perhaps ironic that I just changed the subheading of the title up there a couple days ago. I may have to change it again.

Anyway, nailed the $75 token in the frenzy last night. Found Bayne at my starting table, and he went down when his JJ ran into a AK minraiser who caught one of the 17 aces in the deck. Bdidde and Chitwood made it to my table too. I'm pretty sure at least 3 or 4 bloggers got a token this time around.

Bayne commented in the girly chat after that a minraise almost always = AK, and they always catch. PirateLawyer also commented to me that he's getting nailed by races these days. It's been a strange week. I think I've lost to more 4-flush and 4-straight runner-runners online recently than I've ever seen. Money in on the flop, me way ahead, and then that sinking feeling comes along. A few rivered UGLY 2-pair, and the odd turned or rivered trips too, but those are more common.

I just always find it odd when multiple people run into similar variance at the same time.

Anyway, $30 to get into The Big Game and game 1 of BBT³: Look Who's BBTing Now! isn't a bad start. I've also got 3 tier 1's ready for various MATH appearances. But I'm running about 50% in those at the moment after I couldn't win one to save my life yesterday. Still ahead of the buy-in game though.

With 3 Big Game's (I think), and 13 MATHs, I'm not done in the token games yet. Hell, I don't know why I stopped playing in them regularly anyway.

Also took down a $22 SnG, which more than covered any losses from those failed attempts. But when I calculate my ROI for the BBT³, I'll be including all failed token runs in the number... it's only fair.

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Hoy has a post up (from yesterday) about preflop bet sizing. I like when Hoy posts big long strategy posts, because it gives me something to read and nod to. Nothing he's got in there is new to me, and in fact is somewhat obvious if you spend a couple minutes thinking about the math. What it boils down to is - Be aware of the pot odds you're laying to your opponents preflop, and don't forget about antes.

Okay, that sounded harsh, which wasn't my intention. Actually, what I really like about Hoy's long strategy posts is that I usually find some OTHER bits of information he doesn't explicitly state that help me out. In this case it opened my eyes to a couple holes I've let develop in my game, and which explains my so-so performance of late.

I've really dropped my aggression of late. I look back at the past few days of play, including the weekend at Eh-Vegas, and I'm amazed at how weak-loose I've been. Calling in EP with unsuited one-gappers, limping with KQs in LP, calling behind insufficient preflop raises with vulnerable cards, etc.. I've been playing bored, distracted, unfocused poker. Hell, last night I had 3 tables open, was railing another one, had Peggle, 4 chat windows, my BBT³ spreadsheet up, and the TV on, with the occasional jump on the web to look for random things that I'd think of. I even forgot about BDR! I caught myself a few times just folding on the flop to 1/2 pot raises and then realizing I was open-ended with a backdoor flush draw, or wondering how the hell I was at the turn with the shit in front of me and a pot that large. I need to tighten the screws if I want a shot at one of those SEVEN WSOP seats Al has lined up for us.