Bluffing lesson

I busted out first today when I tried to bluff a straight from middle position. Jared called me and won it with a higher kicker.

Lesson learned: I need to look into ONLY bluffing from late positions! OR, when I am at a VERY tight table, which tonight was NOT!!!

8-7-06

Despite having to split a big pot (community straight to my pocket queens!) I pulled out a win tonight with 5 other players, all of them good. I was very good at reading pot odds and seeing what hands would cost me relative to the pot size as well as reading other people's bets.

Need to work on understanding EVERY hand that could beat me! Just in case. I usually have a pretty good idea, but I don't want to leave any stone unturned.

Also, I noticed today it is often better to bid 5 extra chips and many times you will win the blinds on nothing. For example, if dealt an A-4, go ahead and bid 7 (if big blind is 5) and see what happens. It will cost you very little, but may intimidate a few people out of the pot, and will give you a much better read of the opponents. For example, if somebody re-raises 75, you could probably get the heck out. Better to lose 5 now, than 50 or more throughout the hand.

Those add up and can be all is needed to win a pot.

Pot Odds

Tonight I played two hands of poker, one with 3 others, and one with two others. First was for nothing, second was for money. I got second in both of them, even though I would say I had lower cards all night.

God was REALLY blessing my mind tonight!! I was picking up things I have never picked up before! Probably the greatest thing was I was counting my pot odds for the first time. I was looking at how many chips were in the pot, how many I had bet, how many I had to bet to call or raise in order to push people out, and what the odds were that both my hand would be strong, or others would be strong. I seemed to calculate them all night, even with some very aggressive people on the table. On the table with 4 people, I wouldn't be a little looser than "supertight", but not much. The blind size and odds are still with you for lower cards as long as you use wisdom and don't forget to calculate what the others may have.

I also had an epiphany after the game, that I can use the pot odds of other people to my advantage as well. For example, let's say I want to push someone out of a pot with a little money in it already, I have to raise SO MUCH that it is clearly not worth it for them to stay in if they truly have something weak, even if they already have chips committed. But if I want them to call, I can't push them farther than their committed chips, and chips they have left, dictate (i.e., no chips committed and weak hand equals an easy fold that I want to avoid.)

I also did well folding tonight, as well as counting everything in terms of blinds bought. In other words, I could play a couple of weaker hands at least to the flow, becuase I "bought" the blinds or it was relatively cheap to get in. I would consider every won pot in terms of how many blinds it bought me, so that I could play some slightly weaker hands in the hope of striking big. This was a luxury I calculated. And I think it played well.

I just clearly had my math completely on tonight. Thank you, God!!! Please continue to do this for me!!

I also did a great job of reading other people's hands through their bets. Although, if someone check-raised, it totally threw me off. I have to factor that in.

Changing Strategy with Smaller Tables

I tried to incorporate Phil Hellmuth's "supertight" strategy of folding everything but pairs and AK, AQ today into my game. I first tried when only Matt and Mike were playing with me. I noticed I was losing a lot of chips and never getting the top 15 pre-flop hands that I am only supposed to bet with.

I got the epiphany that when playing with small numbers of people you have to play more loose, i.e. bet on lower valued cards, because of the POT odds. In other words, going all-in with an AK or QQ may get you back a significant number of chips if you are playing with 8-9 other people, especially if you have good position or other people have good hands as well. Even if you are the large blind and everyone else just antes, you still can get back 9-1 pot odds even if everyone else only posts the large blind.

However, when there are only 3 chips in the pot, and the likelihood of someone else betting is minimal, the pot odds are not in my favor for playing this strategy. I played with 4 other people later at night, and the pot odds were much better. I did play a tad looser as well, though.

I also experimented with going all-in many times tonight and it worked great. I tried to do it after a being called on a strong all-in hand as well to see if I could scare anyone off. I didn't, but still won the hand with a stroke of luck in which I caught a straight on the river and beat Mike Culver's "pocket rockets". Also worth note is that we were not playing for money tonight, and people were more likely to call my all-in hands.

A "going all-in every hand" concept is something I saw Gus Hanson do recently in the Superstars of Poker show when he had a commanding chip lead. He could afford to put everyone else all in even without looking at his cards, and the others simply didn't get anything. Even the few times when they called gus pulled great hands from nowhere.