It's time for me to leave the Rush Poker games and head on back to the regular cash tables.
Don't get me wrong, I love the fast pace and the number of hands you can get in per hour. I've probably played as many hands of poker in a few weeks than I have all last year with Rush Poker, and I've learned a lot and closed a lot of leaks by sheer virtue of that fact.
On the other hand, I'm a definite losing player at the Rush Poker tables. With all of the aggro-donks everywhere, it's next to impossible to exploit overaggressive people's play. You don't know if they're usually folding or double and triple barreling with air when they make that pot-sized bet. Add to that the chances that they actually DO have you beat, and you just have to let the hand go.
So tonight I finished off my last few hands of Rush Poker to clear another ten bonus dollars, and headed on over to the normal cash games to try and get a good, old-fashioned "read-and-adjust" edge over my fellow micro-stakes players. I have to say, it went really well. I finished up two buy-ins in about 200 hands, most of it coming from incredible luck.
Highlight of the evening: Having my turned straight making a straight flush on the river vs. villain's rivered nut flush to scoop me up a buy-in.
Hell yeah, I'll take it. I love upswings.
I shall poker until I become a long-term winner, and then I shall poker some more!
Thorn
Showing posts with label Cash Games. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cash Games. Show all posts
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Monday, February 22, 2010
Atlantic City, great cash games
Last weekend, I had a blast. I went to Atlantic City with 6 other guys, all packed into two Super 8 motel rooms near the boardwalk. The first night we got there, we decided to start the night off by taking down a 40 oz. of Hurricane malt liquor apiece (I know, disgusting, but it was $1.50 each to get pretty much wasted).
From there, we let our inner degenerates out. We hit roulette, the craps tables, even some slots in a drunken haze. While it was definitely fun at the time, I need to remember to never, ever, ever gamble on non-poker related games ever again. Let's just say that I ran through a few hundred pretty quickly while betting the minimum $10 wagers or on the penny slots.
Around midnight, I finally started getting that itch to play some good old poker, and wandered off on my own to the Trump Taj Mahal (I was the only one of the guys who was really interested in the cash games). It was completely packed, wait list and all, but it went through pretty quickly and I found myself sitting down pretty quickly amongst the crowd of drunken hooligans throwing their money around without much skill or regard to the cards in play. Unfortunately, I blended in a little too well, still being a drunken hooligan myself and helping myself to the drinks that cocktail waitresses brought around. The night was a blur, but I remember coming back to the motel around 6 am, staggering into bed, and miraculously waking up with around $20 more than I'd gone to the poker tables with.
Huh. Imagine that. Drunk, spewy me, the side of me with some of the worst poker skills ever if you've read my other posts, managed to actually win some money playing against the live crowd. How the hell did that happen?
Needless to say, I felt compelled to go back Saturday night, this time completely sober and itching to win back some of the money I tossed on over to the casinos the night before. Midnight on the weekends was like heaven in the poker room at 1/2 NL. People were raising from early position with junk like K8o to 6 BBs and getting 4+ flat callers. While there were certainly a few people who knew more or less what they were doing, the crowd was by and large incredibly way too loose preflop, not accounting at all for stack sizes or even position, by and large.
What's the best way to exploit that, I thought to myself. Why, a simple shortstacking strategy would be the best, of course. So I buy in for the minimum, and by the end of the night, I quintupled my $60 buy in to $300. Good game, suckers. I can't wait to go back already. I did notice, however, that the huge fish seemed to have lost all their buy-ins by around 3-4 AM. The fish go quick. Here's probably the worst drunken play that I saw that night:
The big fish calls all-in from the button after a UTG raise, my 3-bet raise, and a big stack's 4-bet, 10x shove for 200 BBs. UTG folds, I ditch my QQ, and the 4-bet shover turns over the obvious KK (Hooray for good laydowns! I would've even folded KK in that spot, actually). Silly drunken fish. His hand? Q2 off-suit.
I can't wait until I get to play live there, again. While you may not see many hands compared to online, I love being able to talk to and see other poker players, just shooting the breeze between hands. It also helps that the play is generally just much, much worse since you're in a casino full of degenerate gamblers and the lowest limit is $1/2. Just a little bit, though.
From there, we let our inner degenerates out. We hit roulette, the craps tables, even some slots in a drunken haze. While it was definitely fun at the time, I need to remember to never, ever, ever gamble on non-poker related games ever again. Let's just say that I ran through a few hundred pretty quickly while betting the minimum $10 wagers or on the penny slots.
Around midnight, I finally started getting that itch to play some good old poker, and wandered off on my own to the Trump Taj Mahal (I was the only one of the guys who was really interested in the cash games). It was completely packed, wait list and all, but it went through pretty quickly and I found myself sitting down pretty quickly amongst the crowd of drunken hooligans throwing their money around without much skill or regard to the cards in play. Unfortunately, I blended in a little too well, still being a drunken hooligan myself and helping myself to the drinks that cocktail waitresses brought around. The night was a blur, but I remember coming back to the motel around 6 am, staggering into bed, and miraculously waking up with around $20 more than I'd gone to the poker tables with.
Huh. Imagine that. Drunk, spewy me, the side of me with some of the worst poker skills ever if you've read my other posts, managed to actually win some money playing against the live crowd. How the hell did that happen?
Needless to say, I felt compelled to go back Saturday night, this time completely sober and itching to win back some of the money I tossed on over to the casinos the night before. Midnight on the weekends was like heaven in the poker room at 1/2 NL. People were raising from early position with junk like K8o to 6 BBs and getting 4+ flat callers. While there were certainly a few people who knew more or less what they were doing, the crowd was by and large incredibly way too loose preflop, not accounting at all for stack sizes or even position, by and large.
What's the best way to exploit that, I thought to myself. Why, a simple shortstacking strategy would be the best, of course. So I buy in for the minimum, and by the end of the night, I quintupled my $60 buy in to $300. Good game, suckers. I can't wait to go back already. I did notice, however, that the huge fish seemed to have lost all their buy-ins by around 3-4 AM. The fish go quick. Here's probably the worst drunken play that I saw that night:
The big fish calls all-in from the button after a UTG raise, my 3-bet raise, and a big stack's 4-bet, 10x shove for 200 BBs. UTG folds, I ditch my QQ, and the 4-bet shover turns over the obvious KK (Hooray for good laydowns! I would've even folded KK in that spot, actually). Silly drunken fish. His hand? Q2 off-suit.
I can't wait until I get to play live there, again. While you may not see many hands compared to online, I love being able to talk to and see other poker players, just shooting the breeze between hands. It also helps that the play is generally just much, much worse since you're in a casino full of degenerate gamblers and the lowest limit is $1/2. Just a little bit, though.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Thorn's Big Mistake #3: Not adjusting for deep-stacked play
There won't really be any hand examples here. This is a pretty general problem for people who transition over from tournament play, like I have. We're used to starting maybe 200 BB deep, sure, but the stack to pot ratio (SPR) gets cut in half when the blinds go up... then cut again, and again, and again. The vast majority of a tourney player's game is between 5-50 BBs. "Deep stacked" isn't really in the small stakes tourney player's vocabulary.
I've played poker for years, and have always done terribly at cash games while doing much, much better at tournament play. I've finally found the exact reason why: I've been treating all play at around 50+ big blinds exactly the same. While I got away with it in tournaments, it's lost me a lot of money in the deeper cash games. If you're playing with and against 100+ BB stacks, you need to tighten up a lot more when someone shoves it all in, both preflop and postflop. My pocket Jacks and Queens called way too often. Even my Kings did, when you approach the 200BB+ stack sizes. I didn't place enough credit in the strong draws and the implied odds that come with them, particularly calling with and putting people on gutshots, which go from total spew at smaller stack sizes to good calls since they're so hard for some of us to put people on.
In short, deep stack play is a different game entirely. I've started making adjustments, though, and I can see the changes happening already. I'm no longer spewing cash everywhere. I can lay pocket Kings down preflop. I can call raises preflop with more middle pairs and suited connectors. And best of all, I can start to laugh at the poor, fishy fools that I take to the cleaners because they haven't gotten it yet. I feel like I've finally started to get a grasp on deep stacked play... here's hoping I can turn my habitual losing streak at cash games around. I've certainly paid enough in dues.
I can't wait to polish my skills up a bit more, then hit Atlantic City this Friday :)
I'm too excited with the progress I've made... can't sleep now. Back to the tables I go! Looks like a caffeine day tomorrow.
I've played poker for years, and have always done terribly at cash games while doing much, much better at tournament play. I've finally found the exact reason why: I've been treating all play at around 50+ big blinds exactly the same. While I got away with it in tournaments, it's lost me a lot of money in the deeper cash games. If you're playing with and against 100+ BB stacks, you need to tighten up a lot more when someone shoves it all in, both preflop and postflop. My pocket Jacks and Queens called way too often. Even my Kings did, when you approach the 200BB+ stack sizes. I didn't place enough credit in the strong draws and the implied odds that come with them, particularly calling with and putting people on gutshots, which go from total spew at smaller stack sizes to good calls since they're so hard for some of us to put people on.
In short, deep stack play is a different game entirely. I've started making adjustments, though, and I can see the changes happening already. I'm no longer spewing cash everywhere. I can lay pocket Kings down preflop. I can call raises preflop with more middle pairs and suited connectors. And best of all, I can start to laugh at the poor, fishy fools that I take to the cleaners because they haven't gotten it yet. I feel like I've finally started to get a grasp on deep stacked play... here's hoping I can turn my habitual losing streak at cash games around. I've certainly paid enough in dues.
I can't wait to polish my skills up a bit more, then hit Atlantic City this Friday :)
I'm too excited with the progress I've made... can't sleep now. Back to the tables I go! Looks like a caffeine day tomorrow.
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