Life and Times of a Poker Addict

I got savaged by another blogger. Woohoo! His analysis is mostly correct of my post but I thought I'd take a little time to answer in some regard. I write this blog as a hobby, share some thoughts on how I play and any sometimes ridiculous things that happen outside of poker, too. I would, on many days, love to make my living doing this for the rest of my life. I just got back from Atlantic City and playing live in a casino for the first time. As bad as I am at this game still, the overwhelming majority of people are worse. Stunningly so. The hand that Oddjack chose to write about, I horribly misplayed. I wrote the post right when I got back and did it as a way of explaining to a friend of mine where I was at with the hand since we didn't talk about it before I left.

Of course, there are a couple assumptions that are easier for me to make about the players I'm playing with (that I play with four to five times a week every week for about six months now) and thus how to approach that hand than might happen where I don't know the players. Are there a lot of things that are scary about that board? Absolutely. Do I know what the players I'm playing against will do with hands that I'm worried about in that situation? Yes. The players I didn't know were the ones who had flopped the straight. I will delve further into the psychology I had on the hand though.

Can two pair call my all-in? No, at least not if they're smart. Leaving aside the questionable move of pushing with two pair in this situation, by pushing I should knock out anyone holding KQ or KJ. And if my push doesn't do it, then certainly the call by the guy holding Aces after me should. It also pushes out hands like the J10 that Don was holding that could be drawing to the straight. The guy holding 9-10 is an awful position when it gets back around to him, at that point it's hard to believe someone isn't holding A-10 or 10-9 also, so the best you're hoping for is a split and most likely you're beat. It's not easy, but I think pitching the 10-9 there makes the most sense. You've only lost $37, and best case scenario is you're splitting everyone's money, worst is that you're beat too. Calling the second over the top all-in with Aces is pretty awful too. Even though you've already put a lot of money in, he loses another $120 or so drawing almost completely dead.

Had I gone ahead and simply called the $25, I probably would only have lost $37 in the hand. The most prudent play, as Maigrey wrote in her analysis of the hand, is to try and get in on the cheap and catch the Queen or Jack on the turn. Of course the turn brought a nine, so if I had gotten there cheap, I definitely could have pitched the cards after that. I learned the hard way, by making the mistake. As for my thoughts about all-in on the turn, well that was kind of a useless assumption. But I prefer to be in control of the betting on the hand in case I am up against one of the other two pairs that could be out there.

As for my game, I've still got a lot to learn. Hell, I've only been playing for about five months with any real consistency. Should I have lost all my money on that hand, absolutely. As far as me not having hubris, spare me the diatribe, Oddjack. Or perhaps I should say, "Hi pot, I'm kettle, nice to meet you." Because from your post it's obvious someone else is making grand presumptions as well. I share things on this site so people I know can learn from them. I don't care about it being embarassing or otherwise. I've made the comparison in a post on here before, and I'll go back to it now, poker and golf share a lot of similarities. I'm drawing from memory on the percentages, so I may be a little off, but I'm pretty sure I remember. 95% of all golfers can't break 95. Scratch golfers make up .2% of all golfers, players that break 80 make up a little over 1% and players that break 90 are in the top three percent of all golfers. That was something out of Golf Digest a few years ago. Poker is fairly similar in my estimation. You choose the following quote to try and take a shot at me:

"But like 99% of the public, I don’t expect that you’d actually understand
all that you don’t know about poker, which is a good thing. That means me and my
friends will continue to get paid handsomely for a while to come."

Maybe it's more like 98%, but I wouldn't change my statement in any way, shape or form. Most people see poker being played and once they have the rules down think they have an understanding of the game. Anyone who plays the game with any consistency or desire may begin to understand more intricacies and start to understand how much they don't know yet. I fall in Group B. The simple fact remains I know I can beat a $1/2 No Limit game pretty consistently and there are plenty of players there that I'm better than, so much so that I could probably make a good living at it... well, since quite frankly I already do. There's a difference between arrogance and understanding.

The part I find most entertaining though, and the one thing in the entire post that I take most exception to: "We’ll give you even money he was even wearing sunglasses at the time."

Fuck you, Oddjack, I'm insulted to even be considered that guy. I have never, and will never, be that guy at the table.

But anytime you'd like a shot Oddjack, keep track of my blog, I let everyone know where I'm gonna be playing poker at, come sit at a table with me. I've got no problem with that.