January Play & 2008 Poker Resolutions

01/05/08 Chu 1/2 NL (seat 7)

Ward called me the night of the 4th and asked if I was interested in going to play some poker the next day – OK, sure, twist my arm.

We arrived just before noon and played for a little over 3 hours. I got seated right away, but Ward had to wait for a few minutes until a new table opened up. I grabbed seat 7 since it’s one of my favorites and it was available – I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this but I favor seats 2 and 7, not because I’m superstitious but because they afford the best view of the players that will act behind me, and they give me a good view of the other players at the table so I can watch for tells.

Anyway, I’d been re-reading some of my notes and comments that I’ve posted here and decided that with a new year, there would be a “new” player at the table – me.

My poker new-year’s resolutions for 2008?
1) Don’t play anything except premium hands from EP.
2) Play a bit looser in MP and substantially looser (for me anyway) in LP – in other words, play position more.
3) Rarely call when entering a pot – usually either raise or fold.
4) Be very careful about defending my blinds.
5) Work very hard on observing tells and patterns in my opponents (I think I was much better at this a year ago, but my skill in this area has deteriorated – and I want to get back to that form).
6) Look for spots to bluff.
7) Semi-bluff more often.

So, how did I do?

Well, I worked hard on 1-5 all day – kept my focus, was diligent in my card selection, and left up $120 for the day. I got a lot of bad cards and remember the following hands because they really stood out against the crap I was getting.

Table notes: seat 2 was a maniac and started out on a huge roll getting up to ~$300 fairly early - which he then proceeded to donk-off. Seats 1 and 6 were tightish but 1 liked to make continuation bets with whatever he had. At least 60-70% of the pots were raised pre-flop, and there were typically at least 3 callers paying to see the flop.

1) Within the first circuit of the button there’s a bunch of limpers and I picked up 6, 2 offsuit from the SB. With $13 out there, sure – I’ll throw my $1 to see the flop. BB didn’t raise and the flop was Ad, 6d, 2h. With lots of limpers I can’t afford to try for a check-raise, so I bet out $8. It gets called by 2 and raised by the cutoff to $16. Now I move all in for a total of $44. It get’s folded to the CO who calls and flips AK. Turn and river are blanks and my baby 2-pair brings in ~$110.

2) About 45 minutes later I hadn’t played a hand. From MP I raise to $10 with AcQh and get 3 callers (so much for image). Flop was 9, 8, 6 rainbow and I had to fold to player 6’s bet.

3) A few hands later, I looked down at 3, 2 offsuit in the SB and call the $1 again, even though it’s just the 2 blinds. Flop was Kd, Jc, 3s. Eh, I bet the pot of $3 to see if my 3’s are good – BB calls. OK, that’s it, I’m done. Turn is the 2d – wait a tick. I bet $8, which is half of the BB’s remaining stack, and he calls. River is the 5c and we check it down. 2-pair wins over the BB’s pair of jacks.

4) Another hour goes by without me playing a hand and I pick up QQ from the SB. There were 5 limpers and I pop it to $15 – and get 3 callers (image? what image.) OK, so the flop is a 9, 8, 5 and I bet $30. I would rather have bet at least $40 but my chip-stack was dwindling and $40 would have been more than half of my stack – which I don’t like to bet, I’d rather move-in than bet more than half of my stack – but I didn’t want to just move-in here. Anyway, everyone finally gets the message that I have a hand and they bail out. Yay.

5) So how tight was I? From under-the-gun I look down at AsJd and folded it. No one seemed to be giving my pre-flop raises any respect, so I decided not to play that over-rated hand (one that the "old" me would have played).

6) OK, so I again went through a long dry-spell of folding-folding-folding, and finally pick up AsKs on the button – I raise it to $10 and get 3 callers. Flop is a scary K, Q, 3 all in clubs. Seat 1 checks and seat 2 moves in for his last $36; seat 6 folds and I see that as it comes to me, seat 1 looks like he’s ready to fold – so it’s just me and the maniac. I consider what he's likely to have in his hand and I put him on 3 likely holdings: a) no pair/no flush and the bare ace of clubs b) a pair and a high club c) 2-pair. I didn’t put him on a made flush although I suppose he could make that play with 2 small clubs. I realize that I’m getting 2:1 if I call and decide that unless he’s already got 2-pair, I’ve got to call. So, I call and he flips over Kd Tc. Sweet! Everyone at the table flips out when they see that I don’t have a club and I know they were wondering at the idiot who made that call… Two red cards on the turn and river and the pot was mine. Man, that was a nice feeling to see that my read was spot-on. I didn’t say a word to the people who were saying that I made a bad call and got lucky.

7) One of the last hands I played involved 4 limpers and I looked down at AdKs in the BB. I seriously considered popping it but decided to check and hope for a good flop. Flop was 876 and I check-folded to a $6 bet.

That’s it; Ward wants to go, so we’re outta here.

I am most pleased with my read on hand 6 and was glad to see that hand hold up. I was able to spot a couple of tells on 2 of my opponents, but they were clear as a bell to me and I was a little disappointed I couldn’t do better in that area – but I’ll keep working at it.

Maybe I should focus on 1 tell-area at a time (like watching the eyes or the way they put their chips in) during each casino visit so I can get my comfort level back. Otherwise I feel like I’m looking at too many things at once and, likely, missing a lot. I also need to work on items #6 and #7 from my list above - but I think that may have to wait until my tell-reading skills are back in shape.

Anyway, more stuff to work on during 2008. Poker drawer is at an even $2,000.