Tuesday Bar Night

I know that I have already covered this several different times but it keeps coming up in my bar game in Clearwater. I go to take my seat on Tuesday night and take a look around the table. I have min bet guy to my right and only call never raise on my left. Across the table is any face card guy and next to him is min bet women (plays just like min bet guy) and lastly is I am the greatest poker player guy I can bluff anyone. Oh by the way blogger anniesaces was the only bright spot to the table. Here's her blog. http://lukbox.com/blogs/ann. So I am thinking it is going to be a long night and I am going to have to be on my toes all night. I play less hands then normal because I need a good hand in order to make any kind of play because of table. Play was very aggressive with big raises and lots of callers. I get to break and am up about 1000 in chips and am very happy about it. Play was less then stellar. Most of the players from above have all chipped up during the first hour. Can you say suckoutfest! Anyway in the second hour I getting short stacked and move all-in with big slick suited. I get two callers. One player that has moved to the table whom I respect and min bet guy who was big blind. He almost never folds to a raise if he is BB. Board comes all low cards and I figure I am done. Good player turns up A-Q and min bet guy has A-J and my A-K is a winner. LOL! I now have a decent size stack and can play again. I am able to take down a few blinds and am now the BB and have 10-8 off. It is folded all the way to small blind min bet guy and of course he calls. There is no chance he would ever raise in this position so great I get to see a flop. Flop is 10 and two unders. I have top pair. I move all in and min bet guy insta calls. What could he possible have? He has K-Q off and doubles me up and cripples himself. Oh don't worry he soon built it back up again. Down now to 12 and points start at 8. I am in need of points so I can play somewhat conservation until! I look down at JJ under the gun. I move all in. Any face card guy moves all in over the top of me and of course min bet guy calls off all his chips because it's min bet guy. I turn over my jacks, any face card guy has kings and min bet guy has 10-10. You know it! Flop is 10-whatever. Min bet wins again and I am out. It's ok. Even if I would have just raised preflop face card guy would ahve reraised and the same out come would have happened. So now we are on final table and blinds are moving up and we have lost a few players. Guy that has played very few hands moves all in and any face card guy thinks for a long time and calls and so does another player for less. So we have two all ins turn up your cards. Original better has QQ any face guy has Q-J suited (WTF) and other guy has A something. Any face card guy has called an all in for almost all of his chips with QJ suited. Wow! QQ wins the hand. The tournament winner is any face card guy! I must be doing something wrong. I believe that I play decent poker, not too tight not too loose, but I can't seem to win a tournament. Yet any face guy wins, min bet guy wins. Am I doing this all wrong? Can hardly wait for Sunday so I can do it all over again. At least they give me something to write about a couple of times a week. Thanks guys! New word of the week! Suckoutfest - definition- playing poker at the Legion on tuesday nights where the worst hand always wins! Come out and join us!

Another Crazy Night of Bar Poker

Another day another crazy bar poker game. It all started when I decided to sit on a different table then normal. I usually sit at the same spot close to the sign in table on table one. For some reason I thought a change might be good so I put myself on table 2. I finished passing out the draw cards and then looked over to see my spot with call anything to my right and any ace to my right. Player in seat one had been drinking since noon and the sad part is he might have been the next best player on the table. I decided tight aggressive was probably the way to play tonight and it was a good call. Play was very aggressive on the table with most all in being called and almost all preflop raises being called by several players. Drunk guy managed to spill his drink on table and chips twice in a span of about 5 minutes and made ridiculous raises preflop for the first hour. Finally call anything called him and sucked out on the turn to get rid of him. Thank god! LOL! I did mange to gain a lot of chips over the time and when any ace gave me over 7000 in chips with nothing I was close to chip leader. I moved over to final table first or second in chips and was able to take down many small pots early as play was very tight early on table. Then it happened I got a guy all in after the turn with two pair and he called all in with an open ended straight draw and hit on the river taking half my chips. The next few hands knocked several players out and we were down to 5 players. I was big blind for 4000 with 12000 more. I had 9-2 hearts on BB hand. Guy that hit straight called from early position and small blind called so I check. Flop was 9-8-3 rainbow. small blind checked, I checked and other min bet for 4000. Small blind folded. I reraise to 8000. He calls. Turn is a 10. I check, he bets 4000, I call all in thinking my 9 is good. I am right. He has A-7. River brings the 6 to give him a straight to beat me again. LOL! The rest of the tournament was one straight catch after was another until heads up which was a very good player against a very poor player who had the chip lead. It took about 5 hands for the good player to get all the poor players chips as they finally didn't catch on two flush draws two hands in a row. What a night!

Old Full Tilt Mag Article

I wrote this several years ago, but most of it I still believe today. Tournament Poker - Game of skill or luck? We have all heard the saying on the WPT tour telecasts, Texas Hold-em a few minutes to learn and a lifetime to master, but how true is that of tournament texas hold-em poker. As the owner of a bar poker business and a frequent player of local casino tournaments, I see more then the average number of people playing poker tournaments. I am beginning to believe that there is a lot more luck then skill in playing tournament poker. I also believe that ring poker requires a whole different set of poker skills, but luck still plays a role in the play. This isn’t based on any study or scientific data, just my experiences. First let’s start with bar poker. Bar poker is just as it sounds poker tournaments at local establishments with little or no entry fee and small prizes to the winners to bring more business to the establishment. Players are generally beginners, people that love to compete but don’t want to play for cash or player wanting to improve their reading skills. It never seems to fail that someone will tell me that this is their first time in a tournament and then later I will see them at a final table, now these people may have played cards before and know the basic of the game, but skill has nothing to do with how they are doing. Most will play lots of hands and catch a few cards and win their races and make the final table, then lose when they don’t change gears when the blinds increase. Then the very next week they will be the first one out because they didn’t catch the right cards. Next is lower stakes poker tournaments, say $50 and below. These tournaments fall not too far ahead of the bar poker games. There will be more players entered, which means less skilled players and more chances of being taken out by a lesser hand. Play tends to a little erratic at first because most start with a small amount of chips and the blinds rise quickly. They want you playing ring games not remain in the tournament, because that is where they make their money. You must get some quality hands in the first couple of blind levels and avoid the suck-outs to survive to when the blinds get so high that it’s all-in or not play the hands at all. Then to win the tournament you must win your all-ins or race opportunities. Mid range tournaments fall in $100- 500 ranges. Because of the higher entry fees there are generally less people willing to risk that much money on a poker tournament, so higher quality of play. You will usually start out with more chips and the blinds will increase slowly meaning more of a chance to only play premium hands. But yet even at this level they are always players that money has less value then most and to them $500 is not much different then playing a $50 buy-in. At one such tournament recently I watched as a player won with 8-3 unsuited and a little later won with 2-4 suited, it is very difficult for me to say that he won because of his poker skill rather with his luck. He made the final table but then lost out when he called an all in on an Ace- 3 suited and lost to pocket aces. So did he make it farther then me because of skill or was it just luck. I’m not sure but he placed in the money and I didn’t when my pocket queens lost to Big Slick. High Stakes or professional tournaments. These fall in the $1000 or higher buy-ins and consist of tournaments like the World Series or WPT events. I have not played a lot of them but have played a few. Generally you will start with 10,000 in chips and blinds will start at 25-50 and raise hourly. Almost all the players are highly skilled, math wizards, or corporate high rollers. (What am I doing in these tournaments?) They have read all the poker books and live and breathe poker. Play tends to be much slower with only big pots if two players get big hands. Most times it comes down to race situations that you must win in order to survive. What wins the race situations? The person that gets lucky. If they win enough of those situations you will make money or have a chance to win the tournament. I also believe that luck plays a little less then other levels because you will have to lay down a big hand at some point to survive in a tournament of this skill level. In the end the people that make the finals are the ones that got luckier then the ones that lost. Phil Hellmuth says that if poker were only a game of skill he would win every tournament, well I don’t know if that is true but luck has a lot to do with the outcome of all Texas Hold-em tournaments. To win a tournament one must put oneself at risk many times in a tournament and to survive you must get luckier then the people that you are against. Skill is an important part of tournament poker but the getting lucky at the right times is more important.

Heartland Week

Unfortunatlely my week is done at the Heartland Poker event at Milacs. I played the $250 qualifier on Thursday night along with several buy-in winners from my bar games. There were 79 player in the qualifier so 15 adavnced to Sunday's finals. Started on a table way to the back of the room, so I knew that it wouldn't be too long before my table broke. Starting stack was 10,000 with 30 minute blinds and 100-100 first level. Table was very tight except for one player that almost every hand. Took down a nice pot early with top pair and ranged up and down from 10,000 to 12,000 chips. During the first two hours, I was surprised at how many players were being knocked out. Table next to us lost 3 players in the first two blind levels. I knew someone on the table and asked what was going on and he laughed and said it was crazy with most of the all-ins coming preflop. There were lots of big pairs. At first break, I had 10,500 chips. I was happy with this considering the table. Shortly the table broke and I headed to my next table and then went on a long stretch of no cards. At these blind levels you need to start to chip up and I tried to make a few plays, but it wasn't working. Now at 7500 in chips with blinds and antes increasing. I look down to big slick suited and raise to 2400. Big blind calls and flop is Q-7-3 rainbow. I bet out 2500 and BB thinks along time and calls. I was pretty sure that he had a pair and I was behind. Turn was another low card. We both checked. I could have pushed in but I was convinced that he would call. River another blank and BB puts me all-in. I fold and am now down to 2500. I now had about 8 hands left to play before I would have to be all in on my big blind. Two hands before my BB I looked at my first card and it was an ace. I decided that I would push without looking at other card. then the guy to my fight under the gun pushes all in. I decide i better look and see A-4 off. I know that I should still push in, but iam thinking that I probably don't ahve live cards so i should wait until next hand. I fold. he gets called and flop comes A-5-6. Long story short I would have won if I hadn't looked at my other card and just called. Ended up all in on big blind with 7-5 off against one player with k-10. I am ok with this and even hit a 5 on the flop. Only problem is he floped the nut flush and my night was over. Most of the other players from my bar group got knocked out soon there after except Dustin who managed to hang on to make the top 15 and qualify for the main event on Sunday. Congrats and good luck to Dustin. Went to the poker room and played 3-6 kill game for 4 hours to be up $2 after all that time. It was a crazy table and went up and down the whole time. The worst was flopping a set of kings and having 10-5 of spades river me for a flush with me betting hard all the way. LOL got to love low limit poker games. Last night at my bar game we had a big turn out 47 players. I usually don't play in this game and just run it and that was a good choice. It is the wildest bar poker game that I have every witnessed. Donkey poker, drunk people and multiple personalities don't mix. LOL! I ran a $5 sit and go for a few friends afterwards. We played Omaha split and I took it down, so the week wasn't a total loss.

Nice Suckout!

Went to Milacs to play the first event of Grand Series of Poker part of the Heartland Poker Tour week. $75 buy-in 1st paid $2000 not to bad of a payout. Was card dead most of the night and ended somewhere about 38th. All-in on big blind with 6-3 suited. I then went and played the cash game because the bad beat jackpot was over $40,000. Only thing open was 3-6 limit kill game. A kill game is when someone wins two hands in a row then the limits double to 6-12 and if you win the two hands you must post $6. It was not going very well and I am down to about $60. It is a kill pot and I look down at pocket kings. I usually don't like to raise preflop in this low of a limit game because if you do you usually create action by making the pot bigger, but I am short stacked and am hoping to make some money on this hand. There are two callers to me so I raise to $12. Very loose guy on the end calls. One guy folds. Last guy in raises to $18. Damn that smells like aces. I decide to reraise to $24 to try and get to heads up. But of course loose guy calls. Flop comes out three small cards with two spades. I am first, so I bet out $6. Loose guy calls and then guy I think has aces reraises. Damn he does have aces. I call to see one more card. Loose guy calls. Turn is 5 of spades making 3 spades and two fives on the board. I check, loose guy checks, aces bets $12. Loose guy and I both call. I know that I should have folded but I have so much invested now I might as well see the river. By the way I don't have a spade. River is the miracle card the King of spades. Jackpot I hit a full house and there is no way at least one them doesn't have a spade. I bet $12. Aces guy immediately goes on tilt and I know he doesn't have a spade. Loose guy calls and aces folds showing his aces. I turn over my kings and don't say anything. Loose guy turns over A-10 off with the 10 of spades and starts to rack the pot. LOL! I say I have a full house and you should ahve seen the look on his face when he realized that he had lost. Wow! Nice suckout Dave! LOL!

Rewarding bad poker play

Something ocurred to me last night at the end of my bar poker game that has had me thinking. It happens may times in bar poker, but I have seen it at cash tournaments. A weaker player ( yes, I am being nice! LOL) has a big card rush and it carries over all the way to heads up. Do you chop the prize with them. I know that in theory it makes sense to chop most of the time, but do you reward bad play and does that lead to more bad play. Last night a very strong player ended up heads up with a weaker player that had cards of a life time. Strong player was chip leader about 60 % I would guess, so not a huge amount. First prize is a $60 casino buy-in and second is a $10 bar certificate. Strong player has already won 2 buy-in. At heads up he asks weaker player if he wants the buy-in and he is interested. Strong player offers for $10 he will take the bar certificate and it's done. I asked him why he had done the chop later and he said that in his experience in bar poker chopping makes sense and he already had his buy-in. I can't fault him for his reasoning, but it still brings the question. Should you reward a player for bad poker play? If you have an opinion please post a comment on here, twitter or facebook. Had a great weekend at the lake. Beautiful weather and good fishing. Forgot my camera at the lake, so no photos until later this week. Tonight begin Heartland Poker Tour week at Milacs. Hope I have something good to write about later.

Wednesday Bar Game

More practice tonight for next week. I went to the Ultimate Sports Bar to play. My friend Fitz told me this was a poor player game and he was right. The good thing is a good player can weed his way though a field like this. I did make the final table and ended up 5th. It was an up and down night playing a lot of hands. For a change I had good cards most of the night. There was one interesting hand that happened early about 200-400 blind level. I have A-Q. Very loose player raises to 1200. I am debating on reraising and am looking around at other player still in the hand to get a feel for if they are going to call. There is a women that has a lot of chips and has not folded much and she had the 1200 in her hand. Now I know that if I raise she will call and then raiser will be pot commited to call, so I just call. Flop is Q-two small cards. Original better bets 1200. I call and so does women. turn is a none factor. Better bets 1200, I raise to 5000. Women insta calls. Better calls. River is a 7. Better goes all-in and has me covered. Now I am thinking he has AA or KK but not sure and I still have another player behind me. I decide to fold and live to play another hand. Women insta call again. Better turns over A junk and has nothing. Women has Q-7 and rivers me to win a big pot. I made a good lay down. After hand I look at the better who went all-in with nothing. How can you bet all those chips with nothing. I am thinking are you really that big of a dumbass and think that we will both fold to your bet. If I am heads up I call right away. The women put a wrinkle in my hand and got me to fold. I did mange to behave myself and call him a dumbass out load. After that hand I played every hand that the dumbass was in and he was eventually taken out. Make sure you check out a friends new Blog. http://anniesaces.blogspot.com/ Going to the lake for the rest of the weekend. Next post will be after Monday Tournament at Milacs, the beginning of Heartland Week. www.heartlandpokertour.com

Monday Casino Trip

Went to the casino on Monday got a room and stayed the night for my birthday. It was a chance to get some casino live play in before the Heartland Poker Tour next week. As most of you know I play a lot of bar poker and lately I have been tired of all the play that comes with bar poker. So a trip to the casino was just what I needed. Now the funny thing is I got there to sign up and find out a bar from the Twin Cities is bringing 40 players to the tournament. That is good and bad. More player means more money, but it didn't get me away from bar poker play. There ended up with 80 entries and twenty some rebuys. It was a nice payoff. I get to my first table and am happy to see a lot of locals. The table was on the tight side except for everytime I raised I got called. I was very much card dead for the first hour losing about 1/3 of my stack. blinds are 100-200 and we are nearing the end of the re-entry period. I am little frustrated that my cards have been so bad because there were chips to win and I hadn't gotten any yet. I limp in out of position with A-4 suited. Guy behind me makes a big raise. Everyone folds to me and I fold. Next hand I have q-10 suited and limp in again. I am trying to make something happen without to much risk. Guy behind me again raises to 1000. Everyone folds to me and I decide that I can't keep giving away 200. I call. Flop is 10-10-3 rainbow. Wow! I check guy moves all-in, I call and double up and then got a lecture about calling with Q-10! That was the highlight of the tournament. I won a few small pots and eventually became short stacked and pushed in on small blind to everyone folding with A-9 and BB calls with a pocket pair and wins. As a side note the top 3 chopped the tournament for $1100 each. Not a bad payout for a $60 entry. I now put my name on the cash game list and wait for a while and am finally called for a 2-10 kill game spread game. Kill game is if someone wins two hands in a row limits go up double and winner must post $4. It is a new table and I buy-in for $100. Most bought in for $200. My cards were a little slow at first, but that's ok. I like to set up a tight image to the table so I can get folds later. About 10 hands in I see the 2-10 hand of a life time. A women that has yet to play a hand raises preflop to $8. That was about the standard raise on this table and gets 4 callers. I fold. Flop comes Q-J-5 two hearts. Women checks and one player bets $12, one calls, one folds, women reraises to 24. Call. Call. Turns is 9 of clubs. Women bets 20 next player raises 20 other palyer calls, women reraises 20 more, next player reraises 20 more. Third player grumbles and calls, women calls. I figure women has a set of queens, first player must have K-10, and I am thinking flush draw on the other player. River card is a blank. All players check. Women turns over set of jacks, first player turns up set of fives, and third player turns up 8-10 of hearts for the low end of the straight for the winner of over $400. Wow! Now I look back and wonder why all the reraises on the turn. I see the $20 bet by the women and maybe the reraise by the first player, but to call 40 with the low end of the straight and a flush draw maybe I see it. Then the reraise by the women ok I get that. What I don't get is the 4th raise by set of 5's and then the call by the low end straight. I would have thought someone would have folded or at least just called instead of raising. Anyway it turned into a good night for me. Had Kings and queens both hold up for a couple of wins. Then after i won a couple of small pots in a row it was a kill pot and I had to put in $4. I had 7-8 unsuited. No one raises preflop. Flop comes 9-10-A. One player bets $12. I am last to act and decide to call and see one more card. Turn is a 6 giving me a straight. Player bets 20, I reraise 20. he calls. River is nothing. I bet 20, he calls with a set and i win a nice pot. Later I cashed out for almost $250 A nice 150 profit and covered my tournament buy-in ands then some. So it was a good time. Last night my kids surprised me for my birthday. We went out for dinner and then my son came to poker with me at the Legion. I didn't have great cards but made it to the final table and was card dead again most of the night. The best part of the night was they tapped the Leines Octoberfest for me. It is one of my favorite beers. I will have a whole post about the women that got second last night, but maybe later this week.

I have been playing a little more poker over the last few days. I am trying to get ready to go and play the Heartland Poker Tour event next week at Grand Casino Milacs. I have been in a poker rut the last two weeks. If I raise preflop no matter how much, even over bets, I am getting lots of callers and then not hitting a thing after the flop and then having to fold. An example is last night blinds at 75-150, I have big slick suited and I am two behind under the gun. Under the gun raises to 300. I decide to reraise hoping to get to heads up. I make it 600. 3 people behind me call and so does the initial raiser. Great! Flop comes all under cards and there is a bet and reraise before it get to me. I fold. Hand ends with small blind winning after calling a twice raised pot with J-9 and hitting a flush on the river. I have gotten to the point where I am not raising preflop because of the amount of callers I am receiving which is a bad idea. I will just have to keep at it until this streak ends. I played two sit and go style home games over the weekend. One was a limit horse tournament and one was a NL holdem one. I was consistant. I was the first one out in both events. I had good cards and was always one card short of winning. It was fun to play basically donkless games. I don't get that much where I play. Started my new old job today. It is like riding a bike. It came back very quickly. The good thing is I have a nice schedule. Monday-Friday days. Don't get that much in the restaurant business. More later this week!

MIn. bet or non raising styles in poker

Lately in my bar games I have been noticing an alarming trend among several of the regular players. They have become minimum bet players or worst yet only call players. The main trend is only calling pre-flop with whatever hand they have. They won't call with just anything. It has to be a hand that they believe is a good hand. It can range anywhere from A-A to J-10 offsuit. The problem for you as a player is you never know what they have. They could have a big hand or just a draw. They play it the same way. They will call any bet you make or check it if no one has bet. Here is an example from my bar game last night. I am the big blind with blinds at 75-150. They are 5 or 6 limpers to me. I raise it to 600 with 8-5 offsuit. I am hoping to take it down after the flop after getting some people to fold which only one person folds pre-flop. Flop comes K-J-8 two hearts. Small blind bets 500. I fold and there are two callers. The first red flag to me was the 500 bet by the small blind. He is a min bet guy. If he has a draw or less then top pair he makes a min bet always. So I knew he had a big hand. Turn is a J. Small blind bets 500 again with two callers. River is an ace. Small blind bets 2000. First player calls second player reraises 2000 more. Both players call. Reraiser turns over AA for aces full of jacks. Min bet guy turns over K-J for Jacks full of kings and other person turns over J-8 for Jacks full of eights. So the hand plays out as AA doesn't raise pre-flop, maybe she thought I would reraise pre-flop but I doubt it, and then doesn't reraise preflop. After flop she calls the small bet drawing slim, but why not call a small bet. But why doesn't J-8 reraise after the flop to try and get rid of any players or just win the hand right there. There is certainly enough in the pot at this time. After the turn AA is almost drawing dead. Once again why no reraise from J-8. River is the miracle ace and AA is rewarded for bad play and will continue to play that way because of it. There is so many things wrong with how this hand played out that it's sick. If AA raises pre-flop. Small blind calls with K-J because he thinks it's a big hand. J-8 and myself fold for sure. The rest of the hand plays out the same way because of betting styles. Now the question is how do you deal with this style player. I have had this conversation may times with my poker friend and a very good player Fitzwell. We have yet to come up with a great answer. My thought is you have to recognize this style as soon as possible and adjust your game accordingly. You must play with caution and be willing to fold the winning hand rather then risk too many chips. I have won many chips from this style of player when I am allowed in a hand with a weaker hand and hit on the flop, but also have lost many lo chips when flopping top pair with a good kicker losing to a bigger pair. I would love to hear your opinions on this subject.

Labor Day Weekend

Had a great Labor Day weekend. Spent most of it at the lake where the fishing has been outstanding. My wife and I caught many varieties of fish including several nice walleyes. Photos are coming soon to my facebook account. On Saturday we went to the MN State Fair. Wow was there a lot of people. I would not usually go on a Saturday, but had tickets for the concert that night. The fair was more of the usual. It was fun, but the concert was the highlite of the day. It was 38 Special followed by REO Speedwagon and then Styx. I had never seen 38 Special and they were awesome. They played all there hits and sounded just like I remember them. I have seen REO and Styx several times and thay are always good. The only problem is Styx hasn't changed their set in years and we knew what was coming all night long. It's ok because they still put on a great show. Reo is a little mellow in between the other two, but I can live with that. I went with my wife, my two kids and daughters boyfriend. They all had a great time as they brought in a bottle of peppermint schnapps in water bottles. Me I just enjoyed the music. Have not played much poker lately. I am now running all 3 of my bar games again, so that will change starting tonight. I will post more about poker later this week. Spent yesterday at my parents for a Labor Day family get together. It was fun. Played a few games and ate some good food. I was in charge of cooking burgers and hot dogs. It was very dificult as my parents grill sucks. I know what they are getting for christmas this year. It must have taken 45 minutes to cook the first round of burgers and I guess some still weren't done! LOL Hope I didn't make anyone sick! Next year may have to have it at my lake place. What a great weather weekend we had. I will have to remember this when it's -20 and snowing this winter. It weeks like this that make it great to live in MN. More later!