Another Tuesday Night at Clearwater

It was another Tuesday night at Clearwater. It had been a good day so far. Work wasn't very busy. so I got off early and got to spend the rest of the afternoon at home with my wife before going to run poker. I was in a good mood and looking forward to playing when I arrived to set up. They have a pool team that plays there on Tuesdays and they moved the pool tables back to where we play poker so it makes it kind of tight back there. I had everything set up away from the pool tables and left them plenty of tables and space for them. Of course they were unhappy and were complaining about not having enough room, but we both had enough. It's a big place. What I didn't realize is that they play music all night and both speakers are by where we play poker. I felt sorry for the bartender because poker yelled at him if it was too loud and pool yelled at him if it was too soft. I will have to deal with this issue before next time now on to the game. I get to my table and look around. There were two new players this week and both were on my table. It became clear after two hands what one player intended to do. On the second hand he called preflop. After the flop he bet 2000 into a pot of 125 and everyone folded. He then won the next three hands in similar fashion. Now I am think I have to win some of these chips before someone else gets them all. I decide to play every hand that is not raised regardless of my starting cards and hope to catch a flop. After a few more hands I finally catch a decent flop. I have second pair with an open ended straight draw. Some else bets about the size of the pot. I call figuring new guy would raise but then folds. Now I am heads up and I know I am behind. Turn doesn't hit me but the bet made is small enough compared to the pot size that I call. I miss the river and have to fold. In the next two hands the new guy loses all his chips. In one he caught second pair with an ace on the board and bet all the way including the river into a tight player and lost all most all his chips. The next hand I have A-Q suited and make a bigger then normal raise trying to get him all in. He folds but other new guy and two others call. Flop is K-8-2 two hearts. Damn, I missed. It is checked to my. I make a big bet and hope everyone folds. Other new guy calls. I am dead. Turn is checked and he beats the river. I have to fold. I am now down to just under 2000 chips. Very next hand I have 10-10 in the big blind. There are several limpers including the now short stacked new guy and other new guy. I move all in hoping to get heads up with new guy and of course he calls all in for less, but the other new guy also calls. He has K-K and played the limp call move. New shows Q-6 off. Flop is Q- and two small cards. The rest doesn't bring a ten and new guy and I are both out after the first two blind levels. I guess that my strategy didn't work very well. It makes for a long night when you get knocked out early when you are running the tournament. Now to today's question of the day. When you have a player such as new guy on the table should you change your play to try and win those chips. I believe that it is worth the risk to try, but sometimes it goes as above. Or should you play your usual style and hope you catch a hand to win some of those chips? Comment away!

The one that got away!

It was my last trip up to lake until next year. I had someone coming to pull the boat lift out and I had to winterize the RV and water lines. The only boat left is my 16 foot fishing boat with a 25 hp motor only problem is no depth finder. I get a call from guys pulling my lift and they are going to call me back before they come out, so I decide to fishing while waiting. Now with no depth finder I am thinking this going to be tricky. I am hoping because it is Sat. that there will be several boats on the lake and I will just use them as a guide. The week before everyone was fishing for walleyes in a deep hole in the middle of the lake, so I head there first. Sure enough there are a couple of boats out there so I head over and start drifting towards them. It is not very windy so I am fishing over the side with a big jig head and a gulp shiner minnow. I get close and see that they are catching fish and are using their electric motors to hover over a spot and fishing straight down with jigs and minnows. I still don't know how deep it is but know that it has to be over 40 ft by how much line I am putting out. I hang around for an hour and don't catch anything and see them catch a lot between 14 & 17 inches. Nice eating fish.. Damn I should have bought some minnows. There are starting to be a lot more boats so I move to wind side of the other boats and start another drift. I feel something hit my jig and set the hook. It is a nice fish and I am thinking it must be a big walleye. I get it about 10 ft from the bottom and now I can't move it anymore. I am using a light weight walleye rod with 8lb Berkley Trilene Maxx line. It is now about 10 minutes in and I start to horse the fish to the top. My light pole is bent almost in half and I am worried about breaking it. I am making circles around the boat trying to keep up with this fish. After 15 minutes, I finally get it to the top and see that it is a huge Muskie. Easily over 3 ft in length. Now what I am I going to do. I am by myself with a tiny little walleye night. I decide I am going to have to hand grab it. It runs several times before I finally get it to the side of the boats. I reach down with a glove on to try and get in it's gills. I couldn't do it with the gloves on and it makes another run. I throw off my gloves and get it back to the boat. I reach down and get a hand in it's gill and start to raise it up. In order to reach it I hand to go down to my knees. I am trying to stand up and lift the fish at the same time. I have about half of it out of the water when it decides to make a few very hard shakes and I loose hold of it and it runs again, but it is getting tired. I get it back to the side of the boat and reach down and the line breaks. I throw the pole a side and pin the fish against the boat with both hands. I get a hand in the gill and start to raise it up and see that my thumb is in the mouth of the muskie and I am starring at some big teeth and his mouth is closing as I am lifting. I drop the fish and it swims under the boat and then comes out the back on the surface. I try and reach him with the net and it swims away. It was a lot of fun and the only thing I regret was not getting a photo of the fish. Even though it never made it in the boat It was one of the funnest fish I have every almost caught. I have been very impressed with the Berkley Trilene Maxx line. I bought it for my father that has a hard time with breaking lines and it is almost impossible to break this line. I usually use Trilene XL and am sure that I would have lost the above fish on the way up if not for the Maxx line. Thanks Berkley!

Another Tuesday Night!

It was Tuesday night and time for another classic night at my bar poker game. I had a very enjoyable first table with many players that I like to play with including Annies Aces http://lukbox.com/blogs/ann. I had a decent cards night and was able to put together a nice size stack. I was playing classic tight aggressive and it was working well. I told Annies Aces that I wasn't sure what I was going to talk about today, but I am sure that something would come up as it always seems to and I was right. The player to my right was a local regular that I have played with many times, but not taken a lot of time to analyze. This was the second time in a row that he was to my right. He is a player that limps often and calls a lot of raises preflop but seems to tighten his play as the tournament progresses towards the points at least that was my opinion before the last two sessions. I decided to pay more attention last night and try and figure him out. The first thing that I soon noticed that if you sit to his right is that he shows you his cards on most hands even if you are still in the hand. I am not one to usually take advantage of this, but it made it much easier to figure him out. If he had any face card he limped in. If he caught any one of his cards on the flop he will call no matter what size the bet is. If he has two face cards suited or not he will play all the way to the river unless it risks his stack without hitting. If he has top pair with any kicker he will risk his whole stack. He is always the last one to turn over his cards at the end of the hand and you can tell if he thinks he has the best hand as he sits up a little higher and almost starts to pull in the pot before he turns over his cards. In a way he slow rolls every hand that he is in. He doesn't realize that he is doing it. He is a classic bar poker donk. LOL! I can't say much about his style of play as he currently is ahead of me in points on my Tuesday night game. At least next time he is on my table I will be able to take advantage of his style and hopefully get most of his chips. Now for the question of the day to all you poker guru's out there. After a player was knocked out on another table last night he asked another player if he could speak with him to the side. I will call him Wayne and other player F. F was in the hand that Wayne moved all in on. It was F turns to act and he was talking to himself what he should do. Such as, if Wayne has A-K or Q I should call here. He wasn't talking to any player at the table. F folds and other pl;ayer on table calls ands takes Wayne out. His conversation is about F talking about the hand while another player is involved. F says that if he is doing something wrong that he would like to know as he considers himself a student of the game and will change his game if it is wrong. Now I know that it is one player per hand according to the TDA rules and I always have a copy of TDA rules at my tournament so we look. The only thing that comes close to covering the situation is this. 41. No Disclosure Players are obligated to protect the other players in the tournament at all times. Therefore, players, whether in the hand or not, may not: 1. Disclose contents of live or folded hands, 2. Advise or criticize play at any time, 3. Read a hand that hasn't been tabled. The one-player-to-a-hand rule will be enforced. He really didn't do any of the above. He was just talking out what his options were. I think it may be more of an ethical situation then one covered by the rules. What do you think? Is there a written poker ethics website or book?

Bar Poker Rant

Feeling the need for a poker rant about players that play bar poker. I know that when you play bar poker that you see and hear it all including they were suited, it's only free poker, or I was ready to go home. There are several of us that play a lot of bar poker and because it is most of the live play that I get I take it very serious. Some may say too serious, but I am person that if I am going to do it I am going to do it right. I play bar poker for the love of the game of poker and I look at all bar games as a chance to try and learn and improve my over all poker game. I always play to win. I am going to use last nights game as an example and I will state that I am not picking on the player or how he plays about how it went down and I have respect for his play most of the time, but this happen to me and others many times so I will use this as an example. I am short stacked last night at 2300 and basically waiting for an all in hand. I have A-Q off and know that when it gets to me I will push. Player A raises out of position to 1200 which is 3 times the blind. Player B that calls if he has any two face cards calls. I push. Both players call and flop is 2-3-5 rainbow. Player A bets big. Player B folds. Player A turns over 3-5 off for two pair and I am done. I under stand the calls after I moved all in because it's not that much more. What I don't understand is the raise with 3-5 preflop. I believe that if I would have had more chips and just called preflop that he would have pushed whatever the flop come out with to try and buy pot. So basically he plays bar poker to try and out play other players. My outlook of bar poker is that you can try and outplay people after the flop, but it usually doesn't work because many players will not lay down their draws or bottom pair so most times you better have the goods or you will get beat some of the times. He played several more hands similar and was soon knocked out. What I am wondering what did his playing this style accomplish. Did he learn that you can't bluff all the time in bar poker or does he just not care that much about a bar poker game. I certainly have raised before in bad position with less then stellar cards and won so I can see it as a play early in the blind levels. But to be knocked out playing weak starting hands that I don't get and maybe never will or better yet maybe I should try it one night and see how It goes!

League Bowling Night

Today I am going to talk about something different other then poker. After a few years off I have started league bowling again. As most of you know, I have been a bowler all my life and have worked as a manager and then owner of bowling center for over 25 years. When deciding where I was going to bowl league this season I had many choices. I could bowl at Granite Bowl downtown, Great River Bowl or bowl at a center out of town and have to drive a considerable amount. Granite Bowl is a bowling center where the lane condition changes each week and you have to bring a wide variety of bowling equipment because you never know what you are going to get. Great River has a high scoring easy lane condition where I would probably average 230 and not be that challenged. I could drive to one of several centers in the area that are 30 minutes or more away and then bowl with people that I don't know. In the end I chose bowling at the Granite Bowl and bowl with people that I know and accept that it will be a different condition each week and I have not been disappointed. LOL! The first week I bowled with my spare ball. For those of you that don't bowl, this a ball the basically goes straight and you use it to throw when you don't get a strike on the first ball. Week two I was able to move way inside and use some of my new equipment and managed a good night. Last night was a whole new lane condition with the shot changing about every 3-4 frames. I used every bowling ball that I brought to the center and had a poor night of bowling. Now I enjoy a challenge when I bowl, but when people bowl in a league they expect the conditions to be somewhat the same each week. I understand that weather can change a condition especially in a center like Granite Bowl. I believe that I have a lot of past knowledge about lane conditions and how to oil a center such as Granite Bowl. The first key is to not make drastic changes from one week to another. The average once a week bowler can't bowl on second arrow one week and then move to fourth the next. The second is to find an oil that doesn't break down every few frames. I chose the Granite Bowl for the challenge and am getting it and I can live with my decision, but what about the average Joe bowler that was averaging 180 last year and is now averaging 160. They just get frustrated and quit bowling. Now how is that good for the future of your business. OK, back to poker next post!

Final Table Play

I have been putting a lot of thought into my poker play, as of late I seem to make it to the final table or close to the final table in most tournaments that I play both cash and free. It seems that once I make it to the final table that I can't seem to get past about middle of the table. I want to blame it on the cards that I have been getting, but I know better, so it must be my play at this point in a tournament. I know that I need to be more aggressive but when the blinds get high I always seem to get called so even a semi bluff doesn't make sense to me. In most tournaments I would say that my play is loose aggressive for the early blind levels then turns to tight aggressive as the limits raise. I tend to be short to middle stacked when I get to a final table. Should I have the any ace mentality at this point in the tournament or just wisely pick and choose my spots based on cards and position. I would love to hear your comments! Last Thursday I was once again able to play in the Twitter Poker Tour event www.twitterpokertour.com As it was getting closer to time to play it was announce that each player would have a $5 bounty on them provided by Cuzzinlaw. Thanks for doing that for the TPT. Anyway it was very exciting to play a $5 buy in and have a chance at $5 bounties for each player knocked out. I decided to play a little more conservation then normal in the event and had a decent run of cards early to be up a few hundred chips. Play on the table was some what aggressive as players very after bounties. Maybe an hour in I look and have pocket kings. The pot was raised and called by two other player before it gets to me. I reraise the size of the pot. The original raiser pushes all-in and has me covered. I immediately think to myself, he must have aces. He must have aces. It is folded to me. When you play online you don't always get a lot of time to make your decisions. I decide in the end that I would call and risk my tournament. If he has aces I am beat but if he has anything else I will be way ahead. The cards flip over and he has pocket queens. Wow great call by me. Flop is all unders, turn gives him a straight draw and yes you know it, the river brings a queen and I am done. It was very disapointing. I guess the right move would have been to fold my kings preflop which I was very close to doing, but it is so hard to fold kings preflop. Plus a double up at this point in the event would have been big. Oh well, maybe next week!

Poker Terminology

Poker is a game that is full of names. There are names for hands. Names for ways of playing. I am going to throw a what I believe would be a new name out there. In poker if you have a pair in your hand and you flop a third one it is called a set, but if you have one in your hand and two come on the flop you have trips. I am not sure what difference it makes and am not even sure if the statistics of it are any different. I am sure some of you would know so please let mt know? This leads me to my new terminology of quads vs 4 of a kind. If you have a pair in your hand and two more come on the board you would have quads and if you have one in your hand and three come on the board then you have 4 of a kind. Once again I don't know if it matters but to me this is how it should be. I suppose it really shouldn't matter but I don't get very excited about making 4 of a kind over how I do when I get quads. Both are great hands and usually get you a lot of chips and in fact 4 of a kind will almost always be against someone that has a full house so I think your chances of winning a bigger pot are better. On the opposite there is no greater feeling then have a pair in your hand and getting quads. I have seen players almost jump out of their chairs on flops when hitting quads. It makes for an easy laydown if you are paying attention. This all comes about from me bar game last night. My friend from anniesaces won several big hands early and on one of her big hands she had quads vs full house and in fact the guy that lost actually had two different full houses. She is telling me this and I am trying to figure out how he had two full houses when it finally came out that she had 4 of a kind and that there was three of a kind on the board and he had paired the other two cards on the board from his hand. It may all be pointless, but it is my proposal. A pair in your hand you have quads and one in your hand you have 4 of a kind! Love to hear your comments!