Pocket Hearts!

Sunday night I ran poker for the 1st time in a long while. It was actually kind of fun for a change. Sunday is not exactly a quality game and my table was filled with challenges. I continued my aggressive play and did the massive swings for the 1st two hours but did manage to make final table and then go card dead. In a way I was card dead all night but the aggressive play made up for it. They were many interesting things that happened but one stands out to me. A female player that I don't get a chance to play with much made a comment after a hand was over that just stuck with me. She said that she had called my preflop raise because she had a flush draw! LOL! Really! She had a preflop flush draw. I think we all have a preflop flush draw every hand. Sometimes it takes 3 cards sometimes four. LOL! I guess that explains a lot about her poker game. It is probably one of the most over played hand in bar poker. "pocket hearts" Having two suited cards in your hand can sometimes be a good thing but you have to realize that the odds of you hitting a flush preflop are slim. the odds of you getting suited cards are about 23%. the odds of you hitting a flush draw on flop are 11% and then you only have a 33% chance of making the flush. I am not a math expert but it seems that the odds of suited cards preflop making a flush must be under 5%. So to this women I say you keep playing your suited cards and giving me you chips. I'm all for it!

Women in Bar Poker

This past weekend was the last event of the 2011 CMPPA and with the end of the main event it's Player of theYear and the St Cloud Series of Poker Player of the Year honors were given out. Player of the Year is based on outcome of all events in the 2011 season and SCSOP POY is based on 4 events that include Omaha split and a H.O.R.S.E. tournament which is a mixed game event. Both this year were won by one of our female members Amanda Mock. The CMPPA had 6 female members this year out of a total of 46 members. Amanda is a very talented poker player that plays a lot of online poker and very deserving of winning both honors. This has lead me to a question that I feel needs to be discussed. Does a good female poker player have an advantage over her male counterparts?
I believe that they do. Most females play bar poker because they are following someone else that likes to play poker either a spouse or a significant other. Most play very docile and only call. They rarely raise and will fold if you put pressure on them. They do become better as they play more but usually don't change their play much. They are predictable and you usually know where you are in a hand with them. Now, I  know that this is a generalization, but most players believe this to be true. A good female player that plays poker as it should be played with a combination of good play and timely bluffing has an advantage. This is because the average bar poker player will tend to believe this player when they bluff because of their belief that women don't bluff. A good women player then should never show her bluffs, because this may help change the men players that she plays with to realize that they are being outplayed.  So to Amanda I say great job in 2011, but watch out in 2012 as I have just let the cat out of the bag!

CMPPA Main Event

This last weekend was the Main Event and last event of the year for the CMPPA. Up for grabs was the Player of the Year for the CMPPA, the St Cloud Series of Poker Player of the Year and the Main Event Champion. This is our only two day event with 30,000 in chips and one hour blinds. Turn out was good with 30 players making it. Myself and two others had a side bet on who would be 1st out and who would be last man standing. It was looking good for me early as my 1st man out horse lost 18,000 in chips in the 1st half hour, but then doubled up. It only took a little over an hour and one of the others picks were out and I lost on that bet. It always amazes my that you give a bar player more chips and instead of playing longer in a tournament they just bet more to make bigger pots and lose out just as quick. I decided to play the much more aggressive as I have been playing as of late. It sure made for a roller coaster of a day. I was down to as low as 15,000 and up as much as 60,000 by second break at 6 hours into tournament. What usually happens at our longer events happened again this year. Most of the weaker players get knocked out early and you are left with mostly good and tight players. After second break I looked around my table and decided that aggression was going to work well with the players on table, so I opened my game up quite a bit. I was at the time a mid size stack on table. the strategy worked pretty well except for one of the bigger stacks who was on my left was calling most of my raises and then reraising me either on the flop or on the turn costing me chips and forcing me to fold. It was frustrating for me but if I had his stack I would have played the same way and on top of that he was running hot and getting the cards to back it up. At about 9 hours in I raise preflop with A-K clubs and he calls. Flop is 8-7-2 two clubs. I make a good size continuation bet and he reraises and decide it's time to race him with my two overs and flush draw. I move all in and he calls with pocket 6's. A little risky play by him with two overs and the chance that I had an over pair but he had the chips to call. I didn't improve and was out. Looking back I am very happy with my play for the day. I certainly could have tighten up when I had a decent stack at that table but really felt aggressive was the right call. Maybe not as I was now on the rail. There was still 3 hours of play left. Dustin said that he would run until the end of night for me and I went home with 13 players left in tournament. I was expecting there to be anywhere between 8-12 players left when I showed up to run day two. Boy, was I surprised to find only 5 players left. Wow! I asked Dustin why so few and he said that the bigger stacks keep playing big hands against each other and knocking each other out. It created tow big stacks and 3 much smaller stacks. In a way two of the final 5 and money makers had folded their way to the money. It just goes to show how impatient bar players are in long blind level event. There was over 900,000 chips in play and the tournament made it to heads up at 3000-6000 blind level. Heads up lasted about an hour between Dustin Hoff and Amanda Mock. Amanda had a massive chip lead and Dustin was mostly card dead and playing much too passive for heads up. So, Congratulations to Amanda for winning the main event and both player of the year honors. They were well deserved. Which will lead me to my next blog soon about women in bar poker. See you soon!

WSOP Main Event Coverage

A big thank you to ESPN for finally covering poker the way it should be. Showing us the ins and outs of final table play including the long heads up play. Both players were deserving of the win heads up and can't find much fault in any of their play. Even though I didn't make it quite to the end when I went to sleep I was pretty sure that Pius Heinz was going to win. So many times on TV we only see the big hands or calls and don't realize all that went into making the calls or folds. I can only hope that more events will be covered like this one. I actually didn't even get bored with all the commentary by the hosts. It must have been quite a job being on TV for that much time. I even have a new found respect for Esfandiari and his reading skills, as most of the time his hand analysis was spot on. As you all know I play a lot of free poker and when you get to heads up in free poker it generally only last a few hands not hours. Chip stacks and blind levels don't allow the kind play that we watched last night. I believe that I will be able to improve my heads up play just from getting the opportunity to watch last night.

Balancing Tables

My last blog about free poker cheating brought about another issue that I felt was worth a discussion.
This is from Facebook by a local player Butch.

When moving players to balance tables TDA rules clearly state that the next big blind gets moved to the worst position. It doesn't give the option of moving any other position like one behind the dealer. All directors need to apply this rule.

Here is actual TDA Rule
In flop and mixed games when balancing tables, the player who will be big blind next will be moved to the worst position, including taking a single big blind when available, even if that means the seat will have the big blind twice. Worst position is never the small blind.

There are several local games that move from the exact table position to the exact table position regardless of where on the table it is, so using this way you could move from small blind to small blind.

I personally use the TDA rule as it is what most Casinos do, but I do see the logic behind the way it does make some sense. I think that the TDA rule takes into account the disadvantage of moving to a new table. You lose any reads you have the players on that table and then move to a table that you don't know anything or will have to take time learning about new players. In fact in free poker games it is not unusual for the player moving to be knocked out soon after the move. It can sometimes be an advantage to make the move. If table had lots of big stacks and you move to a table with smaller stacks. One tournament, I got moved from next big blind to along ways away from big blind and then before I was big blind again I got moved again away from the big blind. I was short stacked at the time and by not paying blinds I was able to limp my way into the money. Not sure I would have made it otherwise.

Free Poker Cheaters

I forgot about daylight savings time and falling back an hour, so I am up an hour too early. I figured I might as well write a new poker blog. I have had the opportunity to play a little more poker as of late. More time to practice my decision to become more aggressive in my poker game. It paid off with a 2nd place finish at the Ultimate last Thursday night. That in its self is a whole other blog that may or may not get written. The big talk the last few times that I have played has been about a local player that was caught cheating a few weeks ago. It really was not a big surprise to me as I have always known him as a cheater; in fact I had given him his last warning about looking at cards when he was not entitled too. Here are a few of the past things that have come up at some of my games. I am not accusing anyone of any of the following things; these are just things that have come up!




The latest- Player sits in the middle of the table and pulls pots into middle and stacks them in piles and then palms a few chips and adds them to their stack. Can easily happen in bar poker as we encourage players in the middle to help keep the games organized to keep flow going.



A player that deals for themselves and then looks ahead to the next card after the flop to make a decision on whether to play or fold. Most likely on draw and a little tougher to get away with, but have caught someone doing it.



A player that splashes the pot when losing a big pot, so that no one will know that the actually shorted the pot when counting out what they owe. This actually happens more than you think, so be watchful. A player can accidentantly do this is confused by the chip values.



Another a little less critical is the player sitting in the middle collecting cards and looking as players muck their hands. They are gaining information that is not available to other players.



Now on to tournament directors. They have the most opportunities and I once again I am not accusing anyone but have heard of this happening.



Adding chips to their stacks during chip up process at breaks. A good tournament director should never let another player help them with this process.



Setting up table with certain players at the beginning of a tournament. I will say that I have put a player occasionally at my table but more for a social aspect rather than to gain an edge in a poker game.



Now what to do with a player that has been caught. In most cases the player will be embarrassed enough not to come back, but not always the case. I believe that the player should be banned from free poker games forever. I think once a cheater always a cheater in games such as poker. How can you ever trust this person again? Now I know that they are exceptions to any rule, but think it should be an individual’s right to decide to let the player continue to play. One such player has recently started playing again locally after taking almost a year off. I find it very difficult to even talk to him. I see him and think what a cheater. I had very little respect for him before incident and have none for him now, so please don't act like I am still your buddy. I never was!



So, bar player, always keep an eye about what’s going on around you at the tables and make sure you let someone know right away if you think someone is cheating