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!