Archive for March, 2010
March 23, 2010
Filed Under (Cash 2010) by crumble on 23-03-2010
My regular reader will have noticed that I haven’t posted on here for a while. That’s because I don’t feel like posting when I’m losing … and this month I’ve been losing. Back to even for the year, in fact. I’d like to say it’s because I’ve been unlucky, but really I’ve just been playing badly. In order to break the monotony, I’ve been playing a bit of micro Omaha Hi Lo. This is a great game when you’re playing badly because everybody else plays it badly as well. So you don’t feel out of place as much as in NLHE, where most people play it pretty well these days. Take for example the hand below, which I picked out because it’s my biggest pot of that session. I played it so badly it actually hurts the eyes to look at it…
Despite that, I have some simple rules for playing this game… 1) Don’t bloat the pot pre-flop out of position. This is because hands change value hugely on the flop; you don’t want to be playing big pots down the streets with a dodgy hand out of position. 2) Play hands with scoop potential. Preferably both high and low, but high only hands are okay if you can get in cheap. Low-only hands and random A2xx types need to be played multi way because on most flops you are only playing for half the pot. 3) Either have the nuts or be drawing to the nuts; don’t be afraid of getting the money in when you are in good shape. The pot usually goes to the player that flops the best draw. I guess I obeyed (1) and (2) on this one, but (3)… well. I guess I knew he was a fish happy to get his money in with an overpair and a couple of backdoor draws. Talking of scooping, I see that PokerStars are bringing back that 2009 innovation, the SCOOP Poker Tournament (Spring Championship Of Online Poker), in May this year. This is special among the multitude of tournament series that has sprung up in recent years, because it’s three series in one. Each event has a low stakes, mid stakes and high stakes option. If I’ve got any money left in May I’ll be giving some of these a whirl. I’m especially tempted by some of the more off-beat games, like the mixed games, the Stud Hi-Lo and, yes, the Omaha Hi-Lo. Anyone want to stake me? Anyway, I’ll see you there, I shouldn’t wonder.
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March 02, 2010
Filed Under (Cash 2010) by crumble on 02-03-2010
By the standards of most online poker players I don’t play very many hands in a month. One of the effects of this is, there is enough variance that my most profitable starting hand varies from month to month, as opposed to the long term expectation that AA will win the most. So for instance the starting hand that I won the most with in January was QQ; this month was actually JJ. I was dealt JJ 28 times of which I won 85.7%, total profit $65.97. This was the biggest JJ pot:
Now you have to feel for Victim on this hand, it’s a bit of a cooler, although maybe he should have raised again pre-flop to get more money in the pot when he was definitely in front. Strangely enough, the biggest pot I lost with JJ also featured the Aces:
Again, I don’t like the way the villain played his Aces here. But with a 38 big blind stack it’s not really possible to play “properly” so I guess it’s wp, nh, onwards and upwards.
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