NL Debate: What to do With AA in the Blinds?
Lets get a discussion started on this one. When playing NL hold'em, you'll often find yourself in the blinds with AA, KK, or QQ and be facing a large field of limpers. The standard play is to make a large raise, try and thin the field, and take the hand from there. Even if you do get just one caller however you'll often find yourself playing a big pot with one pair out of position, never a good combination. Furthermore, your hand is extremely defined to a narrow range and you'll rarely know exactly where you are.
We all remember the play where I had 66 in a 5-10 game and the SB player raised five limpers to $100, everybody called, and I eventually got him off of his hand on the river. A friend of mine recently told me about a hand in a similar situation where he was in the big blind with QQ, everybody limped to him, he made a big raise, a couple players called, the SB made a big re-raise, he called, and went bust on an AQx flop against the SB's AA. He felt that the SB played the hand brilliantly for several reasons:
1. It's impossible to put the SB on AA because of his limp pre-flop.
2. The SB avoids playing a big pot with an overpair out of position.
3. If the BB decided to raise, the SB has the option to make a huge re-raise and win a bigger pot with less risk.
There are obvious flaws to the limp in this spot, most noticibly the lack of protection and value for your hand.
I'm not really sure how I feel on this train of thought, so I wanted to open it up to discussion. Click on post a comment below where you'll be routed to my private blog, and then click comment at the bottom of the page.
Peace and good luck,
Devo
Devo Books a Winning Session!
First one since St. Patty's day. Today I made it into the Wynn to make my dialy donation at the table of torture of my choice. On the ticket today: 2-5 NL hold'em. I started out in the standard fashion, losing slowly, and never being up more than twelve bucks (no joke). Two hours into the session I had about $900 in front of me and limped on the button with the 43. The SB made it $35, six players called, and I tossed in six $5 chips. I love spots like this. The flop came great for me, Q44. The SB bet $50, everybody folded (LOL), and it was up to me. I really didn't know what to make of this bet. I decided to basically treat it like a check and made it $200. He called after some thought, and again I had no read other than the big OOP raise and the fact that he was still in the hand. He had almost $600 left, $680 in the pot. Turn 3. He checks, I put him all-in, and he beats me to the pot with QQ. Now what on God's Green Earth did I ever do to piss off the gods of statistical fluctuation that makes me so streaky?!? I mean seriously. I get cold decked so much in spurts.
So, here I am, sitting with $72 in front of me wondering how traffic is going to be, because there is no way I can continue playing with this abused dog mentality, and I decide to stick it out for the rest of the orbit, and I put another $1k on the table. Two hands later, aggressive guy makes it $15, other aggressive guy calls, I make it $60 with QQ, woman on the button calls it cold, and we see a flop four ways. 2 4 5 . Check, check, I bet $200, woman with $238 left calls , and both other players call! What in the wide, wide, world of sports is going on here?!? I loved the turn card of the 4 . Check, check, I stuff my last $810 in the pot because I'm pretty sure that both early players are on some sort of draw and it really doesn't matter at this point what the woman has, so I'm simply hoping that I have her beat or she has the A K and I can scoop this pot that's already over $1k. She puts her last $38 in the pot, and both the other players fold. One said he had a pair and a straight draw, and the other said he had a small diamond draw. The woman flipped over the A 3 . AYA. You gotta be kidding me. Show me aces or kings or something. Raise and big re-raise cold with that?!? But, hints of good things came with the 4 river, giving me a boat over her wheel. Dats right.
The next four hours were spent getting even, losing a few hundred, getting even, and repeat. I took a nice cooler with my flopped top two vs. middle set and somehow managed to lose the minimum. From there I actually busted a short stack when I flopped trips, turned the nuts and got action, and flopped my first set in over two weeks also getting action. I quit after 8 hours up $351, pretty stoked to book a winning session.
This Friday Jared, Danny, three of Danny's friends from work, and myself headed out on the lake for a day of the usual, but this time my plan was to stay until Sunday. I dropped Jared off on the dock and picked up Lara and returned to the beach. I then made one last trip across the lake to drop off Danny and the three others and then come back to camp.
It had been pretty windy throughout the day and with each successive trip the lake got even nastier. On the trip taking Danny and friends back we ran out of gas just outside of the harbor and had to refuel in the 3 foot chop. We got most of the 2 gallon emergency spare tank into the main tank, I dropped them off on the dock, and I was on my way back across the lake. It was pitch black, I had forgotten my GPS in the truck, I was running on about 1.5 gallons of gas trying to make a trip across the lake that usually takes 1 gallon, and the waves had gotten worse. They were up to 4 foot breaking waves with a good 30 MPH wind blowing across my starboard side. I was by myself and taking on water with almost every single wave I took across the bow. The water was cold, about 62 degrees, and I was scared. I had my PFD right next to me. I wasn't really afraid of sinking yet, but the possibility of getting bucked overboard was very real, as was running out of gas or running aground in the treacherous conditions. I was more scared than I had been since guiding in the summer of 2005,
I made it back to the beach safely and soaked. As I dried off by the campfire with Lara it got me thinking about the grand scheme of life and how winning and losing at poker really doesn't matter. I have been very scared recently of going broke and really not being good enough to beat this game, but those fears pale in comparison to the fear that I expereinced Friday night. It was a good, humbling wake-up call to remind me that life comes at us fast and we cannot control what will happen tomorrow, we can only live in the moment that is before us right now. This is so true in poker. It doesn't matter that three months ago I was beating the 100-200 game because right now I am having trouble beating the 2-5 NL game. All I can do is play my best tomorrow and be smart with the position that I am in right now.
Peace and good luck,
Devo
Temperature Rises, Blogging Falls.
I get so damn busy that my life is writer's block. So, since the last time I wrote it's been another crazy week. Super busy, but it has been good times for the most part.
My recent history in poker has been pretty damn discouraging. I am currently working on an article talking about how important confidence is to your game, and mine has been completely shot recently. After getting winning hands shoved up your ass so many times you start to play bad and then you start to let people catch up when they shouldn't, thus getting more hands shoved up your ass, etc, etc, etc. My problems have been further compounded by my lack of expertise in this game of no-limit, so I am not used to the swings or the textures of the game. I have personally gotten to the point that I am scared of playing, which is obviously not a healthy thing at all, and as a result I have dropped down to 2-5 NL, which generally plays like whiffle ball, to rebuild my confidence and bankroll.
Anyways, last Thursday I met up with some friends from Minnesota who were in town for a few days. It was really good to see Kelly, Tammer, Dara, Gator, Riley, and Lindsey. We went and saw the Blue Man Group first. I'm actually still not really sure what I thought about the show. It was completely unique, carrying a theme community in the postmodern paradigm. The rythyms and visuals were stimulating, but there were several times that I thought to myself, "Is this designed for those stoned on something?!?" Anyways, it was worth seeing for me, but I'm not sure if I'd ever want to see it again.
From there we wandered over to the Bellagio, had a few more drinks, watched the fountians, and soon thereafter parted ways. I had about half an hour to kill, so took an open seat in a 10-20 NL game with $2k. By the time I reached my last hand, at the end of my 2nd orbit, I had $1400 left, had not won a hand, and had not raised pre-flop. I ended up getting it all in and lost to a 3 outer. Frustrating.
I arrived at the Mirage at midnight to meet Cantu, Fuller, Theo, and Ships for a night of going to Revolution and Seamless. But alas, Brandon forgot his ID, so he decided that we should all go drink in the poker room while he lost money to us. We agreed by starting a $60+10 sit-n-go, pitting five of us wanting nothing more than to crush one another mostly against Theo vs. 5 poor souls who had no clue what was about to happen to their normal paradigm of poker. First, Theo busted early after bluffing at every pot he was in (and he wonders how I could shove all-in with ATo :-), and we tried to convince everybody to chop up the $1500 last longer pool to further needle Theo. Rick disagreed, and naturally busted next. Dumbass took 88 up against A8. From there Cantu ran like God and then promptly gave all his chips to Ships. I found myself immediately to Ships' right with a 5.5-1 chips disadvantage. I offered him to give me $500 of the last longer pool, and he settled on $400. Now, obviously you know what's coming now... I ran like God and won the damn thing. This, of course, is far worse than busting out, because now Ships will be able to give me a ton of grief for a while on how I am the worst surrenderer ever.
After I finished the papers for my tournament win (no joke... I had to fill our tax papers for winning a Mirage $60+10 tournament, total cash prize of $420, and I can't even write off the enrty fee) I took an open seat in a 20-40 game containing the previously mentioned individuals that was pretty much going off the hook. Some highlights include:
Cantu and Fuller raising tons on all streets, and then by the river, Cantu checks, Fuller bets, Cantu check raises, 3-bet, 4-bet, and finally Fuller shows his nut nine high and says somehting like, "I know you don't have anything, but if I raise you'll just raise again, and I can't beat much with nine high," and folds. Cantu promptly shows his nut six high and takes down the huge pot.
Fuller slowrolling Theo at showdown: Fuller shows a Jack, Theo proudly shows the nut jack high, and then Fuller shows a 5, good for a pair of fives.
Fuller and I in a battle of the blinds. I 3-bet with A2o, flopped TT2, he check-raised me, turn 3, he check-raised me again, river A and he check-raised me again. Yeah, Fuller took me to trifecta town, and I'm damn proud of it too. Ace high is usually good against that monkey.
Anyways, from there we headed to Seamless to enjoy Brandon's lifetime membership to the joint. Good times.
Friday I spent most of the evening hanging with Lara. Saturday I worked all day, playing 2-5 NL for 9 hours and winning $1400. From there we wandered over to O'Sheas for the St. Patty's day block party. Sunday was more work playing 2-5 NL, winning a whopping $41. Sunday would end up turning out better than Monday though because I would have had $841 extra dollars in my pocket. I pretty much got tortured on many hands and enjoyed zero hands.
Monday night, though, would turn into a pretty good night. I met Jared at 2:30 AM at his work Half-Shell. Then we drank for a while, and then we decided that were going fishing early in the morning. Clearly this was a fantastic idea since we didn't have a chance of ever waking up and getting a boat on the lake before dawn, so we might as well pull an all nighter to get the job done. We were all fired up, got out on the lake before sunrise, had beer, red-bulls, krispy-kremes, and chocolate milk, and we were motoring out toward the narrows. Then, Jared shoved the throttle forward, we both heard a loud snap, and the rpm's died. Well, guess it was about time for something to break on the boat. We'll have to get that replaced so my life can continue. I finally went to sleep around 8am, slept til 7pm, spent the evening with Lara, and have come here to have movie time and write this blog.
Devo out.
Peace and good luck,
Devo
An Epic Week; Stardust Implosion, Lake Days, and Skydiving
A note to those reading this blog: the pictures did not transfer over. You can see them on my pokerpages blog or my myspace blog.
Oh yeah. I did play some poker. My my my... it's been quite a long time since I've blogged and nearly every day in the past week was deserving of it's own blog. So, we'll start from the top: Last Tuesday.
Lara and I went to Red Rocks to do some hiking and check out some climbing routes. The place is absolutely gorgeous, and I will definately be spending some more time there. On the way out I saw an off road trial leading out of the west side of the park and we decided to take it. I put the truck in some pretty gnarly spots, but we were able to finish the road/wash and make our way out... halfway between Pahrump and Las Vegas. We decided to do dinner in Pahrump, a small town outside of Vegas which is known for it's legal brothels. Good times.
Wednesday was highlighted by our first two softball games of the season. We are team (that other poker media company). Players include Mark Gregorich, Adam Speigelberg, Jim Shipley, Rick Fuller, Blake Pengelley, John Fruitkin, Topher, Jared, Danny, myself, and a few of Mark's friends. Such a fun squad! Suprisingly there have been no side bets won or lost, although I did offer the umpire $20 to throw Ships out of the game. He declined. We won both games by a significant margin.
Thursday I played poker and I played really bad. I made two bluffs, one for $1k and the other for $800 that never had any chance of succeeding. Dumb dumb dumb. I ran bad for another $700, and then lost $510 taking 5% of John Turner in the Wynn $10k. I was pretty frustrated with myself.
Friday was almost as bad, losing $2510, but this time I played very well. I got two outed for a $5700 pot. It was pretty dirty.
Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Saturday I spent the day on the lake with Travis, Jared, Jackie, Kelly, and Lara. It was a beautiful day, everybody had a good time, nobody played hot stick, and we were off the water by 5pm. We had dinner at Jared's work where the Jim Beam girls were doing promotions. They were selling shots for $3 which included a free shirt and a raffle ticket for a bunch of prizes. Grand prize: two tickets to the NASCAR race Sunday. I won. Devo: run bad at poker, run good at raffles.
Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Sunday morning I woke up having no desire to go to a race, so Lara headed out and scalped the tickets. Easy money baby... I headed in that night to do some work, and lost again. It was only a couple hundred bucks, but certaintly getting annoying.
Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Monday came along and I had been excited for this day for a long time. Monday night was the night they were going to implode the Stardust. I have some special memories from that place and was sad to see the last of the mobster run joints hit the dust. Before heading over though, Travis and I played some 2-5 NL, and whaddya know, I actually booked a winning session, $751 to the good side.
Travis and I headed to the roof of the Circus Circus Parking Garage #2 for an up front view of the implosion. People began trickling in as it got closer to implosion time. At 2:30 am, the coolest fireworks display I have ever seen began right in front of me. At 2:33am, the Stardust went down. It was one of the absolute coolest things I have ever experienced in my life.
Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Wow wow wow. Absolutely incredible. I shot video of the event too, and if I can ever find the bandwith to get it uploaded to youtube I'll be sure to post the link for y'all.
Travis and I closed the joint down on the roof of the parking garage and eventually made our way into the Circus Circus. It was quite a vegas moment in there. There was an unmistakable haze in the casino air. Several people like us were walking around covered in dust. And sitting at many slot machines were people with painter's masks over their face, punching buttons and pulling handles like it was just another night in Vegas. Quite strange.
The following day I drug my butt out of bed at 11am to go do more boring stuff. Brandon Cantu, Rick Fuller, Nicole, Angie, and myself were going to go jump out of a plane.
Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Half of you just thought, "He's nuts." The other half thought, "Sweet!"
I have always wanted to go jump but have never really had the opportunity or the spontaneous drive. Today was the day. It was a perfect 85 degrees outside with a mild breeze. They put us in the room above and showed us a short orientation video. We then were put in jumpsuits, and then had super-duper harnesses strapped on. The furniture was definately in the middle of the room boys. Since they could only take up 4 at a time on the plane we were broken up into two groups. Rick, Angie, and myself went up first. Ang was going to be the first one out of the plane. I beat Rick at rock, paper, scissors and chose third. I was completely psyched the entire time and had zero fear whatsoever until while at our cruising altitude of 15,000 feet, Angie went out the door and was GONE. Vanished. She fell so fast that Rick and I literally could not see her. Rick knelt at the edge of the door and his instructor said, "Okay, ready? On three! One..." WHOOOMP. Out the door. Gone. OK. My turn! I shimmied over to the door and before I knew it I was tumbling completely out of control falling at 120 MPH towards the earth. Eventually my instructor gained control of the freefall and we were cruising in the "bananna position." It was so loud and incredible. The air was crisp. I had my breath literally taken away by the swift, cold air. My instructor taught me how to rotate using my hands and legs during freefall, and it was incredible. We fell for about 60 seconds and popped the chute around 5k feet. After a sudden jolt I was greeted by the sound of absolute silence. Here I was, hanging from a parachute, a human strap on for a 35 year old man, and we both took in the beauty of Lake Mead, Hoover Dam, Black Canyon, the Colorado River, Boulder City, the Strip, and the rest of the Las Vegas basin. Unbelievable.
We slowly decended to ground level, made a soft landing, and I was going nuts. Whooooo! So freakin sweet.
Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
So, not wanting this epic day to end, Rick, Angie and I decided to head out to the Lake. Bad news: when we got home the boat was already gone! Punks Jared and Danny had the same idea. Kelly said they left like 20 mins before us, so we decided we would catch them. Got to the lake: boat gone. Nobody's answering their cell phones. Bummer. Alas, quick thinkers that Rick and I are, we decided to rent a Sea-doo, scoot out to find the boat, bring the boat and sea-doo back, drop off the sea-doo, pick up Ang, and continue on with the day. Problem: we couldn't find the boat anywhere. We learned later that they had actually left an hour and a half before us, not twenty minutes before, and they headed to a completely different part of the lake. Oh well... it was still a sweet time on the lake.
On the way back we saw a huge column of smoke coming from the basin. There was a half-mile wide brush fire buring just off Boulder Highway and Russel. We went and gawked a bit, and then headed back to the house. I set Rick and Angie up on my bike and they headed down to the strip, and at that point Jared called, getting all my messages, and said, "Come meet us on the lake!" Punk. Tried that once. But, ok! I'm in.
It was awesome. The night air was super warm. We ended up doing a cliff jump at 12:30am. So sweet.
Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Phew. Almost done. Wednesday, Rick and Angie returned on the bike, and we immediately returned to the lake. Another beautiful standard lake day. I don't understand how so many locals hate that lake! It'a absolutely awesome. We got back at 6:30, I showed them videos of the sense killers, and we were off to play some softball.
Tonight's games were a total joke. We won both games by over twenty runs and they were called on the mercy rule by the fourth inning in both.
Hope you enjoyed that blog... I sure enjoyed the week.
Peace and good luck,
Devo
Upsetting Article on ESPN
The water's starting to boil... First, go read this article: D'Amato shows poker face.
I stumbled across this article reading Daniel's blog, and his thoughts on the article pretty much sum up mine as well. The comments on the espn page are also quite good, looking at how many people are disgusted by the article as well.
The issue here is so much greater than poker itself, however. I mean honestly, online poker isn't that big of a deal in our lives. It didn't even exist ten years ago. Now, I believe that many lives are better with online poker, and I am not agreeing with the UIGA, I'm just stating that compared to the major issue at hand online poker really doesn't matter.
I have heard an analogy about a frog, a pot of water, and a stove. If you boil the water and then dump in the frog, the frog will jump out of the water - it's too damn hot. But if you put the frog in the water and then boil the water, the frog's a goner. He will swim around as the water gets hotter and hotter, continually getting used to the rising temperature of the water. By the time the frog realizes anything it's too late.
It is pretty much the same way with this country today. I wrote a blog in Nov 2004 on the Bill of Rights and how nine of the ten are violated every single day by our government in this great nation. You can read the article here: "Which Do You Prefer: Unpleasant Truths or Comforting Lies?"
Over the past 70 years the government has slowly been taking away our freedoms and infringing on human rights. Up until now, I had not been directly involved in any of these. But with the passing of the UIGA, the freedoms of 28 million americans, almost ten percent including myself, have been infringed.
What is next? Are they going to make it harder to drive a car? They're set up to. We've given them control by allowing them to change driving from a right to a privelage with driver's licenses and vehicle registration. We've allowed them to create criminals out of people who haven't done anything to anybody. Beginning in 1917, our government began trying to legislate morality in this country, and it failed miserably with the period of history known as the prohibition. Lessons were not learned and history has repeated itself.
Today, due to the Patriot Act, YOU can be sent to Guantamano Bay if you are suspescted of being a terrorist or being involved with terrorists. You can sit there forever, never be charged with a crime, interrogated daily, and be left to rot for as long as the government feels it is necessary. Pretty unpleasant feeling to me.
But, nobody does anything because they're not directly affected. I think it's sick that people get sent to Guantanamo without being charged, but I don't know any of them and I'm not being sent, so I really don't care that much. I can talk about how wrong it is, but nothing will change unless we do something.
But now many of us are being directly affected by the actions of the Government of the United States of America. I had $3,500.95 seized as evidence in a money laundering case. I'm sorry, that is my money, and I want it back. I had my right to play online poker greatly infringed, and I want that back. I want the government to stop meddling in our daily lives. I want the government to stop making it a crime to own a firearm. I want the government to stop inventing victimless crimes, packing our jails with those "criminals," and then passing the bill on to us. I want the government to stop meddling in the capitalistic economy and let things return to the state of a free market. I want to live in freedom, not afraid that my right to go to church or visit family or travel out of the country will be taken away in the future. Those are the issues that we will be facing next, and this online poker fiasco should be our wake up calls.
Peace and Good Luck,
Devo
Venetian $300+40 event 8 NLHE, and a Weekend on the River
Time to catch up. Last Thursday I played in the Venetian $340 NLHE event. I was chip leader at the second break. Then I won zero chips in the next three levels. Then my KK ran into AA, and then I stuffed with AJo on the button holding 4m's after two limpers and ran into Shawn Rice's KK in the big blind. I take 49th, 27 paid.
That's all for poker, because I'm annoyed with poker right now.
This weekend, however, was absolutely awesome. It was Jared's birthday weekend and seven of us guys headed south to party on the river. Here's the general chronology of the trip:
Launch the pontoon boat in Needles at 4pm Friday with Jared, Nick, and myself on board.
Boat upriver to the Avi casino
Meet 4 more guys, party for a while, play some drunken 2-6 spread limit, put everybody on the boat and float downriver.
Everybody in bet by 3am and up by 11am. What the?!?
Hit rocks at the boat with golf clubs and a hockey stick trying to land them on the roof.
Boat across river and play bocce ball.
Pay Nick $100 to swim across the river (Colorado River... it's wide). Water temp: 52 degrees.
More boating, more fishing.
Jared and Casey did sense killers. Snort a line of salt, squirt lemon juice in eyes, take a shot of nasty tequila, and get boat air horn blasted in ear.
At this point we drove to laughlin, and it was Saturday afternoon. Rest of the weekend pretty much had the same flavor. Good times.
Peace and good luck,
Devo
|
