Sunday, July 24, 2005
Low Rolling
I span up a few tournaments this morning and played absolutely dreadfully. Or at least it felt dreadful, every flop seemed to miss me but I knew I was playing poorly too. Every time I tried to play poker with someone it went horribly wrong. What I need to do right now is focus on my early-round / big stack strategy. I know how to play a short stack upside down and back to front, so I should be practising on what I'm not so good at.
And as it happens I was watching one of Jesse & Padraig's shows today (a few more have popped up even though the Series is over) and Scott Fischman was on. I have to say that previously he has come across as a complete tool on ESPN and in text interviews but to be fair he talked a lot of sense in this. He was saying that Internet poker is a great practice ground for trying new things at whatever level, you can play as low as you like, the money doesn't matter.
So I fired up a couple of small tournaments with a view to playing a lot of hands and taking it from there. One of them was a $4 satellite on Paradise for those who can't afford $30 for their rebuy tournament :-). Apparently 60 such people do exist, or at least 59 plus me, and it worked reasonably well, I pumped up to about 7K before the blinds reached the point where I would have to fall back on normal short-stack strategy. At this point it was just funny. There were 8 seats and 3 prizes of, wait for it, $0.12 $0.10 and $0.07 . So with 12 of us left we were playing hand for hand for a 7 cent bubble. The pressure ! Anyhow I took the blinds and made a call I probably shouldn't have, lost and was reduced to auto-folding and hoping that the lower stacks would bust out before me. And I was still getting angry with all the people doing stupid things in all in pots like they do at this level ! At any level come to think of it. Anyway I made it in the end for my $30 seat !
Greg Raymer has said that one of his main strengths is being able to play his best game no matter how big or small the stakes are. I can do the second bit. That must be a start at least.
And as it happens I was watching one of Jesse & Padraig's shows today (a few more have popped up even though the Series is over) and Scott Fischman was on. I have to say that previously he has come across as a complete tool on ESPN and in text interviews but to be fair he talked a lot of sense in this. He was saying that Internet poker is a great practice ground for trying new things at whatever level, you can play as low as you like, the money doesn't matter.
So I fired up a couple of small tournaments with a view to playing a lot of hands and taking it from there. One of them was a $4 satellite on Paradise for those who can't afford $30 for their rebuy tournament :-). Apparently 60 such people do exist, or at least 59 plus me, and it worked reasonably well, I pumped up to about 7K before the blinds reached the point where I would have to fall back on normal short-stack strategy. At this point it was just funny. There were 8 seats and 3 prizes of, wait for it, $0.12 $0.10 and $0.07 . So with 12 of us left we were playing hand for hand for a 7 cent bubble. The pressure ! Anyhow I took the blinds and made a call I probably shouldn't have, lost and was reduced to auto-folding and hoping that the lower stacks would bust out before me. And I was still getting angry with all the people doing stupid things in all in pots like they do at this level ! At any level come to think of it. Anyway I made it in the end for my $30 seat !
Greg Raymer has said that one of his main strengths is being able to play his best game no matter how big or small the stakes are. I can do the second bit. That must be a start at least.
# posted by Andy_Ward @ 4:01 PM 
