Secrets of the Amateurs

One good thing about playing these tournaments is I've had a chance to chat with a few of the online guys - Moorman, johne147, railtard, rivermanl and probably a few more I've forgotten. It's very refreshing to see how well these guys and a lot of the younger players conduct themselves, as well as play. In part, I think it's because they realise that one tournament in isolation is just a massive luckfest and they don't take it too seriously ; but it's mostly because they're smart enough to realise that sending out bad vibes all the time is bad for your EV in the game and, more importantly, bad for yourself personally.

One thing a lot of them do is insta-fold in situations where they've been caught bluffing and have no other option left. Now, a lot of live pros never even think about showing some consideration for other people and keeping the game moving so I don't expect them to buy that argument. What they need to realise is that insta-folding is much better for your image than fake-tanking. It's much better to send out the message "I'm either bluffing or I'm not in these spots, and you have to guess" compared to "My range contains a lot of medium-strong hands that I've raised without thinking the consequences through and am now going to tank-fold". Then again, aforementioned live pros would also have to a) have some basic grasp of the concept of a range and b) realise that call is miles better than raise-fold with medium strong hands in very many situations.

While I'm here I busted the main event 10 minutes from close yesterday when I ran into Aces. Villain took 30 seconds to call with no one else in the pot for some reason. I opined at the time that this reason was that he was a fucking cock, not being able to help myself after a long day. Needless to say he was some old rock, not a pesky three-betting, range-merging kid. Oh well, at least there's still some value in the fields.