Funny...

Another poem...

Our poker pro is in Vegas,
The big game he wants to try;
He goes to the Bellagio,
But the games are running dry.

He looks to cool down from the sun,
And sits by a cool air vent;
But the manager calls out for people
For the High Stakes Poker Tournament.

Our pro checks his bankroll,
And sees that his cash is high;
He shrugs his shoulders and thinks,
"Hey, it can't hurt not to try..."

He pays his buyin and checks
His seating assignment;
He hopes the table will be easy
And he will win the tournament.

Alas, his table is a bad one
From his personal point of view
There is Dennis, RainMan Khan, Barry G
And the pro Daniel Negreanu.

He takes his seat to Barry's left
And the action begins to start;
He looks at the pros and sees
That they make poker seem an art.

Barry G is playing hard
And is clearly not a poser;
RainMan Khan wins a pot
And shakes shouting "Bulldozer!!!".

Our pro thinks he has won a hand
But that point becomes rather moot;
As Dennis Philips wins the hand
And a horn behind him toots.

However, our pro gets a lucky break
When his aces beat Barry's kings;
He gets all of Barry's chips
And a free book as well...cha-ching!

That is the highlight of his day though
As the tournament goes on;
Hard to get a chip in the stack
With no flops to hit on.

Eventually, he gets a bad beat
Against the guy who likes his soy;
As Daniel N wins the hand
And our pro is the bubble boy.

Our pro shakes hands and leaves
With Barrys book in hand;
Its time to find a cash game
In this city built on desert sand.

As far as other tournies go
Our pro knows they are not that far;
As the SCOOP is coming up
On the great site POKERSTARS!!!

It's official....

...I'm on a heater.

With Rush Poker, there seems to be two trains of thought: play nitty, or play looser than normal.

I've been trying to find the holes in my game and came across a big one...my lack of turn aggression. Basically, if I raised preflop and was called, I would usually do a C-Bet on the flop. If called, I would check on the turn and give the pot up. After reviewing something in Sklansky's book, I thought I should try just betting again on the turn and see what happens. This seems to be successful as people stop chasing their draws and give up on the pot instead.

I then decided to take it one step further. Play position more. Seems like an elementary concept for no-limit. However, now my position is more important than my cards. If, for example, it is limped to me in MP, then I'm liable to raise with any two cards that are somehow connected. I've been concentrating less on my cards and more on what my opponents could have and what their checks/bets mean.

Result? My results have skyrocketed.

That's not to say that I'm not getting lucky on occasion. I have had KK run into AA...and have a K appear on the flop...so there has been some of that. I've also been sucked out on...nothing you can do about that if you got your money in good. I've also had some big pots where people seemed to have lost their minds.

Needless to say I'm enjoying this while it lasts.

Progress being made...

I made a decision to tighten up a bit in my Rush Poker cash games...and it seems to be having some positive results. I have actually been up in several of my last few sessions. I'm still about 7BI in the hole so I'm slowly climbing out of it. So I can't complain.

I played on Party for a while on Saturday...total profit....-1/2 BB. Those games for some reason seem to be tougher...at least I'm not making money at it in the last few sessions I played. Play seems a lot tighter than on other sites.

Oh well, I'll just keep plugging away at it.

K.

Blech...

Just finished up a 400 hand session courtesy of Rush Poker.

Probably ended up down 1/2 a buyin...but I was down a lot more than that.

I've decided that I need to play some bigger pots...probably playing a little too nitty.

It seems that when I start playing, I usually drop a buy-in. This time, my kings ran into aces...figures.

I decided to buy in again and started dropping a bit. Fortunately, I had a mini-rush and got most of my buyin back.

Hard to evaluate my play at this point. Have been getting my share of coolers (like the hand above) and some bad beats. Oh well, will just keep plugging away at it and see how it goes.