Thursday, April 12, 2007

More Good Times

It was a fun day yesterday reading and writing about my "donkiness". It is really quite hilarious about the whole idea of calling other players donkeys and burning them at the stake when they are donkeyish... but then again, they want to play with donkeys...

One final comment on the hand yesterday. I wonder if anybody (including myself) thought I was ahead when I made that call. I know I didn't think that I was. Do you think I would have made that call if I knew he had me dominated? Absolutely not. +EV or -EV.. who cares. If I have the chip stack to afford it and the implied odds justify the call along with any reads that I might have (right or wrong reads). Live with it. I truly do not know very many people that aren't going to call 200 chips with JTs when they will still have 63BB behind if they don't hit the flop. OK, there could have been some really bad flops with me such as T high... Do you really think I'm getting all in on that flop? Do you really think I'm raising that much with TPMK.. No.. I go into pot control mode and take it from there. Sure I would have lost some chips.. but most likely not all of them.

OK... there are many people that would not have limped in with that hand and I certainly respect that. At this early juncture of the tournament, I didn't feel the need to raise. Truthfully, I want people in the pot with JTs. I don't want to scare anybody off. I am confident enough in my post flop play to deal with any complications that might arise. Later in the tournament, I would be raising with that.

I have said again and again, that the only bad play in poker is when it doesn't work.. As a matter of fact, I wrote a whole entry on it once. I maintain that poker isn't always about having the best cards. You have to be willing to gamble a bit. Most of TAGy types don't gambool it up too much; but I really have no problems with people that do... except for when they outdraw me of course. If you want to raise me with 72o... great.... it is especially great if it gets me to fold. The fact that I don't fold and you lose does not make a difference. If it worked, it was a good move.. if it doesn't, it wasn't. Simple as that. One thing is for sure, that if you are going to make moves like that, you need to have a reason for it. For example (and it is a bad example)... Did you see where Brad Booth bluffed with 4 high against Phil Ivey's pocket Kings? Everybody was saying what a great move it was and you know it was.... Why???? Because it worked... Does it make it bad movie if it didn't... Yep.... So I hate it when commentators are berating bluffs before they find out if it worked. Let the action happen first before you give your ultimate comments.

OK.. A couple of other things... I say all of the above to say this... We are already know about the well documented exchange betweeen myself and some other notable blogger. No more to see or hear there. Let's move onto the Mook last night. Would you believe on the 12th hand, I got into another confrontation with suited connectors. In this case I was in the Big Blind with 98s and it was limped to me and I just checked. Hopefully everybody is ok with that. ha. Anyway, I flopped the flush. Unfortunately, my PokerTracker did not record this hand for some reason so I hope I have most of this right. I believe I put a 1/2 pot bet out there and the EP limper (I don't remember who it was and it isn't important) raised me a good bit. This raiser had a huge stack compared to me.. anyway back to me... what do you do?

You have to believe that your flush is good; but you have to believe that there are plenty of outs against you. If I push, I do have enough chips to make him think about it... and that's what I did. After a bit, he did call and turned over ATo with the Ace being the flush card and a Ten giving him a pair. I don't remember if was top pair or not. Anyway, I was surprised to find out that my hand is still about a 70% favorite... The turn card... Ace.... River Card... Ace... IGHN...

Should I rant about losing to a 30% shot. Nope... That's poker. He made the decision to draw out and that is what he did. That is the way it goes. So... No name calling here.. I'll just move on. I'll just keep trying to put my chips in with the best of it.

One final thing... Where do I find those Tier-Two Token Frenzies... I would like to give one of them a shot. I did win a Tier-One token last night that will be my entry into the Hoy next week; but I couldn't find Tier-Two.

4 comments:

Hammer Player a.k.a Hoyazo said...

Tier II token frenzy, every night on full tilt at 9:45pm ET. $14+$1 buyin, top 18% of the field wins a Tier II token. They also have one some time in the mid-afternoon, not sure exactly when but I don't know if you have a day job or not that would prevent you from playing that one.

Respect all your comments on the hand from the other day, you know my thoughts. Also not sure what the big hubbub is about calling someone a donkey like its so mean or wrong to say. Bloggers been calling each other that since time immemorial, I thought it was considered a term of endearment at this point.

Also I find it interesting that you would only look to results to see if something was a "bad play" or not. That doesn't seem to make sense to me. So in other words, if I raise you allin preflop with AA, and you call me wth 83o, and then the flop comes 883, then your call was the "right" move or a "good" move? I'm not sure I understand the entire premise there. Seems to me there are plenty of black and whites and absolutes in poker, and that's a perfect example of what I mean. Seems obvious to me that there is every way to make a bad play but get rewarded nonetheless.

Anyways, nice hand the other day. You caught me at my most donkeyish and took advantage well. Next time I promise to make you work a little harder for it.

WillWonka said...

Thanks Hoy for the info... I'll look for them...

Calling an allin is a much different issue.. I was referring more to the offensive type moves more or less around bluffing.

NO problems with the term donkey and I think you are right... it is a term of endearment at this point.

See you Monday at the Hoy..

Anonymous said...

It's great to see you blogging again, Will - I almost deleted the bookmark. I certainly don't think that calling that raise was a donkey move. If he had AKo, turned them over and showed you, you would still be getting the right price to call. (You would be about a 3-2 dog getting 3.4-2 on your money). You were only risking about 7% of your stack and could throw your hand away if it didn't improve. If he had pocket 9s, you would be getting 1.7-1 on a race, which is hardly a donkey play. The above hands are certainly consistent with the raise he made. On the other hand, there was a very real chance that your hand was dominated and only a miniscule chance it was dominant, so on the whole I would call it a borderline play but certainly not reckless. Personally, in tournament play with no re-buys, even if I’m getting the right pot odds, I’m reluctant to call a significant raise when I believe I’m behind, but I’m arguably too tight.

Oddly enough, the fairest critique of your play didn’t concern calling the raise, but rather limping OOP into an unopened pot. While I do the same thing all too often, some experts will say that, on its face, it’s a bad play in a NL game.

Say Hi to all my poker buddies in St. Louis.

WillWonka said...

Thanks Prof..

tonight is our 2nd Friday of the month game.. I'll try to post anything interesting..

Not the same without you there.

Who links to my website?