Tidbits

A lot has happened since my last blog real blog post.  If I didn’t have this crappy job, I' probably wouldn’t have a blog.  I was on vacation last week, hence the lack of posting throughout the week.  However, there were several occurences during the week that I want to touch on a bit:

Tiger Woods: Broke leg, torn ACL? No match for Tiger Woods as he clearly didn’t have it at Torrey Pines.  However, when Tiger doesn’t have it, he’s still better than the rest of the field.  This man is who your kids should seek as a role model.  He leaves it all out there on the course.  His work ethic is 2nd to none.  Sure he gets mad after an errant shot…especially when his body is preventing him from making a good swing.  But if you notice, it leaves it all behind him before taking his next swing.  Tiger Woods would be the Phil Ivey of poker if he played.

George Carlin: I normally don’t get sad at the passing of celebrities.  They aren’t special.  But Carlin’s passing depressed me.  He took comedy to another level.  His ability to take the dumb shit we do on a daily basis and turn it into comedy was awesome.  For my money, you can’t get any better than Carlin and I just wish I had a chance to see him live when he was alive.

Poker: I played about 1/2 the hands that I intended to play last week.  This really wasn’t my fault though (I don’t think).  I got sick towards the end of the week and even though I wanted to play, I opted to rest instead.  I’m more stoked about poker now than I have been the prior months.  I cant’ explain these waves of motivation that go through my head, but I’m not going to complain.

My bankroll is back over the $1000 mark.  I have only played about 13,000 of my 20,000 hands at the $25NL tables though.  Hopefully I’ll finish up those last 7,000 hands or so in the next week or 2.  My confidence at the tables is so high now though.  It makes all the difference in the world when you expect to win every time you sit down.

I worked really hard on my game, plugging leaks, but mostly re-learning how to deal with the new rash of TAGs at the micro limits.  These players are the only real problems you have to deal with at the micro levels.  Most are decent pre-flop, but horrible post-flop.  I have been playing around a 20/16 style lately and this has worked out fairly well on the 6 max tables.  One thing these TAGs do not do is mix it up a bit.  They are usually playing a few tables and evidently not paying attention to what’s going on with all of them.  After a few orbits, you can put these guys on hand ranges fairly easily and then look at the board texture.  Is this a flop I will challenge?  Who cares if it missed me…all I know is that it missed his range completely and I’m taking that money in the middle. 

As you can see, I’m taking my thinking to a 2nd level.  I’m still playing pretty straight forward poker, but with some thought.  Instead of raising, missing the flop, c-betting and check/folding the turn, I’m mixing things up.  I’m putting my opponents on ranges and thinking about how that range fits in with the board texture.  Standard poker, but you’d be surpised how many people who think they are good don’t do these simple things.

I can’t wait to get past these next 7K hands and move out of the kiddie pool.  I also can’t wait for my bankroll to swell to 5 digits, but I’m sure that’s a little ways away.