Free Poker Strategy

Accepting things in poker, or not accepting them, is important I feel, and has much to do with pyschological aspects of the game which affect your play. In terms of not accepting situations, a key example would be when you have just lost a big pot and are short stacked. Many players will immediately feel that all their hard work was for nothing and accept they will soon be going out of the tournament. So much so in fact, that they will simply gamble on the very next hand and push the rest of the chips in.

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Whilst it is understandable to be frustrated in this situation, you have to try and think clearly about what pressure the blinds will put you under when they next reach you, and how long you have to attempt a double through.
Another point to consider would be those players that cannot accept they didn’t play a hand as they should have. It is easy to blame bad luck in poker, and this can of course often be the reason for your downfall, but if you wish to improve, you have to look at your own decisions first and foremost.

When luck does happen to be involved in you losing a big pot and you know you played the hand correctly, acceptance of the fact that these things happen in poker, becomes improtant too. There is nothing to be gained from dwelling on events that have passed, and so accepting you got unlucky and moving on with the game is imperitive to turning your situation around.
All in all, it is easy to play poker when luck is with you, but when things are going wrong, it is important to understand and accept the reasons why, and perhaps apportion blame to your own decision making, however much you might not want to.

On Wednesday, I met the usual crowd at our local venue for the weekly live freezeout game. I can honestly that the first hour stood out above anything I have experienced, in terms of not finding a hand. I can say with complete honesty that the highest Ace I saw in my hole cards was (A,4) off, and I was dealt one pair, of (5,5), in the first hour. My stack had slid from a 6,000 starting stack, to 3,000, and I had two crazy, loose players at my table preventing me from really doing anything creative about my predicament.
Luckily enough after the first break, I sat down to (A,Q), and after shoving all in from middle position and picking up the blinds, my chipstack was looking marginally better.

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I must point out here, that I wouldn’t normally play (A,Q) quite so fast from middle position, but with the two wild characters at my table itching to reraise just about anyone…I felt it best to set my stall out there and then.

After nursing my stack back to a slightly healthier 4,000 I picked up a hand of (Js,Qs). In the big blind, with two limpers, I decided to take a flop. The rainbow flop then came down (3,7,Q) and as it was checked to one of the crazy players to my right, I just knew he was going to raise, no matter what he had. So when he bet out 500, I pushed all in over the top, feeling that the other players check was genuine weakness. Needless to say, it was folded to the 500 raiser, who then called for the rest of my chips. He then proceeded to turn over a feeble (Q,2) off, and spike a 2 on the river to end my tournament.

All in all, not a hand, or a poker tournament I wish to spend too much time reminiscing about.

The game I was involved with today, was a deeper stacked tournament than our usual, with 10,000 chips for each player, and as far as first hands dealt in a tournament go, (Ac,Kc) wasn’t bad. After a preflop raise and a tester bet on the flop of (5,6,Q), the reraise that came back at me was enough to dismiss any thoughts I had about stealing the pot.

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My opponent showed (Ad,Qd), and was of course lucky to catch his queen on the flop.
The second hand dealt in the tournament, was one in which I have written a seperate article about in far more depth, so I shall not go through the gory details. In short though, it involved my (7,7) versus (9,9). Second biggest full house against my opponents top full house ensued, which by anyones standards, is a horrific way to start a tournament off.

I somehow escaped from these first two hands with 6,000 chips left intact, and spent the next hour and a half drifting between 5 and 6 thousand chips. I had taken to making big moves preflop when I picked up decent hands, showing (A,K) twice, (A,Q) once, and (J,J) once. When the blinds eventually went up another level, I decided to switch gears, and hopefully steal a couple of pots. One of the first of these hands involved me picking up (5d,7d) from the button, and moving all in once it had been folded round to me. My opponents had seen me earlier showing strong hands with this type of play, and my plan was that this would help dissuade any callers. Unfortunately one of the stronger players at our table had picked up (A,10) and sensed my weakness. He called, and after picking up a flush draw on the flop, I got no help from the turn and river, and was out.

Overall it has been a tough week for me in terms of live games, and so I have decided to take a week long break from poker. Hopefully, that is enough time for the apparent anger the poker gods have towards me at the moment, to subside.