Question: Did you find that reading books and forums on poker helped your game. Or was it all down to your sheer experience of sitting down playing at a casino learning from your own mistakes?
Marty Smyth: I didn't read any books although i wish i had as it might have saved a bit of time. i learned from watching other good players and trying to work out what they were doing better than me and try to understand why those things made sense and understand what i was doing wrong and what i had to change. if i bluffed and someone called me with bottom pair i wouldn't just think - 'what a clown'... i'd think - what did i do in the way that i played the hand that made him think bottom pair was winning, then the next time a similar situation occurs i'd be better at navigating my way through the hand.
The reason why I like that answer is because I'm the guy that thinks "what a clown" when a bluff doesn't come off againt bottom pair. I never stop to think the way that Marty analyses his mistakes and learns from them.
Anyway after reading Marty's well, I found myself loading up the GJP client and sitting down at 2 tables. I hadn't been sat down for more than 5 mins when I clashed with a LAG, whose nut flush draw was no good against my full house. About half an hour later, I get dealt AKo. I lack confidence playing it because AKo is a big loser on my PT3 database . I basically get nervous at the sight of it, its potentially a big hand but that's all it is. Potentially a big hand. The thing is I'm guilty of over-playing it.
In this hand, the villian was really passive during the 47 hands he played: 44/14/5.3
So I decided to take the aggressive line with AKo and play it hard into such a passive player (on further analysis, my min-raise 3bet on the turn is not aggressive enough)
The following pot is the biggest pot I've won ever since I downloaded PT3 (admittedly I haven't played that much, only got 839 hands in),but instead of being happy, I can't help but think I played this hand badly. As Marty says, I must have been doing something to make him think his pair of queens with a weak kicker was winning. And it was! All the way until the river when one of my 12 outs came to my rescue. So the question has been bugging me all day when I think about this hand.
Green Joker Poker Boron 0.50/1, hand converted by the iPoker Converter at Talking-Poker
saw flop | saw showdown
Button NoRiskNoReward ($135.50)
SB xliy341 ($106.90)
BB Red Al ($15.50)
UTG ChiliHotDog ($115.97)
UTG+1 johnie5tits ($214)
MP rokmptl ($101.70)
CO-1 Hero ($188.90)
CO roro1982 ($217.10)
Preflop: Hero is in the CO-1 with A
K
3 folds, Hero raises to 3.50, roro1982 calls 3.50, 3 folds.
Flop (8.50) 6
Q
2Hero bets 4.75, roro1982 calls 4.75.
Turn (18.00) J
Hero bets 14.30, roro1982 raises to 28.60, Hero raises to 60, roro1982 calls 31.40.
River (152.30) A
Hero checks, roro1982 bets 148.85, Hero moves all-in for 120.65
Hero shows A
Kroro1982 shows 4
QHero wins 421.80 with One pair, Aces
