Yesterday I was lurking about on the boards.ie poker forum as you do, and the WSOP 2008 PLO champ, Marty Smyth, was down the well. It's been a really interesting read so far, lots of good questions but for me this simple yet thought probing answer stands out for my own personal reasons.
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
2
Hero 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 K
roro1982 shows 4 Q
Hero wins 421.80 with One pair, Aces
Was just reading the updates for the Macau Irish Poker Classic ME and came across across this hand between Annette Obrestad and this Irish poker player, Thomas "Bomber" Nolan, an apparently notorious LAG player...
"The battle between The Bomber Nolan and Annette has been decided. Annette raised to 400 with AK and Bomber called, flop came K 10 4 and Annette bet 1350 which was called, the turn came a 5 and Annette moved all-in for 10K, Bomber called and turned over 54, blank on the river and Annette is out."
I couldn't help but admire the balls of this guy, playing against one of the top players in the world. I really really like this hand simply because this guy clearly thinks in a way that is unorthodox to many players... Bomber Nolan (he even has a cool nickname) I salute you!
I wrote a long post. Then I realised how fucking boring I sounded so I just deleted it and opted for the short but no-nonsense post.
Online poker: Blah blah blah. For a thick shit like me, after a year I've finally figured out how to set up PT3! Still didn’t stop me from losing $500! :) But I’ve clawed it back to $350. Still in black though, yay go me I’m like sooooooooooo great at this game!
Live poker: Pfft. None. Well unless you count the IDP game as a credible game of poker in which case I steamrolled the table and then donked away my chips to a big donkey, Julianne who went on to take it down with an even BIGGER donkey, David Bowers, taking 2nd place. Literally everybody at that table was a donkey. It’s just that I was the most talented donkey, with my elaborate bluffs, floats and hero calls. Go me for being so great! Y’all got nothing on me, d’ya hear me?! I recieved a very funny email at work yesterday. It made me guffaw so loudly my desk neighbour gave me a funny look so I called him over to look and then we started guffawing in harmony. We shared a special moment. It touched me deep inside my soul…
Quality! Non league footie fans at their finest! The goalie had just let in a soft goal
Wellington Utd v Maidstone
Anyway whatever. I’m bored. Send me some comments cos I’m just craving attention. I’m even thinking of buying my own domain for this blog just to highlight my own self-importance. Reckon I oughta call it sexy-as-fuck.org…. Oh god, its 12.30pm, 5 more hours to go... Time. Drags. On. Very. Slowly.
Gonna summarise everything cos if I were to go into detail, it’d be way too long.
Live poker the last few weeks: Horrible. Went to CHL closing night. Played the 100e FO. Got busted on a bluff. The silver lining in a grey cloud? At least I went out early. Better than bubbling in my eyes. That’s the way I always see it. Played cash in the Fitz afterwards. Lost a big pot vs. a crazy and stupid Chinese gambler. Dropped around 800e that night. Felt burnt out. Suffered depression for a few days.. Tried to quit poker. Found it impossible. (online poker too much of a demon) But have quit live poker since. The appeal of the live poker scene will just never be the same without CHL.
Online poker: Shit. Just restricted myself to HU SnG during the dark days following the night mentioned above. Ran ok I guess. Lol. Almost successfully refrained from playing MTT, but I suffered a relapse and played an IPO rebuy sat for $5. 24 runners, only 1 prize (an IPO ticket). Didn’t bother purchasing an add on. Picked my spots, completely ran riot on the FT. Had a 3:1 chip lead HU. I choked. Hated myself so much afterwards. Again, tried to give up poker. Impossible. Suddenly woke up one day and thought if I’m going to spend my evenings playing poker, I might as well make an effort to improve and actually profit as opposed to dicking about just to kill time as I always do. So downloaded Holdem indicator cos its more basic and easy to understand than PT or Holdem Manager (still cant get my head around it). Deposited $100 and dived straight into the 100nl game, despite having been a losing player at 20nl loll! Spent a total of about 9/10 hours playing over three days. (not 9/10 hours per day!) Got $900 in my account now. The stats are invaluable whilst playing. But the cynic in me is just waiting for variance to come around and bite me in the arse. Will stick to playing cash games for now.
IDP: Fitzwilliam made a brilliant offer. We’ve organised a deep stack tournament for Oct. €63 + €7 reg freeze out. 10k stack with 30min blinds. Free food. Simply excellent value for money. Limited to 80 players but only 18 registered so far. Deaf ppl don’t realise how good they have it. If this was a normal tournament, it’ll be sold out by now.
Work: Supervisor signed the probationary review of my work the past year and recommend that I be offered a permanent position in the civil services. As soon as I receive official notification that I am going to get a permanent position, I’m gonna stick in a request for a year’s career break and go travelling after xmas. Sick of Ireland, sick of my job (already) and I’m 24 for christ sake, I’ve got all my life to go to waste in that shit job of mine so I might as well sample the world while I’m in the prime of my youth.
Footie: Got roped in into returning to footie with DCU last week. Went along to see how I feel. Have gone training three times so far. Still need more time to decide if I wanna change my mind about quitting.
Social life: God it sucks. Every weekend I try to get a few lads to go out for a session. I always get the same answer- Money problems. Ah I give up.
That’s it.. Cannot be bothered to ramble on and just as well cos I usually ramble on about nothing vaguely interesting.
Laters.
On Monday night, I downloaded Full Tilt through an affilate that gives you the full version of PT3 once you reach 250 FT points. Plus Full Tilt were doing happy hours where they were doubling the points at cash tables so I figured I would be able to maximise my points if I multi-tabled at 50nl.BAADDDD idea for two reasons:1-Even playing one table, I still suck, so to even think of playing 4 tables was obscene!2-I moved up to 50nl. Why I moved up when I cannot even beat 20nl playing one table- I cannot give any reasoning other than I am just plain f**king stupid.Anyways I deposited $200 on Monday night and ended up with a $50 profit. Even though that's nothing, I thought it was great and was well chuffed I didn't lose money for once. Just as I was starting to think that maybe I'm not as bad as I think I am, the very next day, I multi-tabled 4 tables again and duly blew the lot.. Well done Ciarán, great thinking(!!!) Only plus was I managed to tally 200 FT points in that duration so I'm 50 points off gettin a free PT3. I was always going to lose money online anyway, so I might as well get free stuff for doing it! lol!! The only positive note of the night was that I took down the boardsie tournament on stars. Not too sure how much I won. It wasn't much but at least I won something online and gave me back some dignity after the FT farce.Downloaded the ladbrokes poker client last night just to specifically satellite my way into the Killarney poker festival as I'm not paying €550 to play in the Main Event! Will play a satellite sometime this week, there's no real urgency anyways. I hope to see some deafies there so you guys better start trying to qualify as well! :)Laters!
- Buy into a €20 satellite tournament at Cool Hand Lukes at 6.30pm
- Win a ticket for the €115 Freezeout later that evening
- Agree a 5-way deal in above tournament, taking €750 because you were the chip-leader
- Bring winnings to Fitz and sit down with a little bit of it, €160
- Cash out at 6.30am with €1,200 in your wallet
€100 per hour, hmmm.... I run good :)
Having sat down at the table and wished everybody luck (because I'm such a nice guy lol), I took it upon myself to liven up the play and started opening 90% of pots in the first level with trash. What possessed me to lose the plot, I just can't explain. It didn't help that I got dealt AK in the first hand. I showed some bluffs to establish a loose image, knowing I would get looked up more later. I kind of knew what I was doing but have to admit I nearly lost control on the following hand.
A couple of hours later, with blinds at 100-200, after two players limped in, I raised 600 with 74 off suit on the button with approx 10k stack. I was extremely restless at my table, it was so boring but nonetheless I acknowledge now just how careless it was to even play the hand! I get 2 callers and the flop comes down QJ8 two clubs, I bet out for half the pot (1,100) and get one caller. Turn is a Kh and he check raises me to 3,200. I call, knowing I can push him off the pot on the river. The pot is worth 10,700 now; we both have about 5k left. The river brings a Qc. He checks, I raise 3,400 with 1,200 behind to make him think I'm value betting. After a long dwell, he folds, I show him the 74offsuit, get a couple of laughs on the table and I can see he is tilted by this. I still can't figure out who's more retarded- Me for playing 74o in the way I did or him for folding on the river facing just a 3,400 bet into a 14k pot. Anyways a few hands later I take all his chips when I come over the top of his pre-flop raise and he pushes in the rest of his stack 5k, but his Jacks are no good against my Aces.
Peaking at 20k, this was unfortunately about as good as it ever got for me. I lost 8k when 83 beat my 99. I start making moves, some bluffs I show to the table as they are definitely playing back at me, re-raising my bets which is what I want them to do as I want to establish a loose image so I will be able to play my monster hands more aggressively and get maximum value out of them. My exit hand is just how I wanted it to be played. Blinds at 200-400, folded around to me on the button. I've 14k. I find QQ and raise to 1,300. This is a perfect situation; it looks like a steal when it really isn't. SB folds, BB is a solid player, he has caught me bluffing earlier. He's got about 16k. He re-raises to 5k. I think he thinks I’m at it so I’m more than happy to push here. His insta-call made me think he had either aces or kings. I was delighted to see AsKs, as my queens are a 55% favourite.Flop: 2s5sJd Turn: 10s (BOLLOCKS!) River: Blank.I’m sent tumbling out somewhere in the wilderness of 90thish place out of 140 runners. I’m not too upset about my exit hand; I would gladly accept a race against AK with queens every time if my tournament life depended on it. At least I got the chips in good and that’s the very best I can do really.I go downstairs to play Blackjack for a wee while, losing €60. Then I see a regular from my local game and he persuades me to play €20 rebuy Omaha/Hold’em ROE tournament. I am still getting to grips with Omaha but decide to play anyway for a laugh. I lose my starting stack and rebuy. I lose it again and I decide against another rebuy as I’m hopeless at Omaha. I see Julianne and Susan playing cash; I’ve €135 left so I put my name down on the waiting list for the 50NL game even though I know I struggle at cash games. I finally get a seat at around 11pm or so and lose half my money before doubling up with JJ.I had meant to go home at 12pm but end up staying on, vowing to catch the next bus at 2.30am. But by that time I was still nursing a €135 stack but felt the game was so soft, it was only a matter of time before I could profit from it. There were some awful players who were spewing away money although there were a couple of players that I thought were handy so I avoided tangling with them unless it was necessary. So I abandon any plans to go home and make the most from a game in which I felt I had an edge. (That sounds egoistical but that’s not how I want to sound!) But anyway I eventually left at 7am cashing out with €810. I could have stayed on longer but I felt the tiredness kicking in as I had been in the casino since 2pm. It was a nice bit of a confidence booster but I'm not gonna fool myself into thinking that I’m suddenly shit hot at cash as I know there’s a lot of areas I need to work on!!
