Grand Adventure

Alright, one day after I posted about my newest hobby I’m back to pass on some feedback.  First, I’ve purchased some books on how to play poker from Amazon.  No, I’m not thinking of wanting to make cash flow from playing online poker.  But…I do hate losing (whether it’s real money or fake) so I need to educate myself on how to play better.

One simple, simple thing I’ve changed is that I’m betting way-less than I used to.  Except for on the blinds where I’ve already got money invested, I’m folding hands on a level I never did before.  The more I do this, the more comfortable it feels to do to where I don’t think I’m missing something.  I’ve got to acknowledge that this is a no-brainer step in improving my game.  But, I’ve developed bad habits playing on XBox Live for fake money.  There your chip stack is solely about bragging rights.

I jumped into a freeroll XBox game last night to see how I stood against Brady (he’s ahead of me, of course) and to shake out the cobwebs of my Xbox account that layed dormant for 2+ weeks.  I thoroughly trashed the Sit-n-Go format table I was at.  I will admit that one hand I had good fortune, but the rest I actually played I felt completely in control of the environment.  (Other than a drop-out prior to the first hand being dealt, I personally knocked out all of the other players at the table).

Feeling good, I played  a little bit on my computer.  First 1 cent/2 cent blinds table, then I moved up to a 2 cent/5 cent blind table.  I played fairly solid on the first one, but left when a player continued to whine about bad beats he got and continued to curse at the guy who he lost to.  He whined about how the guy called him with “no brain” (he had A/Q offsuit, the other guy had K/J, all in, A & K in the flop, J on the river…”lesser” hand won).  I pointed out that the other hand was pretty good, and the pot was only about $1 anyways.  He said “I expect people to have a brain when playing”.  I responded with “And I expect people to play without emotion”.  Then ended with telling him if he was that good of a player…why was he playing the penny game??  After that, he stopped whining but I had had my fill.

The 2/5 cent blind table is deceptive.  Pots can get up to $10, though that is rare.  I ended up doubling up my stack by playing less hands, and hitting it hard to protect top pair/pre-flop pocket pairs.  Although I hadn’t read much of the books to help me learn playing techniques, my mind set to play less hands + start being a formal student of the game really helped.

I look forward to reading some more this weekend, and improve upon my hobby.  I used this technique for my woodworking hobby with solid results.  Or at least I’m not as intimidated to take on a woodworking project.  I hope the same improvement curve happens for playing a game I enjoy to do.