For the most part, nothing incredibly exciting or nerve wracking. No memorable hands, really. Not long after I sat down at the table (seat six or so), a guy sits down at the table (seat three) and he was extremely good looking. I'm not the kind of girl who thinks it often, much less say it. But there I said it.
I noticed some of his mannerisms and language that indicated that he's smarter than your average bear and his somewhat reckless preflop betting and c-bets "because the flop was so dry!" gave him a pretty laggy image. I stayed out of his way. Even if I did know more about poker than he did, I admit that I didn't have the guts to outplay him.
I stacked the old guy immediately to my right with AK with TPTK easily. The reason for this is because he was getting lazy about protecting his cards. He was good about it for about the first thirty minutes that I played with him, but towards the end, his frustration and apathy could be seen exaggerated through his careless handling of cards. To be honest, he was already pretty bad and this just made it worse. I wondered if I should've said something, but that meant I had to admit that I've looked. So, fellow players, protect your hand always and forever, amen.
After he left, Mr. Gorgeous came and sat down next to me and over the course of the session, we had friendly banter laced with poker language. He caught onto my tight play and I commented on his repeated blind stealing. (I wanted to fight back so badly, but couldn't bring myself to do it with trash.) We both riled up conversation with the drunk Marine comedian in seat nine and got the table going in chatter.
Underneath all that though, sitting to his left, I was starting to realize what my lesson for the session was. I'm a poker coward. Okay, to put in kinder terms. I'm risk adverse.
While I understand the importance of tightening up, I wondered if I was being bullied around too easily postflop or preflop and playing too weak/passive postflop. I'm reluctant to put money in if I don't have super premium holdings and can't make 'fat' value bets.
I also wondered if I was running card dead and it was none of his business how I played my cards. I mean really, you just can't raise 27o, even on the button (and especially if there are three limpers ahead)!
But yes, I'm well aware that when it comes to calculating the pot odds versus equity, my aptitude has a gaping hole. I have a hard time figuring out if I ought to be committed or not and furthermore to act on it. More experience and studying needs to be in order. I didn't observe as much as I should have and when I did observe, I wasn't analyzing it. That's a lack of duty to the improvement of playing poker.
In other news, I picked up a used copy of Starship Troopers from the used bookstore for $1. I've been wanting to read this since college when a buddy recommended it. Lately, I've been reading a lot of Gaiman (Stardust, Anansi Boys) and I'm guessing Heinlein is be next!
No comments:
Post a Comment