Any time, any place…
August 14, 2007
As if
often the way when travelling with a bunch of poker journos, as soon as there’s any
dead time, focus immediately shifts to ‘a swift game’ of Hold’em. On one particular
trip I found myself as part of a REALLY mixed
group, with all levels of ’skill’ represented. We had two hardcore
Swedes who wanted to play for serious money, right through to a PR girl who thought
you needed two decks of cards to play Hold’em - the sort of situation that would lead
to what you might call ‘an interesting game’. If only we had chips…
Then,
looking down at the bar table, I noticed a small box of matches in an ashtray…
Each
box only held twelve matches, but with a bit of thought - and LOTS more boxes - we
might just make this work.
I
explained my plan: We break each match into two. The halves with the head are worth
100, the halves without, 25s, and the boxes are worth 500 each. Genius. Now we just
needed more matches. Leave this to me!
Stealth.
Cunning. Guile. Just some of the words that might have been used to describe how I
sauntered around the bar - ‘flying casual’ as it were - stealing boxes of matches
en route. At one point I had about twenty five boxes in my trouser pockets. Had there
been a sudden fire, everyone could have gathered round me and roasted marshmallows
while I ‘genied’ like a roman candle.
At
one point I caught the eye of the waitress whose job it was to ensure the tables all
had clean ashtrays and a supply of matchboxes. She squinted at me suspiciously; trying
to work out why her job had suddenly become so much more demanding despite the fact
that the bar was practically empty. I chuckled to myself. The perfect crime!
I
returned triumphant to the table, but all eyes were fixed over my shoulder. I turned
around and found myself face-to-face with the waitress who was sporting the sort of
face that practically spelt out the thought “you pathetic child”. Without saying a
word she dropped 50 boxes of matches onto the table, spun around and marched off.
So
much for the perfect crime… Anyway, who fancies a game of poker!
You’re good enough…
July 24, 2007
Phew.
Las Vegas eh? 117 degrees of poker, blasted with enough air-conditioned fury to bring
a hotel to its knees (true story - the Rio went black for 30 minutes thanks to everyone
simultaneously pressing “high” on their A/C!)
I’m back, and I am knackered. Between the temperature, the hideous quality of air-conditioned
atmospheres, constantly bouncing from Treasure Island to the Rio in stinky cabs…
well, let’s just say it was no real surprise to end up in hospital with some nasty
virus that left me spluttering like a heavy smoker and blind in one eye.
The good news however, is that I bring back a startling (well, in retrospect, maybe
not so startling) piece of news. YOU ARE GOOD ENOUGH. For the World Series that is.
Yes, having spent many happy hours flashing my media pass and sneaking a peek at Doyle’s
hole cards, I can confirm that 80% of the playing field are what we in the business
like to call ‘muppets’.
I watched the duece to seven tournament - wow! Each table was like a ‘whos
who’ of poker. Negreanu on the same table as Stupak, Gavin Smith, Juanda, Jesus…
the list went on. I tried to take a picture, but needed a mini-movie, sweeping across
the room, to take it all in.
And then there were the Texas Hold’em tournaments. My god…
I don’t know why I am still surprised. If anyone is going to play one big game a year,
it’s going to be at the WSOP isn’t it. But why can’t they play? I mean, I’m here,
notepad in hand rather than AK suited, watching these loons throw chips away left
right and centre.
If you’re ever sat there on your $10 MTTs and STTs wondering if you could ever rub
shoulders with the big boys… well, the good news is that ‘the big boys’ are mostly
unsure of what seat they are in, let alone what to do with JJ in late position with
a raise and re-raise (the answer is FOLD, by the way)
Anyway, suffice it to say, this entry is a wake-up call. If you can hold your own
day in day out online, you can sit at any game in the world and hold your own. If
you’re lucky, you might get to hold someone else’s too.
Just pray you don’t get drawn a seat in between Barry Greenstein and Phil Ivey. I’ve
seen it happen, and it isn’t pretty.
Happy hunting.
Chip Concentration
June 23, 2007
If you are looking to, or have just started playing live games, you’ll realise that
there are as many distractions in a live room as there are in your living room. I’m
personally guilty of watching YouTube movies, fiddling around with Facebook, and playing
shockwave games while playing online poker. The plus side of this: I don’t get so
bored and start playing hands I shouldn’t. The down side: I KNOW for a fact I am missing
valuable information about people’s betting patterns, positional play, etc.
In a card room you have abient noise, people wandering about, cocktail waitresses
floating around looking (depending upon where you are) gorgeous (i.e. Vegas) or ugly
enough to be a serious distraction for all the wrong reasons (I’ll leave
it to you to fill in this gap with your favourite location!)
Now as you read this blog, what else COULD you be aware of? Well while still reading
this, allow your focus to drift and realise all the other things you can see. Your
mouse, your keyboard, PC speakers, junk on your desk… whatever is there, you’ve
somehow only just noticed it because I’ve told you to.
The point I’m making is that being bombarded by tons of sensory input is nothing new,
but when it comes to poker, you need to somehow narrow your focus down to block out
the ‘noise’ and just focus on the stuff that matters.
Here is a little trick to help you train this ‘focus’ if the live environment is new
to you.
You have a mission. In exactly one hour, I want you to be able to deliver me a report
on how each player at your table uses their chips. Does seat 2 ALWAYS place the chips
when holding a good hand and throw chips in when bluffing? Does seat 5 act exactly
the same way regardless of his cards? Does seat 7 count his amounts out in his hand
like someone unfamiliar with chips?
Basically I want you to profile each player based solely on their chip habits. Now
this will achieve two things. ONE: It’ll keep you focused on the game (and you’ll
‘accidentally’ absorb loads of other useful information along the way), TWO: you might
even pick up something that later helps you make a decision about all these players
you’ve been watching carefully for an hour.
Now doesn’t that sound more productinve than staring up waitresses’ skirts?
Another distraction for you, sir?