I've been having a rough go at it in cash games lately. Not terrible, but not winning either. I was down about $70 over 17 hours of play. Not the best. I haven't been upset about it but at the same time you want to win, build that bankroll, and move up to higher stakes.
I have also been trusting myself a lot more in regards to the way I play. One recent example really made me think about this and how general poker knowledge isn't always right even if EVERYONE agrees on it.
Back in the day, we used to play a lot of tournaments at the Sahara. That casino is closed now but for low buy-in tournaments it used to be the place to be. Daily tournaments at 11 AM, 7 PM, and 11 PM for $60. My wife used to do really well in them. Me, not so much. And she would always have a SUPER short stack, but miraculously something would happen and she would have a huge stack out of nowhere.
She always used to min-raise late in the tournament, even with a somewhat short stack herself. I thought it was a bad idea. Books and everything at the time were recommending just pushing preflop even if you had a decent number of big blinds (same thing today) but also were recommending raising 3x or more. I blindly bought into that.
Now when I look at things like the Tournament Poker Edge podcast or other things, min-raising is super standard and they look at people 3x-ing and 4x-ing as fish a lot of the time. I don't think my wife's logic was bad back in the day. She just realized that even though a min-raise is giving people great odds, they still aren't calling a lot of the time. So you are better off min-raising in those spots. She realized that when other people recognized as "better" did not.
That makes me think that I should think more and believe common poker wisdom way less. I guarantee that in my recent tournament successes, people would say I was an idiot for letting my stack get so short or passing on some spots. And in cash games, I'm just going to dial back the aggression a lot except when I have a huge hand. Even draws, I might just pass on them or play them more passively instead of auto-raising every time I flop a flush draw. Those rules are probably OK if you are clueless at poker and don't grasp all the concepts. But when I know some old guy is betting out into me, why raise him? He probably has top pair or better a lot of the time. Will he fold? Sure, he probably will sometimes. But he's not betting into me with air or even somewhat weak hands. Maybe some draws but in my experience the typical old guy is just check-calling a lot with those and betting out when he gets there.
The uncomfortable part is when you don't win a lot, and the strategy you are using is not straight from the most recent book. When I left the WPT Boot Camp, I was playing insanely aggressive in a lot of spots and it didn't always feel right. But at least you can fall back on the excuse : "well, I played exactly like book X said, so I cant be blamed for losing". I learned some good concepts but I don't think blindly following them is the way to play. But when you are losing or breaking even, it makes you wonder if you need to go back to that style.
I've also had a lot of people folding to me when I'm getting big hands. Last night at Santa Fe I got JJ under the gun and raised to $10. 2 callers. Flop J-7-8 with 2 clubs. Lady leads out for 20. Guy calls, I raise to $75, they both fold. Ugh.
But then hands like this one come up.
Lady with about $200 makes it $8. Dumbass guy with sunglasses calls.
Oh, some context on that guy. Earlier he shoves $150 or so on the river, basically a pot sized bet. Gets called by this black guy who had middle pair. IMO a moronic hero call that he did not have to make. But, he was right... his A-9 on a J-9-x-x-x board was good against the other guy who showed his T-3 or whatever garbage hand he had. Bluffing the river with bottom pair. Then he says "well, it was a good shove". LOL. Maybe percentage wise it was, depending on his reasoning and what he knows about the guy. But if your first reaction was "that was good" I think you have some problems.
So he calls, my wife calls, I call with T-9 suited, and that same black guy calls. He had been making some really weird big bets sometimes. For example, one hand preflop went $7, $20, then he made it $120.
Flop is great - T-9-2 with 2 diamonds. It checks to me and I bet $25. The black guy calls out of the blinds, and everyone else folds.
Turn is an offsuit 4. Now he leads for $75!
REALLY big bet in this game. I called. Definitely didnt want to fold, but raising was also out of the question. The 4 changed nothing. I was only worried that he flopped a set and was trying to trap more people in on the flop, but when nobody called he was trying to get max value on the turn.
River is a offsuit 6. He checks. It brought the 7-8 straight, but it didnt seem very likely he had that. I thought about it for a while and decided I was going to bet. Grabbed 7 red chips, put them on top of a stack and slid them out. $135. He thought about it, counted out the chips, and put a stack out. I flip them up. He looked and took a while but threw his cards away. Big pot for me. Maybe another stupid hero call? Ship it.
Won $313 last night (Thursday August 8th). Felt so awesome to get a win. My faith in my playing style wasn't wavering too bad yet, but it was great to get that big win to keep me motivated. Feeling great heading into this weekend.
Writing blogs is definitely slow. Still have the broken hand. Lot to write about and not much time. I'm moving soon - 3 blocks away from the Golden Nugget! Super exciting. I also have some thoughts about poker-related iPhone apps I want to work on. Maybe coming soon!
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