Stone Cold Blog

So I’m sat on the button in a £40 freezeout at Sovereign poker. Blinds are 50/100, Ive got about 4,000 in chips. There are 3 limpers coming into play. I look down and see JJ.

Theres all sorts of characters involved and I really did not fancy myself getting pot comitted with JJ so I elect to limp along with everyone else in an attempt to fly under the radar and see a flop. You could argue that I should have raised here – but I didnt. The small blind calls as well.

The board comes down a ten high rainbow. Lovely. Theres two checks and an opening bet of 100 into a 500 pot. What a knob. What was he hoping to achieve with that bet? Ive got an overpair and so I crank it up to 500 total to play.

The SB calls and the rest of the table folds. Turn card is a Queen. Ouch. OK, so there’s now an overcard to my Jacks. Not to worry, seeing as the SB called my raise on the flop, I’ve got to put him on top pair with a half-decent kicker. Is his kicker a Queen?

He checks to me. A great trap move if he has 2 pair. But I don’t think he does have it. This guy has been playing all kinds of wild cards tonight. Its POSSIBLE he has QT but that would be one for the poker Gods to decide.

I feel comfortable my Jacks are in front and decide to put this guy’s hand to the test. Looking at his stack I ask how much he has left for two reasons. To appear strong as though I am prepared to go all in against him, and secondly to look for tells. I wanted to see if his hand was shaking, if he licked his lips, if he smiled, anything that would let me know how strong his hand was.

The reply was “A little over 3,000”. I thought a bit more and decided to bet half of his stack; 1,500 into a 1,600 pot. As always, I put out my bet into the middle of the table, rested my cheek on the palm of my hand, put my head down and stared at the table cloth.

What the hell this guy did next I don’t know. He took an age and a half to decide what to do. He looked at his cards, ruffled his chips, then started to ask me all kinds of questions. “What have you got? Two pair? Can you beat a pair of tens? If I fold, will you show me your cards?” it just didn’t stop.

If ever you find yourself in this situation – SAY NOTHING. Not a sausage. This guy was clearly looking for tells. Either that or he wanted the table to know he looks for tells in order to give his table image a bit more ‘danger’. Stpidly I decided to respond to his last question and said “If you want to see my cards, it will cost you 1,500”.

The manager of the club in the end had to come over and give this guy a 1 minute time limit to make a decision. I don’t know how long this hand went on for but it must have been a while. Eventually he folded, and I won the pot. I wasn’t really worried about saying something or not as I think he would have folded regardless.

Again, later on in the tourney, blinds up to 200/400 I’m on the SB with about 3,000 and am dealt ATs. The table folds round to me and I decide to lump all in and hope to either steal the blind, or double up. This time I put my bet in, placed my cheek in my palm and did not move at all. Again this guy fired all sorts of questions at me but I did not say a word. After a minute or two, he folded and I took his blind.

Nothing about this guy said to me he was a dangerous player. He was seeing far too many flops and even playing blind at one point. His recklessness went on to knocking out BazzyG. When he faced an all in from BazzyG, he called and turned over 64u which seemed to be well behind BazzyG’s A7u. Somehow he made a straight and that was BazzyG gone.

He went on to obtain a 2nd place finish but his game was far too reckless to be consistent. I really do not think he was actively looking for tells. It was more of a showpeice to the rest of the table to say “Hey, look at me, I look for tells! Be careful because I can spot tells. I am a dangerous player”. Twat. Maybe he’s seen someone on TV do it.

The moral of this story, if indeed there is one, is do not say ANYTHING at the table. Put your bet in and if you are on a bluff, a steal, a draw, or a monster then find a position that you are comforatble with and sit in that position and do not move. Do not make eye contact, do not speak, do not do anything. Make sure that your pose is comfortable and relaxed because you never know how long you might be sitting there for. Make sure you sit in EXACTLY the same way each time so that you can never give off anything that might be a tell.

For me, I feel most comforatble hiding under the brim of a baseball cap and shades with my left hand on my cards, and my right elbow resting on the table rim-cushion with my palm supporting my chin. This also helps to cover a good half of my face as well.

Always keep your chips out in front of you in an easy-to-read stack. If someone asks how much you have left, make it easy for the dealer to count. Say nothing to this quesiton – the dealer is obliged to count your chips for you in order to get the game progressing.
Keep quiet, and keep your moves the same. Give nothng away and your opponents will have a much harder time trying to read you.

V

V and I head off down to Sovereign’s Poker place last night for a £50 + 5 buy-in tourney. It’s a nice enough place although slightly “back-roomy”. When we signed in and paid up there were only about 17 players registered. Luckily about 20 mins later there were 26 players and we were ready to play.

We had already stated our game-plan of keeping it tight within the first two levels of Blinds, which we pretty much did. I managed to steal a few pots and won one with my AJu after hitting a Jack on the flop and I bet every street. The guy who called me said “I knew you had AJ!!” to which my reply was “So why did you call then!!?”. Hehe

I had my first encounter with one of their much looked after monkeys. I raised in EP with JJ and this guy raises loads more! I thought about folding but then I had seen a few strange raises by him with A5u etc so I decided to put him all in. He called quicker than lightning and to my delight turned over 66! I say delight…until the river card which brought a 6. This same monkey proceeded to ride his amazing luck for a few more hands before I was off to another table.

There was the usual information gaining banter going on at the table and so I had heard (from the person concerned) that he hadn’t had any cards all night. Two rounds later and he’s all in. Now bearing in mind the fact that any ace would look good if you are impatient and have not seen anything I called with AKu. He turned over AT and managed to hit a T on the flop. My stack was now starting to suffer, the blinds were going up and it had been folded round to me on the SB – I look down to find KJs,  so I raise it 5x the BB, semi-bluffing a steal and get one caller. The flop comes K 5 7 rainbow and I lump all in. He turns over 57u !!! To say I was not impressed was an understatement – I left gracefully enough (although I must say the word “monkey!” did pass my lips!) and jaunted over to V to tell him the bad news.

V wasn’t exactly Mr Chips himself but he had been keeping his powder dry and was waiting for his Martine McCutcheon. After a quick SCB chat he started to change gears and after scooping a few more pots it was starting to look more rosey – Suddenly he was scooping left right and centre and was well up on the average and before you know it the final table was looming.

Yes this was a £50 buy in, but I wasn’t expecting the final table to last for about 3-4 hours!! V played very well and resisted the not-so-good opportunities and waited, whilst constantly checking chip stacks etc. I was there on the side lines all the way. However he (we! :P)  did it, he managed to get down to the final 3. Only 4 places were getting paid, but the table agreed to slice a little off the other places to pay out £50 to 5th place. The final deal was cut between the last three players which meant that all 3 of them walked away with £350 each. V actually managed to get 2nd place which would have incidentally only given him £250 had the deal not been made! Nice deal!

We had pre-agreed that we would have a 50/50 interest in each other and so split anything that we won – so we ended up with a clear profit of £115 each – thanks V !

So moral of the story – just get your chips in with the best hand against these monkeys and although you may hit some hard luck (as I did) you can also survive most of the field!

Cheers – happy punting

duff