Thursday, January 04, 2007

Does being a maniac at first help?

I have noticed a trend in my play over the last couple of months. I play more hands, call down more bets, and pay off more players in the first orbit of a game. Not sure why I do it (eager to play maybe?), but I usually find myself in a hole after a couple of hands. I can usually fight back to cut the loss or turn a profit but it would be much nicer to not bury myself to begin with.

There is one benefit. People think you are an idiot. Yeah, some of you think I am an idiot anyway, but it is better when the people at the table think I don't have a clue what I am doing. Thus when I have a monster, they won't give me any credit for it and pay me off. That is how I usually get paid back.

Oh, it also doesn't hurt that big hands have held up. I thought I was sunk when I make it 3 bets to go from the BB with A A. UTG+2 capped it and 3 of us saw a flop come Q high. I thought I was in trouble but bet it out to see what would happen. No raises. Hmmm. Turn was a 3. Bet again and it is just called by both players. River is a K. No straight possibility. No flush. I don't like that K though. I had one of them on K K. I ruled out Q Q so that card didn't matter, but was pretty sure someone held on to hit the river jackpot. I checked. Check. Check. I was up against 10 10 and 7 7. Capped with 7 7 and called it down hoping to hit a 2 outer.

Yep, it is easy to come back when you get paid off.

Played a good amount of TD last night. Started at 1/2 while playing some short handed Omaha hi/lo. Moved up to 2/4 and 3/6 when the table broke. The pace in the 3/6 game was quite faster. Lots of raising going on compared to the 2/4 game where I am more comfortable. Unfortunately, what I made on TD covered my Omaha losses. I really stunk it up there last night.

I think the best part of playing poker over the last 2 weeks is that I have had some fun. Playing very little in December helped to build my interest again. I also think that instead of developing a game plan- something I did last year but never stuck with- is out. I am going with the flow and will play whatever interests me. For now it is TD. Who knows what it might be next.

1 comment:

iamhoff said...

Maniac or not, having those hands hold up is what helps. Personally, when I find myself sliding into those situations, I usually get deep enough that it takes more than a few monsters holding up to rebuild the stack to competitive levels. True, having a sketchy image early on will generally convince people to stay in when you truly do have a monster, but then you run into the whole issue of dem big hands holding up. Where to draw the line...

I've only played TD for play money, but it seems interesting. I know Pauly seems to like it. Maybe I'll have to find a nice low limit table and give it a whirl. Just keep praying for those monsters to hold up.