32Red Poker Blog

My main aim in this blog to communicate how I’m feeling, as this is what I hope will make it interesting. The problem is that poker often makes it difficult to know how you are feeling, let alone to say. Once again, poker this weekend has thrown up its usual bizarre mix of emotions.

Thinking about things the next morning, I’m pleased to have finished 8th in field of 217 at the Star City tournament, but at the same time gutted to have not made a better run at the final table. My live poker form in the last twelve months has been distinctly average, but one way of looking at it is simply to say that  I’ve struggled with final tables. Final tables at the Euro Finals in Paris, the Luton GUKPT leg and this £500 Circus casino tournament have handed me three good chances, and so it’s so frustrating to have the strange record of coming 8th in all three!

I always try to think far more about how I’ve played rather than the result, and my emotions are simialry confused on this one! It’s good to have had a decent run and produced some good poker at times, but there are still so many spots that I can look back on, and realise that I could have played them better.

It’s been a strange 12 months in live poker, as so many tournaments seem to have given me no chance of getting into contention. It will always be the 12 months I look back on as set over set in the World Series and EPT Copenhagen and London, 2nd nut flush vs flush in Dublin and being unable to win a race. Therefore, it’s really pleasing that yesterday was a reminder that there are days in poker where luck will be on your side. I had three overpair situations all-in, one ace-king vs ace-queen and even a race, and won them all! Whilst it’s really pleasing to have had a good run at a tournament, I am gutted not to have capatalised better on my lucky day.

I can only put this frustrated energy in trying to look back over the spots that went wrong. Will I ever be able to play a tournament where I can’t add to the overflowing list of “my 50 worst mistakes?” Almost definitely not, but just maybe there will be fewer to add over time.

One of my challenges in compiling this list will be to try to pinpoint what kind of mistakes are coming up too often, and yesterday really made me realise a common theme. Preparing for live poker by plaiyng online throws up so many subtle differences, that it sometimes feels like preparing for a maths exam by reading a novel. This weekend’s good run yielded two days of interesting hands, and made me realise that I have so much to learn about live poker.

There are a number of common themes, but here is one of them: to generalise completely, the right style of river betting online is to bluff small and value bet big. I was tending to do this at yesterday’s live tournament, without success on three occasions. Live players are so much less thoughtful than internet players, that you have to make a number of adaptions. This is one in particular, that live players will often decide whether or not to call simply on the strength of their hands. This means that value bets should often be small or maybe half the pot, and that big bluffs will often work, as they only get called by big hands. It is interesting that this almost turns the thinking in online poker on its head.  Adapting to this and many other subtleties will be the big test for me, and just maybe will end this run of damn 8th places!!

My play rating: 6/10

Atmosphere rating: 9/10