Purpose of Blog

This is just a place to keep my poker thoughts. These thoughts range from the game itself, the games in which I play, and the games on telelvision.

Just a few things about me. I'm a college student that has played poker for almost two years now. I haven't read much of the literature on poker. Just the chapter on No-Limit Hold Em in Phill Hellmuth's Play Poker Like a Pro. I've only seen 3 videos on poker: Phil Hellmuth's Million Dollar Secrets of Poker, Phil Hellmuth's Million Dollar Secrets to Bluffs and Tells, and Mike Caro's Poker Tells. I play small games with friends at home and at school, but my favorite game is $100 Max Buy-In NL Hold Em at the Turning Stone Resort & Casino. TS is only 90 miles from my school in Verona, NY. When I turn 21, I plan on going to Foxwoods and Atlantic City. When bored, I will play online for fun at PartyPoker and eventually for money at UltimateBet.

My favorite player is Phil Hellmuth. I also like Phil Ivey, Gus Hansen, Marcel Luske, Daniel Negraneau, Chris Ferguson and Dan Harrington. I'm not a big fan of Howard Lederer because he doesn't change his game enough and I don't like Annie Duke because she had no place at last year's WSOP Tournament of Champions Event sitting with people like Chan, Hellmuth, and Brunson who have actually won the Main Event and have won bracelets in NL Texas Hold Em.

The last game I played in was a friendly small game. Me and my two friends putting up $5 each at midnight and playing a very small tournament. We started with $1,000 worth of chips with blinds at $25/$25 going up every 20 minutes until they reaced $50/$100. This game was a classic waiting out of a sometimes agressive player. My friend Mike, when sensing weakness, likes to put people all-in. Here are the two big hands. My other friend had been knocked out by Mike and I was down about 3.5 to 1 in chips:

Mike calls the big blind on the button, I have AJ so I raise $200 on top, about half my stack is now in the pot. He moves all-in. Mike doesn't like to raise preflop even with AA, KK, or QQ because he's gotten very little action when he raises preflop. This, of course is in my mind. With AQ, this call would be easy. However, I know he wouldn't do this with any hand I had dominated. Normally, I might just fold and wait for a better spot, but with half my chips in there I know I am very commited to this. I figured this hand was a race against a low pair or 60/40 against KQ. I made the call and turns out it was KQ. I hit an Ace high flush on the turn so I was able to double up. The stacks were now nearly even.

Only a few hands later, I check the big blind with 94. The flop comes 6h-9h-9d. I check my trip nines trying to lay a trap. Mike bets out pretty strong, $300 in chips which is a quarter of my stack. I don't want to raise and scare him out and I figure he has a draw so I want to see if he hits. I assumed it was a flush draw so I pray that the 4 of hearts comes out, he makes his flush, and I make my boat. I called the $300. The turn was a 4 of diamonds. I check and he moves all-in. This was a much easier and quicker call. It turns out he had a straight draw. Mike only had $300 left in chips after this hand so went all-in blind twice before finally being beaten by my suited connectors that I kept calling him with.