Between work and migrating the blog to another server, I didn’t even get to play any poker today. This week’s been rough at work, but my deadline is tomorrow so it should ease up after that.
Migrating the blog is another story… I hope my pic didn’t scare anybody away, and I’m looking forward to getting movable type installed, as well as putting some images up on the site. I built my linux box today, now I just gotta find a way to get it from work to home. They’ve got these silly rules about these things…
Since I didn’t PLAY any poker, I thought I’d take a quick run through my favorite loose-game theorist, hoping that some of his wisdom will rub off on me.
Izmet’s 4 rules of thumb
1. Build pots preflop with big suited cards, suited connectors and pairs above 77.
2. Jam your flush draws if you expect three or more callers.
3. Seldom call if you can’t raise.
4. Don’t try to bluff the fish.
My pocket 8s haven’t been nice to me, but I still like the 1st rule the best.
Izmet on Axs
Raising with Axs becomes profitable when there are enough loose limpers in play. For example, A4s will win more than 14.3% (which is about fair share of the 7-way pots) against 6+ opponents and will therefore profit from the six+ limping opponents putting more money in the pot preflop.
So, play your Axs hard when you’re sure you’ll get 6 callers.
Izmet on Responding to a raise
When raised, stop, think, reevaluate. A raise is an incoming message. What is the sender trying to communicate? Does he have something to say or has he just pressed a wrong button at the wrong time? Bets and calls are often automatic, not so with raises. When in doubt, fold. If you like winning, you’ll have to do lots of folding. Flea and live to tell.
Izmet on the learning curve
Be happy if you break about even after a few months. You proved yourself better than most, you have beaten the house. Not everybody can.
Izmet on playing with the fish
The best strategy in loosest games is to maximize fish mistakes, build big pots when having the best of it and get the hell out preflop when in marginal situations. As the fish are often calling correctly postflop (good pot odds), it is imperative to hit them with raises when they are not. The time to do it is usually preflop, where they are apt to call with anything. If there is a reasonable chance that your hand is best, you should raise and reraise right there to destroy the implied fish odds. This is the time to maximize their mistakes. Sure, they will try to offset this with correctly chasing postflop, but to no avail. Big mistakes preflop cannot be compensated in any way. Please note that fish very often chase incorrectly too, a good example is when they try to hit a set with their small pairs all the way to the river. This is another reason to raise liberally when having a reasonable chance to collect.
Whew. Reading that makes me wanna hit the tables, but my bed sounds even nicer at this point. Thanks for reading, back to the good stuff tomorrow (I promise).