Part 2: Casino Therapeutics

Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2007 10:13 pm
The tongue always goes to the sore tooth. 5 hours at the casino yesterday. Doubled up, then over-played Aces again, lost more than half my stack, doubled up again and went home. The hands I played correctly are never the issue. I’ll mull the donk move all week. Heads up. I’m small blind and bet $15. BB calls. Flop comes 3 7 J. I bet pot and get raised. Figure a J? I call. Who would call $15 pre-flop with JX? Not worth it. Maybe AJ. But he wouldn’t have raised my big post-flop fearing big over-pair. Turn is a J. I bet and get called. Now trips? Highly unlikely he has pocket Js. Decide the guy has QQ or KK. Besides, he’s almost all-in at this point. Onward ever onward. River is a blank and by now I’ve put him all in. Pocket 7s. Just have to learn to back off when the betting speaks louder than what I can decipher from the board. The good thing about this groundhog-day-like experience is that I recovered my composure fairly quickly. Perhaps because I knew right away that I had been in the wrong with my play of the hand. There’s a type of player, and this guy is one of them, who sits down and immediately starts yacking, doing the Negreneau thing, talking about “last night’s 2/5 game,” great moves, “I’ll win a few more hands here and then hit the 2/5 again,” etc. My gut says to stay out of his way unless I have the stone cold nuts. Another of this young shark type sits down. Does things like checks in the dark and then raise big after someone bets out (me) with top pair on board. Same yacking about 2/5. Funny thing, both could deliver some wicked bad beats, but when they got clobbered by legit hands, they steamed. There was a definite tidal action in their stacks. I wish I could have stayed longer. Bankroll now back on track. I’m also learning about something besides hands and playing the cards. Live is so much more than that. I must say that I have a fairly acute ability to size up a person fairly accurately in about 2 minutes. Now I have to work on finding the best way to play against that person. But that’s only part of it, isn’t it? I also have to know how I am perceived at the table. Folks rarely see anything more than top pairs or top drawing hands come from me. So, I’m a tight aggressive player (can’t lay down big pairs). That’s only a small part of it, isn’t it? What are the other impressions people get from me that may lead them to play against me in a certain way? Indulge this thinking out loud, please. 1. Middle-aged hippie 2. iPod from time to time 3. Takes frequent breaks 4. Generally quiet/rarely talks about a hand but will talk about work and dear wife 5. Fairly quick to act (online player) 6. Middle aged hippie 7. Dirt under fingernails 8. Work clothes 9. Chips stacked neatly in $100 and $20 stacks but not lined up in neat groupings 10. Smells of cigarettes (see #3) 11. Slow to burn/makes sarcastic remarks at times 12. Makes eye contact only rarely while in a hand 13. Limps from early position and small blind 14. ? 15. ? 16. Middle-aged hippie (losing objectivity) Feel free to add to the list for my benefit. I will continue with this exercise in the hopes that I get a better overall game out of it.