Good morning!
Well, yesterday was a banner day... accomplished a few things around here, and got 2, not one, but two messages from girl doggies on the internet...
Hard to make out what some of them really mean, though.... This one says she's interested in "aviation". Okaaaay... so what, this means you want to join the mile high club?? You want to fly to Hawaii twice a year? You want to discuss the role of the F6F Hellcat vs the Japanese Zero in the critical battle for air superiority over Guadalcanal??? Your ex husband was a pilot, and had his own plane, and you liked that??? You're intrigued by the success the Israeli Air Force has had with such a variety of equipment, ranging from French Mirages to F-15 Eagles, and wonder if it isn't all about their training & mindset?? You own your own Extra 330L, give flying lessons, and when you feel like it, travel the country and perform in airshows, like Patty Wagstaff??? Or maybe you have an Align T-Rex R/C Helicopter in your basement? And you like to fly it on the golf course behind your house???
Am I even close?? Aviation.... hmmm. Who knows... Do I really need to complicate my life right now??? It's all compromises anyway, it wears you down... It's like filling out a sheet of requirements, like a list of 20, handing it in, and the first thing they ask is "Now, which ones of these are you willing to cross out???" Neither of these girls is like "oh my god"... And I'm not just talking looks either. Kids there part time... live with parents, whassup wit dat?
Anyway, let's talk about something important: poker.
Now, before I even get into this, some of you out there like to use words like "integrity", and phrases like "you have none." My immediate rebuttal to you is, shaddap.
Okay, on the XBox 360, I am working my way through World Series of Poker: Tournament of Champions. Pretty good AI in this game, and it varies from player to player, which keeps it interesting. I use this strictly as a break, and as a training tool for the online play and so forth. Great place to try new things, mess around with strategies.
Now, I'm in a Limit Hold 'Em tourney at the moment, and limit isn't really my thing. All I have to do is make the money cut-off to "pass" each challenge, and I can do that, but I am trying to do a personal goal of winning every tournament. I feel I'm placing highly on the net, but not winning often enough, so I'm trying to feel the win, think of the win, focus on the win... and let's face it, many greats in many sports, going from Arnold Palmer to Doyle Brunson to Phil Laak to Scotty Nguyen to Daniel Negreanu all say the same thing: I was there to win the tournament. Anything but first would be a disappointment.
So, this Limit Tourney I'm embroiled in, I can't seem to win it. And I've grown tired of replaying it over and over, so I found a creative way to "save" the game at a certain juncture, then play on, and if it goes badly, I can go back and replay it from the save point. This is where you "Integrity" people need to shaddap. This is valuable training for me. Very important conceptual research is taking place, which could make me a lot of money.
So, I'm down to one guy, heads-up for the title, and I have like a $5000 to $4000 chip lead on him.... and I can't close him out!!! Seriously, I've tried him like 5 times from this spot....
I honestly almost wonder if this player is some kind of AI player that can see your hand... this guy is uncanny at folding when I have something, and reraising when I have nothing, even if he has nothing (which I've found out by calling him down). I wasn't the chip leader when heads up play started, but I did take a few pots off of him... he folded on the river once when his flush draw didn't come through (so I surmise that's what happened), and I won another one, 2 pair over top pair...
Let's review what this guy does that makes him so effective, and see if it wouldn't help us heads up... And let's keep in mind this is a limit situation, so not all of this will apply to NLHE, but I think there are some valid concepts here...
#1. He is relentlessly aggressive. Preflop, from the small blind with the button, he always raises. Always. Thus, in the big blind, you never see a free flop. Also, if you just call from the small, I saw him check to see a flop 1 time. Once. He raises 99% of the time from the big, also.
This puts tremendous pressure on you, or me, as the opponent. If I'm in the small, I know right away if I call, I'm going to get raised, and have to call another bet.
If you raise right away from the small, he calls that raise every time, too, so you'll never get a chance to push him off the hand pre-flop. Or he re-raises, but not too often, so you can fold to that raise & sleep at night...
After the flop, and especially on the more expensive turn & river streets, you can play against him. But you have to really strap in and be prepared for a slugfest on every deal pre-flop.
#2. By calling him down in some situations, just to see what he had, I see that even if he just makes middle pair, with no kicker, he plays that like a pair of aces. Any hand he hits, he pushes. Again, that's hard to play against. He really won some lucky hands off of me that way...
So, these things are so tough to play against... since he's always pushing, it's really hard to put him on a hand.
But I would say that in any heads up situation, a player would do well to try and do these things... especially against a player you feel is weaker.
To be honest, I like to play aggressive heads up... but not as crazy as this AI player... this guy is something... but sitting on the other side, I see how hard it is to play
against that...
What I love to see heads-up is the opponent folding to me out of the small blind... that's when I know I have him. He knows I'm going to raise, and he just can't waste any more chips on crummy hands. And in the ultimate humiliation, that's what I was doing against this guy last night.... with blinds so huge, it costs you 10% of your stack to see a flop....
So while I preach all this aggression, it has to be on a case by case basis... against a weaker opponent, yeah, be aggressive, stay aggressive, and on the rare occasions he pushes back, get out of the way, unless you have a hand... don't let him get any initiative.
Against a stronger player, I go into shark attack mode, especially if I feel I'm really outclassed, and I've lost the initiative. Some people call this a "tight-aggressive", some people call it a lot of things... One of my first wins heads up, though, was against "The shark". This guy played super tight, would fold fold fold, but if he had a hand, wow, get back in the shark cage!! He'd take your arm off!!
Playing against that guy, though, was really tough too, because you never got a shot at his stack... he was so protective... and you can steal and steal this guy's ante's, but then he picks off one of your raises with a check raise, takes the pot down, now he's got all his blind money back... so it's really hard to make progress on the guy....
That's my impression of "the shark", anyway. Tighten up, keep folding, if you get something you like, push back hard. Start firing re-raises at the opponent...
Not that being The Shark is foolproof either... One of the greatest feelings in the world is when the shark (your opponent) comes out firing after you flop a set.... you KNOW you're getting all his chips.... that's usually a great feeling.
Seriously, it took like an hour for the single table tourney to get down to the 2 of us.... and then the two of us battled for like another hour.... it was a dogfight. Could have gone either way.
And I think there's value in that. Give your opponent a very small target to shoot at.
Another lesson is, If you're standing up, you better be firing. Otherwise, get your head down!!!
It all goes back to what Mike Sexton says over & over in his book: the power of betting. If you keep betting into your opponent, you keep putting all the pressure on him, to make the big decisions...
Until next time!
