Monday 9 November 2009

going in cold

Until yesterday, I hadn't played online in the last 6 weeks. I don't have internet access at the moment, so it's not really on the agenda. However, all the WSOP build gave me the itch to play so I couldn't help enter one of the sunday majors last night....
Playing meant trecking all the way to the 24hr uni computer suite. The last bus home was at 1am, so I figured I wanna be out reasonably early OR in for the long haul when the cumputer geeks get there for 7am. Unfortunately, it was a relatively early bust out when I played the following hand.
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Blinds 200-400
My stack 12k
Villains stack 34k.
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Pre flop:
Active villain makes it 1k UTG+2.
I make the call with AJo on the button.
Big blind comes along too.
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Flop: (Pot= 3,200)
Ah, 10d, 9s
Villain leads for 2k
I flat (I figure, either well ahead or well behind reassess on turn)
Button folds.
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Turn
3s (Boards A,10,9,3)
Villain bets 4k (Pot 7.2K)
I shove for 5k more.
He calls.
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I think flop call is fine with the attitude to re-assess but I think I got my info with his turn bet and should really fold. Pretty scary board for villain to bluff at (despite his activeness and chip stack) and I only really beat a bluff. Turns out I'm drawing dead.
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But even during the tournament I kinda felt like I was dead money to be honest. Poker is a game of practice, and not playing for over a month and then trying to play well in a big tourney is very very hard. Little things like concentration, reading hands, general table awareness are completely diminished and I never felt like I was really going to go deep.
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I've been doing more and more sport psychology recently and its very interesting and very relevent to poker in my opinion. Whilst watching some of the WSOP build up I saw Hellmuth talking about who was going to win, and he said "it would be someone who had imagined themselves winning, and prepared themselves for what it would be like". I gotta agree with him- I think that preparation is crucial in making the difference between you are your oponents, and I'm guessing that not enough people do it.
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As far as poker for me in concerned I'm going to try and grind HU very hard over the next 6 weeks before a Vegas trip at New Years. Cheapest game there looks to be $200NL so I wanna take a fair few buy ins with me. I was hoping to do more and more triathlon training to do the big race next August, however I decided against it for different reasons BUT will be doing at least a couple of Olympic triathlons next year so be good to get out training.
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We do have a regular live game running though in London. Well I say regualr but we are one week in. Thursday night's, its a great crack. Lots of people learning but everyone loves it. One guy i'm not sure if he's running a huge bluff on us all. One time, at blinds 20-40, he bet 20 on the flop into the pot of 100. I reminded him that the minimum bet was 40 now, and he then proceeded to bet 4000. Mind games. He ended up finishing 2nd.