Posted by Padilla 9:40 AM
To reinforce how valuable hand histories can be………

I looked back at a recent ‘$55 +$5’ 9-man from Stars.
I have played with a certain opponent a few times recently, and he/she seems wise enough that I wanted to pick up on any tendencies that I could.

To my amazement, I realized that this opponent played ‘all-in or nothing’ poker this time around. I do remember thinking it was a bit strange that he went all-in early in the tournament into my big blind from 2nd or 3rd position. Now it makes sense, and I may be able to exploit that next time we play.

Scrolling through all 48 pages of the hand history (size 8 font) showed me the same thing. All-in or fold. To his credit, this aggression got him in the money, in 3rd place.

Naturally, I turned the microscope onto myself to see what any opponent disciplined enough to look back at this particular tournament would see from me….after all, I won the damn thing.

They would only see 4 hands, and probably think I was the luckiest bastard on the planet.

The first hand they saw all tourney was AQ, and I offered it up.
I was short-stacked with steep blinds (Turbo tourney), but finally started picking up hands. The first few times my only play was all-in. One of my opponents said “You pickin’ up any hands?” after I had taken 4 of 6 pots to bulk back up. I showed this hand voluntarily to prove my aggression was warranted.

The 2nd hand they saw was 9-5 diamonds. Huh? Yes, another player would be all-in in the small blind, so I called with 9-5s, hoping the BB would notice my play. He did, and my 9 held up over both players, getting us into the money. (That’s right, 2 hands shown and I’m in the money)

The 3rd hand I showed eliminated the 3rd place finisher. I had 3-5 suited and the flop came 6-7-9, with 2 of my suit. He had top pair (no suits) and called my all-in. I hit one of my 17 clean outs and my heads-up opponent saw my 3-5s.

Finally, I won the tournament with the 4th hand that the public got to see……10-8 offsuit. Call me crazy, but if your opponent is going to keep folding when he only has 2,000 in a 13,500 game, I’m going to keep pushing pre-flop. This time he called with a dead ace and I paired up and won the tourney.

Final notes:
--These aren’t the only hands I played, just the only hands shown to the table.
--I’ve modified the 10X-the-BB rule for all-ins late in a tourney. I adjust to 5x, depending on the opponents I’m acting into, where we are in the tourney, and table style.
--I’m looking forward to playing that certain opponent again. Can you say slowplay??

0 Comment(s):

Post a Comment