Decision time at Walsall

[TightEnd]

Excellent post Tom.

I would almost definitely pass though.

You pass? Ever?

 

Wow you do learn things on here.....

[ifm]

nice post Tom, makes me think of a few things.
I have been struggling just of late to change gears after the buyin period, it's the old "value" thing with me, i can't seem to put down any hand when there are 3+ players before me in a rasied pot!!
It is soooo difficult to make changes, i have actually resorted to carrying 1 or 2 buyins also to try to force myself to play a bit more conservatively during the buyin period but i just go to the cashpoint!!

Hey Hawkeye!!
I too made the final table of the sat on sat
So frustrating really, i am about 3rd in chips and just need to sit there right?
The massive stacks will catch the shortstacks soon enough and i'll just pass everything and get my seat, wrong!!
The big stacks don't wanna know, won't play like a satelite and raise every pot they enter, each to their own and all that but they really should be trying to trap every time and not be trying to accumulate chips.
Just a mad final table anyway, when the shortstacks did get callers they double up, meanwhile i'm getting ante'd away.
Typical i end up 7th and 50, bloody frustrating, especially when the 2 big stacks get em all in AQ v AK and split, it was the final nail as either i'd have got the seat or the one fella would've been left with one chip!!
Ian

[Junior Senior]

snoop - the reason you are struggling to get your point across is you are from Birmingham - and they don't speak English there!  In Vegas, an American called the floor person over because Paul 'Action Jack' jackson was chatting away to another player on his table and he thought he wasn't speaking English (not sure who he was talking to but he was a brum person too) - laughs all rounf from the english contingent (true story!)

Red-dog - I have also been experimenting recently with a new style, its called the 'aggressive loosegoose-fish'. It crosses the style of a novice rookie fish and a loose goose, where you raise with absolute bollocks and when you get called you follow up with a bet, then another, then another regardless of whether you hit the flop or not but it usually works best when you catch bottom pair, which gives you the excuse to commmit all your stack on the off chance the other fella may either pass or has K-high.  I have not had a result playing like this so now i am gong back to waht i know (A-A, K-K and nothing else!) - I am naturally a rock so going back to my roots.

I suck! - see you soon.

[The Camel]

Excellent post Tom.

I would almost definitely pass though.

You pass? Ever?

 

Wow you do learn things on here.....

Well, I might have been exaggerating slightly

[riverdave]

Tom with regard to the hand i think without letting hindsight cloud my judgement i think i would of passed. Sat at the same table i instantly put him on a monster hand as i had correctly done in the previous hand where he reraised me. having said that you are right that it was better to reraise than call.

With regard to the styles part of this discussion i think you have to learn to vary your style depending on the situation i am a naturally looseish aggressive player but I have had to learn and develop other styles for some of the cash games/comps i play now. I now feel equally comfortable playing loose or tight.

[BrumBilly]

Junior, as a Brummie your post vegas anecdote cracked me up..nice one  ...I can just imagine the other players/dealer saying 'English! English please!'.

[goldgoat]

RED-DOG - don't apologise for any lack of literary eloquence, it reads extremely well and for anyone who hasn't been to Las Vegas, a night in Walsall (sorry Walsall !) probably seemed more real than the glitz of Sin City. Nevertheless it's all the same once the cards are dealt, Walsall or Las Vegas, and you described the whole scene and the emotions superbly. (God, i sound like an English teacher).

Regarding the hand, i agree that the key is patience, not whether you play loose or tight. You could wait a long time for the right time to play a weak hand, as much as a strong one. Some hands are obviously bad and some hands are obviously 'must plays'. Then there are the ones in the middle for which the decision of whether or not to play them will probably depend upon the scenario at the time....number of players, how much you know about them, size of pot etc.

I've mostly been playing online to date with very little experience of live action, and when you play online the 'patience' part is pretty easy as you can do any number of things until a loud beep brings you back to the screen. I generally do emails, my expenses for work, write presentations, whatever, in order to avoid getting sucked into the kind of hands that quickly drag your stack down like quicksand. When i start playing live games, the key for me will be how to keep myself occupied at the table whilst waiting for the right hand (i assume bringing laptops to do work is frowned upon!). I see lots of people use ipods or the like, but i guess you miss a lot of the atmosphere of the live game going down that route.

In terms of your hand, the general consensus seems to be that most would have passed, but hey, if you'd won it would have been a different story and you might be on a totally new road of loose play.