All Aboard for the Best About Cruising!

Here’s a blow by blow or maybe hand by hand account of a recent free poker tournament of mine, I hope it gives you some guidance on how to think and play in such situations.

The game was ten of thirty one paid- decent odds of three to one so my decision is to play smooth and take a back seat as the games commences. A few of the cards I used at the start were fifty two suited in the small blind & K9 off with six to one pot odds. AJ off I fall pitiless- the odds are purely the difference between the cost to call to the size of the pot e.g. one hundred dollars to see six hundred dollars would be six to one.

Up about 1k playing the K9 aggressive with Q9Q flop and hitting a free A on the river with AJ. I tell people this countless times that they have to bet in these unsure situations if no one else has either wise you have nothing else to go on.

I bet 3x with my KK and get one caller, the flop comes up 5,8,10 and he bets so I string his J10 along for another 1k. Slow playing should most often only be done when you have an unbeatable hand but the action here is few and far between.

Some hands I’ve limped in with are A2 suited, A3 suited, AJ off, and 88 because of implied odds. Implied odds are basically how much money the other player has and knowing you can bust someone with the right hands calling $5 with junk may not seem as bad if you can win his 50k doing so.

There are certain cards I have passed on now that the blinds are higher and pot chances even smaller, such as, K10, J10, Q8 suited, and the Q8 ended up being a very poor fold. I’m now around an hour and a half into play & my wallet still holds two grand which I had built up before- plus a further five hundred and sixty dollars with other minimal pot plays.

I am folding AQ off suit here because we are two away from payout and it looks like smooth sailing to the final table. Folding these higher hands takes a lot of discipline but becomes easier with each bubble you get. The bubble refers to the last person to go out before the pay. I end the match in 6th place which I’m very happy with…you can make living from places like that if you’re consistent. So start small, play on free poker tournament sites and work your way up in line with your growing confidence and bankroll.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, April 10th, 2010 at 6:56 am and is filed under JetSki. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.