Tampa Bay Poker Group

I was convinced I would win. I knew I had to play well in order to win, but I had convinced myself not only that it was possible, but that I would. I have made calls like this before and been right ... but this time it was not meant to be.

It was WSOP Event #2 at the West Palm Beach Kennel Club's Circuit series. There were about 450 entrants with the top 10% of the field to make the money. I have played in a WSOP event before, but on a much larger scale back in 2007 ... it was a $1500 event with thousands of players. I went out before the first break in that one ... I would prove to fare better in this tournament.

We started out with T12,000 and the tournament structure was fantastic, leaving lots of room for play. First prize was more than $40k, which is more than enough money to justify taking 18-24 hours of your life to sit at a poker table.

Poker in Tampa? Really? Could it even be worth talking about? Thanks to recent Main Event runner up, John Racener, Tampa is more official than ever when it comes to poker.

Many years ago this was definitely not the case. All you could find were 1/2 limit games and $65 tournaments. It was passable as "entertainment", but not really anything you thought you could make money at.

Then came the intermediate period where they allowed NL games at Tampa horse and dog tracks and also the Hard Rock, the only rub was the $100MAX. That's right folks ... lose all the money you want, but you have to do it $100 at a time. There were routinely games at the Hard Rock that were 5/10 where I guess people would just push over and over again to flood the table with money. Sounds awful to me.

Playing winning poker is a bit like a tree, everything begins at the roots and branches out from there. Unfortunately few players realize this, so when a person identifies a problem, too often they hack away at the branches, instead of going to the roots.

In written storytelling, sometimes writers develop writer's block -- they just can't figure what to do next. Experienced writers though realize that the problem is not right "there" where they are blocked, but at some point earlier in their story. Driving on the Los Angeles freeways, you sometimes run into a traffic jam. However, your problem as a driver is almost always not the jam itself, but one stemming from "roots" of poor route planning, poor monitoring of radio traffic channels, and so on. Poker is very much the same.

Everyone knows that cards have no memory.  Players do.  This is why players will continue to play cards they know have no +EV.  For example Johnny Nocards looks down at his hand and sees 8-3 offsuit UTG.  Proper play is to muck these cards with extreme prejudice.  He does so.  The flop comes 8-3-3.  Disgusted Johnny looks toward the heavens.  A couple of rounds later he again looks down at 8-3, remembering the flop he limps in and calls a min raise.  This time the flop comes out A-J-2.  Johnny Nocards check-folds.

This may be a little RBT (results based thinking), but I'm gonna blog it anyway.

I played a tournament recently in which winning the tourney did not offer life changing money, and cashing would be a matter of bragging rights only. Deepstack turbo tourney, slow at the beginning and fast at the end, not the preferred structure by any sense of the imagination.

The LAG's are easy to spot as they push a lot of the action. They also usually wear their game on their sleave, just look at their shirt and figure out their hand.

So I get into a hand with the LAG at the table. I'm out of position which is ok as I know how he's gonna play. I raise 4x in EP to 600 chips with AQ off.

Recently joining SpadeClub has been an experience, but I'm not sure it's for everyone, and I'm sure it's not for me. Playing with points, instead of dollars, makes it very hard to take the game seriously. It makes it very hard to think out decisions, play correct poker, correct position, reading betting patterns, opponents, using all the mechanics and tools of trade of the game I love and hate. My results so far, out of 14 days and 14,000 points, I have two blue tokens and zero points (other than the 1,000 free daily reload). In both games I won tokens, I can't say I played well. I can only say I chipped up early and held on the rest of the way.

OK, so it's not completely misleading, but it is possible to think that they are talking about the speed of your play.  The single most important thing about Rush poker is NOT to rush at all.  You want to play the most patient poker of your life.  This doesn't mean not playing any hands at all, to the contrary.  Once you are up a few bucks, you can try to hit straights and flushes knowing that many opponents are playing exactly how I outline here.

These are NOT hard and fast rules, but I find most of the time I do poorly on Rush poker it's because I broke one or many of the below suggestions.  These suggestions are only if there is no raise in front of you already.  You basically want to play as few hands as possible where sometime raises in front except to set mine.  Even then, set over set is possible and since you can see 300 hands/hour playing Rush Pokler , why bother risking what's unnecessary?

So I'm running bad. Really bad. It seems any game whether ring, sng, mtt.. whether hold 'em, omaha, or Monopoly Deal. I just can't win. Anything. Ever. Yeah I'm still steaming, and ready to take some time off from the game. I've passed over the idea presented by the "real" poker pro's, or Tampa's Angry Jacks poker pro's alike, but without giving it too much thought. Until now anway. Too addicted? Perhaps. Too stubborn? Most likely. When my friends fear I may take a baseball bat to their car from the latest run down on the felt, ousting me from a home game, yeah I need a break.

Perhaps leaks and errors have snuck into my game. I did used to think I could play well. After all, I've been to the WSOP twice, both on satty wins... and there lies a problem. Losing sight of decisions and correct play, and focused instead on results, could be bad for the positive thinking . They say the pro's cash an average of 1 in 9 mtt's, and 3 in 5 sng's. SO maybe amateurs are much worse, and my stats may be 30 losses before the 3 wins in a row to bring up the batting average. lol. Wait, I don't know my average, and there lies another problem. I'm not taking notes and tracking statistics as well as I should (online anyway), but my live game performances are also seriously lacking. And those statistics are easy to see in the AJPOY standings.

So I'm running bad. Really bad. Taking a little time off, I hope, will help turn this around. Only time will tell.

Interesting read. Partial script taken from: "Easy Money" by David Apostolico, Card Player Magazine, May 7, 2008.

"...What happens, however, when you are the one on a rush? We tend to be aware of going on tilt when things go badly, but players can also go on tilt when things are coming too easily. Even a hardened player can start to feel an air of invincibility when sitting behind a mountain of chips.
Inevitably, any rush is going to end... use your big stack as leverage. Just be sure you are adopting a big-stack strategy and not playing just because you believe 'you can't lose and the money will keep coming your way'. Concentrate on making correct decisions for the situation, taking into account all factors. Certainly, the size of your chip stack and the fact that your opponents may be afraid to go up against you should figure into the mix, and you may be able to use that to your advantage if you retain objectivity and stay detached emotionally.