Keep your eyes open
Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - P0ker H0
I really love to play online poker, but one of the things I really have a hard time with is how some players handle bad beats. When a lot of players lose with what they think is the best hand, their first reaction is to berate the other player…. call him a donkey, a fish, even an idiot from northern Europe. Here are a couple reasons why I have a problem with this. One is if a player is playing bad, why do you feel it is your responsibility to tell him that his play is bad? Wouldn’t you want that player to continue to play bad? You should know that he’ll eventually lose all his chips if he continues down that path. That’s more chips for your stack! Second, just because you think what he did was wrong, might not necessarily be wrong! Poker has a lot of gray areas. For instance, if you flop top set and the Donkey flops a flush draw, when you bet and he shoves and then gets there, you want to break your laptop! However, in a lot of situations his shove was not a bad play. You have to take into account chip stacks, type of tournament you’re playing,etc. I was talking about this last Sunday with Annie Duke on the “Ultimatebet Poker Show” on RoundersRadio. She made another really good point. Annie said that when you see a player playing “bad”, try to see what he is doing well, because he must be doing something really well to compensate for what you think is bad play. After all, he’s still in the game! If you focus on the positive in what that player is doing well and forget about what he is doing bad, it will help your game. There’s a ton of information to be had. It’s always important to remember that you can even learn things from a “bad” player. It’s never too late to learn! Be a sponge, and try and soak up all that you can. This will help you take your game to the next level. See you at the tables……H0
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Tags: Annie Duke, Poker Poker Poker, poker tournaments, rounders radio, ub, Ultimatebet Poker Show
October 23rd, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Hello Mark! I am a local player here in the Madison area and have played in your Saturday tourney a few times (best finish was 15th, you got a good talent pool over there!) Anyway, just wanted to say hello and give a ’shout out” to Madison and Players Bar! I do have one question… I win a fair amount of money (relative to the buy-ins) playing live games in homes/bars, but I usually find it more fun to spend the winnings with my wife. As you can imagine, it is tough to manage an official bankroll this way allowing to get into large and more expensive events. I do keep a spreadsheet that gives me a running total, but what do you think would be a better strategy for me to enjoy the fruits of my labor, but also grow my bankroll allowing for bigger events (Like the VFW game here in Mad-town) and not getting me in hot water with the wife…. Thanks Mark and have a great day! See you soon at Players!
Jon Durham
Madison
October 26th, 2009 at 10:55 pm
Hey Jon, thanks for your post..First of all you and I are very lucky to live in a city like Madison. There are so many good players in this area,having these players around can only help your game. I feel so lucky to have this many good players that I can talk poker with on a daily basis. Bankroll management is the #1 most important part in poker…when your broke it is hard to play..but wife/hubbie management is even more important. Keeping the wife happy is were the focus must be .you will never play well without the support of your wife. That being said make sure she understands that poker tournys only pay 10% of the field your only gonna cash 1 out of 10 time on average. so when you do win you need to save it so you can move up in stakes….hope to cya soon H0