Picking Your Battles

Had a crazy day playing poker. Was way down at first, but then came roaring back. Here's what happened:

I wanted to play some limit this morning, so I waited for the first 9-handed $1/2 game I could find and jumped in blind. What I found myself in was a tough, tough game. That, combined with unfocused play on my behalf, resulted in a massacre-- mine. I essentially had zero cards come my way in ~50 hands (which happens), but the majority of my lost money occured when I would attempt to steal the blinds, get resistance, and not Get Off The Losing Hand (which shouldn't happen). I chased with bottom pairs, aces with lousy kickers, two-outer flush draws, gutshots, you name it. Terrible play. What should have been a minor $8-10 loss due to card death, turned into a $35 red entry into the morning ledger. Yowza.

Later in the day--after thoroughly chastising myself for lousy card play--I got into a $.25/50 6max game and QUICKLY made back most of my morning losses. The reason? Simple: I was at a table with two incredibly bad players who chased with bottom pairs, aces with lousy kickers, two-outer flush draws, gutshots, and you name it. Sound familiar? The main thing I did was tighten up and wait for good cards to get involved with these two guys. It was like shooting fish in a barrel and my bankroll began to recover.

During this miracle run, I started up a $6 Turbo SnG and only half paid attention to it while I was crushing the limit game. I would occasionaly steal the blinds and play big cards in the tourney, but in general I did nothing but let the other players kill themselves off. Pirates and maniacs were everwhere; i.e., it was the perfect situation to play Turtle Man and wait for the dust to settle.

Before I knew it, I was on the bubble with a moderate sized short stack. More waiting, more swashbuckling action. All of a sudden: woo hoo, I was in the money! Then a curious thing happened. One of the players timed out and then started autofolding. The other player at the table didn't seem to notice, so I just attacked the folder's blinds every single time I could. Pretty soon we were down to two, with me a moderate 2:1 underdog. Well, I fought back and we traded the lead a half dozen times. At one point, I suffered a terrible bad beat when my set got hit by a runner-runner gutshot draw and I was WAY down to just T500 and on the brink of elimination. Fortunately, I hit some miracle cards and came all the way back to win the thing.

Following that fun game, I donked off a few pennies in a $.25/50 6max game and realized the competition was tough. Why waste my time fighting for a few scraps in that game, I thought? I left the game and found another $.25/50 that had a big fish. I took out the old rod-and-reel and made another quick $5 in profit from him.

And then, to top off the big gain for the day, Full Tilt offered me a bonus for play and I gained a couple of bucks with some player rake-back from the site. Not bad. The rake-back is in effect for the next 10 days and maxes out at $75, so I'm going to try and play a lot of limit between then and now to maximize this little bit of edge.

Anyway, this all reiterates the guru's second commandment, which is Thou Shall Maximize Edge at the table. Do not play in a tough game unless you have to; find easier picking; attack the weak players; leave a table if the fish leave and get replaced with pros; etc. Oh, and play better poker, too, for crying out loud. I'd be up an addition $20 or so if I had just followed this basic advice.

All-in for now...
-Bug