Tough spot against a creative player

A while back I had the opportunity to play in the €5300 European Poker Tour Malta main event. Things were going reasonably well. I had built my 30,000 starting stack up to 80,000 when the following hand took place. My opponent in this hand is a world-class player who regularly takes creative betting lines. While he generally plays a tight, aggressive strategy, he is certainly capable of getting well out of line if he thinks the time is right. …

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A common blunder

The following hand is from a $1,500 buy-in World Series of Poker event. Up until this point, I was extremely card dead. I actually only played three pots that went to the flop in the first three hours of play. When you happen to get relatively few playable hands, it is usually a good idea to attempt an intelligent, well-timed bluff, especially if your opponents realize that you have been tight and will give you more “respect” than usual. …

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Playing fast and slow

I recently played an interesting hand in a $1,500 buy-in live tournament. Everyone started with 15,000 chips at 50/100 with hour-long levels, meaning there was lots of time to hang out and wait for strong hands. I realized that everyone at my table was implementing that strategy so I quickly adjusted and decided to attempt to steal every pot once it was clear no one was interested in winning. This allowed me to double my starting stack within three hours with almost no risk, which is always an amazing result. You will find that when you are constantly pushing your opponents around, your observant opponents will eventually assume that you are overly wild and may adjust. …

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Set turned into a bluff catcher

catcher-failI recently witnessed this hand in a $1,000 buy-in even that clearly illustrates a flaw in many amateur players’ poker strategies. With blinds of 200/400 with a 50 ante with 23,000 effective stacks, everyone folded around to the button, a reasonably tight player, who raised to 900. The player in the small blind, we will refer to him as Hero, called with 3c-3s, and the big blind, an unknown player, called as well. …

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