Black Deuces - Poker Blog

Let’s talk a bit about my favourite pro-poker player Daniel Negreanu. Not only is he arguably the best all-around poker player at the moment, he also seems like a very likeable person.

One of the things Negreanu is most famous for is his ability to read his opponents. I’ll let Youtube do the talking here:

Legendary. “You know what I think he’s got? ACES.” Mr. Negreanu sir, you are a genius.

Another great feat Daniel has mastered, is the table talk. In the previous example his “ACES” banter confused his opponent and as a result Daniel got two free cards! Another example of his talking skills:

First he figured out Sam Farha was weak and secondly he convinced Sammy he had a king. Very nice.

Next time we’ll talk about Negreanu’s humor and impressions, and his own poker blog.

Ever noticed how some players hugely overrate their pocket pairs? A few weeks ago I came across such one player in a local casino. Although he was playing quite a solid game, all of a sudden he decided to blow up with 88’s and as a result donating his whole stack to me.

Here’s what happened:

My pre-flop play might not make much sense: why raise in middle position with K9s? Well, their are several reasons, first of all the table was pretty weak and more importantly I want to keep my opponents guessing. It’s obvious this worked, Mr. Donk here didn’t have a clue what I had, so decided to push all his chips in with a very marginal hand, either on a bluff or just figuring I had AK or a weaker pair. I had been playing very loose ’till that point (basically because the table was playing very tight passive), so he might have actually thought his 88’s were good. Mixing is it up is vital in a poker game!

I decided to call his reraise pre-flop because I had position on him, considered him a weak player that I could outplay post-flop and thought that the player on the button was likely to fold. Well, the button-player didn’t fold, but I was still happy to see a flop with my hand, even with a player (who didn’t show much strength anyway) behind me.

Now, after Donk leads out on the flop I put him on a big pair, at least JJ’s, and I hope he isn’t holding TT’s. Like I said, he was playing a solid game ’till that point, so it was fairly possible he flopped top full. Yet, I’m pretty confident that my is good hand and decide to flat call and see what the player on the button does. He decides to flat call too. Now I know the button player very well, he is either holding a flushdraw or a T, of which both I think a T(J maybe) is most likely, ‘caus I think he would raise a flush draw, just to see where he stands.

On the turn, Donk doesn’t hessitate one second to lead out again, for more then half of his stack. “I smell KK’s or AA’s” I thought at that point. But the question is, should I flat call this and invite the button player in? If he has a flush draw I should move all-in, if he has just a T my flat call would maybe induce him to call too, but I think that’s very unlikely due to the strength Mr. Donk has showed so far. Anyway, I decided to flat call and gamble a bit, if he has a flush draw I want that extra 76$ in the pot, and on the rare chance that Donk is bluffing I don’t want to scare him off his hand. I flat call and the button player folds, excellent result either way.

The river is a blank, Donkey pushes, I insta-call muthering something like “If I’m stupid enough to play K9s, I’m stupid enough to go broke with it too”. The donk asks “You have a ten?” and I show him my trips. He stands up, throws his 88’s open en leaves the pokerroom.

The whole table was shocked at first, then started laughing out loud.

Thanks to Pokerstars beautiful Steps SNG’s I managed to turn 7.50$ into a 215$ tournament ticket. So, I’ll be playing the Sunday Million tomorrow (for the first time!). Fingers crossed.

Off to bed now, but let me first share with you this sick hand that occured in Step #3 and which played a crucial part in me making the final 2.

To quote Bob Dylan: “I can’t help it if I’m lucky.”

Btw, if you have no idea what the Pokerstars’ Steps are, check out this link.

Update: Didn’t manage to cash and was out in two hours. No bad beats or anything, just regular variance (and, I have to admit, some bad plays from my part.) Better luck next time!

I didn’t manage to cash in the first event of the MiniFTOPS yesterday. This was basically due to a rather sick hand that came up around an hour and a half into the tournament:

Table Information

Seat 1:	Player 1	($6,180)	Dealer
Seat 2:	Player 2	($7,880)	Small Blind
Seat 3:	Hero	($7,100)	Big Blind
Seat 4:	Player 4	($5,975)
Seat 5:	Player 5	($5,530)
Seat 6:	Player 6	($2,080)

Dealt to Hero

Preflop (Pot:240)

RAISE

Player 4

$480

FOLD

Player 5

FOLD

Player 6

FOLD

Player 1

FOLD

Player 2

RAISE

Hero

$1,680

CALL

Player 4

$1,200

Flop (Pot: $3,600)

RAISE

Player 4

$2,560

RAISE

Player 6

$4,295

ALL-IN

Player 4

$1,735

Turn (Pot: $12,190)

River (Pot: $12,190)

ShowDown:

SHOWS   Hero

SHOWS   Player 4

Player 4

win the pot: $12,190

The next hand I got JJ in the small blind and moved all-in, only to be called by the same player, which was holding AK this time. An A hit the flop and over was my MiniFTOPS #1.

It’s debatable whether or not I could have gotten away from those 33’s after the flop, but I think the way it played out, it was just one of those hands that played itself. Better luck next time.

BTW: Bob Safai is my hero.

I’m really excited about the new tournament series Full Tilt Poker is introducing. The MiniFTOPS is starting today with event #1, a super-stack 6handed tournament hosted by Erick Lindgren. Although I stated a few days ago that I would drastically cut back on my time playing  online, I do plan to play some of these low-buyin-but-huge-reward-tournaments.

So, time to recap some basic strategies. Like the advantages of establishing a tight table image, so I don’t get tempted into playing far too many hands (like I usually do).

Hope to see you at the final table tonight!