Black Deuces - Poker Blog

Haven’t been building my online bankroll the last days, but did play some live cash games. Made over $400. Huray!

While playing this week I noticed how much money some players loose by simply not thinking! Poker is a game about skill, it’s a “thinking sport”. You can’t make the right play without thinking it over for a second. Don’t just call ‘caus you feel you have the best hand, call ‘caus you think your is probably good.

A good example about a player just playing and not thinking is Bob Safai in the following hand. Watch it first:

Bob clearly doesn’t have a clue where he’s at in this hand. And it looks like he doesn’t even want to make an effort to figure it out. Check, instant call. Check. Check, instant call. Think man! Why would a player like Harman check that turn, but then bet the river? Maybe if he took more then half a nanosecond to make a decision he would have figured it out… But hey, at least Bob knows he played bad, I’ve seen players who would call themselfsunlucky in that spot.

So I guess what I’m trying to say is: if you don’t feel like thinking about the game, don’t play the game.

Had a slow session today. After struggling for about an hour I only made $4 (which is still 40BB though). The bankroll is now up to $84.

But what I really wanted to talk about is something I noticed playing the micro-stakes. Many players make the same mistake over and over again, which costs them a lot of money in the long run. I’m talking about betting their medium-weak hands on the river. These bets serve no purpose at all: they’ll only get called when their hand is beat! Why not check it, especially when your last to act?

After some googling I found out that I’m not the only one who noticed this extremely bad play. Guess who wrote an article about it? Right. Jesus himself! An excellent article infact! You can read it at his website, right  here.

To all you micro-stakes players out there: read & learn!