Tao of Poker

Tuesday at the Tables: Trapping Fish

It's snowing here in NYC. Doesn't that suck? Pefrect time to hit the tables on Party Poker. Mom's at work so Pauly can play. I snuck into her apartment, raided her fridge, and fired up Party Poker. I headed for a $5 +$1 Multi NL tourney. 1109 players... over $5500 in prize money. I was bounced by the end of Level 4 when my A-Q lost to Q-Q. I went all-in when I flopped an Ace, the chip leader called me my medium stack. He caught a Queen on the river. Bastard!

In homage to HDouble I decided to multi-task... read my daily newspapers and play two tables. Alas, I'm not a player like Hank and can't play three $5-$10 at once and read a Herman Hesse novel in between the lulls. I can barely manage two 50 cent-$1 tables at once. It was tough at first, but I managed once I got the hang of the tables. I even took a few phone calls, read the entire Wall Street Journal, and caught up on the NY gossip columns. The result? A $6 loss on one table and a $14 on another for a decent $8 win in one hour. I needed more excitement. I headed to the NL Ring games and I bought in for $25.

A-K on the big blind. I decided to bet $10, no callers. Two hands later, K-Q suited on the button. Raised and got two callers. The flop: A-Q-x. I called a bet. The river: Q. I went all-in vs. A-K and almost doubled up. In three hands I was up $21.75. I walked away and headed for a SNG.

And yeah, I caught some cards and bullied everyone late when I had a big stack and I won! Man, back to back SNG places. Last night second, and then a first place. I was still on a rush. I wanted to keep playing. One more SNG.

I had the chip lead late and lost my huge stack when 3-3 beat out my A-J suited. I caught and A and a J on the flop but the nimrod caught his set of 3s on the river. River'd again. But I'll take the money and the third place victory. Up $47 for the day. I'm tempted to go back.

The day's highlights included slow playing pocket aces... twice today and getting fish to call my all-in's post-flop.

Hand 1 (A-A): Flop: Ts-8c-Qd... turn & river: 6s-2s. The two guys who called my all-in: Q-J and Q-3! I busted one guy and left the other guy with less than T100 chips.

Hand 2 (A-A): Flop: Qc-Ad-5h... I went all-in and got one caller A-6 suited. The rest of the hand: 9d-4c. My set wins and I knocked that guy out as well.

Normally I don't slow play pocket aces, but I smelled weakness at the table. That fishy smell is tough not to pick up. Pauly 2, Fish 0.