Not bad for an older guy

Today has been a pretty good day on the whole but I feel a little jaded now. I woke this morning at 6a.m after a late night last night trying to get back a silly little $200 loss. But anyway I finally went to bed at around 1a.m about $250 down for the day but made around $400 this morning.

Then it was back to the poker and more $0.50-$1.00 games. I need to pay more attention to my game selection policies or should I say the tables that I hang around on after the weaker fish have gone. I stayed on two tables today with six regs and two short stackers on them that I clearly should have been swerving and leaving. This just gets down to value and making money from Texas Hold Em depends on the little things that you do and these days I tend not to do them as often as I should do.

But things went my way today and one example shows how well the day went. It gets folded around to a fish who makes it $3.50 from the cut-off with an $89 stack. I have 7c-6c and call. The flop comes 5h-Jd-3c giving me a gutshot draw. They make a c-bet for around $5 and I smell weakness and get it wrong by raising to $16 and they snap call. Now I know that they have an overpair and so am looking to catch runner runner or my straight. The turn card is the Qs and they check and I check behind and the river card fills my straight with the 4d. They bet half pot and I raise them all in and they call showing pocket queens……nice!

Things like that have been happening a lot lately but you have kind of caught me at a good time with this blog because I have just come through what has been a very bad run by my standards. I have also just gone through the $40k mark in my $100-$100k challenge and so I am very happy with where my poker is at this time.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson plays as www.pokerstars.co.uk

Playing the game correctly is tough

In online poker then you absolutely must select the proper strategy to use against individual opponents. My strategy roughly falls into two broad categories. I play No Limit Texas Hold Em full ring and in an average game then there will clearly be players of all different categories. For example you may see the full ring regular that could be playing on anything from between four and twelve tables depending on their ability to be able to handle many tables at once.

These opponents tend to play solidly and if they get involved in a big pot then they will tend to have a big hand to go with it. Their method of operation will tend to mean that they always buy in for 100bb and they will play conventionally when out of position and open up their ranges from later position just like any other normal player.

So if a player who is playing eight tables raises from early position then rest assured that they have a strong hand. So three betting to isolate them may not be a good idea because you will be isolating a likely premium hand. At the end of the day you are trying to match hand strength versus your opponents hand strength. In actual fact though you are not just looking to do that but to also match up against their likely hand strength as well or lack of.

So if a regular raises from UTG+1 in full ring then they are likely to have a premium hand. So three betting with 7-6s on the button does not really look such a good idea anymore does it? This is because you are isolating a better opponent with a stronger hand and also someone who could four bet you and take you from the hand completely. For example if the stakes are NL100 then someone raising to $3.50 and you three betting means that your raise will be to at least $10 and that is 10% of the stack size that you bought in for. In fact if you only have $100 then it is exactly 10% and there will be many regs.

But contrast that to a fish who limps and you have the same 7-6s. Now you can raise because the situation is different. Firstly you are up against a fish and not a reg and secondly their hand strength is likely not as strong. If you can isolate against them then they will not play their hands as strongly as a regular grinder would. So you can see here how strategies that you employ in online poker should differ.

Come and play poker with Carl at www.pokerstars.co.uk