Poker and me

I spend a fair bit of time playing, thinking about, talking about, reading about and watching poker. I play online, in tournaments at a casino near my home and in a weekly home game. It’s a rare day that I don't play any poker. Mostly I play no limit Hold'em tournaments but I do play some cash games and I like to play some HORSE from time to time to sharpen my game. For those of you who don't know HORSE it's a game where the play changes every few blinds from Hold'em to Omaha (sometimes Hi/Low) followed by Razz, Seven Card Stud then Stud (Hi/Low "E"ights or lower - hence the E). I intend to use this blog to share my thoughts on a variety of poker topics and hopefully get some feedback from other players.

There are many adjectives people use when describing a poker player's style and approach to the game, I'll try to use a few of them to describe my game. Like most players with any experience worth talking about I mix it up and definitely do not play one style 100% of the time, in fact when I am playing well and seriously I will switch my style several times during a long tournament.

The "math" poker player. For this player it's all or at least mostly about odds, pot odds, implied odds, the odds that his opponent might be bluffing, the odds his opponent is holding what he is representing, the odds that he will hit the card(s) that will make his hand and likely see him take down the pot. I'd say I am about 30% that guy. I definitely find myself calculating the pot odds when contemplating a play, I think about implied odds when I am not the last to act and I think about how much I have to bet to give the odds I want to give to a player when forcing the action.

The "people" poker player. I am somewhat a people player but I find that term can be overused and misleading, but I'll still say I am 30% that guy. I'll hear someone who doesn't know much about poker say something like "don't play the cards, play the people". Well, the main problem with this approach is that poker is a game where deception is rewarded and any decent player will change their style from time to time. The other problem is that in order to play the people not the cards you have to have a pretty good sense of your opponent and in short online tournaments (where I spend a lot of my time) getting that kind of read is not always easy and a mistake can be costly.

The "situation" poker player. That's me more than any other style and in some ways the situation player is a combination of the math guy, people guy, blind stealer, bluffer and grinder who can play tight, aggressive or loose and switch gears at any time. This player makes decisions (and again this is mostly how I play) based on trying to interpret all of the things happening at the table.

Here are some of the things I think about while playing a hand. Position. I play position a lot, but keep in mind that as a situation guy my brain is trying to absorb a lot of info so position alone is not an easy thing to explain. For example, if I pick up a real premium hand like KK under the gun with 3 very loose pre-flop raisers behind me and one or more of them has a low chip count I might limp into the pot even though my preferred play by far is to raise in that situation. Other times I'll fire at the pot to try and take it down right then and there, depending on the situation.

Another important thing I think about is my image at the table. I am always aware of how many hands I play, am I limping into pots or pushing people around, how many times and how recently have I pushed someone off the pot without having to show my hand? I work at managing and or altering my image at the table a fair bit.

How the other players are playing and what is their image at the table? I look for all of the things mentioned above in other players. Is this guy a limper? How many times has he raised pre flop? How many chips does he have? Does someone have to stand up to him and put him in his place soon? Will it be me? Will he pay good money on a draw? Etc.

The fact of the matter is that many great books have been written about the complexities, subtleties and nuances of poker and that is not my intention with this blog. I guess I am simply using this first post to outline my approach to the game even more than my style of play. I like to think I am a cerebral player who tries to decipher all of the information available and use that info to make as many good decisions as possible and I suspect that should tell you a lot about me as a player.

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