Long Time No Post

Little to report on from my ever-rare excursions to the felt, hence the momentary downtime in spewing pixels. I tried the first of the BBT events a couple of weeks back, but went out early after getting all the chips in good against Missy Hoy early on. I flopped a straight while he flopped top set, and the chips went in on the turn. He then caught a queen on the river for quads and used my chips as part of his rush to riches.

So be it.

February pretty much sucked for me that way, pokerwise. I took a few shots, both live and online, and... nada. My Stars account went into a rough stretch as well, with a tough run in turbos, MTTs and cash games causing an overall 25% drop in my bankroll there last month. More, actually, if you count a nice coupon that I took one of those shots with, and went nowhere.

The last week to ten days, then, has been a process of grinding it back up. And so I have, returning to those 18-player turbos where I have a consistent edge. I fire up three or four at a time and replace as needed, usually with a TV or something on in the background. The result: I should be able to sample a few SCOOP events as time allows.

I've noticed, though, that the tight focus on the smaller turbos often takes just a bit of my edge off in some of the larger MTTs. Between the time demands of late for the work stuff, and perhaps just a bit of tilt, I hadn't been showing the patience needed to run deep in anything with a big field. Big MTTs can require giving up big hands once in a while, and I've been way too willing to donk it up with TPTK of late. In the small turbos that's generally a hand to go to war with, but not necessarily so in MTTs, at least not until the average stack drops below 20 big blinds or so and it's reduced to one- or two-move poker.

I've noticed a fresh surge of bad players of late, populating the turbos. I've also noticed an uptick at lower and mid levels of a certain type of turbo player, who plays ultra tight early on, not getting into any hands in the first three levels or so without a veritable monster. In addition, if they do play anything early on, they're coming in for a raise of eight or nine times the big blind, with an example being open-raising 250 at the 15/30 level. With starting stacks of 1,500 in these things, what they're trying to do is induce chasers with hands such as middle pairs and A-Q and A-J and the like, all while denying proper post-flop odds in most circumstances to crack a monster pair. Sooner or later, of course, someone will look them up, and if it turns out they've been overraising with the suspected monster, it's note time.

I make that special note whenever I see one of these players, because if they're willing to lay out their early game plan so plainly, I can take chips from them. I'll show them due respect later on in the turbos, but whenever I know what they're up to, I have the edge. Edge means chips, chips mean money. Easy formula.