Tommy Angelo
02-04-2004, 03:03 PM
There's so much more to running good than dragging pots. I arrived at AJ's sometime between bar-closing and bad traffic. One seat open in the $15-30. Perfect. And it would be thinning soon. Oh? What's this? The two toughest players, who happened to have the biggest stacks, are both cashing out? Taking six thousand dollars off the table? Leaving less than $2000 behind, scattered around equally among five double-stuck players? (Financially stuck, and chair stuck.) Any one of whom would be enough to fuel good action in a shorthanded game?
An hour later I had seen two turns and I had won a good pot both times with premium starters and improvement on the flop. I was essentially folding every hand and everyone else was running at an 80% flops seen rate. I've been in this kind of game many times. I could fold every hand for a week and no one would comment or really even care.
The game was down to five players. I was in the big blind. Limp limp limp to the small blind who, while tossing in one chip to call, said, "Ai-ya. You guys let Tommy in." She says this often when they let me in.
The flop was Q-J-T. I flopped a straight. Someone else flopped a straight with 9-8, and some else flopped two pair. It went three bets on the turn and one on the river and I won a big pot. The small blind said, "Say goodbye to those chips."
My edge in this game came from two things. One was that my typical starting hand was a couple pips higher per card, on average, than whatever hands I was going in against. Second was that all my bets and raises were earning double their usual value in passivity inducement.
Next hand it was my small blind. Limp, limp, limp to me. Right then if I had to put a number on my expected hourly earn in this game I'd say it was $100. I wanted to keep it that way, so I folded.
Tommy
An hour later I had seen two turns and I had won a good pot both times with premium starters and improvement on the flop. I was essentially folding every hand and everyone else was running at an 80% flops seen rate. I've been in this kind of game many times. I could fold every hand for a week and no one would comment or really even care.
The game was down to five players. I was in the big blind. Limp limp limp to the small blind who, while tossing in one chip to call, said, "Ai-ya. You guys let Tommy in." She says this often when they let me in.
The flop was Q-J-T. I flopped a straight. Someone else flopped a straight with 9-8, and some else flopped two pair. It went three bets on the turn and one on the river and I won a big pot. The small blind said, "Say goodbye to those chips."
My edge in this game came from two things. One was that my typical starting hand was a couple pips higher per card, on average, than whatever hands I was going in against. Second was that all my bets and raises were earning double their usual value in passivity inducement.
Next hand it was my small blind. Limp, limp, limp to me. Right then if I had to put a number on my expected hourly earn in this game I'd say it was $100. I wanted to keep it that way, so I folded.
Tommy