[La Brujita]

A few thoughts have been floating through my head. I thought I would put them here.

1. When two people are in a pot and both are getting correct pot odds to be there, both have played well. This doesn't stop the player with the worse hand from being "lucky" in my mind if he/she wins. In one sense you are lucky, in another you are not. You obviously are not lucky since it was a break even or a bit better proposition for you. But you are lucky in the sense that it was much better than a break even proposition for the opponent. This might be a bit confusing/muddled but it has been on my mind for a while. As an example if I go all in with a straight flush draw with a 60% chance to win and you have the correct odds to call, if you draw out are you lucky or not. I still think you are, at least in one sense of the word.

2. When HU at Party, I love players who are passive. With the big blinds, folding a lot pre flop means death. Also, I love players who never raise from the button pre flop. When I get this non raising player, I rarely reraise from the BB because I don't want that player to get more aggressive. Is this correct? I think it is.

3. The one thing that is really starting to bother me about Party is that in a tournament with 800 chips, you are almost forced to go all in in a raised pot. As an example, first hand of a tournament one caller, I raised to 125 with red aces J3 hearts cold called, everyone else folded. With about 300 in the pot and 675 in front of me, I only really have one choice, push all in when rags flop (flop 3xx turn J river k). This is why Stars is so much better.

4. I am an idiot about occasionally berating bad play. Like in the hand above. If I had more control, I would just keep my stupid mouth shut. I read somewhere, and I agree, something to the effect that you cannot a great poker player if you cannot handle outdraws with equanimity. See Phil Hellmuth for an exception.

5. One person called me an idiot for making the following play. He claimed he had been a pro for 10 years (he was hopefully lying). We were two relatively short stacks battling for third with four left at Party. Blinds are 100-200 and he raises to 400. I call from the BB with 9-3 of hearts. Flop comes 9xx and I check and call his all in. He turns over aj and wins on a inside straight. He had ten outs on the flop so he was correct to go all in given our chip totals. But he called my 9-3 call idiotic. I thought he was idiotic for not pricing me out of the pot. I think there is a poker saying it is almost never incorrect to call a minimum raise when in the BB. This has to be true with two suited cards.

6. People often miscount outs. In the hand I mentioned above he told me he had 10 outs. That is not exactly the case since if he got a A or J on the turn, I could spike a 9 or 3 on the river. In other words you can't just flip to the chart in HEPFAP and see 10 outs and think you are correct.

Those are some of my random thoughts that have been on my chest.