Hooray for Bison!

[Monty Cantsin]

After much procrastination I finally downloaded the latest Poker Tracker patch and figured out how to use auto-rate.

At first I was somewhat disappointed when I discovered that, contrary to my hopes, this feature would not allow me to apply gaily colored, easy-2-read, animal, road-sign, and happy face stickers directly to my opponents, creating a fun and friendly poker environment for the student with less developed math and logic skills.

I think it is no small proof of my serious commitment to the game that I overcame this disappointment, accepted the fact that I would not be playing poker with Grumpy the Elephant, "Mr. Cheesy" the Pesky Mouse, or Taz©, gritted my teeth, and began the hard work of mindlessly plugging in the settings Bison dictated to the micro forum two weeks ago.

I exported my notes and logged on, secure in the knowledge that I would no longer need to "pay attention" to my opponents. Bison and Poker Tracker Pat were now handling that low-level task robo-magically, freeing me up my higher executive functions to concentrate fully on the game.

I decided to post the first hand where I felt the new system had an impact. Here it is:

Party Poker 3/6 Hold'em (10 handed)

This table had a few sLP-Pers and sLA-Pers, but it also had this guy in MP3, a bonafide TA-A. Knowing that we were two moneybags, duelling majestically above the lesser members of the animal, mineral, and emoticon kingdoms, is what freed me up to overplay my hand so successfully.

Preflop: Monty is UTG+2 with A[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], Q[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img].
UTG folds, UTG+1 folds, <font color="CC3333">Monty raises</font>, MP1 folds, MP2 folds, <font color="CC3333">MP3 <font color="purple">(TA-A)</font> 3-bets</font>, CO folds, Button folds, SB folds, BB folds, Monty calls.

Flop: (7.33 SB) 5[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], J[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], Q[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] <font color="blue">(2 players)</font>
Monty checks, <font color="CC3333">TA-A bets</font>, <font color="CC3333">Monty raises</font>, <font color="CC3333">TA-A 3-bets</font>, <font color="CC3333">Monty caps</font>, TA-A calls.

Turn: (7.66 BB) 6[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] <font color="blue">(2 players)</font>
<font color="CC3333">Monty bets</font>, TA-A folds.

It hardly seems fair. Poker has entered a new golden age of push-button ease. Now if I could just find someone to actually push the buttons for me I'd be truly happy.

/mc