Quest to Winning Poker (Part 4)
Thanksgiving
I have a couple poker-related things to be thankful for today. First, I went deep in a freeroll tournament on PokerStars to get a little money to get going again after going broke on that site a while ago (I’ve been playing on Full Tilt since). It was a Turbo MTT, so a lot of luck was involved and I got some good hands. I finished around 190th out of about 5000 players, so that was cool. A couple observations about these that helped me.
- I avoided the marginal situations. I had AK and someone went all in with what was revealed to be Queens and ended up getting a full house. I used to snap call those with AK, but why go into a coinflip when you can find better places where you have more of an edge.
- Aggressive play wins. I found myself continuation betting about 80% of my hands after raising. I usually caught a tiny piece of the flop, such as 2nd pair or a straight or flush draw. I would bet about half the pot, and often would win the pot right there. Just be sure not to get carried away trying to bluff if you don’t hit your draw of if your opponent plays back strongly against you.
- In a turbo format, people tend to play recklessly. You can combat this by playing tighter but aggressively when you have good hands. People will call you with absolutely nothing. Apparently, they think you are always bluffing when you bet. Just let them pay you off!
In any case, I won $0.50, which isn’t much, but I later parlayed it into a little more in a $0.10 SnG tournament! Hopefully, I can build my bankroll on this site as well.
To those of you who celebrate it, Happy Thanksgiving!
