When playing in one of my regular cardrooms recently I was noticing the, once again, poor turnout for the evening’s tournament. I started asking the staff about this, and they told me that nowadays 20-30 was about the usual. This is well down on 3 or 4 years ago. There are certainly more cardrooms around now than there were 6 years ago, so the numbers aren’t that bad, but it’s well down on what I consider to be the boom time of 2-3 years ago.

One thing’s for sure, people are still heading to Loss Vegas. I was sitting next to an experienced player called Paul recently, who told me about the last time he was there. Unfortunately it’s bad news for the Brits. Yes once again we have the habit of getting drunk and insulting the locals. This British guy was totally tanked, and at the same time losing a ton of money. Then he starts mouthing off about how all the bastards are cheating him, and no one stands a chance because it’s all so crooked. Soon he was the centre of attention for everyone, including security. Paul was saying how embarrassed he was. He took the brave step to go over to the guy and try to calm him down.  He said “look, you’re in a foreign country. Try and respect that and not get into trouble cos you’re a long way from home.” Of course security then approached him, thinking he knew the other guy. “No I was just trying to calm him down, cos he’s so clearly getting out of hand.” They accepted this.

I groaned and said “you should have pretended to have been from Ireland or Australia. That’s the best thing to do. They can’t tell the difference you know.”  Security then asked the guy to just keep quiet, which made him worse. He starts ranting and raving about how he’s with the hotel and paid for his room so the cheating bastards can’t kick him out. At which point they picked him up, one on each arm and each leg, and removed him. That’s the reason I like Texas, Arizona, and South Carolina. There are no British around to screw it up for the few of us who do decide that the US is a great place to visit. The aforementioned idiot got himself banned from every casino in walking distance of the hotel. Mainly because so many of them are owned by the same people. Now if only Paul had thought to explain to the guy, carefully and calmly, the basic principals of standard deviation…

Well, I’m still playing badly. However I believe you can still learn from your mistakes, which will help you to improve in the long run. Here’s a tournament I played a couple of days ago. It’s a £30 triple chance freezout with 3×2500 chips. Starting blinds of 25/50 for 30 minutes then 50/100 for 30 minutes then 20 minute blinds. After the first two levels you receive your full allocation of chips. If you lose the first 2500 in the first two levels you can call on the next 2500.

I played for 3 hours and made two bad mistakes. That’s two too many.  In the 3 hours of play I saw 99 twice, KQo twice, A4 suited and A5 suited. They were my best hands. I won 3 hands early on with blind hands. On one of them I got paid off by a drawing donk.

I found A5 suited in early and limped in. It was not a particularly aggressive game and people were getting away with limping. A very good player next to me raised the 50 BB to 300. There were 2 callers and I considered I had the odds to call. The flop comes A J 9. I bet 500. If I’m the only one with an ace I want to know now rather than guess. The raiser looks at me and says “were you playing ace jack and hit two pair?” I say nothing. He calls looking worried. He knows I don’t have AK.  But I could very possibly have two pair. An offsuit ten comes on 4th. That board looks dangerous, I check. He bets the last 850 of his first 2500. I know there’s a lot in the pot but I know I am behind, because I know he knows, and I know he knows I know how he plays. He could be bluffing. I really think this is unlikely. I say “donks play this hand and make tons on it all the time, not me, not ever, I never make money on this hand. I know you only raise with good hands generally, but you know I play tight and only play good hands, but you know I play weak tight and know you can push me off the hand, but if you’re not bluffing you have me well beaten. I can’t beat anything you have.” He says “I think you’re over analysing, I didn’t take that long to raise.” I folded. I turned over my A5 and he turned over AQ. Despite the amount in the pot I knew I was almost certainly drawing to 3 outs, that’s if they were any good.

I had 99 in middle position with the blinds 25/50. It was raised in early followed by a reraise. I folded my nines. I realised I was drawing to hit a 9. It hit on 4th. Frustrating, but it would not have been a good call.

After the break we received our full allocation of chips. I was just ahead with about 9000. Blinds were 100/200. I saw 99 once again. I was under the gun and raised to 500. It was passed all the way round to the BB. She is a tight aggressive experienced female player. She jokingly says “you looking at me from under all that hair!?” “Yeah but I’ve got a bald patch developing.” “We noticed,” shout the rest of the table. The woman is looking smiley, happy, and relaxed. She reraises and I know my nines are dog meat, and if I play them, so will I be. I folded and glanced down to see her hand as she peeks at them. I see the kings. “Pair of kings?” I ask. She turns them over. “Nice fold,” says the player to my left.

Trouble is you cannot fold your way to victory. If you could, I’d be world champion. Nearly every hand I make is borderline and against someone else who has better. Any hand I play at the moment seems to require a high amount of analysis, and because I am playing badly I am not analysing well.

Blinds are up to 150/300. I have about 7000 chips. There are 3 callers and I am in the SB with QKo. I consider this is probably the best hand. If I just call there will be 5 for the pot. I can’t have that. I raise to 1200. That folds out everyone except one. My original thinking (incorrect), was that he had a pair of 7’s 8’s or 9’s. The flop comes 4 J 9 with 2 clubs. I bet 2000. My opponent calls. There’s an offsuit rag on 4th. I check, so does my opponent. The ace of clubs comes on the river. This is where I make the mistake. If he has an ace and made 2 pair, or he’s just chasing a big or medium ace, I’m dead. But I shouldn’t be thinking like that. There’s the flush and the ace on board so a good bet has a chance of getting through. I try and take the easy route. I bet 1500 to try and make it look like a payoff bet. But if I’d bet the last of my chips it would have asked him a really big question as the extra 2000 plus would have put him in a precarious way. He thought a long time, but after an age, made the right call. I played it badly. I should have had more class than to make a comment about “nice call preflop with the king jack.” His reply was “well if my opponent has AK or AJ and I hit my other card  I am going to make some chips.” FFS! And no – I don’t have more class than to comment on the call. I should have just kept quiet, after all, he’s the one with all my chips. If I’d have played real poker I’d have gone all in, and taken down the pot.

The damage was done, but I still made one more mistake. Blinds were 300/600. There was a caller under the gun. I sort of guessed he had a rag ace. Typical calling hand for some players. It was folded all the way round to me in the SB with only 1800 left. Previous hands I probably should have just pushed all in with 62 T6 76 or J2. In the BB I had seen 23 previous hand. It was raised every time it got to me. In the SB I should have pushed with K8, but I didn’t have the heart. I hate going in behind, but sometimes you have to. The SB called and it was checked down. Ace high under the gun won the hand. An 8 hit on 4th. Couple of hands later there was a caller to my right and I pushed with QKo. It was immediately reraised and I hoped my opponent had JJ rather than something really bad. Funnily enough the way things have been running I guessed he had KK. He did. But if I had played the K8 correctly I would still have been in the tournament.

Maybe I will eventually learn enough from all this to start playing well again.

There is one addition. The reason calling a raise with KJ or AT is such a bad play is because you don’t know where you are. Okay I shall define that, because you never know where you are, for SURE. You could have aces and some idiot calls a massive raise with 22 and hits trips or a suited connector hits. Or maybe you have KK against AA. Very hard to let go. What players really mean when they say you don’t know where you are is, consider the NUMBER of hands that could have you beat or have you beat if you hit. The higher that number is, the worse your position is. That means the chances of you not knowing where you are, will be higher, the weaker the hand you play. This is why KJ and AT are such lousy hands to call a raise with. You never know where you are for SURE, unless you have the absolute nuts, but the poorer the hands you play, the more chance there is of a hand out there that has you beat, even if you hit.