Hugo's Blogspotting: 13 December

Annette in Prague

Perhaps the best blog I’ve read this week is from wunderkind Annette_15 and it is very much yer trad poker-content-type blog. By that I mean she talks about a couple of hands she played in the EPT Prague main event.

There are many blogs out there where bloggers write about hands, but many tend to be either disguised bad beat stories or just downright boring. So why do I bring your attention to Annete’s efforts? It’s not that different from other players’ attempts to document “interesting” hands they have played in a tournament or cash game.

I guess the main reason is because it’s Annette and her tournament record speaks for itself and this particular blog entry gives good insight as to how a top player thinks.

“A guy in the 40s limps in the CO for 200. Don't have a very good read on him yet, but 90% of the time when someone limps in LP they have trash and just wants to see a flop. The button, who is a very very good online player makes an isolation raise of 800 trying to get the pot HU with the limper. I'm pretty sure his range there is prolly about 50% of the hands, so this is free chips for me. I reraise to 2800 with 95o.”

Ok, big deal, that’s just a standard squeeze play I hear you all thinking. What’s interesting is that the raiser folds, but the limper cold calls. How does Annette deal with this?

“Figured maybe he had a hand he wanted to see a flop with like QKs cuz ppl never fold that hand. Maybe even AK, small pair etc. No way I put QQ in his range playing the hand the way he did. The flop 8c2x2c. I check with the intention of check raising all in if he bets or trying to represent a big pair slow playing on a dry flop. If I bet I'm giving him a chance to push me off my hand with something like 66-TT which will fold to a check raise for sure.

So I just decided I wanted to have the last word here and try to make my hand look very strong. He checks behind. The turn is a J. Good card for me to bluff at so I lead for 3800 leaving myself with about 10,000 behind so I have a good stack to shove river if he calls. He does call rather quickly which again really smelled like a draw to me cuz I had no clue what to put him on. The river was a blank 3 I think. I ship in the rest not wanting to give up on the pot after putting in that many chips, and all draws missed so he'd have to fold a fair amount of the time.”

Now that’s a big block of text and I don’t blame you if you can’t be bothered to read it, but the gist of it is that a top player is not afraid to go with their reading of the situation, even if they have completely missed the flop and their hand is basically the square root of fuck all.

I wouldn’t be surprised if other pros give Annette a hard time for giving away too much in this particular entry. Not that that really matters too much because the real trick to poker is being able to pull the trigger, which most players are unable to do (myself included btw - I might write this rubbish and have an opinion, but I never said I was any good at the game!).

For the results-orientated amongst you here’s the outcome, bonus points if you got the limper’s hand right:

“He calls and flips KK and I just mucked and left the table. The whole hand was just weird and his line made absolutely no sense to me so I can honestly say I got owned really hard there lol.”

Winning is Easy, It's getting Home with the Money that's Tough

If Annette’s blog is a good example of what the modern game is like then TJ Cloutier’s blog at PokerPages.com is full of stories about the bad old days. Players like TJ certainly had other worries than how their opponents played pocket kings.

“As I was leaving, I got to wondering if I was gonna get out of the joint with all my winnings. Troy was pretty notorious for doing what it took to get the money. "Wait a minute, T.J.," Troy says. "With you packing that much cash on you, maybe I'd better walk down with you and be sure you get in your car." So, he pulls out his pistol and we start walking down the stairs. I was more afraid of the guy protecting me than I was of anybody from the outside trying to rob me!”

That pretty much sums it all up although I’m sure there are many online players who are justified in wondering if they’ll get their money from whichever online poker site they play at.

In fact, TJ’s blog reminds me of the days that I used to make occasional trips to Luton. Anyone who can remember that alleyway that you had to walk through to get to the car park will tell you that was more of a gamble than inside the casino. Plus of course certain players trying to nip you if you had a touch in the tournament….either way it was even money you were going to get mugged.

Fed Up

TJ’s blog is uplifting to any long-time players as it seems his enthusiasm for the game remains undimmed after his many years at the felt. I guess that’s testament to how enthralling the game can be. Others may disagree with me – one such person being Rob Sherwood whose latest blog has the title Yawn.

“Fed up with live poker now.”

Oh dear, things not going too well at the Bellagio from the sounds of it. Sherwood goes on to tell a bad beat story or two. We’ve all been there so I don’t blame him for sounding fed up. You know things are going really bad when you resent others for doing well though:

“Just to rub salt into the wound Mark Teltcher was on the next table with 5 left in the $5k buy-in event, after he ran sickeningly good yesterday yet again. What a joke.”

Mr. Teltscher not one of your favourite people eh Rob? This is a great illustration of how maddening poker can be – not only do you have to cope with doing your bollocks, but you then have to put up with people you don’t like or respect getting the cake. It also explains why poker players experience 27% more schadenfreude than anyone else on the planet.

Hellmuth at New Hellmuthian Levels

Someone we haven’t heard from in a while is Phil Hellmuth. His latest blog includes his tribute to the late Chip Reese. While Phil’s words are obviously heartfelt and respectful one can’t help but notice that most of his blog is still extraordinarily self-congratulatory.

Phil Hellmuth is probably the only person on the planet who feels the need to tell us that he flew to Chip Reese’s funeral (who, incidentally, was a player very uninterested in self-promotion yet still became a true legend and icon – I wonder if Phil reflected on this during the ceremony?) on a private jet.

The rest of the blog is the usual name-dropping (usually obscure NBA players from what I can make out) and shilling for Dom Perignon. If you’re one of the few regular readers of this column you’ll know that I find Hellmuth quite entertaining, but even I have to say that this latest blog has sunk to a new low. I would quote some of it, but I’d have to quote the whole thing.

In fact, I would say that Hellmuth’s latest blog actually reads like a parody of what a Phil Hellmuth blog would be. But hold on, Daniel Negreanu has gone and parodied it in his blog. Unfortunately, it’s not funny and was completely unnecessary – Hellmuth’s very existence is so ludicrous that to parody him is utterly pointless. One can never be funnier than Phil actually already is.

Oy Vey

Finally, as we are now in the realms of the absurd another poker player we haven’t heard from in a while is Brandi Hawbaker. What’s she been up to? According to Wicked Chops, or more specifically an email they received from a reader, that,

“Brandi has kicked all of her "bad" habits (drugs, booze) and "made the choice to convert to Judaism."

I’m sure there’s a joke to be made here so I shall leave it up to you to think of your own…

Hugo 'Chimney Sweep' Martin

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