Hugo's Blogspotting: 3 April

The Missus Knows Best

I received a bit of stick for constantly putting Doyle Brunson’s blog in this column every week, but when you get to his age and can still compete in the biggest cash games on the planet then any insight you can provide must be worth reading. Plus he seems to be one of the few bloggers around who reliably updates at least once a week.

There has been a lot of talk recently about recession in America; how long will it last, has it actually started yet and so on. Well proof that a new economic slump has truly arrived in the form of Doyle’s latest blog:

“After a long drought we finally had a cash game at The Bellagio. We lowered the stakes to $1500-$3000 limits and picked up some new players. I think that is very necessary; the poker economy simply isn’t strong enough to support the ultra high stakes we have played for years. Two players lost over $200,000 in the game. For Pete’s sake, how much higher do we need to play?”

That’s a good point, just how high do people need to play these days? It seems like only yesterday that certain players I know were potless, but now are complaining that the games aren’t big enough.

As I said above Brunson is still at the top of his game and he actually reveals some strategy in this week’s blog. He writes about his knockout hand in the Irish Open and it turns out that his wife thinks he should have played it differently.

“My wife, Louise, said: “Oh, no, Doyle! Did you go all in again? Why don’t you save back 40-50% in case you lose?” I looked at her in amazement because she has never played a hand of poker. I asked her what she was talking about and she told me she saw Johnny Chan say on TV he won a tournament and never went all in”

Well, you have to admit Doyle, the missus might have a point – if you’re not still in it how can you win it? I guess Mrs. Brunson is unfamiliar with the importance of stack sizes and blind levels and other such tournament subtleties.

Lucky Face

Barry Greenstein has an audio blog at PokerRoad which is worth a listen now and then. His most recent discourse has him reflecting on how he has been lucky in poker which is a refreshing change from most other bloggers who are content to fill up cyberspace with their whining.

If you think about it, a lot of these bloggers tend to be thinking players which implies that they are winners (maybe not, perhaps my logic is skewed). I can’t remember who said it, but some pro once made the observation that a lot of players who turn professional started out on the upside of variance. In other words, they started out lucky and winning (In fact, Greenstein mentions this too - “They had positive reinforcement and were luckier than average and so kept playing” ),  but it doesn’t take long before a poker player forgets his good fortune and can only reflect on the bad beats.

Anyway, like I said, Greenstein isn’t like that and relates a poker story that for many players would be the dream scenario.

“I remember one hand that did break up the game on the very first hand… it had gotten down to where a buy-in was possibly $500… so seven people sat down with $500, and the very first hand I got aces and someone raised, a few people called, I re-raised, people got trapped in, another guy with a big pair moved in, I called, it ended up all seven people played the hand and my aces held up, and then people were looking to me to loan them money to keep the game going, but I just quit.”

Mind you, aces versus six other hands? A quick glance at the odds shows that the aces will win about 27% of the time; I can think of loads of players who would moan about getting multiway action with their aces and just expect to lose…Anyway, check out Greenstein’s blog for a couple more good luck stories.

Don't Force It

Someone who has been suffering the vagaries of poker variance is Gus Hansen and you can tell it’s getting to him from a quick glance at his blog on his website, ThePlayr.com.

“Bottom-line: I have lost about 80% of my sessions during the last month and a half. That's right, 80%! I have to ask my self a couple of questions: Should I play No-Limit Hold'em instead of Pot-Limit Omaha? Is the opposition simply too strong? Or, of course, the most likely scenario: Have I completely lost my mind and been on tilt for six straight weeks?”

Considering that he is looking to Yoda from the Star Wars Saga for poker wisdom it is entirely possible that the Great Dane has totally cracked up.

"Second-guessing is the path to the losing side. Second-guessing leads to doubt, doubt leads to fear, and fear leads to suffering.”

Mind you, that doesn’t sound like bad advice, so may the force be with you Gus!

New Set-Up!

Finally, all this talk of poker kind of makes you want to play doesn’t it? Now if you’re an up-to-date modern player you’re probably going to fire up ten or twenty tables online. Good stuff and good luck to you, but have you got the right set up?

For the ultimate online poker environment I suggest you check out Matt Maroon’s latest blog where he describes in great detail his ultimate online poker setup. There is some really good advice in this blog ranging from what sort of chair you should get to what sort of internet connections you should have.

“Get as many uninterrupted power supply (UPS) systems as you need. These are basically like surge protectors with a built-in battery. When a power outage occurs they'll keep things running. Be sure to plug your cable/DSL modems, switches, routers, etc. into the battery protected ports. Also plug in your PC and monitors. I once played a tournament for 3 hours (on a laptop) during a blackout.”

Now that’s what I call professional.

Hugo 'Chimney Sweep' Martin

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