This blog hasn’t been strategy-oriented for quite awhile, which was a direct consequence of me realizing that there was a lot of better strategy content out there on the web than what I, a small stakes hangaround, could offer. However, there are a few things to be said about that, and they are
* my strategy views aren’t “bad.” I’m not Ed Miller, but I do occasionally think something through and can make pretty coherent arguments for them. Or so I’d like to think.
* I like to keep book on poker theory “discoveries” I make, as it helps me with my learning process, and
* perhaps people like occasionally getting tips and pointers from someone who plays at their own level.
I forgot to post a link to the story in the last post; sorry about that:
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/poker/2008-04-30-WSOP_N.htm
I’m still not entirely sure what to think about this, except my gut instinct - and I’ve come to trust it - says that it’s a pretty bad idea. It also says that I’m not really that interested in the WSOP in general, but I do get that a lot of people are.
tl;dr: The WSOP Main Event will play down to the last 9 players, at which point the remaining play will be delayed until November 9th.
Basic argument FOR the change: It will make for better television, with plenty of time to interview the contestants, follow them through their three-month preparation, etc. Because it’s better television, it might make more people start to play poker and cause another mini-poker-boom.
I took off, hurriedly, from the office at shortly past 11am on Friday. The plan was to pick up Lori, go for a quick lunch, and then drive to Stockholm/Arlanda airport, a 2.5 hour drive. The flight to London City Airport was to leave at 4:20, so we had time - but not loads of it. The drive went fine though,without much traffic surprisingly enough, but I guess we beat the Friday rush hour by just a tiny margin.
I’ve posted about a lot of non-poker stuff lately because my life hasn’t been so focused on poker, simple as that. Stuff like the new job kicking into a new gear (loving it) having a pregnant wife (loving HER!) and dutifully dealing with gardening now that spring’s here, yadda yadda. You don’t really care, but I felt obligated to give an excuse.
I don’t watch a whole lot of TV, but one of the three shows that I bother watching is The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (the other two: House and Heroes). If they showed it here, I’d add The Colbert Report to that list, but not every show makes it over to Sweden, unfortunately. Anyhow.
Jon has a lot of politicians on as guests, and it seems to me quite a few of them have written books. All of three remaining presidential candidates, for instance, and quite a few of the ones who dropped out - or maybe even all of them? So while I’m sitting there watching one of them promote their books on family values or what their dad used to be up to or whatever else it is they’ve written about, I ask myself “when did you find time to write it?”
Reads are awesome, reads are great. Having reads on an opponent means making non-standard plays that are hugely more profitable than just playing your own two cards against some half-assed assumption of what the other guy’s range is. But, and this is a pet-peeve of mine, people hide behind the notion of “reads” too much when they discuss hands. For example, a response to the question “Should I make a continuation bet with AK on this dry flop out of position?” might will yield a response that says “it depends on the opponent” and then explains what to do if the opponent is, for instance, extremely tight (or some other read that makes the decision easy). This isn’t a bad response, in itself, it’s just that it’s not as helpful as it could be.
Well, what’s there to say. I’m going to be one! Preliminary date is October 13, and before that I’m sure I’ll go through a whole bunch of interesting stages of worrying, excitement and panic over “how am I supposed to know what to do with it!”
Cigars for everyone!
