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.

But tonight, I played poker. A whooping 600 hands, which might not sound like a lot to some of you, but it’s hard for me to find the time nowadays. Unfortunately for me, this means that since I’m forced to find windows for poker, I might not always be at my best when I actually get to play, but play anyway. Such was tonight. I opened up 8 tables, and almost immediately realized that my brain wasn’t capable of following the action. I decided to close a few, and did so - but grudgingly. I didn’t run into many interesting hands, but this is probably to a large extent because my brain wasn’t thinking clearly and so even if interesting situations presented themselves, I probably ran on autopilot. Whether or not I manage to finish my goal of 10k hands this month is still not certain. I have a little over 7k hands played, so it’s far from impossible, but time… Time isn’t on my side.

I did snap off a pretty big bluff with third pair, though, which is always nice. I make a lot of those hero calls, lately, and I rarely seem to get them wrong. Either I’ve been lucky, or I’m pretty good at sniffing out bluffs. Or maybe both.

That said, I want to demonstrate a fairly common mistake at the $25NL tables that I play: The weird over-the-top protection raise on a dry flop.

Effective stacks are usually short, let’s say $12. A few limpers, and I raise on the button to $1.25. One limper calls, the other folds. The pot is $3.

Flop comes 9-4-4. The first limper goes all-in for his remaining $10.75.

Every time I’ve called one of these massive overbets, it’s either been a hand like T9, or it’s been a medium pocket pair. Here’s the mistake: I’m not likely to fold a better hand. I’ll probably fold medium pocket pairs myself, stuff like 55-88, but then the overlay is pretty small for him, and he definitely doesn’t need to risk that much to run a bluff against a hand like that.

Also, if I have AK or any other worse hand than top pair, I’m not continuing anyway. Making this huge overbet only entices calls from hands that beat him (e.g. overpairs) and folds out hands that are weaker than his. It’s a hugely -EV play.

If you’re bluffing, make the smallest possible bet that will get the job done. If you’re protecting, same thing. Pushing all-in when the only hands that will call you have you dominated is a serious mistake.

In other news, Iggy actually wrote something that looks like a freshly hatched über post. Although it felt like a bear coming out of hibernation, stretching and yawning and not being quite its agile and deadly self, it showed potential. I’m proudly thinking that maybe, just maybe, I had some small part in waking the bear.

Oh, and this weekend is the London meet-up with various CardsChat people. I’m very excited, and trip report will certainly follow as soon as we’re back.