Casino game tonight

Hi

I've only been playing poker for about 6 months so I am still very much learning the game. I've played a couple of casino tourneys and did quite well, cashing both times and I play 7 nights a week around my home town aswell.

I suppose you could call me a "book player". I'd describe myself as "solid agressive", and, as I'm still learning I pretty much play text book poker. I've studied Super System and a whole host of other books pretty obessisvley.

I never play bad cards out of position, when I do play a pot (about 15-25% of hands), I play it agressively, and I'm ready to throw a big hand away if I think I'm beat.

I'm playing quite a large buy-in at the casino tonight, mainly for the experience and to see how my game is really coming along.

Does anyone have any tips for me? I'm planning on playing my normal game, but I seem to be on a bit of a bad streak at the moment and my confidence has taken a bit of a battering.

My loss of confidence has come from playing cards like Ace-King, Jacks and 10's from early to middle position. I generally always tend to put in my continuation bets (about the size of the pot). More often than not, I can take it down there and then, but I struggle if I'm called and a little bit of panic sets in. I'm also still trying to find the nack of successfully putting people on hands, but I find this difficult, I guess it will come with more practice.

Anyway, thanks for having me!

Martin

Try making your preflop bet half the size of the pot. Double it for your continuation bet. Double the next. If ur head to head each bet will never be more than half the pot. If u have 2 betting apponents, your bets will always be less than a third of the pot. Your bet at the turn looks very impressive as it has doubled every time, but as u are only betting one third of the pot, it has good pot odds. Very few people will call your turn bet. This is how u bet when you have a hand. This will stop anyone who is on a drawing hand from staying in and making a hand on the river, so anyone still with you will have at least a high pair. At least u know where u stand.

Well, after finding myself a short stack, I busted out in 36th out of 200 after 5 hours.

I get all my money in the middle with A(c) - J(c) on the button with no raise. The guy to my left calls me all in with K-Q and the guy to my right (Only a middle stack!!!!) calls me with ****ing 4-8 of diamonds (!!!). He spikes a filthy 4 on the river and I'm off home.

I learnt something though, I need to learn to play without getting the cards 'cos I always find myself going deep into tourneys, and risk getting blinded out and find myself just playing all-in or fold poker. Sometimes I get lucky, sometimes I don't (like tonight) but I need to find a way to carry on playing solid-agressive poker, but not have to wait for the cards.

My guidelines are this:

Early Pos:

A-A, K-K, Q-Q, J-J, A-K, A-Q

Middle Pos:

Add A-J, A-10, K-Q, 10-10, 9-9, 8-8

Late Pos:

Add Any PP, K-J, K-10, Q-J, Q-10, J-10, 10-9, 9-8, 8-7

The only variation is if I come in for a re-raise or not depending on the players but the cards I play in the position are sacred.

You can see the problem with this strategy, i.e - if you find yourself on a run of bad cards, then you are going to get short stacked by level 9 or 10 (like tonight)

A friend of mine suggested I practice by not looking at my hole cards and just playing the player from the back. I'll give it a try - I sure as hell am sick of getting deep into tourneys, only to find myself getting called by 4-8 cos he thinks he's getting "good odds"