Some Thoughts On Today's Games

So I thought I'd spend a day off vegging on some tourneys instead of cash games. Here's a few thoughts on my observations:

• Micro Games = Micro Games no matter if they're cash games, STTs or MTTs. People calling and shoving with same shit, but generally, not as much in deep tourneys for some reason
• People are stupid - I was in a $1.10 Satty for Sunday Storm, or something, just over 200 entries giving away 20 seats. So, I'm doing good, ~ 40 players left and I'm about average in stacks but after a cooler of a hand and a few rounds of no cards. I get shifted to a table where I'm between the 2 Tourney top stacks. Well, these 2 clowns could have sat and got the tickets, but no, they had to turn on the "Small Pecker Syndrome" fueled by copius amounts of on-line testosterone and go for the top stack. One or the other was shoving every hand against anyone with anything. For the most part they went unchallenged, but when they did, they chopped, lost a small one or won a bigger one. Eventually, I got blinded out, never had the cards to compete and when I did finally shove with JQ S and flopped 2 pair, I got killed by a small set (by one of above mentioned clowns).
• I've decided I've taken a liking to deep tourneys. While normally I don't have time to commit to games that take hours, when I do have that availability, they'll be my game of choice. I like the Blind structure better than Turbo, and in general (with exceptions of course), I find player's style of play better than the typical "ship it with junk" way you see so much in Micro S'nGs
• "Trash Is Cash" - I've seen that in chat several times today, and beginning to understand it. Reminds me of Negraneau's style. It's different from "Shoving or calling All-In" as noted above, in these games you can see a lot more flops, play some suited or unsuited connectors and Suited Single-gappers and at times hit something worth playing. More reasonable betting and more opportunity for progressive betting and bluffing
• Right now playing in The Big $5.50, blinds just went to 125/250 - 30. Was doing great, 1.5 times average but lost a little ground to a player who had (in this order after a late BI) KK, AA and QQ, doubled or tripled each time. Those 3 hands, I had (in order) 44, 99 and AK S. Good I'm even still playing and just shy of stack average.

SeaRun said:

"Trash Is Cash" - I've seen that in chat several times today, and beginning to understand it. Reminds me of Negraneau's style. It's different from "Shoving or calling All-In" as noted above, in these games you can see a lot more flops, play some suited or unsuited connectors and Suited Single-gappers and at times hit something worth playing. More reasonable betting and more opportunity for progressive betting and bluffing

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Negreanu can play the way he does because he has superior post-flop skills, plays deep-stacked tournaments and always aims to go deep. The less these factors apply to another player, the less of a fit emulating his style is.

Arjonius said:

Negreanu can play the way he does because he has superior post-flop skills, plays deep-stacked tournaments and always aims to go deep. The less these factors apply to another player, the less of a fit emulating his style is.

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Plus his seemingly telekinetic ability to read his opponents.

I'm not saying me or anyone else in the tourney I'm playing is as good, or anywhere close. It's just that you see a lot more smaller hands in play, and at SD, it obviously wasn't junk they were playing with Post-.

As a continuation of above, I'm still in the $5.50, keeping up with stack average. We're less than 250 from the bubble of 1170 now out of 8885 registered, so I can pick on some of the lesser stacks like this:

pokerstars No-Limit Hold'em, 5.5 Tournament, 300/600 Blinds 70 Ante (9 handed) - PokerStars Converter Tool from http://flopturnriver.com/

UTG+1 (t11,525)
MP1 (t8,224)
MP2 (t10,235)
MP3 (t9,472)
CO (t4,420)
Button (t11,068)
SB (t12,152)
Hero (BB) (t13,867)
UTG (t5,161)

Hero's M: 9.06

Preflop: Hero is BB with 10 , A
6 folds, Button raises to t1,200, 1 fold, Hero calls t600

Flop: (t3,330) 7 , K , 2 (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets t1,200, Hero raises to t3,600, 1 fold

Total pot: t5,730

Results below:

Very nice bluff, well played, keep going!!!

5 minutes past the bubble when the post-bubble mandatory "shove-o-gasm" is happening. I get Ks on the CO and it folds to me.

SeaRun said:

Plus his seemingly telekinetic ability to read his opponents.

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This isn't plus; it's part of his package of superior post-flop skills.

Arjonius said:

This isn't plus; it's part of his package of superior post-flop skills.

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Yes, thinking about it, you're right (as usual)

Got knocked out 853. $10 & change, 3 levels better than min payout.

I had 7 bbs left UTG and was dealt A5 Dia so I shoved. One caller with Js. Flop came KD- 2D and something else. Turn and River changed nothing.

Thoroughly enjoyed the game, and will play more of these. I was on both sides of a few bad beats, but a great experience.