Feb 21 poker log for discussion

My full "poker log" is available at www.CanadianPoker.com. This portion is the part that I thought was likely to spur conversation and debate.

General Interest Content



Show me the adrenalin rush:I have made lots of notes over the past couple of years on the effect of adrenalin. Basically, at some point, your adrenal glands release adrenalin. Normally this is in response to exercise, but nerve racking activities like poker can produce this response. This past week’s local tournament features a couple of opponents who showed huge adrenalin responses (HAR – thanks to Team Canuck’s Bob Jarrett for this term). One of them had a pounding neck pulse – front and centre in the little crater just where one’s neck meets one’s chest. POUNDING. The other had shaky hands. In consecutive hands I thought I had a dead read on each of them based upon the HAR I witnessed on the flop. In both cases, I was wrong.



Hmmmm…. Aha!



Most players get a HAR because of a specific stimulus (e.g. peeking at your hole cards and finding A-A). But, these two players were brand new. They were experiencing a HAR from everything. It was all new. It was all stressful. The adrenalin was flowing like a high-speed I.V. drip. The pounding and shaking were not clues to their hands – they were indicators that they were in a hand. Just playing was enough to stimulate the ol’ adrenal gland.



OK… ignore the HAR in brand new players. There are lots of other tells, but the pounding-shaking tell is not one that is as reliable as others.



Poker Nerd Content



My biggest tournament leak: I often fail to hit the breaks. In part this is due to my personality and in part this is due to the fact that I have tended to think I am a big stack when, in fact, I am not. Daniel Negreanu’s poker blog focused me on this issue. For anyone not reading Daniel’s blog, you should. It’s at http://fullcontactpoker.com.



An example…



With ten players, after a couple of lucky breaks, I have $82K and I am in second chip position. Three off the button I raise with A-2o. I am re-raised by the SB. Being offered 3-1 I call and face his K-K. I lose and I am down to $27K. Ugh. I went from second chip leader to bottom of the heap in the blink of an eye. The problem is that if I am going to raise with A-2 in this spot, I might as well raise with any two cards. I am almost certainly going to have to call a re-raise and I will be in the unenviable position of getting a huge amount of my stack in with a very marginal position. The lesson is: Being a big stack is not simply measured against the “average stack size,” but also against the size of the stack compared to how much play is in the tournament. I have always “known” this, but often failed to understand it or act on it.



If the play has “gone out” because of oppressive blinds then be careful pressing high variance situations. Rather, retreat into “boring poker” and hope that your skill overlay comes from understanding the value of certain hands in certain situations. I have, in the past, tended to try and steal the whole tournament. There comes a time when you simply have to slow down and hope that luck will see you through.



Teacher-student-journalism:As earlier reported, Amanda made $50 in 2 and 1 / 2 hours. She played 3 hands in total.



And, I should make a couple of points. This experiment was successful because Amanda was awesome. A lot of first time players in the casino are super nervous. Not Amanda. Despite it being her first time in a casino, wearing a lapel-mic, and having two cameras on her every move, she was cool. At least, I couldn’t see any obvious nervousness. I even had the camera crew primed to pick up a pounding neck-pulse when Amanda played her first hand… alas, no neck pulse. She even had the cojones to talk a little trash at the regulars who were, in a good natured way, giving it to her pretty good.



Second, Amanda is probably not a winning player, yet. I tried to craft a very low variance game plan that would give her a chance at winning. She did. So, I guess that plan worked.



As a side note, it was a useful exercise to remind oneself that the fundamentals are … well … fundamental. Fill your game with too many bad habits and you will not be able to overcome them all.



Congratulations Amanda and, as we used to say in the navy, Bravo Zulu.



Next week’s poker log will include a hand by hand account of Saturday’s final table.

Comments

  • Interesting stuff. You probably know this, but I'll toss out my recent experience with HAR. I spotted a guy this week with a reliable vein on his forehead which would pop every time he had a big hand. Oddly enough, the bigger the vein the bigger the hand. The only way I could tell was by observing hands he was in, when I wasn't in the hand. I could gauge his HAR response and correlate it to his hand. So, I predicted the exact hand he had in two hands he was in. I had it! Saved me a bunch when I had a set and he had a bigger one, and when I had QQ and he had KK. For this guy, he was cool as cucumber, but when he put his bet in the vein would pop if he had a hand. The bigger the vein the bigger the hand. The only way I knew was to watch a hand in which I wasn't involved and predict.

    There's been some interesting reading here on playing a big stack. Once again, I think you know this but I'll toss it out, just in case it tweaks something. I like to "play the nuts" and "capitalize on others missing" when I'm big stack. It's like I go into Negraneu mode (that's a huge stretch but illustrates my point), where I like to play many marginal hands that like to see flops cheaply and then bet real heavy when I've got a huge draw to the nuts, or I already have the nuts. In many situations you have the opponents by the gonads because they can't leave the pot and are hoping you're bluffing. The other side is to sense weakness and bet others out of the pot. Not big bets to dent your stack, but bets that are big in relation to your opponents stack. I really, really try to avoid risks pre-flop as a big stack. Why take that risk, when you can take someone's stack with and A2 bike?

    Just some thoughts, as your thoughts always help me!

    Cheers
    Magi
  • Dave, again very interesting stuff. I am always interested in reading your writing. Looking forward to the next update.
  • Daniel Negreanu’s poker blog focused me on this issue. For anyone not reading Daniel’s blog, you should. It’s at http://fullcontactpoker.com.

    I couldn't find this. Where is it Dave?
  • Here you go: http://fullcontactpoker.com/poker-journal.php

    Enjoy, some very good stuff.
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