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Poker Tournaments for You This Week
There is never a dull moment in a poker player’s life. Obviously, the main reason for that is the constant existence of poker tournaments and poker events that one can participate in. These events are not just for making money, but also to have some fun and get better at the game in the process. Several live poker tourneys are lined up for this week and the coming weeks. Here is a note on some of the tournaments you can … Read the rest
2012 PokerStars Macau Poker Championships Announced
PokerStars is one online poker room that never takes a break from hosting tournaments. The poker room recently released details about its upcoming event, the PokerStars Macau Live Tournaments. The Macau tournaments hosted by PokerStars is one of the biggest and richest poker events held in Asia. It includes 4 major poker series – Macau Poker Cup (MPC) Red Dragon, Asia Championship of Poker, Macau Poker Cup Championship or MPCC and the yearly Asia Pacific Poker Tour event at Macau. … Read the rest
The $30,000 Winner Wednesday Dozen Unveiled
Winner Poker has partnered with pokernews.com to bring a new promotion to its new members. The online poker room announced its new promotion called Winner’s Wednesday Dozen Freerolls, which literally lets you win free money. The new promotion is open to all the new players who register with Winner Poker and make a deposit. The promo will run for three months, and all you need to do is play poker and earn as many Winner Points as you can. Here … Read the rest
You Can’t Win if You’re Not Invited
Wednesday, October 29th, 2008 by Phil
The majority of us poker players are not buying into $10K tournaments where we can run our mouths because it’s good for TV. Most of us play in home games or small local rooms. In places like this you can’t exactly take on a Phil Hellmuth-like aura.
One of the reasons these games can be so juicy is that people are there to enjoy themselves and hang out with their friends. If you become the guy who was “Taking the game too seriously”, you are not likely to be invited back. It doesn’t matter how well you play, if you are not invited into the game, you can’t make any money off of people.
This is in the front of my mind this week because it occurred to me that I hadn’t been invited back to a particular home game in a long time.
The last time that I was there it turned out that I kept getting involved with the same person. First I tried to bluff him in a huge hand, he didn’t really appreciate that too much. Since I only knew 2 of the other 6 players there, some people would consider it rude to be trying to bluff these guys off of a huge pot in their own home game. I don’t think they wanted someone who was playing any kind of hardball to be in their game.
A little while later I made a pretty nice call against the same guy after he tried bluffing me. I believe I called him with 3rd pair on the river for a pretty sizable bet.
On what turned out to be the last hand of the night, I decided I wanted to play the 5-6 off-suit for a raise. The flop came down 2-3-J and I decided I was gonna see this one through. Since the jack was not likely to help my opponent, I figured that the jack was a card that I could use to bluff my opponent off of 8-8, 9-9 or another pair under the jack. I could also bluff him off of A-K or A-Q, so I liked my chances on this endeavor.
I reached into the old play book and smooth called him on the flop. The turn was a 10…this was just about the perfect card for me in this situation. I knew that A-K and A-Q didn’t improve, and the board was looking even worse for an underpair.
To my surprise, my opponent bet again into me. I thought this was an odd card to continue betting on. I wasn’t exactly sold on him having a huge pair, so I continued with plan A. I raised him on the turn for a pot sized bet. I thought this would be a solid move to push him off of all of the hands that I’ve mentioned above.
I certainly wasn’t raising on the strength of my draw. I guess I just flew off the hook a little and decided that I was gonna see this bluff through. He thought for about 5 minutes and finally called me. He flipped up 8-8. I was pretty impressed with his call. I’m not sure I could have made it myself. Of course, that’s me wanting to think I still made a good move.
Of course, he wasn’t impressed either when I hit the 4 on the river to make my straight. That had to really sting him after making such a great call against me…only to have me hit a gut-shot on the river.
Needless to say, I haven’t been invited back in a very long time. So remember, you can’t win if you don’t have an invitation.
