I'm Back

I want to thank everyone who came over to my other blog with condolences for the death of my dad. He was a good man and taught me how to play cards when I was young.

Now to the non-morbid stuff.

After a month of grinding a lot of Razz cash for Iron Man points and chasing down bonus money, I can say that my Razz game still needs some work. I’ve watched a few different styles of play in both tournaments and cash from loose/passive to tight/aggressive and think there is a place for all of it depending on the situation.

Now my typical style is tight/aggressive, plane and simple. I mostly play any three cards 7 and below and bet hard when I think I’m ahead. I will also re-raise you when I think you have bricked or I have a much better draw then you have for a made hand. But, during the last month I spent some time playing many hands that didn’t fit my normal style of play. I played a lot of hands with bigger cards behind and played against my opponent and not necessarily my hand. With this style I played more hands and had to get away from bricks much quicker. It allowed to confuse my opponents more because they had trouble putting me on a hand. It also has higher variability and I saw some bigger swings. What I’ve come up with is to move back to my normal play but to identify that players who like to play with big cards behind and watch there betting patterns to determine where they stand in a hand. I can open up my hands against them in heads-up situations and take advantage of there loose play. Well see how that works.

So, I hadn’t really played much since Jude so kindly posted the donk hand I played against her. Funny thing about that hand is that I knew she had bricked and since I had so many chips in by the end I was hoping for the final one to brick again. Bad strategy but it was how I played it. We all play like donks sometimes.

After a week away from the game of Razz I played the 2K on Full Tilt the other night. They have given us more chips to start with (2000) which is an improvement and may have helped me go deep that night. I haven’t looked at the hand history but I remember never getting a lot going until we were kind of deep. To start with, the first hand I played was 30 minutes in and I won a small pot to put me back over starting stack. In the end I play 6 hands the first hour and was down to 1375 chips.

The 2nd hour was a little better over all. Early on I hit a big hand to double up an agro player who I have tagged as semi-loose. We had the same board showing so I felt I was in the lead and I was. This put me at almost 2700 and gave me some working room. I dropped back down when I isolated with a re-raise and bricked. I wasn’t going to chase when I knew theses guy would pay me off when I hit a hand. I maintained my stack for much of the hour until I got that hand that put me into position against another shorter stack. But card deadness returned and I ended the hour at 2248.

By this time I had a player identified who was going to double me up. He played just about any low card up and had been betting people off hands like crazy. He gave me a few small pots when I hit well and he missed. I eventually get him heads up and we get it all in the middle. I had 5s 2c As Ah 3c vs. his 4c 9d 3d 8h 8c and I connected with the winner as he began to melt down his chip stack. Now, with the bets so big, every steal or win is huge. I slowly chipped up with a pot here and there and ended the 3rd hour with over 20K.

The bubble in Razz is long and boring sometimes and the final table bubble is worse. Nobody wants to commit to a hand as people wait for the big hand to get them over the top. This is the point where a big stack can take advantage with a few good cards by putting pressure on the medium stacks and isolating the small ones who are just trying to survive. I did chip up during that time by doubling my stack but I was still way behind the chip leaders. It was at this point that I wish I had been playing stud. I got one playable hand and face cards up. I outlasted one player at the final full of some solid players and a couple of donkeys for 7th place. Not a bad run but less then I wanted.

I ended the night playing some Razz cash and doubled up when the deck hit me square in the face. I could have used that run of cards in the tourney.