Mini-Bloggers tourney

I had a decent day today. The most fun though was playing with ICP (Intrepid Card Player) and Doubleas on Empire. It is always fun playing with other Bloggers. I never connected ICP’s handle with his site until he mentioned it tonight. He was playing first. Once we connected up, I checked out the buddy list and invited Doubleas to come on down. I think he likes NL better but he joined the party. We were the top 3 at the table for a while. I was up and down. I was down to six bucks at one point then up to 40 and finally ended up 7 BB. Our Blog-team all ended up winning. **WARNING: DO NOT READ THIS ICP** ICP and Doubleas were about 25BB up. So I guess Bloggers rule! **END WARINING** It was fun bluffing people too. I usually try not to bluff at .50/1, but this table was weak, and I made trips on the flop once, which gave me a lot of respect when I bet out with nothing. I think my favorite bluff was a straight on the board. I just kept betting into it even though I still needed a final card. I got the last guy to fold on the river. Sweeeeet!

Everyone played well tonight. Different styles, but everything worked. I think ICP and I were tighter, and Doubleas was having fun, and doing some bluffing, and betting his hands WAY up. I would be interested in peoples aggression. One hand that was interesting was KJ sooooted? Doubleas raised it up to two bucks and won a NICE pot. I am too chicken to bet that up. Doubleas says he does not always do that but it seemed to work well. I wonder if I am not aggressive enough. I started never betting hands until I had something. I then added more aggression, making value on each hand that I was drawing to. Basically taking the tack of bet, raise or fold. I think my aggression levels are still really low. I have never really read much about how many BBs someone would bet pre-flop with different hands depending on position. It would be interesting. I am also interested in some Blog-Feedback on my play. I think I did alright but it would be interesting to hear other peoples view of me.

I have one thing to say about bluffing since it worked so well last night. The way to bluff is to commit to it and then execute. On my bluffs that worked I instantly clicked the bet option. So when my turn came it automatically bet. I did this on each round even when it was clear I might be beat. As long as it SEEMED like I was not worried about a high card the bluff worked. If I paused then it did not work. Nobody bought it. It is really effective with straights and flushes. Obviously if someone raises your bluff you either fold, call, or keep bluffing. I would suggest folding because if someone is not scared of what you say you have you are probably screwed.

I did a little slow playing last night too. Usually I hate to slow play. I will just bet out and get what I get. No sense in letting people get their draws. My criteria for slow playing a hand is that there are no straight or flush draws. It usually means I will start playing hard at the turn. The effect of this is that people do not believe I have whatever the flop made. It made me a lot of money with trips especially when an A or some higher card came out on the turn.