all-in

firstly, i'm honored to be a part of jason's poker blog. in the last week or so, jason has seriously ramped up his poker playing, participating in an eerie volume of games which, for various reasons (most of which involve simply not liking jason), i've been unable to attend.

so after this post i'd like to try to address current issues and games. but for my first one we'll play some catch-up with general commentary.

pokernight began innocently enough. (how long have we been playing jj? 6 months? more?) an excuse for several of us busy young adults to get together on a weekly basis. to an extent it remains so, but a few us became rather...let's say compelled by the game. obviously jason and i are two of them.

when we started up i was the one with the most experience, but it was truly a situation where "in the land of the blind the guy with robot eyes is emperor." my early experience stems from some of my only fond memories of my brothers - gambling on 5-card draw and seven card stud. but we play hold 'em. and we love it.

as we started to pay attention, things started to change. initially we went in all putting up an ante, with a winner-takes-all tournament-style play. eventually we incorporated blinds, gave the chips an actual value, and some of us became heartliy addicted. other founders have dropped off, and new folks have come aboard. we really try to maintain an ethic of "beginers welcome" at friday poker night, and we love the unpredictability of new and/or inexperienced players. (you can learn a lot and lose a lot from them.)

it should be said that i already have a somewhat addictive streak. particularly when it comes to games. and i can be fiercly competetive, though i like to think the ferocious competition is still "playful." so i started reading and paying lots of attention to the hold em games (though my attention has a tendency to wane as i got more and more stinking drunk). we started having long conversations about hands. one of the earliest big lessons was to play extremely tightly. i adhered to this rule when i went to my first somewhat higher stakes game (jason has also referneced it).

this game was definitely a turning point. a whole new set of players, significantly bigger blinds (though not huge - $1 big blind as opposed to our usual 10cents, a $20 buy-in instead of our usual 5-10). i played extremely tightly and ended up down about $6. not too bad. more time passed, i was still coming out up pretty consistently (and definitely collectively), and played another night at the bigger table. another turning point, as i came out up $30 and jason something like $60 up. it felt good because we knew it wasn't just the luck of getting good cards.

so i'm learning that the thing to do isn't to constantly play incredibly tightly. that's just a good way to learn (particularly if you don't know your opponents). pay attention to position, your opponents, your odds, everything. be very flexible. if you've got a big draw and the flop gives you nothing and the other guy is betting like he really did go in on that 8 and 5, crap man - he might have. most of all pay attention, do things with intention, and examine what went right or wrong.

tonight is pokernight and i love it deeply.

more later, poker on.
lovemarty