STOKIN' THE FIRE

Psssssssssst.
I have a secret...and it's a doozey.
Fortunately, noone reads this blog--so I feel its safe to share it here.
But if you happen to have accidentally come across these words, please, I implore you--don't tell anyone.


I'm a fonkey.



Or at least that's what my boy would have you believe. And you know what else? He makes some very valid points. As a general rule, playin' AJo against an allin reraise is a loser. Plain and simple. No Sklansky-esque typeset necessary--but nice touch just the same. Then again, I can't remember the last time I peeked at my hole cards and thought,

"SWEET! POCKET THREES!"

Now before this turns into one of those he said, hoy said "rant battles"...I need to be clear about a few things; first and foremost, there are few blogger opponents whose game I respect more than Hoy's. My own game has improved on practically a nightly basis from the day I first started playing with him. For that my good friend, I can only begin to thank you.

Second....and this is the part that's gonna sting.....he overplayed his hand and got caught.
There. I said it. No takin' it back.....Now I know what he's thinking -

"I couldn't possibly disagree more"

But its true.

Not because the hand I was holding was so good, but because I was able to accurately put him on a range of hands that told me that I was not likely that far behind, if at all. And that he was banking on the fold that never came. At that point, the cards became secondary.

A simple fact that often gets lost in our blogger discussions is that we tend to overemphasize statistics in order to make sense of the play in question. We do this because its tangible and reproducible. But we forget that playing better cards does not make us better poker players. Recognizing good situations to get our money in the middle and acting on them is what makes us better players. And stringing together a bunch of those situations mixed with a little luck, that's how we win tournaments.

So was mine a great play? Not especially. But a solid one nonetheless, given the circumstances. And if that makes me a fonkey, well a fonkey I be.