Id rather be lucky than good

[222deals]

The other day I was playing 1/2 NL and had nearly doubled my buy in. I came in with $100 and after close to three hours had a little over $180. Not a huge amount of money I realize but for the level that I'm at, I was happy with the result. It was getting late and so I decided to leave after the next round.

Before the blinds got back around to me this maniac sits down with $200. He starts off immediately making huge raises 10x the BB his first four hands. A couple of times he makes a point of showing complete trash -63, 10 8. No one calls any of his raises and when the blinds get to me I decide to hang around a while to see if I can get some of this guy's chips. After a few more hands, he gets reraised all inby a player holding AKs, he calls with 44 and ends up winning a $150 pot. He keeps raising and is destroying the table. I keep sitting back and waiting for a monster that I can go at him with. In the mean time, probably 20-25 hands go by in which he raises preflop 80% of the time. Any time some one limps in, he is immediately back over the top with a big raise. The few times that he has been played back at, he manages to hit the flop. He takes down JJ with 63s after the flop brought a 3rd jack but he rivered a flush.

By the time I pick up a hand KK, he has close to $450 and is showing no signs of slowing down. Sure enough, he opens with another big raise (9x BB) and I take a gabmle and reraise him back all in hoping he calls. He thinks and thinks and finally calls with A9. Flop is a safe 8 6 3. Turn is a 5 and the river is a 7. I practically fall out of my chair becuase just like that $180 is gone.


This guy made $400 in less than an hour. I realize that you have to be aggressive to be successful in poker but this game was an absolute maniac on an incredible run. I'd take that kinda luck any day.

[scrawnybob]

hi deals

i think the whole NL game is getting alot more aggressive and alot more skilled - which makes it a whole lot more difficult to see the wood for the trees

are they truely loose aggressive manaics ? or are some of them wolves in sheeps clothing ?

the trouble is if a player just sits and plays premium hands only and folds them when something looks scary then - they will not be profitable

You said you were in a $1/2 game - so not penny poker - maybe not massive either but its a stake where you will find cunning and aggressive players as well as fish playing over their bankroll

this guy IMHO knows his game and knows that he can make more from the mental side of the game more than playing purely a tight passive statistical game

If he has sat watching the table and decided its mostly full of rocks then he has come in determined to tear the game appart

and that is perfectly possible - nobody is going to put the head on the block over a few bets - and those few bets will mount up

then people get tilty and phased - and make mistakes when he has a good hand the ground is already made for him to make a big bet - and someone will call

in the meantime he's picked up alot of money begging to be stolen from the table

$10 says he was Swedish, in his mid twenties and called Sven
(no offence to anyone fitting any of this description)

in fact respect really for having the balls to play what is super aggressive / selective poker

selective ????? surely not I hear you say - he was betting into everything

well was he ? I bet he was still tempering his bets proportionate to his hands and the flop etc
but with a much higher pain threshold than the other players at the table - this is the crucial part - he had more balls than the rest of the table

We have a guy in our homegame - who before he improved used to tear the table up - why ?

because £10 bet meant nothing to him in a hand - any hand - he became scary because we knew he wouldnt fold - which meant he could get lucky because we didnt want to push him into betting - because we knew that could mean he could make any kind of bet

then when he did make a hand he could clear up - we had no idea what he had

having studied his game - there was a crucial difference to his bets - but they were all so big to a "straight tight aggressive" player that they went un-noticed

hope this is a help - certainly something to discuss

cheers scrawnybob

[harry lime]

"$10 says he was Swedish, in his mid twenties and called Sven"

i'll take that $10 bet, his name is mads !

apart from that, all the reasons above are why i prefer SNG or MTT over ring games on the internet. there's an a lot players getting free money who have nothing to lose and need to clear rake fast ..........dangerous times indeed !