Texas Calculatem and Poker Office Blog

I've received surprisingly negative feedback from this post.

Juice wrote:

"a tight passive passive player is the definition of a calling station!

Dont be proud of such things! you are better than that!"

And an anonymous poster (who I suspect might have been Juice!) wrote:

"Either way edge its pretty rank!"

Isn't Poker about winning? What is the point in trying to emulate the professionals' style of play if it doesn't work at the tables that you play at?

In Helmuth's Play Poker Like the Pros, he recommends jamming the pot (in Limit Poker) with 77. Yet any of us know that there'll probably be overcards on the flop, and that you'll therefore face the tough decision about whether or not you face a higher pair when you miss your set on the flop.

Anyway, a hand from last night, at Laddies $0.10/$0.20 NL.

I was in late position with 54o and limped in.

The flop was J54 with no flush draw. The action was checked to me. So what I needed to worry about was a straight draw. I bet the pot and dealer+1 re-raised me.

What could he have? I didn't really fear sets of 4's or 5's, as the chances of someone having those were so slim. Only an idiot would call with something like J4 or J5 so the chances of those hands were slim too. A set of Jacks was a definite possibility. But any monkey playing attempting to emulate the "tight-aggressive" style would have raised pre-flop with them. I therefore put my opponent on AJ.

The turn was a King. The action was checked to me. So I decided to bet the pot again and was re-raised all in (calling the all in was only a tiny bit more than my bet).

The river was a 3, which failed to improve the villain's AJo, and I therefore took down the pot.

Nice! Or did the villain have something like QJo? Who knows. The only thing I didn't like about this hand was the fact that I only started with $15 of my original $20 buy in. As I could have taken an extra $5 if I'd been full. SMT SMT.