I love online poker. It is always there come rain or shine and providing your woes are not including a bad internet connection or worse still a power cut, you can get a tournament up and running quickly day or night and play some poker. I was hanging around not doing too much after a lazy Sunday and decided that the exercise bike was too much to bear and I needed something to get me mentally stimulated. Online poker was therefore the perfect choice. I fired up my computer, registered and prepared to dominate the tables.

Feeling slightly aggrieved that my supply of Diet Coke had ran out without me realising it I settled for what I hoped would be a deep tournament run. Can you tell by the tone of the article this did not happen? How I would love to be writing about a great result, one day I’ll try to make that happen.

My first hand was AJ in early position. I decided that to limp in would surely entice a re-raise that I would have no information on whether or not to call with AJ (which suddenly becomes marginal in the face of a meaty re-raise) I raised to 60 with the blinds 10/20. Thanks to the power of the Internet early tournament players I received four callers. The board gave me a straight draw flopping K Q 5. The pot was 300 and my friend in the small blind bet the pot. I folded. Things had got very expensive and I only had a draw.

Another few hands passed by without any incident and I had made two notes on two players that had gone all-in (common in early low stakes tournaments) with less than premium holdings and I always try to keep detailed notes on all the players at my table. I did not have a chance to really start hammering down ranges but had made the general observations of three players I thought were good and three who I thought were weak.

I got Jacks for my next playable hand and won a nice pot betting 150 into a 345 pot after the board flopped K x x. I made the $150 bet into the pot thinking it would either win the pot or reveal who held the King if I was either called or raised. So far so good in this tournament. I seemed to have a good read on my opponents and I was not getting unlucky with players making insane gutsy re-raises forcing me to fold.

Then it went all wrong. The player to my left had played strange and my note on him read as follows “All-in with less than good hands to win blinds”, so when I was holding AJ of diamonds and raised to 90 (blinds 15/30) I was aided in my decision when he pushed $4200 at me. I made a call, thinking that he would be holding trash. He showed me K 7 so I was ahead, although not by much. For board came J 10 6 the turn 10, meaning I only had to dodge a K. The river was a King meaning I exited the tournament rather than double up to 3000.

I sat there for a moment thinking “Ouch”, then decided to type “nh gl” into the chat meaning “nice hand, good luck” which I always to do try and not tilt. The poker site said that observer chat was not allowed. “Ouch” again.

The moral of this story for me is that I managed to identify that a player was exploitable and it helped me make a good call against them which would see me double my stack more often than not. Unfortunately identifying a weak player does not guarantee you beat them. Posting this hand on a forum would see criticism over the call with AJ but I think that in a spot where they are known to be weak, and at the beginning of the tournament he had shoved with 8 6, I was pretty sure I had the edge and that he was the sort of player that would play trappy with a high pair. Unfortunately I got rivered, but that’s poker. I am perhaps more bitter the chat in the poker room did not allow me to exit with a comment or two. I keep saying this after my tournaments it seems, but better luck next time.

By Malcolm Clarke

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