The Game

Rewatched SGA3x15 (The Game), mostly because it guest stars the beautiful Laura Harris (Marie Warner 24, The Faculty). Then 3x13 because I love Lucius.

Anyway, my pokering is improving but: 3bet AQo from the blinds against unknown. Flop Qxxr, bet and call. Turn another Queen and I love my hand; there is now a flush draw. Something about his timing of his preflop call and postflop call make me think that I may have just outdrawn KK/AA. So I check. He bets enough so that I only have 30BB left if I call. Now here's the mistake: I call. Is having 30BB behind OOP on the river in a 140BB pot 'good'? No, it's terrible pot control. (It's also terrible in that I should check/call the river if I elect to do that, not push.) There is almost nothing he can fold on the turn (AKs, overs+FD) if I just push, calling is terrible.

Other things: Table awareness. My HUD is great but I can't always tell who has cards (need to remedy this). This has lead me to mistakenly cbet whiffed flops OOP when they are 3 handed. Also, I need to be aware of everyone's stack sizes at all times. Then there's general image awareness to take into account too. And I should do a lot less folding preflop based on feeling. Because the one time I do fold X, I'll flop something great. Finally, my VPIP should be approaching 100% on the first orbit, even if that means playing marginal hands OOP. I need to play anything decent and raise everytime it's folded to me. Two reasons for this: If I actually hit something, no one will give me credit at all, and it's very noticeable. Peoples first impressions are generally very strong and hard to disgorge so if opponents see that I've played almost every hand so far they will instantly peg me as super-loose. It's pretty gimmicky but it seems to work. It takes a lot longer for people to notice that you've tightened up after...if they notice at all.

And in closing: Avoid shortstacks at all costs. They are just terrible for LAG play. Not only because they routinely shove preflop (and postflop) if they think you can't call, but because they destroy your postflop options. E.g. if they bet/raise, you can't come over the top of them effectively because you don't have the spectre of future bets to act as added fold equity. True, you probably aren't following through on the threat if you have nothing and they call but they have no way of knowing that. To a shortstack that's moot since they only have to call once.