First Live Poker in 6 Months!

With the World Series of Poker just 4 days away, it seemed like high time to get in some practice with real people and real cards. I've been playing 2-3 games of short-handed limit hold'em and pot limit omaha, usually getting in 200-300 hands/hour, sometimes as many as 600. With an average of 3 or 4 decisions per hand, and a maximum of 10 seconds before your hand is automatically folded, the emphasis is on trusting your first instinct and moving on to the next situation as fast as humanly possible. True short-handed limit hold'em (2 or 3 players) lends itself to near-constant mindless aggression. Throw in a couple of magaritas first occasionally and it's quite a ride.

So forgive me if I'm not all that excited heading off to Ocean's Eleven, anticipating perhaps an hour wait to get into a snail of a game where you're lucky to get 35 hands an hour. Still, slowing myself down is an absolute must. In 9 or 10 handed No Limit hold'em, patience, alertness, concentration, and setting subtle traps are most important. Aggression, a necessary ingredient, must be carefully controlled and used opportunistically.

I'm lucky and get in a 10-10 $2000 buy-in game in a mere twenty minutes. I want to raise each of the first three hands--and it may well have worked each time--but I realize it will be to my advantage not to appear to maniacal out of the gate. I steal the next pot with a large raise out of the big blind--my tight image has already paid off! For the next half hour I am hyper-vigilant. A new player sits down to my left and the first hand he plays I realize he telegraphs his interest in the hand. Another hand and I can tell whether he is going to call or raise by how he shuffles his chips. A player accidentally raises and the 2-seat, the big blind, tries to get it to count as a call, since it's what he meant to do. Afterwards, he justifies his action. Do not ever embarass this guy and you can control him all night. On a flop of K 5 2 a late position limper bets 110 into a 70 dollar pot. He just sat down, so I have no information but why bet so much if he has a decent King? Impulsively I raise him to 300 with nothing and he quickly mucks it. I follow up all my raises with continuation bets except once when I check it down. My lone opponent flopped a flush and was trying to trap me! I am clearly a Poker God.

I enjoy this God-like feeling until the gentleman to my right tells me I need to protect my hand better as he can occasionally glimpse my cards! I thank him profusely for "not wanting to take advantage of an old guy" but inside I am mortified. Oh well, yet another reason to at least practice some live poker before heading off to Vegas.

The feeling of omnipotence vanishes with the first brush with adversity. I make what I consider to be a solid fold and am shown a total bluff. Suddenly I'm exhausted, and I feel an overwhelming urge to quit while I'm ahead. I've been there less than two hours. It's clear I've got some work to do before playing multiple consecutive 12-hour days. At least Vegas will be infinitely more stimulating.