random thoughts and thoroughbred selections

Wednesday, June 16, 2004

I Stand Close to Walls Like Number Four The Lizard

Because, of course, Ninjas are sweet.

Bonus points to anyone besides Liquid Swords who can give me the source of the title quote above.

With Bob sweating me via IM chat (Yahoo ID � �bg_poker,� but I�m rarely on) in the $5 multi in which I placed this weekend, the running commentary always seemed to come back to two things. First, play tight and lurk � like a ninja (because ninjas are sweet). Second, and piggybacking off of idea number one, �stand close to walls, like number four the lizard.�

Really, just another way of saying the same thing. Fold, fold, fold, and pounce.

The Lizard, from the movie �Five Deadly Venoms,� was one of five trained assassin warriors, each with their own deadly power. Since I�m at work and not able to pull up any websites with the particulars of each of the venoms and their styles, I can tell you that The Lizard was a guy who could use gravity-defying powers to scale the walls and hit his opponent from unexpected angles in unexpected ways. It makes me smile to remember playing that multi with a guy to my right who apparently felt that when everyone else was folding, he was going to hike up his pants and be the guy to swagger in with a raise. Every time I was in either of the blinds, this guy would plunk somewhere in the neighborhood of 10xBB down for a raise, and would obviously be doing so to steal the blinds.

Only problem with this strategy is that he should have done the math. With blinds of, say, $250/$500, I�m happy to let them slide to him across two or three orbits. First marginally playable hand I got though, and I tripled his raise. All of a sudden, he�s not up $750, he�s down $5k after folding.

I didn�t think so�

Sometimes, not all the time, simply calling is about the worst thing you can do. When faced with aggression, there are really only three options. Lurk, fight, and run. Nothing beats the feeling of slowplaying that monster in the face of aggression. But where I think a lot of players just don�t get it in No Limit is when it comes time to drop the gloves and challenge the big boy to a fight. Now, I�d never want to risk a big chunk of my chip stack on ugly cards, but you do know that your mama told you to stand up to bullies. And it�s a very satisfying feeling to me to allow someone to pillage my blinds a couple of times before coming back over the top to spank him back to reality.

I have to credit Dr. Bob and Dr. Pauly (honestly, Bob has been calling himself �Dr. Bob� for years. I guess if I can call myself �Boy Genius,� what�s the difference?) for keeping me company via Yahoo IM during the drudgery of that tournament. I didn�t go to the well very often for advice (at least not until I was severely short-stacked), but just being able to make ninja jokes and type things about my competition there that I wouldn�t type in the table�s chat kept me from going nutty.

Speaking of chat, I had one of those �kiss my ass� moments last night playing a $10 SNG. Sitting in the BB with blinds of 25/50 (raising before it gets back to me), UTG opens with a raise to 100. All fold around to me, the second short stack on the table with 475 (plus the 50 in the pot). I have ATo. I�m thinking he�s got paint, but possibly not as nice a kicker. I push all-in.

Why not? With only 475 in my stack at this point, I can either take a chance on doubling up or I can improve my stack by 25% with his fold.

He folds.

Immediately, another player types �WTF??� in the chat.

Mind you, this was the same player that twice had pushed all-in previously with next-to-nothing in the pot. First time she limped with JTo, landed AKQ rainbow flop, and pushed all-in (for 1000 with 75 in the pot). Way to slowplay the nuts.

Steam was pouring out of my ears. I don�t see a good reason to criticize that move. What if the board came out something like JJK? Or featured three of the suit I�m not holding? It would have cost me nearly 10% of my stack to see the flop, hope I hit it, and hope he didn�t. All-in not only gives me the chance to double up, but also gives me (hopefully) the image that I won�t be pushed off my blinds, and that I�m willing to get a little reckless. And it wasn�t so much that my style was being criticized as it was who was doing the critiquing.

Then again, this is PartyPoker after all. No sense in trying to make sense of these people.

[>>]posted at 12:39 PM by BG - click to email
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