Sick Bubble Play and Some Random Bits

I had a long post typed out but realized pretty quickly that it sucked. There has been some good discussions going on at Cardplayer's Forum again. Fritzmania is back and has the forum "fish" salivating with virtually every response. It's kind of nice to see the members oooh and aaaah over knowledge that is "common" to Fritz. Even better is that Lucko seems to take the opposite approach from Fritz's nurturing and it makes me laugh. Not to say that what Lucko is giving them isn't INCREDIBLE advice, it's that they don't seem to understand the aggression and Lucko just isn't going to wait around while they figure it out.

Speaking of which, Lucko was the source of some very heavy debate of a recent bloggers tourney (I wasn't involved, I'm not part of that community). Lucko had entered this MTT with an absolute SICK chip-lead and played bubble poker like I've never seen it played before. One of the things (and there have been MANY) that Lucko has taught me is the importance of bubble play (I've closed a LOT more SNG's and got ITM a LOT more based on some simple principles he's given me, thanks kev). Basically, Lucko was accused of colluding with the short stack because he was doing what appeared to be "soft playing" the short stack. It turns out this is EXACTLY what he was doing, however, the "why" portion wasn't what everyone thought.

Lucko was folding to the short stacks jams and aggressively applying pressure to the other players. To the "other players" this appeared as though Lucko was a personal friend of the short stack and wanted to keep that person around. In reality, Lucko had never met the short stack but DID in fact want to keep that person around. Why? Because with the short stack remaining AND with his massive chip lead he could EASILY take advantage of the "patience" of the two medium stacks. See NO ONE wants to bubble, it sucks. Even worse is bubbling with a short stack present. So in order for the medium stacks to play a hand they wanted to have a hand worth playing. They wanted to have a hand that they could be almost certain they wouldn't/couldn't lose. Leaving them only playing QQ-AA at WORST. How many times do we expect to see AA, KK or QQ? Not many, not enough. So the blinds and antes were Lucko's on almost every hand.

This is a part of the game where you must walk that fine-line. It seems to me that the concept of picking up the blinds and antes at bubble time is lost on most players. They try to take too many risks thinking that their opponents understand this concept AND they attempt to make these plays without the proper stack.


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This leads me to another short topic (like I keep anything short), I see too many players on these forums that expect too much from their opponents. They learn concepts like above and attempt to apply them without a true understanding of the mechanics of these plays. The idea of "adding weapons to your arsenal" is NOT simply to have "more weapons to fire" it's to have the right weapon at the right time. Sometimes these concepts can only be used in specific situations. They tend to deviate from good solid ABC poker in an attempt to get "creative" only to leave money on the table or open themselves up to a trap (or worse) later.

A member at Cardplayer's Forum was asking how he should go about teaching an intelligent raw new player the game. He had devised a lesson plan for this player without knowing the basic MOST important piece of information he needed prior to proceeding: "what does she hope to accomplish, what are her goals?". Simple obvious question, right? Maybe not. Did you ask YOURSELF that before you began?

I see so many players question this play and that play on the different forums but never see them question their goals and assess their "level". Can you be honest with yourself about where you are in relation to the game? How about versus your opponents?


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We've begun playing a weekly home game two weeks ago and I'm really looking forward to that. It's a nice group of players and a handfull of players that I would consider solid and suprisingly NONE that I would consider totally inept. Live poker is just something I could do 24/7, online not so much. Something about holding those cards in your hand and even shuffling the deck yourself that I just love.

Hopefully, I'll have enough success for a little more spending cash and hopefully my live roll will be back so I can spend some Friday's at Aztar. Barring anymore medical set backs from me or the family.