Plus Phil Helmuth's Situational Analysis of Poker....
STEALING THE POT Pot stealing is normally a perfectly legitimate tactic in poker circles but on the 28th November at the famous Thornhill Club in Toronto an armed gang tried a rather different variation. They jumped a large cash game and made off with the pot and all the wealthy players’ valuables. A police chase ensued, shots were exchanged which resulted in the arrest and charging of Omar Betty, Ryan Shields and (get this) Ezra LOTTERY! The trio face 130 counts, including attempted murder of police. I guess Ezra’s lucky number didn’t come up.
SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS I recall WSOP Champion Phil Hellmuth giving some good advice at the beginning of the year. In simple terms his opinion was that a good poker player played to a strategy and was able to “read” opponents well, on or offline. But he made the major point that a “great” poker player was a master of “situational analysis”. This strictly means a player who can make fast judgements as to when to make good moves based on what has already occurred. In football terms Wayne Rooney would be the classic example of a master of situational analysis. He reads a game at the speed of instinct based on who’s around him and what he can expect them to do. Some poker players have this almost as a gift, others develop it over time. The latter is the route to rely on and you achieve success with it by being able to swiftly categorise the “type” of player you are up against. Is he a mouse, an elephant, a lion or a jackal? This quick, animal-short-hand will assist you to make that swift decision when it’s needed, Rooney style.
WHAT’S IN A NAME? I’ve been noting some of the winning names used by recent combatants in the larger prize-pool, online events. “Jovial Gent” ,“Pimplyteen” , “MoistaSmith”, and “Longlegs” spring out at me immediately. I suppose the strategy is that an opponent spends so much brain-time trying to figure out why someone would want to call themselves “Pimplyteen” they lose focus. “Longlegs” does it for me. My brain would say “Baywatch” or “Desperate Housewives” and I wouldn’t remember my own hole cards for at least two minutes. With hard evidence like that it’s clearly worth giving your online tag some tactical thought.
