A Possible Beginning Strategy

I just had a girlfriend ask me to e-mail her some poker strategy for her game with her boyfriend on Wednesday night. She didn't know if it was a cash game or tournament and estimated 6-10 players. So I typed out and e-mail for her, and I thought I would share it here too. It gives you a place to start if you are fairly new to poker.

I told her to read this first just so she would understand the e-mail.

Preflop strategy:

If your not on the blind you will always be able to choose to either call, fold, or raise. If your hand has a 2,3 or 4 in it fold (even if your other card is high). So don't play K3. Also usually, fold hands with a 5, 6, or 7. If both your cards are 8 and higher you can probably go with it.

If you raise pick an amount and always raise that amount. For example the blinds are 5 cents and 10cents. So you either call the 10cents or raise to 30. If you raise to 30 with a lot of different hands then they won't be able to know you only raise with hands like AA.

I would choose the raise to be 3 times whatever the big blind is.

I would raise with all of the following hands: and two cards queen and higher (ex: AQ, QK, AK, KK) pairs ten or higher (TT, JJ, QQ, KK, AA) and any suited cards that are 8 or higher (As8s, KhJh...) That way you have some variety in what you are raising with.

If someone raises before you act. Then you have to tighten up significantly and only play if you are really strong.

Post-flop:

If you make a good hand always bet it, and sometimes bet it even if you don't. For example you have KJ and the flop comes KT7. That is a great flop. Make sure you bet. Typically a good bet on the flop is about half of whatever is in the pot.

Bluffing:

Choose your bluffs when there are less players involved. You're more likely to get one or two people to fold than 4 or 5.

Don't Show:
Don't show your cards or tell the other players what you had. It is fun and friendly when everyone is doing this, but it will give them information about you. So if you bet and they all fold throw your cards in face down and happily scoop in your pot (regardless of the size of it). If they ask you what you had you can reply something like "I forgot" or "You'll have to pay to see."

Have fun.

Diet Goals

Tomorrow I'm starting a new diet program. It is crazy. I will be cutting most foods out of my diet with the goal of learning how my body reacts to it after it is added back in. It is a 21-day program. Below are my goals for the program.

My main goal:
To learn more about diet and how it affects my body so that at the completion of the program I can create a healthy diet for my life.

Other goals:
Decrease my body fat.
Improve my cooking skills and cook healthier meals at home.
Become more aware of how the food I’m putting into my body is affecting my body.

BTSA

I'm so happy to be done.

Today

Things I did today:

2 loads of laundry
Touched up the paint on the walls in my bedroom and kitchen
Went to Staples
Went to Aaron Brothers
Had the tires rotated
Went to Chiropractor
Went downtown and got my parking pass
Contacted the traffic court
Listened to the Giants win
Went to a night class
Borrowed a tent
Picked up a tent
Dropped off both tents
Cleaned my living room

It is good to have days off.

Time

I saw online that the Red Sox turned their first triple play since 1994. Then I heard on TV they turned their first triple play in 17 years.

That's when I realized 1994 was 17 years ago.

Emotions

Yesterday, I had an epiphany.

It was the first day that office staff reported back to work, and it was the first official day of our new principal. I went to work to talk to him.

I walked in and saw familiar faces in the office. I realized it. I want to keep my job. Not just teaching, but teaching here. I was happy to be back, and it felt right. I take a lot of ownership in my school. I want to be there, and I want the school to be successful. I am part of something, and I want to be part of it.

This was a big deal for a few reasons. One, it is nice to have my job back. But also I was proud of myself for making an emotional decision and reacting to my feelings about something. I am always very rational and make my decisions rationally, so this was a big step for me.

So I'm keeping my day job, and I'm excited about being back. (At least one more year.)

Nightmare

I have a reoccurring dream where I am chewing gum and I'm not able to get it out of my mouth. It is stuck in my mouth and I'm tearing at it trying to get it out, but I can only get out little bits of it at a time.

I rarely chew gum. I don't understand the dream.

Carrying Cash

Yesterday I made the largest cash deposit I have ever made at the bank. It broke my previous record that was set way back on Thursday.

On-line Poker Scandal

In the past people occasionally asked me if I was nervous about cheating while playing on-line poker. They were insinuating people at the site could control the cards coming out. I dismissed that as improbable because the sites were so profitable I thought it was unlikely they would do this. A few times playing heads up my opponents accused me of cheating insinuating that I could see their hole cards. I would just respond something like, "thank you." Unusual cards coming out is part of poker. To me I didn't see anything more unusual on-line that I did in regular games. However, my judgments were based only on the sites I played on in the games I played.

I just now came across the story of a major on-line poker scandal. I'm surprised I don't remember hearing more about it.

A couple nights ago I was at a final table with Charles Woody Moore and his wife, Rebecca Makar. Apparently, he is a pretty well-known poker player and I thought I should look him up. We ended up splitting the money five ways, so the couple managed to take 40% of the prize pool. Rebecca was still alive with 24 players left in the main even the following day too, so apparently she knows a little poker too.

However, it was my research on Woody that led me to read stuff about Rebecca, who is associated with the scandal. Very interesting that I was just at final table with both of them a couple nights ago. For the record they did not conduct in any suspicious activity at the table. They both rarely played so the fact that I never saw them in a pot against each other did not seem unusual. I was shocked to read about how Russ Hamilton and others cheated on-line players out of millions of dollars.

Also, this article about Woody not only caused me to read more into the scandal, but also led me into looking up plenty of other images of model Victoria Moore.