PokerVT

I have been waiting for a long time for this. Daniel Negreanu has been putting together a training site since last year. He has signed quite a few top professionals; including Annette_15, Paul Wasicka, JC Alvarado, Adam Junglen, and Kirk Morrison. From what I have read of the early reviews, this is going to be a great teaching tool. Unlike Cardrunners and some of the other sites, this site is going to be more interactive.

With most of the other sites, you are given a selection of videos and you basically get to see what they are doing while they talk about their hand and their opponents. However, with PokerVT, they are going to have quizzes and games that will also teach you different aspects of poker. There will also be ways to determine your personal poker knowledge, and it will then guide you to different sections to teach you what you need to know. I am really excited about taking the site out for a test run and seeing how much it can help my game.

I feel that I am playing well, just unlucky right now. Last night, I donked off quite a few tourneys and am down about 7 buy-ins. I was pretty card dead throughout most of the tourneys, and after taking a beat in an early tourney, I was playing too tight and too timid. The hand came down like this:

I have AA in middle position. A loose passive player limped, like he had been doing with most hands. I raise to 300 with the blinds at 25/50. The player to my left calls, as does the limper. The flop came J-6-7 with two diamonds. I had about 1800 when the hand started and the limper was the chip leader with 2200. He checked the flop, and I bet out 650. The player behind me called and the early limper minimum raised. I pushed in and the limper called. He showed QJ off. A jack hit the river and I was gone. It was a bad play on his part for two reasons. First, by limping out of position, then overvaluing top pair on that flop, there are not many hands you can be beating against two players. The only hand he can really be beating is a bluff or two overs like AK. If I have AK of diamonds he is a big dog, if I have AA or KK he is a big dog. If I have 89 of diamonds, again he is a big dog. The only real hands he can beat are J10 or a flush draw with no other pair or draw. Sounds reasonable, but remember that this is a raised pot from a player who has only shown strong hands and hasn't played back at him. Second, if he misses his hand, he has risked most of his chips on a play out of position. I knew what he had when he checked it to me. I knew he probably had a hand like KJ, QJ, or possibly a flush draw. I would have been happier if he showed at least QJ suited for the top pair and the flush draw. At least then he would have been the favorite to win the pot. But to make this move with QJ off is just stupidity. So that put the wheels in motion for the rest of the night.

For the remainder of the night, I kept getting the money in with second best, which is not like me. I was not three betting like I should and was playing too timid. I kept seeing players call my raises with very marginal hands and started limping too much. In the blink of an eye I was down almost 10 buy-ins. I would get short and push with AQ, AJ, QQ, JJ, and kept running into AK and KK. It was so sick. SO I played one final game and ended up winning that one to be down about $160 for the night. I decided to call it a night. I am still well within my bankroll to be playing at this level, so hopefully tonight will go better. I just have to remember to play position better and stop playing so damn timid if I take a beat. If they want to call my raises with marginal hands, we'll just have to play a flop.

On a final note, I noticed that while I was playing tentative, I was not three betting and shoving like I should have. I had this little voice in the back of my head that kept yelling at me, "You're going to lose." One hand in particular, I have 10's in middle position with 5 players left. UTG raises the pot. I don't know if it was intuition or just stupidity. I decided to fold the hand, figuring the best I could hope for was a race. Nobody called, but I just thought he had AA or KK. I don't know if it was a good fold or not, but the old me would have at least called and seen a flop, possibly would have re-raised or shoved. That's just what last night did to me. I kept getting second best, so I thought it was going to be second best again. So I'll just have to play aggressive and keep watching my opponents.