Posts Tagged ‘Stud’

I think this has been out for a few days, but I just noticed that Poker Stars has posted a tentative schedule for a yet-to-be-named tournament series in April. I love the format of offering a low-, medium-, and high-stakes option for every tournament and am frankly staggered that they think they will get sufficient interest in some of these events, especially the $2000 Triple Draw.

The 2+2 MTT community is mostly salivating over this, though some are a little concerned that the smaller events will actually discourage people from trying satellite into the bigger events. I don’t think they’re wrong, but I still expect the big events to be plenty soft thanks to tourney donks playing with relatively deep stacks for fairly big money.  Read the complete post...

I wanted to make this post about how bad people are at Stud/8, because they are. Split pot games will rip clueless players to shreds. O/8 is a pretty easy game to get, so you don’t see quite as many huge mistakes. Plus there are fewer betting streets and it’s easier to make the nuts. But in Stud/8, people chase absurd lows and call down with any pair even when they are clearly crushed or getting freerolled.

But I also made a pretty big error in a Stud/8 game, so I guess I’ll be talking about how I suck at Stud/8 (though this is really just a Stud high error). On the river, my opponent was showing 6655, and I had Aces up with both Aces and two high cards showing. My opponent bet, and I raised for value. Like I was saying, no matter how clear I make it that I have Aces up, people will call down with any two pair.  Read the complete post...

Lasted a little over three hours in the $500 HORSE, then made an illustrative Stud mistake:

FullTiltPoker Game #5166723748: FTOPS Event #3 (35825861), Table 26 – 500/1000 Ante 100 – Limit Stud Hi – 0:35:56 ET – 2008/02/08
Seat 1: zartarious (10,468)
Seat 2: WCJOKER (16,873)
Seat 3: Rambo no5 (2,006)
Seat 4: jesseja777 (17,150)
Seat 5: joshuah333 (9,909)
Seat 6: Sira21 (6,110)
Seat 7: urbandb888 (3,792)
Seat 8: hattrick8810 (5,714)

*** 3RD STREET ***
Dealt to zartarious [Ad]
Dealt to WCJOKER [7c]
Dealt to Rambo no5 [6s]
Dealt to jesseja777 [4s]
Dealt to joshuah333 [5h]
Dealt to Sira21 [4d]
Dealt to urbandb888 [4c 5c] [Jc]
Dealt to hattrick8810 [Ks]
Sira21 is low with [4d]
Sira21 brings in for 150
urbandb888 completes it to 500
hattrick8810 folds
zartarious raises to 1,000
WCJOKER folds
Rambo no5 folds
jesseja777 folds
joshuah333 folds
Sira21 folds
urbandb888 calls 500

*** 4TH STREET ***
Dealt to zartarious [Ad] [8c]
Dealt to urbandb888 [4c 5c Jc] [Tc]
zartarious bets 500
urbandb888 calls 500

*** 5TH STREET ***
Dealt to zartarious [Ad 8c] [Ac]
Dealt to urbandb888 [4c 5c Jc Tc] [Jh]
zartarious bets 1,000
urbandb888 calls 1,000  Read the complete post...

To his credit, David Gray’s Seven Card Stud chapter in the Full Tilt Poker Strategy Guide: Tournament Edition is actually about tournament strategy. Even when introducing basic concepts such as starting hand selection, which he is wise to do given that most of his audience will likely come from a NLHE background, he makes clear how his advice differs from standard cash game strategy. Having little background in tournament stud, it is hard for me to evaluate the quality of Gray’s advice. The strategy he suggests seems a sound one, but it concerns me that much of what he says sounds disturbingly like the overly weak tight approach to tournament NLHE that many sub-par players adopt.

In the early rounds of a stud tournament, where stacks are deep relative to the stakes, Gray advises nothing more than a “good, normal, solid strategy” akin to what would be appropriate in a cash game. I appreciate that he doesn’t elaborate overly much on what exactly that is, since there are other, presumably better resources for learning the game of Seven Card Stud.  Read the complete post...

When last we left him, our hero had gotten off to a great start in the $300 WCOOP Second Chance Stud/8 event, only to blow most of his chips on an ill-conceived bluff. When we pick up with him again, he is down to 2000 chips, and the stakes have just risen to 200/400.

Stud/8 is a tricky game to play on a short stack. With 5 BB’s in NLHE, I’m looking to pick a hand and go with it, moving all in and hoping for the best. In Stud/8, though, hand values tend to solidify on 4th or 5th rather than 3rd street, and since it’s a fixed limit game (at least it was in this tournament), you can’t just commit all your chips with a decent starting hand and pray. So I came into a few unraised pots but kept bricking on 4th and folding, managing to lose about half of my already short stack before this hand came up against 2+2’s Sirwatts:  Read the complete post...