A little background for you all, I started playing NLHE with friends after seeing the WPT on TV about 7 months ago. Since then I have played in about 1 home game a month, with the same group of people from school. We have a great time but our games are not the way I see it played on TV; in our games you always get lots of limpers, lots of callers, and no one plays the full ring game.
I have done some reading, mainly books like SS, HOH 1 & 2, and Caro's Book of Tells, but a lot of the strategy discussed in these books were not exactly applicable to the home games I played in. I have done OK, of the 7 games we have had I have made the final table 5 times, and won 4 times against an average field of 13 players. Not good but not bad, yet it still did not feel real.
Well yesterday I hit the local casino to enter the cheapest stakes NLHE tournament they had, $23 CDN buy-in and a field of 50, running 5 tables of 10....and it was AWESOME!
The game was SO DIFFERENT it was freaky. Where I am used to fold, call, call, call, call in the home game (with me doing the folding usually), this was just like TV in that most pots were between two or three players, and raising was respected. I was very nervous and intimidated since most of the people there were 'regulars' as they all knew each other and after talking with them awhile it seemed everyone was an experienced tournament player.
I played just 4 hands in the 2 hours I was there, and finished up in 17th place so not a great showing or anything but it sure was fun. The first pot I entered with A9s, raising twice the BB and all I did was take the blinds.
My second pot had me on the BB with 95, and when the table folded to the button, the button raised twice the BB and the SB folded while I called for the hell of it (it had been about 40 minutes since I last played a hand). The flop was rags but gave me top pair, so I put in a pot sized bet and after some hesitation the button called. The turn was a J and again I put in a pot sized bet, which committed half my stack. The button folded which made me happy.
In my third pot the action was folded around to me in the SB with an agressive player in the BB who had moved all-in a few times (medium stack) to pick up blinds. I called with my pocket 3's, he moved all-in and I called. He showed 94s so I was out front, but he caught a 9 on the turn and left me crippled; I did not have enough to call the BB now but was moved to a different table.
I only had a few hands to look at before the blinds came around, and I wanted to make a move with either decent cards or an unentered pot. On the button with 94s the table folded to me and I went in (yes, 94s was the BEST hand I had seen in the last few rounds). The SB was the same aggressive player who had outdrawn me before, and he went all-in to isolate me with his T4. His high card held up and I was done.
Some will question my call with little pocket 3's, but with the information available I figured I was a slight favorite, and with everyone having more experience than me I kind of wanted to just get all my money in with the best hand rather than let these guys outplay me. In hindsight, I should have moved all-in or raised from the SB to shut out the BB since I do not think he would have called and my call did look weak. With low pocket pairs you want to see cheap flops, but if everyone folds I should have recognized I had the best hand at that moment, and that a nice raise was the correct play. But all things considered I thought I did OK and wish I had Monday's off so I could enter this tournament more often.
Now I have my usual home game on Thursday night, and some of the lustre is now gone because it was such an unbelievable thrill to play NLHE like it should be played. Everyone who has never played in a casino before I would highly recommend it because it is so cool with the chips, the dealer, the table, the atmosphere,...everything!
Sorry for rambling on, I just had to share it with people who would understand.
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