I’m feeling gamed out right now. I’ll probably get over it soon. 🙂 But I’m happy for a break for the rest of the week.
Sunday I went over to Lee’s to play poker. We played our usual low-stakes no-limit cash game, with 5¢/10¢ blinds and a $10 buy-in. Five hours later I was out $20 (I rebought once). It’s not the loss of the $20 I lament, it was my crappy luck and my not-much-better play.
The defining moment of the evening came just half an hour in when, I drew a pair of Kings, and lost almost my whole buy-in to Lee when he slopped a set of Eights. Lee suggested that I should have re-raised him when he raised my initial bet before the flop, which makes sense; it would have been a reasonable pot to take down right there. But I didn’t, and I ended up pushing on the turn, and obviously didn’t river a miracle.
Anyway, I rebought, but things kept going downhill. I won a few small pots shortly after rebuying, and at one point I did flop a set of Kings. But those were small consolation.
Adam suggests that I should play more aggressively, and also loosen my standards of what cards I play, since he points out that when I open a pot, he knows I tend to have high cards, and he can play low cards against me profitably. So that’s something to think about. It’s awfully hard to look at Q-7 and play it, though; what sort of a flop am I hoping to hit?
Monday a bunch of us gathered at Subrata’s to play Magic. We did a Ravnica draft (one person arrived late and assembled a Ravnica sealed deck to play with us on roughly even footing). I ended up with what I usually seem to end up with in Ravnica: A blue-green deck with a splash of a third color. I ran out of energy around 11 pm, so I only played against Adam and Subrata, winning against Adam and narrowly losing against Subrata (who always seems to end up drafting the most powerful guildmages in the block – I don’t think I’ve ever had the opportunity to grab one).
So that was fun. I’d like to do a 7- or 8-person Time Spiral draft sometime soon.
But maybe not this week.
I’m not sure loosening your standards is necessarily better – don’t you want people to play low cards against you, up to a point? On the other hand, bluffing more often might work; not playing more hands, but playing utter crap every so often.
One of the other considerations is that playing against casual players for amounts of money they don’t take seriously can end up frustrating any strategy, since many close decisions come down to “bet, it’s more fun”.
The Ravnica guildmages are very strong, particularly if you’re playing both their colors. I tend to pick the ones in my colors whenever they get to me, above everything else. (I first-picked a foil Guildmage and third-picked the second in the last pack Monday, for example, passing up an Assault Zepplid and some strong red-green cards to do it.) I’ve never seen an Orzhov Guildmage, but I’ll bet it’s just brutal in draft/sealed.