be careful what you wish for...

Played in a standard 9 man last night. When I brought up the tourney on Sharkscope, it showed me 5 little fishy icons next to 5 of the 9 players. Woohoo, mamma's getting steak tonight*

I made my customary little paper diagram of my table, and put their Sharkscope ROI next to each. I even have red and green pens to write down this ROI (red= bad player, green = good player, I keep thinking maybe the colors should be reversed, like red=good player, STOP, don't play against him, but I can't decide). I like keeping the paper notes in addition to the HUD stats so I can note things like their raise and bet sizes. This helps me identify patterns in their play, and then maybe when they do something differently, it might indicate something about their cards. For example, if a tight player raises 3.5x the big blind time after time, the suddenly raises only twice the big blind, what does this mean? It could mean that he has Aces and is hoping someone plays back at him. It could mean he's got 99 and likes his hand, but not all that much. Of course, I need to see his cards after the raise size to help piece the puzzle together, and I don't always get to do that.

Back to last night's game. After taking note of each player, I had fishies both to my left and right. The guy two to my left gave me the most problems - how can I make a play for this guy's blind if he's going to call many of my raises? His HUD stats eventually settled at around 45% VPIP- he's playing nearly half of the hands - that's either an amazing run of cards (unlikely) or he's a walking ATM (much more likely considering his ROI, -32%!)

I had to hunker down and play some solid hands without stealing. To make matters worse, this player knocked out one of the good players (on some predictable suckout after getting it all in with the worst hand, of course), so he was chipleader and probably not going away soon.

I almost met disaster when I limped in with 33, hit my set, then value bet this guy both flop and turn. He called 3/4 pot size bets both times. The flop had two diamonds, then turn came a third, and the river came the fourth diamond, and he bet pot into me. I had no diamond (not that the 3d would have been very fun to call with). Damn! I hate when calling stations get there! I had to fold and was shortstack.

I was able to double up (KT vs Ax) and got back into the thick of things. The bubble was another marathon - me, 2 of the worst players at the table (-32 and -24 ROI), and a guy who wasn't too bad (-2%). His HUD stats were at 27/8/1.5 - medium loose, not enough raising, not enough aggression. He looked to play straightforwardly, I didn't see one checkraise from him, he seemed to bet when he had a hand and check/fold when he didn't.

We each knocked out one of the bad players (on mine, I simply got top pair/good kicker and took him to valuetown with second pair/weak draw), then went heads up. He got better cards than I did early, but a few raises into him with nothing and a checkraise or two put me into a 3-1 lead, and I was able to hold on for the win.

Tonight is the monthly live tourney, full update later this weekend.

*I have no idea what this means.