Winning Low-Limit Hold’em - First Poker Book I Read
Published on 9 Mar 2006 at 5:49 pm.
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Filed under Poker.
Since it’s been so long since I got around to posting on here I thought I’d finally get back into it by doing reviews of all the poker books I’ve read, and there are many. I figured a good place to start would be the first book I ever read. Winning Low-Limit Hold’em by Lee Jones. I had been playing poker for a while when my buddy Matt let me borrow this book. This was back in the early 90’s before the poker boom and at the time I didn’t even realize there were books on how to play poker. I had been playing on Yahoo games for play money for some time. This book really opened my eyes to the fact that there is a lot of analysis that can be done at the poker table. I photo copied the starting hands chart from the back and caried it with me to memorize. It really is a great book to start with, and as the name states it is for “Low Limit Hold’em”. The ideas in this book work great for low limit, where the blinds are 2-4 and below. However it is my personal opinion that if you just stuck to what you read in this book at higher limits you would get run over and have an overal negative expectation. So if you are just starting out in Limit Holdem and want to win at the penny tables give this book a read.
Wedding Pics
Published on 27 Oct 2005 at 10:02 am.
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Filed under Wedding.
For those of you who were able to join us on our special day, we hope you had as good a time as we did! Whether or not you were present, here’s a selection of our favorite pictures taken by very special paparazzi (Brian McCaleb — my new brother in law, Denise Chippero — felt like a family member from day one, Julie Schuchard — my longtime friend I can always count on) telling the story of our day. Enjoy!
If you happen to have any photos from the wedding you took, we’d love to include them in our much larger collection from the wedding, please e-mail weddingpics at jasonlarson.com.
Again, thank you for being a part of our lives!
Jason & Andrea Larson
P.S. Once we return from our honeymoon, we’re heading on an Eastern Caribbean cruise mid-June, we’ll add more pics.
Speakeasy
Published on 26 Aug 2005 at 9:25 am.
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Filed under Tech.
Well I haven’t kept up on the posting recently but I have been busy working and trying to get ready for our wedding which is next sat Sept 3. Also my comcast cable was out for nearly 4 weeks and after having 5 different service people out they were finally able to fix it. I was sick of waiting tho so I signed up for speakeasy DSL. The speakeasy DSL is 6MB down (and yes i get nearly all 6MB) and 768k up. That’s a big improvement over cable. So now it’s up just in time for me to head to CA for 2 months for the wedding =P Also I was unable to play poker during that time, with the new “no disconnect” tables on party I wasn’t willing to risk a 2k hand and have my internet go out, hence no poker posts either. Anyway speakeasy is nice, specially if you have an unlimted newsgroup account. Anyway don’t expect to see much on here till I return from CA. If you are coming to the wedding I can’t wait to see everyone, should be a fun party!
Be Nice to the Weekend Warriors
Published on 18 Jul 2005 at 1:11 pm.
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Filed under Poker.
If you play a lot of poker you will notice the games are a lot different at nights, on the weekends, and especially Friday and Saturday night. Also around the 1st and the 15th of the month when people get paid. These are all times when all the people who play for pure recreation are playing, and often times they are intoxicated and definitely not playing their best, which might not be a very high level even when sober. These are the people who feed the game of poker and allow the 5% of players that make their living that way to live. These players will often play reckless, make calls and bets that some would call “stupid” and make all kinds of other strange plays at the table. We love these people. Yet repeatedly I see a few players who constantly berate these players. STOP.
There is one player in particular in the game I play who constantly calls people “fish”, tells them how bad they play, calls them other names, and is just generally rude. This person is a decent player who beats the game for thousands of dollars in a session, but I know for a fact he could be better. Anyone who feels the need to do that to other players at the table doesn’t really understand the game, and is not playing at their highest level. Hopefully he will grow out of it, but the problem is many winning players do not continually try to improve their game. They can beat it for plenty of money and so they will just stick to what works. I am always trying to improve my game and once your table play is at a high level improving your game mostly revolves around money management and self control. Self control when on losing streaks, self control when someone sucks out to one card on a big pot, self control when people are berating players at the table. What that winning player must not realize, or I don’t think he’d do what he does, is that the only reason he can take so much money out of the game is because of all the players that come up, get lucky sometimes, but mostly just donate to the game. Mabye once his rude behavior drives off enough of the players he might have to take a second look at his game and realize his table banter is not doing anything good for the game. If everyone played the way he seems to want them to play by what he says to them then the game would be boring and nearly impossible to beat. Why would anyone say anything that has a chance of making your opponent play better or even take a look at what they might be doing wrong. Fools.
So if you ever have called someone a fish at the table, or have ever told someone they did something stupid, then I think you are the idiot. Of course I have done it in the past, but my game has moved beyond that, and I see that those players are the only reason winning players can win. I want to do everything I can to make sure they have a good time at the table, whether they are losing or winning at the time.
World Series of Poker
Published on 14 Jul 2005 at 10:55 am.
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Filed under Poker.
I played in the World Series of Poker this year. The Omaha hi/lo (also known as Omaha O8) $1500 buy in limit event. I hate limit poker but it is the only kind of Omaha Hi/Lo event they have. In my opinion Omaha Hi/Lo should always be played Pot Limit. In fact I think Pot Limit poker is the best. Pot limit requires more skill than both limit and no limit because you have to build a pot and also can face large bets along the way, unlike in limit. However unlike No Limit you also can’t just push all in when you think you have the best hand so you need to know when and how to let a hand go later if the signs say you are beat. However I digress, I’m sure I’ll post more on Pot Limit later.
Anyway I flew out to Vegas just for the WSOP and stayed at the RIO. The rooms there are very nice and very affordable. If you are going to stay off strip you should check it out. Specially their wine bar where I spent some time after getting knocked out. I lasted just over 4hrs and made it through about half the field. Not too bad for my first WSOP event. I was happy with my play and played my game and did not play scared. The highlight was probably knocking out Jon Juanda, which wasn’t much of a feat since when he got to my table he was short stacked. I had two pair and the nut flush draw and he had a low draw and the same flush draw but lower and I raised him all in. I made my flush and his low missed. After that Mike “The Grinder” Mizrachi and I got involved in a big hand where we both flopped and flush and both had good low draws to go with it. His flush was T high and mine was 8 high and when the low missed he took about half my stack. He went on to make the money. After that it was all down hill as I only had about 8x the big blind. I’ll be back next year and probably play in a few more events including some (yuk) holdem.
Also some guy from the Boston Globe called yesterday and interviewed me for about 20 minutes regarding the WSOP and poker in general. The WSOP gave him my phone number after asking permission. If I end up in an article I’ll post more about it here.
Welcome
Published on 14 Jul 2005 at 10:25 am.
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Filed under General Ramblings.
jasonlarson.com has been empty long enough. It’s about time I put something up here. So prepare for random ramblings from the world of jasonlarson.com…