Friday 15th August 2008

Welcome to Hold or Fold - The UK's only Poker E-Letter dedicated to
helping YOU become a better player!

In this week's E-Letter -

       *How to impress Phil Hellmuth (not easy I assure you !)

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Hiya there and how have you been this week??

It's amazing isn't it !?!

You go away on holiday for two weeks for a lovely rest and when you get back -
it seems like you've been away for 6 months !!

The amount of washing that has to be done for a start - but for me - the worst thing is
the amount of emails waiting in my Inbox that need to be actioned.

I'm down to 87 (emails to be actioned) now and as soon as I deal with a dozen or so of
them, another dozen or so flies in !! I shouldn't complain really - because in the bigger
picture, it's all work and it's all good - but - my goodness - it takes such a long time to
get back to normal.

Having said that - I have managed to play some poker online - I've been good at qualifying
for big tournaments but then I've crashed out of the big tournaments early - I'm also trying
to qualify for the Ladies Tournament on BetFred which comes to Birmingham in October -
trying to save myself a few quid on the £100 buy-in -

I've been playing the qualifiers online -

So close last night, I came second, for the second time and won $77 so from my £20 start,
I'm now up to £60 - another few money-finishes and I'll have enough for the straight buy-in
to Birmingham !!

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How to impress Phil Hellmuth (not easy I assure you !)

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This week's hand is a follow-on from last week's when I was talking about playing against
super-uber-aggressive players... i.e. Annette Obrestad playing in the PartyPoker European
Open IV.

If you remember - Nick Slade got the better of Annette by sitting back and letting Annette
bluff alot of her chips away - The flip side of that is that you cannot always assume that
the aggressive player is weak...

Take this hand as an example - it's a few hands on from last weeks with the same players
at the table...

The blinds are 3,000/6,000.

Craig Burgess folds and Annette is next to act.

She picks up Ad and 7d and, of course, raises to 15,000 in total.
 

Jesse May commentating: "Here's Annette and she's got a stack that is short and she's
gone for a very small raise but it's still 20% of her stack."

Ian Frazer and Josh Tyler both fold and action moves over to Nick Slade who is sitting in the
Big Blind.

Nick and Annette have already had a few run-ins in this tournament, so, although it shouldn't
get personal, I feel that Nick feels that he has Annette sussed and he is determined to pick
on her and pick up her chips.

He picks up 7s and 6c and he calls so there is 33,000 in the pot.
 

Phil Hellmuth also commentating: "OK - she's raised with Ace-Seven of diamonds and
Nick Slade, detective mind you, has called with six-seven and he could get himself in a
whole heap of trouble here because she has him dominated and he doesn't want to see
a seven."

The Flop comes down: 5s 5c 2c.
   

Nick checks.

Annette checks.

The Turn is Jc


Nick bets out 14,000.

Jesse: "This is a tester - this is the FIRST time he has bet on her that's a bluff isn't it!"

Phil: "Yes - and she made an excellent lay down with two Aces before - could she possibly
call here with Ace- high or even move in?? It's just too much to expect."

Jesse: "She would have to put her whole tournament on the line Phil"

Annette calls.

Phil: "Look at this - you have to say this about her - she's reading him well!"

Jesse: "She's also clearly a player who is willing to back up her judgment with her actions."

Phil: "It was a nice call she made."

The River comes down: 3d


Jesse: "Can he bet again??"

Nick bets out 50,000 very quickly to put Annette all-in.

Phil: "That was beautiful - that was an absolutely beautiful bet. Can Annette some kind of
crazy beautiful call here??"

Annette picks up her chips and has a quick count and realises she would be all in if she called -
With Ace high - it would have to be a crazy call especially as Nick has no history of bluffing
before.

She smiles and looks over at him.

Jesse whispers: "Noooo - if she makes this call, she'll be right back in it."

Phil: "If she makes this, I'll be impressed!"****

Annette continues to stare at Nick - well we assume she is as her shades cover her eyes !
After a moment - she calls the bet !!

Jesse May: "Oh My Gosh!!!"

Nick immediately mucks his hand.

Annette mucks her hand too.

Nick wants to see her hand and the dealer asks Annette to turn her cards over.

Annette disagrees: "I don't have to show my hand if he mucks?"

The dealer says: "You've got to show the winning hand."

Nick then turns his cards over and Annette, reluctantly, shows her cards too.

Nick knocks the table to show respect.

Phil shouts: "I mean WOWWWWW is all I can say - That's unbelievable - Now I'm taking
another look at this girl - I mean - she hasn't shown me that much in the days that I've
watched her that have set her apart as a player - but THAT call set her apart!"

Jesse: "That wasn't just a call - that was her tournament - that was her European Open -
this is the final table !!"

Phil: "Yeah you're right - but she called 15,000 on the Turn and she called 50,000 on the
River - and you know what, the straight-card hit - the board was 5,5,2, she couldn't beat
anything when the 3 came. I mean - it was just a beautiful call and it was a beautiful bet
on his part - he smelt that she had Ace-high - and it was just a beautifully played hand by
both of them to me."

****When Phil said that he would be impressed if she called - my immediate thought was:
'whoopeee-doo, so what?? - Phil would be impressed' But then again - no matter what you
think of Phil as a person - he has won, according to him, over $20,000,000 playing poker
and has 11 WSOP bracelets - so maybe I'm being very unfair and if I could impress Phil -
I would impress myself !!

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Post Mortem

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I have quite often sat down at a tournament, mainly online, and watched as super-uber-
aggressive players have ran over the table and people have been too scared to go up
against them.

The Pokertracker kicks in and you can see that they have extremely high Raise Statistics
and for me, these players start to get big targets over their heads. They are willing to put
their chips on the line with pure aggression, rather than good cards to back them up and
my tactics are generally to wait until I get a big hand and use their aggression against them.

Sometimes though, you have to be aware of the fact that these players can be very clever
and they don't always have weak hands, they can have you beat and no matter that you
think you can outplay them, they can turn around and bite you back -

This is what happened to Nick this week, he assumed that Annette had weak cards, and
indeed, she did compared to 'normal' play, but Nick tried to outplay her with a weaker hand
and in the end, he fell into his own trap !

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Well I hope you have a good week - may the cards be with you and I'll see you again next Friday.

All the best

Meg Arana
Hold or Fold