Mike Caro

I'll bet not many poker players today recognize this name-Mike Caro-referred to as the "Mad Genius of Poker".  His book "Caro's Fundamental Secrets of Winning Poker" was first published in 1996-long before the advent of today's poker game.

One of Mike's items of advice was "Give yourself permission to play those specific cards before you leave home and then do not play any other cards."  Well of course today we don't even have to leave home to play today's game but that isn't an excuse to ignore the advice.  We are now going to examine in detail how we adhere to this advice.

We need to refer back to which cards we have permission to play.

nits

That's what the good players are...nits in stud/8.  It's how you need to play in order to win at this game.  It's not the personality of the NLHE player.  So it should be a winning approach.  Let's track our results over time.  First game was last night...80 players paying 8...my finish 16th.

Playable starting hands are very limited:
3 cards 8 or lower that can make a straight with straight cards live.
AA with a low card that can make a straight.
KK or QQ with a straight flush card...all needed fills live.

With 4 exceptions, I stuck to the above.  My only variance was when it got down to a 6 person table.  Granted it is being a real nit but my belief is it's a winning combination.

almost got even

My second attempt at Stud/8 barely got me even from yesterday.  Finished 9th for $10.45 which after buy ins puts me a little bit behind.  The two days were really a lot of work for a little.  But I haven't studied Todd's Concepts enough yet. 

The method to my madness is to next graduate to Omaha/8 and then to join a tourney with one of each referred to as OE.  In that way ideally I'd be ahead of the field knowledge wise.  Also eventually work up to Horse and back down again.  Sounds like a plan.  Hope we can stick to it.

Stud/8

The chapter in Super System 2 is excellent.  However, it is my belief that is perused but not studied by most poker players with the result that the game is open to greater ROI than most.  We issued the challange on VeryJosie's blog that a little competition be started in the 18:45 Stud/8 tourney at FT.  In my first try yesterday I finished out of the money, thus minus $5.50. 

Todd Brunson assert's eighteen concepts that when applied will lead to mastering Stud/8.  After digging through my notes on these concepts, they were incomplete, that is I only have notes through Concept 3.  Thus I was also one of the persusers and have certainly not mastered these concepts.  Back to the drawing board.  I hope we'll have a lot of company.

Fifty Percent Bonus at UB

That's the good news.  After depositing $100, I got a $50 bonus. 

The bad news is I can't earn it by playing tournaments and I lost nearly $40 playing rebuy NLHE events with initial buy ins of $1.10 and $3.30.

 I'm going to give HORSE cash games a try but there isn't much action at odd hours.  I've got to earn that bonus before making another deposit-trying to do some bankroll building. 

2nd cash

First Place was $110 with 22 entrants paying 3 places at The Mookie this Wednesday.  No bad beats. One lucky draw out when it was heads up.  This could be the start of something big.  Hope so.  It's a nice deal to win...even place in the money.

Now I need to figure out how to really play this game.  Any suggestions?
Thanks,
SuitedAces
SuitedKings
David

First Cash

Fifth place was good for $200. Fourth would have been $280. Considering this was the only time I got there, it's happy time. This was The BBT5 final event and it was an apparent freeroll. Very nice. Next year is definitely on my schedule. There is much needed improvement in my game between now and then as many excellent players are competing so I'll need to develop and “A” game.