On The Box
The bulk of televised poker is pants but I caught two excellent shows last week.
The first was the second heat in last years William Hill Grand Prix. Johnny Lodden put on a beautiful display of how to play a one table satellite. Throw all your books away, all you need is to watch this one show, let it sink in, then watch it again;
he did half his chips early doors, made some terrific laydowns with ease and just appeared to be that little bit more aggressive than the opposition without ramming it down their throats.
Now I really do like and respect Ross Boatman’s game a lot and believe me, he ain‘t no slouch when it comes to closing out a final table, but when I spoke to Johnny a few weeks later he said there was just no way he could lose that heads-up match.
I’m guessing that Johnny and his ilk have just put in that many hours online that their game theory is spot on; they know just how much to push and how often to bet when it’s checked to them, giving them a big enough edge to prevail over the length of a match. Sounds easy.
The second show was the lead up to the big EPT final table in Monte Carlo. Five handed and on the bubble, with by far the lowest stack, how Ash Hussain didn’t go broke with 7-7 was not only a mystery, but more importantly an eye-opener to me.
Finally, it pained me to watch Ben Grundy’s demise at the hands of Marcel Luske (Marcel raised with rags, Ben re-raised with A-J but checked the flop and the turn, Marcel bet and showed the bluff).
Maybe I’m just too soft, I mean I know Ben has had a high tilt factor in the past and in all fairness this is a competition with big wonga up for grabs, but there’s no way I could ever bluff someone off a big pot and then large it up for the cameras while your opponent feels like chucking up.