It’s spring!!!!

Any day I ride my motorcycle into work is a good day.  No matter what else happens, it’s a really, really good day.

I’m headed out to play some cards Friday night, and I’m tres excited.  It’s a low stakes game, $1/$2 with a rotating game.  One round of Hold’em, then Omaha, then Razz, then Stud, and then Omaha/8.  Although some people look down their noses at low stakes games, I think they’re fab.  I’m perfectly comfortable playing for $50.  Yes, I make a lot more money than that, but no, I don’t need the challenge of winning or losing a lot of money to cause me to focus.

There are a couple of distinct problems that come from having disdain for playing lower limit games:

1. It’s the sin of pride, and you come off like an ass when you try and bully the poker table you’re at; and
2. It’s indicative of a gambling problem.  (See question 10: "Have you ever borrowed money to finance your gambling?")

I’ve seen this rationalized before.  "I really need to play at higher limits, so I’ve borrowed money at 50% interest so I can play $5/$10 and $10/$20 instead of $2/$4"   Please, if you’re not a fulltime card player, and sometimes even if you are, your borrowing is indicative of a gambling problem. 

At Friday night’s game, I’ll be sitting down at a table where I’ll be the best, or the second best player on all of the non-Hold’em rounds, and one of the best three players during the Hold’em round.  The players will call too many single and raised bets.  What’s the best strategy here?  I think it’s a combination of careful hand selection and never folding made hands.  Because I know that most of the players won’t know how to value their hands, and won’t be able divert enough attention from their own cards to do much reading, I think there will be a lot of showdowns with crap cards.

I’ll post the results when I get back.