How I moved up in Stakes and Became a Real Poker Player

[Frank]

I started out where we all likely started, at the microstakes, NL5 in my case was the lowest available stakes. I I started with fifty bucks in my account and I had beginners luck to run it up to one hundred and fifty. I cashed out my hundred and I was hooked. I ended up having to re-up my account for twenty-five dollars two times and after that, I was a very slight winner for about a year and a half.

Spring Break of 2019, I was dreaming of live cash games. (I'm a middle school math teacher). The only thing that stopped me was the thought of buying in for three hundred dollars and losing it. I'm a tightward. A poker house in Galveston had live NL50 with a min buy-in of five dollars! Fifty cent big blinds in a live cash game? That sounded like a game that would be pretty fishy and that I could afford. When Spring Break finally came, they stopped offering that game, now having plenty of Spring Breakers to lure into the house. Then Spring Break ended.

Except it didn't.

A petroleum plan near my school had an accidental discharge of benzine, forcing all nearby schools to close for several days. An extra week of Spring Break, sweet! About the same time, I had gotten the idea that online poker in the U.S. of A. was about to be closed down in another Black Friday type event. I decided that the little over one hundred dollars in my Bovada account was about to confiscated so why not go out in a blaze of glory?

I played 200NL with a sixty dollar buy in and hit a run of good cards. I filled four straights in the same day. I more than tripled that sixty, but then I lost my nerve. I moved down to 100NL thinking I was due for a loss. There's fish logic for you. But that's when I learned the secret of 100NL and became the kind of player who can actually sit down and earn an income playing the world's greatest game.

[Frank]

Surprise Win

Playing 10NL and short-stacking, I was up from 3.00 to about 4.50. I caught a pair of tens and did the standard 4BB raise. The small blind called and the flop came AA3. The small blind checked and I checked behind. The turn was a 7 and the small blind bet .30. Figuring there was no way he had an A, or he would have bet the flop or bet larger with that brick on the turn. I thought he might have caught the seven or just be bluffing with air to steal and orphan pot, so shoved all in. He called and turned over A9.

I laughed and wished I had not turned off chat so I could say “well-played.” Then the river was a 10. I was slow on the uptake so I rolled my eyes and thought, ‘Wow, a set of tens when he has three aces. Thanks, poker gods.’ It was not until the money was pushed to me that I realized my “set” was actually a full house because of the paired board. Villain completely outplayed me by hiding his trips and reading that I might shove the turn as a semi-bluff. After the turn, my equity was 4%, so the odds were more than 19:1 against me making that boat. But it happens . . .

[Frank]

I once stepped into the men's room during a break in a tournament when the player who had been sitting on my left (at the table, not the men's room) said in a complaining tone, "you're too aggressive." Those three words, and their tone, gave me a huge amount of information.

Most importantly, I then knew that he had some knowledge of playing styles. But I also knew that was not very knowledgeable about poker and poker players or he would have realized that what he just did is known in the animal world as "presenting." Of course, I also then knew exactly how to induce mistakes from him. He was tight passive so I raised him every single time he came into a pot. </p>

Except once.

I was in the big blind, and he in the small when he completed. He had not completed that night, so I knew he had something. I had nothing. Instead of checking through, I just folded to his limp. That is technically in violation of the rules, but I think the dealer knew what I was doing. Mr. Transparent said, "you don't even want to see the flop?"

"Nah," I said. His tilt was palpable. He must have had a big hand, that he expected to stack me with. He did not appreciate me just giving him the blinds at all. Go figure . . .