Happy Tortured and Murdered Bird Day - Daniel Negreanu's Blog

Daniel Negreanu's Blog
November 24, 2006
Daniel talks about watching
poker on TV

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Happy Tortured and Murdered Bird Day

November 24, 2006

Growing up in Canada Thanksgiving is just nowhere near as big a deal as it is
here in the U.S. I must have received 20 text messages from friends saying
"Happy Thanksgiving." If I were in Toronto, I don't think I would have gotten
two.

It's not one of my favorite holidays. Frankly (I can use that word if I want, it's
my blog!), I just don't get what we are celebrating? Not so sure it's even
worth celebrating, but I don't want to get into that. I'm sure I'd be offending
someone if I did, lol.

Anyway, I'm here in Grand Rapids, Michigan right now with Lori and the
family. Yesterday we did the whole dead bird thing, of course I had a "special
meal" consisting of Tofurkey. If you've never had it, you'd be surprised to
know that it tastes a lot like turkey, except you don't have to chop it's head
off and pluck any feathers, lol.

Yesterday we sat around and watched the football games. I have an
important fantasy football match up against E-DOG's team this week. Erick
has Tony Romo on his roster, but man, did I luck out since he threw 5 TD's
but Erick started Eli Manning instead. 5 TD's would have just buried me.

Later there was some live poker on television and some of my friends were
playing. They happened to all be, like, the first guys out of the tournament,
lol.

Watching live poker is kind of neat and it gives you a much better read on
your opponents tendencies for sure. Not to be mean, but I don't know how
else to say it, there was some piss poor poker going on late in that
tournament! Yikes, the play was pretty bad and so easily exploitable.

Toto Leonidas, an excellent player, wasn't playing his best on the day due to
the prize payout structure. Basically, with a seven man one table satellite,
you needed to come in second to get paid. Down to three, Toto really
tightened up and played rather weak, hoping that Roland deWolfe would get
knocked out first. In the meantime, that gave chip leader, Phil Gordon, the
opportunity to just chop away like a madman.

Then Phil makes a bonehead move, and he actually knew it, you could tell.
Roland, makes a baby raise on the button and Phil moved in with A-3 off suit.
You could see the wheels turning in Phil's head before making the play,
almost like, "Hmm, I know that must mean he has a legit hand and I
shouldn't be doing this, but ALL IN!" Roland had 99 and doubled up which
was a crushing blow to Toto and it jeopardized Gordon‘s lead unnecessarily.

Toto misplayed several hands in the small blind against the chip leader. He
was limping with raggedy aces which I liked, but then was too easy to push
around after the flop.

Frankly, all of the players major errors came post flop, and all of the
remaining three players were guilty of post-flop mistakes. They just seemed
to give up way too easily. In obvious bluffing situations, players who bluffed,
got away with it virtually without fail.

I felt bad for Toto, I really did. In his exit interview, his face told the whole
story. He was trying to adjust to the major pay jump, 0$-$250,000 and
wasn't sure exactly what to do. It wasn't a typical three handed situation
where Toto would have felt free to play his game. He seemed totally out of
sync and his play was erratic.

Roland seemed to be playing well to get there, albeit a little too fast, but he
made a bad read on Gordon. In an interview during the event he had Gordon
pegged as a conservative player that wouldn't push back at him without a
hand. That read ended up costing Roland as he allowed Phil to get away with
some very obvious "rookie bluffs."

There were some very distinct and obvious betting patterns on display and it
seemed as though the players weren't picking up on them. I don't want to
share too much of what I saw, but had I been at the table, I would have
been approaching play very differently than they did.

I think the most amazing thing about the three handed play, and there is a
lesson in here somewhere, is that when a player didn't hit the flop solid, they
would fold to a bet as small as the minimum. That play worked WAY TOO
many times.

At one point, Phil folded 7-5 on a 10-8-5 flop facing a baby bet. Toto, on
several occasions folded Ace high on ragged boards against Phil's baby bets
on the flop.

In order to play well after the flop short handed, these are the types of
hands that make the difference between winning and losing. It's not the all in
moves with Ace rag, or the big coin flip wins with a pair versus two overs.

I've seen players win tournaments using an aggressive pre-flop strategy that
is based on a lot of guesswork, but I have never seen a player use that
approach and have any sort of consistent results in tournament poker.

Of today's top tournament players that do well consistently, not one of them
rely on this approach. The Grinder does his damage after the flop. So does
Nam Le, Tuan Le, Phil Ivey, and any other top tournament pro out there
today. Even John Juanda, well known for his excellent pre-flop play, is the
consistent tournament performer today because of his excellent decisions
after the flop.

Anyway, I really enjoyed watching the show. It's become a yearly tradition on
FSN apparently, to air a live poker show on Thanksgiving and I think it's a
great idea. If you are a true poker fan it makes for some of the best televised
poker out there, especially not knowing the outcome!

Tonight, about 12 of us are headed out to the hockey game. It's funny, the
last time I saw the Grand Rapids Griffins play they hosted the Chicago
Wolves, and this time, they are once again hosting the Wolves. The Wolves
have an even better record this time around while the Griffins, who've had
just one losing season in 10 years, are off to a slow start. It should be fun.

Tomorrow we head back to Las Vegas. When I get back home I plan on
playing some more poker at FCP and possibly heading to Bellagio to get in
some hours. That Foxwoods event really got my juices flowing and I'm
pumped up to play again. It all came together in Foxwoods. Even though I
was NEVER above average in chips during that event after level 5, I felt like I
was playing with extreme confidence and had an epiphany as to what I'd
been doing wrong lately in some of the tournaments I'd played.

I can't really explain how excited I am about where my game is at right now.
It's almost like, "Duh!" this game is so much easier than I was making it on
myself. Anyone at my table in the next few tournaments is in for some
serious trouble. No more messing around, it's time to win some tournaments
again, I'm hungry!

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