Bet 'em where they ain't

The title of this post appropriates some excellent advice by a Hall of Fame baseball player who was nicknamed Wee Willie Keeler. Wee Willie adjured players to "Hit 'em where they ain't". Clearly, if you hit the ball where people ain't, you'll get on base rather than making an out. Similarly, in poker, if you can manage to keep your betting patterns contra the betting patterns of your opponents, you'll have a much better chance of growing your stack. In its simplest form, to "bet 'em where they ain't" means to bet more frequently when your opponents are betting infrequently, and to bet less frequently when your opponents are betting frequently.

Last night, the opponents at the table I joined were betting frequently and heavily; I quickly decided to fold early and often. For at least the first half of the session, I was only paying to see the flop a quarter of the time. That's a very low percentage for me, but it was appropriate, given the level of aggression at the table. I was able to win the majority of hands I went to showdown with, and to cut my losses quickly on the hands I didn't back.

The only real hiccup of the night was a cooler where my queen high flush ran into an ace high uberflush; I lost $48,400 on that hand. Luckily for me, I'd already made a profit of nearly $100,000 up to that point, so it wasn't that big of a deal.

When I got my stack back up over $100,000, I called it a night.

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 133 hands and saw flop:
- 9 out of 17 times while in big blind (52%)
- 7 out of 18 times while in small blind (38%)
- 39 out of 98 times in other positions (39%)
- a total of 55 out of 133 (41%)
Pots won at showdown - 10 of 13 (76%)
Pots won without showdown - 8

delta: $60,600
balance: $3,644,939