More Quick Exercises – Part Three

Before we begin today’s little exercise, a recap – these exercises are designed to help you at tournament play, mostly Sit ‘n’ Gos.  And they involve play money instead of the real thing because you’re going to do things you wouldn’t ordinarily do at a cash game, or a tournament for real money,  So far I’ve had you play games where you only raise or fold, never call.  Then I switched it around and had you call everything – no raises or folds. Today you can call, raise, fold…whatever.

You just can’t look at your hand is all.

That’s right – you know the saying “play the player, not the cards?”  Today you have no choice.  You can use a post-it note or some other cover so that your hole cards are unseen.  Then, play as “normal” except you’ll have to take your cues from everyone else as to what you might have and what they’ve got.  Fun!

You might want to play 6-max tables for a start (or 4-max if you can – PokerStars has ‘em) so it’s a bit easier to track the players.  You could also do a heads-up match, but eventually you’ll want to do this in a 9-player setting.  Another way to start is by covering one of your two cards at first until you get a bit more comfortable, then cover both of them.  Yes, you may never get completely comfortable…but that’s the idea, kinda.

You may have heard that Annette Obrestad won an online tournament this way, supposedly, by never looking at her hole cards the entire time.  She plays very aggressively, and yeah, I buy it.  If you have difficulty in playing the player, this exercise will get you “in the mood.”

Have fun with this.  Be aggressive.  Be bold.  Be a bit crazy.  Be surprised at the results, and be ready for exercise #4 tomorrow.