Party Poker Blog

Sex is good, but poker lasts longer.
Unknown.

Listening to Bach, drinking Guinness and playing online poker. Damn, does life get any better than this?

Thanks to anyone who has linked to me - I finally had some time today to peruse my traffic and saw a link from a porn blog. Too funny. Whoever you are, God Bless you.

I've been playing no-limit ring games. Insane. Can anyone tell me the phrase for buying into a big-bet ring game, doubling through, leaving and coming back in the game for the original buyin? Rat holing? Anyway, several players were doing this last tonight and some other guys were getting seriously irate.

Tip of the day: As I've stated before, I play under a female moniker online and I found this interesting post about doing so. Consider this the next time you create an online account. :)

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Maybe 2 months ago I posted about playing online under a female name.
I’ve actually done it now.

I opened a new account at Empire. I chose to be a female character
and chose a name that I don’t want to reveal. Suffice it to say that it
not only represents me as female, but is also provocative. After about 2
weeks of play, I’ve noticed some significant differences in the way
opponents treat me.

I’ve been playing in the 50 and 100 buy in NL games. On Emparty these
games are .50/1.00 and 1.00/2.00 blinds respectively. The basic
difference I’m noticing is a predictable lack respect for my raises and
attempts to bully me. This is especially true preflop, and preflop is
where I make most of my money. The best example so far ran as follows,
in a $50 game. I catch AA UTG and call. Player A made it six, player B
called. I made it 20. A pushed in for about another 20, B called, I
called. Flop came and I realized I had about a buck left and threw it in.
B called. After the hand, the other players showed A-10 off (A) and 77
(B). I won.

More generally, I’ve found that when I represent a strong hand, players
are much more likely to play back at me, even with trash. I think they
love the idea of scaring me off a nice hand as this is a way to dominate
me. They often refuse to believe I have AA or KK in spite o the fact that
I play VERY tight. Of course, I can’t say for sure how much of this is my
female persona and how much of it is the loose, Emparty players,
especially as I am used to UB, where the play is fairly tight. However, I
have had other players make comments like “wow, you get no respect.”

This has backfired on at least one occasion. I had top pair, top
kicker, but put an opponent on an overpair. I was about to fold when I
remembered that very few of the people who had been representing an
overpair against me actually had it. I made a call all in. He had AA.

Is playing as a woman an advantage? Yes! Especially in NL where you
can make a nice profit by winning only a few hands and bullying costs
more. I think I’d be up even if I was only playing AA and KK because I am
able to get opponents in for big chunks before the flop most of the time
with these hands. This especially true if they are already involved, even
for $1. Post flop I am able to significantly over bet pots and still get
action. I think this is because players hate the idea of me pushing them
off the better hand just as much as they love the idea of pushing me off a
better hand

One way to think of a female persona is as a free table image. No work,
no “advertising,” which I don’t think works that well at these limits
anyway. Just play premium hands and get plenty of action.

If there’s a disadvantage, it’s that bluffing is less profitable. I
don’t really care. I steal maybe one pot every hour and a half on
average. More if I seem to earn some respect. Generally I play much more
of a trapping, super tight, passive aggressive style than a straight
forward aggressive style. Again, this is because the dumb calls usually
come from players already tied to the pot and because it’s tough for me to
steal.

Any comments? Am I utilizing the advantages of this situation properly?
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And this smart ass response:

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I too have done this. I notice more people try to chat with me. I think
they're hitting on me. Anyway, my profit DID increase after the sex change.
However, now I get really moody about once a month. I also like to listen
to Michael Bolton songs.
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I will only say that I truly believe I get much less respect at the table because of my female appearance. It's a profitable play. As an example, one of the best players in my home game plays on Party Poker. During the summer, I followed him around (unbeknownst to him) from table to table for awhile. So I come clean at our game, and tell him my screen name. He is shocked and yells, "I thought that was a Goddamn housewife!" Exactly. :)

While I was away, I received the latest Conjelco The Intelligent Gambler. Chuck Weinstock, the publisher, explained how there nearly wasn't an issue this quarter because of the insane popularity of poker. As he states, "The result of this nexus of poker goodness is that every publisher of decent poker books experienced sales that exceeded anything they were prepared for." Doh! The fish are educating themselves. Anyway, I always enjoy getting this publication because of the quality of authors. This one featured Bob Ciaffone and Lou Krieger. Good stuff.

OK, more later - gotta root on my Bungles.