Thursday, 28th March 2024 21:38
Home / Uncategorized / Stories from Paradise to the freezer

Greetings from chilly Windsor, Ontario where I’ve come after having spent several much warmer days down at the PCA. I’ve been playing a ton online lately, including mid-stakes hold’em cash games and a number of tournaments, too, and all of that has been going well for me so far here at the start of 2014.

It’s been nice to do well online these last couple of weeks in part because not much happened for me at the PCA. I went with three of my friends, none of whom really plays poker. I probably didn’t go down with the best mindset, being a little more interested in partying and hanging out than playing poker seriously. But I think sometimes you have to have some balance and not get totally consumed by poker all the time.

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Besides the Main Event I only played one other tournament at the PCA, a $2K Turbo. To be honest seeing some of the action there made me want to get serious and play more events. Some of the things I saw in terms of the way hands were being played were pretty remarkable — the kinds of things that can really make the game great.

For example, in one hand I saw a guy open with [A][9]-offsuit from under the gun, which I generally would think is a fold. Then another guy shoved 25 big blinds all in over the top of that raise from the button with [K][4]-offsuit! And the guy called him off! This was with about half the field eliminated, for about twice the starting stack. Pretty weird.

Then I saw another hand that reached the river with 400 in the pot and a guy bet 300. Then a guy popped it up to 8,000, like 10 times the pot! Then the guy who’d led for 300 reraised all in for 30,000 with a lower straight — that is, not the nuts. And of course the guy who had made it 8,000 had the nuts.

Of course, just because you see hands in which plays happen that aren’t necessarily “normal,” it isn’t automatic that those plays are “bad.” But these were some interesting decisions, let me tell you.

I guess the combination of all of the satellites and the fact that the Bahamas is a great tourist spot probably brings out a diverse field of players to the PCA, including a lot of non-professional players. And considering my own example, after busting the Main Event I found myself not so much in the mood to play poker seriously and more interested in enjoying being there with my friends. I’m probably not alone in that way, so that probably affects the overall level of play, too.

Meanwhile as I say things are going well online, both in the cash games (mid-stakes hold’em) and in tournaments.

Last year I didn’t really have too much luck in tourneys, whether from playing badly or just encountering variance. I ended the year just a little below breaking even — I think I was like -1% overall on PokerStars.

But this year things are going much better. I had a lot of deep runs the last couple of Sundays, making a pretty good return just by making it to 15th or 20th in these big thousand-player fields. The fields online are so massive and it is so good to see how the online game continues to thrive and grow.

Looking ahead, I plan to play more online and will probably squeeze in a few more live tournaments during the months leading up to the WSOP this summer. I also am talking with the WSOP Academy about doing some teaching for them.

Teaching has always interested me. I played soccer my whole life and have also thought before how I’d like to coach soccer, although doing something like that wouldn’t really fit my current schedule. I’ve taught poker before, although it was all online. So this would be my first time actually teaching to an audience, which is something I’m a little apprehensive about but definitely looking forward to doing. It’s always good to challenge yourself!

Joe Cada is a member of Team Pro

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