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30th April 2007
Welcome to the Hold or Fold Newsletter
- your personal Poker advisory.
This week's E-Letter is dedicated to my absolute new Hero - Pippa
Flanders.
Hail Pippa!!
Now you may be wondering 'Pippa who?' - well just read down
below and I'm sure Ms Flanders will be your new hero too !
Also I want to tell you:
How to plan
and pull off a great bluff and get away with it !! and
What former World
Series Champion Greg Raymer had to say about his account being HACKED
!!
**********************
So how have you been this week? I hope you've had some good wins
to tell me about !
I haven't had a lot of spare time recently so I've not been able
to enter some of the big tournaments
as you need to set aside quite a few hours for this. So, since I
did well at that Cash Game a couple
of weeks ago, together with the time constraints, I've been playing
mainly on the Cash Tables online.
Mixed results really - won a few, lost a few and all-in-all I've
ended up slightly in front - so I'm pleased
with that.
I did qualify for the Sunday 300K Tournament but went out in 1361st
place out of 1805 starters -
Unfortunately I had a set-to when my two pairs of Aces and Sixes
went out to my opponent's two
pairs of Aces and Jacks - BAH !
*********************
Hail Pippa Flanders !!
*********************
As the infamous Nicky from Big Brother hissed…
"WHO Issssssssssss SHEEEEEEE????"
Well, SHE is Pippa Flanders - the lady who completely
annihilated her five opponents in the
PartyPoker.com European Open Heat which was shown on Channel 5 last
week.
She was quite strange to look at, long reddish hair, with amateurish
make-up and she looked
like someone who'd walked into the wrong studio and should have
been on Ready Steady Cook.
In her interview before the Heat, she explained that she had been
a Poker Widow to her husband,
Tim Flanders and she had become fed-up with him coming in at all
hours - plus she found she was
drinking too much red wine in his absence, so she decided that "if
she couldn't beat him, she'd join him"
and learnt to play Poker too.
It was then that the commentators, Jesse May and Ken Lennart, informed
us that she had just won
$200,000 in a previous event - beating some very respected professional
players like: Tony Bloom,
Tony G and Roland De Wolfe as well as celebrities like Matt Dawson,
Michael Greco and
Steve Backley.
In a hand, before the one I am DYING to tell you about below, she
had hit a Full House on the Turn
and when the River came down, she casually asked the player sitting
next to her if the card was a Club
or a Spade? This was to insinuate that she had been fishing for
a flush and had missed it -
How good is that ?!?
****************************
BLUFFING AT ITS BEST !!
****************************
Bluffing is not something you do often, it has to be set up over
a period of time and executed at exactly the right moment. It reminds
of me of the great Michael Schumacher - I watched him in a Formula
One Grand Prix a few years ago and he followed a car over a period
of about 10 laps, and at the same point of each lap, he would drift
onto the dirty side of the track and back again in an attempt to
clean this particular patch of road and put some grip down.
On the 11th time, he set his car up to be in the slipstream of the
car in front and just as they reached the planned part of the road,
he managed to overtake the car as the track was now clean and there
was enough grip to enable him to execute this maneouvre - amazing!
This is how you set up a great bluff.
If you play a tight game, your Table Image will be such that the
other players will only expect you to
play very few hands - thus - they would expect that those you do
play will probably be Premium Hands
i.e. Pocket Aces, Pocket Kings or Queens and AK and therefore, they
won't call you with marginal hands.
Well - Pippa had built up this type of image. When she had been
in the Small Blind, she had not
attempted to steal the Big Blind at all, giving the impression that
she would only do this with a very
good hand.
*******************************************
I literally fell off the sofa watching
this hand !
*******************************************
It was down to 4 players and the Blinds were 5000/10,000.
Pippa was in the Small Blind and the first two players had folded
around to her.
She looked at her cards to find:
A semi-reasonable hand, the type of hand you would like to see a
cheap flop with.
But No, Pippa decides that his is the time to execute her 'Michael
Schumacher' moment and she raises to 25,000. This is obviously a
bluff - also known as a Blind Steal, where the Small Blind raises
purely to try to pick up the Big Blind.
Dave Copus, sitting in the Big Blind, picks up a really awful hand:
 
But HE decides that this is HIS 'Michael Schumacher'
moment and he re-raises another 43,000 making the Pot 93,000 in
total so far.
Ken Lennart says
"This is where it ends Ma'am"
Jesse May says
"This is great timing - he's decided that she can't have anything"
And Ken replies
"This is actually the first time she has raised his Big Blind so
it's quite a dangerous move"
The actual odds% at this time is: Dave 53% to Pippas 45% (2% split
pot) but this is really irrelevant as the players are playing the
players, rather than the cards. It is total mind games.
The camera swings back to Pippa and she sits there and has a think
and then she widens her eyes
and points her finger right at Dave and asks the Dealer how many
chips Dave has left !
This is a question that can set off the Hallelujah Chorus in your
mind if you are holding a fantastic hand,
but can absolutely drain the blood from your body if you are bluffing...
and Dave is bluffing !
The camera swings back to Dave who nonchalantly counts outs his
chips while silently screaming inside.
Ken shivers and says
"Ohhh, cold chills down my spine - If she moves ALL-In, I'm gonna
be a happy man -
This will be one of my best days ever"
The camera is still on Dave and Jesse says
"look at him - he's gonna fall out of his
chair!"
Dave tries to keep his voice even and informs Pippa that he has
66,000 chips left -
Pippa looks at her cards again and then to the heavens for inspiration
-
Jesse gasps "No she's not…….???"
(...going to go
all-in)
Ken says authoratively "No, she's not !! She CAN'T !!"
(...go all-in)
Jesse: "She hasn't invested that much has she?"
(She can lay it down as she hasn't put that many chips in the pot)
Ken: "This is just some massage for later purposes, for later
Big Blind/Small Blind Purposes"
(In other words, this is just setting up the Michael Schumacher
moment)
Pippa thinks some more and checks her cards again. The camera moves
back to Dave Copus who is sitting there, on the outside looking
slightly bored and disinterested while on the inside he must be
SCREAMING telepathic thoughts to make her FOLD FOLD FOLD
!!!
Back to Pippa, she takes her time and checks her chips again and
then looks up, flicks her fingers and very quietly says "All
In"
The guys in the commentary box scream and
laugh at the same time
"OHHHH GODDD - WHAT a player !! Terrific !!! She's Spanking the
Boys !!"
I actually fell off the sofa laughing my head off !!
Jesse says "Look at Dave, he looks
like he wants to throw up and you can't blame him! He made a great
play"
Ken: "This has got to be the play of the Tournament -
I take my hat off to Pippa Flanders !"
Dave Copus postures for a minute and then reluctantly folds his
hand and the chips go over to Pippa.
Final words from Jesse "Holy Toledo
! Appearances can be deceiving"
***************
Post-Mortem
***************
Michael Schumacher not only set his move up with meticulous planning,
but once he had decided to go for it, he committed all the way -
That is what Pippa did - she went all-in to win this hand. If Dave
Copus had gone all-in with his chips instead of just a raise, Pippa
would have had to fold - there was no way she could call with her
hand, just as there was no way Dave could call with his hand.
Pippa played this hand magnificently and this is just one of several
I could have told you about.
I cannot wait to see her semi-final which will be shown soon on
Channel 5 - especially as the other opponents will now have seen
the Heat for themselves on television. Will she still be able to
get away with some of her amazing moves? How will the guys deal
with this Wolf in Sheep's clothing?
It's more exciting than a Doctor Who cliffhanger !
***************************************
Greg Raymer's Account was Hacked !
***************************************
I was playing on PokerStars the other night and observing Greg Raymer's
table at the same time. Greg Raymer, also known as "The Fossilman"
was the 2004 World Series of Poker Main Event winner and has been
a great ambassador for the game ever since.
Apparently someone had hacked his account on PokerStars and had
been playing with his money !
This was the conversation that I watched - it's great to hear about
it first-hand -
straight from the horses mouth:-
larrygold: greg..u dont know me but i heard about that hacking
story..everything work out ok?
FossilMan: yes; he guessed my password
FossilMan: started playing his account vs. mine, HU sngs
(Heads Up Sit and Go Tournaments)
larrygold: yeah..read about that but never heard any closure
FossilMan: but he was caught, all the money returned
larrygold: good..sick folks
mojumbo: that happened on this site?
FossilMan: yes, I had a pretty weak password
mojumbo: wsop2004? lol
FossilMan: not quite that weak
larrygold: what kind of lowlife sits there and guess p'words
platamata [observer]: how much did he steal?
FossilMan: he had moved 26K before his account was frozen
FossilMan: I got all the money back
And then Greg raised pre-flop with AKoffsuit and was called - the
flop came down QJ9 -
Greg put in a hefty raise, trying to intimidate his opponent but
was re-raised which Greg called -
This was quite a risky move as he needed to hit an Ace, King or
10 to win the hand - the Turn came
down another 9 and Fossilman went all in and was called by his opponent
who was holding Q 10 and
Greg was out in 6914th out of 7109 starters.
***************
So I hope you've enjoyed this week's missive - I'm off to qualify
for this
Sunday's $300K Tournament and I'll see you next week.
All the very best
Meg Arana
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