I Suck At H.A. Poker

Last night I was playing some $8/16 H.O.R.S.E at Full Tilt Poker. I was up around $600 within a few hours and everything was going good. I was browsing the mixed game section and saw that one of the Full Tilt pro’s was playing $2/4 H.A. poker and there was a couple open seats. I would like to mention that I rarely play HA poker and am not very fond of pot and no limit games.

I can’t remember who the pro was, he wasn’t a world famous professional or anything but every member of Full Tilt’s team is a top notch player either way. I was just drawn to this table for a shot to take a pro down. HORSE is a very popular game amongst the FTP pros but usually at stakes much higher than $8/16. After observing the table for a bit I sat with $200 and was playing pretty tight. I was a little out of my league because as a mostly fixed limit player I measure hands by raises. What i mean by this is when I catch a good hand I know if its worth a raise or a re-raise or whatever based on the factors of the game.

Playing pot limit I was like a fish out of water in a way. Do I call a $40 bet with a medium strength hand? If I have a good drawing hand do I call a big bet knowing that I will only get to see one more card because the other player is sure to bet the limit every time? So anyway, I was losing money here and there and was down to about $80 so I brought another $120 to the tables and am determined to win my money back so I can leave and focus on my HORSE poker game which is going quite well. I don’t even remember the hands which is surprising because there were only a few of them after the rebuy. The only thing I remember really is being down to around $100 and getting dealt 8899 during the PLO rotation. I was all in on the turn and ended up losing to a lousy pair of tens.

So let this be a lesson to whoever is reading this. Don’t talk yourself into playing a game your not comfortable with for no better reason than to play a pro. $320 isn’t going to be the end of the world for me but it was money lost needlessly. I’m good at HORSE so I should stick with HORSE. If I want to improve my play at other mixed games like HA poker I should start of at the smaller limits like $.25/.50. If you have a story like this please send it to me at Josh @ horsepoker.net. If your story is good I will post it on this site and send you $25 at Full Tilt or Pokerstars.