Sorry it's been so long since an update, but I forgot my password...oops.

Anyway, I've played in a couple games since my last post, none of them really too serious. Played a couple $2 tourneys at Mike's house, where I totally DOMINATED him with A-10. Domination aside, however, they weren't really serious games so we mostly just goofed around.

The one worthwhile poker-related thing I have to share happened at a $5 buy in game with some friends from high school. Now, this game isn't high stakes, and it's not the best environment for serious poker, but I usually try and work on my reads and on not giving anything away more than trying to hone my overall mechanics. Here's the situation:

I'm sitting on the button with As4s. It had been standard procedure for me to put in a modest raise whenever I decided to play a hand, since I could fold all but one or two people out easily, no matter what I had. That, coupled with the fact that some of these guys play crap and I hadn't caught much in the way of cards all night, prompted me to raise it up with my A4, since I was pretty sure I had the best hand of those who stayed in. Small blind calls, everyone else folds. Flop comes A-4-3, all diamonds. Small blind checks, I make a fairly large bet. He immediately moves all in. The size of his bet wasn't what made me nervous, it was the speed at which he raised. No hesitation at all. So, I sit and start to think. It's not unheard of for this guy to play suited stuff just because it's suited, so, while I don't think he has particularly strong cards rank-wise, he could very well have the flush, which would leave me with 4 outs. While this hand was going on, the rest of the guys were chatting, and talking on the phone with the brother of the host, who had moved to Vermont at the beginning of the summer. Basically, I was the only one paying attention to the hand after SB moved all in.

Now, the worthwhile bit of poker talk is this: I was taking a long time to decide, admittedly. However, the all in was for $2.80, all but 70 cents-ish of my stack, and over half the buy in. The reason I was taking so long, though, was to see how SB was handling himself. As he was taking part in other conversations, I caught him glancing back at me as I played with my cards (something I had been doing for the entire hand). Every so often, just a quick glance over. I figured someone hoping for a call would be much less likely to keep looking at me nervously, so I ended up calling. As it happened, he had A3 off, and I took the pot. I guess what I have to say is, if you don't have someone who will call clock immediately, take some time when pondering a big call. Give the opponent time to let information about his hand slip, especially if there are distractions. In a tournament situation, this won't help you much, but in your home games, you should be able to make use of time as leverage in getting reads.

One more thing...
THE FORUMS ARE UP AND RUNNING. GO POST. NOW. DO IT.

~Matt

I was gonna make the first post, but Mike beat me to it. About myself, I guess...

I'm Matt Jacobs, entering my second year at UT. I haven't played much poker over the past couple months, but that should be changing once we get back to school. I play almost exclusively no limit, with the occasional pot limit game. Hopefully my blog will have something interesting in it once I start playing (and winning) again. I'd look like an ass if I were to tell the internet how to play poker without being able to win, eh?

~Matt