Last night I learned the importance of Community.
I’ve been watching the likes of Lex, Tonka, the Staples Brothers, OP-Poker, Arlie and several others for the last year or so, wishing I could pull the trigger and start up properly. I’ve done a few streams and spent a fair bit of time designing the interface and overlays etc but knowing I’m not properly bankrolled and making several behavioural mistakes (see last blog) I’ve not been able to commit to a schedule or start playing regularly offline at the stakes that I want to.
They do what they do with the support of Twitch, PokerStars and subscriptions and I’ve always said I’d sub to a few channels regularly to try and build a bit of a profile – but trying to aggressively save and put money aside for Bankroll, I’ve had to be selfish and wait. It did make me think how else I could support them and get involved in the community in other ways.
With a dollar or so in my account last night and wondering what I could buy into to kill some time, I saw that OP-Poker was hosting a Saturday Night Home Game for $0.11 with a rebuy so I decided to jump in.
Honestly, this is the most fun I’ve had in a long time in a poker game. The tables were chatty, there was some banter going back and forward, with the rebuy and addon too it felt very casual and I enjoyed the laid-back feel. Eva is a great host and was talkative at the tables and on the stream too – I’ve interacted with Nick a few times on his Spin & Go session and its nice to see a team of people who not only good at what they do but genuinely enjoy interacting with the viewers and players.
I had a good feeling about the home game – I was playing well, running like a god and making some great plays/folds in important spots. More importantly, I was thinking a lot of my decisions through properly and trying to put my opponents on ranges which is something I’ve always struggled with as I’ve always tried to assume specific hands (and been wrong 99% of the time). Pretty soon I was chip leader and it carried through over the next hour or so until the Final Table.
The FT was straight forward. I had over 60% of the chips in play so I put pressure on smaller stacks and played slightly looser than normal, taking advantage of the pay jumps and putting opponents to decisions for their whole stacks. Eventually it was 3 handed and over the course of 20 minutes or so we all evened out. One player was knocked out and I was heads up with an overly aggressive Russian opponent. They raised every hand, continuation bet every flop and rarely checked, which was a nightmare for me watching my chip lead get eaten into – so I switched gears. I began 3 betting bigger and lighter than usual, stealing majority of pots preflop, raising continuation bets and setting up plenty of river jams. It was very back and forward and with the stack sizes, facing a 40bb all-in with KdQd where I’d love to see a flop became very frustrating, but it was a great test. With a 2:1 chip lead my opponent had started to 3-bet more and with pocket 8s I jammed over his raise. He called with AJo and my 88 held up to win the home game for $10.23.
The one important thing I took from it though however is how important community is.
I watched it catch up on the stream and Eva congratulated me – I sent out a tweet about it and I was happy to see how many people interacted with it. Eva and the OP Poker account liked and retweeted, a few players from the home game also did the same but even nicer was that PokerStars official account also replied congratulating me, asking for my StarsID so they could credit me a $5.50 tournament ticket. It is this sort of community engagement that I would love to help create once I start streaming regularly – I’ve seen it first hand with Lex during his streams with PokerStars giving him challenges and punishments as well as the 12 Days of Spraggmas on Spraggy’s channel. They don’t have to give back but they support players in ways like this and it makes it so much more fun as a player and spectator, even at the smaller stakes.
The poker community really is something different and hopefully I can help contribute to it more in the future. Here’s looking forward to 2020 and everything it brings…
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