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Do you know how to tell a good story?

No…not your sitting around the campfire nonsense…this is a poker blog.

I’m talking about how to tell a story when making a play in poker?

Maybe?

Perhaps?

You think so?

I used to think I could tell a good poker story. Then I started listening to the experts. The Shakespeare’s, Mark Twain’s and Walt Disney’s of the poker world.

And I realized that I knew nothing at all.

Back to the drawing board I went.

This is what I have learned:

Welcome To The World Series Baby…

I am playing in the World Series of Poker (WSOP) $500 Casino Employee’s event. The blinds are 400/800 A100 and we have been playing for eight hours. During this time I have barely had a stack above 15BB and I have barely seen a street of poker.

My modus operandi, up until this point, is to move all-in or fold. I have been called twice – doubled up twice – but took down at least six or seven sets of blinds and antes uncontested.

A player – seated to my direct right – has been at my table for a few levels now. He arrived with a big stack, but has hardly played a pot. I wonder how he managed to get so many chips being so tight?

Each time I move all-in he calls me Bruce Willis and keeps saying “Yippee ki-ya motherf**ker!”

The table always laugh in unison, my opponent folds and I rake in the pot.

I am seated in the cutoff and the action folds around to me. I have around 13bb and look down to see ace-queen off suit and move all-in. Everyone folds, I pick up the B&A and I hear a scream of ‘Yippee ki-ya!’

The dealer throws out the next set of hands and the action folds around to the Bruce Willis lover in the cutoff who raises to 2,400. I am next to act and look down to see .

Now let’s go through the story up to this point.

My opponent has never seen me three-bet. All he has done is seen me move all-in and fold. On the two occasions he has seen my all-in cards I have had wheel connecting suited ace type hands. Not exactly anything to get excited about, but it does tell him that I am moving all-in with a wide range of hands.

He is extremely tight, and whilst this increases the likelihood that he has a strong hand, it also means he is more likely to fold to a raise, particularly if my raise is suspicious, which it is, because I have been moving all-in or folding. I also have to bear in mind that despite his tight approach he is raising from the cutoff, and I have been fairly inactive on the button, when he has done this previously.

I also have an ace blocker, so it’s a good hand to use as a three-bet bluff. I don’t think I need to make my three-bet big, because I am going to fold to a four-bet, and the fact that I have never three-bet before means I am not giving any information away with my sizing.

I raise to 5,100 and he folds instantly before standing up, walking over to my chair and massaging me.

“Man, that move was scarier than your all-ins. I might have called your all-in…but that three-bet? That scared the shit out of me Mr. Willis.”

I don’t say anything to him, but inside my own head my little voice is doing cartwheels and shooting a fake gun in his general direction all the time shouting, “Yippee ki-ya motherf**ker!”

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