Heafy's Golden Rules Of Poker

William H. Bonney: You remember the stories John use to tell us about the the three chinamen playing Fantan? This guy runs up to them and says, "Hey, the world's coming to an end!" and the first one says, "Well, I best go to the mission and pray," and the second one says, "Well, hell, I'm gonna go and buy me a case of Mezcal and six whores," and the third one says "Well, I'm gonna finish the game."

”Young Guns II”

I was playing in a 6 person $10 SNG last night, made it heads up after 50 hands, then we played heads up for another 80 hands. It was great fun, even though I eventually came second.

I constantly had the chip lead. He would steal every second one of my big blinds, but I would min-raise every one of his and steal it or win it on the flop. I eventually lost a big hand when he flopped a straight with 25o against my Ax on a board of A34. Chip and a chair though, I fought back to take the lead once more, then lost nearly everything with AJ vs 77, so help on the flop. With 500 chips vs 8500, I was up against it. I doubled my way back to 2500 before finally loosing with Q7h vs A8o. Best $10 I ever made.

I have kept a log of my play during a tournament which I will write up this weekend or sometime just so I have a record here to see what my play is like. I have a feeling in this particular tournament I played weak/tight and it will show. Anyways, we’ll see what happens.

I said I would post my rules of poker, and for the sake of it I decided to make them Heafy’s Top Ten Golden Rules of Poker:

GOLDEN RULE NUMBER 1:
No rule should be applied 100% in every situation. Shit just don’t work like that.

GOLDEN RULE NUMBER 2:
Big pocket pairs must get raised pre flop. Feel free to slow play post flop, but they deserve a pre flop raise. Heads up is the exception. JJ is boderline.

GOLDEN RULE NUMBER 3:
Two pair is never a monster. It can be a good hand, but never treat it as a monster.

GOLDEN RULE NUMBER 4:
All-in pre-flop bluffs are only permitted if your stack is less than 4BB.

GOLDEN RULE NUMBER 5:
“Protecting your blinds” is another way of saying “calling a raise with a shitty hand out of position”.

GOLDEN RULE NUMBER 6:
In an unraised pot, limp from the small blind unless your stack is less than 10BB.

GOLDEN RULE NUMBER 7:
Making a position raise from the button can only be done if you can accept getting called. If a call would scare the hell out of you, don’t do it.

GOLDEN RULE NUMBER 8:
If you can’t afford to loose the money at stake, don’t play.

GOLDEN RULE NUMBER 9:
Don’t tap the glass. Actually, just don’t be an ass at the tables. There is rarely anything to gain from it.

GOLDEN RULE NUMEBR 10:
If I’ve had enough playing, get up regardless of table position. I don’t want to play hands, even for free, after I’ve already decided I’ve had enough. That just ends in tears.