1st ever Telesina Cash foray

First thing to note is that I tried to sit at a 0.1 Euro table but stood up as one of the players had 200 Euro in front of him. Clearly a game of skill with fish. I'm the biggest one because I can't spot the sucker at the table. Aggression seems to be key, with KK showing betting pot appears to be the move. Eight hands in, I'm down $1.65 and only gone past 3rd st once. I started with 20Euro.

J9o fold, J8o fold, KQo BringIn J suited on 3rd st, pot and I take down my first hand of Telesina. Pocket AA this hand. Woo Hoo, 3rd street was a Q and opp had QQ. He bet pot, I re-raised pot confidently ahead and I'm up $3. Not that I'm results oriented :-).

J8o, 89o, A7o all folded. J7s, I bring in and proceed to have 5 diamonds. Flushes beat FHs and I'm now up $7. This isn't exactly helping my rake race but i'd forgotten how much fun poker can be.

A8o, 79Qr(BI), JTo, Q7o, 89o, all folded. KTs bet, checked down, pot on 6th when QQs paired, check and won small pot.

AJ8r, Q8o, K8o, Q9o all folded. We're now down to 3-handed so aggression and variance will play a big part. K9T7r went too far, first obvious mistake but they were min bets. Pocket AA now, with K. Potted twice to take it down.

A97r folded, ATs became AAs and I lost a small pot on SD. JTs became JJTT and guess what my opp had JJTT. Never played with a stripped deck before. My A kicked. Up $8.

QTs with T on 3rd st. The other Ts were exposed and there was a pot bet called. Easy fold. A trick for any Stud game is that if you can't currently beat someone elses exposed cards, you are chasing and should almost always fold. Sounds obvious but draws are enticing. And so it is here. 3 players got dealt Ts. One guy has KK exposed and one of the Ts is calling him down. Needless to say, he misses his st8.

Q9o, [just realised I have 28Euros on the table] that's well over $50, way more than my starting backroll all those years ago. I know they call it microstakes, so was I playing nano stakes when I started?]. J7o, etc folded.

Interesting 9TQK and I need a J. 2 have been exposed in the 12 visible cards, plus my 4. I make that a 2 in 16 or 8/1 chance of making my str8 next card or 4 to 1 by the end. Whilst it looks like I'm getting pot odd. The bets are flying in so I'll fold as it wouldn't be the nut str8 anyway. Next hand was 9JQ with 2 Ts exposed, exit stage left.

I've just realised that with 6 players, if we all stay to SD there is only 1 card not exposed. We just had 1 where the other 4 got to SD. Now playing HU as 1 guy got all the money. This is where BCG would stand up and why I lose my money so readily.

Woo Hoo, my first bluff. I had TT and another was exposed. Opp had all high cards. but missing the T for a str8. He had 2 high pair and the only thing I could possibly have was a str8 if a Q was buried. No Qs exposed, so I bluffed the pot, he folded which I knew he could as he's played well.

We're back up to 5-handed and my hot streak continues with Euro 37 in front of me (I just made a FH). Just made another mistake though. Had AAxxx and someone had KKxxx and the bet the pot which was going to be $15 by the next street. I folded fearing the K. Turns out I would have won unimproved as my AA was good. That wasn't my mistake though, I just realised that I only looked at the 2 hands and forgot to check the exposed cards for other Ks. There probably weren't any as I think I may have done it subconsciously, but there is a different way of thinking in Stud. Especially as in the bluff opportuntiy that worked up above.

OK, I'm going to wrap this post up. In short, I've really enjoyed the relaxation. The deviation has reminded me of skills that I've acquired in other forms of poker - bet sizing, position, board texture, starting hand selection, player tendencies etc.

If you've ploughed thru this post and reached here, thx for persevering. Hopefully it has reminded you of how far you've come on your journey too. I'd highly recommend Telesina the next time you are feeling jaded with grinding poker.

PS Just hit a K for the nut str8 gutshot. There were 14 exposed cards and no Ks out. I make that 4 of 18 or 9/4 by the end. Not nearly as tuff to hit the lone gut shot in a stripped deck it would appear.

PPS Stood up having doubled my $20 BI with 40 Euros and a Post that I look forward to revisiting with nostalgia in years to come.

PPPS I've noticed that the tables are full of Italians. With PokerStars now having free reign in Italy, I predict that there'll be at least one Italian WSOP bracelet this year. This is a great training game for all variants of poker.