Experimenting with Aggression 2

Following on from my last post I've had a few more thoughts about aggression. Whilst Playing in the Newcastle Poker Forum 2nd Birthday tournament I made an unconcious decision to play more aggressively than I usually do live. When I play live I usually play pretty tight and the times I've tried to get a little more creative haven't worked out for me overall. So I've been thinking why?

The answer is a pretty basic one really, but I've never been good at common sense lol. It's the old addage that you should play solid ABC poker against poor players and that you must get more creative against better ones, as they will spot this straight away. We all know this but I think many people, me especially, forget these basic rules from time to time and try and get creative at a fishy table or tighten up when they enter a tougher field than usual.

Going back to the NPF Birthday game, in the few events I've played with the NPF in the past I've been quite nervous and as a result my play has tightened up a lot. This time I knew I had to play differently given the table I was sat at, where basically people were just playing their cards. As a result I opened my preflop raising and calling ranges a bit and made a few steals that I normally wouldn't have. As a by-product I found that I was enjoying the game more! In a way that I rarely do when playing live. Because I was acctually getting to think about each hand in some depth rather than just playing ABC Poker.

Unfortuneately though this brings us back to the catch 22 that many poker players are faced with: playing fish is boring yet profitable and the reverse is true against skillful players. Causing us to question why we play this game? Is it for profit or for entertainment? Or both... As recreational players do we need a bankroll or can we just chuck on the odd deposit here and there? Do we have to play our way thru the mind numbing micro and low stakes to get to play at an interesting level or can we just view Poker as an intellectual persuit that we're prepared to pay for?

Anyways went off on a bit of a tangent there. This was just supposed to be a post to remind myself to play ABC against fish and more creative against better players... Thanx 4 reading.

Experimenting with Aggression

I've had this idea floating around in my head for awhile which boils down to this in NLHE how much do your hole cards really matter? I don't mean the old 'any two cards can win' argument either that croupiers love to tell you about 'Aces are useless, I know I see them get beat all the time!'. I mean this: how often do you actually see a showdown? Not very often in my experience, especially in tourneys where if u see a river it usually means someone's tourney life is in the balance.

Anyways, it's just an idea that's based on what I know about poker being a very situational game of incomplete information. Even when you read the HOH intro Harrington lists 10 factors that should be considered in a tourney hand before your hole cards! And he's not exactly considered the most flamboyant of players!

I think you get the idea that I have been wondering for a while about which is can you disregard your hole cards in many NLHE situations? I was a bit nervous about writing this and one of the reasons is I've never read a great deal into this argument so I'm not very sure of it's validaty or the issues surrounding it (COMMENTS APPRECIATED).

The problem is I'm at a stage in my playing career where I'm beginnning (belatedly) to experiment with a LAGGY style in MTT's and whilst this idea underpins the LAGGY style, it is not HOW it works (usually). I mean, good LAG's seem to be mindful of this idea but also mindful of the fact that you cannot 'soul read' or see your opponents cards basically. So because of this fold equity alone is not sufficient to base your game around. Instead a safety net of equity should be maintained in most situations unless you feel the situation is too good to pass up on.

This may all sound pretty obvious but it feels worthwhile to put it into words. Especially as I have a recurring leak which is this: I am a black and white thinker in many ways. I tend not to be half hearted. So when it comes to me experimenting with new moves in a tourney I often find myself taking this idea to it's limit i.e. ignoring my cards completely and focusing only on the stacks, images, board texture, relative positions etc.

In summary I think I need to use showdown value as a safety net i.e. not bluff with air because I feel the situation is 'right' too much. Therefore as I'm only really beginning to experiment with a LAG style, I should should pick spots that are less risky but still challenge myself and experiment in new situations.



Some comments from a friend:

-i think the key is that there'll be some spots where a bet is profitable purely from fold equity
and then you can do it with any cards
-but there are a lot of marginal spots where fold equity isn't quite enough to make a bet + ev by itself and then you need some hand value to back it up, but not neccesarily very much

The night I ran like god, almost...

Last night I managed the following results out of 5/6 games on Stars:


I played two $55 tournies:

16th in 40k GTD (1,000+ runners)

40th in 5k GTD 500 cap ($15k pot)


And two smaller ones before that:

6th in $12 180 man

10th in $22 180 man

Obviously the big one was the $40k GTD. During the late stages my stack was like a yo-yo! As usual I'm going to do an analysis of what went wrong:

In this case it was a simple error on my part, I got people I didn't know to rail me from Newcastle Poker Forum. Although I'm very grateful for their support at 2am on a Thursday! It was a mistake of mine to ask them to. Basically I kind of knew it could affect my game but not how, so picking a crucial time in a big tournie to test this out was plain daft!

The effect it had on my game was simple, I tightened up and not even in a good way. I started to play only hands with solid showdown value and disregard many factors of the situations I played them in. Why? Because I was worried if I tried re-steals etc. with questionable cards I'd look like an idiot if/when it went wrong. So this meant I wasn't even able to steal blinds as effectively anymore meaning when I saw a hand like TT or AT I was read to get in no matter what, because I knew I needed to pick up chips.

Anyways enough ranting, I want to stress this was MY mistake, not the people from NPF who kindly railed me. Other than this I'm very pleased with the way I played last night :) My total profit for the night was around $250.

Bankroll it is :)

Just a quick update to say I've decided not to do Vegas this year. Partly thanx to advice from Rosco and Dan Trett, I decided my budget would be too low and that there is guna be other oppurtunites.

The good news is obviously that in 3-4 months time when I finish my degree I'll have a bankroll between ($1k-$2k) to play with, depending on how much I spend/save :)

Decisions, decisions... Vegas or Bankroll???

OR





My recent win from which I have managed to save about $1.6k has left me with a decision to make: how to spend it :D

Basically I have narrowed it down to 2 sensible options:

1) Go to Vegas with 'Newcastle Poker Forum' gang during the WSOP or (I will have another $1k by then so $2.6k total)

2) Save it to use as the bankroll I've always wanted for online MTT's (when I graduate in June)

I'm torn between the two at the moment. Basically the trip to Vegas is a great oppurtunity as the NPF lads are renting a house, which would save a lot of money. Plus it's an oppurtunity to experience Vegas with a bunch of other poker players (last time was on my own). Plus it's during the WSOP!!! The only cons are I'd be on a budget (only $1k to spend over 2 weeks including buy-ins) and that I've been before so perhaps I should wait to go again until I'm not on a budget.

Option 2 however has it's own allure. Basically instead of pissing about hoying $20-$100 on now and then onto various sites and trying to guess if I'm a winning player overall, I could do it properly! I'm sure I could raise $400 to make it up to $2k which is a perfect figure for $10-$20 MTT's given that I'm not going Pro. TBH the reason (and this is very honest for me lol) I've never kept a decent online bankroll is because when I've had over $1k online I get scared and spend it on something concrete (and usually unecessary e.g. bike or TV).

What would you do??? Comments appreciated.

Stars Step 5 - double mistake

After my latest win I cashed out $2k from my Stars account so I can concentrate on study again for the last 4 months of my degree. This left $100 which I decided to use to sattelite into a Sunday major... I won a $39 turbo sat and unregged as I couldn't play that nite.

Then, stupidly, I decided to play a step 4 tourney on stars thinking I could cash in the $700 if I won!!! Half way thru it dawns on me that I can't do this, woops! However, I can't bring myself to lose on purpose in the late stages to regain my Sunday major ticket... So I win and advance to step 5...

5 hands in I'm dealt AKs UTG and 3x raise. One caller from MP and I immeadiately put him on a small pair for some reason... Flop: A43 two clubs... I C-bet, he raises, I check sharkscope and see this: he's played 1 $5 SNG on stars and that's it, SUSPICIOUS!!! Anyways I know he can reset his stats and do this but the other part of me wants to believe he's a fish with AQ or a flush draw. So I make a standard $10 SNG move and re-raise, he shoves and I feel commited so I call. If u haven't guessed it by now he has a set of 3's. Gutted.

I think the main two factors in this mistake were years of playing small stakes SNG's and my eagerness to believe what I wanted to, it was a painhful mistake that I hope I learn from. Of course $2k has softened the blow a bit :)

1st for $1.9k Weeeeeeeeeee!!!!

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Last night was my biggest cash ever. And tot top it off I had decided it was the last game I would play online for 4 months (probably lol). I just put a tenner on to treat myself after handing in two assignments.
I'm quite glad I did that. Seriously though this is the result I've been looking for, for a long time now and I finally got it when I least expected, extremely chuffed!!! :D