by scarface » Tue Aug 02, 2005 10:17 am
Well, lost my first tourny of the month on the bubble. Had the chip leader directly to my right when we were 4 handed and I and another guy were semi-short stacked (about 1200 with 75/150 blinds) and he always completed the small blind but I never could catch anything in the BB. I felt like I was outplaying him on the flop though because I pushed him out of 2 in a row with nothing when he min-bet me. The 3rd time though I caught top pair with J2os, but then he checked it to me, which I thought a bit odd because he normally bets with nothing and small hands, so I checked behind, he checks to me again on the turn and I check behind again, still with top pair, on the river he min bets half the pot but I called anyways just to see what he had, that bastard flopped 2 pair and thought I would bet at him like the last 2 times, good thing I was paying attention! I was pretty happy with that play because I think I could have easily gone out on that hand if I had not been thinking about how he had been playing but also what his perception of me was. Even though I didn't make the money on this hand, I am pretty happy with the results because my main goal is to improve my game, so even if I'm just breaking even then it's ok because it's more of a learning exercise really. I figure that when I'm playing well enough my bankroll will reflect it anyways.
I took a break from SNG's for the rest of the night and decided to play some ring games. I joined a NL table for a little while but couldn't really get anything going, I never had a high pair or flopped trips, and every time I raised pre-flop (usually about 3-4 X BB) I still had about 5 or 6 callers, missed my flop completely and had someone betting into me. So I left that table about $8 down, then played some .50/$1 limit and made about $7 of it back. Finally I played a pot-limit game by accident, meant to go back to NL but must've clicked the wrong table. Good news though is that the play there was horrible and I more than doubled my buy-in when I flopped trips and managed to get 2 others all-in with top pair and a flush draw (I was in early pos. and normally bet out here, instead I checked to the preflop raiser and check-raised, he reraised me and we caught the guy with the flush draw in the middle and I pushed, I normally don't check-raise but I think it was the best move in this situation because I think if I had bet out may have just called and if he had raised the middle player might have folded), so I wound up about $25 up from the ring games, which covers almost half of my SNG losses from last month, but it doesn't really matter since long term play should even both of those out.
Some things that I've been working on lately:
1) Getting other player's money into the pot
Lately I've been trying a lot harder to figure out how to get the other player's money into the pot when I have the best of it. I'm already an aggressive player which can be good and bad because sometimes I drive people out instead of keeping them in. So I've been trying new things like check-raising to a pre-flop raiser, this has been working very well so far, also, making bets so that players drawing don't have the pot odds, but will still be willing to call anyways.
2) Reading other players, but also trying to be aware of their perception of me
For example, the other day I was short stacked so I switched to my all-in stay alive strategy, basically if no-one has entered the pot before me I will push with any 2 cards to take the blinds, I do this once with crap and win the blinds, I do it again on the very next hand and take them again, by now I am back out of the danger zone so I don't have to do this again, but I pick up pocket Kings! It folds to me and I push again and get one caller. Good news, he has AK, bad news he catches his ace on the flop. But I made the right move, I was in a solid position to double up and I think I would've gotten called by someone with a worse hand if he hadn't called, he was directly to my left.
3) Controlled Aggression
I'm still having a hard time when we're down to 4 or 5, I want to be the aggressive player taking blinds and pots but not be doubling guys up. I'm a very "all or nothing" type of player and person, so it's hard for me to find a happy medium here, especially pre-flop. I think my post-flop play has been improving a lot though.
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