Reading the reviews of Every Hand Revealed there was one review that talked about taking the aggressive style and wide range of opening hands that Gus implements in the aussie millions. And it talked about the trouble a newer player ran into with this style. I don't know if it was my short bankroll that I have been building up or the earthly influence but I have been adapting this style into my own game recently. There are many issues that come along with playing this style. Giving action to take action, constant pressure on your opponents and changing gears are all things that need to be well conceived for you to make this a +ev style. I’m going to talk about some things in detail that are part of this style of loose aggressive.
Being down to $3.25 after my $100 score in the $3rebuy mtt and playing in a variety of $11r mtt's and not getting far and being near online busto I was ready to get back to the cash games. I have gone through many games throughout my online career, I started on prima poker years ago with there free $10 signup bonus playing mostly 50max cash games before the bubble popped, then went to 8 tables of 50max for a while and was a break even player covering any loses and making a little extra from rakeback. Then I went to 4x tables of $6.50 and $12 SNG’s all on ftp and Recently 90% of my play has been in mtt's, cashing fairly often when I get pass the first break, I play pretty aggressive and take a lot of coin flips to build a stack and get a shot to cash in the beginning to have a roll. I rather go home early then get blinded out in the 2nd break. This is my background in poker for the most part and a lot of the concepts I will talk about take key issues or lessons from the variety of types of games I am playing in and apply them to this lag style of play.
Back to the task at hand, in the cash games I had to start off in the super micros of 1cent 2 cent. Got that up to $10 and moved over to 2cent 5cent or 5cent 10 cent game. Play is horrible there again, big call downs with 2nd pair and ace high. Players represent there hands pretty straight forward, made hand’s bet small, bad hand check or pot size raise for a lot of the players. Many times c-bets and reraises were not challenged at all and would take down a lot of pots with a smell of weakness. Playing throughout the different levels in the micro and to the low stakes level allows you to understand what level of thinking and play you are at. When you play these lower levels you gain an understanding of your strengths and weaknesses as you can practice different ideas and try to push some of your strengths while investing a smaller amount. Comfort level in all of these levels allows you to know what games you should be playing in and what type of style of play they usually are at.
Built up to $32 there and moved over to the .10/.25 6max tables. All of these are six max as I can't really handle one table of full ring, if I wanted to go fishing I would have to pull out the pole and nobody wants that. Full ring is so slow and it's usually 1vs1 and not very interesting, 6max there is a dance, your hand ranges open and there is much more check raising and overall action that is thin. Six max is a great way to isolate a bad player comparatively to a full ring game. In a full ring game you might get 2 hands with the donkey of the table unless he's playing a ton of hands and then still you might get 5 hands with him in an hour if he's lasts that long. With 6max you will get a chance to play with this bad player 20 times an hour if not more. Always being with 2 seats of the donkey is a great added value along with getting a little more action with them as the hand values go way up compared to full ring. The other side to 6max is that your weaknesses will be exploited and come to the for front, small problems with hand values, or slow playing or betting patterns come out in full force and will be maximized against. Yes you will get more hands in and get more chances to play against the mistakes of others, but the same happens to you as if there is a weakness in your game, others will take advantage of that and it will come up more often then in full ring. One more plus is that if you play with rakeback, 6max is a must, no question that you will get 2x or more rakeback playing 6max with a lot more hands per hour.
Back on Course Magellan:
So the play here at 25max on stars was pretty straightforward, a few re raises of my continuation bets that I would repop and take down many times when someone tried to play table captain and take the feather out of my cap. It was a crazy feeling making a lot of re raises knowing I was good against these guys defensive response to taking the pot. There are a couple things that I had to do to adopt this type of play. As it does take a good amount of concentration, hands played, and overall following of table dynamics and understanding table image to play this style proficiently along with many other things I would like to go over.
Some bullets that I wanted to go over and this might be an easy way to digest all of these ideas.
3 betting- Many times I was in a position where my hand was weak maybe only ace high or a mid to low pair on a fairly non-threatening board- such as 10,j,4 rainbow and I would have to make a decision on the strength of my hand, but mostly the strength of the out of position reraisers hand and what hand he puts me on. Opening a lot of hands will open you up to many checkraises from the caller preflop. Being able to follow up with another bet will take it down a surprisingly fair amount of the time. Out of maybe the 12 3 bets I took down probably 10 right there and the rest were callers and I would fire another on the turn and take it down. Did get reraised all in and had to let it go, but that's expected for the way I was bytch slapping the table.
C-betting- pretty std, I probably do it 70% of the time, many times I will check a monster made hand or a very weak hand hoping to hit on the turn or go for a bet or reraise on the turn to take it down. Surprisingly for all of your c-bets against weak players you will do very well, as they will not have the hand or the read to put u to the test with a reraise, you know if a specific tight player makes a move you can let go of the hand fairly easy or call and let one peel off and see what he does on the next hand and hopefully get some more info.
Reads- having pokertracker/pokerace running and start to get stats on the players around you is something like a nice 100 Christmas bonus in the world of one tabling. You will have some stats that go along with your reads, but in no way is the end all or to be completely dismissed. I used to rely very heavily on the info gathered with this program- the amount of players to see the hand preflop out of the blinds (vpip), how often do they raise preflop (pfr), overall aggression ratio (agr) takes c-bets check raises and just overall betting styles and designates them a number between 0-20, anything over 3 I think is good to have, and anyone over 7 can be exploited pretty good by slow play or check raising as long as he is willing to come after you with tptk. And also the amount of hands that you have for your sample size, I used to have the problem of taking 20 hands and thinking that this was enough to go on and figure out this player’s style. Now a day anything under 40 or so and I dismiss or take into small consideration as you consider what can happen for 25 hands for you, you could be on a little run, card dead, or just a little tilty. It would be hard to have a good understanding of a players style with a small sample size because of the variance in the cards, I think after 100 hands you should have a pretty good idea of there style, but still you will be surprised by a big reraise bluff or a smooth call with a very bad hand just to keep you honest. This is where table image and the flow of the game come into hand.
Check raising- this is something that can be used out of position very efficiently, something you can do to a weak c-bet. It's something that you have to experience against that player to see what type of play will follow. I rarely check-raise without two strong live cards and or a nice draw. Sometimes I will do it if I smell blood in the water as many players will do a c-bet most of the time if they hit or miss and will let go mid pairs to a reraise and the knowledge of me leading out on the turn a fair amount of time and them having to commit a fair amount or all of there chips with a 2nd best hand that might or might not have me beat.
2 and 3 barrels- It's amazing how many times your going to be betting out a strong draw on the flow with 8 high, shoot again on the turn and there's nothing again, and on the river you give up and he checks behind or in front and only to see that he had a k high draw or an underpair and take it down. But it's also easy to remember many times 3 betting and getting called by an overpair or 2nd pair who just doesn't believe your story or doesn’t have any idea that you were acting very strong. This is a rough thing to understand, and by no means do I claim to be an expert. I don't know how many times where I completely missed and put him on a medium strength hand an have taken down a pretty big pot with air. There are a lot of players and this is the main part of this, that will chase or call down with bottom pair or a flush draw and instantly fold to any 1/4 pot bet or more. Others will call you down only to check raise you on the river and get you to lay down your better bottom pair or ace high knowing that you’re going to 3 barrel. This is what comes down to in poker, not the cards but know the man. Something I have been taking very to heart in my online game and it has been influencing my live game pretty well too.
If you can remember a great play you made or a great value reraise or some quirky bluff that you got away with what was the reason. The reason was that you were inside your opponents head. You owned them to some extent, they might have been thinking and using only there cards to judge there decisions, they might think what your thinking about. But every time you were a step ahead of them and by there actions had a good understanding of there range and what they were capable of doing with the information you had at hand. I think anyone can be good at cards with just playing the players, having enough smarts and experience behind them to put the story together of what they are trying to say and what they really have and are trying to hide.
Table reads-as I just went though table reads are something that make or break most players, yeah there are some that can set mine or have blind aggression and do alright. But to be a consistent winner you need to be able to have a wide variety of skill sets and gears that you can utilize depending on who your playing with , how there playing, and how they are playing against each other. Also taking into account what players do after certain events, some players will over bet there hands after getting ran out from slow playing a big hand, others will tilt hardcore after not getting paid off with the nuts. So many things that can happen at the poker table, and once you have seen it before and are able to adapt and position yourself to profit you are way ahead of the game.
Example: Recently the table captain who has been pushing people around the last hour or two in a loose 2/5 game in Vegas. Taking down my hands then his hands warrant and nobody has really stood up to him. I look down at pocket 6's in mp and have the captain behind me. I call hoping to get in for cheap. He raises his std to 20 bucks and he gets' two customers. Flop is 8 2 q rainbow, I check and the el captain throws out 50 in the middle a nice 3/4 size pot bet. The player behind him mucks pretty quickly and it's back to me. So far I know this guy has been out of line and he's going to be raising 80% if not more of the time. I still think I’m good here and he might be on a gut shot to some extent but this board isn't something I see him hitting more the 80%. I don't know if I want to go for a reraise, because I’m not ready to commit with 3rd pair and he has enough confidence going where he could push light and think I would get out of his way. So I smooth call. Turn is another 2. I take a little time and check almost certain there will be another bullet towards the pot that he believes is his. He does and throws out a 100 in there, I tank thinking in any sense does this help him, what is he trying to tell me and what does he think I have. The two doesn't help him, a 2 isn't going to be in his range maybe a2s but that's about it. kq is there but for the most part pretty strong hand for him raising as often as he does, but still something to consider, and also he might have slowed down a little bit with that hoping I would take a shot at him. Again I believe he is on air and smooth call him. Putting in a lot of money into a pot like this with 3rd pair isn't something you would do 1/4 times, but it is something to consider when playing someone with this style and momentum. On the river comes another queen, making it very unlikely in my mind that he has a q in his hand. At the moment I have about $300 left in my stack and he has about $600. I check fairly sure I'm ahead here. Not sure if he's going to fire one more or if he's going to check down. Well he comes out for $150 making the pot $520 and with me only 150 left if I call. From the line we put him on it's very possible he's on an ace medium kicker where he thinks he can get away from it. I think about the hands he could be on, and the two that really come up is a9,a10, maybe ak. Or even a smaller pair then my own. I feel that he has no part of the board and is looking to chop the pot with qq22 and his ace kicker. I push another 150 in and he automatically wines. He pushes in the 150 more and I show my weak two pair and take down the pot vs. his AK. Not something that I would normally do or a line I would take, but because of what happened at the table for the last hour and the stack that he has built up and hasn't really been pushed back, he dug himself in a hole and could only bet to dig himself out. Many times this is going to be a bad spot vs. your average player. But in the right time place and player you’re going to be in a position to take that pot with a fairly weak hand.
Understanding Table image- Thinking about the actions that you have taken since you have sat at the table, how much did you buy in, what were some of the initial hands that you played. How did you play that hand, raising a lot and taking down a pot from aggression, showing down a strong hand and not getting appropriate value for your hand, check folding? There are a lot of things that will be digested from the other players if they are paying a decent amount of attention. One thing that players do is make judgments on players pretty quickly. I myself have been caught down the line seeing an aggressive player show down and lose a big bluff one previous hand only to stack me doing the same thing with a set vs. my weak two pair. Things of these sorts have to be confirmed, see what they do a couple times and go from there. Is there betting patterns, is there a large range of hands based on playing 70% of the hands after 60 hands. Thinking about the people around you and how they interact is something that takes a lot of time at the tables. Many times you’re going to see two aggressive players butting heads, raising light and reraising to steal. And you need to know how to place these guys into a situation where you can get sandwiched with a great hand and what style your going to play up to that situation where u can maximize. Understanding your at a tight game is something to be aware of. When you see a decent 8big blind pot get checked around 3 handed to the river and an ace high or pair of 3's take it down, get ready to start taking out bullets to take down these unloved pots. Taking chip stacks, recent hands, and showdowns and making a little conclusion on who's around you, what are they going to do, and what you can do to maximize your good hands, and minimize your risk in mediocre/bad hands.
Who is going to get in your way- This is something that you’re going to have to splash around or see if anyone else is getting in the mix and put to the test. Most of the time there is going to be a player or two that's going to give you a run. Knowing who these guys are and playing against or not against them depending on your hand range and the position you are in relation should influence your thoughts of raising or calling preflop. Getting put to the test can have to results, you can be paying attention to the betting sizes, betting frequency, how long does the actions take, and chip stacks and have enough information as to what the next step is, fold, call, reraise. Or you could be playing sloppy watching TV while eating dinner and fall in a trap as "I have tptk" this guy is making a play at me. And calling the reraise on the flop only to be put all in on the turn and being dead to a small set. Find out who is going to try to put you in your place, stand up to the table captain, and you need to be ready to fight to keep them in check, or you can lose your strangle hold on the table and lose a decent pot.
Position- Simple: HAVE IT, out of position is only for super drawing hands vs. tight players who will let it go, or against an aggressive player who you can resteal from or maximize a big hand. Mediocre hands do very poorly in early position. 2nd pair might be good but it's going to cost you more then the hand is worth if it is good and you very well could be behind. The information that comes along with Position is insanely important, the hand ranges your going to put most players on is so much more specific compared to being out of position and calling.
Reraising- DO it. A lot of c-bets will let it go with a check raise or a reraise from position. Reraising is a sign of pretty good strength, and you will be able to pick up a decent amount of pots with this move. Again this move comes down to putting your opponent on a specific hand range based on the vpip and preflop raises along with betting patterns and how they play in multiway or hu pots. Putting these pieces together based on previous showdowns when the pot was raised will give you a good idea on his range and where you stand in the value of your hand, but mostly it let's you know what value he puts on his hand and if he's the type to c-bet most of his preflop raises. Even calling a raise on the flop and reraising if a draw completes or a good scare card hits on the turn can be a good play.
So here are a bunch of the different concepts that I have been working on, and as they are all a work in progress as they must be as this is a game you must continually learn and improve at.
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