Wednesday, December 28, 2005
No More Secrets
You may have noticed that this blog has been somewhat light on unconventional methods of playing tournaments lately. It's not that I'm keeping anything back. It's just that I've said all of it. Or enough of it to be as good as.
Probably the only point that I haven't explicitly made that's worth making is : don't put more than 1/4 of your stack in and then fold to a reraise. Think about it when you make your first move, and choose from folding ; limping ; making a normal raise and calling the reraise ; and moving in. I believe that normal raise/fold is never the best option when the "normal" raise constitutes more than 1/4 of your stack (possibly even 1/5) . Which of the other plays to make is something of an art, but it comes with practice, and there's often little to choose between a couple of them anyway. When playing with antes, it's never very wrong to just move in.
Everything else I think is here. The short stack strategy (which can be summed up as get it in FIRST dammit) ; just call a raise in position (very profitable for me lately) ; play within your bankroll and play to win.
Anyway, that's about it. Find a game where most of the players are worse than you and put the hours in. It's not magic or even rocket science. It's basic technique, knowing how to play your stack size. Many people think what you do with a big stack is most important. I'd say the opposite. If you have a big stack compared to the blinds, just playing tight is never that bad. Mis-playing a short stack will cost you a fortune in the long run because it comes up so often. If you do it right short-stacked, you can tweak your big-stack play at length while making money.
Probably the only point that I haven't explicitly made that's worth making is : don't put more than 1/4 of your stack in and then fold to a reraise. Think about it when you make your first move, and choose from folding ; limping ; making a normal raise and calling the reraise ; and moving in. I believe that normal raise/fold is never the best option when the "normal" raise constitutes more than 1/4 of your stack (possibly even 1/5) . Which of the other plays to make is something of an art, but it comes with practice, and there's often little to choose between a couple of them anyway. When playing with antes, it's never very wrong to just move in.
Everything else I think is here. The short stack strategy (which can be summed up as get it in FIRST dammit) ; just call a raise in position (very profitable for me lately) ; play within your bankroll and play to win.
Anyway, that's about it. Find a game where most of the players are worse than you and put the hours in. It's not magic or even rocket science. It's basic technique, knowing how to play your stack size. Many people think what you do with a big stack is most important. I'd say the opposite. If you have a big stack compared to the blinds, just playing tight is never that bad. Mis-playing a short stack will cost you a fortune in the long run because it comes up so often. If you do it right short-stacked, you can tweak your big-stack play at length while making money.
# posted by Andy_Ward @ 3:45 PM 
