Thursday, June 05, 2008
Adjustments
This post shouldn't contain anything new, I'd just like to remind myself because I do have to change my playing mentality as quickly as possible. Basically the resteal play is just so much less of a factor in live play. I should only be restealing about the best 50% of the situations in which I would resteal online, and similarly should only be calling a possible resteal in the best 50% (or so) of situations where I would call online.
I mentioned the 44 hand yesterday which was too thin given the raiser's position (3 off the button) and my own position (cut-off). There was also a hand in an STT a couple of days ago where I had been fairly active and the villain had already reraise/folded pre-flop once, but even so I made the wrong call. Briefly, I raised ATo on the button from 25BB, he reraised to 10BB from a larger stack and I shipped it in. Not only did he insta-call with AK, he sort of gave me a "wtf was that" look. With 15BB the (effective) call would have been fine, or with this stack and a pair 88+, but as it was it was a poor play on my part. I had 2.5x my starting stack and plenty of scope to keep playing and pushbot effectively as the blinds increased.
I might be one of the few people who needs to actually slow down in STTs. They are much more of a pushbotting game than a restealing game. I know it's still a ridic small sample, but after wiping out in these last year and going 0/4 without ever threatening so far this time, I may need to just re-adjust to these. If I do, there's no reason why I can't make it work. I played one last night featuring the single worst player I've ever seen in a $500 poker game of any kind. He crippled me by calling 10% pre with 42s, flopping a flush draw + pair and rivering a backdoor straight. Then he doubled me back up twice by opening for 10BB with KJs and KT respectively and having to call my KK reraises. It was a comedy STT, I picked up AA twice, KK twice and AK twice ; and busted out on the first hand of level 3.
Neil gave some very good advice in his latest Pokerverdict blog, as follows :
"the secret is to not panic, realise that the other players are truly terrible, and that you'll soon get paid on your hands, and just to wait for good things to happen without wasting chips trying to push it. "
That was the case when I chipped up to 12K in the tournament yesterday ; if I had slowed it down from that point, especially with the 44, I might have saved enough chips to give myself a chance of a comeback.
I mentioned the 44 hand yesterday which was too thin given the raiser's position (3 off the button) and my own position (cut-off). There was also a hand in an STT a couple of days ago where I had been fairly active and the villain had already reraise/folded pre-flop once, but even so I made the wrong call. Briefly, I raised ATo on the button from 25BB, he reraised to 10BB from a larger stack and I shipped it in. Not only did he insta-call with AK, he sort of gave me a "wtf was that" look. With 15BB the (effective) call would have been fine, or with this stack and a pair 88+, but as it was it was a poor play on my part. I had 2.5x my starting stack and plenty of scope to keep playing and pushbot effectively as the blinds increased.
I might be one of the few people who needs to actually slow down in STTs. They are much more of a pushbotting game than a restealing game. I know it's still a ridic small sample, but after wiping out in these last year and going 0/4 without ever threatening so far this time, I may need to just re-adjust to these. If I do, there's no reason why I can't make it work. I played one last night featuring the single worst player I've ever seen in a $500 poker game of any kind. He crippled me by calling 10% pre with 42s, flopping a flush draw + pair and rivering a backdoor straight. Then he doubled me back up twice by opening for 10BB with KJs and KT respectively and having to call my KK reraises. It was a comedy STT, I picked up AA twice, KK twice and AK twice ; and busted out on the first hand of level 3.
Neil gave some very good advice in his latest Pokerverdict blog, as follows :
"the secret is to not panic, realise that the other players are truly terrible, and that you'll soon get paid on your hands, and just to wait for good things to happen without wasting chips trying to push it. "
That was the case when I chipped up to 12K in the tournament yesterday ; if I had slowed it down from that point, especially with the 44, I might have saved enough chips to give myself a chance of a comeback.
# posted by Andy_Ward @ 6:13 PM 
