It’s been kind of funny that lately I’ve been having a good run with the SnG games but my cash game run has been pretty poor. I went back and looked at what I was doing and I think I’ve pinned it on the fact that in tourney action it pays to play a little looser and getting off the hand quick if I don’t catch a big piece of the flop. I’ve also noticed a different psychology at the SnG games in that since people are out when their chips are gone they don’t chase 45:1 longshots (at least not as much). Semi-bluffs can be profitable.
Just as I was mulling over my cash play I happened across this 2+2 post titled “Getting back to basics” and I really liked this advice. There’s nothing earth-shattering here but it did seem to address some of my leaks.
The most useful piece of advice was regarding how to take control of the table. Once you’re in you should punish anybody who has the balls to come to the game trying to stay in with low or middle pairs. Drawers need to have the life choked out of them. Let everyone know that when you’re in on a pot that it’s going to be very expensive to see the river.
Obviously this isn’t a great strategy in a game where you’re trying to lure as much money into the pot as possible but for the loose games where you’re going to have to show down the best hand to win, punishing everybody who wants to stay in can be very profitable especially if you tighten up your pre-flop hand selection.
I tried it out last night playing some $1/$2 and you could almost see the point at which people caught on that they weren’t going to see cheap cards with me in the pot. Guys who were normally calling stations were folding on the flop when I bet out at a rag flop. I even pulled out some check-raises on a few of the slow to learn types and they eventually quit betting out if I was in the pot. After a few orbits people just quit betting if I was in the pot. It was always checked to me regardless of my table position. One guy started mucking his hands instead of checking. Of course, the cards are the cards, so you can’t win just by pushing people around but instead of having to beat 3 or 4 hands at the river I usually only had one person to beat. I ended up with a very profitable session. I think I’m going to do some more experimentation with this and see how it works over the long haul.
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Hi, my name is Bill Rini and this is my poker blog. I've been blogging about poker and the poker industry since around 2003-ish. Like most people I started out playing poker as entertainment in home games whenever we wanted to sit around and smoke cigars, drink beer, and eat pizza, and needed a good excuse. I started playing online shortly after the first online card rooms opened and it wasn't long before I was playing 20, 30, or even 40 hours a week or more. One day I received a phone call about a program manager position at Tiltware which was the company that consulted to Full Tilt Poker on software development and marketing. After Tiltware I spent about 2.5 years working at Party Poker where I was the poker room manager.
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