Well I recently left my old blog and wrote up an introduction for this new one. Right now its friday night and im not feeling too good so I have decided to not play. I have a fair bit of work to do but hopefully I can put some hours in at the table. When it comes to improving recently I have been focussing on my post flop play but have made a few small changes pre-flop in the last month. Although it is pre-flop where I feel I do best and this led me to write about the dynamics created by an isolation raise, see below. Enjoy :)
Part 1: Reacting to the isolation raise
When you sit down at a poker table you should try and categorise as many players as possible. It is the players’ tendencies that are going to impact your game play or at least they should be. These tendencies may become more apparent over time but keeping record of players can help you in this area. Having statistics on each player will certainly help you do this, although it is not necessary for everyone. I personally do not use them and the reason is I like to play creatively and take a more feel approach and sometimes statistics can cloud my judgement. This is just my personal preference and I recently took a personality test which showed that I rely on a feel approach in many situations. I believe each poker player should tune their game style to their abilities and their strengths. Although you have a style your game should still be changing as dynamics of the game change.
When I open up a table, I firstly look around to see if there are weak players and try and sit on their left. An interesting table dynamic that can arise is when a weak player open limps. If it is folded around to me I will open up my range to isolate this player by raising. My goal is to see a flop heads up against this player but if he folds I can collect the dead money which is just as good. When I raise in this situation I will raise 1 big blind bigger than my opening raise; this is because I want to discourage others from entering the pot if they have position on me. The reason I want to discourage others from entering the pot is my range is a little wider in this situation and I don’t want to get lots of callers who had a better price. The goal is to play against the weaker player but if I have good players behind me still left to act I will likely have to make my isolation raising range tighter.
If a weaker player limps in and a player to my right raises and I know they are capable of isolating I will 3-bet in this spot more often than I would do if the weaker player had not limped in. This is because I know the player who isolated has a wider range in this situation and if they are doing this regularly I will be more inclined to 3-bet wider. The frequency in which they isolate will have a strong correlation to how wide my 3-bet range is. In this scenario my range will consist of the typical range I normally 3-bet for value with and sometimes I will increase this slightly if I believe I can get value from worse hands. The other part to my range are hands with little value but which have some high card value e.g. K4s which means I can still make top pair or flop a flush draw when called.
Therefore when I know this player is likely to be isolating a weaker player I widen my range for 3-betting. Although I will widen my 3-bet range in this spot, this does not necessarily mean that I am increasing the number of hands that I raise for value. Rather, to ensure my range remains polarised. This means I appear aggressive with a wider range but the range I will be stacking off with is still the typical range of your tight aggressive player. When I 3-bet with K4s I do not lose value from my hand as it is a hand I do not normally open or 3-bet with, I am only playing it because I think I am going to take down the pot enough of the time because of this particular table dynamic. The reason why I prefer to have K4s compared to 62o is firstly K4s makes top pair more often, it is suited which adds some value and it reduces the chance he has AK or KK. If instead I have a hand with good post flop potential i.e. a suited connector or low pocket pair, I likely want to keep the pot small and keep the weaker player in the pot and I will just call the isolation raise and try and make two pair or better or a strong draw. If I have a mid pocket pair e.g. 88 I don’t want to 3-bet as I cannot stand a 4-bet so I will call with these hands. I will be more inclined to call if the regular who isolated will likely 4-bet or fold, when holding a hand that can’t stand a 4-bet but is still good.
When thinking about 3-betting in this situation I will first consider other factors before deciding. If I have players behind who are aggressive and know that I am 3-betting with a wider range then I will have to make sure it is not too wide to the extent that I am easily exploited. Another important factor to consider is my image. When considering my image, it is more feel based than anything; I likely have an overall image and a current image. This could be the case if I play an overall tight aggressive game but have played a looser style for this session. Knowing which one will have a greater impact will help me make better decisions. It is important to indentify the players who will 4-bet you light just because you 3-bet three times in a row against them and the ones that will still wait for a good hand, but widen their range slightly for now. If my image is perceived as tight I will be more inclined to 3-bet a player who is likely isolating.
Friday 28 November 2008
Introduction
Hey, I am 22 and in my final year studying at Bath university in England. I have played poker for about 1 and a half years and my first success came by playing £10NL online and winning £10, shortly after being introduced to the game by my housemates. In my mind I had the best hand and bet it and got paid it seemed simple and I was instantly hooked. I got myself a poker book and read about position and I started to realise there was even more skill to the game than I had hoped. Within a few weeks I was £70 down but I was keen to learn. Over the next few months I was playing in $ now and I progressed up to $100NL.
Around 6 months in and I had made $4,000 and was still playing 100NL. I felt confident in my game, and had discovered most things for myself and had only read two poker books and browsed very little on forums. I was c-betting without realising the theory behind it and was playing poker aggressively and all was well.
Suddenly everything went bad, I was losing lots and running bad. I was so convinced I was running bad that I thought I was destined to run bad forever. I had months of running bad.. I would flop straights and lose everytime. I would lose with sets to bigger sets and have people catch runner runner straight draws sometimes up to 5 times a day. I only played 1 or 2 hours a day but it continued for months. I kept taking breaks and coming back. I was so annoyed that I got my money in good so often and so often I didn't win.
Soon I had lost all my winnings and I was down $500 lifetime to poker. I was crushed and also gobsmacked by how unlucky I was. I felt cursed and I would check the odds of each hand and looking back now I can safely say I did run really bad. At the time I got teased by friends for playing a game with no skill and when anyone doubted my previous success I was so hurt inside. It motivated me to become as good as I possibly could at this game to prove I was good and to show I had a bad run. In reality running bad had caused me to go on tilt and I would estimate up to 1/4 of my losses were tilt related. During the time of busting my roll I took I think two shots at 3/6 with $120 and once ran it up to $1000 and then lost the biggest pot of my life for $1,360.90 where I had A3s and had unticked the blinds and was playing my last hand. I raised UTG and got a re raise so I decided to gamble seeing as I had made alot of $. I had planned to just check/fold without a huge flop, but we saw a heads up flop of: 3 3 10. I was pretty excited and when the turn was an ace, I called an all in and was shown QQ and bam... the river is a Queen. My world literally just stopped, I felt no pain just disbelief and just felt like how can I run bad every day I play.
After a lot of thinking the next thing that really happened after some breakeven poker was entering into a $26,000 prize pool tournament with a free ticket and coming 2nd out of 405 players, for nearly $4,000. During this tournament I sucked out with an underpair all in preflop, and with 73 against AA all in preflop when I was on a steal as a short stack and also card dead. Unfortunately I lost heads up when we had equal chips with AKs vs A9s.
Luckily for me I had been lucky in this tournament and its quite possible I would have quit poker there and then had it not been for this tournament cash. This rolled me for 100NL again and I started to play for the long term playing in tough games and learning as much as I could while not focussing on making $. I dropped $1,000 over the next month or two and overall I was up near $3,000 lifetime but happy to have improved my game. From this point onwards I became disciplined and was able to control my play better.
I then decided to profit as much as I could and I have since then put in 130,000 hands at 100NL and have graphed them below. This has pushed me into a profit of 5 figures lifetime. The graph covers my last 6 months of poker :) and it includes about 2-5% 200NL, which involved a 10 buy in downswing and resulted in me dropping back to 100NL. This resulted in a 45,000 breakeven stretch, which was mentally challenging as I am paying my rent and bills through poker whilst studying. I do have a student overdraft if need be but this is my challenge to get through the whole year with the help of poker!
testing
Around 6 months in and I had made $4,000 and was still playing 100NL. I felt confident in my game, and had discovered most things for myself and had only read two poker books and browsed very little on forums. I was c-betting without realising the theory behind it and was playing poker aggressively and all was well.
Suddenly everything went bad, I was losing lots and running bad. I was so convinced I was running bad that I thought I was destined to run bad forever. I had months of running bad.. I would flop straights and lose everytime. I would lose with sets to bigger sets and have people catch runner runner straight draws sometimes up to 5 times a day. I only played 1 or 2 hours a day but it continued for months. I kept taking breaks and coming back. I was so annoyed that I got my money in good so often and so often I didn't win.
Soon I had lost all my winnings and I was down $500 lifetime to poker. I was crushed and also gobsmacked by how unlucky I was. I felt cursed and I would check the odds of each hand and looking back now I can safely say I did run really bad. At the time I got teased by friends for playing a game with no skill and when anyone doubted my previous success I was so hurt inside. It motivated me to become as good as I possibly could at this game to prove I was good and to show I had a bad run. In reality running bad had caused me to go on tilt and I would estimate up to 1/4 of my losses were tilt related. During the time of busting my roll I took I think two shots at 3/6 with $120 and once ran it up to $1000 and then lost the biggest pot of my life for $1,360.90 where I had A3s and had unticked the blinds and was playing my last hand. I raised UTG and got a re raise so I decided to gamble seeing as I had made alot of $. I had planned to just check/fold without a huge flop, but we saw a heads up flop of: 3 3 10. I was pretty excited and when the turn was an ace, I called an all in and was shown QQ and bam... the river is a Queen. My world literally just stopped, I felt no pain just disbelief and just felt like how can I run bad every day I play.
After a lot of thinking the next thing that really happened after some breakeven poker was entering into a $26,000 prize pool tournament with a free ticket and coming 2nd out of 405 players, for nearly $4,000. During this tournament I sucked out with an underpair all in preflop, and with 73 against AA all in preflop when I was on a steal as a short stack and also card dead. Unfortunately I lost heads up when we had equal chips with AKs vs A9s.
Luckily for me I had been lucky in this tournament and its quite possible I would have quit poker there and then had it not been for this tournament cash. This rolled me for 100NL again and I started to play for the long term playing in tough games and learning as much as I could while not focussing on making $. I dropped $1,000 over the next month or two and overall I was up near $3,000 lifetime but happy to have improved my game. From this point onwards I became disciplined and was able to control my play better.
I then decided to profit as much as I could and I have since then put in 130,000 hands at 100NL and have graphed them below. This has pushed me into a profit of 5 figures lifetime. The graph covers my last 6 months of poker :) and it includes about 2-5% 200NL, which involved a 10 buy in downswing and resulted in me dropping back to 100NL. This resulted in a 45,000 breakeven stretch, which was mentally challenging as I am paying my rent and bills through poker whilst studying. I do have a student overdraft if need be but this is my challenge to get through the whole year with the help of poker!
testing
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)