Nate tha' Great
08-13-2004, 02:38 AM
I played at the 2+2 table for the first time in a long while tonight. Some of you might not have recognized by new Party handle.
The game got down to 3 and 4 players at the end, and it struck me: you guys ought to be playing this game short-handed. Probably 6-max or maybe 5-max. If there's a shortage of seats then create two 2+2 tables.
Here's why: the game, as it exists in its current form, is a preflop game. Few hands see the showdown, much less the turn. And so you have to make a lot of decisions like: TAG player raised in EMP, I've got 99 in the Cutoff, should I 3-bet or fold? Those decisions actually aren't terribly important. The EV of folding and 3-betting is pretty close. The fact of the matter is that most of you have very solid preflop games. If you're making mistakes, they're small and debatable ones. Good preflop play is what separates out the winning players from the fish, but it's not what separates out the good players from the very good ones.
Rather, what separates out the good players from the very good ones as you move up in limits is figuring out how to play against other aggressive players after the flop in pots that are contested between 2- and 3-handed. That is, say, figuring out *how* to play against the other TAG with your 99 when you *do* 3-bet with it. Or determining, say, whether and when to check behind on the turn when you fear a check-raise but also fear giving a free card. These things aren't terribly easy to pick up through study; they require experience.
You guys don't get a lot of that sort of experience playing the micro games since most of your opponents are so loose and so passive. Unfortunately, I'm not sure that you're getting very much of it at the 2+2 table either because the games are so goddamned tight. A real midlimit does *not* resemble the 2+2 table, and if it did, you would want to stay far, far away from it.
Once the table became shorthanded, though, it loosened things up enough that I *was* having to make a lot of the tough postflop decisions that you encounter more and more frequently as you move up in limits. I'm not suggesting that you guys should all go play Party 6-max; it's just that the *shorthanded* 2+2 game was doing a much better job of simulating a *full table* midlimit game than the full table 2+2 game was.
Just a thought, guys.
EDIT: I shouldn't be suggesting that you never encounter complicated multiway postflop situations in midlimit games. You do. But they don't play out all that differently from the multiway situations that you face in smaller games. The shorthanded situations that occur a lot in midlimit games but not microlimit games will not be as familiar to you guys.
The game got down to 3 and 4 players at the end, and it struck me: you guys ought to be playing this game short-handed. Probably 6-max or maybe 5-max. If there's a shortage of seats then create two 2+2 tables.
Here's why: the game, as it exists in its current form, is a preflop game. Few hands see the showdown, much less the turn. And so you have to make a lot of decisions like: TAG player raised in EMP, I've got 99 in the Cutoff, should I 3-bet or fold? Those decisions actually aren't terribly important. The EV of folding and 3-betting is pretty close. The fact of the matter is that most of you have very solid preflop games. If you're making mistakes, they're small and debatable ones. Good preflop play is what separates out the winning players from the fish, but it's not what separates out the good players from the very good ones.
Rather, what separates out the good players from the very good ones as you move up in limits is figuring out how to play against other aggressive players after the flop in pots that are contested between 2- and 3-handed. That is, say, figuring out *how* to play against the other TAG with your 99 when you *do* 3-bet with it. Or determining, say, whether and when to check behind on the turn when you fear a check-raise but also fear giving a free card. These things aren't terribly easy to pick up through study; they require experience.
You guys don't get a lot of that sort of experience playing the micro games since most of your opponents are so loose and so passive. Unfortunately, I'm not sure that you're getting very much of it at the 2+2 table either because the games are so goddamned tight. A real midlimit does *not* resemble the 2+2 table, and if it did, you would want to stay far, far away from it.
Once the table became shorthanded, though, it loosened things up enough that I *was* having to make a lot of the tough postflop decisions that you encounter more and more frequently as you move up in limits. I'm not suggesting that you guys should all go play Party 6-max; it's just that the *shorthanded* 2+2 game was doing a much better job of simulating a *full table* midlimit game than the full table 2+2 game was.
Just a thought, guys.
EDIT: I shouldn't be suggesting that you never encounter complicated multiway postflop situations in midlimit games. You do. But they don't play out all that differently from the multiway situations that you face in smaller games. The shorthanded situations that occur a lot in midlimit games but not microlimit games will not be as familiar to you guys.