how can i tell if they've loosened up?

here's the problem:


i can usually sit down in 20-40 game that's full of pretty tight players. they have to be tight to survive, and they can generally expect me to be pretty tight too when i sit down or i wouldn't be there.


so i start right in super aggressive, super loose, and roll all over them my first couple hands. okay, maybe i win one or two fair-and-square first to get noticed, but then i instantly start overbetting what i have, and knocking them out.


at first it's pretty simple, if i raise and they raise back i drop, because they assume i have a calling hand and they are trying to maximize their win, therefore they must have a hand and so i fold. but eventually they pick up on this and start calling me more, and even bluff-raising me back on rare occasions if they are good.


so suppose now i get a decent hand like top pair low kicker to like a possible middle pair or a lucky low set or 4-board flush on the end. at this point i have to bet my hand for value because a worse hand will possibly assume i'm bluffing or equal, and will certainly call. my whole idea had been to set them up to call me, as they slowly come around to understanding what they think i am up to.


but suppose they come back strong at me when there are these better hands on the board. since the whole idea has been to get them to loosen up so i can come around to the tight side of them, at what point do i start passively calling their "loose" bets instead of dropping in reaction to their previously "tight" bets probably representing a better hand?


in other words, my strategy forces me to at some point change gears and become a passive caller with quality hands, once i have them loosened up and coming after me and back at me. there are some people who never loosen up and i can see in their eyes that i can bluff-check-raise them out ten times in a row. but there are other people who loosen up slowly so when they bet i have no idea whether to stop dropping and start calling.


there's this moment when they start calling my raises and raising with weaker hands so i have to begin to reinterpret the implication of their call or raise. i intentionally draw them into changing gears and, in doing so, lose track of where they are, how reactive they are. plus, they get that look in their eyes every time now, because eventually they are scared even when they have a good hand!


the one thing is to just tighten up anyway, but then i have essentially tuaght me to bluff me out or something like that. am i just playing above my level? any tips?


- the guy

Your post contains a similar theme to another thread you started and I think you're right on track. It's as if there are constantly swinging pendulums, ours and theirs. "Optimum frequencies" are affected and guided by how our oscillations align with theirs, at every moment in every hand.


Tommy

I guess the simple question is, when I change gears really fast, how can I tell whether they've caught up to where I am, or are still where I was - meaning it's too early to go back - and yet not mix it up so much as to break the leash altogether;)

" ...when I change gears really fast, how can I tell whether they've caught up to where I am, or are still where I was ..."


When I pop a clutch it's kinda jerky so I try to look forward and back and that same time. :-)


Tommy

best time to change may be when you are sure that a couple of them have changed. seems some of them never will, but you will know which ones can and do.

Just watch what the show-down when you are in there. IE, you bet middle pair, and someone calls on the end and you win, watch out. That person's alarms have gone off and he's calling you w/ bottom pair or some other hand whose only value is bluff catching. I've found that it's easier to figure out when they loosen up than when they tighten back up b/c you can figure out what they called you with on the end.


I've played a fair amt of short-handed online and I usually start out in a pretty wide open mode and it allows me to get up a good amount before the other couple of players figure it out. However, if I get raised on the turn and have to fold more than once or I get called down w/ a weak ace no pair. It's time for me to tighten up a bit and get back in line b/c the games up. Then I tighten up a little and play my "Normal" shorthanded game.

Acording to Skansky in The Theory of Poker (TOP), you're going about it the wrong way. What you are inadvertantly doing is teaching them to play more correctly against you. They originally bluffed and called to seldom. You then proceed to induce them into calling and bluffing with approximately the right frequency. Better, acording to Sklansky, is to try to keep them from bluffing at all, and scare them from calling your bluffs. One way to encourage them to fold to your bluffs more often is to pure bluff with more cards to come, and then do not go to the showdown without improving to a legitimate hand. Refer to TOP for a more detailed description of stopping and inducing bluffs. By the way, you would do well to encourage calls at an originally loose table, thereby causing them to play even farther from correctly.


-MD