[TaoTe]

Good question. I think it has to do with Phil Gordon's DVD Final Table Poker. In it, he has a phony player named K.W., young black guy who could be representing Phil Ivey. Anyway, he mentions in voice over that K.W. had mastered all styles of play but given that he was short stacked he thought he would be playing tight. The idea that he knew how to play more than one style well got me thinking that it would be great to learn another style, especially for tournaments. I just got pwn3d in a 10+1 MTT and hated playing every minute of it. I stuck to my normal super-tight L1 game and tried to loosen up but the best hand I woke up to was a pair of nines which ran into slow played kings. Total hands played for the MTT: 4. Pair of nines, lost half my stack. Push AQ, push AJ, push Q3 on the button into AA (yippee).

My other reason is my huge mood swings. I'm bipolar and, if you can't tell right now, in a really weird mood. When I get like this I can't stand to wait for great hands and like you I want to raise with those suited connectors (they are pretty, aren't they?) but I've been playing TAG for about a year 1/2 and my brain just sends off all kinds of bad vibes when my fingers reach for a raise.

I definately want to have a larger range of hands but not playing complete junk at best it should look pretty. Raise it up with any pair when first in or with suited connectors down to 78. Play just about any hand on the button. Maybe just play every hand when on the button. I don't care about how much money it takes to learn another style.

Calling it the dark side just makes me want to do it more. I totally want to be Darth Vader and force choke Aces and Kings with 9T.