[tjh]

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If you're playing to improve you might also want to play the Trout tournaments every Wednesday night at Stars. You won't find competition this tough for $11 anywhere else that I'm aware of.


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I could be mistaken but in the trout game I was at a few months ago it seemed more like a place were good players go to relax and play loosely/strangely/recklessly/maniac-poker. I could be wrong perhaps that was their A-game and if so I am completely off track in my game and I must be lucky.

Fun yes but educational .. NO.

That of course can change in a week or a day. So YMMV.

Sample size is 1 so the usual warnings about sample size apply.

Big stack tournies:

They are somewhat a different beast. The usual advice is "play more hands ealry", "postflop matters".

Not very specific.

The same general rules apply to the 800 and 1500 though.

There are usually about ten hands, the first ten, where stupidity rules. These idiots either calm down or bust out after 10 hands.

Then the blinds slowly escalate. Sooner or later the blinds are a prize worthy of snatching and nobody but you notices. So you get a little bit looser and more aggressive.

In the 800 chip games this is frequently the bubble or nearly so and "a little aggressive" means POOSH. In the Big stack games you can find a way to be aggressive without pushing. For a few levels anyhow.

The bubble comes along and they make the mistake of playing even tighter. Take advantage of the tightness later on and you should do fine. Take advantage of the stupidity early on at your own risk, they will push with junk but the CW is not to risk all of your chips unless you are a serious favorite to be the best hand.

I hope that helps.

Also you did not mention if you play two tables at once. Adding a table actual helps you in a way because you are not so bored that you get stupid. Adding a table can cause you to tighten up and in general that is a good thing for most players. Once again YMMV, but I find boredom is my biggest source of leaks.

As for MTT and ring games. Ithink SNG improves your MTT game. The two or three table SNG are a good fast halfway between MTT and STT.

Ring games do have high variance but it never hurts to search the tables for extremely loose games. There are a few super-fish swimming out there and sometimes they turn a whole table into maniac land.

If you find a good ring game tables and only play good tables you can skew the variance towards the positive. Just play your tight game even while you see the loose player double up just play your game, good things can happen. Study and read of course, but table selection is a big part of a Ring game strategy.

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tjh