Need help breaking too tight pattern

[beekeeper]

NL HE, home tournament, 20 players. Most players are aggressive and opportunistic.

I've fallen into a pattern of playing passively (as in too tight, not as in being a calling station)--especially of not bluffing at all, and not semi-bluffing enough. When I am in a hand, I'm not passive and I'm making money. But I'm playing so tight that (1) by the final table, I have very few chips to work with relative to the blinds and to the other stacks and (2) even thoug I know people will lay down decent hands to my biggish raises, I still am not bluffing.

Last week I was in late middle position twice with A10o, with an unraised pot with 1-2 callers, and both times I mucked my hand. Did I pass up two good semi-bluffing opportunities, or was I correct to assume that with 3-4 players to act after me, this was not a good spot to make a play at the pot?

We start with not a lot of $ compared to the size of the blinds--starting stack $1,500, blinds $25/$50--with blinds increasing every 10 minutes.

I can't seem to make a move. Also, this is a game where many of the players will make position moves with regularity.

[Pov]

You're confusing two different attributes. Being tight has nothing to do with being passive. Basically you have two different spectrums that define your play. You are somewhere on a scale of tight <---> loose and also on a separate scale of aggressive <---> passive. A calling station is loose and passive because they play too many hands and they call with them instead of betting or raising. Many tight players are also too passive. They play few hands and then still tend to just call and not raise with them (though they may bet more frequently than the calling station).

Your tournament problem is one I've seen in many players. You have a large aversion to losing. This aversion is very detrimental to tournament play. You need to try to adopt an approach that focuses on making correct plays that have +EV and not worrying so much about busting out. I know this is difficult. One of my favorite poker quotes is I believe from Amir Vahedi in the 2003 WSoP ME when he said something like "In order to live, you must be willing to die." Otherwise you'll usually end up exactly like you said, short-stacked and just outside of the money.

Tournaments don't usually give you the time to wait around for great hands. If you get the number of great hands you'll need to win this way you'll win the tournament because you got very lucky. But if you play more hands don't you need to get even *more* lucky you ask? Ahhh, that's where aggression comes in. When you raise aggressively, you give yourself two ways to win - when you're called and your hand wins (whether it was ahead or behind) and when your opponent folds and you win by default. If you pick your times right, this combination of wins is much greater than just trying to get lucky alone.

How to go about this is of course worth several books worth of knowledge, but I think the #1 piece of advice to get you started is to start trying to win instead of trying not to lose. All successful tournament players play this way.

what would be the best combination? tight aggressive?

This is me: "Many tight players are also too passive. They play few hands and then still tend to just call and not raise with them"

I definitely know for sure that I am not aggressive enough with my good hands.

[Pov]

[ QUOTE ]
what would be the best combination? tight aggressive?

This is me: "Many tight players are also too passive. They play few hands and then still tend to just call and not raise with them"

I definitely know for sure that I am not aggressive enough with my good hands.

[/ QUOTE ]

Tight and aggressive is definitely the correct playing style for cash games. It is also generally the best style early in a tournament, but as the blinds get large compared to the size of your stack you eventually have to get looser and even more aggressive. The balancing act really is several books worth of material as evidenced by TPFAP and HoH I & II.

But to get back to why aggression is right, it has some big things going for it (in no particular order):

-- you win some hands you "shouldn't" have because you get an opponent to fold a better hand
-- you get sucked out on less when you're ahead because your opponent sometimes folds hands that were a small dog
-- you get maximum value when you have a good hand

There are some bad things that happen too of course. Sometimes you're going to lose a big pot and it feels bad to lose. This bad feeling leads us to want to not invest much money until we're very sure we're going to win. But doing this is generally bad, especially in tournaments because it interferes with all of the above and also these hands simply don't come up frequently enough by the time the tournament blinds kill your stack.

There is so much more to say, but I'll close by saying to pay attention to the difference between aggressive betting, aggressive raising and calling someone else's aggressive bets and raises. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] Aggression doesn't mean putting in lots of money - it means putting it in first. You don't always need to have the best hand to raise or bet if there is a reasonable chance better hands may fold a decent percentage of the time. But when you call with a good chunk of your stack you'd better be very confident your hand is best (or getting great odds) because now the only way you can win is to show down the best hand.

beekeeper

I had this problem (and still do to a lesser degree) and i don't know if this was foolish or not but the way I beat it is to play 2 tables at once. one game will be a sit and go play money tourney and one will be a real money tourney. I started getting better results finishing in the money alot more and even winning a few because I wasn't more foolish but i was thinking about the money so much that it was getting in the way of winning. I know u are playing live but I still think that some online play money tourneys (where the money doesn't mean anything but winning does) would help.

my two scents [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]

[beekeeper]

[ QUOTE ]


Your tournament problem is one I've seen in many players. You have a large aversion to losing. This aversion is very detrimental to tournament play. You need to try to adopt an approach that focuses on making correct plays that have +EV and not worrying so much about busting out. I know this is difficult. One of my favorite poker quotes is I believe from Amir Vahedi in the 2003 WSoP ME when he said something like "In order to live, you must be willing to die." Otherwise you'll usually end up exactly like you said, short-stacked and just outside of the money.

[/ QUOTE ]

You've summed up my problem exactly. I didn't used to be like this, but over the summer I played in a bar game where everyone was a gambler and no bet could move anyone out of a pot, so I had to sit and wait for a Monster to cash in.

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Tournaments don't usually give you the time to wait around for great hands. If you get the number of great hands you'll need to win this way you'll win the tournament because you got very lucky.

[/ QUOTE ]

Again, true. I have won and finished in the money enough to be up, but that's because I cashed in the tournaments where I caught cards. What's eating me up is that I know that I could cash in the tournaments where I don't catch cards if I could steal more pots. I don't have trouble with aggression once I've chosen to play a hand, my hang up right now seems to be that I'm gun shy and reluctant to take chances preflop.

[ QUOTE ]
How to go about this is of course worth several books worth of knowledge, but I think the #1 piece of advice to get you started is to start trying to win instead of trying not to lose. All successful tournament players play this way.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, I'm really going to try to adopt that mantra-- trying to win instead of trying not to lose--hopefully that will help me break my bad play.

I have some follow up up questions, then. In an aggressive game, where a lot of players are looking to steal pots, and rarely will you be in late position without the pot being raised ahead of you, how do you pick your spots to steal? If I'm not seeing many (or any) premium hands or even interesting hands preflop, do I just pick any hand and randomly reraise? Do I raise from early position when I want to bluff? I figure I just need to steal about 2-3 pots an hour to put me in better shape.

[ComboProf]

[ QUOTE ]
We start with not a lot of $ compared to the size of the
blinds--starting stack $1,500, blinds $25/$50--with blinds increasing every 10
minutes.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is a huge amount of chips compared to the sum of the blinds!

You have an M= 1500/(25+50) = 20.

Thus you can adopt a variety of playing styles. I would suggest that with good card in
position that you raise 50% of the time and call 50%. When you raise do
so at 3 or 4 times the big blind in an attempt to the steal the blinds and the
limper's. When you call the plan is to build a pot and then
take control after the flop, i.e. be aggressive on the flop
unless of course your are faced with a bet and you missed the flop.
This tactic should most of the time get you enough chips
to survive with a decent stack at the final table. But not always, the calling is
somewhat risky and if you can't outplay your opponents on the flop well you will
be short stacked. If your M drops below 10 only enter pots
with a raise, no limping!

Buy and read Harrington on Hold'em: Volume 1 and Volume 2.

[SheridanCat]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
We start with not a lot of $ compared to the size of the
blinds--starting stack $1,500, blinds $25/$50--with blinds increasing every 10
minutes.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is a huge amount of chips compared to the sum of the blinds!

You have an M= 1500/(25+50) = 20.

Thus you can adopt a variety of playing styles.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, he can't really be too comfortable. If he plays a tight game, in 10 minutes his M will be about 10. In a player dealt game with a full table, this will equate to approximately 10 hands, maybe a couple more. I think one needs to play pretty aggressively early on to stay just even with the blinds.

Regards,

T

[Pov]

[ QUOTE ]
I have some follow up up questions, then. In an aggressive game, where a lot of players are looking to steal pots, and rarely will you be in late position without the pot being raised ahead of you, how do you pick your spots to steal? If I'm not seeing many (or any) premium hands or even interesting hands preflop, do I just pick any hand and randomly reraise? Do I raise from early position when I want to bluff? I figure I just need to steal about 2-3 pots an hour to put me in better shape.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't know that I can adequately answer this. You'll just have to know thine enemy. If you've got a guy you know will raise with any Ace and most Kings (and obviously anything better) and he's raised (again) then you don't need that great of a hand to come over the top with. You can never know for sure what an opponent holds, but you can come up with a "range of hands" based on how you've seen him play. You select your hand against his range.

So for instance, let's say we have AggroBoy who raises all the time. You've seen him show down A3 and 44 and KT after doing this. So clearly his range of hands is very large - we'll say it is any Ace, any pair and any broadway hand like QT or QJ, etc. - that's about 30% of all possible hands. So if the blinds are creeping up there on you and you think you can get it heads up with AggroBoy you would now be inclined to re-raise aggressively with some hands you would clearly fold normally. For instance, AJo - a hand I would pretty much always drop to a big raise now warrants a big re-raise. Just be ready, because he's going to flip over AK some of the time and you'll feel stupid, but a lot of the time he'll probably fold his crappy A6 that he's been able to bully with before and if he decides to call you're a big favorite.

One benefit that may take a while to emerge is that once you show you're willing to come over the top, these players may actually settle down a bit. After all, if they're able to consistently steal the blinds raising with junk then they are correct to do so!

I would avoid randomly raising unless the blinds are really starting to hurt - which may happen very quickly from the sound of it. SheridanCat has already touched on this with the "M" calculation. Basically, once the blind money is 10% of your stack or more, you're going to have to get involved with some lesser hands. Once the blind money is 20% of your stack or more you should probably be ready to raise all-in with practically anything playable if first in. Of course there are exceptions such as when you are near the money and there are even shorter stacks about to enter the blinds or something - though these are also the optimal players to move against since they will fear elimination as well.

If it sounds like a crapshoot that's because it is. Many tournaments such as you describe have very large blind structures that accelerate quickly. When this happens the luck factor is very large and picking when you can take down pots uncontested becomes pretty much the most important skill in your arsenal. I don't particularly enjoy such games, but the maniacs love them. Why? Because now their natural style is actually pretty close to correct and the tight players are the suckers for a change. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[beekeeper]

Your advice is very helpful. Many times I'll be in position to come back at these more opportunistic players with an A9-AJ, but think about the times when I've played these hands and run up against AK or AQ. My timing right now just stinks. But thanks to all for the advice--I know what I have to do, but I've got to just do it!

BTW--you could not be more correct about the maniacs. They make great competition, though.