I'm a winning player, but I'm too tight!

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I just need to find a way to play 3-4 more hands per 100, that's all.

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I'd prefer you find a way to play more than that, and raise more often as well. When you're playing solid competition, it's important to outplay them pre-flop. But you're taking on donks, and so you should want to see more flops because you know you're going to outplay them post-flop.

This does not mean playing ace-rag, paint-rag, or calling raises with KJ. But I like to play pairs and big cards early, rags in the cutoff or button.

But then I read that you 8-table, which means that you are only playing ABC poker and you are essentially nut hunting.

That's fine. You're obviously beating the game and making good money out of it. You won't get away with that when you move to higher levels, but lower levels are enough of a donkfest where you can ABC all day.

If you start to find that players won't give you action, start picking good spots for a bluff -- not often -- and advertise it. Make notes on which players you've shown bluffs to, and play nut hands the same way in the future. Tight players with vpips in your range can go stretches where no one will give them any action. Find a way to change that.

[wiggs73]

I used to feel that I was too tight too, I think my vp$ip has always hovered right around 15% in full ring games. I've never been a real cash game player, so this is only over 4-5k hands lifetime. As I've been playing more full ring though, I've been noticing that right around 20% would probably be ideal. I think the biggest thing that I've been doing to work on this is limping more hands in late position.

Coming from a history of playing primarily STTs, it was driven into my head that you fold nearly everything when blinds are small. So that A6s on the button to 1 MP limper gets folded. So does the 9Ts, and so on...

But lately I've been seeing a few more flops for cheap when the opportunity presents itself and it's definitely paid off. The key is still to keep a TAG game postflop, but eventually you'll learn techniques to get free cards, semibluff, etc, and be able to play your marginal hands profitably.

My advice would be to drop down to 4 tables for a while. Even though your $/hr will suffer, your game should improve, and you can always add tables back once the game has taken a step up. This should be beneficial to you in the long run.

[poboy]

adding in SC's and suited one-gappers is an easy way to spike the VPIP, and don't be afraid to call raises with these hands(when in position and raiser is aggro PF). Also playing 8 tables I'm not sure you'd really want to have a 20+ VPIP. Right now you're getting an edge just by playing better hands then your opponents, if you add in some marginal hands then your PF skill is where your edge comes from. I'm not saying it isn't doable, but I would think it would be very difficult to 8 table and pay enough attention to make playing those marginal hands profitable(but I have a short attention span). JMO