What is the key to becoming a real top player?

[IMTheWalrus8]

You have to bump up the aggression and steal blinds with position and little else. When the blinds get higher, try stealing from the cutoff and/or button when it's folded to you, regardless of your cards. And don't stop just because someone plays back at you. If you try to steal with 27o and someone reraises you, fold, but try again when you have position. You have to be persistent. I know in my case, aggression also helps me concentrate more because I'm not playing my cards, but the other players.

I am not a top player by any means, but I learned a lot by watching MLG take the top prize in the Stars Sunday tourney several months ago. He was stealing the blinds in the cutoff and it made me realize how valuable it is to make those moves.

When I qualified for the Stars Sunday tourney a few months ago, I decided to use all of the T$ to play 6-handed SnGs, where you really need to be aggressive. There were two things I learned about being the table captain:

1. Other players will play back at you with a wider range of hands when you're taking down a lot of pots. This means your good hands will pay off.

2. If you're aggressive and sometimes force players to make a decision for their entire stack, players will fear you. I did not understand this until I experienced it and thought the converse would be true. This sort of goes against #1, but it's an interesting dichotomy and a valuable one to understand.

I remember one specific hand where I raised 3xBB in the cutoff with 39o, got miniraised by the BB with QQ (he complained about my calling his raise but it wasn't big enough and gave me huge odds). I hit the flop for two pair, he went all-in, and I got paid off. After that the table was all mine.

Playing SnGs can really help because you'll get more experience fighting for blinds in a shorter period of time than you would if you play all MTTs.

Hope this helps. At the moment I'm on a bad run and I'm not sure what my problem is. But when I made the aggression change I made four FTs in a month at the $10 buy-ins @ Stars and UB and it put my BR at a nice level.

[colgin]

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You must choose one:

1. Running well at the right times
2. Having remarkable self control and discipline

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I choose Option # 1. It just seems so much easier than 2.

[dirty moose]

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Sorry - I forgot to mention I play no limit hold em - tournaments - where the stake to enter is $10 or less.

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luck

[aflaba]

As everything else, my opinion is:

time * energy,

investvested in a good way.

Some good ways to invest time and energy in poker are:
*Practice of course
*Diskussing with knowledgable fellow players
*Getting a coach
*Reading books, articles and posts
*Analyzing situations
*...

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at least seven 9's in your username

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Thanks everyone for your tips and advice.

I have been reading some more of my poker book today and 2 simple things came to mind that I realise are real problems with my game - I am so obvious and easy to read. I even think this during games - that people know how I play as I am weak and predictable. My book suggests mixing your game up so people cannot take advantage by playing aggressive and scaring me out of hands, etc. I also don't look closely enough at other people's play of hands - i.e. reading for obvious false play in terms of bluffs - i.e. watching what someone does before the flop and then how they react later in that hand - i.e. most people raise before the flop with a very strong hand - and if they don't then its likely that if a strong flop comes out that they have not got one of the best hands and therefore you can exploit this. Also watching for any players with aggressively high bets late on in a hand that were not as aggressive earlier in hand - is a sign that they don't infact have the best hand, they are trying to force and bully people out of the hand. Just simple things that I never seem to employ in my game.

Is this a good area to work on?