Some Small Stakes Thoughts

[La Brujita]

Considering I have made one post on this forum, it may be a bit presumptuous to make some random thoughts. But with a decent amount of experience and since my thoughts relate to small stakes holdem, here goes.

1. The more experienced I get the more I feel the best way to play poker is to totally unemotionally. When I play best I feel like I am watching myself play but not actually playing. What I mean is I try to make decisions and let the results fall where they may. If I bet my flush draw and it hits it hits, if it misses it misses. It is almost like I don't care. I can't get myself to the point of not caring but it is a goal. I am not able to do this at 15/30 because I can't yet distance myself emotionally from results. Perhaps this is partly bankroll based. I am pretty hotheaded and competitive so this is pretty hard for me to achieve.

2. I am coming to view poker as long spurts of fouling off pitches vs. short spurts of teeing off against a batting machine. Its like you just can't win, you struggle to break even a few days in a row, you question your game and then boom, a $500 afternoon at 3-6. I guess this is another way of saying limit your losses with solid tilt free poker and let yourself take the wins naturally. It kind of relates to point 1 above because I feel soon enough I will hit the meatball pitches so I just ride the storm out.

3. Another sports analogy, if you asked a non golfer do you think pros have a hard time aiming, they might say are you crazy? But the odd thing is the mind and eyes play tricks on you when golfing and alignment can screw up even the best pros. I kind of feel the same way about game selection in holdem. Both are crucial to success, both seem easy, and both seem to be screwed up alot by many players. By me too, I am not preaching here. I think other than choosing fish to play against it might be hard for many of us to really understand what game is best for our games, both due to self perception issues and also due to lack of statistical information available at some sites.

4. I spent a while learning how to play nl tournaments and while my time might have been better spent continuing with limit ring games, I feel like the breadth of knowledge has helped me understand the rhythms of limit holdem. I often see people ask whether limit books are valuable for nl and for my money most are and the games are similar in many ways that people discount. The are of course different in many ways but for example reading what an opponent might have based on the board is important in limit and no limit. Many might disagree with the general sentiment of this paragraph.

5. I try to just play solid ABC poker at 3-6 holdem. I used to worry about whether it was too predictable but when trying figure out whether to call down once with black tens against a raise on a Kxx two hearts flop I realized the mere act of betting draws strongly and betting overcards as well as overpairs shorthanded might make solid ABC players hard to read. Of course with changing opponents perhaps this is not a big deal.

6. My strength is value betting through a hand, my biggest weakness is playing marginal hands (probably true for most players). In low limit games I often just take my medicine and call down river raises heads up. Is that correct, who knows?

7. I have learned from reading Tommy Angelo's posts that there are often more than one way to play a hand. Understanding the reasoning behind many of those plays is helping take my game to another level.

8. This might be a controversial point and I am not sure it is correct but I think calling down has become a bit of an underappreciated play when heads up and uncertain where you stand. I think there is something to be said for getting yourself to showdown with marginal hands rather than raising to get information and folding to a reraise. I am all about playing hands strongly in multiway pots to protect the hand and I value bet to death with decent to strong hands so I am talking about a limited subset of hands but I think calling can be a good play in more situations than credited.

Most of these are pretty obvious and I just wanted to pump them out while watching this election tonight.

[digdeep]

Controlling one's emotions can be a difficult thing, particularly for competitive players. I can imagine that the money at stake at $15/30 makes it much more difficult to be unemotional when playing, compared to moving down to $3/6. I notice that in moving up, there is always initial apprehension regarding the larger bets and pots, just a matter of finding your comfort level.


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5. I try to just play solid ABC poker at 3-6 holdem. I used to worry about whether it was too predictable but when trying figure out whether to call down once with black tens against a raise on a Kxx two hearts flop I realized the mere act of betting draws strongly and betting overcards as well as overpairs shorthanded might make solid ABC players hard to read. Of course with changing opponents perhaps this is not a big deal.


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I think this is an excellent insight. Often times excess thinking and analysis can be paralyzing and detrimental. Combining simple straightforward play with thinking complex strategies can be much more profitable and difficult for an opponent to read than always being simple, or always trying to make the complex, obscure play.

[KingSix]

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I think this is an excellent insight. Often times excess thinking and analysis can be paralyzing and detrimental. Combining simple straightforward play with thinking complex strategies can be much more profitable and difficult for an opponent to read than always being simple, or always trying to make the complex, obscure play.

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Good point. I think that at limits like 3/6 you just start to recognize game situations that arise. The more and more I played I started to instantly recognize things like unraised big pairs and pushing middle pairs on a board with a low pair. This really didn't come from a bunch of paralyzing analysis, but rather from just facing the situations over and over again.

Ultimately, being able to act on that information will help add a nice, simple, deceptive element to simple ABC poker.

King

[helpmeout]

Excellent post

1. I think everyone should aim to play unemotional poker. Being able to take in all the information you have gained on your opponents throughout their play and then making the best decision for each hand.

2. You gotta ride the waves. I always think to myself if I am on a good run I have to study hard because a bad run is coming soon. When I am on a bad run I have to study hard to minimise losses.

4. Different areas which require similar types of skill are always benefitial. Tourneys, NL, Shorthand, headsup they are all different but having some experience in all will help your game a lot. You dont need to have a lot of experience in each but a little bit is good.

5. ABC poker is good 99% of the time. The extra 1% is probably the difference between a good player and a very good player. There are always times to make bizarre plays but doing so too often is -EV.

8. Seeing cheap showdowns is underrated, I also dont believe the fold when you are reraised type theory when you are headsup. If I think I'm beat but I have a good hand I'll call it down. If I have a real good hand I'll raise.

Calling is way underrated in holdem.

[RED_RAIN]

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5. ABC poker is good 99% of the time. The extra 1% is probably the difference between a good player and a very good player. There are always times to make bizarre plays but doing so too often is -EV.

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Huge understatement as you go up.