Deep thoughts

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NewbSaibot United States. Jun 01 2009 01:36. Posts 4948

If you go flying back through time and you see somebody else flying forward into the future, it's probably best to avoid eye contact--

And now on to some other deep thoughts,

So a week ago I decided that I would force myself to finally break through the penny stakes barrier by simply putting in a massive volume of hands, relying on +EV moves to make up for all the bad beats and let long term statistics prove me the victor. But gosh darnit I just kept getting so tilted at all the bullshit that I finally said fuck it, I refuse to play with people who do not care about money. I need my opponents to give a damn about losing 20 bucks, it's the only way I can play. So I decided on the lowest limit this would be found at, which I feel is NL25. Oh there are still people who flat out dont give a shit, but for the most part these guys dont consider a $25 stack to be play money. Or least the majority of the table doesnt, which means I'm not facing 5 morons who just go "lol awww in!" with random bluffs and shit b/c they enjoy the thrill.

So I continue to embark upon my one-table strategy of making intimate reads and very player dependent bets in every single round, even hands Im not in I continue to observe and think about what they have. One good thing about playing LAG at one-table is that the pace of my learning seems to be 10x greater than that of multi-tabling where I cant really focus and have to see the same thing happen 50x before it finally sticks in my head. Each day I continue to fine tune my game, and learn something new.

So far of all the major player archetypes, the only one left that is giving me real problems are the calling stations and maniac fish. I find there are 3 levels of fish out there.

1) Loose passive - this is the easiest type. Usually runs around 25/5 game. Limps mostly, occasionally calling preflop raises, but for whatever reason is very timid on the flop, possibly even when hitting pairs. Cbetting works fantastic against them.

2) Calling station - this fish is of medium difficulty. They call so many cbets and random flops its really hard to put them on a range. Sometimes it's with a random pair or PP and they just "dont believe you", and will shutdown on the turn. Sometimes it's a draw, sometimes it's pure float. I havent quite figured out yet if these players can be played that aggressively against or not. You can certainly do well against them playing tight, but I dont want to have to completely change my table play based upon one player.

3) Loose maniac - mind you, this is not the typical raising maniac who is on tilt or gambling. This is the guy who literally calls preflop raises of ANY size with ANY TWO CARDS no matter what. You would believe it is their first time playing and that they dont even understand hand ranking. They do not fold any pair, they often dont fold ace high, king high, even ten high. They are usually playing at least 80% vpip. Some of them mix up a lot of preflop minraising in their game giving them a maniacal looking 85/55 stat, but in reality the minraises dont suggest they are a true maniac who is going banana's with JTo etc. These guys are still minraising the same trash they call with preflop, T5o, 23o, anything. This has been my nemesis for the past few months. These are the guys I blog about when I try to raise hands that are higher on the ole starting hand chart, albeit not that much higher.

I have severe tilt issues that only recently I have finally began learning how to control, the biggest of which is adapting to table conditions. Since playing lag pretty much puts you at the top giving you the freedom to do what you want, taking it down a notch and tightening up has always been hard for me, especially when i know how someone else is playing. So for the first time lately, I finally chilled out, met the #3 fish, and did the only thing I havent done yet in my trials, and that is just play straight up tag. Fold fold fold everything, make standard value raises with my good hands, if AK misses then it misses, and pot 3 streets when I hit. While I do potentially miss out on opportunities, and someone else may stack him before me, i have found it to be the only thing possible to do against a 80vpip person. This is a breakthrough for me. No outplaying, no FPS, no iso-raising and 4betting, just play ABC. This is the only player I play ABC against, and it may be necessary to employ vs level 2 fish as well, we will have to see what I can get away with there.

Regardless, I have been violently swinging my NL25 bankroll up and down, but mostly just fine tuning imo. I feel very proud of my play, and my only losses this week have come purely from the level 3 fish. Now that I think I finally have some control of the situation, which means either leaving the table completely or adapting, I hope to see my swings level out, and hope to push it up to NL50 at some point in june. NL2? Done with it. NL5? Done with that too. NL10 you can actually make some pocket change with if you are content cashing out 50 bucks every few days. But I want more. I need to reach a point where I can cover my g/f's portion of the rent, protect myself from getting laid off from work, and reach the point where I can tell my faggot boss to fuck off and live off poker for good.

0 votes

bye now

WilsWils Canada. Jun 01 2009 01:42. Posts 285

if i may-

try your hand at the FR sng's. they're unbelivably soft - thats what i did to get through nl25

i made like 10-20 bi's at nl25 then said fuck it, and crushed the 11$ sngs -_-