@%%*& !!! A Strategy Post!

This blog is approaching one year old. I had no idea. Thanks to all who have read and commented along the way.

I realize this blog started to slowly degenerate into a collection of bad beat stories - I'll be making sure that changes.

I digress.

Last night I played well and didn't make a single dollar in profit but I did make strides in improving my game. I was able to ramp up my aggression at the tables and build a table image I wanted. I was selectively 3-betting people and rarely getting 4-bet. I took full advantage of donks looking to min-cash and avoid bubbling (note: Unless you're playing $20 buy-ins or higher there really is no bubble to speak of. No one cares about min-cashing for $8).

I broke even for the night by finishing 3rd in a $4 180 Man MTT and busted on a cooler hand (ran AKs into KK three handed. Awesome!).

My MTT strategy seems to be paying dividends already. I'm making more deep runs and when I bust I can safely say it is very rarely due to making a poor decision.

I've been flatting my whole range before the antes kick in and I've been raising 3x early and 2.2 - 2.4x once antes start getting higher. From LP with a good hand I'll make it more like 2.7 - 3x to see if I can make these look like pure steal attempts and induce people to spaz out and jam from the SB or BB very light.

I've also been limp/shoving hands like JJ and QQ if I limp in MP and the Button bumps it up. I've been called as light as 44 in spots like this because you just don't see that type of play very often. When people get caught off guard their first instinct is to just monkey shove their whole pile for fear of being bluffed.

I haven't needed to bluff all that often lately and I haven't needed to get into many coinflips, either. The next thing I need to work on is reaching showdown a lot less but I think this is more a function of them not having a fold button at the low stakes than me doing something wrong.

It's important to remember that in MTT's unless you have the nizzles you really don't want to screw around and simply give people slightly the worst of it for calling odds. You want to win the pot on the turn as many times as possible and with onine structures this often means sizing your pre-flop and flop bets such that the only action you can take on the turn is to jam against them.

If you don't size your bets correctly you're going to have a very awkward stack and no fold equity on a lot of rivers and then it's usually incorrect for your opponent to fold to another bet because the pot has gotten so large.

Keep your pots small and play in position as much as possible. Make sure you're the one who's making the decision to grow the pot size and then manage your stack properly.

I know my results will come. I've been playing far too good for them not to. It's just a matter of time and playing against smaller fields.