The Whole on Holes

I've been procrastinating for the most part and haven't sat down to write what I've been thinking about for the last couple weeks. Well I stated that I somewhat had a moment of clarity on what may have been my problem in tournament style poker that isn't just due to rust. To put things bluntly I've been playing like a bitch. Just over thinking and playing scared and not committing to a strategy. Ever since I've been playing I have had a style of play that made me comfortable at the table. From sitting around a kitchen table w/ friends for $20 buy-in sngs to playing in bar room tourneys and playing in $500+ buyin tourneys I've managed to find success for all. Well lately I can't seem to get out of the rut I put myself in b/c I don't take the approach I need to in order to win. I just couldn't figure out exactly what I was doing wrong but I knew I was doing a whole lot of it! It wasn't just strictly in tournament poker, it was also affecting my cash game play which is something that I've almost never had a problem with. Well while watching the 'dead money' final table and talking to Davey and Ruttley I told them that I've just been playing bad and making decisions that just don't make sense and I know I have been playing scared.

They're different ways of playing scared and it's not just playing tight or not making a move. The worst kind of playing scared is having a plan and attempting it and then vacating it once resistance is met. That was my problem, I couldn't stick to my game plan and my adjustments weren't exactly good ones. Throughout the time I've been playing this game I have altered my style of play and been successful, every time I have changed my style it has basically been due to my game and skills evolving and developing a comfort level with each style. From sitting around the kitchen table and just learning I was extremely tight and no originality in my game whatsoever, but the style worked b/c my friends were playing every freaking hand dealt to them and I quickly realized that was not the correct approach and it worked out for me. As I learned my weak tight style changed to more of a protective style where I over raised with big hands and made weak flop bets with monsters and most of my opponents were not seasoned players so it was successful. Naturally that evolved into playing those hands better and knowing pot size and how much I should bet relative to the pot which eventually got me interested in knowing the odds and percentages of hands. This allowed me to better know what the other guys cards might be. Sooner or later I was able to play more position and apply more pressure. So over the years I've been able to adjust my style to fit my comfort and skill level. Being able to play my way through these stages naturally gives me a way to classify people I play against and I'm pretty sure this is where that over used term "switching gears" comes from. In order to switch gears you first must have had these gears.

Well I found myself playing a style that allowed me to be aggressive by raising more and forcing action through me and playing a lot of hands. This can be dangerous but I was comfortable with it. I would occasionally change it up and play "Gus" style and limp all day and just try to take as many flops as possible and taking advantage of position and weak players. I've used the small ball approach and haven't been too great with that simply b/c most of the tournaments I play are not very deep stacked and that style is geared more towards deeper stacks and longer levels. Anyway, I've said all these styles of play and how I've progressed and where am I now. I'm clearly not on my best game but I do have one advantage over myself that I didn't have when I was playing my best and that's just simply time. With the risk of sounding like an old man, I'm older and every time I play it just adds to the amount of hands I've seen it should make me smarter and sharper but we know that's always the case for some (myself included......well prolly not myself included..haha).

Anyway, back to Davey and I's conversation. I told him I had a huge hole in my game he agreed and it clicked. We discussed what he was seeing and what I was thinking. The agreement came based on me playing scared. I was trying to do too many things and justifying my bad play. I was making lay downs b/c I felt I was a good enough player to hedge the chip loss by simply being a better player. The problem is that I was leaving myself short and not allowing myself to play the style that best fits my preferred style of play. There was a point where I felt like I as wide open at the table (tournaments) and raising a lot and trying to win every hand dealt and Davey and I talked about it and he helped calm me down on that..this time he was telling reassuring what I thought and that is that I'm a better off being loose than tight (of course within reason). Well I had a grasp of what slowing down meant and I was still winning. It wasn't exactly going to stop me from raising and stop me from being aggressive but just tone it down. I was at a point where I could raise enough to draw attention and give off the more aggressive than I really am look and that was my comfort zone. I didn't mind people plotting in their 'helmet protected' head of how they were gonna snap me off. I've also been able to bounce back and forth with the limp a lot method and manage to stay under the radar that way. Basically the conversation came down to me realizing that people have been exploiting my timid play lately. I have not had the opportunity to play a whole lately so when I have been playing I've been playing a little tighter than normal and not b/c the table is wide open and I need to lay back but b/c I'm just happy to be playing and don't wanna bust out early b/c my chances to play have been limited. This was causing me to limp call raises b/c I didn't wanna voluntarily risk my chips with a raise. This was making me bet the flop, get called, and then check fold on the turn b/c I was scared to play a big pot. I was only trying to win the small ones and stay low key at the table, but the problem is that the pots where I didn't take it down right away I was losing more than I should and not picking up enough small pots to justify my play. I was too willing to fold and save a few chips instead of making the aggressive play and putting the decision on my opponent. It's important to remember that I need chips to splash around with and play my most affective style of poker and when I back my own self down in a corner and basically take chips out of my own stack b/c I'm a pussy, it makes it really difficult and almost impossible to recover from that. I refuse to be blinded out of a tournament, been there done that and those days are long gone! If you blind out of a tournament then you should have won a bigger pot or lost a bigger pot somewhere else in the tournament.

I kept thinking to myself that I need to open up more and have action go through me more. I've been pretty good at becoming friends with the weak players and letting them know that I'm a better player than them and they need to chill out when playing hands against me. (as arrogant as that sounds I know I'm not the only one that knows exactly what I mean...so be careful when people are trying to make friends with you, they may just think you're a weak player). I've also been able to be the villain or make someone the villain. This isn't like a big plan I have when I'm at the table to do this, I'm not thinking about it but it just kinda happens.

Anyway, I'm glad I was able to figure out what my issues were and since this I was able to play two cash sessions in which I decided to be more of the aggressor and open pots instead of limp calling and it turned into two wins and has me feeling good about playing. I've also been messing around on pokerstars the last couple weeks and playing some multi-table sngs and some mtt...nothing with any big buy-ins are anything but just something to get me straight and knock some rust off. Also tried to do some fun things and force myself to play hands by playing in the micro level cash games and playing every single hand. Weather it was a raise or a limp, I had to put money in preflop every hand but I could fold to raises that were greater than 4x's. It was interesting and I actually was winner after playing about 6 sessions like that. I also played some 6 handed tourneys which I really enjoy b/c tight play just gets steam rolled in those things. Could be my favorite type of tourney to play. On the whole I'm glad I was able to shed some light on what I was doing wrong and now I've definitely got the itch to play some tournaments and I'm looking at making a trip out to Vegas in June.
Till next time.
Keep It Real Homies.