Playing much better.

by DeuceSeven on 06/19/08

I’ve adjusted to my crazy schedule and doing the little things like going over my past mtts and watching pxf vids. In 35 mtts I’ve made 4 final tables, unfortunately none of them have been in a buy in bigger then $11 and the highest I finished was 6th. I went deep in the 3r and a ftp $26 16k where in order to knock out of the 16k I had to lose nearly 3 consecutive hands AK

The 3r I raised AA in ep, bb called on a Q64 board I bet a little more then half the pot as we both had around 55bbs and the bb seemed to be a pretty competent player. At that point I put him on a weak Q, a set, a middle pair, or some kinda of connector like 56, 54, 57. The turn was a 6, which is a really great card. Villain checked and I checked. I checked for a couple of reasons, 1 this player was good enough that if I 2 barrel he folds everything except AQ, maybe KQ and calls with hands that have me crushed. This way maybe I get value on a river bet against underpairs and and QJ type of hands. River was a blank and he fired out a psb. Usually that means they got a hand, I just thought AQ, KQ were definitely hands that this guy would bet along with monsters, so I snap called and he showed 67 for trips. I was very happy that I lost the minimum, but obviously not happy to lose 40% of my stack. Then I raised AcQc and a good player otb called and the good bb called from the bb. At this point I started the hand with about 27bbs. The flop was Tc4c2x, so short of flopping a pair this is a monster flop for my hand. Now I know the button was good so I fired out a slightly less then half psb if I remember right hoping that if I got raised I could jam and get maximum fe vs a good player with an under pair or weak tp. Well the button called my bet and raised the pot, bb folded and I jammed and missed everything vs T9.

Some things I’m doing much better after spending a little time looking over my game:

1. Being more aware of how I’m sitting stackwise and adding this to my criteria of if I want to risk making a big call, raise, or bluff. Essentially if I’m at an easy table and I have a very marginal hand and have to call a large chunk of my stack that will limit what I can do later I just fold.

2. Being more selective of who’s blinds I raise from lp.

3. Punishing limpers.

4. Making a few more cbets.

5. Defending my blind more often by calling pf vs opponents I think I can exploit.

6. Stop calling/shoving with horrible hands when someone raises my bb when I’m sitting on 6-10bbs.

7. Over betting big hands like ops vs donks who can’t fold. I did this 3 or 4 times in the 3r after the rebuy period. For example I raise with AA in mp, a very bad loose calling station calls from the bb. The flop is KTx. donk checks, I pot it he calls. Turn is a blank, donk checks and I shove 4x the pot and got called by QT.

8. Playing small ball with effective deep stacks.

Although I’m stuck almost 10% of my starting bank roll for the month, I’m super happy how I’m playing. It’s only a matter of time before I hit a big score.

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