Small Ball

Ive been watching some videos by mr Negreanu(sp) on how to play small ball, ive started to try and impliment it into my game. It has deaffiantely got me looking at flop texture a hell of a lot more. im by no means good at it but im starting to win pots with cards i would never dream of playing. I used to just sit and wait for premium hands to double up with in the early parts of tournaments. Now i always make sure that if i can get to see pots cheaply that the hands are making sense that im playing. The question is do many of you take the small ball approach? And what advice can you give?

I like the small ball style, and I also have watched quite a few of Negreanu's videos on PokerVT, but I don't use it that often. Every once in a while, if I am playing a lot of games at once, I will play small ball, because I can't focus too much on just one or two tables. But If I am playing just a couple games and I am able to really pay attention to a select few tables, I am usually a lot more aggressive and build some pots, not necessarily monster pots, but not small either. Small ball definitely gets you seeing a lot of flops that you would have never seen had you been playing tight. Where I start having a problem with small ball is towards the end of a tournament, I feel like you bleed chips a lot, and you need to kind of get rid of it and change it up.

From the info i have Read/watched small ball is only really only useful when you have a Large amount of BB's that allows you to see the flop for a small percentage of your stack.

Yea, that is one of the reasons why it is most commonly used towards the beginning of a tournament, when stacks are high and blinds are really low. It can be used later on in the tournament if you are the chip leader and have a great stack in relation to the blinds, but there are also a lot of other strategies that one could use in that situation as well.

I read Negreanu's book and have used his small ball techniques often. They are best early in the tourney and near cashing time when a lot of players tighten up severely. He will tell you himself, small ball is risky if you don't have a big stack. It has definitely opened up my eyes to see the reasoning behind guys calling big bets preflop w/ 56 suited against my overpair and flop two pair or a straight and take a bunch if not all of my chips!

I like it but the importent thing is that you must know to give up and fold before you lose lot of your chips.
David Shoval.

I LOVE cheap flops!

limp/fold limp/fold limp/fold limp/check/raise and say to yourself "I got you sucka"

you might get called a donk from time to time for knocking someone out with a subpar hand, but that doesn't bother you much when you have all of someones chips

Well I never see who calls me what during online sessions...I turn off chat on every site i play on.

I have a problem with small ball not with the starting cards or limping and folding preflop but with the betting action post flop; small raises, steals, resteals,mis-representing the flop, etc etc. I find long ball (a two card specialist) easier but you need both styles. so I keep trying