Has it worked for you? Im always T.A.G In cash games... and maby i'll try it, but wondering if anyone here has any exp on that.
Daniel Negreanu likes to take credit for inventing small ball, but he didn't. I've been playing that way ever since NL became common after ESPN discovered Poker could be a spectator sport.
I use this play all the time, and it's the only way that makes sense. If there's 1.5BB in the pot, and you raise 2XBB from the button to steal, you're laying 4 : 3. You need to succeed four out of seven attempts to have an immediate break-even. Pop it for 3XBB, and you're laying 2 : 1. Now you need to succeed two out of three attempts, and that's much worse.
When the table gets short-handed, there's not much reason to make it more than 2XBB, as there are fewer potential callers.
"at times in a live 1/2 game where you are going to get > 3 callers to a $12 bet..."
When you see that, it means they're afraid of playing post. I'm not afraid of the post flop game. You have a couple of choices: raise bigger to find that tipping point that gets them out. That, however, can get expensive when you miss. C-bets become larger, and/or you'll have to concede many BB's.
I pretend it's FLHE and play it the same: raise small, open limp like it's fixed limit, expect pots to go multi-way more often than not. That means playing hands with staying power in multi-way pots. One advantage is that it's still no-limit, and you can stack 'em when you smash the flop.
He didn't invent the style and doesn't claim he did. He just gave it its name.Daniel Negreanu likes to take credit for inventing small ball, but he didn't.
Small ball refers to tournament poker. Good luck playing like that in cash games. You'll get run over. That's not what small ball was designed for."at times in a live 1/2 game where you are going to get > 3 callers to a $12 bet..."
When you see that, it means they're afraid of playing post. I'm not afraid of the post flop game. You have a couple of choices: raise bigger to find that tipping point that gets them out. That, however, can get expensive when you miss. C-bets become larger, and/or you'll have to concede many BB's.
A bluff only has to work 1 out of 3 times to break even, if you pick spots well then bluffing and barreling can be very profitable.I think small ball low variance style is what beats cash games. That tag and lag style I think is overrated. Its why you see the old guys slow down not cause their old but trying to bluff and be aggro and keep barreling just doesn't work out in the long run or they would all be doing it.
I actually like big ball strategy for Tournies. Small ball is better for cash for me. In a tourney I want to win big pots so i can get deep in a tourney not small ones so I like using a big ball style. Its why you see guys who win tournies have a aggro big ball style. Like Doug Polk, Isildur, jamie gold ( i know he sucks), lex velhuis been crushing this year etc. They play very aggro in tournies. When Doug tries to use it for cash games= he hasn't profited in cash games since 2012. He couldn't even beat micros cash 6 max on twitch at texas holdem. It was kind of sad to watch but he ended up going to 9 man 1 dollar sngs for his bank roll challenge and most of his profits was from binking tournies. I know a lot of players who try big ball in cash and they always end up broke complaining they run bad.GL with it doesn't work for me.
What they don't tell you is if your bluff works 2 out of 3 times and you do take down 2 small pots that 1 time it doesn't work and you punt off your stack their goes all your profits from bluffing and now your in the red and going into tilt mode playing an angry session. Doyle didn't really do anything his super system book says to do. He slowed down played more small ball and won 7 of the 8 seasons. His cnn fake news argument was that people know how he plays haha. I was waiting to see this super system go to work and destroy cash games and he made lame excuse of people know how i play. Excuses= bull