thepokerkid123
Visionary
Silver Level
From what I can tell, most of my winnings come from sessions where I seem to dominate the rest of the table. The rest of the time it's just grinding for pocket change.
For the purposes of this discussion, by dominating a table I'm referring to creating the circumstances where you're playing a lot of hands and a lot of people are folding to you (even on later streets). Basically when you seem to be in control of the table. Not just sitting there waiting for cards.
There are two things that seem to allow me to dominate a table:
1: A very good run of cards. Doesn't happen often, maybe for an hour or two I catch enough cards to play and win a lot of hands but then I go card dead and have to settle back into playing tighter again.
2: Another good player (equal to or better than me) sits at the table with me. Few good players are going to want to play a big pot with the only other strong player at the table, most stay out of my way. The combined effect of two good players seems to be enough to dominate the table. Some of my biggest sessions have been under these circumstances.
Yet I frequently see the same players playing LAG poker and winning, everyone else starts playing passive, affraid to get in a hand with them or starts calling them down with weak hands and paying them off.
I watch better aggressive players than myself play and the amount of pots they get into you keep thinking that this must be a bluff, they can't possibly get this many strong hands. They get called and turn over a monster.
The thing is that it's the same players, every day. I sit down and before we've played a hand I know the style they're going to be playing, they're going to be raising it up from the start but they'll still turn over good cards most of the time when they get called. I might have to sit there for an hour just for one strong hand, they'll usually win a big pot before the dealer button makes a full round. What are these guys, the luckiest guys in the casino or do they know something that I don't?
There's a lot of stuff in most poker books about being the dominating player at the poker table, always betting and raising to make people start playing passively but with me, other than in the two circumstances I already described, people just start looking for a hand to make a stand against me or I go card dead.
So how do you dominate a table, how do you simulate that "lucky" appearance to get away with staying so aggressive?
For the purposes of this discussion, by dominating a table I'm referring to creating the circumstances where you're playing a lot of hands and a lot of people are folding to you (even on later streets). Basically when you seem to be in control of the table. Not just sitting there waiting for cards.
There are two things that seem to allow me to dominate a table:
1: A very good run of cards. Doesn't happen often, maybe for an hour or two I catch enough cards to play and win a lot of hands but then I go card dead and have to settle back into playing tighter again.
2: Another good player (equal to or better than me) sits at the table with me. Few good players are going to want to play a big pot with the only other strong player at the table, most stay out of my way. The combined effect of two good players seems to be enough to dominate the table. Some of my biggest sessions have been under these circumstances.
Yet I frequently see the same players playing LAG poker and winning, everyone else starts playing passive, affraid to get in a hand with them or starts calling them down with weak hands and paying them off.
I watch better aggressive players than myself play and the amount of pots they get into you keep thinking that this must be a bluff, they can't possibly get this many strong hands. They get called and turn over a monster.
The thing is that it's the same players, every day. I sit down and before we've played a hand I know the style they're going to be playing, they're going to be raising it up from the start but they'll still turn over good cards most of the time when they get called. I might have to sit there for an hour just for one strong hand, they'll usually win a big pot before the dealer button makes a full round. What are these guys, the luckiest guys in the casino or do they know something that I don't?
There's a lot of stuff in most poker books about being the dominating player at the poker table, always betting and raising to make people start playing passively but with me, other than in the two circumstances I already described, people just start looking for a hand to make a stand against me or I go card dead.
So how do you dominate a table, how do you simulate that "lucky" appearance to get away with staying so aggressive?