Beriac
Visionary
Silver Level
Heya folks,
Excuse the long post!!! I just wanted to add as many details as possible.
So I play in a weekly live game with friends. Low stakes, super casual, ie people using have a coupla beers and we have a good time. Sit 'n' Go format. Now, the thing is, I do about as well as anyone else in the group, about average, but I feel given the books I read and my participation on the site and such, I should be doing a little better. Here's everything I can think of about our game. Ideally, I'd like some help formulating a basic strategy to use in this specific game and maybe some general advice on where I'm going wrong.
Facts:
- No Limit Holdem, Sit 'n' Go format, usually 4-7 players
- Start with 360 in chips, blinds start 1/2 and rise every orbit if 6+ players and every 2 orbits if 4-5 players, as follows: 2/4, 4/8, 5/10, 10/20, 15/30, 20/40, 25/50, 30/60, 40/80, 50/100
- The other players in the group are pretty good but far from perfect. Most of them have been playing about a year, and have read ~1 book (a copy of Phil Gordon's Little Green Book made the rounds awhile back), for example they have an idea of pot odds but don't go through the motions every time and so make periodic strange calls/folds
- Player by player: Of the most regular players, Player A is extremely aggressive but sensibly so. It's not that he bluffs all the time, but with both medium strength hands and strong hands he raises/re-raises large, putting the pressure on. Player B is a great hand-reader, often calling your hand within a pretty good range when you're heads up against him. He likes to alternate bluffing and trapping with value betting. Player C is new to the game and is extremely conservative, but has had some success. Player D is a wild card, switching gears often between bluffing at everything versus value betting or trapping. I find him very hard to read and often find myself doing the wrong thing against him. The other players are generally weaker and do the usual strange newbie things.
- Oh, and we use a primarily 1st place prize distribution, with just some scraps for 2nd and sometimes 3rd depending on the prize pool. We do use re-buys.
Game tendencies:
- Unless hands are very strong, the game goes from conservative to aggressive as the game goes on. Case in point: things get much more aggressive at the start of the 2nd game, if we play one, than the start of the 1st game, simply because it's later and people are loose and relaxed.
- Pre-flop is fairly aggressive, and it is difficult to see a lot of cheap flops.
- Post-flop, one quirk of our game is that people often bet too small, especially when the pot gets big. They tend to view bets in isolation rather than relative to the pot, eg someone might bet 50 chips into a 200 chip pot and this would be viewed as strength. I look like a yahoo sometimes when I mostly bet the pot.
- People will call down to the river with questionable hands with some frequency, especially when the bets are smallish.
- I would say there is a slight tendency to call straight and flush draws without odds.
- Oh, finally, I would say their calling ranges when the blinds gets pretty high is fairly low, that is to say it's difficult to steal too many blinds without getting called.
The problem:
- When I get down to heads up, I usually do pretty well, winning more than half the time, generally getting my chips in when I have the best of it and letting the cards decide the rest.
- My problem is I don't get heads up as often as I should. I often lose some chips mid-game to a failed bluff, a bad call, or some bad luck.
So:
What do I do? There are a few options:
- My typical strategy is to play very tight/aggressive early on, then loosen up late to steal and win on aggression. The flaw here is that stealing has not worked for me too well in the past.
- I could play a generally very aggressive strategy.
- I could just play tight the whole game.
What should my basic strategy be? What should I be spending more time on: reading other players, playing a tighter/looser/more aggressive game, etc?
Any advice generally?
Much appreciated folks!!!
Cheers
Beriac
Excuse the long post!!! I just wanted to add as many details as possible.
So I play in a weekly live game with friends. Low stakes, super casual, ie people using have a coupla beers and we have a good time. Sit 'n' Go format. Now, the thing is, I do about as well as anyone else in the group, about average, but I feel given the books I read and my participation on the site and such, I should be doing a little better. Here's everything I can think of about our game. Ideally, I'd like some help formulating a basic strategy to use in this specific game and maybe some general advice on where I'm going wrong.
Facts:
- No Limit Holdem, Sit 'n' Go format, usually 4-7 players
- Start with 360 in chips, blinds start 1/2 and rise every orbit if 6+ players and every 2 orbits if 4-5 players, as follows: 2/4, 4/8, 5/10, 10/20, 15/30, 20/40, 25/50, 30/60, 40/80, 50/100
- The other players in the group are pretty good but far from perfect. Most of them have been playing about a year, and have read ~1 book (a copy of Phil Gordon's Little Green Book made the rounds awhile back), for example they have an idea of pot odds but don't go through the motions every time and so make periodic strange calls/folds
- Player by player: Of the most regular players, Player A is extremely aggressive but sensibly so. It's not that he bluffs all the time, but with both medium strength hands and strong hands he raises/re-raises large, putting the pressure on. Player B is a great hand-reader, often calling your hand within a pretty good range when you're heads up against him. He likes to alternate bluffing and trapping with value betting. Player C is new to the game and is extremely conservative, but has had some success. Player D is a wild card, switching gears often between bluffing at everything versus value betting or trapping. I find him very hard to read and often find myself doing the wrong thing against him. The other players are generally weaker and do the usual strange newbie things.
- Oh, and we use a primarily 1st place prize distribution, with just some scraps for 2nd and sometimes 3rd depending on the prize pool. We do use re-buys.
Game tendencies:
- Unless hands are very strong, the game goes from conservative to aggressive as the game goes on. Case in point: things get much more aggressive at the start of the 2nd game, if we play one, than the start of the 1st game, simply because it's later and people are loose and relaxed.
- Pre-flop is fairly aggressive, and it is difficult to see a lot of cheap flops.
- Post-flop, one quirk of our game is that people often bet too small, especially when the pot gets big. They tend to view bets in isolation rather than relative to the pot, eg someone might bet 50 chips into a 200 chip pot and this would be viewed as strength. I look like a yahoo sometimes when I mostly bet the pot.
- People will call down to the river with questionable hands with some frequency, especially when the bets are smallish.
- I would say there is a slight tendency to call straight and flush draws without odds.
- Oh, finally, I would say their calling ranges when the blinds gets pretty high is fairly low, that is to say it's difficult to steal too many blinds without getting called.
The problem:
- When I get down to heads up, I usually do pretty well, winning more than half the time, generally getting my chips in when I have the best of it and letting the cards decide the rest.
- My problem is I don't get heads up as often as I should. I often lose some chips mid-game to a failed bluff, a bad call, or some bad luck.
So:
What do I do? There are a few options:
- My typical strategy is to play very tight/aggressive early on, then loosen up late to steal and win on aggression. The flaw here is that stealing has not worked for me too well in the past.
- I could play a generally very aggressive strategy.
- I could just play tight the whole game.
What should my basic strategy be? What should I be spending more time on: reading other players, playing a tighter/looser/more aggressive game, etc?
Any advice generally?
Much appreciated folks!!!
Cheers
Beriac
