Poker Perambulation

If you’ve followed our friend here, Maxie; her trials and tribulation are awesome. She gone from knowing little-to-nothing to a sound player and still she can’t break over the hump. I haven’t been able to watch her play but I’d guess she’s way too tight. But then we guys often think that of the ladies and to our chagrin.

Waiting for a hand is a frequent necessity. But the table may offer you more that you are missing or ignoring. And that’s often the difference. Don’t let it bother you. It is a place we’ve all visited.

Become a Liar

OK, you managed to accumulate some chips. Things tail off. The idea is to try to at least maintain your M. (M is the cumulative chips it cost to play a round divided into your stack. It is a simple computation that is a bit harder when antes hit.) Without a nice M, you become everyone’s target. Stealing becomes a viable occupation as one’s M approaches 15. It becomes a critical pastime when it hits 10. And below that we’re talking naked bluffs using the old saw that it is easier to go all in than it is to call it.

Good steals are often done from mid-late to late position with fewer to act but you can pull it off from anywhere. After all, people are going to give you serious props when you drop a 4x bet from UTG. You can do that with oh… say… J T s. That is as long as that 4x bet doesn’t make a serious impact on total stack. When you’ve managed to build a decent stack, you need to apply it as much as the cards you get.

Don’t go overboard. But those hand that “You’d like to see a flop with.” can be used to imply you are strong. If you get called they are still hands with potential.

Gear Changes

It seems you have one gear. It is first gear. That is playing the cards as they are dealt. Do you know what a post oak bet is? It is selling a good drawing hand as if it were a made hand. The other guy doesn’t know what you have. So a pot size or 2/3^rd size bet is going to make him think hard about calling with the best hand. Even if you lose the round, you put the other player on notice that you can make moves and that’ll get respect from the wiser players and open the dumber ones up to traveling to the river with your made hands.

Position

It is often as important as cards. You can play weaker hands there. Suited one-offs and the like become killer hands when you get to see all the action ahead of you. It is a thing called implied odds. It is also the place from which to punish limpers. Work your position along with what has been dealt. You want to be a bully but not look like one.

Pot Size

In the land of the freeroll, people play big pot poker. You’ve seen it punish your best hands and send you to the rail. Situations can force that but the best poker is small pot poker. All of the above can be worked without total jeopardy to your stack. The idea is to graph your success to look like a /. OK, taper that a bit more. You are hoping for steady growth. You do that playing the small pot game. When you do that, you aren’t as vulnerable. Losing such a pot leaves you nearly whole.

Understand Your World

Tournaments revolve around blind growth. Ultimate Bet is among the more reasonable but you’ll always reach a point where it seriously impacts your decision making. Patience is not a virtue when the world is shaking because the entire table is worrying about their M. When serious to abusive blinds hit, you play harder or die. You need all the advanced idea working that go beyond, “Hurrah, I got a hand.” because you know that hasn’t been your friend. That graph for small pot poker we imagined is the same kind of graph you need to use to ramp up your aggression. At some point in almost any tournament, you have to consider playing any two cards right down to the lowly hammer. You’ve been sucked out on enough to recognize the power.
Implied Odds — Outs