Trying to find my sweet spot
One of my goals for this year is to learn how to play short-handed limit hold’em at a respectable level. I have been getting a little burnt out on NL lately. It seems that every good table has a waiting list 10 deep now, and any table that has an open seat is full of nits with 20BB stacks. I don’t want to try to wait and hope that by the time I get to the table the deep stacks are still around. Often times when you finally do get your seat the table has been taken over by people playing a shortstack-pushbot strategy which drives me insane. I play a pretty LAGish style, raising with a lot of marginal hands in late position like ♣ar♦♠ 8♦ 6♦ /♣ar♦♠ or ♣ar♦♠ A♠ 5♣ /♣ar♦♠ hoping to hit gin on the flop and stack somebody. When these pushbots shove all-in I cannot call, and it keeps me from getting to my intended target as well. It just totally takes me out of my game.
Playing more limit was an easy choice considering the training site I belong to has Nick Grudzien and Bryce Paradis, two of the best limit hold’em players in the world, making the videos. I have watched hours and hours of their play and it has been a tremendous learning experience. I have adopted a TAG style for limit now, my preflop raise has gone from about 5% to about 20% and my VPIP has gone from about 40% down to about 30% or so. I am also much more comfortable playing out of the blinds now which really helps considering they make up over a third of my total hands played. In limit you must defend your blinds much more than in no limit and this is even more important shorthanded. I have learned to use my opponents tendencies to put them on a range of hands. I can then take that range and use pokerstove to figure out how much equity my hand has against that range. It is so nice to know why to make a play rather than just looking at a chart saying play these hands from this position.
I have learned a lot, but I also have a lot to learn. One of the things stressed in the videos is to be aggressive. I have done a very good job of this, maybe too good. I have noticed a trend lately. It seems that I get up early in a session with brute force, raising preflop and then firing away whether I hit or not and getting a lot of folds. This works for a while but the longer I am there it seems the less pots I pick up unimproved. It seems that after a while I will raise from the button with a hand like ♣ar♦♠ A♠ J♠ /♣ar♦♠ an♦ get ♣alle♦ by t♥e big blin♦. T♥e flop ♣ome♠ ♣ar♦♠ q♥ 6♣ 4♠ /♣ar♦♠ an♦ t♥e big blin♦ ♣♥e♣k♠, I bet an♦ ♥e ♣all♠. T♥e turn i♠ t♥e ♣ar♦♠ t♠ /♣ar♦♠ an♦ we get t♥e ♠ame ♣♥e♣k-bet-♣all a♣tion. T♥e river i♠ ♠omet♥ing like ♣ar♦♠ 3♣ /♣ar♦♠ an♦ I fire t♥e t♥ir♦ bullet an♦ get ♣alle♦ ♦own by ♣ar♦♠ K♥ 6♥ /♣ar♦♠.
When it gets to this point I am kind of lost. I think I need to try to mix up my play and find a sweet spot where I don’t get called down as lightly. When I enter a hand my foot is on the pedal and I rarely slow down. This works for a bit but players get tired of it and start fighting back. I am going to really try to figure out what my opponents are calling me with on the flop. In the hand above there were no obvious draws so I have to think the big blind caught some kind of weak made hand or maybe he was hanging around with an overcard. I didn’t, I simply tried to represent a Queen and it didn’t work because I am always firing.
I need to find some balance in my play. Betting too often isn’t as bad a mistake as checking too often, but it is still exploitable. I still think that I should be c-betting the flop heads up almost every time I am the preflop raiser. What I need to work on is figuring out what hands my opponent could be calling with. I also need to keep my table image in mind while I am playing. I play so aggressive that even when I make a big hand like a set it doesn’t get shown down very often and even though I know I had a hand my opponents have no idea. They get curious, and curious opponents call you down. It only takes you getting caught three-barreling one time to ruin your image.
So what do I learn from all this? I need to work on my turn play for one. I am going to concentrate on narrowing my opponents possible hands down more given the information available. I am going to try to figure out which of my opponents are determined to call me down and take free cards on the turn when I am drawing and value bet them to death with my made hands. I am also going to keep an eye on how many hands I am winning without a showdown, and the higher that number gets the less semi-bluffing I am going to do. I am playing much better on the cheap streets, now I need to get to work on the expensive ones.
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longclaw, there is no recipe for these hands. Whether to b/f or c/c on the river is totally opponent dependent. If opponent is unknown, opting for aggression is hardly ever a mistake. Just make a note what he calls down with and move on. You played it fine.