eigenvalue
04-15-2007, 09:07 AM
This is my second post about moving up from the micro stakes to the short stakes. I posted the first part 2 weeks ago. Now here are my experiences and thoughts after these first 2 weeks. I will continue these posts, planning to make at least a third one when I’m sure that I’m able to beat the new level consistantly or if I’m forced to move down again.
At the moment, I’m down 1.5 buy-ins (300 BB) at NL $.50/$1 with 200BB stacks. I got sooner familiar with the new level than I thought, though I’m down these 1.5 buy-ins. Is it the tougher competition or just bad luck? Difficult to evaluate, but I think it’s 25% tougher competition and 75% bad luck at the moment. In the last week, I had horrible sessions, everyone and her mother was drawing against me, especially 3-5 outers on the turn hurt me again and again and again, I couldn’t win any important pot with KK-TT, only AA was good. And hitting a raised flop with AK or AQ? How does that feel like? I can’t remember!
But this post is not about bad beats or how terrible poker sometimes can be – everybody reading this already knows it. I want to share my experiences and thoughts in moving up from micro limits to lower limits. What are the differences in my experience, where do you have to watch out? What’s more or less the same? So here are my impressions, based on 50 hours 3-tabling with a loss per hour of $ 5.391:
Differences:
(1) River betting patterns: So far I think here is the biggest difference between NL $.25/$.5 and NL $.5/$1. There are less players that try to trap you that hope for a stupid check-raise instead of just value betting when they are ahead. Good value betting happens far more often. I had to adjust my game here a lot. When I was ahead, just betting something close to the pot in hoping a donk will call you no matter what doesn’t work that well any more. Suddenly, if I think I’m ahead on the river, every time I have to think about my bet size and what would be a good amount now to bet that Villain will call. This isn’t that easy anymore as it was in the lower level. And there are lots of good value bets from other players with a size close to ½ of the pot. If you call them too often thinking TPTK is good in these cases, ohoh, be aware and think twice!
(2) Reraises: As I expected, reraising is more common and happens more often than in the lower limits. I have a leak here and I’m still learning in these spots. In NL $.25/$.5, it happened rarely and I simply layed down my hands most times if reraised. Now, I still do so, but I have to adjust my game here and get familiar in these spots. As long as I’m not, I loose some money in reraised pots. Maybe I’m even more unfamiliar in reraised pots at the moment than earlier, because so many times I entered an important reraised pot I lost, running 2 times with AK into AA, running with KK into AA on a battle BTN vs SB, loosing with AA and KK to AK. Your self confidence in these spots doesn’t improve with these experiences and every time you come close to play at least for half of your stack.
(3) Overall aggression: Players more often bet from behind in multi way pots if everyone checked to them on the flop or on the turn. It’s less likely that a multi way pot is checked the whole way down on one street. And if someone bets, it’s less likely he makes a minbet (1BB). The betting patterns are better in NL $.5/$1 than in the lower limits. In NL $.25/$.5, I often found players with the behavior of betting 1 BB on the flop, 1 BB on the turn and then making a pot sized bet or even an overbet on the river. I didn’t spot this ridiculous betting pattern in the last 2 weeks. It was so much fun in lower limits to draw to gutshots in these cases and win a huge pot in case you hit, giving up only 2 BB’s if you miss. This is no more possible now. Generally, be aware that you don’t get caught by the overall aggression. I have a leak in this spot. Sometimes, I get caught by the overall aggression which makes me overplaying some hands and betting them to far or calling one more street instead of folding a hand. It’s a little bit difficult to spot these situations in the overall heat of the battle.
(4) Flush draws: More players play them aggressively than in the micros. When I had TPTK, I got caught 2 times in the first week when I ran into donkbettors that betted a draw and hit it on the turn or river. Be aware a little bit more in these spots! Think about reraising!
(5) Thinking / Adjusting players: Don’t be afraid, but you’ll find these players more often. For example, I spotted two players that obviously searched for me, trying to sit 1 or 2 spots to my left and starting to reraise my raises after they sat down. I needed a few days until I recognized them and their behavior. Of course they spotted my leak in reraised pots, as I mentioned above. Such things never happened in lower limits to me, at least I didn’t recognize such behavior.
(6) Blind stealing: Blind stealing happens more often, too. And defending the blinds by reraising out of them, too. I still prefer to use the defence strategy from my first post instead of defending the blinds with reraising, but occassionally, I do.
(7) Stacking someone with preflop monsters: AA and KK weren’t a great deal to me in the micros. I raised preflop, if I got called I made a CB and most times I won a small to medium sized pot. Sometimes, there was heavy betting on several streets, but I’m someone who is able to lay down unimproved overpairs – hey it’s just one pair, get rid of it instead of loosing your entire stack to two pair or a set or whatever. So I rarely stacked someone with AA or KK. They were nice hands to win small or medium sized pots lots of the time but they were not the hands where I thought about stacking someone. But now, sudenly that changes. Because there’s more aggression, more reraising, because more people like to call reraises, you can build huge pots preflop by playing AA and KK very aggressively preflop. So long, my experiences with cowboys are very, very poor – but I guess it’s just bad luck. Instead of the one time mentioned above, AA held up most times and I took advantage of the overall aggression. I recommend to not slowplay AA. For example, if you raise and someone reraises in position, don’t just call. Take advantage of the overall aggression and reraise again, at best to a pot size that makes Villain pot commited if he calls. This works more often than not. So far there was now need to “hide” my aces and I won several stacks with them when most of the money went in preflop.
Similarities:
(1) Calling stations: There are still lots of players calling raises with J4s, Q6o etc. Even lots of regulars with stacks of 200BB’s call raises with trap hands like ATo, KJo, KTo and stuff like that. Nice to know, welcome to the tables!
(2) Blind battles: Still players are very poor in blind battles. You know from my first post that I complete every unraised pot with any hand from the SB. So far, noone played back at me and blind battles are always in my favor, except the one time when I ran with JJ into a short stacked AA.
(3) Strong players: So long, I never spotted a player that I feared so much that I tried to avoid him. It’s just the opposite. After 2 weeks I spot the first players that leave the table after 1 or 2 orbits as soon as I sit down, even 200BB regulars. I guess I’m doing something right as long as this happens, and it happened at every limit in every poker room so far. This makes up for the 2 players trapping me that I mentioned above.
(4) Stacking people: It’s better than in the lower limits, because of the improved possiblity of stacking people with AA (and KK) by NOT SLOWPLAYING rockets! All the other typical stacking patterns still work. Sets, betting draws, flopping monsters with trash hands, confusing opponents with donkish betting lines. I guess you should stick to every piece of your game that made you a winning player in the micros. It will not change in the small stakes, stick to your successful moves, they still will work and you still will earn money with them. And there are still lots of players that are unable to lay down TPTK or an overpair. Just yesterday. I raised UTG with 88 to 4BB, got reraised to 14BB from the SB and the flop came 872. I check, Villain moves all-in 200BBs deep. I didn’t trust my eyes!
(5) Confusing opponents / switching gears: From my first post you know that I sometimes switch gears by using a limp mode. When I moved up, I planned to not use it for the first several weeks. But I couldn’t resist and I made several try-outs so far. It worked. More than 50% of the times I was able to turn a loosing session at a table around by switching gears to limp mode. The same applies to strange betting patterns, that I use once in a while. They are still confusing opponents and there’s no need to change anything in these cases.
(6) Limpers / Minraisers: Still people like to limp, even OOP. Even some regulars with 200BB stacks open limp OOP with some hands. Welcome to the tables again, why don’t you turn your cards face up? And still there are these players that like to minraise a preflop monster OOP. Make a note if you spot them and next time you know exactly what’s going on. Yes, I know, I open limp, too. But this is another thing, because there’s no hand range, that you can assign to me, if I’m in that mode.
(7) Bad beats: There’s no limit where you can get rid of them, isn’t it terrible? No, it isn’t! As long as bad beats put other players sooner on tilt as us, bad beats will be in our favor. I saw several tilting players the last 2 weeks. In the middle of last week, I think I was at least close to tilting myself, overplaying some hands in some spots. It was the first time this year that I thought about stop playing 6 max for a few days, not because of the new limit but because coming close to tilt. One more terrible session and I would have played nothing else than tournaments for a few days. At the moment, I got my usual patience back and I’m on a little winning streak, cutting my losses on the way to beat NL $.5 / $1 – at least I hope so.
Now, here’s the end of my post. I don’t expect everyone will agree with everything I said or with everything I pointed out. But as in my first post, I hope it will help people moving up or making up their mind when trying to move up. Other people may have made some different experiences, but I think, my thoughts and experiences will be helpful to many other players.
At the moment, I’m down 1.5 buy-ins (300 BB) at NL $.50/$1 with 200BB stacks. I got sooner familiar with the new level than I thought, though I’m down these 1.5 buy-ins. Is it the tougher competition or just bad luck? Difficult to evaluate, but I think it’s 25% tougher competition and 75% bad luck at the moment. In the last week, I had horrible sessions, everyone and her mother was drawing against me, especially 3-5 outers on the turn hurt me again and again and again, I couldn’t win any important pot with KK-TT, only AA was good. And hitting a raised flop with AK or AQ? How does that feel like? I can’t remember!
But this post is not about bad beats or how terrible poker sometimes can be – everybody reading this already knows it. I want to share my experiences and thoughts in moving up from micro limits to lower limits. What are the differences in my experience, where do you have to watch out? What’s more or less the same? So here are my impressions, based on 50 hours 3-tabling with a loss per hour of $ 5.391:
Differences:
(1) River betting patterns: So far I think here is the biggest difference between NL $.25/$.5 and NL $.5/$1. There are less players that try to trap you that hope for a stupid check-raise instead of just value betting when they are ahead. Good value betting happens far more often. I had to adjust my game here a lot. When I was ahead, just betting something close to the pot in hoping a donk will call you no matter what doesn’t work that well any more. Suddenly, if I think I’m ahead on the river, every time I have to think about my bet size and what would be a good amount now to bet that Villain will call. This isn’t that easy anymore as it was in the lower level. And there are lots of good value bets from other players with a size close to ½ of the pot. If you call them too often thinking TPTK is good in these cases, ohoh, be aware and think twice!
(2) Reraises: As I expected, reraising is more common and happens more often than in the lower limits. I have a leak here and I’m still learning in these spots. In NL $.25/$.5, it happened rarely and I simply layed down my hands most times if reraised. Now, I still do so, but I have to adjust my game here and get familiar in these spots. As long as I’m not, I loose some money in reraised pots. Maybe I’m even more unfamiliar in reraised pots at the moment than earlier, because so many times I entered an important reraised pot I lost, running 2 times with AK into AA, running with KK into AA on a battle BTN vs SB, loosing with AA and KK to AK. Your self confidence in these spots doesn’t improve with these experiences and every time you come close to play at least for half of your stack.
(3) Overall aggression: Players more often bet from behind in multi way pots if everyone checked to them on the flop or on the turn. It’s less likely that a multi way pot is checked the whole way down on one street. And if someone bets, it’s less likely he makes a minbet (1BB). The betting patterns are better in NL $.5/$1 than in the lower limits. In NL $.25/$.5, I often found players with the behavior of betting 1 BB on the flop, 1 BB on the turn and then making a pot sized bet or even an overbet on the river. I didn’t spot this ridiculous betting pattern in the last 2 weeks. It was so much fun in lower limits to draw to gutshots in these cases and win a huge pot in case you hit, giving up only 2 BB’s if you miss. This is no more possible now. Generally, be aware that you don’t get caught by the overall aggression. I have a leak in this spot. Sometimes, I get caught by the overall aggression which makes me overplaying some hands and betting them to far or calling one more street instead of folding a hand. It’s a little bit difficult to spot these situations in the overall heat of the battle.
(4) Flush draws: More players play them aggressively than in the micros. When I had TPTK, I got caught 2 times in the first week when I ran into donkbettors that betted a draw and hit it on the turn or river. Be aware a little bit more in these spots! Think about reraising!
(5) Thinking / Adjusting players: Don’t be afraid, but you’ll find these players more often. For example, I spotted two players that obviously searched for me, trying to sit 1 or 2 spots to my left and starting to reraise my raises after they sat down. I needed a few days until I recognized them and their behavior. Of course they spotted my leak in reraised pots, as I mentioned above. Such things never happened in lower limits to me, at least I didn’t recognize such behavior.
(6) Blind stealing: Blind stealing happens more often, too. And defending the blinds by reraising out of them, too. I still prefer to use the defence strategy from my first post instead of defending the blinds with reraising, but occassionally, I do.
(7) Stacking someone with preflop monsters: AA and KK weren’t a great deal to me in the micros. I raised preflop, if I got called I made a CB and most times I won a small to medium sized pot. Sometimes, there was heavy betting on several streets, but I’m someone who is able to lay down unimproved overpairs – hey it’s just one pair, get rid of it instead of loosing your entire stack to two pair or a set or whatever. So I rarely stacked someone with AA or KK. They were nice hands to win small or medium sized pots lots of the time but they were not the hands where I thought about stacking someone. But now, sudenly that changes. Because there’s more aggression, more reraising, because more people like to call reraises, you can build huge pots preflop by playing AA and KK very aggressively preflop. So long, my experiences with cowboys are very, very poor – but I guess it’s just bad luck. Instead of the one time mentioned above, AA held up most times and I took advantage of the overall aggression. I recommend to not slowplay AA. For example, if you raise and someone reraises in position, don’t just call. Take advantage of the overall aggression and reraise again, at best to a pot size that makes Villain pot commited if he calls. This works more often than not. So far there was now need to “hide” my aces and I won several stacks with them when most of the money went in preflop.
Similarities:
(1) Calling stations: There are still lots of players calling raises with J4s, Q6o etc. Even lots of regulars with stacks of 200BB’s call raises with trap hands like ATo, KJo, KTo and stuff like that. Nice to know, welcome to the tables!
(2) Blind battles: Still players are very poor in blind battles. You know from my first post that I complete every unraised pot with any hand from the SB. So far, noone played back at me and blind battles are always in my favor, except the one time when I ran with JJ into a short stacked AA.
(3) Strong players: So long, I never spotted a player that I feared so much that I tried to avoid him. It’s just the opposite. After 2 weeks I spot the first players that leave the table after 1 or 2 orbits as soon as I sit down, even 200BB regulars. I guess I’m doing something right as long as this happens, and it happened at every limit in every poker room so far. This makes up for the 2 players trapping me that I mentioned above.
(4) Stacking people: It’s better than in the lower limits, because of the improved possiblity of stacking people with AA (and KK) by NOT SLOWPLAYING rockets! All the other typical stacking patterns still work. Sets, betting draws, flopping monsters with trash hands, confusing opponents with donkish betting lines. I guess you should stick to every piece of your game that made you a winning player in the micros. It will not change in the small stakes, stick to your successful moves, they still will work and you still will earn money with them. And there are still lots of players that are unable to lay down TPTK or an overpair. Just yesterday. I raised UTG with 88 to 4BB, got reraised to 14BB from the SB and the flop came 872. I check, Villain moves all-in 200BBs deep. I didn’t trust my eyes!
(5) Confusing opponents / switching gears: From my first post you know that I sometimes switch gears by using a limp mode. When I moved up, I planned to not use it for the first several weeks. But I couldn’t resist and I made several try-outs so far. It worked. More than 50% of the times I was able to turn a loosing session at a table around by switching gears to limp mode. The same applies to strange betting patterns, that I use once in a while. They are still confusing opponents and there’s no need to change anything in these cases.
(6) Limpers / Minraisers: Still people like to limp, even OOP. Even some regulars with 200BB stacks open limp OOP with some hands. Welcome to the tables again, why don’t you turn your cards face up? And still there are these players that like to minraise a preflop monster OOP. Make a note if you spot them and next time you know exactly what’s going on. Yes, I know, I open limp, too. But this is another thing, because there’s no hand range, that you can assign to me, if I’m in that mode.
(7) Bad beats: There’s no limit where you can get rid of them, isn’t it terrible? No, it isn’t! As long as bad beats put other players sooner on tilt as us, bad beats will be in our favor. I saw several tilting players the last 2 weeks. In the middle of last week, I think I was at least close to tilting myself, overplaying some hands in some spots. It was the first time this year that I thought about stop playing 6 max for a few days, not because of the new limit but because coming close to tilt. One more terrible session and I would have played nothing else than tournaments for a few days. At the moment, I got my usual patience back and I’m on a little winning streak, cutting my losses on the way to beat NL $.5 / $1 – at least I hope so.
Now, here’s the end of my post. I don’t expect everyone will agree with everything I said or with everything I pointed out. But as in my first post, I hope it will help people moving up or making up their mind when trying to move up. Other people may have made some different experiences, but I think, my thoughts and experiences will be helpful to many other players.