What to look for when loosing up

[Mr_Pathetic]

I am about to make my debut at NL10 and while I have a solid NAG/TAG game (22/18-17/15) I feel I am probably going to run into a few more players who play tighter, fold a little more postflop, and in general play a bit better then "zomg I got third pair he bets alot I call".

What I am looking for is characteristics of play both pre and postflop that will allow me to open up. I don't want to fall into the "to get to 25/20 I need to open SCs in more then button and cutoff" type thinking. Quite frankly I do not care what my stats are as I feel that doesn't matter. What I care about is the following...

I want to go about it thinking "this guy will do this, this, this etc so that will allow me to do this this this etc. What I need to do is find out the this's.

Now this is easy when you know a guy is playing 18/15 and will not play back at you. If I am in hands with people who play that way I am normally very loose. But it is the guys who are significantly looser preflop (callPFR 20-30% of time) but somewhat tight postflop who I would like to be able to read and steal from.

So what criteria other then he folds to cbets and folds to turn bets alot that you look for? I am inclined to double barrel scare cards and do the standard bluffy nature that I am accustomed to or should I instead be looking for places to value bet thinly and leave the bluffing of scare cards alone.

Maybe the best thing to do is find a balance b/t the two based off of board texture, my image, opponents level of thinking and skill, and all the contextual clues that have built up while me and the opponent have been in the hand?

I feel like this type of playing needs to be practiced while it is still cheap before I find myself playing significantly higher. If it is any help my line of thought in a hand goes this far "I have my hand etc, I think villain has these hands, and I think villain thinks I have these hands." Not sure what level that is but thats how I do it.

[shoxbb6]

If you're opening up, play only a couple of tables until you get used to being loose. Pay attention to everything, anytime someone donk bets, how fast someone checks, etc, takes notes on all of that. If you have datamined hands, look through your database and look at any hands you have on them, see if they are positionally aware. As far as hands, play tight-semitight utg but play like a maniac on the button/co, abuse limpers, abuse the blinds. But do not cbet as much, cbet much less especially if you are cbetting nearly 100% of the time. Use the search feature for all the players and see how many tables they are playing to have a general idea of how much they are paying attention.

The rest of loosening up is being able to see who is adapting to your play, pay attention to what you showdown. If you feel you are getting played back at too much, start being tricky or more aggro, check back strong made hands on the flop instead of cbetting, etc. And most importantly, use your reads that you have gotten from paying attention.

[Mr_Pathetic]

I only play 3 tables so I am always able to see all the action in every hand, might go back to 2 or maybe just 1 for learning purposes. I probably take too many notes. ANy big pot I yank a HH if I didn't see it all and make notes. I cbet 65-75% of time and never do so automatically. Search feature is something I overlook, why IDK. I think my biggest issue will be noticing who is adapting to me and figuring out the correct adaption to make for myself in order to profit from them. That and knowing when to stop pumping money into the pot.

This should yield some very interesting hands. I got a 26bi roll for NL10 so I do have a good cushion. Seems like my last 32k hands at NL5 I was too loose from button as I won about half as much there as cutoff. I had a few hands I should have folded but didn't and it cost me greatly. But my small blind was profitable /images/graemlins/smile.gif.