The Well: Aba20

[aba20]

[ QUOTE ]
Aba,

thanks for doing this.

Can you give us a quick summary of your poker career? How did you move up? Did you have a certain number of buy-ins for each level or just take a lot of shots? When you first moved up did you feel like you could beat the high levels, or were you outclassed at first and had to improve?

At SSNL I feel like 90% of my profit comes from targetting fish and maybe 10% comes from bad TAGs, does that balance change at high levels? eg. to beat 25/50 do you have to profitable vs. the regulars, or is it okay to just be break-even against them and make the profit from the fishes?

Did you play rugby for SB? Are you injured? (I played wing for SLO)

It also seems like at the highest level a lot of the +EV situations come when someone like Matusow or Mahatma go on mega-tilt. Do you have any tricks/rituals to keep yourself off tilt?

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I summarized my career in a bbv thread "My story", I am sure someone can link it.

I think every player has weakness which can be exploited. Obvously some players are much more easily explotied than others. Finding a good fish is always nice but palying in tough games is a necesity as you move up. You need to beable to beat the regs to have good consistent sucess in the games. That said there are those who jump up when there is a big fish in the game and drop down when the game is tough. This is fine, but you will never be a top level player if you can't beat the tough opponents.

I played rugby for UCSB for five years, but I am no longer eligble. We had some great matches against you guys as you were always the team to beat in so cal.

They can be profitable when tilting but they are still good players even when on tilt (Mike less than mahatma).

[poincaraux]

First of all, thanks for doing this!

Can you give some examples of ways in which smart SSNL players don't really seem to understand the game?

Have you looked at any of the posts in the SSNL Master Sticky thread? Can you give your thoughts on any of them?

What are some examples of "AHA" moments you've had, either via 2+2 posts or other discussions about poker?

[los_toros]

Great responses so far and thanks for posting in the well...

What did you play on the rugby pitch?

Did you ever play Caltech RFU? I don't think UCSB is ever in our schedule but I'm interested to know if you've heard of us.

[aba20]

[ QUOTE ]
aba,

thanks for doing this.

How many hands of $25NL-$200NL do you think you played?

Could you maybe try to point out some things that we don't do enough at these levels and also maybe do too much?

Are you ever going to play the 25/50 game on PP?

Who is the toughest regular(s) you play against and who do you find the easiest?

Can you maybe talk a bit about cbeting and frequencies at SSNL and HSNL and also playing back at cbets

thanks

[/ QUOTE ]

Not to many probably 40Kish.

Value bet and don't slow play. These two things are very important.

I really hate party poker, once I graduated from 10/20 I have never had any desire to play there. I much prefer playing 25/50 on stars. I might play again (I played a few thousand ahnds there) once party opens the 6-max 25/50 tables but probably not until then.

There are alot of really good players that I play against and some are better in diferent situations. When the games get 3-4 handed I think ozzy87 is the best on the internet. He is very very good.

Always bet. I cannont stress the importance of aggesion in NL holdem. I play back at continuation bets a ceratian % of the time depending on table contiations. Unfortunaly there are no hard set rules and opponets perception of me has a huge impact on my decision making.

[poincaraux]

A couple more: at SSNL, we can gain a pretty big edge by just not doing obviously dumb things most of the time. You play against a lot of tough players all the time. What sorts of things do you think give you an edge over these tough players?

What are some counterintuitive things you've learned that help you out? (for me, things like just how strong combo draws are, and how much of a difference there is between saying someone's range is "AA,KK" or "AA,KK,AK," but feel free to answer this one however you want!)

[gimmetheloot]

my whole BR wont allow me to sit at the 100/200NL [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

[sudic]

Thanks for your time Aba20 !

I'm kind of a weak tight player.

What's the best book, DVD, recipe for learning aggression?

[aba20]

[ QUOTE ]
Sorry, I'll explain my question re: shot taking better. I now have more than 20 buy-ins for my level, so do I take a shot w/ whatever I have over the 20? Or wait until 30? Or 40 and move for good? I'm just curious since i've never moved up to the 200 before and want to give it a fair shot yet not destroy my br.

[/ QUOTE ]

Aren't you friends with mrfeelnothin? I would reccomend asking his advice as he has had a lot of sucess. I always aggressively move up in limits as I play my best when it hurts to lose (Soemthing phil ivey said). Once you get complacent at the level you are at it is very easy to fall into a rut and not play your A game. If you have 20BI for the next level I woudl defenitly take a hsot. I would probably have taken a 3 BI shot once I had 15 buyins for the next level. Somtimes when moving up yo udont' makeit the fist time. I know it took me many many tries to finally get going at 10/20. I would take a shot at 400NL once I had 6K and I would hope down if I dipped below 4.5K.

[ChipStorm]

aba, thanks for taking the grilling. Having you in the well, right on the tails of El Diablo, is a helluva learning opportunity for us.

One thing El D said in the well (and Gigabet has said in posts) is that in every single hand, he tries to put his opponent on an exact holding. Do you do the same?

I suck at hand reading and I suspect so do many SSNLers. What are your thoughts on how improve one's hand reading skills -- anything more to it than just putting in the effort?

[aba20]

[ QUOTE ]
Is hand reading the key skill in NL?
What is the best way to get better at it - is 1/2 tabling and focussing real hard better than double the hands but 4 tabling so concentrating 1/2 as much per hand?

[/ QUOTE ]

Hand reading is very important but having a feel of where you are in a hand is also very important. THis allows you to value bet with impunity and avoid traps set by your tricky opponents. tHe only way to get these skills is from alot of palying. Aslo concentration is key. Right now I am not concentrating on my games and I am defentily not playing my best. I woudl reccomend always being as focused as possible when playing and only paly 3-4 tables at a time.