A concept a day
 

Post a poker concept you would like to see some discussion on. You can bump this thread every day with a different concept.

Hope this generates some interest and good discussion.

I will start:
1) Changing gears during a session

Re: A concept a day
 

2) Reraising preflop. It's purposes/effects both instantly and long term.

Re: A concept a day
 

1)People seem to think you should consciously be changing gears, I don't. You should always always be thinking about what your table image is at any given time and what individual players think about you. Using some game theory type thinking, you adjust to what they think you're doing and naturally you change gears.

Re: A concept a day
 

I'm pretty sure you should be changing gears conciously. I mean, the reason you are changing gears is because you've noticed a pattern/change in the table dynamics and you need to adapt to it, so how isn't that concious.

I also don't see the need for game theory for changing gears, although I admittedly don't know [censored] about game theory.

Re: A concept a day
 

I constantly change gears during a session.
If i was too tight on one table, i may do something like 4bet 68s vs a solid player.
If i recently caught bluffing and was stealing blinds too frequently, i'd tight down and wait for a hand to play.

It also works in opposite directions, if i see a player getting out of line, i'd 3bet him more often.But if a nit suddenly 4best, i might laydown QQ preflop, if i don't get the proper set odds...etc etc.

Re: A concept a day
 

As far as changing gears I think you should start a session playing ABC poker, for the most part. This may seem simple but for the first few trips around the table you need to adopt a table feel, what players raise light in late position, what players 3 bet light, what players you can value bet the hell out of,etc.

Then you can adjust to that and start making moves. Coming out 3 betting late position raisers with air 5 hands into the table is cause for disaster because you generally have no idea if these players are capable of folding good or even marginal hands preflop to the moves you make with air.

Re: A concept a day
 

[ QUOTE ]
As far as changing gears I think you should start a session playing ABC poker, for the most part. This may seem simple but for the first few trips around the table you need to adopt a table feel, what players raise light in late position, what players 3 bet light, what players you can value bet the hell out of,etc.

Then you can adjust to that and start making moves. Coming out 3 betting late position raisers with air 5 hands into the table is cause for disaster because you generally have no idea if these players are capable of folding good or even marginal hands preflop to the moves you make with air.

[/ QUOTE ]

I really think this might be the most useful thing said so far. This doesn't just apply to being the aggresor, but also taking the more passive route when facing tough decisions vs. an unknown when you don't know what they're capable of. I find this especially true when decent hands get turned into bluff catchers (weak top pair OOP gets raised by an unknown heads up) where I'm best off just mucking at this point in the session. Although it might be a +EV situation to call down vs. certain opponents, against an unknown it's really just a variance jump with minimal impact on your bottom line. This early in a session, I'd prefer not to build that image.

Re: A concept a day
 

[ QUOTE ]
I'm pretty sure you should be changing gears conciously. I mean, the reason you are changing gears is because you've noticed a pattern/change in the table dynamics and you need to adapt to it, so how isn't that concious.

I also don't see the need for game theory for changing gears, although I admittedly don't know [censored] about game theory.

[/ QUOTE ]

you always look for profitable situations in which to win pots, when you have the image of a tight player not making moves, then there should be many profitable situations to make moves, but as you make more moves you sense that your image has changed to loose and capable of bluffs, so now the number of profitable bluffing situations decreases though value betting ones increase. However, just because you in fact are making moves doesn't mean your image has changed, your opponents might not know you're doing it. In this way you just go with the flow, and it's not really like, ok I've played tight for 45 mins I should play loose now. None of that is really groundbreaking, but I feel like a lot of people randomly change gears in certain spots just because you're supposed to change gears.

Re: A concept a day
 

[ QUOTE ]
I'm pretty sure you should be changing gears conciously. I mean, the reason you are changing gears is because you've noticed a pattern/change in the table dynamics and you need to adapt to it, so how isn't that concious.


[/ QUOTE ]

also i don't think I'm disagreeing with this at all.

Re: A concept a day
 

Changing gears in generally more of a tourney concept for when the blinds go up. You will probably get better responses in the MTT forum.