Step into the tee box

[Jason Strasser (strassa2)]

I go golfing about once every three of four weeks and I am abominable. I bought these clubs with some poker money and I go out there and sit there with my fancy driver and nice Calloway irons and I stink up the golf course. Some days my driver will hit a screaming ant-killing drive, some days it will hit pop fly’s to center field. When I’m on the fringe, I take out my fancy chipper and scald the ball over the green.

I often go out golfing with my friend Kyle, and he is less coordinated and athletic than I am, but he beats me up. He has a little more experience golfing, but there is no reason this fat slob should be beating me in golf. He plays a very interesting game, though, he only really hits clubs that he’s comfortable with. He’ll usually tee it up with a 3-wood or even a 5-iron. He makes the bump and run shot when it’s clearly better to try to loft the ball onto the green. He will hit a 6-iron for his second shot on a par 5, even though he should be hitting his fairway wood or a lower iron.

We play for little money, but I feel like I’m well on my way putting his kids through college. I go out there, try to use the correct club and fail. He goes out there hitting half his damn shots with a 5-iron and destroys me.

So, what’s the moral? Part of the reason I do not like this MTT board is that when a low-limit hand is posted, people make decisions taking into account their terrible competition. They adjust, correctly, to 5$ online NL holdem competition, and make plays that will work all day against them (make top pair and check raise!!! Play very tight early so that all the idiots beat each other up!!! Etc.). It’s like Kyle with his damn 5-iron. He can beat a terrible golfer (me) with this strategy.

However, when it comes to improving, you are not going to get very far with Kyle’s strategy. Until he takes out that big driver or learns to find the stroke with his low iron, his ability to improve will be stunted. I could probably compete with him if I got good with one club and hit most of my shots with it. I would however, never get that much better. I’d only get as good as my five-iron would let me.

You don’t want to be a $5, $10, $200 player forever. You don’t want to be just a tournament player forever. You don’t just want to understand NL holdem forever. You want to be the best at everything. That should be your goal, at least. Part of being good is adjusting to your competition. But people here are often too caught up with figuring out how to beat lowly idiots then actually making progress in their game.

People always ask me how to get better. I took a strategy where I broke the game down to its simplest form (IMO): heads up poker. When you play someone heads up, decisions are a dime a dozen, and if you have holes than players will exploit them. You also get practice hand reading and figuring out your opponent. If you want to get better, find someone better than you and play them heads up. I spend a decent amount of time playing HU versus friends and poker acquaintances that want to improve. I also ask players better than I am to play me heads up. There is nothing better than just being beaten by a better player.

By no means am I telling people to stop talking about adjusting to poor players. I’m just telling you to open up your damn eyes to the bigger picture. It’s gotten to the point now where when I play any online tournament (with a few exceptions) the competition is just terrible compared to my usual 10-20 NL game. It is not hard transitioning down this ladder. When people say that tournament players are good at exploiting bad players, they are right. But give me a break, I’d take any top overall poker player over any ‘tourney expert’ in a tourney. For those WPT freaks out there, I’d put my money on a Chau Giang, Eli Erezra, Chip Reese, etc. type player over anyone you’re seeing on TV. The skill of beating bad players that tournament experts have is common sense for anyone good at poker.

So, whats the point of all this. As you browse 2p2 try to get better, but in a broader sense. Don’t get too caught up with how to win your small-buyin multis as you get started in poker, figure out how to play good poker. Even if you aren’t directly applying the knowledge because the players you are up against are terrible FPP players, you need to spend the chunk of your time on two plus two learning poker.

The second point is that—and I hope this doesn’t flood my PM box—is that the best aspect of two plus two are not the posts themselves, but the posters themselves. Having MLG, El Diablo, and whoever else to have a quick debate is invaluable. I have better discussions over aim then I ever have on 2p2.

Get to know better players. Pick their brain. Beg them to play you heads up. Send them hands and ask them to give you their thoughts. But most of all, don’t get used to your five iron.

-Jason Strasser

[XXXNoahXXX]

well said. good analogy.

[Exitonly]

goood stuff. i enjoyed reading that.

so.. uh .. wanna play heads up?
[img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[Arnfinn Madsen]

Interesting post, Strassa. I am a limit player, that lurks around this forum because he is a wannabe big tourney player.

In limit I have always had a philosophy somewhat similar to yours, implemented by never conducting table- and/or seat-selection and never leaving a table due to finding the other players too tough making playing there -EV. This has resulted in playing 3-handed losing big against 2 shorthanded sharks totally outplaying me, but it has improved my game significantly, and has made me confident when facing all sorts of players.

But, that is for ring game and I play at level where I know my "normal" winnings will always finance it, but how could you do something similar in MTTs? If you play $5-tourneys you will be up against mostly donks making your learning curve relatively flat, and playing $200-tourneys to learn will be too expensive for most of the $5-tourney players.

[Yeti]

Delete this immediately and submit it for next months magazine.

[Jason Strasser (strassa2)]

[ QUOTE ]
If you play $5-tourneys you will be up against mostly donks making your learning curve relatively flat, and playing $200-tourneys to learn will be too expensive for most of the $5-tourney players.

[/ QUOTE ]

Play heads up. Talk to better players. Get them to play you. Work on your game and take shots at bigger games, move up faster.

[The Don]

Great analogy. The same thing happened with my friend and I in ping pong. He would destroy me while I mastered the art of controlling the spin of the ball for a few hundred games. After a while, I got to the point where I would beat him every single time.

Of course, for a lot of people there is the fear factor. Pride is a lot different than money to some. As you implied, though, those who take chances and think outside the box will always be the most successful.

[Arnfinn Madsen]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If you play $5-tourneys you will be up against mostly donks making your learning curve relatively flat, and playing $200-tourneys to learn will be too expensive for most of the $5-tourney players.

[/ QUOTE ]

Play heads up. Talk to better players. Get them to play you. Work on your game and take shots at bigger games, move up faster.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ic, I should have understood from your post I guess. I played live cash game yesterday against 5-6 noobs, and after every hand I was involved I showed them my cards and told them my thoughts on every street (things like betting the pot both on turn and river with unpaired 56 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], opponent folding, then I flip the cards over, telling him that when he checked on the flop I knew he had overs since he always play them that way while when he has pairs he bets). I think they learned a lot from that, and even if it was very -EV for them to play me, they have invited me to come play with them tomorrow. I like this attitude to the game so much, that I will probably go play there. I could see them improving throughout the session (confirming your theory) and I guess they learn more from 1 session like this than from playing 20 tourneys.

[Arnfinn Madsen]

Sorry for reducing the average post quality of this thread, since your 1st post can not be topped, but you put word to something I have had on my mind for a long time. Much of the philosophy of the limit forums on 2+2 goes something like:
-Find a limit at which you know you have high winrate
-Find the site at that limit with the worst players
-Find the table with the worst players
-Leave the table if the fishies leave and good players sit down

I have always thought to myself that any player following that philosophy will never become a very good player. Every time I have touched on that string, I have gotten flamed though, so I have stopped doing it. When I read the STT- and MTT-forums I get my spirit back since tourney players seems to be competitive and really interested in finding out how to play against good players since they know they can not base their playing on avoiding them.

Kudos to MTT [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img].

[Jason Strasser (strassa2)]

I in now way am advocating bad game selection.

When I say play a good player HU, I mean play them for money that doesnt mean anything. If you see me playing Yahtzem in a $50 HU sng, that's whats going on.

-Jason