Live Play - Help needed + a cpl of interesting spots

[jipster]

I ventured to the Grosvenor Vic to play some omaha and found the game quite good.

Now my online play consists of LAG style value raising preflop and betting people off hands if i miss, or reperesenting hands etc etc; standard stuff.

Now in this live game (£1 ante; £3 min bring in) there wasn't much raising preflop from all but 3 of us on 8max table....

So i would raise with jj98ds to get some value in (almost always 4 or more to the flop played to one raise); miss and have to give up facing a bet or a horrific board etc.

I basically limped very little; about 16% of hands; with 1/2 of that me raising.

I initially bought in for 250 and lost it; then same again after doubling up; then 500

Now given the stacks weren't especially deep (£250 average) in what is essentailly a 5-5 game; i should have played a much more slotboom-aligned game; limp reraising with quality hands rather than put the first bet in with mediocre hands, etc....

Now my friend was also playing; and he was in 100% of hands; he came away a big winner, plus £2k. Now he is excellent at reading players and reading bets and didn't show down any silly hands (as in any big hands he had it).

We had a big discussion afterwards over whether my style of play is correct FOR THAT GAME; i tried to be LAGgy; ended up being TAGgy preflop and NIT tight thereafter!

So my question(s);

Should i be, like my friend, looking to play almost every flop and rely on my hand reading ability and odds knowledge postflop; or should i stick with a TAG/LAG style that I'm both used to and comfortable with?

How do i adapt?

So, a few situations occured where i felt i played less than optimally (easy in hindsight!):

They all occurred with the same guy; who effectively has me covered at all points;

Now he had been very active; had dropped 2 buyins of £200 and £300 and was on tilt... also he assumed every time i raised i had AA and was reraising me to isolate OFTEN...

I held AKJ7 DS and raised; a small stack pushed and villain and my friend cold call; at this stage its costing me 1/6th of my total stack but i can effectively move all in pre here.

Note: the short stack could and did have rags and i wasn't concerned about being up against AA or KK

I opted to call and folded on a ten high flop when my J high diamond draw was good (i just about had odds against his range)...

So that set me up; i felt i could and should have pushed preflop given my opponents ranges im likely good 90%+ of the time; I'm definitely not in terrible shape against the big stacks.... hindsight again!

2nd situation i had raised with AJ107 DS (not a powerhous by any means!) and got reraised by my target; Now he had been 3-betting me light often; again i felt my hand against his range was good so i pushed; only to come up against AA [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] Nice

The 3rd situation occurred when i held QJ 98 DS; (now that is a powerhouse!)

I raised; target reshipped; my friend cold calls the 85 quid; a short stack moves in for 40 of it; i re push for 300 or so and the target calls all in; my friend gets out of the way.

Turns out i'm up against AA77 from the small stack and KK53 DS by my target; I'm happy to race. Only it turned out his kk double suits matched my double suits and i was actually in trouble, only 35% equity in the big sidepot...


Now i felt i was 'outplayed' in the sense that my opponent got me to stick my money in when i had the worst of it.

I felt i was unlucky to have repushed in situations where im normally not behind by far (even in situation 2 if he has AA i still approach 40%); could have been ahead by a large margin; or am 50/50;


I mean by that i was unlucky to find myself in these spots; and i especially to find a real quality double suited hand and have both my flushes dominated by KK; who stated out loud 'you must have Aces' and called anyway!


Sorry for rambling guys; i hope you took it all in

Just to remind those of you that have read the whole post through; i'm more concerned with how my preflop strategy should change in accordance with the game; the examples are there for me to blow off steam; and for readers to understand the game and understand my decisions.

Thanks