Failing to Change Gears - Nip It In The Bud!

[Gunny Highway]

"We've got to nip this, Andy. We Have Got To Nip It In The Bud!"

That’s just what I hope this thread will help me do. Failure to change gears at the correct times has been the bane of my MTT existence. It was a problem I had and finally corrected back when I used to play a lot of MTTs. It's been awhile and I recently decided I'd start playing a lot more of them. My performance last night seems to indicate the disease is back, so I'm hoping this thread will provide some self-therapy to help me nip the problem in the bud.

Anyway, after playing very little poker for a good while, I’ve played a few MTTs the last few days. I’ve been pretty rusty, but last night I managed to build a big stack. I was gambling early, seeing a lot of flops. I was probably limping out of position a little more than I should, and cold-calling small raises in position with playable hands. I was lucky enough to catch some cards. I was 4th overall in chips, double the next stack at my table and several times bigger than anyone else.

Then I did something I used to do a few years ago back when I started playing MTTs. I kept playing like it was the first hour with 30/60 blinds. I had a big stack, but I didn’t play my stack. I didn’t change gears. I kept limping. I kept calling. I wasn’t pushing small stacks for decisions for their chips. I didn’t use targeted aggression the way a big stack should. I played like a loose passive dingleberry, and I spewed away my stack. Basically I just played like I had no idea what I was doing. Afterward, I looked back and thought, what the hell was I doing? I know better.

Anyway, this behavior was something that took me a long time to recognize (I’m not entirely sure why) and a long time to correct the first time around. I’m hoping that making this thread will help me not take so long this time.

When I played a lot of MTTs before, this failure to change gears used to be one of the most prominent flaws I saw in other players. I don’t know of good guidelines or rules of thumb for when to change gears, and did it by feel, which may be why it took so long to fix before. Maybe someone else will chime in on this.

I haven't really posted much in the strat forums for a long, long, long time. I hope this kind of thread is ok here. If not, please let me know and apologies.

[mshalen]

This is a problem that I see all the time when playing in MTTs. Just for fun check the list of top 10 stacks at the end of the first hour and then compare that list to the remaining players at the end of the second hour. How many players are still playing let alone in the top 10?

I have the same problem and it takes self awareness to overcome. Yesterday I caught myself spewing chips so I just sat out a round, walked around the house for a few minutes, got a drink and pet the dog all while having a little talk with myself. When I sat back down I was ready to play the way I know I should.

[zoobird]

I did a post a couple weeks ago (my 500th post) about taking notes on yourself as if you were one of the other players at the table. I was mostly suggesting it as a way to gain a better understanding of your table image at any given time, but it would probably also help you to identify when you're not playing the way you'd like to be. Nothing like 3 or 4 straight entries of "ep limp, folded to cbet" to make me realize I should tighten up in early position pre-flop. Or a few "raised, cbet, folded to rereraise" entries to make me either cbet less or play back at an aggressive reraiser.

[AceLuby]

Changing gears is all too important. Personally I play pretty tight early. I'll limp w/ speculative hands, but I'm not LAGGY by any stretch of the imagination. However, I know that once the blinds get over 75/150 I can take over any table I'm at. Changing to a very aggressive player here pays huge dividends. This is where I build my big stack to push over the smaller stacks later.

[2Fast]

Nice post and good topic to review. This is something I'm currently working on a lot to better my game. I haven't been falling into the serial limping with marginal hands category as much but I feel that I still tend to overdo it when I get on a roll and start running over the table with PF raises. Then when I finally meet resistance sometimes I'm willing to call too much with garbage and end up losing almost the amount I got doing all that raising. In my case, I think I just need to let it go sometimes when I'm not the aggressor and might have someone covered but don't have a real hand to call. It was interesting to read Nath's post earlier today about how he suddenly slowed down in the WSOP short-handed tournament when he folded 55 to a shortstacked all-in reraiser.

I play in the lower stakes, where naked aggression and EP raises usually don't mean as much and people will call down with almost anything sometimes, so I tend to limp when I can with marginal hands in late position and see a lot of flops early, and also to call smallish raises in position as well. But in doing this I also need to continue to make myself aware that I should not be playing every pot (like I sometimes feel like I'm doing early on esp at the 15/30 blind levels in PS MTTs) and later on that it's ok to slow down and play tight after building a decent-sized stack.