T-3 days and counting...
I couldn't have picked a better time for my game to step up to the next level. I've only had two losing days in the past 14 days! I'm currently riding my best poker run ever. The funny thing is, it's hard to tell whether I'm just playing better, or getting lucky. My play style has definitly changed over the past month. I've read most of Harringtons book on tournament play and have found it to apply fairly well to ring game play as well. Basically what I've been doing is buying into a ring game and playing a tournament at the same time. This way I can play tight patient style needed in a ring game and I can play the looser, riskier (more fun!) style needed in a tournament. I play about 15% of my hands in a ring game and about 25-30% of my hands in a tournament. Tournaments are more fun also because there is more positional strategy involved than in a ring game. By positional here I mean relation of chip stacks to other players and the blinds. This isn't as big a deal in a ring game, but in a tournament, it dictates your play quite often.
So this morning I busted out of a tournament pretty early, so I sat in on a second ring game instead. This turned into a very profitable situation. ;) I ran the table and doubled up after about 30 hands before signing off. In my other ring game, I was caught bluffing on my first hand with 6 2 offsuit. I had a flush draw on the flop and wanted to scare the other guy out of the pot right away, he called, then called on the turn and again on the river. No more diamonds came out, so I never made my flush and I had put him on a flush draw, so I figured he missed as well. Turns out he had top pair. He was "shocked". My rational during this hand was that I was going to bluff at it all the way and show my hand at the end regardless. So either I hit my flush and take a decent pot, or I establish a loose agressive (read: stupid) table image. The reason I do this once in a while is because I'm actually the opposite type of player. I'm super tight and aggresive, and I want some action when I actually have a hand. So about 6 hands later I get the pocket AA's. On that first bluff hand, the winner commented how shocked he was at what I was holding. I just smiled and waited. ;) So now with my pocket AA's, I started betting hard right away, knowing that my table image was loose and would likely get called or better, raised! ;) This turned out to be the case and I ended up taking down a big pot and doubling up. Unfortunatly it was through another guy and the "shocked" guy only lost a small bet before getting out at the turn. So after I win the hand, I show the AA's. Of course I couldn't resists commenting, so I typed "Shocked?" LOL