30DaysofPoker.com

An Experiment in Excessive Poker Play

It has been quite a while since I have posted, but I have found an online game that I have really been enjoying. Sportsbook.com has a “double up” six handed game, $2+0.16 buy-in that seems to work well for me. Starting chips 1,500 - blinds 10/20. Top three players win $4.00, so the rake is 7.4%. Games take about 20-30 min. to play. Since it is short handed and turbo-ish (7 min. blinds) there is plenty of loose, aggressive action for me to take advantage of. Most players seem relatively new to the game and make fundamental errors.

So, I am going to play a full day blitz of this game and see where that takes me. My beginning bank roll is $110.19 which gives me 51 buy-ins. This should be playing plenty deep for this game. There are other buy-ins for this game format at $3.24 and $5.40 but that would leave me with 34 or 20 buy-ins. 20 buy-ins is pretty borderline, so I think I will try this price out for now, and maybe play another level up next time.

My general strategy:

• Play one table only, focus, pay attention to player tendencies
• Rarely slow-play (top set, no draw on board or better), value bet a lot – most players are loose/aggro (flip it for the tighter/better opponents)
• Pick my spots strategically, no need to get carried away with chip leader when 4 handed
• Careful about calling short stack all-ins, don’t double them up needlessly, keep them down, pick on them
• If I get down in chips, Fight on! Don’t give up, Play the best I can in every situation
• If I get short stacked, play relatively straightforward – let my opponents make the mistake. Unless they take to avoiding my raises, then open up some. Pay attention to immediate odds when I am short stacked.
• Bet sizing around 50%-75% of the pot should be appropriate in most situations. This will allow me to get away from borderline situations without much damage, and still win a good portion of the pots I bet at.

Opening Round (Blinds 10/20, 25/50) - Feel free to “Junk in” for some hands (not up-downs), I am happy to speculate for the first ~10% of my stack with the chance of flopping a monster and taking a player out. The implied odds are huge here, so it makes good poker sense. Don’t bother raising to thin the field or force a big laydown, they just call when they have almost any hand any draw. Raise for value. Just be careful when the huge all-in re-raise comes … could be the actual nuts, they are junking in too! Position and image don’t seem to matter much at these blind levels. Slow down if I get down to ~1,300 or so.

Middle Rounds (Blinds 50/100, 75/150) – Hopefully 1 or 2 players are out by now, or seriously crippled. If no-one is out, be careful, this is probably a better field than normal. Start occasionally stealing pre-flop and post-flop from the tighter/better players, particularly in position and if my image is tight. This is still a tricky/maneuvering stage of the game. Small ball raises start to work with certain fields.

Late Rounds (Larger blinds, probably only 4 players) – Avoid mixing it up with the big stacks. Short stacks are getting desperate, open up all-in calling requirements against them. Steal post-flop from the middle stacks, they should be afraid of becoming a short stack. Position is key at this point for stealing, a tight image helps a lot too.

Well, wish me luck! I will follow up with the results.