Action Marc Wilson

As I wrote a few weeks ago, I’d been struggling at the Poker tables, and I got down as much as a whopping $50. There were those situations where I did lose KK to AA preflop, and there was nothing I could do about that. I felt, however, that I wasn’t doing as well as I should session per session. I decided to study what was going on.

What I saw was actually what I thought I would see. I was playing very close to the Harrington cash game strategy in all sessions. At first, I thought this was good and I was just unlucky, but I began to rethink that notion primarily because of what I’d seen at the Full Tilt Deep stack tables. What I’d noticed is that the loose aggressive players seemed to be perpetual winners and the tight aggressive players were either breakeven or down. This began to make even more since when I remembered how tight the games can get and the notion that you should play opposite of the general table.

The behavior was exactly what I expected. There were a lot of uncontested preflop raises, and I never seemed to get action on my big hands (unless I was behind). Most players probably figured I was tight, and since I wasn’t playing many hands it was worth folding to me. The loose players were benefiting by picking up a lot of the folded blinds and by making big hands with the added bonus of them being well disguised. I figured it was worth it to me to research more to see if I could figure out the guidelines for loose aggressive play.

I first checked with Harrington to see what he said about loose aggressive play and what I found there was really not worth reading. He mentions it and gives an overview, but the section quite frankly left something to be desired…Yes, I did just criticize Harrington. I then searched the internet, and I really found nothing of use. There were a lot of overview type sites, but no one really had a developed strategy or hand chart. I figured at that point that I would just have to develop my own strategy with the pieces of overviews until I went to my shelf and reread my long dismissed copy of Doyle Brunson’s Super System.

As a tournament, sit and go, and low stakes cash game player, I’d always thought that his book was just a bunch of braggadocio with a few strategic insights. I’d leaned towards Harrington’s strategy much more detailed tight strategy which will win if you can consistently find loose tables. After rereading it, however, he described exactly what I’d been seeing at the FTP deep stack tables, and his entire strategy now made more sense than anything I’d ever read about the game.

I reread the No limit hold’em section of the book five times last week and made copious notes to make sure I executed properly once I got to the tables.

What was the result? First, it was much, much, more fun as I wasn’t doing a lot of sitting and folding. Many times, I would call in early position with a small pair but fold after a raise under Harrington’s paradigm. Eliminating that kept me in more hands giving me an opportunity to win. Secondly and more importantly, it was much more profitable. I was able to catch a lot of hands that no one expected me to have, so they were never really able to put me on a hand. It led to crying calls and bets into my really strong hands.

All that said, I think that I’m at the beginning of the journey to become a complete player. I now have two strategies (Brunson and Harrington) which I can employ in cash games as the table changes. I’ve seen a lot between all the tournaments and the cash games that I’ve played, and I’m beginning to get better at hand reading and realizing unprofitable situations. Hopefully, I can turn the corner and finally move past more than just being a profitable, pretty good, intermediate player. I know I’m still at $.10/$.25 and have a long, long way to go, but I’m feeling more optimistic that I’ll get to be one of the better players and make it to the higher levels.