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July 10 – If you are making decisions based upon the size of the game you are probably playing too big

There is a fine balance between “shot taking” and playing a game in which the monetary factor affects your decision making process. Some of the best players in the world have made most of their money by playing in big games that are good and also running well when playing in them. If you are going to shot take, however, you should have the confidence to not alter your style just because the game is big. This can be achieved a number of different ways, including selling off pieces of yourself or setting a stop loss.

If you find yourself playing differently than normal just because the size of the game is larger, then you are probably doing something wrong. Now, this is not to say that you shouldn’t sometimes properly play conservatively because maybe you have a limited amount of buy-ins on your person. But if you find that you are regularly making different decisions that are not optimal, the game may be too big. This is especially bad when you are actually not shot taking, but rather just playing in a game regularly that is above your bankroll.

The other thing that people do not realize is that when you are selling pieces, or being staked, you could actually make more money one step down if you were playing all on your own. It makes sense to play higher if the game is much bigger and you need to reduce the variance. You can easily make more money per hour in a game that is really good, only playing for a fraction of yourself. But where it does not make sense is selling pieces with no markup at say $10-$20 no-limit if, instead, you can beat up on a $5-$10 game and not sell any action. Why would I play for half of myself one level higher, when I can play for all of myself at $5-$10? The game would have to be awfully good to do that and you would think that one’s bankroll would be able to take a couple of shots one step higher if you are properly bankrolled for the original level. So you have to find a balance between not giving up too much, and playing totally on your own where the size of the game does not affect your play.

July 15 – Most live players play each street subsequently worse in capped games starting with preflop and ending with river. Sometimes you can keep the pot a little smaller to force mistakes later on

Because of the nature of shorter, restricted buy-in games, most of the decisions within a hand are made preflop and on the flop. This means that players have much more experience playing these streets as opposed to later streets. That is why you see so many mistakes at the end of a hand that is not all-in, particularly when it comes to value betting.

Even bad players know now that they should not call a raise and a reraise with a hand like J-8 offsuit. In fact, for most losing players that have played for a long period of time, one of the ways that they stop their bleeding is by playing tighter preflop. They get involved with fewer hands and thus make fewer mistakes per session. This does not mean, however, that they are not still making mistakes when they get involved with hands. Their play is still lousy, and, because they have less experience on later streets, you can really exploit them. That is why I am a big proponent sometimes of not three-betting marginal hands against weak players, so that I can force them to make mistakes later on in the hand.

Let us take a look at an example. Say a bad player in a $2-$5 game with a $300 stack, raises to $20 from middle position. It gets folded to us and we have A Q on the button. Are we ahead of our opponents range? Probably. Does that mean that we should always three bet? No. I think a lot of younger players coming from the world of online six-max miss this point. Players have actually become better at folding trashy holdings preflop. They are still bad and call single-raised pots with far too many hands, but when it comes to three-bet pots, they may very well fold A-10, K-Q, or A-J to our reraise. Do we want that to happen? Of course not. We do not want to give our opponents the opportunity to make the correct decision now when we can force them to make bad decisions later on — especially when they are incapable of folding a hand like top pair. These players also rarely fire more than one bullet as a continuation bet, so we can sometimes call on the flop if we miss, because we will rarely face a second bet and we can get to showdown with our ace-high or pocket pair. In big-bet poker, the name of the game is forcing people out of their comfort zone. Because turn and river play happen so rarely in super-capped games, that is exactly where you want your opponents to have to make their decisions. You can learn more about some of the other intangibles that will allow you to crush capped games on my website SeatOpenPoker.net, specifically the podcast “A Capped Game Strategy.”

July 18 – Usually the players that are the tightest win the most money in split pot games

One of the most basic fundamentals of playing split-pot games is to go for scoops. And one of the ways that you can ensure that this will happen is playing premium hands that have nut draws. If you play too many hands, you will often be going for the second or third nuts in one direction and in full-ring games, you will be punished. In fact, split pot games have the unique variable that the bad players get worse and worse the more long-handed the game is, and get accidentally better the shorter the game becomes. You see, as the game gets shorter it becomes more correct to call down in pots that will be split. And we all know that bad players are usually poor because they call down too much and are incapable of folding.

Especially in low-ante games, playing tighter is going to be a huge advantage in split-pot games. The opposite is true with higher antes, but, in my experience, because there is so much action in split-pot games anyway, you will rarely find a game that is structured this way. Unlike no-limit hold’em, where playing inordinately tight can sometimes stunt your growth, playing super tight in split-pot games can only keep you out of trouble.

One of the things that will also improve the skill of your game is watching the players who play too many hands get into sticky spots. Especially multiway, notice how many bets are lost by these loose guys going for lows such as A-3 and A-4, or by seeing the river with non-nut flush draws. It may be a little boring, but especially for people transitioning from no-limit hold’em, take solace in the fact that you can easily have a leg up on more experienced competition by just playing tighter than they do in a full-ring setting. ♠