Mourning Monday

Hey

Poor day today. Having lost £180 playing cash with no sleep first thing in the morning i manage to lose an extra £50 by playing tournaments 8 hours straight to no avail. However i have learned loads today.

Namely that i need to calm down near the end of the tournaments and notice how other people perceive me. If i am seen to be a little too aggressive in raising to stealy blinds too much i will get re raised all in with Ace high more often to which i may fold. If i notice this beforehand i can only raise with good hands to get re popped and then call down their inferior hand.

I seem to play really well up until the final table of tournies on will hill then i spaz out and get maniac by raising with anything to reclaim chips lost on a previous bluff. By no means is this the proper way but would rather this than waiting all day for those aces. I just need to get smart about my moves and look to become the table captain. With this i would then be able to bully everyone by picking up on any weakness and exploiting it. Most of the time when you raise pre flop and get called by a blind they will miss the flop and check to you, you can have absolutely nothing and just continuation bet and take it down. By doing this you are playing the maths. Only a third of the time will one other opponent have paired one of their two live cards against you, so they normally will be weak on any flop. Even if they do pair if its the bottom one u can still push them off.

What i also like about the above situation is that the position you have over your opponent is integral, by acting last you can guage whether or not he is weak or strong and you don't even need to see your cards. If you do murder your flop of course you will have to slow play. So if he checks to you you would bet real small to entice a re raise or just check again enticing him to bet out on the turn. If he does this a flat call would suffice, then maybe by the river you will see an all in bluff attempt you you to call and be happy about.

I do get aggressive in the latter stages of tournies and i think that it is integral to play like this because you would be surprised how many people will put up no fight to defend their blinds making it easy for me to raise 3XBB and steal. Even when they do call i am in control as i have position and can quickly fold if they are obviously strong. I do get caught out often by doing this but the times i get away with it outweights the times i don't in terms of chips accumulated so i will continue this. Also the beauty behind this is that if you bet so often when you do finally get a hand they will pay you off as they don't believe you.

Sometimes though i have garnered massive respect even though i raised most pots and i do this by showing only the good hands i had raised with perhaps A8 and above to show i am not taking liberties when really i am most of the time.

You also have to look out for the short stacks as raising against them means you will be committed to call any re raise they make, so i make sure that i am raisng with at least King High before i do this so most of the time i am favourite to beat their random hand. The trouble with this also is that when your inclined to call with crap after you have been re raised for only a little more you will show to everyone what you have been up to which is damaging to your blind stealing capabilities meaning you will then have to tighten up incredibly but by doing this you will get payed off for your big hands.

Another basic principle is to play the opposite of the table. If it is playing really tight you need to go ahead and steal those blindes, however if you get maniacs on there you are biding your time for that spot to get all your ships in as favourite.

My game seems to have become a lot better ever since i realised that more often than not the other player is not prepared to call a raise in a lot of situations which makes the value of your hand irrelevant if you think you can get another player off the pot.

I think i have revealed a little too much about how i play tournament poker successfully and may well keep my mouth shut from now on because you guys may be privy to me on the tables and stop me from making as easy money as i was previousuly. But hey ho it feels good to let some of my knowledge out. There are far better players out there than me but i feel that i have what it takes to iron out the flaws in my game (which is mainly keeping my head and to not get too aggressive) and become one of the best tourney players online. I think i may be getting ahead of myself with that statement as i only play small tournies on crypto but i have a good feeling that when i do spread my wings and move onto different sites, that i will be making some good money. But for the moment i like using crypto as my training ground and i hope that from boxing day onwards i will be able to implement qulaity strategy with good luck and take down as many tournies as i can.

I won't be playing much on tuesday as i am playing footie during the day and getting pissed at night but from wednesday onwards i am looking to take down some serious cash and make a real big name for myself on the tournament scene!

Cheers guys and plz comment!