By nath on January 17th, 2008 (more posts by author)

So far the grinding is going well. I need to put in more hours, but I'm playing well and game-selecting well, and as a result I'm up about 3k in the last week despite not putting in enough hours.

Of course, sometimes it's just being in the right place at the right time. Here is a thinly veiled brag on what happens when you find yourself with a player itching to make moves and give his money away.

I've been doing my best to avoid falling into the "2+2 Standard Line" trap. What I mean is, there is a tendency by people on 2+2, particularly in SSNL and MTT, to take certain "standard" lines to avoid giving away information or avoid being "exploitable". The problem with this is that they rarely adapt to their opponents; they don't size their bets in an efficient manner, they don't realize that a 60/5/0.7 checkraising the flop is not the same as a 32/28/5 doing it. They don't consider how their opponents are playing in the moment, instead relying on statistics and standard lines. This is enough to sustain a marginal or even moderate winrate, but it's a style that's full of holes and leaks. Worst of all, they talk themselves into making unnecessary moves convinced people are trying to be tricky with them. They should be worrying more about fundamentals and playing straightforward, maximizing value, instead of trying to be clever.

In the last extended session I played, I pulled up a couple HU tables and a couple 6-max ones. I decided to focus on the HU tables, and only pay attention to the 6-max enough to play my legitimate hands; I decided not to get tricky and see what happened. Despite this, the regulars at my 6-max table didn't adjust. So when I 3-bet for the first time all session having played something like 18/15, they 4-bet light because they're on the button and I'm in the blinds and my reputation says I must be full of shit, right?

So many of the SSNL regulars I play against are obsessed with being as aggressive and tricky as they can. They're more concerned about "outplaying" other regulars than with just flat-out making money. It's a mindset I've dangerously drifted into before and one I've had to keep up some real effort to avoid.

Well, back to the grind for me. BTW, Houston is working out very well so far. I have a great place and plenty of friends here, and my work environment has been ideal.