Quote Originally Posted by Strung
I'm not a NL player (but I might start to dabble here and there) but I found these hand histories neat and I had a few questions for you micheal or anyone else that could answer these.

1) I notice that you aren't playing according to any set starting hands but are mostly playing suited cards (connected or not), connectors and are raising the same amount every time. Is this standard for you ie: do you ALWAYS raise 4x BB? Do you just play whatever you feel like (I'm specifically referring to the K3o hand)?

2) At what level can you start getting away from starting hands and play a style similar to this? I know this wouldn't fly at a $25 NL table, what about $100? $500?

3) Same deal goes for actual tourney playing. At what level of tourney does this play style/reads come more important than the starting cards? I mean, I don't think you'd be able to play like this in say a $5 buy-in MTT compared to a $100 buy-in or is tourney just that much different than ring?
The main reason to play more hands instead of hands that will connect better is to take advantage of weak-tight fish who are present. If you just keep playing premium hands, someone else will get their money before you do. I'm thinking more of certain tournaments now, but I'm sure it can apply to higher stakes ring games too. This strategy will not work against the type of player abundant at lower stakes who is in to call down or chase anything.

I would interested to hear the reasoning from someone else's point of view as well.

With tournaments, it's hard to label $5 MTT as X and $109 as Y, because the composition of the table can change as the tournament progresses. People can change styles when faced with cashing, or when blinds represent a greater % of stack, also certain types that were prevalent at the beginning may have mostly busted by the end which is why you should play more types of hands at the beginning if the dead money in your tournament consists of weak-tight players. Also, to get more of your money involved while the play is profitable, consider throwing in small raises, and calling more raises.