aggression noob - 2 quick questions

[wonderland]

1. there's a big stack two over to my left. Whenever i should be stealing blinds... he's there all big and stacky. How do i steal?

2. I keep raising with my good cards, getting headsup and missing the flop, when i miss everyone knows it. I continue bet and they raise because i've clearly not hit my range. Been PISSING chips because of this.

thanks guys.

[mxiu]

quit telling everyone your hand

[StarTracker]

Can you post some hands where you raised pre-flop, and your continuation bet was called?

At low buyins cbetting is like meh until you get to the point where cbetting is shoving the flop no matter what it is

sometimes I check the flop behind and see if they fire at the turn
if they bet weakly on a non-threatening board I'll pot it and take it away from them, although it's hugely read-dependent

[wonderland]

i'll try to do that when i can find a good example without having to tawl through hundreds of hands.

I'm just getting used to being aggressive. People keep telling me to bet harder but i think there are some exceptions to the rule when you miss the flop and it looks like they didn't.

Getting better though, just finished in the money 5 times out of the last 6 games averaging 2nd place. My win rate is increasing but just before that it was all over the place.

I do find that if you play tight aggressive, you'll finish last and way out of the money as well, as a bi-product of firing out and missing.

[hangchiong]

should read one of the post in reader's digest(tactic)about c-betting
yes,c-betting is tough at the low buy-in.but you just gotta pick some spots,and kinda estimate their ranges while firing it.

[Stacks]

I do find that if you play tight aggressive, you'll finish last and way out of the money as well, as a bi-product of firing out and missing.

No.

2. I keep raising with my good cards, getting headsup and missing the flop, when i miss everyone knows it. I continue bet and they raise because i've clearly not hit my range. Been PISSING chips because of this.

And no.

First off tight aggressive is the best way to play during the early stages of a SNG imho. There are numerous factors that dictate this is the way you should play. !) The table has more people and we all know the more people the tighter you play (2) The blinds are small in relation to your stack, therefore you have many orbits you can just chill (3) stealing should be at a minimum because of #2, and how the chips don't add much to you stack (3) SnGs are about survival, and bleeding off chips doesn't help. As the SNG progresses so should your starting hand requirements (aka loosen up). This is apparent by the fact that there will be less players, and the chips will be a much bigger % of your stack. Also alot of players will tighten up because they want to make the money, therefore, you profit when you play opposite of how they are playing at this point in the SNG.

And please for the love of god quit saying "I miss the flop too often", or "How can I win with my flop hitrate?". For the last time everyone has the same chances of hitting a flop with two unpaired cards. They will hit approximately 1/3 of the time, which obviously means you will miss 2/3 of the time. And by you, I mean Everyone! That's why continuation betting is such a large part of the game. Because people miss so often. But no there isn't a rule dictating that you should c-bet every flop if you miss. If there is a flop that totally smashed villains range then check/folding when oop isn't horrible. Or checking behind with the intention of folding on the turn/river when in position isn't bad either. But if you only bet when you do hit the flop then you will be losing out on alot of pots that you could have taken.

And if I remember correctly when everyone was saying to bet like you have a pair, it wasn't neccessarily directed at your failure to c-bet etc, but because your bet-sizing was off in quite a few occassions. A standard in SNGs it to bet around 3xbb + 1bb per limper. This can be tailored by raising 4xbb + 1bb per limper in the very early stages of a SNG then raising 3xbb+ 1bb per limper in the middle stages and when the blinds reach say 50/100 to begin raising 2.5xbb + 1bb per limper. And this this preflop with everyhand, unless you should be in push/fold mode.

[wonderland]

Ok, on my new tight aggressive learnings.

Just wanted to post my win rate since i deposited, get some feedback. What do you think?

Oh, i'm playing two tables a time, should i be playing one?

starting bank roll $26.36

001. last position
002. 6th
003. 3rd *
004. 5th
005. 3rd *
006. 5th
007. 2nd *
008. 2nd *
009. 7th
010. 5th
011. 5th
012. 5th
013. 1st *
014. 1st *
015. 2nd *


bank roll = $25.66

016. last
017. 2nd *
018. 2nd *
019. 3rd *

bank roll = $28.06

020. 6th
021. 7th
022. 6th
023. 7th
024. 2nd *
025. 6th
026. 7th
027. 3rd *

bank roll = $22.96

028. 3rd *
029. 3rd *
030. 2nd *

bank roll = $25.66

The times when i've finished 6th/7th/last is when i've gone all in with a very strong hand like AA, KK, QQ. Not moaning just saying that that's gonna happen if you get those cards and someone calls with AQ and thinks your bluffing and hits their A on the river etc.

Other times it'll be because i've been hard playing AK, getting called, missing, firing anyway and getting re-raised. That's common. Sometimes i'll be the cheap lead and i'll try to steal blinds but i'll just get re-raised. This happened recently where this guy raised everything i had and constantly stole my blinds even if i tried to defend them. Lost almost a third of my stack to this.

Times when i do well is really only if i make a few big wins to get to around 3000 chips earlier and then steadly play my cards with comfortable aggression. Then the stack usually climbs slowly to 4000 and so on unil i make 3rd or 2nd.

But my main gripe is that i used to have a better win rate when i was just playing tight and making it into 3rd yet i know that isn't profitable in the long run, so i'm trying this tight aggressive style (i don't contest it, i know it's appropriate) but i'm going all in like a dozen times per game and as such i'm getting about a 40/45% win rate overall.

To be precise and specific, what it comes down to is raising pre flop and missing. If i do this a few times people just lose respect for me. If i cbet they raise. It's kind of obvious when i've missed my range.

One last point. Someone said, a few people actually, that micro stakes are reeeally easy. I played this one guy last night who called all my bets to the river because he had a pair of deuces. I had AK and missed the board. I said: man, you're either a very bad player or a very good player. He said: I knew you had AK. He went on to win the tourney.

THIS IS MICRO STAKES! These people are not idiots. Some are, yes but I think there's a lot of reasonable players at this level.

Thanks for the time.

[Rycky4Golf]

30 games is a really small sample, I'd not be too concerned at this point. However I think its great that you are actually taking the time to review your play and track your progress, I've always been the same way and I don't have a whole lotta volume either.

But like I said, don't fret over 30 games. You could go on a sick heater in the next 30 and double your bankroll. Screw results, just make good decisions and the results will come in over time.