Well people, time to experiment with $200. I know the mistakes I made the first time trying this out so here we go for try #2.
I figured I wanted to try out something different this time and see if I could find a good niche. (I played 9max Sit And Goes before and was really good at this format, but its a last resort, as I want to try different things). So here’s what I have done so far after re-depositing.
I started plying $5+50c Heads Up Sit And Goes. I have around 40 buy-ins for this level.
Day#1 was pretty crazy. I pretty much dominated this format and won 85$ playing all day. I found it pretty easy.
Day #2 was also really good. I decided to try a shot 10$+1$ Heads Up SNG. I also pretty much dominated again making 80$. I was a bit confused because this couldn’t be this easy could it.
Also I was pretty much playing my “A” game, taking a lot of notes on betting patterns and how they played draws, top pairs, middle pairs, everything.
Day #3 – Lol, here is where it all comes in with variance and not playing my “A” game. I decided to keep playing the 10$ level. I played this one guy who was a huge calling station and a aggressive bluffer. I found him as an easy opponent to read when he had it and when he didn’t.
I lost 4 buy-ins to him. First 3 to bad-beats and last one due to moving down to my “C” game from losing 3 buy-ins to this guy. (I could read this guy like a book, got it in ahead every time, but its poker and we cant always win). I took a break and went for a walk because this guy frustrated me a lot. I came back won my first match then “BOOM” lost 10 games in a row.
“WTF -I said to myself – I was crushing here before and now I am back down to my original $200 bankroll. ” Ya variance hit big and I wasn’t playing my “A” game. I decided to quit for the day and start again tomorrow at something else. I learned a lot from these HUSNGs which I will tell you about in a future blog.
Day#4 – Well I did about 4 hours re-searching and studying some different ways I could play today. I was almost thinking Pot Limit Omaha High because people are so bad at this game but I am probably just as bad. Plus I wanted to stick to No Limit Hold-em. I ended up coming up across a thread about short-stacking.
I knew what it was and how it worked and knew people just despised these players because they only played pre-flop and were really dependent on fold equity and hand ranges and didn’t let the big stacks get their implied odds. I ended up taking this approach and it is actually a pretty good strategy. I’ll also learn why people hate short-stackers so much and how it can be a winning strategy. Note: 80% of short-stackers are actually really bad and don’t fully understand the concept. Full stacking will make you more money and is more of a thinking poker game, and funnier.
Day#5 is today. I will be short-stacking again today and prob playing around 6k-10k hands today at 10c-25c. So we will see if this strategy is an actual winner.