Bubble time lesson(Lagtard and Turte)

Situation, you are approaching the money bubble of a good sized tournament. Table is a mix of stack sizes. You are above average in chipstack but there are a few bigger at the table. Changes at your table are, on of the larger stacks is now in chip up mode(I will call him LAGtard), the other big stack is playing his normal game, and two of the medium short stacks have gone into Turtle mode. They just won’t peak the heads out of the shell until the bubble has past, these two are the most common victims of the LAGtards aggress. You have position on the LAGtard on his steals against the Turtles. His steals are like clockwork on these two, 2.5x bb raise-3x bb raise, each and every time they are on the blind. Has folded twice to reraises from other players during these steals.

He is stealing from you buddies. These should be your steals. So, every third or forth steal attempt from him, you should reraise. Doesn’t matter the cards, his don’t, but it is a matter of pressure and chipping up. If you resteal every third or fourth time, you are still chipping up every cycle on average. If your steal fails and at times it might, you are still in the hunt and can steal again later. Now, you only need to succeed on these steals about 40% of the time to keep chipping up. Also, this might get the LAGtard to tighten his requirements as well, which is great. Then our steals become ours again. Win, win.

Having nothing on these steals is actually a bit favorable then having a medium hand as well. Why? If you get reraised, it is such an easy dump after Hollywooding for a bit. Another thing is if you just get smoothcalled and hit the flop hard, he will never know what the fraq hit him. Most important on this whole resteal is position and pressure.

Now, you will need an M high enough to do this successfully or you might get stuck if one of your steals goes foul. This also can not be done against a total donk that can not lay down after he puts money in the pot. This situation is very specific. You need a LAGtard that can lay down, enough stack size to put pressure on him, and enough sense to get away when you don’t have anything(don’t get attached to your chips).

GL and see you at the FT.

Finding the magic button.

Virtual table or live, there is all sorts of information moving around. Limped, raised, reraised, early, mid, late, slow, fast, talking trash, not saying a word, it is all about information. Find out what sort of man is sitting across the felt from you. Now the man’s priorities can change over the course of the game, but how he thinks will remain constant. If you can curl yourself into his mind, you have already won.

Sounds simple right. Well, think of all the little things that can tick you off. Slow drivers, guys that have that “I am superior” vibe to them, being late, girl friend troubles, ……. Ok, now what does this have to do with poker? Well all can put a different spin on how we are facing a situation. If you are pissed, will you be more aggressive? If you are distracted will you see all the clues to the puzzle? You really want to take that smug look off of that guys face; will you really notice the guy who is setting a trap for him?

What sort of hands does he limp? Is he consistent in his play? Is he observant of position? What situations does he raise or reraise? How often does he limp, and then call a raise? What sort of bets does he make post flop? Does he bet the full pot, half, min after raising it preflop? Does he always bet things in a consistent manner?

There is a lot to this wonderful game. Play a game with yourself. See how long it takes to come up with 10 true statements about each of the guys you are playing with every time. The more you can think of, the easier you will find it to get a good idea of where they are at in any given hand.