Micro-limit experiment

So after dropping $200 in 3 hands, flush with the glory of second-best hand syndrome, I decided that my acid reflux wasn’t quite ready for NL100 this weekend. So I dropped down to NL25 to blow off some steam and rack up some FPPs on Stars and work towards the thank-god-I-never-expire redeposit bonus. And I thought to myself Self, fuck it. You’re still steaming after giving away a full buy-in with bad flushes on back-to-back hands, so just play positional power poker, fuck the cards. Everybody says cards are irrelevant any, so just raise the fuck out of it and see how it goes.

It goes well. If there was no aggressive action to my Button, Cutoff or Cutoff + 1, I raised 4xBB ($1). If there were callers, and there usually were, then it got more fun. If there was no aggressive action on the flop, and the “check to the raiser” is very prevalent, I doubled my bet ($2). If there were callers, and there very seldom were any, then I doubled my bet again on the turn ($4). I think only one hand out of 10 made it to showdown with this betting strategy, and the ones that did, I had usually managed to make two pair with the garbage I started with anyway.

This is not a strategy that will make you friends at the table. It is, however, very functional at the lower limits. I had decent hands often enough in my late position raise-fest that I was able to win when it went to showdown, but most of the time I just pushed people off of pots. I ran this routine 4 times over the weekend, doubling my buy-in twice, picking up half a buy-in the third time, and going broke once. I think that qualifies as a high-variance style, but it sure is fun. Interestingly enough, the low-limit donkeys don’t seem to pay any attention to betting patterns, because they would continue to limp in front of my button orbit after orbit, only to be forced to fold to my inevitable raise. I also popped it any time it was limped to my blinds, but didn’t always continue with that, because I was out of position for the rest of the hand.

I translated a little of that into our home game this weekend, raising in position with junk way more liberally than I have in previous weeks, and it felt nice to have my game a little bit back on track before my trip to Milwaukee next weekend.

I also cashed in a $4 180-person SNG on Saturday, breaking long losing streak. I was cruising right along again last night, with a big hand in level 3 that would have taken me to the final table, until the big stack at the table caught his two-outer to send me home. I’ve played at least one of these each night for a week trying to find some of my tourney rhythm again, and I think I’m getting the groove back, fold,fold,fold,fold,fold, puuuussssshhhhh-double up, fold,fold,fold,fold, repeat. Kinda like that.

Tags: poker, NL Texas Hold 'Em, Pokerstars