Progress Report
Posted by: Jake // Category: Freeroll tournament, Funstep Sit'n'Go, General, Heads up, Overall strategyI feel pretty good despite the fact that my bankroll is still pathetically low. The reason is that I can see some real growth in my play. All of these grind-it-out tourneys against maniacs and loose players seem to be a pretty good training ground.
On example of progress is in the Carbon Poker Funstep sit’n'go tourneys. These are play money sit’n'gos where when you get past the first two rounds, you actually play for $1 in real money in the third round. In the past I’ve had to play about 4 times or more in round 1 tourneys to win and move on to a round 2 one. Now I’m pretty much a lock to move on to round 2.
One of the differences is that I’m getting better at heads up play. Playing heads up over and over again is grueling, but I’m starting to see some real patterns develop and an underlying key strategy. It’s obvious but not easy: Minimize your losses from middling and poor hands and maximize your profits from big hands.
To my mind this often means folding against early raises. I guess if I think about it, favorable pot odds in heads up are hard, if not impossible. So playing for any kind of draw is dubious unless you have an extraordinary number of outs.
One side effect of this is that if I have a much bigger stack it can be incredibly demoralizing playing against me heads up. I just don’t call a lot of bets unless I have a good hand, and them I’d most likely re-raise. As a result, it takes someone a LONG time to make progress against me. I like that.
Anyway, I feel good. I’m getting better, and it’s starting to show in my results.
Tags: Carbon Poker, freeroll, Heads up, sit'n'go
September 28th, 2008 at 7:36 am
Sit n go tournaments are a great way to build your bankroll. But you must use the proper strategy, expecially at the lower limits where the players don’t really know (or care) what the are doing. I offer free advice on my site. Check it out and let me know if you have any questions.
September 28th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Thanks. I like your site. The heads up advice was particularly good, I thought.
You comment about players that don’t care is something I’ve been thinking about. The implied odds in freerolls are so high that it’s interesting to watch “donkey plays” actually pay off because they hit against multiple all-ins. Actually, I need to write about that.