did I discover some secret or am i just running good

So for the past 2 months suddenly I started winning HUGE in my regular 300$ NL game in my local B&M. I was break even in my first 300 hours of NL Live sessions. I always felt that I couldnt just beat the game.

I have been doing some specific things in the past 2 months. I dont want to pick up any bad habits or plays and want to make sure that i am winning because of right play and not just running good. I would appreciate if you guys can help me out here.

1) Extremely tight.
I get to the table, watch the table for an hour and if its good and get a decent read on players, pull open my personal dvd player and start watching movies and folding. fold fold fold. Any hand I play (other than small itty bitty pocket pair) I come in with a raise and regardless of flop bet the pot on the flop and usually take it down. if I get called, reevaluate on turn.

1) Playing AK completely different
I play AK a lot different than now. These days I cant remember the last time i called a 3-4bb raise with AK. I ALWAYS reraise. If someone makes it 25 I make it 60. If someone makes it 15 I make it 45. if someone makes it 30, I make it 90. you get the picture. Regardless of flop I am am leading out 75% to Pot sized bet. If i am raised at this stage I reevaluate.

What has happened that I keep picking up almost 90% of the pots on the flop. But since I build my pots preflop with this hand, I dont mind picking it up. maybe 2 out of 10 hands i will get slowplayed and get raised on the turn and then i have to give up. But for those 2 times i lose some good amount of chips, I pick up 10 others on the flop regardless of whether i hit the flop or not.

3) I have tremendous amount of fold equity at my local B&M.
People rarely see me play a hand, i am watching movies and folding. So when I raise with AK and continue bet, i almost always get respect. When someone tries to play me back putting me on AK, i sometimes will have AA and KK or QQ. So i get to stack them too. People look me up a lot less than against regular LAGs.

Question 1: A lot of people say that a bad player in nL loses a lot with AK or overplays AK. Am I overplaying AK.?

Question 2: Since I play extremely tight, sometimes i dont get action. However, with my extremely tight image, you will be surprised to see how many people go to all in situation with their 8-8 thru JJ when I am holding AA-KK. So I still get all the action i need. but should i widen my playing range.

One fear I have is that if i start showing all kinds of hands at showdown, my fold equity might go down. I am happy for now raising-reraising other players preflop and take it down wiht a good continuation bet on the flop.

Question 3: am i just running good and getting lucky or i am playing somewhat correct too.

any advice for me ?

Quit watching movies, watch the game.

I don't think that's necessarily overplaying it, unless a rock brings it in for a raise and you reraise him. Best case you're tied with him, and how are you playing if he threebets preflop? You said you get raised on the turn sometimes, what amount are you betting on the turn with no pair? Those are important parts to your AK play, but generally speaking what you said sounds fine.

Playing tight is fine.

Paying attention to the table and your image might make you some more money. Playing a hand like 56s like AK once every other day in a good spot might be money in the bank for you.

A problem I struggle with in these loose B&M games is if tight is right or if I'm better off gambling it up a bit more because they will stick it all-in with a clear second best hand even if they're against the table rock.

thanks sejje. i watch the players for 1-2 hours or when a new player joins the table. the dvd player helps a lot with my patience (even though i am extremely patient person, i still get frustrated/antsy when cant lay a hand for long stretches) also helps my table image because when i do play, people pay attention and respect so bluffs/contination bets work better

yes if a tight rock reraises me, i could lay it down on the flop. I always bet the pot on the flop especially against 2-3 opponents. against 5-6 opponents depends on texture.

I bet half the pot usually out of position in the turn, but wiht positino sometimes might take the free card. i dont call with it though. if my opponents lead out sizable bet on the flop or turn i let it go.

there are exceptions when i let it go or no continuation bets. I was talking in general (80% of the cases).

Sometimes HU if a guy leads out small, i might raise him 3x his bet to get him off of his top pair on flop representing big overpair. if he is calling station type then take free cards next round.

You are so right Fnord. I dont have experience in online nL but in B&M nl, you will be surprised to see what kinda hands people want to go broke with.

even if i hadnt played a hand in 1 hour there are times that if i reraise someone's 25$ raise to 100$ they still call and call an all in bet from me or a 200-300$ bet on the flop from me with their 10-10 - JJ thinking i might have AK when its obvious i could easily have AA-KK.

so far my biggest money winners in NL has been AA-KK (big raise or reraise preflop and playing for stacks) and sets of course. flushes-straights break even, lose some win some chase some miss some. ha ha

Tight is right for players like me. For players like you though, maybe you can lag it up and stack people because they are bound to look you up more ie play sheriff.

I dont have that good hand reading skills as expert players like here on ftr, so i try to build big pots preflop with strong hands and on flop with sets. playing AK like AA-KK is a new addition to my game.

Reraising AK is a new addition to my game also, learner, and I am loving it. You're right that most people will put you on AA KK, call in an attempt to flop a set with their pocket pair, and then give you the pot (which after a reraise and a caller or two is usually sizeable) after the flop bet. Every once in a while you'll meet resistance and it sucks because you lose a decent amount, but overall it has been a big money maker for me.
One thing I am considering now is what to do when I open AK with a raise and am reraised. Usually I'll call, but I've had a few problems when an A or K hits, I think I'm probably ahead and lose a lot to a set of aces or kings. I did it to somebody last night with a set of kings, had it done to me by a guy with a set of aces. I'm thinking if you were to re-reraise you would maybe get a push from AA or KK and also rep AA KK to any lower pair or other AK (putting the reraiser back on the defensive). Seems you could hopefully get away without losing your whole stack. Wondering what some others think.

Here is a good AK thread I just found:

http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/...oker-46440.htm

Your personal DVD player shouldn't be anywhere near the table. I used to be skeptical about how much you can really pick up from watching the game at all times but now I realize it plays a big role in seperating the good players from the bad players. Players play differently sometimes depending on their mood. You can only know how they are going to play if you observe them. Make a game out of it. Anytime a hand goes to showdown guess an opponents hand and keep a record of how well your doing.

Playing tight works for some people if they are comfortable playing that way. But make sure you don't turn into the guy who gets no action on his big hands because whenever he raises he has it. Throw in a few bluffs with a hand like A 4 suited or 76 suited.

Sounds like to me you are doing fine and are on good run of cards. I believe all of us that play a lot of cards are going to get on a run and we are going to have are droughts as well. But it sounds like to me since you are playing with the same people all the time and you basically play the same all the time, then it is about your time to start losing. Not necessarily but more than likely if everyone knows how tight you are then it should be easy to just pretend to know you dont even exist, and I am waiting for the prime oppurtunity to split your head to the white meat when I get the oppurtunity. It is always good to be a solid player, have patience, and to even be feared at a table, but I believe it is also good to throw the monkey wrench in your game every once in awhile to keep the same ol crowd guessing! Good luck and I hope that run of cards keeps on running for you! LOL!

Originally Posted by STR8M8

Sounds like to me you are doing fine and are on good run of cards. I believe all of us that play a lot of cards are going to get on a run and we are going to have are droughts as well. But it sounds like to me since you are playing with the same people all the time and you basically play the same all the time, then it is about your time to start losing. Not necessarily but more than likely if everyone knows how tight you are then it should be easy to just pretend to know you dont even exist, and I am waiting for the prime oppurtunity to split your head to the white meat when I get the oppurtunity. It is always good to be a solid player, have patience, and to even be feared at a table, but I believe it is also good to throw the monkey wrench in your game every once in awhile to keep the same ol crowd guessing! Good luck and I hope that run of cards keeps on running for you! LOL!

Translation: don't become a nit.

Of course, if you win HUGE, keep doing whatever you're doing until it doesn't work anymore.

Fnord,
play loose at B&M games and get fucking incredible reads.
Note that a lot of B&M players are really loose/weak. It seems like they are just fish, but pot odds on bluffs are huge. In an $180, if you bet $60 a lot of the time casino players don't see the 1/3 pot bet, they say OMG $60 and fold.

Originally Posted by STR8M8

Sounds like to me you are doing fine and are on good run of cards. I believe all of us that play a lot of cards are going to get on a run and we are going to have are droughts as well. But it sounds like to me since you are playing with the same people all the time and you basically play the same all the time, then it is about your time to start losing. Not necessarily but more than likely if everyone knows how tight you are then it should be easy to just pretend to know you dont even exist, and I am waiting for the prime oppurtunity to split your head to the white meat when I get the oppurtunity. It is always good to be a solid player, have patience, and to even be feared at a table, but I believe it is also good to throw the monkey wrench in your game every once in awhile to keep the same ol crowd guessing! Good luck and I hope that run of cards keeps on running for you! LOL!

I totally agree with you. since I play with the same crowd night after night (especially on the weekends when we get fresh supply of donkeys) its important to mix up my game. My image at the table is I am a very tight player and i dont bluff would it be unreasonable thinking on my part if I want to keep that image and use my continuation bets as bluffing. Meaning even though I dont mix it up by raising A-10s or A-6s but I do raise AJ, AQ etc and "sometimes" regardless of the flop texture fire out pot sized bets on flop and turn and pick it up. What I was trying to say is that

isnt it true that flop misses you more often than it hits you. So if i keep picking up the pots on the flop of all the flops that completey missed me by continuation betting isnt it worth keeping my fold equity amongst regular players by never showing that i raised with suited ace or suited connector etc. Please dont think that I am questioning judgement of all the good players here. I am just trying to find the sweet spot of my game such as i pick up pots on bluffs and also get action on good hands.

with good hands like sets you get action from flush draws , overpairs, oesds anyways. only time i miss action when people giving up on the flop when i raise with AA-KK. but i still get enough action as it is time to time.

you would get crushed by a good player who will observe that your "tightness" extends only to pre-flop, and that you become aggressive post-flop

IMO at these stakes B&M you should be giving people excuses to call, not trying to make them fold.

Nothing wrong with your method. Harrington, Harman and Greenstein play that way and if it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me. Just don't think it's easy. In low stakes B&M using such a style is swimming uphill.

You're probably a better player than me but it really, really sounds like you're heading for a fall. If I was playing against you I'd mostly avoid you but pick spots to get into pots with you and start re-raising your flop bets, maybe with air, maybe with sets. I'd let you have as little of my stack as possible, and I'd be picking up pots from the looser fish in the hands where you're watching your movies. Which also sounds like a really bad idea - you may think you play poker where reads don't matter but you're completely wrong.