Playing to cooler someone and win...with badass blog post

[clvacva]

Sometimes I feel that all I do is play a coolering game. The only way I can win buyins is by a cooler i.e AA vs KK/QQ or cracking AA with 88. And the only way I get beat is by getting coolerd my self i.e AJ vs JJ or a set of 77 on KT7 board and getting backdoor flushed for a 300bb pot
Anyways I was at the weaktight site and clicked on that "let there be range" banner and saw this blog post they wrote.

I Play Solid

... But I Can't Seem To Win.

I hear a lot of players say this and it gets funnier every time I hear it. The reason is, they don't play solid. What they meant is they play in a robotic manner and hope to cooler someone. So when they win these big cooler pots, they play well and run well. If they lose, they run bad. There is some truth to this because you obviously run bad if you don't win the cooler pots.

But poker is much more than those big cooler pots. Poker is a game that is defined by better players accumulating small edges here and there. When you sit and play a solid game, better players are taking a more active role in maximizing their EV. One example, they play with a little more aggression. They fight extra hard for pots. They think of opponents' ranges before betting. They dictate the flow of the game and is always aware of their images.

People usually say they play a good game and they are just running bad. But whenever we have sweating sessions, there are so many small things they miss out. Three notable examples are cbetting too much, neglecting the small pots, and passive pre-flop play. It's hard to detect these problems because if you knew it, you would have fixed it already. When we look over our sessions, we usually focus on the big pots that we win/lose but neglect to think about our overall game and what we can do to improve it. A player who is active pre-flop will take a lot of uncontested pots and thus, don't have to win those big cooler pots to have a winning session. It's amazing how Doyle was sooo ahead of his time.

Next time when you're at the table, remember to think throughly about a situation before clicking a button. Don't be lazy. Talk aloud. Practice. Perhaps you'll realize that maybe, just maybe, you weren't as solid as you assumed.
http://dailyvariance.com/slowhabit-b...lay-solid.html

This maybe obvious to some but I think that many of us at the BC hell most players who think they play solid are in reality just playing a cooler game.

meh just wanted to put this out here see if it helps people realize something. Think it goes well with spoonitnows Giving hooker orgasm post.

[surviva316]

well if you're to define a cooler as running into the very tippity top of someone's range, then of course we're gonna make our most money from coolering people. we're not gonna make very much money with simply the middle and bottom of our range over a large sample

Yeah, but picking up the small and medium sized pots in between the coolers (i.e. - not going to showdown) is the difference maker. That's really all this is.

[bjsaust]

Yup, spot on. I used to measure my progress in big pots. I think I even discussed it in my blog at one point. Think it was Fnord who made the comment that the big pots even out, its the small and medium pots where you get your edge (not entirely of course, folding some big pots will make a difference too). I started running a LOT better when I got better at turning my small winning pots into medium winning pots. You take a 5BB winner and turn it into a 20BB winner, you dont need many of them to greatly increase your winrate.

pretty sure there are big winners in my 100NL games that play to cooler people
this is because fish usually won't cooler you back (you will fold better hands against them than you would vs. aggro regs and they won't value bet effectively)

true, I have a better winrate than they do, but they get more volume in
I'm guessing you're not getting coolered as much as you think

[revolvingiris]

Really good post...This struck me a little while back when I was watching a boxing match. Sure, the big hits are the most effective/exciting. But its the little jabs here and there that really make a difference in how effective those big hits are.

I also noticed that when I only went after "big hits" I would bust much earlier/get tired faster

I also noticed that when I only went after "big hits" I would bust much earlier/get tired faster

Yeah but we're talking about poker here, not your sex life.

[philly and the phanatics]

I also noticed that when I only went after "big hits" I would bust much earlier/get tired faster

Yeah but we're talking about poker here, not your sex life.

hahahah ZING!!!!!

I also noticed that when I only went after "big hits" I would bust much earlier/get tired faster

Yeah but we're talking about poker here, not your sex life.

he actually wrote hits, not tits

[revolvingiris]

Hahaha I didn't even notice that when I wrote it...nh, well played sir!