Early/mid 2000's Vs. Now (2012)

[All_In 0]

let's say u play in a home game tournament (9-12 players), and most players play a style closer to the moneymaker era than the 'modern' game (small ball raises, etc). does the modern game today beat that style in general (i.e. game theory, etc.)?are the older style players in general stuck on a lower level of thinking, therefore the 'modern' game won't apply?therefore would a SOLID older style be the way to play against these players?I know this is very general, just interested in what the current thought in poker is when playing people who were introduced to hold 'em in the moneymaker era, and never really progressed.

[DanielNegreanu 141]

I played Small ball in the early 2000's and most specifically in 2004. I crushed. And it was freaking easy. Yes, the more modern game is just plain closer to optimal and by playing that way you will absolutely crush people who play an outdated style.

[answer20 5]

Obviously you want to mix things up, but in general if you play (controlled) small ball you will be taking down more pots than others ... and when they do play back or have a stronger hand you will simply just be returning their own chips back to them for short time until you start bleeding them down once again with your controlled/low risk aggression. The "old" saying does bode well though for me ... If you are at a tight table, play loose, but if you are at a loose table, play tighter!! Most old style players know that you can't be hitting all these hands, so just be ready to take some time out every other orbit or so in order to keep them on their steady path. Don't want them opening up their ranges any earlier than they are forced to when the BBs go down into the red zone.

[akashenk 12]

I agree that small ball vs. old-school has lots of advantages, so if the situation is that clear cut, then yes you should play small ball. I don’t want to go too far off topic but I have been thinking about a few recent trends in this area. All comments are welcome (even you trueace and donk if you can get yourselves out of the gutter for a few moments).It seems to me that in recent years (the last two or so to be precise), small ball has lost some of its luster. This does not mean that small ball is not best in most situations, it just means that certain factors have made it less effective. The key to its success, IMO, is getting to the flop against no more than one or two players. In those cases, you can use all of your small ball weapons to your advantage to win relatively small pots, or pick off big hands with small ball type holdings. You can use c-bets, and squeeze plays, and semi-bluffs, etc, and it is all effective because you only have to worry about one or two other hands. The problem seems to be that getting to the flop with fewer than three opponents is getting rarer and rarer. I suppose there are many reasons for this. First of all, small ball as a concept, if not completely understood, is much more prevalent which means people have really loosened up their starting hand requirements. Secondly, tournaments are starting with more and more chips. Even if blind level omissions make these moderate to fast structures, I think people get a feeling that they have tons of chips to play with, particularly early in tournaments. When they feel they have tons of chips to play with, they loosen up. And lastly, I just think there are more gamblers playing poker now who just love the feeling of winning a huge pot with some random hand. Grinding is not in the vocabulary of these folks.All of this means that, when you make a typical small-ball raise, regardless of which position you make it in, you are likely to be facing 3+ opponents, which does two things that makes playing small ball really difficult. First off, it makes for a pretty big pot before the flop has even hit. And second, it makes it much harder to try to figure out what everyone in the pot is up to. Flopping a monster or a monster draw in these situations is great, but that doesn’t happen that often. I’m starting to wonder whether reverting to a long-ball, or perhaps a really tight strategy during the early stages of these deepstack tournaments would not be best. Later, you can switching into small ball when folks are a little more discerning with their starting hand requirements.

[HighwayStar 8]

I'm sure "smallball" (whatever that really is) still works fine when everyone is pretty deep (50bb+). In most spots in mtts where there are usually plenty of people < 30 bb, the average player in 2012 will absolutely destroy the average player in 2005. The game has changed quite a bit.

[Mercury69 3]

I think carrying basic and advanced theories of a variety of styles of MTT play into any given tournament is a good idea. If you can switch between styles based on your reads and how correct they are (assuming your analysis is of reasonably good quality), there's every reason to think that your adjustments, even mid-hand, could be profitable.Flexibility is the key.

[The_String 0]

one thing hasnt changed and that is by playing super-tight you can still go deep in big fields, but if you were to 'small ball' it like its '05 then everyone knows now how to play against that, you just 3-bet the pants of the old-school small baller