I need your help. I live in the New England area, and play in a league that I run with 20 members. We play once a month for league events, and then a lot of extra side tournaments in between league events. Our game of choice is No Limit Hold’Em and we play a freezeout tournament with 1500 in chips starting at 5/10 blinds at 15 minutes for each level. Usually the tournaments last around 3-4 hours. Points are awarded based on finish in the tournaments. First place gets 20 points, last place gets 1 point etc.

The reason I am giving you this background is because I am need of some advice from the members of FCP.

I currently am sitting in 2nd place in the league in points after 5 events. My issue is that I have been labeled an ULTRA conservative player, and every time I enter a pot people are yelling “watch out, hes in a pot” etc. At first this was great because I used my image to steal a lot of pots. Lately though this image has been hurting me because everytime I call a hand or raise people seem to be reraising me to try to bully me out of pots.

My last few live games have seen some poor finishes, partly due to a bad run of cards, but I feel it is more a matter of the image that I have.

I was wondering if other players have run up against this and how they varied their play to combat this issue. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Well if you plan on continuing with your conservative style, you're going to have to push a lot harder with the hands you do play, expecially if people are reraising you because they think you're too tight. do you ever mix your play up, aside from stealing pots occasionally? I mean you can steal with junk sometimes if you're tagged as ultra conservative but that is really only going to work in your favor in the later stages when the blinds are worth stealing. you might occasionally want to play some speculative hands like 5-6, 7-8, j-9 to showdown for cheap if possible to loosen up your image, after a few of those you might get some more action on your stong hands.

what is it worth to finish in 2nd in this league? or first? there is a lot more to consider.
-shortfuze

Conservative is not bad if you are punishing players for re-raising you when you have the best of it. One thing to consider is not necessarily using different starting hands...though that would help, but actually varying how you bet hands really helps throw people off.

Start betting bigger before the flop, then after a while cutoff and limp on a few good hands, and bet big after the flop...maybe re-raise someone on 4th street when the odds are there.

Most conservative players I have seen that get hammered because of it don't do so because they play bad hands, it's because they bet entirely too predictably.

One way to really make it hurt is to limp with a monster with 4 or 5 way action (I usually HATE limping with strong hands because it invites someone to draw you out, but it's a good change in this case), then after they bet through the flop or fourth street throw down something like a double pot sized bet and watch the shock hit em. They will either be afraid and fold their money to you, or try to get aggressive because they already put something in. Either way it's good for you.

Remember, when you make these changes, you are working for a season here, so if you lose your shirt on a hand trying to play a bit different, it will probably still pay-off in the long run.

NL is for suckers.

NL tournaments are for suckers.

NL tournamnet leuges...well. Time to consider a cerreer in vaccuum cleaner sales.

You're in second place, you're predictibly winning. Stop trying to find a way to lose.

Actually, NL tournaments are the only game to play for fun and profit.

LOL. is this a bad commercial?

one of my biggest pet peeves is when people misuse the words "to" and "too"

me too

I, as well.

Yea, if you enjoy masochistic pleasures.

- Jordan