I've decided to change my game a bit lately, based both on recent results (100 BB downswing in week 1 of July) and on some of my recent and older reading. Most of you who frequent the 2+2 boards as well know about Shania. It's pretty basic game theory...add a few junkish hands to your MP or even EP raising list, get that junk to showdown (hopefully even win with some of them), and the resulting image will get you more action on your premium hands.
Anyway, the short story is that I'd become too predictable in Limit. The regulars on Party stayed away from my big hands, and even some of the donators realized that my preflop raises meant bad news. I was really only making money off the uberlags, which is profitable, but only marginally so. To fix this problem, I decided to start raising a few junk hands. As per an article written by Daniel a while ago (years? months?), I've selected a few cards, and will raise with them every time I get them, regardless of the kicker (but not necessarily reraise). So far, the results have been great. I've found that my average pot with my legitimate hands have increased from ~5 BB up to ~8 BBs. Those 20+ BB pots which I'm so fond of live are starting to materialize at my online tables (once or twice a session...it's still tight online). The monster pots often make the difference between a blaisee day and a wonderful day. They make poker fun, and I'm glad that they're back. Plus, I get away with many more steals from MP than LP.
Anyway, this is all incredibly standard. I'm at work, and I'm bored to tears, so I felt like sharing.
Full Version: Mixing It Up
QUOTE (Briguy @ Tuesday, July 18th, 2006, 5:00 AM) 
I've decided to change my game a bit lately, based both on recent results (100 BB downswing in week 1 of July) and on some of my recent and older reading. Most of you who frequent the 2+2 boards as well know about Shania. It's pretty basic game theory...add a few junkish hands to your MP or even EP raising list, get that junk to showdown (hopefully even win with some of them), and the resulting image will get you more action on your premium hands.
Anyway, the short story is that I'd become too predictable in Limit. The regulars on Party stayed away from my big hands, and even some of the donators realized that my preflop raises meant bad news. I was really only making money off the uberlags, which is profitable, but only marginally so. To fix this problem, I decided to start raising a few junk hands. As per an article written by Daniel a while ago (years? months?), I've selected a few cards, and will raise with them every time I get them, regardless of the kicker (but not necessarily reraise). So far, the results have been great. I've found that my average pot with my legitimate hands have increased from ~5 BB up to ~8 BBs. Those 20+ BB pots which I'm so fond of live are starting to materialize at my online tables (once or twice a session...it's still tight online). The monster pots often make the difference between a blaisee day and a wonderful day. They make poker fun, and I'm glad that they're back. Plus, I get away with many more steals from MP than LP.
Anyway, this is all incredibly standard. I'm at work, and I'm bored to tears, so I felt like sharing.
Anyway, the short story is that I'd become too predictable in Limit. The regulars on Party stayed away from my big hands, and even some of the donators realized that my preflop raises meant bad news. I was really only making money off the uberlags, which is profitable, but only marginally so. To fix this problem, I decided to start raising a few junk hands. As per an article written by Daniel a while ago (years? months?), I've selected a few cards, and will raise with them every time I get them, regardless of the kicker (but not necessarily reraise). So far, the results have been great. I've found that my average pot with my legitimate hands have increased from ~5 BB up to ~8 BBs. Those 20+ BB pots which I'm so fond of live are starting to materialize at my online tables (once or twice a session...it's still tight online). The monster pots often make the difference between a blaisee day and a wonderful day. They make poker fun, and I'm glad that they're back. Plus, I get away with many more steals from MP than LP.
Anyway, this is all incredibly standard. I'm at work, and I'm bored to tears, so I felt like sharing.
I posted something a while back (in general I think), about how my limit results improved when I used dice to randomize my decisions. For example, in a 6 handed game, I would raise something like 87s/33 UTG whenever I rolled a 1 or a 2.
On another note, I think that most of the hands that you add for mixing up purposes, should be medium suited connectors or hands that are one level below your normal opening stadards. For example, if you always raise QJo 3 off the button, start adding JTo occassionally. This should be more than enough to increase your VPIP and make you more unpredictable. There is no need to throw in trash hands like Q4o IMO.
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