Controlled Aggression = Winning 180s

My game over the last several months has evolved again. Just some background for those that do not know me:

I started playing around January 2005. I made my first deposit online of exactly $50 somewhere during that month. About 2 days later, the $50 was spent. I waited another week or so and deposited another $50. That was the last deposit I ever made online and I have been playing solid ever since then approximately 15-25 hours per week. I have made exactly 2 withdrawals, one in April of 2006 for $2400 and another a few weeks ago of about $800. However ever since I made the cashout in April of 2006 my online game has suffered.

At the same time I tracked my live ROI% (since May 2006) and at times it was over 200% and now it is sitting around 170%. I felt my live game was the best part of my poker game. Online became kind of like a video game to me. Then one day it happened:

Something made me ask Skip to goto lunch. Even though I always joke around about Skip, he has to be one of the brightest 18 year olds around. We talked about one hand for about 30 minutes: AK. He told me that he knew some young online pros that said they have never folded AK preflop in millions of hands. I am not sure what did it but something struck in my head about that statement.

Fast forward to early February and I am driving back from Renfrew after getting my aces crack again with Jon. Now Jon was the one who helped me refine my game around May 2006 and I went on a superb live run and felt unstopable. We had this discussion about what skip said and we went to my place and played on stars and said everytime we get AK, we are pushing all-in. We came in 4th in a 180 sng that night but I begun to realize what was missing from my online MTT game: aggression. My game of the past, I was aggressive with 2 hands AA and KK. My game now, I am aggressive with any hand I want to win. I have 3 bet 57o preflop before. I have put my whole tourney on the line with 5 high just to show you can't steal my BB.

I have re-raised with J8 because I sensed weakness in a button raise. I never worry about re-raising with a flush or straight draw. I gamble with races all the time. If I think I am racing I will sacrifice everything to win the chips. I like to force my opponents into very tough decisions. People who do not understand will say I just throw chips around trying to get lucky. To be honest after my 1st 180 win, I thought that is what I was doing to.
Then after I won my 6th in 3.5 weeks I realized I was doing more than gambling.

I then know now that my game has evolved and I have added controlled aggression. Its controlled because I still know and realize when to slow down. I still have the aspects of my game that I had before. I am almost never putting chips in a pot behind but because there are really not 2 cards I am afraid to raise with, my opponents have a hard time putting me on any kind of hand. I have won huge pots with 82, 42, 74 etc etc. Everyone trys to check/raise me when the flop hits and they have such a hard time playing out of position on me.

I think this new aspect to my game has made my live game even better. There is more gamble to my game now. At a recent live game I was told that people do not want to see flops with me, that it has been discussed that the best way to play against me is to push all-in preflop and hope I don't call. To be honest, it was one of the most flattering things I have heard about my game.

I did not think my game would really ever advance further and there is a certain distinction between MTT play and SNG play. I feel I have refined my MTT play to make me a more consistent winner.

Why did I even bother writing this blog? To remind myself when, where and why this change happened. Hope you enjoyed reading it.