Online play, determination & short stacked plays

So I deposited some money on Carbon Poker last week. While it is definitely NOT the same as PokerStars and Full Tilt, at least it is poker from the convenience of my own home.

The biggest difference really is just game selection and field sizes. I'm okay with the smaller fields since it helps reduce variance, but it does make it less likely to hit a big score. But the game selection at the mid stakes is pretty slim. There are plenty of $5 tournaments, but I prefer to play $20 - $50 games with deeper stacks. Hopefully this will improve over time, but I guess for now the role of online poker is to help me get reps for my live game.

I did just return from New Orleans at the WSOP Circuit event. I did well, placing 24th in a daily $355 and 5th in a nightly $185. But the friend of mine I went with ended up winning 2 rings for over $100k in 5 days. This was obviously a monster run, but he played great as well. He was fearless making big calls and bluffing in the right spots. He made up his mind before he went that he was winning a ring and that determination has inspired me. It's made me even more determined than ever to take down a big live tournament.

Biggest Leak - One thing I still need to work on is my fear of going bust early on in a tournament. I will often times fold in spots with the justification of "picking a better spot". Now I'm not saying that I do this all the time or even that folding in these spots is wrong, but I had a hand that bugged me from New Orleans. Long story short - An aggressive internet player raised in mp and I had TT on the button. I decided that 3betting was the best play...BUT, I did not have a very confident plan for the hand based on how he may respond. I probably even looked a little nervous. I raised 2.8x his raise and thought to myself "he probably thinks I'm 3 betting light here". He thought for a while and he 4bet me for a bit over 1/2 his stack. I considered all options and shoving was definitely in my mind...but then I talked myself out of it because he had put in so much of his stack and I didn't want to look like a fool shoving and him snapping me off with QQ or something. I folded and later on he told me he had A7s. Now he could have been lying of course, but that pot was significant in my momentum and his momentum in the tournament. I hit a downswing at that point and he continued to run over the table....it probably also made me gun shy. But had I won that pot, I would have had a lot more chips, but more importantly a ton of confidence. I still made day 2 and cashed, but I nursed a short stack for like 7 hours and never put myself in a position to win. So these are the ways I'm going to work on this leak:

1. Have a plan for all situations when making a decision so I'm not influenced by emotions
2. Be comfortable with going busto in big pots early IF I have strong reads

Now the good thing is, later that night in the nightly I played without fear and it paid off. I iso-shoved a big squeeze play vs. an aggro kid with 55 and I was right about flipping and won a big pot. I also raised blind with 4s2s and when I hit a flop of 4xKsJs, I raised someone's donk lead and got it in. I could have easily played it passive and just called the flop, but then I would have had to fold the turn. I felt like I had fold equity and the best hand so I took the aggressive route and it paid off on the river.

Goal Setting - So like I said, my friend's determination to win was inspiring and I know that it fueled his big week. He was not going to be satisfied without a win and it helped him have the strength to follow his gut without caring about being wrong. I am determined to win a big live tournament and it will happen soon.

New Desire - I've been thinking about this more lately and I want to back a small stable of players. I've always loved being a mentor and helping others become successful because of my influence. I also like the idea of spreading out my risk. Of course, the problem right now is that I don't have the bankroll to back others. If Full Tilt & PokerStars were still alive in the US, I could back players for micro-stakes online, but with that being dead there aren't as many people like me who are playing on the remaining US sites. So really I would be backing live players and I do have a concept for the Atlanta Poker Fund which would gather a group of investors together to back multiple players at the same tournaments. But that requires me to recruit others who are interested in staking and that is proving to be more difficult than I thought for myself at the main event (I have to shore that up this week...I probably have $6k locked up). Backing others is still something I am going to pursue.

New Strategies with 20-25bb stack - This is another part of my game that I need to keep working on. I sometimes feel crippled at this stage and end up waiting it out until I get shorter so I can 3bet shove. And while my arsenal might be limited with this stack, I need to have some plays I can utilize to keep chipping up here. Here are a few thoughts:

• Don't worry about a 3bet shove feeling like an overbet. If it's the most +EV decision then do it
• Delayed shove - interesting article on Cardplayer on this...basically call a raise in position with good, but not great holdings (i.e. KQ, KJ, AT/A9, etc. and shove over any c-bet). Sometimes you'll get called but they will whiff 2/3 of the time and they can't call. This is good against someone you think might call your pre-flop shove with small pairs or possibly better broadway cards, but will fold on the flop
• Inducing squeezes by flatting raises in lp with a more merged value range. This only applies vs. really aggro players in the blinds, but instead of just trapping with AA, KK, etc. I could consider flatting a raise with a hand like AJ with the intention of calling/shoving over a squeeze. Again, it is player specific and somewhat high variance but when you have someone squeezing with worse Aces and suited connectors, AJ turns into a big hand.
• Limp the button or cut-off vs. players who defend a lot, but won't raise from the blinds. This may seem a bit on the passive side, but it's really more about pot control and playing position. It is player specific and the plan is to bet almost any flop. This isn't a play I would do a lot, but in the right situations it can be the best choice with this stack size.

River plays - One other area I'm going to be thinking about is river plays. I tend to have a very limited bluffing arsenal on the river, but river bluffs can often be very believable. I probably need to find spots where I could bluff raise the river more (not that I need to be spewing rivers, but this is not in my arsenal that much). Obviously it needs to make sense for the hands I'm representing and board textures need to make sense.

Alright, that's it for the giant brain dump for now.