V: Mixing it up, or a sick joke about Daniel Negreanu

So I was playing online today -- having downshifted to $3 SNGs to keep the blood loss to a minimum while I try to regain my equilibrium -- and some baboon made a sick and pointless joke about Daniel Negreanu being killed in a head-on collision. A quick Google and Yahoo search of the subject yielded nothing, and a quick sharkscope of said baboon made it clear that, as baboons will, he was compensating for his lack of talent by acting out.

Nonetheless, it got me thinking about Daniel Negreanu and I searched him out on youtube, where I found a series of three instructional videos of his on -- what else? -- how to win at Hold Em. Here's the link to the first:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xeeozbb2_FQ&feature=PlayList&p=8A637CFF3C497E4F&index=0&playnext=1

In truth, these lessons are aimed at taking a strong player and making them pro, a profile I must concede that I don't fit, but they were very helpful, perhaps because they picked up on the "modest gains" approach that I stumbled on recently. In fact, playing "smallball" was the whole thrust of the lessons, but in a way that is very different from mine.

Negreanu says that beginners play "two card" poker -- that is, the lion share of the decision-making is done pre-flop. Pros, on the other hand, make the hard calls after the flop. He advised seeing many more hands combined with a strategy of savvy value betting and blind-stealing. This way, you confuse other players as to what you might have at any time, you can press a hand should you hit while keeping your losses small if you don't, and you trap other players when you do make a monster because they figure you can't catch something every flop.

So, given that my incredibly tight-but-aggressive play has been so feast or famine and typically much more famine, and given my itch to want to play more hands, I thought I'd give this a try.

I stuck to a few of Negreanu's principles:

(1) I played many more hands, especially with low blinds and in late position, and even more so if I could limp in or call for just 2xBB.

(2) From one or two off the button until the button, I would raise 3-4xBB if I had anything playable, and -- critically -- even if I had great starting cards. However, I only did this if there were no previous callers.

(3) If I raised, I followed up post-flop with a bet about 1/2 to 3/4 of the pot. I took down a surpringly large number of pots right then and there. If someone raised hard, I'd typically fold (when I failed to fold because I had a middling hand, disaster typically ensued). If I did flop a monster, though, I got paid big time.

I executed this the most consistently in the last SNG that I played today...and it worked! My stack grew steadily while for the most part I dodged disaster. I did have one terrible, TERRIBLE hand, where I raised preflop with A4os, the flop came A x x, and I went down to the river only to lose to A8. Stupid, stupid, stupid. This took me from 3500 to about 900 chips, with 50/100 blinds, so I wasn't happy at all with my boneheaded play. So much for mixing it up.

Nonetheless...I doubled-up soon after when I made a flush all in with JTh, and then I stuck to the program. And sure enough...1st place, having (semi-)stolen thousands of chips in blinds, picking up pots with value bets, and staying clear of disaster. Oh, and by trapping Mr. A8 to get my chips back with considerable interest: I had raised 4xBB preflop, he called, for about 1600 in the pot. I had 99 and the flop came 678, so I bet 1000, he raised, I went all in, and he called to show AT. A five came, then a ten (for sweet justice), and I was untouchably the big dog.

This strategy worked well three handed as well, though I folded some hands I might ordinarily have pushed, wanting the two shortstacks to cut each other's throats without me doubling them up. In the end, I not only had first, but I felt -- for a change -- that I had executed a strategy that worked and that suited my style.

I think I will stick in the laboratory of the micro-stakes for a bit while I try on this New-greanu suit of clothes. And I will watch those videos many times more.