A Move to No-Limit

A Move to No-Limit?

I think I figured out what part of my problem was as far as tournament play goes for the second half of last year.  I don’t think I was playing in enough tourneys to really get a good feel for how the game flows.  I was focusing a little too much on my ring game performance and as a result my tournament skills got a bit rusty.  So then I would get frustrated when I wouldn’t do well in a tournament and that would lead to me playing even less frequently.  Rinse and repeat.

This year I set a goal to play in more tournaments.  Despite the poor start, I forced myself to stay at it because I knew I could beat the games I was playing, and I’m too stubborn to admit defeat.  Its month later and I’m feeling pretty good about my tournament play.  Its not just my second place MTT finish a few weeks ago, that I promise I will continue to bring up as if it was a WPT win.  I’m definitely able to make better reads and what I feel are stronger plays that I wasn’t making a few months ago.   I still tend to make one huge crippling mistake in the later rounds but, at least I’m getting that far.  I need to work on being patient a little more, and then I think I’m due for a nice winning streak.

So after playing a large amount of no limit tournaments recently I’ve found my usual limit ring games to be on the boring side.  I’ve been avoiding no-limit ring games because I’m afraid that I won’t be able to take the variance.  The chance of losing a buy in over one bad play or unlucky card is not one that I really want to try.  I know, I can double up just as easily, but I guess I’m just not quite risk tolerant enough to try it.  

Like I said, the limit games have started to bore me, so I decided to try a no-limit ring game.  I opted to try on GamesGrid, since I don’t have too much cash to blow there, and I have that huge bonus to work off.  It’s too bad that GamesGrid hasn’t caught on more than it has because has a pretty unique feel to it and it has potential to be a top site. There seems to only be a few active tables at any one time though.  That’s ok for my purposes because it prevents me from multi-tabling for the time being.

Anyway, I’ve played three sessions and I have a small profit to show for it.  It’s refreshing to be able to get players to fold on scary boards rather than having 7 people call you on each street.  Its also seems a lot easier to put your opponents on a hand since they aren’t going to call just any old bet.  Well not all of them will.

I must be doing something right, because I am slightly up, despite having lost two of the biggest pots of my life.  In the first I flopped a king high straight and didn’t bet as aggressively as maybe I should have, since I didn’t want to scare the other guy away.  Of course by doing that I let stay in with his bottom pair, which then allowed him to hit a runner runner flush.  The second hand is one that I still don’t know if I played well or not.  I’m guessing not, but I don’t know what else I could have done.  I had aces and the big blind was the only one to call my raise.   Flop was [5,6,7] and he bets $4, which was about half the pot.  That board was a little too coordinated for my taste, so I bumped it to $12, tying to end it there.  He called.  Flop is a 5 and he check calls my $15 bet.  The river is a 4.  He goes all in for his remaining $30.  What do I here?   I opted to fold, because there are so many ways in which he has me beaten.  Its possible that he has an over pair or just overcards and is bluffing, but I didn’t want to spend $30 to find out.  I didn’t want to fall into the trap of making a crying call just because I started out with a great hand.  In hindsight I wish I had called, because I’m thinking he had kings or queens or something like that but it’s too late now.    

So it looks like no limit ring games may have made their way into my repertoire.  We’ll see how that works out.