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nicoasp's picture
Adjusting to negative momentum

Hey guys,Something I've been thinking about is what is the best way to adjust when you get off to a rough start and your opponent has all the momentum against you. The situation I'm describing would be something like this:You plan on starting a match being aggressive. First hand you open, he calls, you c-bet the flop and he check raises, you fold. Second hand he opens, you flat, he c-bets flop and you fold air. And then say for the next 5-8 hands just nothing goes your way, you put on some aggression in a couple of hands but he either out-aggresses you or shows up with a hand every time, and suddenly you're 8-10 hands in the game and you're under 1000 in chips.What i'm interested in hearing about is whether you guys like to slow down, take a deep breath and play some small ball for a while; maybe time down a bit the next few hands while you think about what is going on, or just keep playing your regular game.I think I have lost some matches vs players I had a decent edge on by like trying to regain momentum with more aggression in this kind of situation and finding myself with 400 chips by the time I want to react, or jumping to the conclussion that the guy is a maniac and going to the felt with a marginal hand when it turns out he was just card-racking me, etc.Another spot when negative momentum might make you want to adjust:You start a match very well, get your opponent down 2 to 1, and for the first couple of levels, say 10/20, 15/30 on stars, you just keep him on 900 - 800 - 900 and you really feel like he's pretty weak, he's not putting you on any tough spots, and you have a big edge.Then blinds get to 25/50. He calls your next open and then check-raises flop, (ok fine he had a hand this time) leads out next hand OOP (hmm... what's going on here?), and ends up winning a bunch of pots in a row and getting the chip lead. So my question here, again, is how and how fast you might adapt to the first signs of aggression in a situation like this. Again, I feel like maybe I'm not adjusting fast enough and letting the guy get back to 1600 before I react, when maybe I could've stopped him at 1200 and thought about some changes right away.Anyways, I would just like to hear what you guys think about adjusting to momentum, both as a general concept and/or on one of the specific situations I mentioned. Hope you find the topic interesting. Thanks!

RyPac13's picture
This is a pretty well

This is a pretty well articulated post and something I would imagine so many players struggle with on some level.Getting Run Over EarlyWith just a single opponent, fairly aggressive and unknown players often playing each other and a great deal of variance, you're bound to get into some matches where you just miss boards that your opponent can likely hit (and does) and you face a great deal of legitimate aggression.The key is to separate what is "likely legitimate aggression (IE: top pair check raise, strong draw check raise, 2nd pair flop lead, strong hand 3bet)" from what is probably a bluff.The obvious signs that you're just being ran over by bs type hands are the types of boards you're being played hard at.  Genreally speaking, weaker players are going to bluff you too often on dry boards, stronger players vary and may be the opposite (bluffing you much more often on wet boards that more likely hit their hand ranges and make sense for more hand combinations to raise you).Another thing to take a look at: Have you seen them show any signs of passive play?  Have you seen them get to showdown yet? With or without aggression?  If you see a guy checking down 2nd and 3rd pairs, Ace and King high but playing super aggressively otherwise, odds are he's bluffing you quite a bit and overplaying a tremendous amount of draws.  But unless you adjust, he's not technically bluffing you too much nor overplaying those weaker draws at all, since you're folding too often.New Aggression With A LeadThis one is tougher to answer without a very specific situation (best exemplified by being in the moment live or watching a situation of this happening in real time).The best thing you can do later on in the game, with a lead, is to keep playing based on the reads you've developed.  Unless you're playing a very strong player, it is unlikely that your opponent can figure out what image he has given you and how to manipulate it to his advantage.  More often than not, if a player has played tight and wants to play back and rely on that image, he'll just show a ton of aggression.  But a majority of the time (except for very good players) your opponent will still give off too many tells/tips that he doesn't really have a hand.An example would be a fairly tight player raising his button.  You've seen him value bet you earlier with an overpair, perhaps KK on a board with all under cards.  He half pots the flop, turn then under bets the river for value.  You call down with 2nd pair and see his overpair and he takes down the pot.However, he hasn't connected too often since and you've taken a chip lead by being aggressive, betting when he checks back flops with scary cards and often has nothing, check raising dry boards he seems to fire at too often with bluffs (and isn't playing back at you yet) and so on.So he raises his button, you call, and he pots the flop.  You have 2nd or 3rd pair and flat call.  He then pots the turn.  You call again.  He then shoves the river for an overbet.  You call.  He flips over air then berates you in the chat asking you how you called down so light when he was repping the nuts.  Sound familiar? Board texture and specific reads obviously matter, but these situations happen over and over.  You know the player isn't likely to have as strong of a hand as he claims, since he value bet his overpair so weakly earlier in the match.That is a simplified version of how to catch players misapplying "image" adjustments when down, but that should be a good start.General Momentum ThoughtsMomentum is something I think about, particularly when rematching somebody over and over.Certain players will play very well when running good, but when things go bad for them they really lose their footing and start to spew quite heavily.  Therefore, the ideal adjustment is often to quit somebody who is both running and playing well, and to keep playing them when they are spewing/tilting.  It makes sense because you may not have a big edge (or any edge at all) when they are at the top of their game, so if you get off to a bad start in a session against a particular player, feel free to quit them.  While you can always start to run well at any time, many opponents don't seem to remember or take into consideration previous results from previous dates, so if they took 5 buyins off you on Monday, Wednesday night's -2 buyin start for them could very well set them off.  At the same time, if they take 5 buyins off you on Monday and you keep playing, a 2 buyin swing may have little to no impact on their play.There will always be a ton of variables to consider.  Some players may play bad enough when winning to where you should keep playing them (as long as you are playing well).As far as momentum within a game goes, if you're playing a longer structure (say Stars regular speed, but really anything other than FTP turbo and super turbo) you can often see some momentum within the game if your opponent (or you) are running good.  The best thing to do is just to think about the things in the first two sections of this post and to keep your confidence up.  The better you understand that bad variance is normal and will happen, the better you will be at holding your own in the worst of times, which will have a great impact on your edge and ultimately profit. 

nicoasp's picture
Thanks man

I like the advice about trying to separate what is likely to be legitimate aggression vs bluffs by the repetition on similar boards and such things. What do you think about timing down a bit and playing some hands passively / playing some small ball while you try to pick these things up, after he starts by running you over? The situation I was describing, as it's happened to me so far at least, is without him showing passive signs, but that's definately something to look for.What do you think of commiting early in hands when you think you're ahead but vulnerable against this type of player? Say you flop middle pair, he stabs at the pot and you make a commiting raise rather than calling and giving him the opportunity of taking you off, especially if there's a lot of cards he's going to be able to do that on. (As long as this is not ridiculous stack sizes wise of course).About bad "image adjustment" I'll definately try to take that into consideration. One question related to this: When you pick up on some out of character actions that you're confident on identifying as bluffs, but you don't get hands to pick them off (say the second pair hand of your example but you have air), how often will you make a big rebluff on them, like shoving over the turn pot bet? I think this is similar to my question about commiting with vulnerable hands in that taking away the possibility of putting the last bet in should be an effective adjustment I think. (As long as you don't want them to put that bet in)I feel like I might have mixed up some concepts there, but I definately got some good tips out of this. Anyways, thanks a lot for that very complete answer, definately appreciate that you take what must be a lot of time to do so.

RyPac13's picture
It feels like you could be

It feels like you could be striving for too much "black and white" answers to these problems, though you're on the right track.Against the guy that bluffs like crazy, why make a large raise with middle pair if you haven't seen how he responds to aggression and you still have some large stack sizes?  If he's firing bets all over the place, keeping his bluffs in his range sounds like a good idea there (specific hands and boards can always change things of course).As for the player that fires a lot and you just don't have a hand, fighting back is a good idea.  Generally speaking, the most loose and aggressive players will play much more loose on earlier streets, so bluffing them in turn and even river spots with air can be the best adjustment there.  Why?  Well they will call off with any draw, any pair, any high card and even air (to steal the pot with later) on the flop, since they have two cards to come to play around with or make their hand still.  On the turn, you see less of it, but still more loose play than on the river.  Then, unless you're really a very aggressive adjusting player (which is great if you can pick out really good spots to fight back on earlier streets, but that's going to be much more difficult in general), they will be at the river with a very wide range of hands, a very weak hand range and they will be in a fairly decent sized pot more often than not.  This is a particularly great place to attack the loose aggressive player, as no more cards will come out and the pot is large enough to where 1) It's super valuable and 2) They can't just call with K hi to a huge bet or raise any longer.

nicoasp's picture
Thanks again, that all makes

Thanks again, that all makes sense, and I find the later streets bluffing advice particularly helpful.When I talked about committing with something like second pair, I'm referring to a vulnerable pair with which I don't really want to see more cards because I'm not going to know when he's still bluffing or when he hit and it's just so likely my hand is going to look a lot uglier on later streets.

RyPac13's picture
That can make sense, of

That can make sense, of course it is situational.But remember, like calling a shove preflop, you just want to be ahead of their range, not feel like "you can't be beat."  So if the opponent uses the higher cards to bluff (K83 flop you have 87, turn T, river A) then you will still be beat sometimes but he'll be bluffing much more often.

nicoasp's picture
Maybe I've been folding to a

Maybe I've been folding to a few triple barrels I shouldn't considering that.Hey Ryan is your coaching info up to date? I think it might be a good idea for me.

nicoasp's picture
Just realized I'm not sure if

Just realized I'm not sure if that question is well articulated, sorry english is not my first language. I meant to ask whether you are still available for coaching, and whether the information on your coaching page is up to date as far as program, prices and so. Just asking because I'm new to the site and I saw some 2008 references in that page.