Coming Full Circle...

Friday, October 26, 2007

If I recall the first hand of online poker I ever played was limit holdem at a full ring table on William Hill (cryptologic). That was several years ago and I have gone through phases of SNG, MTT, full ring NL and heads up play before I finally settled for the long haul at 6-max no-limit.

All that is about to change again as I come [near] full circle back to full ring games. This is the big change I have been talking about and I realise that to many of you it's absolutely nothing, since I'm sure a high percentage of you chop and change between full ring and 6-max all the time. I don't, and in fact, until recently I hadn't played more than about 50 full-ring hands in a few years.

The inspiration was Smart Poker's blog so thank you very much to the person that provided me with the link. I've played a fair bit of full-ring this week at the NL$200 level and have found it to be far more suited to my style of play and my core game. I read a very good quote on 2+2 which sort of sums my thoughts up:

A good full-ring players first instinct when he's raised on the flop is usually, “ZOMG, ZOMG, he's got it, he must have it!” whereas a good 6-max player thinks, “This guy is so full of shit!”

Therein was my problem at 6-max: there are just far too many people pulling crazy stunts all the time and making mad bluffs. Inevitably I'd end up playing back in all the wrong spots and the variance was high. I still know that I can beat 6-max and I'm sure that I've been running badly for the last few months but I'm not able to kill the lower levels and it will always be a swingy game to play. This can, and does, frustrate me a lot.

So, after a few sessions to get used to it I've been 9-tabling NL$200 full-ring games and to date have found them much more palatable than 6-max. I believe my 6-max experience helps me considerably in these games and I'm especially effective if a few players start dropping out. I'm also able to play what, to me, feels like a natural semi-loose aggressive game without the blinds just running me over as can happen at 6-max if you are too tight. Being able to play more tables is also a bonus from the point of view that I'm generating a lot more rakeback and 9-tabling FR is no more taxing than 4-5 tabling 6-max. With the correct monitor set up I'm confident I could play 12 tables or more at the same time.

It is my intention to concentrate solely on full ring cash games as of next week and I'm going to really try to up my hours. I have actually talked to Mike Brooks, aka Smart Poker, aka Narena a fair bit over the last few days and he suggested putting on a DVD as you play to give you something to watch in the background. This seems like a great idea and is something I'm going to try to reduce the monotony and keep me fresh. I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank Mike for some tips and pointers to help me make the switch to FR - obviously as a direct competitor at the tables there was no reason at all for him to help me but he did nevertheless and I truly appreciate it. Mike, if you are ever in Scotland there is a place to stay, a warm meal and a beer waiting for you.

In line with this fresh start I'm also going to start a new pokertracker database as the performance of my existing one is suffering badly due to the amount of hands in it. I've been running at 8.44ptbb/100 over 4k at FR so I might import them into the new database.....would be rude not to ;o)

So there you have it, as of next week I'll be hitting full ring with robo-mike as my inspiration. I'll try to keep you as up to date as possible with how I'm getting on.

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