July 13, 2005
So take this idea to heart. If you're running bad, it may be that you have put yourself into unprofitable patterns of pokerparty. In my case, I've been playing too aggressively. In your case, you may be playing poker party too passively, or over-valuing small pairs, or falling below the anyace line, or a hundred other things. Whatever your flaws, ferret them out with honesty and humility, and then eradicate them mercilessly. This is the path to true Killer Poker.
I still think that there's a time and a place for the "creative" raise, but not all the time, and not every place. I was over-enthusiastic about 9-8 suited. That has stopped. I was routinely raising with semi-strong pokerparty hands, and shining an unwanted spotlight on my actions. That has stopped. I was constantly driving dead, but that has stopped because constantly anything in poker is not a good idea.
A related problem is my tendency to get overly excited about a specific pokerparty hand: 9-8 suited. Some time ago, I convinced myself that this was a fabulous hand, with all sorts of wonderfully deceptive value. My main thinking was this: If I raise with this hand and hit, not only will no one put my on a big holding, but also those cards are not likely to help all the big-card callers I typically get. The fly in this particular ointment is, obviously, you just don't hit a big flop that often, and any time the board comes rich in overcards, you really have to fold your tent and go. You might try to drive a naked bluff through the field, but if you have revealed yourself as a frisky player (which I generally do because it pays other sorts of dividends) you're going to get called down.
Texas Holdum Poker party qualifiers
So now I'm adjusting my play. I'm calling instead of raising with some of my semi-strong hands. I am, in a sense, letting the game come to me. It's still early days with this strategy, and I'm not sure I'll stick with pokerparty. It seems to run counter to my mantra, and boy, I love that mantra. Still, I feel good about having identified a problem and, at least tentatively, embarked on a path to solution.
"Go big or go home" has been my mantra. In service of this mantra, I now see, I had fallen into the habit of virtually always either raising or folding at poker party qualifiers. But habits are dangerous in pokerparty because habits expose patterns, and patterns can be read by foes who are paying attention. In my case, my habit of rarely calling and nearly always raising hands with even sub-premium hands has taught my foes to call me more often than I'd like. They simply won't let me run all over them, and so, in a sense, they have taken away the strength of my raise.
Why is the raiser so exposed? Because his raise announced the strength of his hand, and, based on that announced strength, he is expected to continue to bet on the flop. His failure to do so is regarded as weakness - but his continued betting is not necessarily regarded as a sign of strength. This is the true danger of driving dead: You end up betting hands you don't have because, as the initial raiser, you figure you're expected to bet, and you just can't cower out by checking and folding every time.
Advanced Bluffing Tricks
What to do? Back off a little. Call some pokerparty hands that you would normally raise with. Let someone else take the lead from time to time. Let other aggressive players get out ahead of their hands at the poker tournament. In other words, let the other guy drive dead.
These are, after all, foes whom you've trained through your aggressiveness to call with very-nearly-random hands. If you miss, but bet anyhow, you run the risk (face the certainty, actually) of being called by pokerparty players who caught a little something-something and, again based on your aggressive image, figure they might have the best of it. If you miss and don't bet, you've waved the white flag. Hand over. Next case. You've put yourself in a lose-lose situation at the poker party room (unless you hit the flop) by calling too much attention to yourself through your raise.
You're in early position with a moderately strong hand like A-Q suited. Pokerparty says, "Raise! Raise!" so you do. But your opponents know you to be hyper-aggressive, so they call you, even though their hands (K-J, T-9s) may be inferior to yours. Once you get callers, you more or less have to hit the flop, because if you don't you can't be sure that no one else did either.
