How to Change Gears

It's Not About Style - It's about changing gears.

From a couple of guys sitting at a bar, to some of the best players in the world, I hear the same discussion - What is the best style? Is it Hyper-Aggressive? LAG? Tight? TAG? Quick gear changes? A "chip accumulating" style or a more conservative style based on survival? Well I am just conceited enough to think I have an answer to the question that so many people have trouble with. And the answer is...

It doesn't matter and the question is unnecessary. In fact it is ridiculous.

There is not a "style" that wins, only skills. If you play well, then rocks will think you are a LAG and LAG's will think that you are tight. Calling stations will think that you are aggressive and so will the weak tight players, but overaggressive players will label you a passive calling station and wonder why they have such terrible luck trying to bluff you. Everyone will be baffled except the other great players and even they will know enough to stay the hell out of your way.

I hear tight-aggressive players talk about how they end up at the bottom of the money so often and I hear they want to switch to a LAG style. I hear LAG's say they keep getting busted early and want to learn how to tighten up without getting blinded off. No matter what style you pick if you can not change gears up you will be mediocre at best. Daniel Negraenu is not a LAG all the time, Phil Ivey does occasionally check and call, and I even watched T.J. Cloutier raise from under the gun with a pair of deuces once. No matter what style you like, as you become a better and better player you'll find your "style" changes according to your opponents and that you are often playing the same way as the other highly skilled players are.

If you consider yourself a tight-aggressive tournament player and you are having trouble making it deep into tournaments, then find ways to improve your game. If you find ways to make more when you are winning and lose less on the pots you lose you'll have more chips to survive that bad beat that would knock you out of the tournament otherwise, and it's much better to add to your game than to try to shake it up with a whole new approach.

If you are a looser player and getting busted early a little too often, just keep working on your game. You'll find that you tighten up a little, and start to play smarter, and soon you will be lasting long enough to hit a little run of cards and get that big stack you were always hoping for. And once you get it, you'll know exactly what to do with it.

When I first got serious about poker, I talked to my buddy Hatfield every day on the phone and we played $30 multi-table tournaments on Party Poker every day. He started out loose and aggressive and I was a bit of a rock. As we learned more about the game together by reading books and discussing hands, our games became very similar. We evolved together toward a point where our understanding of the game allowed us to leave styles behind.

He's still just a little more aggressive than I am, but you'd never recognize that rock in me now. And he has tightened up enough that people hardly ever call him a maniac at the tables these days. Neither of us is perfect, but we both moved in that direction enough to end up as very similar players, with no style at all, We both adapt to our surroundings now, playing whatever game is best suited for the opponents we are facing.

To me style is just a starting point. It's the direction that you approach perfection from. Once you stop thinking of yourself as a certain style player, and just try to play perfect poker, you'll be able to adjust to your opponents and play whatever game gets the money. Then you'll never be the LAG who is emailing me asking how to beat a table full of calling stations and you'll never be the rock wondering how to beat maniacs who keep stealing pots from them.

The only thing you should be worried about is the play that makes the most money in a given situation. Once you get to that point style doesn't matter and the question will fade from your mind. Not long after that someone will ask you what style they should play and you'll realize how silly the question really is.

from:
xhttp://www.realpokertraining.com/

I hope this helps everyone! Very interesting piece

i agree 100% with you, i feel that in MTT's you last the longest when you can deceive your opponent and trick them the longest, and changing gears in a neccessity to do this...one thing i'd like to add is that consistent betting patters will almost never give a tell unless its a physical tell...for example, before i make a standard preflop raise, i read my table if theres alot of tight players, i make small a bet close to 3x the BB, if it's loose players, i make more of a 4 to 4.5 bet solely bc i know that those tight players will fold to my 3 bet and i know that im not going to get too much action from the loose players with a 4 bet...once i have a standard bet for the table, i stick with it...and i never vary my bets based on specific players and hands, usually just tournament breaks and/or placing and blind structure at that given moment, it all comes down to your chip stack and what you can do with it...aka, CHIP UTILITY

great post as usual poke.