How To Successfully Play Passively

[ObeyTheDog 0]

NOTES: This advice likely does NOT apply to MOST online tournaments. It does NOT apply to turbos, and virtually any normal online tourney. It probably does NOT apply even to Full Tilt DS or Sunday Million, because they really aren't THAT deep and the blind levels move pretty quickly. While the general philosophy still holds true and there are many elements to how to effectively turn a passive small ball approach into a successful tourney strategy in those environments, it's going to take major adjustments. Imagine a scale of 1-10. 10 being exactly what I'm talking about in this thread and 1 being the complete opposite. You'd play like a 10 in a tourney like the Venetian Deep Stack, a WSOP ME or WPT event, and more like a 6 in the Sunday online tourneys.EDITED NOTE: Simo's response...this is pretty advanced and you have to be good to play this way. It's too easy to do this stuff the wrong way and have disastrous results and outcomes. But the hopeful and perhaps naive side of me wants to believe that good students who practice hard will get better and the only way to get better at THIS style is to practice it and learn from your mistakes.Anyway, this is just my thinking, my viewpoints, what I'm evolving (and still growing) into MY style. It may not be for you, because I firmly believe a poker player must be completely comfortable with their game and it must reflect their NATURAL strengths as a player while masking their weaknesses. For some of you, this will mean playing quite a different game. But for those looking to adapt and change, read on.It's far too much to address what's going on in my head, so this may take a little discussion to fully flesh this thing out, and probably a handful of other threads which connect.So this will be pretty general for now.What you're seeing promoted on many of today's teaching sites (PFX, CR, 2P2) is a lot of LAG and HAG players and a style that generally reflects big-pot poker, emphasis on positional aggressiveness, blind theft, and playing the player. All sound advice. Very effective, especially online. When you are in situations/tourneys with 100-200 BB's, like the Venetian Deep Stack where you get 10,000 chips with blinds at 25-50, I find myself in a more favorable situation that requires drastically different strategy. Online, you are limited to betting information, often smaller stacks, and a LAG-ier game. Live, there are some fundamental generalizations that hold true a good majority of the time.1.) Less LAG-ier players. You'll encounter them, but far less. Here, you'll have more tourists, more "older" men, business type, a wider variety besides the internet lag-monster.2.) It's easier to get laydowns. This might be because I'm getting really good at picking the right pots to bluff at, but getting laydowns sure seems to be a lot easier live. If you take the time to discipline yourself into setting up and exploiting an image with the right players, you can really win lots of pots that you normally aren't used to winning. It's just so much easier to click a button and call and be wrong, than it is to physically put chips in the pot, because players don't want to look stupid.3.) Preflop play is easier to master/improve and players who are improving can make easier decisions if you "let" them. That is, if you choose to reraise, and play a preflop game with them, they'll more often make the right decision. If you see more flops, they are more often going to make a mistake.4.) Reads. I've said in the past that reads are overrated. And I still somewhat stand by that, that physical tells are highly overrated. But live, I, and hopefully, you, can get a much clearer picture about the general strength or weakness. Certain body language, a certain 'aura' surrounding that player, seems to give off more about the 'feel' of the situation than anything else. I use that. A lot of it is internal, so I can't comment too much, but these reads play a vital part of my decision-making process and there is little, if any, of that going on online.You'll set up an image, as you really improve, of a controlled state of recklessness. It will appear like you are playing almost every pot (sometimes you will be...) and involved in one way or another. But really, you aren't putting your money in very bad at all. Often, you're putting in FAR less bets than the overbetting preflop aggressor, but just seeing more STREETS for those same chips. You're checking/calling a lot more, instead of betting/raising. Read that again. You're checking behind, checking ahead, calling more....rather than betting or raising. Doesn't that sound like the exact opposite of everything you've ever read about successful NL strategy. What did Cloutier say, "A bettor be, a caller never be." Man, I was a Cloutier disciple when I started out, but this really doesn't apply to my style at all, and it's a much different game today I'd like to believe. I'm not saying this philosophy is wrong, but it's not really relevant any longer to my goal(s) as a player involved in a hand. There are many ways to find success at the tables, and I think the previous 'guideline' about being a bettor is great for beginners and even some intermediate and advanced players who are comfortable and good at playing that kind of poker. Ok...on we go.The truth is, "information" betting is one of the most misinterpreted and flawed concepts in NL tourneys. How often do you hear someone say, "I bet my 2nd pair to see if it was good. I got raised, so I threw it away." Well congrats buddy, you just turned your hand into 7-2. How does that gain you any information whatsoever??? How does that even make your cards relevant? Sounds to me like this player is a "card dependent" player, meaning he will succeed some of the time when he gets cards, and fail almost all of the time when he doesn't.In deep stack situations, the truth is MOST hands don't go to showdown. And every hand that doesn't go to showdown essentially makes yours and your oppoents cards meaningless. Suddenly, the ONLY thing that matters are the chips, how they are bet, your image, and many other factors NOT related to the cards themselves, but merely the representation, the illusion, of cards. You are a storyteller. You have to tell a story, and you have to figure out their story. You are more like detectives than a player holding two cards. There are clues. It's more important you focus solely on the player, the clues, rather than your cards, and the board. The story that connects these elements will be infinitely more powerful than the two cards you are holding.Ok, I'm getting a little bit metaphorical...let's take a step back.If most hands don't go to showdown, and all hands that you win without a showdown make the strength of your "holding" no more greater than the nut-low v. the nuts, what is the best approach to win these pots.It's not raising, reraising, and playing big pot poker.It's playing in a state of controlled chaos. You are involved. You are flat calling in position a lot. In heads up situations, you are calling in position or check calling OOP almost every time, sometimes whether you have connected or not. With marginal holdings, you are searching for more clues about the strength of your opponents hand, looking for an opening to win the pot. It's often later in the hand, most often the turn, when you'll win the majority of the pots.You're playing more passively, but it's actually quite an aggressive game. Gavin Smith once called the most aggressive play in NLHE is flat-calling in position. This is absolutely true. When you have only small pieces of the board, you are giving yourself more chances to suck out when you are behind and building value when you are ahead. You are keeping the pot small so you lose less when you are behind, all while trying to figure out if you can a) Value bet later, b.) bluff later, c) determine your opponents strength w/o giving away your own strength or weakness and/or d.) give yourself a chance to outdraw rather than being forced to fold on the flop.When you have big hands, and still play passively, you are consistent to the craft. You are putting your opponents in a state of confusion where you literally can have ANYTHING. Because of your wide hand range image (which you'll develop over the course of the tourney), you can seriously have any two, and they know it. You can be slowplaying a monster, or calling with air. You become a better storyteller with practice and instead begin looking only for "spots", or "holes" to exploit on each street. The cards truly become transparent. It's jab-jab-jab. When you have the lead, you are raising less preflop (2.5x-ish), you are betting less on the flop. You are needling these little bets when you are in control and deciphering the clues. When you don't have the lead, you're still needling, but in reverse, through your annoying check-calls, leading at turns, looking for bluff cards, looking to improve yourself, and looking to see just what your more predictable opponent's range is likely to include.Not only is this sort of creative freedom more successful when perfected than any other style, but it's quite fun. If you love poker, I think for the first time you'll truly appreciate the art form of small ball, rather than a game of chance or the chaos that is created by the shove-fests you've likely encountered (and been a party to) in the past.There's so much more to discuss, but I think I'll stop there for now and let it breathe a little. This post is for mainly for and because a few select people have encouraged me to open up a little here in the strategy forums....I can't promise I'll keep this up, but I wanted to at least stick my neck out there once so you can't say that I never tried.

[simo_8ball 0]

Very good post/article.The one problem is, you simply HAVE to be a good player to make this work. It's far too easy to misapply this kind of overall strategy and spew chips everywhere very quickly.

[ObeyTheDog 0]

Very good post/article.The one problem is, you simply HAVE to be a good player to make this work. It's far too easy to misapply this kind of overall strategy and spew chips everywhere very quickly.

Shall I add that warning to the notes? I shall.Very true. But there's only one way to get better at this and at poker. And that's by experimenting, practicing, and applying.If a bird never tries to fly, pretty sure it becomes a penguin. Or at least a really pointless bird.

[hellohello12 0]

If a bird never tries to fly, pretty sure it becomes a penguin. Or at least a really pointless bird.

or a lizard

[simo_8ball 0]

If a bird never tries to fly, pretty sure it becomes a penguin. Or at least a really pointless bird.

Ok, now that's pretty goddamn funny.

[Cappy37 0]

Awesome read. Thank you for putting that down for us. Looking forward to the next installment.

[darkrider88 0]

Sick write-up. I've been having a lot of the same thoughts and play very similar to this suggested strategy, and one nagging question keeps entering my mind that maybe you can answer; The Fundamental Theorem of Poker. According to this, it is rarely correct to call, since if you could know your hand is superior than your opponent's you should bet/raise and if it is inferior w/o odds you should fold. Obviously you don't know with certainty how your hand ranks, but if you read a situation correctly by the fundamental theorem then calling is rarely the best option.What do you think? Am I missing something about the theorem? Is calling just the happy medium between betting/folding? Or is Sklansky's advice outdated?

[hblask 1]

What, you go deep in one dinky little tournament and you're some kind of expert? Seriously, great read, thanks for sharing your ideas. I am always interested in what it takes to be successful. Have you watched DN play in person? Do you compare your ideas to his style of play?Do you maintain this style throughout the tournament, or do you switch gears, playing a few long ball hands here and there? It seems to me that if you can switch between the two at will so that your opponents don't know if you are going to fold, check, small-raise or shove at any time on any street, you will have created the controlled chaos you mentioned. Or do you always stick to small ball, because the win of showing down a flopped set with small bets creates enough fear that you make up the difference later with nothing?Of course, knowing when to switch adds another required skill to making this work....

[TB17 0]

I consider myself pretty passive compared to most winning players so this was a very good read

[hblask 1]

I consider myself pretty passive compared to most winning players so this was a very good read

Seriously? I've watched you play, I didn't think it was passive at all. If you're 'passive', I'm 'comatose'.

[ObeyTheDog 0]

If you want qualifications, I can't give you a who's who list of accomplishments at the highest level. I've played in 3 WSOP Main Events, 3 WPT Events, and 14 WSOP prelim events. I'd say of those 20 events, I've only finally evolved my game to a level worthy of competitive play in the last 5 I've played. Early on, I was way out of my league, back in 2005, and though I didn't believe it at the time, didn't have much of a chance. I played more longball and way too tight to have a chance to win. So I'm looking forward, not backward.I only play online on Sundays since January, because I simply can't stand it and the whole reason I moved to Vegas was so I could play live and play the local tourneys. I've chopped the Partypoker Million, won the PokerRoom Big Deal (which was actually the first month I started playing smaller ball), and won the UltimateBet 100k twice, though I can't recommend that site as I've sworn them off completely since they failed to credit me back a tourney after their server failure in an Aruba qualifier last year.Not the most glamorous list, but batting average speaking, I'm proud of them, so yeah a little bragament, but it's not there to sound arrogant, I'm putting it there in case you have your doubts that small ball can win online. It's just a more refined approach and like was said already, you have to be willing to play some long ball hands and change gears, especially as the blinds get really high.--

Have you watched DN play in person? Do you compare your ideas to his style of play?Do you maintain this style throughout the tournament, or do you switch gears, playing a few long ball hands here and there? It seems to me that if you can switch between the two at will so that your opponents don't know if you are going to fold, check, small-raise or shove at any time on any street, you will have created the controlled chaos you mentioned. Or do you always stick to small ball, because the win of showing down a flopped set with small bets creates enough fear that you make up the difference later with nothing?Of course, knowing when to switch adds another required skill to making this work....

I have watched DN in person several times. He probably plays way more pots than I do sometimes (especially at the WSOP), but I'd like to believe at the WPT, which I haven't watched, he plays a more refined approach. I think he just wants to get into every pot at the WSOP because the players are so bad postflop. Maybe he can chime in? (lol). I would say, my goal is to play the best style that I can adapt to and have the ability to master. So rather than compare it to someone else, it's' all about me, and it should be all about you. Only YOU know what you're capable of doing. I said a long time ago in some other thread, YOU AREN'T JOHNNYBAX!, trying to wake people up to find their niche. Mimicking others will only take you so far.I maintain my style as long as my stack size allows me to. If I continue to chip up successfully or heaven forbid, have the chip lead, then my stack size will almost always let me play some variation of my style. If I can call a raise, and then call a bullet on the flop while risking less than 10% of my stack, I think I'm in a good range to keep playing this way. If my stack in relation to the blinds becomes so that I cannot accomplish this simple goal, then I change gears into more of a long ball type approach. Instead, I will look for spots to re-steal rather than open-steal, which is much more profitable and usually more conducive to my stack size. And I will still look for spots where I can flat call and play a multi-way pot to make a big splash to get back to a stack size that is a more powerful weapon to me. So of course, you make adjustments. Just like DN makes adjustments at a WPT final table.Now if your question is "Do you ever switch when your stack size is still capable of playing small ball", then the answer is still yes, but not often. You always want to show your opponents something different, and sometimes you simply can't play small ball. Let's say you have AA, which is a hand I'd flat call one raise with and even sometimes risk playing a multi-way pot with (because I'm confident in being able to lay it down if I'm beat...remember, we are deep, we aren't committed to every pot). Well, what if someone raises and there are 3 callers in front of you. Obviously, I'm going to reraise, so that's a case where I'm not simply going to flat call. If I sense a TON of weakness, I'll raise big preflop. I pick my spots. And the beauty is this....because you RERAISE so infrequently, the words will seem very foreign and also get you the desired result more than you think. It's always nice to show 'em something new when they think they have the puzzle figured out. But what you said about flopping big hands and check-calling, leading turns, needling bets, and then showing a monster, is what earns you the ABILITY to play those other junkie hands. If you want to get credit for a big pair when you flat call one raise on the button, you have to actually flat-call one raise on the button with a big pair and show it down. Simple as that. Keep in mind, there are always players who are playing ZIP attention to you, so that's annoying when you work all day setting up an image and they continue to fire away, so you gotta pay attention to who's oblivious.

Sick write-up. I've been having a lot of the same thoughts and play very similar to this suggested strategy, and one nagging question keeps entering my mind that maybe you can answer; The Fundamental Theorem of Poker. According to this, it is rarely correct to call, since if you could know your hand is superior than your opponent's you should bet/raise and if it is inferior w/o odds you should fold. Obviously you don't know with certainty how your hand ranks, but if you read a situation correctly by the fundamental theorem then calling is rarely the best option.What do you think? Am I missing something about the theorem? Is calling just the happy medium between betting/folding? Or is Sklansky's advice outdated?

Oh I have thought about this for so long. It used to really affect my sleep. Seriously, I've read every book out there, because I'm a junkie for books and just want to see others viewpoints and how they relate to my own. And when I reread Skalnsky, it used to drive me mad, because in theory, he is absolutely correct. Seriously, the man is right. Theoretically, raising or folding, never/rarely calling is the superior play. I think Chris Ferguson is a good example of this, though he even admits compared to 2000, he too has accepted that calling is okay too. If you're looking for some reassuring advice from people other than me (ha!), pick up Full Tilt's Tournament Strategy book and read the chapters by Ted Forrest and Gavin Smith. I will propose to you the best answer I can give. It's simply that as YOUR abilities (Reading players, reading situations, defining hands, exploiting weakness) become SUPERIOR to your opponents, your future aggression will win you the pot, or your passive aggression will win you more value for the pot. That is, you are merely DELAYING the aggression for a later street when you have more information, or are DISGUISING your hand to allow your opponent to make a mistake. If you want to apply the Theorem, you are quite simply still playing aggressively, still going to bet or raise, but at a later street which is more optimal than the current state (preflop). Mathematically speaking, I think it is also superior, even without the abilities mentioned (though you really do need to become quite good at recognizing strength/weakness and everything in-between), because you are putting less chips in the pot when you are behind to gain more information, or even to give yourself a chance to suck out and win a huge pot. Sometimes you will be WAY behind with a very strong holding, and your pot control will allow you to lose a much smaller pot with even pretty strong hands, but the clues will become HUGE red flags on later streets. Imagine TPTK that you are in love with. A long ball player will get in a big raise, get called, and be stuck in a HUGE pot with no clue as to whether his hand is good. He's what I call stuck in no-mans land with the betting lead. He's either way out in front or way behind, and he's just put in what he thought was a nice value raise on the flop, and got called. Truth is, that call tells him NOTHING, and he could setting himself to lose a huge pot. The turn becomes much more tricky, and before the hand is up, he may have 50% or more of his stack in. A small ball player will play it like he plays 3-high, and by the turn or river, he's suddenly changed his mind and is convinced based on the betting that there is a strong indicator he is beat. He probably still calls (DN syndrome), but now he's lost 20% of his stack, because future streets allowed him to gauge his opponents hand better, while disguising the true strength of his holding.Does this make sense? It's really tough to put this into words. And this post is getting looooong.

[TB17 0]

Seriously? I've watched you play, I didn't think it was passive at all. If you're 'passive', I'm 'comatose'.

I've changed gears a lot from when u last saw me play (unless you've been stalking me), but I'm pretty much a LAG pre and trying to incorporate smallball post flop. Now I dunno if this is correct in anyway, but small ball usually has a more passive approach, not getting into big pots with your marginal holdings, and making a lot more calls. But that is how I've b een playing recently.Again nice posts Doggy. If you play online tourneys still I'd really like to stalk you cuz I'm a creep like that (or really like to learn what I'm doign wrong at the higher levels because I can chip up really easy in $50s and down, but the big tourneys I find it harder to chip up obv because I'm playing against better players.

[hblask 1]

I've changed gears a lot from when u last saw me play (unless you've been stalking me), but I'm pretty much a LAG pre and trying to incorporate smallball post flop. Now I dunno if this is correct in anyway, but small ball usually has a more passive approach, not getting into big pots with your marginal holdings, and making a lot more calls. But that is how I've b een playing recently.Again nice posts Doggy. If you play online tourneys still I'd really like to stalk you cuz I'm a creep like that (or really like to learn what I'm doign wrong at the higher levels because I can chip up really easy in $50s and down, but the big tourneys I find it harder to chip up obv because I'm playing against better players.

Huh, I'll have to watch you again. Are you still having as much success with this new style? Before s7s, I was "small ball", but I had no other gear, so I had lots of limping into the money and never close to a win. Now I switch between modes, but not always at the right time, but have had a couple of nice finishes lately.And I second the thanks to OtD... I hope you realize I was kidding about the credentials. It was a great post, and I hope you keep giving us bits of your wisdom.

[TB17 0]

not really any success in the $100s and up

[Potsie P 0]

Obv, Obey, this is why I joined the dogpack. Keep the advice coming, and next time I'm in Vegas, I want a lesson!

[Zippy Cootie 0]

I really enjoyed your post in the pmjackson wsop bust out hand thread, and this is an awesome follow up. This is definitely suited to my style of play, and you really put into words some great concepts. I look forward to more posts on the topic. Thanks for sharing! Oh and maybe if you quick, you can put it into a book, and beat Daniel to the punch!

[ObeyTheDog 0]

I really enjoyed your post in the pmjackson wsop bust out hand thread, and this is an awesome follow up. This is definitely suited to my style of play, and you really put into words some great concepts. I look forward to more posts on the topic. Thanks for sharing! Oh and maybe if you quick, you can put it into a book, and beat Daniel to the punch!

YVW, I enjoy it, helps me too.I'm a horrible person to rail online. I don't play enough, maybe once a week, and I'm really phasing it out, because there are such good Vegas weekend tourneys for me to gobble up and I enjoy it soooo much more. If you need great online videos to rail, watch some Rizen videos on PFX. Bax and Sheets as well. I enjoy Below's videos, pure entertainment, but I have a hard time doing what he does, just doesn't suit me. You won't find me online at any leaderboards...I'm under 10 tourneys a month now on the net on Stars and Tilt. But if I ever have anything meaningful to watch, I'll be sure to post a rail thread.If you discuss any one particular part of these posts, I will most certainly respond and discuss specific points the best I can.

[StupidKid 0]

This is a really good read but I honestly don't know if I am a good enough player post flop to do this. I might have some other questions I'll post later....Good work though OTD.

[Stuples 0]

4.) Reads. I've said in the past that reads are overrated. And I still somewhat stand by that, that physical tells are highly overrated. But live, I, and hopefully, you, can get a much clearer picture about the general strength or weakness. Certain body language, a certain 'aura' surrounding that player, seems to give off more about the 'feel' of the situation than anything else. I use that. A lot of it is internal, so I can't comment too much, but these reads play a vital part of my decision-making process and there is little, if any, of that going on online.

This 'aura' and 'feel' you talk about is your unconscious making decisions for you. Your unconscious will gather and collect information such as changes in posture, subtle facial expressions, as well as changes in tone, pace and volume in their voice without you even knowing, hence its name. It then ciphers through all this and decides what is useful and what it can understand based on previous experiences and then acts like on it. Ever felt your heart racing as you look down and see Aces or Kings. This why you think your game has improved because you have had a lot more experience at live poker then when you started out, obviously. Your unconscious has made associations with particular types of behaviour. So how do you improve at small ball? Play more poker and look for information and make associations. The great thing about our unconscious mind is that it does not depend on intelligence or age.A man and his son are in a car crash. The father dies at the scene of the crime. The son is rushed to hospital. The doctor on duty approaches the little boy and says with shock and surprise "this is my son". What relation is the doctor to the boy?If you've not come across this before, you'll have probably read that about 2 or 3 times because something doesn't 'feel' right. In an attempt to help your concious part of your mind make a decision the unconscious has made some assumptions, all based from past experiences. You can't figure them out because it's the unconscious that made them. The problem is designed to show how your unconscious can fail at its job. It made the assumption that the doctor was male, when in fact we consciously know this does not have to be true, women can be doctors too! Yet normally people cant get out of the idea that the doctor is male. This doesn't mean we're sexist. It just means that society portrays doctors as a male figure. This is from memory, but I read it in a book called Blink by Malcolm Gladwell.I'll happily go into more depth about how this applies to poker. It's just I dont like long posts.

[ObeyTheDog 0]

Nicely put about the subconscious mind working. I know that my "feel" of the hand is somewhat based on physical tells that I'm interpreting faster, stronger, and without recognition. The more you do it, the better you become at it....IF you are actively trying to seek out this situations, I imagine it would be infinitely more powerful and have more staying power.However, there is still a 'feel' of the hand that is unrelated to tells and more of just a gut instinct, almost an educated prediction, of how the action is going to play out. So before you even see a player look at his hole cards, who clearly you have no reason to "read" their strength or weakness, you can just sense that based on prior betting and his current state of mind that he is going to interpret you a certain way and react accordingly. When this starts to happen, your "flow" is extremely good and you seem to really anticipate every action and reaction to a degree of uncanny precision, and are in a very strong position to win every pot you enter.Me likes.

[ObeyTheDog 0]

This is a really good read but I honestly don't know if I am a good enough player post flop to do this. I might have some other questions I'll post later....Good work though OTD.

You gotta start somewhere. Only one way to improve. Thinking about it is merely the first step. Unfortunately, there's not much area to truly apply this mentality properly, unless you plan on entering some WPT events any time soon. If you can manage, get to Vegas or any casino that runs deep stack tournaments with a decent to good blind structure.

[Stuples 0]

I dont know what point your making. Are we on about improving small ball or something? What would you like to talk about?

[ObeyTheDog 0]

I dont know what point your making. Are we on about improving small ball or something? What would you like to talk about?

I just mean that trying to implement small ball into 180 man sng's is probably good "practice-wise" but probably not the most effective strategy for those kinds of fields.You need chips, 100-200 BB's for the first few levels IN ADDITION to TIME to execute a plan and an image. I believe that in live-play, since you can control your own image and exploit others more easily, there is more to this style than say, trying to needle bets online. For the majority of you, this strategy won't or shouldn't 100% apply if you are strictly an online player. It's more of a reference/discussion for when you play deep stack or major events that have more sophisticated fields and superior blind structures with a lot of play.