Wetts1012;165440 wroteThis strategy is only successful for people who are strong post-flop players. If you find this type of play harder to figure out, you're not ready for this style - yet.
Until that time just be careful your not losing value on your playable hands by focusing on keeping your game small - especially in STT's where the opportunity to extract value is generally smaller. Your example above with the KK is an example of this strategy improperly played. Small ball does not mean play your huge hands soft. If you have KK with the intention of having multiple callers Ur doin it wrong.
I guess I should explain. When I said 'harder' - with the single quotes - I was trying to imply that it involves more concentration and is different. It is a bit 'harder' I guess, simply because it involves more thought. To be honest, I have been getting bored with waiting, so using a style like this where I can get a feel for the cards and reads and pay more attention to player actions, I don't get so bored and I play better. So, no, I do not actually find it harder to figure out, but there is an obvious learning curve that I need to go through.
$11 buy in SnG's is a great place for me to learn. So, I'll stick with diving right in to learn the SnG strategy. Thanks for your opinion, though. My post-flop play is quite good, acutally.
As far as KK, I'm not slow playing it at all and the amount of callers when you have KK might be more, but, from my experience yesterday, there were still only a few callers when I got huge hands. Most of the time someone would think I was bluffing and re-raise me, forcing me to go heads-up. This also put more money in the pot since others players that probably normally wouldn't have called if I pushed (if they acted after me) were in for the smaller raise, but folded to the larger one put on by the other players (again, like I said, it isn't always the best strategy to use and I like mixing it up, but if you feel you will get re-raised, why not try to get more money in there?).
Now, this all depends on position too, of course. If I'm first to act, I put in a larger raise pre-flop. Maybe 4 or 5xBB, just to get most of the callers out. So, yeah, I agree, but I don't shove as much as I used to. I used to not give myself a chance to fold KK when playing in tournaments. If playing Small Ball, you have to be able to fold KK. That was my point.
Again, it all depends on the table too. Small ball didn't work on the last table until the end of the game when the blinds were bigger and people weren't pushing as much. (I was the huge stack at this point, so the raises that put others all-in sometimes were small to me, but huge to them)
Also, a little more on the tables I played this on. The blinds went up slowly. They weren't turbo or speed tables. I find these tables easier to play and win. That's a large factor.
So, yeah, so summarize, my post flop game is good, but I want to improve it. How better to improve it? I figure playing and reading to learn is the best way, don't you think?
And, I do play KK more aggressively and I think about my bets when playing, but I still want to give the image that I have nothing. I have been thinking about what others could be on, like draws and stuff, and how much I would need to bet to push them out of the pot on the flop. So, if I don't only have one caller pre-flop, I likely will on the flop. Either way, I try to make it 3 callers at most with a huge hand. But, I don't play it as aggressively as I did before. I'm also not risking all of my chips most of the time either, so I avoid more 'bad beats' to A-rag os.
But yeah, I am learning and I do need advice. Thanks for your advice. Any other would be greatly appreciated.