Playing Like a Pro Player

After having an amazing Poker week in Vegas ((Our) Vegas Poker Tour) we think we have understood how we should have played the professional tournaments and we would like to hear your opinion about it.
We are talking here about the $120 tournament and up ($330, $540, $1080) where a player wont call you with nothing (e.g. calling an AI with K2 preflop in the 2nd hand of a tournement…).
When you are a decent basketball player and you try and take Michael Jordan 1 on 1, you’ll lose (not in 99% of the cases, but in 100% of the cases!!) however, the beautiful thing in Poker is that if you’re a decent Poker player, you could take out Daniel Negranou in a tournament!!
We have played the tournaments trying to eliminate the luck factor and enhancing the skill factor. We know it’s about 65% skill-35% luck assuming one actually has skill. So, we played rather tight and bluffed only 10%-20% of the hands. We rarely got caught due to our tight image that we had, people believed us and most of the time folded. However, even if we ended up deep in the tournament and even when we made it to the final table, we were always short stacked – Always!
Analyzing the tournaments made us understand we’re doing something wrong. Watching the pros made us understand what is the right way to play, still, we wonder if it is really the right way.
We now think that these tournaments should be played very aggressively and thus, one has to have the bank roll to play it as such. The pros who live in Vegas, are counting on the fact that tourist\avg. players who are coming to Vegas care a lot about their money and will not call a very high bet preflop unless its a super strong hand (i.e. QQ and up). So, when they see 4 or 5 players limping and they have position they are raising to 6-7 times BB (instead of the ‘standard 3BB or 3.5BB) and make everyone fold 80% of the times. In the remaining 20% they will bet another 6-7 times BB no matter what comes out assuming the the caller has hit nothing. In 80% of the cases they will be right and in the remaining 20% the caller will hit something but will think four times before calling the 2nd huge raise. In rare cases, when the poor tourist will hit a set he will call… and then it might come out to a show down and in 20% of the cases the pro will suckout a victory…. anyway, he has him completely covered so the pro wasn’t hurt too much.
If the pro player has no position but has a nice potential hand (e.g. A9s, K,10s or even 9,Js) he will do the ‘regular’ 6-7 BB raise hope not to have any callers (this will be the case 80% of the times) and for the few callers he will bet 6-7 BB after the flop and in 80% of the cases the callers will fold due to hitting nothing.
Playing like that all the time will get any player to the final table with a nice stack of chips and a real chance to win the tournament in 30% to 40% of the games.
If the 20% x 20% actually happen and the pro is out of the tournament that is fine as there is always the option to register the next one. Playing like that 10 tournaments will get one loaded with chips to the final table in at least 3 tournaments (out of the 10) which will make the whole affair profitable.
The “locals” in Vegas have the luxury of being able to hit the table again tomorrow or even next week. The “tourist” doesn’t have that luxury and wants to continue the experience for as long as they can. Its the difference between playing to win and playing to just play.
This is one reason I won’t play NL ring games in Vegas because the “locals” like to grab a table with a big stack and shove the “tourists” around with huge bets because they know a) Tourists are loose, and b) Tourists play with scared money.
I’m not sure if being hyper-aggressive is the right strategy. However, playing a solid tight-aggressive game and having the skills push back on the 7X raises with good cards will get you to that final table in good shape. You now recognize the style. Its time to capitalize on it. Its like playing micro-limit SnG’s on the net. You have to recognize that a 3X BB raise will not be respected from any position, particularly in the early stages of the tournament.
Well, the locals are pros as they are all playing Poker for a living. There are pros better than other but they are all pros.
There were also pros from other places in the world (mainly the UK) that came to Vegas and played with us and we have witnessed the same aggressive game play from them, which paid off most of the times in the long run.
I think its a combination of a few factors here;
First, setting a high price for very good hands (7-8 BB)
Second, recognizing limpers or small raises when we have position and raise a lot more no matter what cards we have. Then, raise a lot no matter what the flop is. In most cases you will then take that hand as people will be afraid of the monster hand you have due to raising pre and post flop.
Third, setting a high price for marginal hands and hopefully get folds or lucky on the showdown.
Next time we go to Vegas (whenever this maybe) we’ll try this strategy over 10 tournaments and see if it works.