bennymacca said:

mod edit ftw

Ha, cheers mate. Now all I need is for you to tell me how to become the bastard child of Mike Leah and The Big Dog!

Before I started winning tourneys at a semidecent rate,  i was just like you. 4 Months of TPE, i think i started to get comfortable. But i played everyday, still do,  and view my tourneys, and watch new vids, logging notes on mistakes i make..so u clear them.. EVERY day… It's repetition, thinking deeper then you ever thought. Watching your vids, and becoming raise happy, and opening as much as you can in the midgame. “if you want to live, you gotta be willing to die.” But at the same time, knowing when to change gears, and yes infact nit it up a bit. Because of image, or stack size, or icm. It's repetition, weeding out your mistakes (which instantly improves your game). It's not ALL about just learning new stuff. It's elminating the bad stuff just as well. I say this.. play a lot. In the midstage open up as much as u can, raising,IP raising MP and  raising UTG..cbetting boards applying pressure, or chk raising them. when to reshove, when not to. when to open shove, etc. Once u start doing this stuff religiously, you start winning tournaments. Raising “spots” when the antes come in. not necessarly the cards we have in our hands. But raising that particular guy, cuz of his particular stack, and the guy to your left is 12/8 nit. That stuff is where the 10s of thousands of hands comes into play. I just say..best advice controlled aggression, and really trying to think in regards or ranging the opponent, and what he would do, and what he'll do if u do. Can he stand the raise on the nasty board he just Cbet? We'll see..3x bam!!..and he folds. :D…And last but not least probably the most important of it all is the stack management. Doing all this stuff is controlled/limited by your stack size. Really paying attention to this, is how we go real deep and win tourneys.All this shit is takes a lot of practice LOL!! glgl and sorry if i rambled too much

Thanks for your input lads, I found all three posts really helpful.

Part of the reason I posted this thread originally was because I'm in the middle, well hopefully at the end, of my biggest downswing so far. I believe this is due to a combination of bad luck and bad play due to being unfamilar with the spots I referred to before. I wasn't sure whether it was wise to keep playing through it or whether that was burning money. But as Hawkeye and 0lespaul have alluded to, I suppose I'm buying experience and without putting myself in these spots again and again and again I'm never going to fully understand them. What I have done is drop down stakes a bit, playing roughly abi of $5 rather than $11. Good to hear from Killingbird that this isn't such a bad idea.

Any other advice would be great.

0lespaul3 said:

Before I started winning tourneys at a semidecent rate,  i was just like you. 4 Months of TPE, i think i started to get comfortable. But i played everyday, still do,  and view my tourneys, and watch new vids, logging notes on mistakes i make..so u clear them.. EVERY day… It's repetition, thinking deeper then you ever thought. Watching your vids, and becoming raise happy, and opening as much as you can in the midgame. “if you want to live, you gotta be willing to die.” But at the same time, knowing when to change gears, and yes infact nit it up a bit. Because of image, or stack size, or icm. It's repetition, weeding out your mistakes (which instantly improves your game). It's not ALL about just learning new stuff. It's elminating the bad stuff just as well. I say this.. play a lot. In the midstage open up as much as u can, raising,IP raising MP and  raising UTG..cbetting boards applying pressure, or chk raising them. when to reshove, when not to. when to open shove, etc. Once u start doing this stuff religiously, you start winning tournaments. Raising “spots” when the antes come in. not necessarly the cards we have in our hands. But raising that particular guy, cuz of his particular stack, and the guy to your left is 12/8 nit. That stuff is where the 10s of thousands of hands comes into play. I just say..best advice controlled aggression, and really trying to think in regards or ranging the opponent, and what he would do, and what he'll do if u do. Can he stand the raise on the nasty board he just Cbet? We'll see..3x bam!!..and he folds. :D…And last but not least probably the most important of it all is the stack management. Doing all this stuff is controlled/limited by your stack size. Really paying attention to this, is how we go real deep and win tourneys.All this shit is takes a lot of practice LOL!! glgl and sorry if i rambled too much

Think this is excellent advice and something I will try and do as I'm just starting to properly learn the game