Eye So late

Eww, Minnesota dumped another 12 inches on us so I had to get the shovel out again. But no matter - I'm in miracle territory baby!!

Played 9 games today, made 3 final tables :) :) I'm going for another session tonight, but will grind a bit more volume, strictly $6's today.

Talked a bit over some hands today with Ben (personangrta) and he inspired me to start looking at my isolating game. And so far I don't really isolate that wide or even that frequently, and I may even underestimate how good that move is. Right now I usually only do it with AQ, AJ, ATs, 77/88+ and most other hands I'm limping behind. But here are a few thoughts:

on position
* Raising limpers puts me in a great spot if it's late position, especially the button.
* Raising the cutoff is still great, although the button might call - I'm still "buying the button" if they fold.
* Raising from the hi-jack seems meh, but if I don't have loose players in the btn/co then I can see how it could work
* Any other position I feel too exposed to isolate too wide or aggressively, any of the late positions can flat or squeeze forcing me to fold.

on the players:
* When I see 2 good (or even semi-tight) players limping and it folds around - it looks like they have 2 speculative 44/78s kind of hands. Player 1 might have a strong hand but no way does player 2 have the goods. It's straight from Colin Moshman's book but its spot on. But more to the point, you just don't see 'regs' limp-reraising monsters enough for it to be a major factor. So isolating here most likely results in both of them folding instantly, or if they have odds they might see a flop but probably fold without much Resistance.
* Against a really loose/passive player (ie: 45/5), you can probably expect them to call the iso. But really this creates some dead money because you can manuever around on the flop or turn and take it down. Of course there are straight up calling stations, so maybe isolating isn't the best plan and limping behind is more effective.
* Against a player who NEVER RAISES I used to think "they never raise anything so AA/KK/QQ/AK/AQ are always going to be in their range" so I would actually fear isolating them, but I've come to realize even though monsters are in their range - their whole range is so wide on average (40-60% sometimes) that I can't fear the 5% that crushes me. And if they do limp-reraise, which is rare, I can instamuck w/o thought. I'm sure that limping behind these sort of players is actually good as well, because you get to stack them easily knowing so many big hands are in their range.

* Whether to iso or limp behind depends on how much you think you'll get paid off versus how much they'll fold or flat/fold without much resistance.

* So against the 'average' sort of players it would seem that isolating would be the best because they'll call out of position trying to hit, and most of the time they won't!

How many players?
* To this day I haven't iso'd more than 1-2 players without a pretty strong hand. The more players there are, the larger the chance you will get called or reraised. But from a railbird's point of view - those limps look weak!
* If 4 players limp at 40/80, and you can raise making them all fold - you just stole 3.5 rounds of blinds.
* If one of the players calls your 500c raise (ie with 33 or 89s) and you steal it on an A72 board - that's 7 rounds of blinds. Damn, take that Harrinton!!!!

Now I'm going to have to try this out,
til next time!