Watching Annette

I've been having some good success with SnGs lately, moneying in 4 of the last 4 played, including today's lunchtime 2nd-place finish in a $5 game. Admittedly, I got lucky in each of these games (e.g., my 33s cracked another player’s KKs in today’s game) but I also credit a large part of the success to simply playing tighter, position poker. My VPIP in these past four games has been under 20%, which feels a lot closer to "correct" than the previous 30% I’ve been doing lately.

Speaking of solid numbers, I watched some of Annette_15’s play last night on Full Tilt. She was in four separate multi-table tournaments at once when I tuned in. She busted out of three of them while I watched (made the money in one). Regardless, I was still impressed, especially with how she was able to focus on the different games that were each in different stages of play. For instance, one of the games was a 6-player table format, while the other three were 9-player tables. One game had big 300/600 blinds and was nearing the bubble and another had relatively low blinds (80/160) and was still in the early stages. Her stack sizes (and M-values) were quite different from game to game, too, and in each game she clearly had people gunning for her (and chatting at her). Just watching the four games and trying to keep up with the action was challenging; I can’t imagine how she manages to play them all at once, answer the occasional chat, and do well at the same time (and don't forget to factor in the time zone effect; she was playing at something like 6am her time).

Her numbers looked very good, too. After 200 hands, her VPIP was 20%, preflop raise percentage was 18%, and her aggresion rating was 8. I did see her limp a couple of times, but generally speaking she played "Raise or Fold" poker. She also seemed to be a big fan of the 2.5xBB raise when she was the first to enter a pot. I don't believe I saw her open a pot for any value other than this 2.5x number, which made it fairly hard to put her on hands. She was also clearly not afraid to 3-bet other players, often pushing all-in on reraises when, apparently, she smelled weakness. Aggression permeated everything she did, generally working in her favor, but also being the basis of her undoing in all three bust-outs. Watching her feels like observing a raw young prodigy working on her game, displaying flashes of brilliance, but also showing some self-inflicted problems, like over-aggresiveness. Its almost like watching a young genius at work and not being smart enough to fully appreciate it.

In any case, I'm definitely going to watch for her again in the future and see what I can pick up for use in my own game...

All-in for now...
-Bug