You are running well here Simon. Anything particular that you are doing that you weren"t doing before (though you have been a winning player for a while)
What stakes are you playing btw
Stakes - only 5 cent/10 cent at the moment but not for much longer. I"ve certainly been a winning tournament player for some time and I managed to luckbox my way to a healthy profit playing various cash games last year, but so far this year I"ve not played a single tournament other than 2 freerolls and have not played a single hand of anything other than no limit hold"em. In an effort to keep this brief,I"ll try and condense as much as possible into bullet points:
1) Site selection is crucial. I avoid any sites open to USA players and have a strong preference for being able to move funds freely in and out of my account via a debit card. In January the bulk of my hands were on an IPoker skin, but found the default play I fell into revolved around 3 and 4 betting in button v blind situations and little else. 888 players are the worst anywhere, shoving with any 2 cards on occasion and turning it into a game of bingo rather than poker. I"m currently playing exclusively on Betfair not because of the APAT connection, but predominantly the players seem to have a vague clue about what they are doing and are very weak; a combination which I think is perfect for extracting maximum value. Having 40% rakeback certainly helps as well.
2) I never sit down in a seat with anyone with greater than 1.5 times the max buy-in within 2 seats either side of me (unless I"ve played them before and they are exceptionally weak) and always reposition my avatar so that I"m in the same seat at every table every time I play.
3) Remember that AK is no more than a drawing hand. I"m now more ready to ditch it after the flop and probably play it in a similar way to low 1-gap starting hands, except that I"m more inclined to raise Ak in early position than the lesser hand.
4) I almost always raise into a pot rather than limp. I"ll only ever limp to add a bit of variety to my play after I"ve been at a table for a while.
5) I almost never slow play. My experience is that playing hands fast doesn"t lose too many customers and slow-playing is simply asking for someone to catch up and steal your pot. If I flop an absolute monster I will slow-play, but there are very few situations where I will do this to showdown.
6) I will rarely play any pair below pocket tens unless in the final 3/4 seats before/including the button.
7) If the action folds to me in the small blind I raise with any two cards.
8 ) If the action folds to me on the button, I will raise with most holdings. Most players are smart enough to spot this and will reraise, so with this in mind, under these circumstances I will 4 bet with any 2 cards
9) If faced with a single raiser in front of me, I will either 3 bet or fold regardless of whether I have a hand or am bullying. At this level, if someone raises then 4 bets without going all in they have aces. If they 4 bet all in they occasionally have aces, most frequently have AK but could have almost anything.
10) Using hold"em manager to assess 3 bet frequency is invaluable when deciding who to target with 3 or 4 betting.
11) Remember that at lowly levels most players will never give up on a good stating hand, so don"t be too proud to ditch your aces if the board looks as though it could have hit a number of possible decent stating hands and they bet beyond the flop.
12) Be lucky
