Shania, What a Dime Piece

There is a concept in poker known as "Shania" in one of the strategy forums that I browse. Shania is the culmination of actions and inactions. Try to understand how your opponents perceive you. Everything one does, or neglects to do, has an impact on his game, results, and the table.
I woke up yesterday pretty late and blasted some music on headphones to keep myself from falling back asleep. Eventually I decided to open my eyes and began talking to a friend online. Unfortunately I received the same news I've been hearing for the last 1-2 months. We've been gettin' our asses kicked for a while, but that's when the grind begins. Our conversations begin with a brief "hello" and we dive straight into concepts and strategy or hands that one of us has had on his mind. I was awake for no more than 30 minutes, hadn't left bed by 2pm, and I was completely enamored with the conversation. I proceeded to ignore hunger pains and talk for another hour and a half. For anyone who doesn't know me, I don't particularly enjoy missing meals. Sometimes it is so easy for me to get lost in a good poker conversation. Ken and I push each other to challenge all the norms and standards of the game. He said to me "man iv'e been playing this beautiful streamlined 25/20 game...defending my blinds more liberally with a mix of 3bets and calls while donking and check raising flops." For those who don't understand poker terminology I'll explain quickly. Some sites allow you to run software that keeps statistics on every one's playing style. I'm not ever very good with these numbers, but 25/20 means hes playing sort of like a maniac and putting a lot of money in the middle of the table. 25/20 is a damn good style, really stirs up some actions, but hard as hell to play successfully. It requires some advanced hand reading skills. But its definitely one of the more profitable styles to play. 3bets are simply re raises preflop. "Donking" means that he is leading without the initiative. All of the resources available today that teach poker, do not encourage the donk bet. Leading is considered awkward and unorthodox. In other words horrible and the sign of a weak player. Its funny because when someone sucks and I'm trying to talk about his game politely I'll say, he's a bit unorthodox.
Due to the state of the games today, which are overly aggressive (aggro), leading without the initiative might be my new favorite weapon. But anytime we decide to tweak our game, we can't forget about Shania. Everything you do affects the table and the flow of the game. Ideally you want table captaincy. All the actions at the table must flow through you. Stu Ungar was well known for being able to control a table and manipulate other players. This concept of Shania is so important because it relates to your image. Are opponents avoiding you? Maybe they think you're a maniac. Do you keep them guessing? Something I realized during this conversation, is that I want to achieve a very balanced game. This is one of my new goals. Balance in poker refers to the distribution of hands you are likely to hold in a situation given your actions. So when my friend calls from the blinds to donk an 842 flop, he should strive to do this with many different types of hands. An example of a range he should be donking is AA KQ 88 35s(suited). Balance makes you very tough to play against because your tendencies are less exploitable. You don't have glaring tells or betting patterns that allow people to read you well. It seems that everyone today strives for table captaincy by running over anyone in their path. With the increasingly aggro nature of games, it is a better strategy to be balanced and clever, rather than resorting to brute force. However when considering the ideas of balance and Shania, we should have some brute force in our game, but be able to turn it on and off. The raw aggression should be one facet of your game, not all of it.
Now among winning regulars, the donk bet is assumed to be weak most times, so most just blindly raise it, which is excellent for us depending on the hand we hold. Your job as a poker player is to identify player types and makes assumptions as to how they will react to certain actions you take. For example say that a tight honest player opens a hand in position and I call with KQ out of the blinds. I am definitely inclined to donk here because his personality and style suggest he will respect my donk bet more. Should he raise my donk bet, I just fold the hand and move on. Well not exactly. Remember to adjust. I give the player credit for a hand the first time, but the second time I donk, it will be with hand where I intend to stack off. The important thing is to test people.
Because so many regulars view the donk bet as weak, you are actually blowing up their raising range when you lead the flop. What I mean is that some people will raise a donk with any two cards. This makes donking your large draws very correct, and better than check raising them. First you take back the initiative which is so important in poker. Second you avoid an awkward spots with stacks. Example: you defend 9Ts and the flop is 782. Lets say were playing a 2/4 game with $400 stacks. The pot is $30 to the flop, now you check he bets 25 and you raise to 75, should he decide to shove the rest in, you're in an awful spot. You invested 75 plus the 14 preflop for nearly $90, and when he shoves, its about 300 more to call for a pot of 500. Its extremely tempting to call you're getting almost 2 to 1 on your money and if your 9 and T are dead, you still have 35% equity in the hand should the other player hold AA. Almost perfect odds to call off your money but not quite. I don't enjoy giving money to strangers so I fold and start to get a little pissed off. Let's consider donking this instead. Now given the actions that happened in the last hand if the other player shoves over our c/r(check raise), its almost safe to say were dominated. But I explained to you before that the average Internet player views the donk as weak and that by leading we are actually blowing up his raising range to include anything from AA to complete air like KQ. The beauty of the donk is that when you get raised it sets up the pot to stack ratios so that you can shove for about 2.5x everything in the middle. We donk 25 into 30, opponent makes it 85 to go, there is 140 in the pot, and we have 360 left behind. Fuck you I'm all in. You shove the rest of that right in his mouth. We are semi bluffing with a hand that holds 35% equity and shoving for ~2.5x the pot in a situation where our actions will bring our opponents to raise us without a hand very often. When you shove with this much equity and for 2.5x the pot giving the other person about 2 to 1 on his call, you don't even have to be correct all that often for this play to show profit. This last statement holds true as long as you mix in your made hands to create a balanced donking distribution. So perhaps donk and shove w 9T the first time then 88 the next. The whole game is about adjustments. Also when u donk and shove over a raise, it allows you to get your entire stack in the middle so easily for when we have made hands. Less actions, streets of play, and cards to come out, means less information for your opponent. Therefore he makes worse decisions and we make more money.
Don't ever kick yourself for trying something new, sure it may cost you money initially, but in the long run after some fine tuning, it can prove to be a very profitable move. I remember losing thousands trying to play in 3bet pots. It was frustrating at first but now it is a stronger part of my game and I have for certain made that money back and more. When you are at the table the money is nonexistent, its all just chips.

In the last 2 days I'm up a bit over 3k, hopefully its the beginning of a comeback from this horrific month. Next time I'll post some hands in the biggest pots from my sessions and see what I did well or poorly, hopefully I can get a few friends to give their different takes on them too.