blonde poker forum

my old man does

this is where my friends at BP Come in


I imagine that there are many many people that post here, that dont quite get cash games for some reason, they feel as though they should get it, but there is something missing, something that they dont quite get

this is where we can both benefit

My old man wants me to write a text that will tell him how to win at cash games. I cant think with enough clarity on what to write to make this happen. Maybe its the 10 stellars I have had today, maybe it isn't


What I am hoping will happen, is that all the blondites on here that have problems with cash games, will post, tell me where they feel they go wrong, and I can use that info to write my old man the cash game script, and then I will post it on here. That way everyone benefits,  you all get better, my old man turns into someone that isn't a long term loser, and I can sit back and say "cool"

So, I ask you. What mistakes do you feel you make? where do you get confused? do you get in situations that you feel you make mistakes in? everyone knows where they feel uncomfy.. post it here. What dont you get.

I dont claim to be the best ring game player on the internet at all, but I have done OK, so I think we can all get something from this. Please, fire away

I don't exactly know how to word this into a problem, but here goes.   When I enter a cash game, even with people I have played with on many occasion's before, I drop money.   For example, I always buy-in for the maximum amount so at $0.25/.50 NL that would be $50.  But after about 30 minutes of playing, I am generally down to about $35.  When I get to this stage, my brain switches on and I am then forced to work my way back up to $50 before I can start earning a profit.

This happens 99% of the time I play.  I am used to it now.  This isn't something that concerns me a great deal, however it is annoying when the table breaks up after getting back to $50.  Just as I am approaching my "better" game, players leave the table.  This obviously doesn't happen all the time, but at the lower limit ring games players tend to dip in for 20 minutes and then leave the game.

I see the better players playing ring games and they have a presence at the table immediately.  It takes me 30 or 40 minutes to build up steam. 

Is there a better way to approach a ring game.  At the limits I play, I generally make a profit after most sessions.  Just slowly  :D

Thanks

Sark

great post. This is the kinda stuff I am after. I just hope that we get more and more people taking your lead, as its the kinda thing that we will all benefit from

I will say this before I go to bed.. what happens generally is that when people sit down at a table, they tend to play too loose. Maybe they have come in from a days work, maybe they just woke up, maybe they got back from the pub.. whatever, they just sit at a table, and get the urge to splash around a bit. That leads them to making a few dodgy calls preflop, then they fold post flop, and all of a sudden they have chunked off 20% of their stack and htey haven't even seen the turn. What is optimal behaviour is to sit down, and not play any hand at all for the first 10 minutes (unless it is a monster) this gives you a great period of time to learn the table, learn the tendancies, and then learn how to make money from other people. Once you are armed with this info, you are in a golden spot where you can play your hands and expect to profit from it, without giving other people a free chance at profiting from you

Great post m8.

My biggest worry is Top pair in the blinds multiway in an unraised pot. I have taken to just betting pot and folding to any resistance.

I have real trouble playing NL cash at all, I'm so used to playing tournaments and the slowly shifting emphasis from betting for value to blind stealing, that I don't seem to have the patience to sit down in a ring game for a number of hours. I also prefer tournaments because I know there is a finite amount of what I can lose. I hate the idea of sitting down with $100-$300, losing it all and then having to reload.

Thanks mate. I will take all that on board.     

Hi flush

yes, that is probably the most treacherous part of cash games there is. Betting is also my preference, as long as you also lead out with your flopped monsters (like 83 on an 883 flop) otherwise you get the tag of someone who leads with marginal hands, and checks with big/nothing hands. You can see why this could be a problem

A secondary benefit of leading with these hands is twofold:


a) when you are bluffing, you pick up the pot cheaper

b) when people want to try and bluff you, they have to pay a higher price (compared to if you check and they pot, if you pot and they re-pot, they are paying a large(r) sum of money on the come.)

As to what to do if you bet and they raise, well I guess that depends on the texture of the flop and any prior experience with the villains. If the board is rainbow and unconnected, I would be more prone to bet and fold, if the board is suited and there is some straight possibilities, then I am more inclined to defend and then play the turn. One of the better lines against average players when u have a vulnerable top pair is to lead the flop, if they come over the top, call, and then lead the turn (if its an apparent blank to potential draws). if they then proceed to raise you again, you can be quite sure that your weak top pair isn't going to be much good, and you can fold with comfort

If the turn does fill draws, then you can check, and then gauge what they do.. how long it takes them to bet, and what % of the pot they actually bet. Most people are exploitable in terms of what % of the pot they bet as long as you pay attention to it, so they should tell you on the turn whether or not they have it. If they dont, you can do what you want. The pot is yours for the taking

this is true, and maybe you are a gamer.. a lot of ex gamers that I speak to tell me they cant play cash games because in games there is a beginning, a middle, and an end. You dont get this in ring games, just tournies, which is why i think that most ex-gamers do great in tournies, but mince it up in ring games

One thing I mite suggest is if you are of this opinion, spend a while buying in short to cash games, and then play them like tournies. One of my firm beliefs is that there is an untapped market in cash games for people that buyin short, have limited liability, and then just play it like a sng. You can steal/resteal and get to 2* your chips quite easily, you dont win as much as you should when u get set over set, but typically in cash games there is a lot of dead money there, but the stacks are too deep to do anything about it. Buying in short negates this aspect, and it frustrates the hell out of the regulars, so you get loose calls as well. Anything to try and "knock you out"

If none of this applies, then I guess you have to try and think of it as a casino. Each bet/call/raise has a certain amount of equity to it, so if you imagine yourself as a casino, always trying to lay people incorrect odds, it becomes a bit of a game.. kinda like "be the casino".. and each time you make them do something wrong, you are the one that profits from it.

the differnce in starting hand requirements between ring games and shorthanded factoring in position.

how to play overpairs when the flop brings a paired board against more than one opponent and you are first to act.

Great thread Totalise

My biggest problem is I tend to Nut Peddle for about $20 - $30pl or $40ish nl an hour at 25c/50c slightly higher at 50/1, full ring and then I will get a good holding post flop be put all in have to call to find an over pair or massive draw hit and boom profit and stake gone.  Reload or come back next day, peddle like mad, 1 bad hand and back to the start.
Aside from that I just struggle with Cash, hand requirements, good notes, when to call/raise a draw the list goes on and on.

lol, I'm imagining this like a doctor's waiting room with Totalise prescribing us all drugs...  :D

luuul

well thats what I dont want to happen. I'm kinda hoping that the better players on here will chime in, maybe disagree with me, offer different viewpoints, and then when it is all said and done, I can use the information garnered in this thread to write a pretty good e-book on how to play good NL poker. Maybe it isn't self sevicing in that it will make people better, but thats great, I like helping others to play better. I have made enough money from this game in a short space of time that I feel an oblgation to try and help others make money as well, before the boom collapses.. and I love the concept of blonde, so its a natural place to try and do it

I think we'll all be invited to a cash game at the end and get fleeced by Totalise :D

I'd ask questions but mine seem to fit in with others, great thread!!

I only really play ring games with 6 people rather than 9.  I seem to have better results playing with fewer opponents at the table.  How would you recomend that a player alters his strategy when moving to 9 players?   


What type of apple do you want?  Red or Green  :D

sark

the only correct apple color is red. Anything else is wrong

As for 6 vs 9.. poker is a game of mistakes. The biggest mistake people make is overestimating their own skill levels. I have always said to my friends that the reason I make money is because my opponents make more mistakes then I do. I have no illusions about trying to be a well known great player, I just try and make money... and you do this by letting your opponents fuck up

when you are 6 handed, you give them the power to go ahead and make mistakes. They have to play more hands, this gives them more liscense to make mistakes. This is where good players have the power.

When you move to 9 players, you dont have this power, people are just sat there waiting for each other to make mistakes.. so you have to adjust your game accordingly. Its a common conception that short handed, you steal pots, but how can that be? people call more when its short handed.. when peopel call more, that means you win less pots on steals. When its full handed, there is a bunch of dead money floating around in the pots each and every hand waiting for someone to step up and take it. That person should be you

Of course, if everyone else is trying to employ the same strategy, then you should be doing the opposite.. let them go after the small pots, and then whilst they are chasing the small pots, you try and trap them in the big pots, so there is a certain amount of table dependancy involved, which you should be able to gauge at the time. .ie, do the opposite of them

Too bloody right an' all. Get your arse round my house and teach me how to beat 5-10. Probably take a few weeks and you might need to bankroll me for a while but hey you've got obligations man.


I will think of some questions after the Blonde game.

I <3 totalise

great question


another great Q... Im kinda blazed at the mo, I dont get to go out drinking very often (which is a sad indictment of my life tbh) so q's like this I'll leave til tomorrow

when taking notes what do you note down? exact plays or just a generalised opinion?

what are optimum conditions for c/r? use it to bluff or protect a hand or get money in the pot

excellent shorthanded advice, something i learned the hard way.

When you are hitting hands playing shorthanded you make a lot more money than in full games.

the value of the continuation bet is not as powerful as in full games

Thanks for this.   This thread has the potential to go into the best of blonde.  Matts chip and chair, tanks 4000.  Who else is an expert at their particular favorite type of poker?   Kev or Ironside could show us HU perhaps

I dont take notes very often

I think at the level I play, people have such a randomisation of play that what they do in prior sessions doesn't have much of an impact of future sessons. Of course against the bad players, I wll jot down when the overbet, underbet. In general though, poker is a game of exploitation, how can you make money from others? if they overbet/underbet, these are the things you need to pay attention to, as they make up a very high % of your profit source in poker


as for check raises, well.. its certainly the most overused and over-abused move in poker, people use it when they shouldn't, and dont use it when they should. Generally, people use it when they have a marginal hand, which gets people folding when they want them calling, and calling when they want them folding

Heres a pretty good example

Lets say you have K10 in the bb, and the flop is K74

you check, and it checks around the a limper in MP, and he bets, you c/r

what are you trying to do here

if you have him beat, great, you got him folding a worse hand. If he has you beat, congrats, you managed to inflate the pot to an extent where you dont have a clue where you are. I think you should as a matter of practise save your check raises for when you are bluffing.. and then lead/check call your made hands, and then play the turn. Not much good can ever come from c/r average hands as you dont really achieve anything. I also think its OK to use it when u have a strong made hand, the problems come from when you have average hands that do well with keeping pots small (like the example).. in fact, I will go as far as to say I will NEVER check raise a marginal hand. I'll do it with bluffs and monsters, which stops from being exploited, but i'll (almost) never do it with marginal hands

What sort of things do you look for when joining a table?   for example (  Avg Pot    Plrs/Flop     H/hr    )


Do you open a table and watch for 10 mins before taking a seat in order to see if it suits your style.  I read a Rolf Slotboom interview a while back, in it he said he can take up to an hour to find a table which suits him exactly.  Is this going abit too far?   I tend to watch for about 5 or 10 minutes.   

very interesting, i have been using it to get an extra bet from someone i expect to make a position bet when holding a marginal hand, i've been finding myself all at sea when getting called and something unpleasent hits the turn or they already have a monster. i had recently moved to leading out as standard and making an assesment based on what happens.

 great thread totalise

Rolf tends to take everything too far. He has a book coming out soon, i'd recommend you dont read it. What he fails to understand is that he might wait an hour to find a great table, and he has lost himself an hours wage. If he is a good player, he earns money at each and every table he sits at... even if he is waiting for a better table

I must confess that i dont pay too much attention to this, but I think in general, what you want to see is a table that has a high % of players per flop. That leads on from the previous posts, where the more players are in the pot, the more likely it is someone will make a big mistake.The av pot isn't so useful, as the dynamics might have changed by the time you get there.. in fact..

this is something I see all the time. Lets say you are on stars, and you are sat watching the 1/2 tables, and you see a table which has an average pot of $75, and there is an open seat. This should be a goldmine rite?

Wrong

What normally happens, is that someone has just gotten themselves stacked, lost their money, and they leave. This inflates the av pot size abnormally. Then someone on a waiting list comes in, and then as is normally the case, people are scared of playing with a big stack. Thus, most of the players leave, and then the table gets filled up with players that will happily sit there and nut peddle, so you wont get any action.. so what you think is an action table, ends up being a nut setters table, zero action

I'd say just scout out the tables with a high players per flop %, and then go from there.. thats almost certainly the most important percentage

yes, you can lead out, but the problem here is that you might tend to get bet off the best hand, OR, you restrict them from bluffing at the pot. If you check with a marginal hand, you let them bluff you once on the flop, and if you call, you give them a free reign to go ahead and try and bluff the turn as well. This is when u can assess the action/fold/hand strength, and then spring to life if you so wish. I like leading or check-calling, either of those are great, I just hate check raising, as it achieves almost nothing apart from costing you money

do you use poker tracker? if so what stats do you find the most useful when assessing a player?

i'm with you on the table selection, i want to limp along with players then outplay them on the flop and streets. Non aggressive pre flop shorthanded tables are my favourite.

I only use poker-tracker to analyse my own play

I look at it like this


lets say there are 3 levels of poker play.

1, 2 and 3

now, assume that someone plays 50% of their game playing level 1 style, and 50% level 3 style... poker tracker will say

"they have a level 2 style of poker"

yet, its a fact that they will never play a level 2 style of play.. so it can only harm you if you use that


Now, thats only the case against good players, which you dont find at 1/2... 2/4 all too often, so using poker tracker figures is normally OK, but I dont do it too often. I just go aong with the temperature of the game, how is everyone playng etcetc

Against bad players, knowing their VPIP$ is a real great tool, if they NEVER raise, and then suddenly they spring into action preflop, I think you should call them with ANY TWO CARDS, as these creatures almost certainly have AA or KK, and they almost certainly are backing it up with their entire stack post flop

Excellent thread Totalise, put me down for one of your Ebooks when done.

Question: Your thoughts on differences between Pot Limit & No Limit Cash Games.

My experiences are PL is more consistently profitable personally for me.

Pot limit will certainly be a more consistent income, as you are forced by the betting to bet correctly.. but in my experience, you wont make as much from PL as you do from NL because you cant force your opponent to make a HUGE mistake. If they have a flush/str8 draw in PL, they are only making small mistakes if they call pot bets on the flop, but if you are a savvy kinda guy and read them well, you get to ensure they make HUGE mistakes if you overbet the pot drastically, which is why I much prefer NL to PL

Oh yea, and also if you are playing PL, you are almost forcing yur oppo's to play better against you as well. One thing people are well known for is underbetting when they have big hands and you have draws. When its PL, they feel obliged to bet pot, so they dont give you a good chance to turn them over, they are almost being forced to play better poker because of the structure of the game.

I think PL is going to cause less swings, but if you are rolled correctly, and you are a good player, you should embrace swings, as the nature of the beast means the swings will go in your favor much more then they will go against you

You touch on bankrolls, how about a mini guide to correct bankrolling, when to step up/down?
I know this is a common question but still interesting to see your view.

Think the advice to call a raise from a rock with any 2 is potentially the most profitable tip on this thread - fascinating reading for sure.

I think the main literature is wrong, very wrong

they can tell you the math, but they cant tell you the psychology behind it. They assume you are machines with no emotion, but people aren't like this

In my eyes, you need at least 50 buyins to even begin to be comfortable at a certain level in NL. I didn't move up to 10/20 until I had 150,000 in my party account, and even then it irked me to lose $2k on a bad beat. I can only imagine the anger levels I would have encoutnered If I moved to 10/20 when i had 60k like the books suggest, but thats something else that is important

In poker, there is a thing called risk tolerance. How badly does losing affect you. I always used to get really pissed off when I lost, and a couple of times I went broke (in poker terms) because of it. THat was from a $35k and a $29k roll, so its not small money. Just effectively pissed it away

Your bankroll should reflect your tolerance to losing. This is why I need a deep roll. I suspect people like pab are better at controlling their emotions, so I would guess he needs a smaller roll to play each level. My theory is this: what is the value of money lost compared to money won? winning $2k doesnt make me as happy as losing $2k makes me mad, so I need a bigger roll because of that. If you are a machine and winning/losing is the same, then you need a shallower roll. If winning money makes you happy, and losing money doesn't do a damn thing to you, then a) i want to be you, and b) you dont need much of a roll at all, because you can nearly always play your best game of poker, and you have a small chance of going broke

how much attention do you pay to the size of stacks around you? i will absolutley avoid sitting to the right of a huge stack and prefer not to have them to my direct right either. I know profit from the right etc but have you got any more advice on this?

6-max, Is there a difference between how you should play with deeper stacks say 2-300 instead of a starting stack of 100 BB's. If everyone else is on 100 or less I should be playing the same right as my stack is effectively 100? What about if there are 1 or 2 others with similar stacks.

I seem to be the opposite to sark. I do well to start with for example I might fire up 3 tables and double up on 2 of them quite quickly but I never seem to be able to go much further. If I stay much more than an hour I just seem to dribble my stack away. I realise that it might be my concentration is getting worse as I go on and the other players are getting an idea of how I play, but there's something else as well. I think I want to lock that win in and I want to stop playing even if it's for a couple of minutes ie get my money off the table and go play another one.

I read an interview with Erik123 and he said he used to do that and his biggest step forward came when he stopped. I mostly play one hour sessions. Should I be playing longer, I realise that if there's a fish or 2 at the table it's madness to leave but I often seem to give them my money back if I stay.

Anyway this is today's problem. I hope this thread runs and runs :D. T will prob wake up with a hangover in the morning and think WTF has he started here.

if i sit at a table and I think the big stack is a good player, then I'll just leave. If i think they are a bad player, then I dont mind where I am sat at all.

If they are sat to my left, I can check, they can bet, the table can call, and then I can raise and take the dead money. If they are sat to the rite, I can call their bet/raise to isolate.. either way the money flow is coming in my direction

I would spend more time trying to figure out whether or not the big stack is a profit source or not. If they are, you dont care where they are sat, if they aren't, you dont want to be on their table

Just catching up.....what a thread!


Please talk about your views on "set mining"....in what circumstances? what pre flop raises (as x the bb) will you call with baby pairs to hit sets?


Do you advocate trapping at all in cash? Or is it best to always bet your monsters?


Do you avoid tables with many or some small stacks relative to a maximum buy in? If so, why?

yup, your potential profit is always measured by how much they have in their stack, not how much you have in your stack (asuming you have them covered) If they have less, then call less, if they have more, and are likely to stack off with weak hands, then call more. Your implied odds are immense



well thats OK, theres nothing wrong with locking in a profit. A lot of people that dont actually play much will tell you "blah blah blah, table is ripe, dont leave if you have an edge blah blah", but they dont really know what it feels like to double up and then lose that money. It goes back to what I said earlier, money lost means more then money won. Locking up a profit is fine if the alternative isn't so palatable. Why do you play poker.. is it to win? if so, then you figure out a way that helps you win the most. Jim Furyk sure does'nt swing with a standard golf swing, but it does him ok..so just stik with what does you best. If staying at a table too long ends up costing you money, then leave.



Erik prolly did it because he had a high % of his roll on the table at one go. Thats the thing with these people that most dont realise. Imagine there is 10,000 people all of equal skill. All 10,000 of them will go for the bingo shot and try and build up a roll quickly. 9,700 of them will fall by the way-side. The other 300 will become the Eriks/Loddens of this world. Thats how they got there, make no mistake about it. Its impossible to get from small stakes to 200/400 NL that quickly unless there was a huge risk taken with their roll at some stage. They were just the recipients of natual selection choosing them over all others. Like the sperm chasing the egg. Naturally he stopped when his roll was such that losingt didn't constitute a high % of his net worth. If you give money back if you stay, then leave. Maybe in a years time you dont do this, but its pointless to keep staying because of theoretical issues, but lose money each time you do it. Just do what is best for your roll

yes, its going the way I hoped it would



im glad this was mentioned, as implied odds are one of the things I think people over-estimate on a daily basis. Here is a real simple example. I consider myself a very agressive player. I raise from UTG with anything, lets say 5/7os. Someone calls from MP with 44. They will say to themselves.. WOW, if I flop a set, I will bust him. Two things will happen here:

a) they will miss, I will bet, and they will fold. Money down the drain
b) they will flop a set, I will continuation bet, they will call/raise. It doesn't matter, im done with the hand. The money they make when they flop a set isn't enough to counter the times they lose money when they miss.

Whats this leading to? its all about profiles. Who is the rite person to call raises with. If someone is real laggy preflop, they aren't goiung to give you much money post flop if you make your hand..so you have to re-rai preflop (which is a byprduct of hand strength, you dont need a pair to do this) or you fold. Calling is pissing chips down the drain

Compare this to some scumbag Mr I DONT RAISE MORE THEN ONCE A YEAR UTG, and he raises, and you have 33. You are gagging for him to have AA, if you could choose one hand for him to have, its the pow pows. These are the people you want to attack and get in pots with. .. as they back up their AA with their stack

One more thing needs saying, and thats about frequencies. MR UTG ROCK might make it 10BB preflop, and if your stack is 100 BB, you are only getting 10/1 implied odds on your stack.

Compare this to MR LOOSE.. he mite min bet, and you are getting 50/1 implied odds on your stack

the KEY KEY thing here, is the frequency with which your stack will get in the middle if you make your hand. Against the rock, its almost a cert. against the loose, its very unlikely.. so whilst on the surface you seem to have better implied odds against the lag, you will make more money from the rock.. because of the frequency with which your stack gets in the middle WHEN U MAKE UR HAND. That cant be over stressed




This is the one aread that depends on table dynamics... but in general I like to build pots. I dont mind building pots if i have a moster or if I have nothing. My hand is irrelevant if I have nothing, as long as I have a clue what the other person has. If I am sure they have a flush draw, and I am sat in position with complete filth, I will still bet the turn because 4 times outta five the pot is mine anyways, so I mite as well make money on the turn. Naturally this is a byproduct of building pots when you have a hand as well. If you are sat on the flop and its Kjj and you have KK, well you mite as well just go ahead and bet. If they have a jack, their stack is urs the second you bet the flop. If they have nothing, they fold anyways no matter when you bet,  so just go ahead and build it up (you also get them calling on gutshots due to our friend implied odds.. so thats anothe great thing)


I almost actively seek these people out. I know what their strategy is, I can make myself unexploitable. If they double up once, they leave the table, if they lose, they keep on reloading. You are risking what is in their stack for potentially 4 or 5 times what their current stack is. Its the easiest money in poker. Anyone who says they hate shortstacks is a one dimensional bad poker player

What are your biggest losing situations in your cashgames, whether from PT analysis or your own analysis?

Overpairs against sets? trips versus nut flush draws hitting?...ie what do you find it difficult to get away from and what is it in betting patterns/observations that allows you to avoid "whole stack" moments?


How often do you, if ever, make a play at a pot on the river with say a missed draw as it is your only way of winning  a pot? Or do you check/give up? What is your EV of bluffing to win on the river?

without a shadow of a doubt, my biggest losing play is calling with pp's post flop when i dont set up. Someone will raise pre.. I'll have say 77, flop is 963, I check, they bet I call. This is OK i guess, but then on the turn it comes a 10, I check and they bet again... I'll end up calling, and then the river comes say a 4 and I'll donk the river and get turned over by QQ. Conversely, i think i play draws about as well as anyone on the internet. Thinking about it, I probably make so much money from draws because of the bad way I play my pp's, so maybe its a good thing in the grand scheme of things

I also dont get stacked very often(if I am the one betting it ).  it takes some kinda strange deck for me to get my stack in the middle and lose. Thats  not to say that my stack doesn't go in the middle often, because it sure does, but I think I pick my spots really well, and dont get called often when behind. Most of the time I am behind in the hand, my stack is in the middle via calling rather then betting (through some filthy semi bluff gone wrong). Most of the time I try and take a lower variance approach to poker, i play 4~~8 tables at once, so I try not to be sticking my stack in the middle on virtual coinflips, although I do find it hard to turn down an edge if I feel I have one. It all comes back to reactions. If I think I mite steam if I lost, I'd probably turn it down, even if it was a small edge.

If i think a river bluff will work, then I'll bluff the river. If I've played the hand in a manner that betrays my hand stregth, then I wont bluff. A perfect example of this is if someone is laying you great odds on a flush draw on the flop and turn, and then you miss. Dont bluff here, just be happy you got the chance to draw cheap. I would also say that my bluff % is one of the best on the net because I choose to repesent hands all the time, sometimes I'll represent the hand I have, sometimes I'll represent the hand I want my opponent to think I have. All you have to do is make sure your bet on the river makes sense. if you have clubs, the flop is two clubs, and u call flop, call turn and push river when it misses, that makes no sense.. you get called to often.. so make sure your hand makes sense from start to finish. Conversely, this is a great line to take with a set, but people dont do it because of flush draw fears. Sometimes adopting a bit of risk is the best way to win a huge pot, and I kinda like winning 1 huge pot rather then a few smaller ones

One final thing, when people do something that you wouldn't expect, its generally a sign of strength rather then weakness.. so if you have someone that always bets, and they check the river, they normally have a huge hand, and if they normally check, but this one time they overbet the river, you can fold anytthing but quads, as they have at least the second nuts. Thats where the whole "EASY FOLD" came from in your nut boat vs straight came from in the PHA board

we will see how true this statement is. I'm off to bed now, so we'll see what kinda state I am in tomorrow!


Keep the stuff rolling in if possible!

T

I think this is a great thread. Perhaps the best one I've ever seen.

I've just read through it and it's been a real eye opener.

I'm going to disagree with a couple of things you've said. I hope no-one sees this as a sign of disrespect. I think totalise is a fantastic asset to this forum. He always takes time out to help people with excellent analysis.
I believe cash games players have far more skill than tournament players. From what I've read, totalise is one of the best csah game players (or one of the best who's willing to share their thoughts consisely and honestly) IMO this makes him the best full stop.

I ain't just trying to argue for the sake of it either. I just believe that a bit of debate helps hash out greater understanding.
In many cases, people retort and I realise what and where I might be wrong.




I think there's no such thing as a bad poker book. I'd recommend a prospective player read any one they could get their hands on, and just not take any one source too literally.
If anything it gets them thinking about the game more. If the writer is talking piddle and the reader disagrees, at least the reader is thinking about why they disagree.

The other point I don't necessary agree with is the next one. Of the player who spends an hour on game selection having lost 60 minutes wages.
It gets the session of to a disciplined start, and you can spend the time learning the players you're about to sit with.

Just like this....


I agree whole heartedly

Surely we're not losing 10 minutes wages though.

Perhaps 60 minutes is a tad far, I would think that it could take somewhat less time. Maybe the hour he quotes isn't so much a literal thing though. Perhaps he really means, a significant amount of time.

Agreed.

It's also the most entertaining when they go on some huge rant about how you're an idiot after you've just stacked them....

"Oh yea, and also if you are playing PL, you are almost forcing yur oppo's to play better against you as well. One thing people are well known for is underbetting when they have big hands and you have draws. When its PL, they feel obliged to bet pot, so they dont give you a good chance to turn them over, they are almost being forced to play better poker because of the structure of the game."

Similarly sites with a "bet pot" button generally have better cash players.

My 3 biggest hates are:

1 - Being unable to fold your 2nd or 3rd full house after betting all streets and large on the river and getting re-raised all-in. My experiences tell me that about 95% of the time when they do this large re-raise (which will stack me), it is because i am beat. Taking solice with comments such as "couldn't fold" or "how could i fold", is just pure bollocks we create in our mind to make the call (which we know is wrong) seem acceptable. You know the one, where you close one eye, press call and then mutter "f-ing knew it, lucky bastard" or "miracle flop" etc. Drives me fucking crazy this one, i know enough about poker to know that i'm behind, use your knowledge you pratt, it has cost you enough learning it.

2 - Joining a table to win a set target for the day and winning this amount within the first few hands. Instead of shutting off the game, you stay and more often than not, lose some of it, then stay there for 3 hours getting back to where you was after 3 hands of joining. If you play poker for a living and your style is to aim for $x per day, leave when you get to this amount. Treat your time at the table as work. If you worked in an office and had your work finished by 1pm, would you hang around like a lost sheep for 4 more hours, cos you feel like you've been shortchanged (i.e. you expected to be playing for an hour or two, yet within 3 mins you have got to what your aim was).

3 - Being scared to raise too much pre-flop with a hand like AJ, AT etc. yet parting with far more on the flop. I think this is a mental block on raising, parting with the chips on the flop is somehow more acceptable, than playing stronger from the outset.

Ok I have been really lazy about this but here is my 2 cents


Cash games

Online I find the cash games are very loose, as a result grinding works best over the long haul, I prefer to play a Live cash game instead of online, its so much easier, people will still refuse to part with that £100 chip as its a physical item, not some money that they have already transfered out of their bank.. or in their eyes spent when its online.

I think the real key to cash play is focused, well timed aggression, i say bollox to all of this " stay out of pots with XXX cos hes a good player crap"  If i see a good player He's the target, firstly as i know I can make him lay down a hand, and i know when i am beat most of the time, the better players seem to have a predictability, so I will raise out of position with  2s 4h and continue to bet, raise and checkraise untill they fold. Sometimes this backfires and that part of the game, you have to get caught some of the time.

The other aspect of Internet cash games for me can be the boredom factor, when I have to change down gears I often get board from waiting to build up a " he's gone tight " table image hence the mind wanders and i start thinking about MTT's, Omaha Hi lo and naughty websites..so some time it can be a hinderance to come out of that self imposed cocoon too quickly.  Again this is a key reason i prefer the live cash games, whilst you are rocking up you can portray a loose image and can continue to tilt players in the live game, all the while passing the garbage cards, its tough to do that online.

3 key points if you must play cash online are

(1) turn off the chat window, you dont need that distraction

(2) Stay alert, make notes all the time, I say notes are more crucial in cash games than tourneys, They are worth more money in a cash game.

(3) When the fun stops, leave the game - this is my latest revelation, when i feel the fun elemen has evaporated and i am chasing, i just quit as I know my best game comes out when i am having fun.

probably a load of old tosh but thats my input.


(edit)..

Now I have gone through the thread and read it, all i can say is WOW, Great thread and some great points and advice.

You can stick me down for an e-book as well, Now I have a question as to how you deal with the people that continually change gears in cash games.

In my limited experience it works a lot better in Live games, as few people take notice online, only the better players will notice what you are doing and try to adapt to the everchanging style. I have come up against people that combat this part of my strategy well, and I was wondering if you could giveme more insight as to how you would combat this.

6-Max C-betting. I usually C-bet, I wouldn't C-bet if for example 3 people call and the flop comes down KJ9 2 suits, because that's gonna have hit someone and my pair of twos probably ain't in great shape. I have read very good players say they pretty much always C-bet. In the sklansky NL book they say IIRC if you're out of position you should usually check all your hands on the flop good and bad.

It feels like I would lose a lot of money doing this, but occaisional checking seems to be good too. In a way checking is more scarey than betting. What are your thoughts?

Also C-bet size, I usually bet three quarters to a full pot bet. Prob the more I want them to fold the more I bet. Sounds exploitable.

Hi tank,

I think the difference is that if you are waiting 60 minutes for the golden seat, you are just (as far as I can see) sat there waiting at the bar doing nothing. if you are sat at the table waiting for hands before playing, at least you have the option to be in pots and have potential for earning. They are similar for sure, but I think its better to play in almost any game whilst waiting for the better game to open, rather then just wait for the great seat to open up (assuming an edge is there, which for someone like Rolf, it probably is)

Also maybe too much is being made of the 60 minutes as you suggest. He is certainly a good player and its the concept of not being in action just to wait for a good action spot that i dont overly agree with

Also by all means point out things you think are wrong/dubious, I dont think anyone in their right mind would feel offended by it, nothing bad can ever come from people debating/debunking things like this..  if I am rite and you are wrong, then you have improved, and if you are rite and I am wrong, I have improved.. so its got huge upside and zero downside


Lee,

great post. I especially like this line


Newmanseye,

not a load of tosh at all, is full of good stuff



these people are certainly the toughest to play.. and what happens is you find yourself reacting to what they do. That is where they bank their winnings. They will go from loose to tight, and then by the time you figured that out, they are probably back to playing loose again. One of the best things I can suggest is to fight fire with fire. Dont be the one reacting to them, make them react to you. If you can have THEM be the ones guessing, you have almost won the battle. Generally, if you can show them that you have got "game", in one or two hands, then it will force them (normally) to play straightforward against you. Its almost like implicit collusion, they are like "ok pal, we are the good players, lets keep out of each others hair and take all the money from the bad players". Thats when you have more of a free reign to take away the smaller pots where you are involved with the other good player (s)


Byron


I think c'betting as a matter of course is better then checking. The theory behind the check oop is that you are either going to have something or nothing (obv!), and the math dictates that you will have nothing a lot more often then you will have something, so great players will call flop bets as a matter of principle just to try and steal pots later on in the hand. This is called floating, and its pretty successful. You counter this by either c'betting less, or firing 2~~3 barrels.. as most people fire one barrel and then give up on the turn, so you can call flop, and bet the turn if checked, and you pick up the pot a high % of the time.

Naturally this is where the bet-check-bet line comes in when you flop a monster OOP, you are creating a "float spot" for your opponents, and you want them to fall into your trap.

Against lesser skilled opponents, you should be c'betting MUCH more often, as they dont enter pots in general to try and win them through skill, they enter pots to try and win them through making a hand, and its the same principle as before. They will miss much more often then they hit, so you are getting them to fold quite often post-flop. One thing I used to do at the lower levels quite often was if a couple of limpers were in, I'd go ahead and raise it up with ATC from the button and then c'bet close to any flop. Naturally this requires the correct table dynamics for it to work, but its a great play to make a couple times an hour. I always break NL down like this:

the bad players dribble away chips waiting for that golden hand where they flop a monster vs monster. They win this, and then double up to about even

the av players maintain their stack at what they bought in before waiting for that golden moster vs monster hand

the top players are growing their stack all the time, waiting for that monster vs monster

SO I think it behooves a good strategy to be looking for ways/ideas/concepts to try and grow your stack even if you aren't getting good cards, and the one mentioned above works really good against the correct type of table (limpers/callers and then folders is the dynamic you are looking for)

Great thread Totalise.

One thing i would disagree with is calling people who maintain there stack looking for monster vs monster as average players. This may be correct, however, it is not monster vs monster that all these 'average' players are looking for, it is a greater edge.

If you know that certain players will call you down with top pair/ weak 2 pair etc for all there chips, then can it not be 'correct' to play tight. This then gives off the impression that you are waiting for a monster to the good players (who can be bluffed more often), however, lesser players will not notice and this can be where you make your +EV when you stack them. Just wanted to say as i believe there are many 'correct' ways to play, it just depends on your own styles. Note: this may be more relevant to lower limits but i thought it was worth mentioning.

One situation that i find a lot is 'how often to fire 2 or more barrels'. If you are say last to act on the flop and have a flush draw in a 3-4 way pot. The BB bets out, i often raise in this position (semi-bluff) to get a free card if i think A)there is a chance to take the pot now and B)the BB is unlikely to reraise without a quality hand, not a new concept i know but....the problem comes when he calls, turn is a blank and he checks to me. Should i always take my free card and be grateful or sometimes (%??) fire another barrel as a semi bluff this time with fewer cards to come.

Any thoughts advice would be great. Great thread, lets keep it going.

G

I think in general I prefer the semi-bluff with non-nut draws, and prefer just calling on the flop with nut draws. When its multi-way, you dont mind raising with a small flush draw, maybe just maybe people with a bigger flush draw will be folding if it goes bet/raise before the action has gotten to them, and if you can achieve this, you have increased your equity hugely. Conversely you bet out hands like straight draws that might give you action if you and they both hit, but people fear the flush draw quite a lot. Compare this to a nut draw, you dont mind calling to attract overcallers, as you like to play big pots when you make the nuts, and the more people in there, in general it makes it more likely you will get your wish

As to whether or not to fire the second bullet, this is something that is really table dynamic. As a general rule, you should probably take the free card. I mean, you say in your post you raise to get a free card, so you should be quite happy to take it when you can. If someone is sand-bagging you with a monster, you win a huge pot if you hit (because they get all desperate to get money in the pot due to them missing the turn c/raise) and if they have a weakish hand that wants to get to showdown, you probably wouldnt be able to bet them off the hand anyways... so I think in general you are betting people off hands that you want calling (ie weaker draws that make second best hands). You can always fire at the river if you miss and it gets checked to you again, so i think as a general rule, taking the free card when you can get it is likely the best play




thats true enough, but I think in general NL is a case of waiting for the big pot to arrive, and what you do whilst waiting for that pot is a pretty good mark of the quality of player you are up against. It was more of an illustration of why picking up the chips is something you should be striving for, rather then a hard fast rule on what a good/bad player is.. as if you are against a complete bunch of lunatics, you cant do anything BUT sit and wait for that big hand, so you are forced to play the waiting/draining game. Obviously your next comment quoted below supplants any of the generics written above.


theres nothing truer then this

You said you did your bankroll in a couple of times, how did you get back on the path? Surely you didn't deposit a $100 and start 0.25/0.50 or smaller.

nope, would deposit $500 or so and just lump it all on a table and try and parlay it into a goodly sum. Then get it to a grindable sum and work from there. If I lost that, I'd put more in. Its almost like having a bankroll not on the poker-site, but at the time it just felt like a bingo shot to get a sum worth grinding off. I was fortunate to have a well-paid job at the time, so losing $500 a pop dint really mean much in the grand scheme of things. If you can afford to risk it, and can replace it easily, I think thats the best way to treat a small roll. Protect the big rolls which are harder to replace

Lovin it Totalise
Who'd have thought that tubby little 18yr old who couldn't hit his hat on the golf course would be writing an e-book on poker.  Those county golf officials in their grey flannel blazers would not approve :-)


I'm not just here to criticise your golf btw, I do have a question. -

Your playing deep stacked against a good solid oppo who has raised preflop with something like  9h 9s.  You call with  8d 8h.  The flop is  9c 8c 2d .

You get into a raising war.  At what point if any do you get away from this hand or is it a case of stacks in the middle and flip em'.  I guess I am really interested in how you deal with a player that is deep stacked, pretty much has you covered and is not relenting in the betting - you have a monster but not the nuts.


P.s. this is a GREAT thread.

lol indeed! Although I can claim to have beaten Oliver Wilson in matchplay, without handicap! Beat that young 'un!

As for the hand in question, there are two types of great players. There are the JP's/Thewys of this world who would be willing to go to war with a few draws on that board (as well as 2pr/sets)  so you should be eagre to stack off against them.. and there other great players who aren't so willing to stack off with draws, so you are likely facing a set from them. Given that you beat one set and are losing to the other, you are going to be 50/50 against that range, and when it comes to call off your stack, you will be getting laid much better then even money on your stack, so you should likely get the chips in, although you wont be as happy to do it. Set over set is a spot you probably should (in general) lose your stack if you played the hand correctly (there might even occasionally be a misplayed overpair thrown into the mix, which weights it strongly in your favour)

My own personal experience is that you should only be willing to fold middle set on a board like this against someone who you know with absolute certainty would only play the nuts in this spot, so thats going to just be entirely read dependant, not something you can learn in a thread etc

online I dont think I've ever folded a set on a flop like this, because playing against great online players, they are too good to only have top set in this spot, and against bad online players, they can have pretty much anything. As for live, well I dont have a lot of experience in that field, so I cant really comment. Maybe its the case you can look into their soul and know that they have the nuts, but I think that is being too fearful of monsters under the bed and I suspect (but might be wrong) that you cant really read someone well enough to justify folding here based on reads alone.

I'll be interested if this is right or not, because if you can read someone this well, its a function of live play that you cant learn in books/theory etc, and something that you dont have at your disposal online

I'd like some discussion on bet sizes, particularly after raising preflop.  I've watched some players on high stakes games and some will always bet the pot after raising preflop and checked to, or are first to bet, while others range between 1/2 to 2/3 of the pot.  Is there a certain line you like to go down or do you vary your continuation bets based on texture of the flop/mixing your game up?   I'd have to say that I virtually never bet the full pot after raising preflop, I like to vary between 2/3 to 3/4 for example.  I can however see why players might do this - It makes it tougher for players to reraise you without a strong hand if the raise equates to a high proportion of their stack, although you are often just burning money when you get raised back and all you have is ace high.

I've thought for sometime now, that to be a successful cash player, it is more about minimising your losses, rather than maximising your wins. By this i mean removing the following scenarios:

1 - loose calls pre-flop cos you are bored, followed all too often by fold, fold, fold

2 - steaming or tilting and forgetting that it is real money. I think playing in dollars is very bad for the English as they have no real attachment to the $. It has always made me smirk when i lose say $60 on a hand and say "ah well that's only £25 sterling". Whereas if i win $60, then i've just won £35-40 sterling. This could be countered by saying that playing with a currency which is not your own can help as it removes some part of the "money" side and can hopefully help you just play poker though.

3 - raising a multipot in late position, knowing full well, that come the flop, there will be 3 or 4 players at least and you will then have no idea on what to do, especially if you catch something ok but not great. Put simply, trying to move players out of a pot, where you know full well, unless there house and car is on the line, that they will not be going anywhere.

4 - play at a level where you can take a loss to your roll and not have this imprinted on your brain - "i must get that back, i've played for 3 weeks to win that FFS" etc.

5 - When you are in the SB and its folded round to you and you feel impelled to do something to the BB. Its an unraised pot, with so little in it, just let it go, you can easily pick up blinds using your brain and more importantly your position. Blind battling, really pointless IMO.


Now it may seem strange to concentrate on your losses rather than your wins, however once you achieve a certain level at poker, you can get your hands paid off quite regularly. TRUE, the very best players will get a little more by cuter or unconventional play, but in general, if you have half a brain and know what you are doing, you can get paid quite easily. So....once the wins are pretty to sure to come along, it is time to fine tune those plays, but IMO, it is more important to concentrate on your losses now as that will show a greater improvement to your overall profit.

A great laydown for me is far more appealing than outplaying someone. Not because outplaying isn't appealing, it's simply that learning to laydown and stop spunking chips away is something i need to improve on far more than the winning side of poker. When i'm ahead, i'm often aware and sure of it, when behind i'm regularly not sure.

I'm not sure if this reads as i'm trying to say. Basically, although not quite as simple, many poker hands play themselves, the profit your KK will show against AQ on a Q high flop will regularly fall into a certain bracket. Whereas your KK losing to JT on a JT7 flop is something far harder to remove and something i am personally working on.

If you can save $ by not making these losing moves, it frees up $ that you never normally see. With these $, use them wisely on the hands where you can get paid.

In one of DN blogs, he mentions that playing other styles of ring games will help your main game progress faster.  Most peoples main game on Blonde will be Hold-Em .  Do you think it is beneficial to play other games such as Omaha H/L, 7 Stud and PL Omaha?   In what ways do you think mixing the ring games we play will benefit your Hold-Em game? 

This is a good point Sark. On a personal front if i have played Omaha hi or hi/lo for say a week non stop (nothing else), once i return to holdem, i find reading the flops and the players, far easier. In omaha you have to be aware on the flop, you have twice as many cards as you normally do and so do your opponents!! This has always helped me big time. I remember the first time i returned to holdem after a long stint of maybe 3 or 4 weeks on purely omaha. It felt like someone had cleaned the window and somehow made holdem a lot clearer.

Great post Lee.

Most people spend too long worrying about improving their A game, which is great.. but the problem is that we cant all play our best all the time, so we resort to B/C all the way to Z.  I think the best online players have B and C games close to the A game, which is why they win so much, and the not so good players have a reasonable A game, but a piss poor B/C game, which is why they probably lose. Trying to improve your non-best game is probably AS important as improving your best.

Sark

I think playing other games is good because it helps you think about other concepts which can then filter through into Holdem. I found that if I play omaha for a while, it aids my NL game because you are forced to concentrate more, board texture and oppo tendancies are so important in Omaha, you HAVE to pay attention. In NL a lot of the moves (as Lee alludes to in his great post) are close to automatic, so its easy to get sloppy. You cant do this in omaha otherwise you will be getting an introduction to the world of BUSTO.. so its definately the case that other games can have benefitial effects on your stock game. The problem is that if you play too much limit, you start using limit moves in NL games, which can be quite disasterous


Wellchief:


in an ideal world we would bet more with made hands and bet less with bluffs, as you want to get more money in the pot when you are ahead and risk less when you have nothing. Problem here is that we dont live in an ideal world.. so my default line is nearly always a pot-sized bet if the table is full of unknowns/good players. Against weaker players, you can vary your bet-size based on hand strength, because they dont have the requisite ability to try and exploit you.. so i think that as a stock rule, your bet sizing should vary more on the players in the hand then the texture of the flop. Saying all that, you definately have to take into account the amount of callers and the texture of the board. If it comes 789 and u raised with AK, you shouldnt be betting this flop hardly ever, so its standard to base your frequency of c'bets based on the flop/players to the flop.. but I think its folly to bet a different sized amount, because despite what we try and say about non-exploitation, its hard to randomize the bet size in a manner that hides your hand, so potting it (or making your bet always 3/4 of the pot..w/e) is in my eyes the best idea. Whatever your standard bet is, I recommend just betting it each time you decide to bet



Yes, thats why I bet the pot, it makes them less likely to try and take it away.. and if you have quite an active game, you will have nothing a lot more then something, so this is always welcome, plus the times you have something, you are building a bigger pot in case you get action, so its self servicing. Naturally it burns to lose money when you get raised back and you only have Ace high, but the cost of losing those c'bets is more then made up the times they a) fold when you have A high and b) when they raise you and you have something

Obviously if they are constantly raising you, you have to try different tactics.. either c'bet less in terms of frequency, which does come down to board texture and oppo tendancies, or c'bet less in terms of pot size, but then that goes back to making sure you dont vary that amount based on what you have.. otherwise good players will eat you alive

This may be moving away from the subject a little,  forgive me if it is.   I have always wondered if there is any skill in Stud H/L?   Most of the tables are empty on the sites I play.  Is this due to there being better potential earning at other games or down to the fact it is more of a luck game? 

I will try that Lee

I think the reason why the tables are empty is because it has a pretty high skill level indeed. Most of the split games are really weighted towards better players because of the double pot aspect. The earn at these tables when you get good players vs bad players is imo higher then if you got good players vs bad players at limit holdem. Plus it doesn't get much exposure so all the new players gravitate towards the game they see on TV, so it doesn't stand much of a chance in the current climate

ok, thanks.  I totally misunderstood that game  :D.  I always thought it was a luck game.  Just shows, I have a lot of learning to do  :D

Please don't call me an ass, i have feelings you know.  :D

hehehe apologies.. have edited

totalise..


you are playing a long session and are stuck in total a buy in or two. (Hypothetical of course!!)

do you carry on playing longer than originally intended? do you loosen up? do you chase?


How do you stay focussed on the ring games? what tricks do you have to keep concentration levels high?

lol 

if i get stuck a couple buyins, I try not to play any-more. If I do play, its likely that I'll chunk off more money, chasing is standard procedure. Take a couple hours off, go for a run, and see if its different when I get back. Theoretically they say you shouldnt leave good games, but that assumes you have an edge, and most people dont play as well when they are losing despite what they might say. Most good sessions come from when I am rolling the table, not the otherway round... and I think this is how it should be for most people. If I do stay at a table after losing, you can bet your last dollar that I'll be chasing any potential win, and I'll be looser then the female populace round Kings Cross!


As for staying focused on ring games, I dont really have problems with that. I try to figure out what other people have every hand, even If I'm not in the hand. If you can figure out why someone has played a certain hand a certain way, you have a pretty good edge.. so studying the table and what they are doing is probably the easiest way to do this. In general i dont think you should have much problems concentrating, if you do have problems, you might be playing sessions that are too long, or you might be playing too many tables where you are just sat mindlessly clicking without giving things any thought.

This may have been discussed already briefly, or something similar.   As I said before, I prefer 6 player games.  However as  players leave their seats and the table has only about three players remaining, is there an optimum time to leave and find another game? .  In $0.25/0.50 games the average pot size is around $7 at the site I mostly play.  With the blinds passing around more frequently, is there a stage where it becomes unprofitable to sit. At this stage is it better to sit out or find another table which is full?   

Sorry if this is badly worded, I am juggling about 30 things at once right now  :D


thanks

Totalise,

I have heard some of the top pro's say that one of the main mistakes amateurs make is 'building a pot out of position'.

Do you have any thoughts on this? In effect, is there any strategy changes you make for playing the blinds with marginal hands. I play mainly multi table 6max online so playing the blinds is a main part of the game (2 out of 6 rather than 2 out of 9/10 is a big diff).  

Also, any tips on controlling pot size (esp out of pos) with semi strong hands (i.e. top pair on dangerous board etc).

G

Tighty bought this thread to my attention (I struggle to keep up wtih all the threads) & he told me several blondes had PM'd him asking if it could go into "best of blonde" (after it's run it's course).

I agree - what say you guys?

If there was ever a thread that deserved it.

Yep, definitely Best of Blonde material. All top class advice .  Along with matt's C+C, this is one of the best threads in ages.    :)up to totalise for all his effort. 

 When you write the e-book mate, please print your screen name, your Father's screen name and all the sites you play at. I will be avoiding both of you  :D

Its got a ways to go before it can reach the lofty heights of Rob and Tanks threads.. so maybe when its done and dusted it could be deemed worthy of there.


MrSpeed,


well thats true enough, what they mean is you dont want to build up big pots OOP with marginal hands. Against average players, I think its ok to build pots OOP, as long as you dont mince it up post-flop if you miss/looks like you are beat. Hands like AK are ok to re-raise/build pots with against standard players, as you generally win big pots when you hit, and you can steal a reasonable % postflop if you miss.

Against great players, you dont really like to inflate pots OOP because they can exploit their positional advantage, so you tend to want to play small ball against them. Against players that dont exploit the button, its much less of a concern.


I think a good line is to bet the flop strong, and then check behind on the turn (if called) and then call the river if its a seemingly blank card. It keeps the pot smaller, and gives them leeway to try and steal. It does give free-cards to draws, but there are worse crimes then that, especially when your hand isnt that strong to begin with. OOP, well that will depend on the person in position. Bad players wont exploit it that well, so you can bet/check-call, whatever feels/seems right and control it that way. Good players dont let you control the pot size OOP, so you tend to have to hope they let you see the river cheap. check-calling the flop and then leading the turn slows a lot of people down, so thats a reasonable way to at least try and get a cheaper river, but its by no means fool-proof



Sark,


It depends on how you feel... do you feel as though you can make money in this lineup. In general if the table gets too short and you feel as though you are uncomfy, then you should just leave the table and find a new one... as when you start feeling out of your depth, you are more prone to make mistakes. Just go with the flow and do what feels right, as its normally the case that if it feels right, its the best course of action to take (in terms of table line-up)

Good point Lee.

If (when) we move it to Best of blonde, we will "clean it up" & remove the "clutter".

Whats your line on being out of position with a big draw?  Say you flop a flush draw with a gutshot and overcard, or even a straight flush draw, or just the nut flush draw.  If you decide to lead out with a hand like this, are you generally prepared to 3-bet and show the type of strength you would with a set?    The problem I often have is when I'm just called by a good player who has position on me.  The turn is then a lot harder to play.  Would you generally lead out strongly again, or check hoping for a free card and possibly attemp a gutsy check raise? 

if the stacks are a suitable depth, I think the best line is to manipulate the betting in a manner that means you are the one putting the all-in move into the pot. Two examples:

a) you have $200 stack..1/2nl. $8 goes in each preflop. Pot is $16. You then lead for $16/$20, he raises it to $50/$60, then you can push your chips in.

b) you have $100 stack, $8 goes in preflop, Pot is $16. You check, he bets $15, you can push it in. If you lead and he raises, you dont have any FE... and the power of the semi bluff is in the strength of its ability to get people folding.

both of these look drawy, but its the way I recommend playing your monsters as well (as a stock style) so you get good coverage for that

If you lead and they call the flop.. well you are in the classic spot of being OOP with a hand that needs to improve to win. I generally just check, if you have a 12 out draw, if they bet 1/2 the pot or so, just call. If they bet the full pot and you think they wont pay you a bean more if you hit, fold, if you think they will pay you off, call. If you think they are full of shit, jam it in.  Playing draws for a check-raise on the turn is deceptive as people dont expect that, they figure you for a made hand, so you have a ton of FE, especially against aggro players.. just make sure you have the right opponent profile to make this move against before you do it

Whatever you do, make sure you actually DO have the implied odds to call before calling, most people over-estimate their implied odds on a huge scale, which means they make bad calls. Be objective and figure out if you really do have implied odds, and if you dont, then be disciplined enough to chuck it away

Was also going to ask what you do about players who continually raise on the button?  If you are in the big blind, do you reraise with a wide range of hands?  If so, does that not create a bit of a problem that your out of position with a marginal hand, or does it discourage them and make them only raise with good holdings.

Cheers thats what I was looking for, so with draws your looking to maximise your folding equity whist being the first to jam the pot, and following the same line with top two/set.  Good advice I think and its what I've doing lately.

How much weight would you attribute to the 'table image' you have developed for yourself over a period of time  to the fact that you're a winning player and that people are familiar with you.

I guess what I'm asking is do you think you make more money generally playing at a table with 3 or 4 people you see regularly and a few unknown players, or, do you do better at a table full of unkowns. Other possibility is of course that it makes no difference.
,
I'm kind of referring to the stand - off that tends to get created amongst players who have seen each other win regularly to a degree or another. Each of the players known to each other (i dont mean as any kind of friends or soft-play) tend not to get into big pots with each other, a certain amount of stealing of pots goes on between one another that tends to even itself out.

It sometimes feels like 4 or 5 people have an undeclared detente and are waiting to take money off all the new money that arrives.

I'm happy playing at a table full of unknowns but overall I think I make more when a few people's styles are well known to me, and I hate to put it like this, you take turns taking the other money on the table - some sessions you get more turns than others.

Anyway, table image, familiarity and all that. A key factor or not in the online game ?

Quick thanks Mr Totalise (and others) for making so much time to provide a whole raft of cracking advice.

I'm an MTT monkey who wouldn't know a decent cash game strategy if it jumped up and bit me on the nose so my question would be this:

When does all this come out on DVD to save me having to read a 75 page thread in 3 weeks time? ???

I was also wondering this as well mate.  If you take the higher limit NL games on Tribeca, it seems like the same 10 or 15 players play against each other everyday.  Does there not come a point where it is impossible to avoid being read like a book ?

Quick one, when you have a table full of people easier to read than a John Grisham novel, yet its out of your Bankroll, do you still stay in the seat after an outdraw?

I ONLY ASK AS THATS WHERE I AM AT THE MOMENT.

I'd like to respond to sarks question about Stud eight or better if I may, as I am probably one of the few posters here who plays it regularly online - its my bread and butter online game.

The skill level in Stud eight or better is monumental, while there are not as many "big differences" between good and poor players there are 1000000x "small differences"  each of which only gives you a small edge, so you need a much higher skill level to have as big as an edge as a good holdem player does over a poor one.

Also I think typing poor players is a necessity as you may only see a player for a few hours before they go bust having sat down with their whole bankroll or just never playing the game again.

You have to type not only their hand quality ( hands played % aka vpip for pokertracker players ), their agression, calling %, showdown% etc.
Stats are hard to find common grounds with in Stud eight because two players may have identical stats and one may be a loser one may be a winner.

To address the game a little bit you are looking to play hands that will take the low AND the high.
You put so little in on 3rd and 4th that 60-70% of the game is in skill on 3rd and 4th street and 5th-7th is really about maximising wins and minimising losses.

Some trashy hands that you might recognise:

Razz hands like 267 are folds.
Big pairs are folds ( except aces ) - Big pairs are ok to steal with in position ie no limpers and only the bringin left who is likely to call.
Big pairs are a strange hand in Stud8 - they are junk in low limit games but as you progress they have more and more value because the pots are more likely to be heads up so I fold QQ4 in a low limit game and raise it in a higher limit game.
Hands such as 2356 when two of the fours are gone - You're hoping to suckout for half the pot and you will not scoop enough.


Hands we like are:

any three running cards A23 up to 678 - that said 678 is trash multiway - its value goes up as the number of opponents goes down just fold it at low limits.
AAx where x is under 8 ( AA8 is ok but I'd prefer A8A for deception ).
One gappers eg A34 and so on.
Any three low cards where you only require two cards to make a straight - this makes A34 premium and A56 ditchable in a multiway pot vs another low.

At micro limits ( anything up to .25/.50 ) you can play 40% of your hands and still turn a profit because you'll get paid off when you make a hand.
At small stakes ( 1/2 up to 3/6 ) the play is generally standard across the board ( I mean play from 1-2 to 3/6 is the same ) the differences are usually in terms of what people call down with rather than anything else - you still get huge donkeys at this level in fact at an eight handed table at 3/6 I'd still categorise more than half the players are very easily exploitable.

I can't say much about the higher limit games except don't watch them if you are starting out the hands you play at low limits are similar but your betting is completely different, and some hands that you see played at higher limits ( you might see a pair of nines vs a low draw ) are just unplayable at low limits because its much rarer to get a pot heads up whereas as higher levels its the norm to play pots heads up - ie changing the structure of the game changes the hands values and so on.

My advice would be: Play 1000 hands, then go and read super system 2's stud8 section - then play another 9000 hands and read it again. Reread every 10,000 hands.

Once you've read it 5-6 times you can probably avoid reading it unless you really want it.


As for Poker Tracker - its categorisations are junk beyond micro limits you need to pay attention to more stats than VPIP and its rating.

VPIP, PFR, aggro, WTSD and checkraise are some of the stats I look at when I come across a regular player who seems to have some skill so I can deconstruct their play. ( Stud 8 is a small game online, at the small stakes there are less than 10 regular players who I feel can play the game and be profitable in the long run ).
You also need to notate what plays opponents are capable of - can they call down an open four flush if they think I'm full of shit? Can they check call 3rd and 4th in order to reraise 5th and thus get more money in the pot knowing the bettor will shutdown as soon as he's reraised.

That kind of thing.

Good post .  I will definitely take a closer look at Stud H/L.  Untill today, I really thought it was a crazy gambling game. How wrong one person can be  :D

By a few of your comments in this thread, it sounds like you play mainly on Party.  I was wondering how many other sites you play on?   I have discussed this with a few other Blonde members already and found their different ideas over the optimum number of sites interesting.   Is there anything to be gained from playing at multiple sites in your opinion or do you feel it is more advantageous to play at one site?    I can see the advantages of playing at one site as being, the easier task of building a BR and the ability to learn the characteristics of playing styles.   Do the nature of ring games change between sites or is a $2/4 NL game the same at all sites? 

characteristics of $1-2 and$2-4 games are for certain different on different sites...playing on Stars versus Party is chalk versus cheese for example


May be a useful excercies  for another thread to rate each site for various characteristics

 :goodpost:

Totalise ... great thread and thanks for your honest and insightfull views

I would be interested to hear your thoughts on multi-tabling;

I play almost exclusively short handed cash games and make a steady profit evey month playing recreationally around a full time job. Typically i can be found in relatively low-limit NLH games ranging from $0.25/$0.50 - $2.00/4.00 (Depending on my mood, current distractions, level of intoxication and the amount of my bankroll I withdrew the previous month).

Playing at a single table my hourly rate is up to around 40% the maximum buy-in/hour. Poker Tracker also shows 80% of my sessions show a profit (this may be artificially high because I will play longer than intended to recoup lost funds and turn the session into a positive). So far so good ...

... but every so often I entertain the notion that by multi-tabling I could make many more $ per/hour ... this is where it goes pear shaped!

Now I would not expect to make an equivalent hourly rate at each table, whilst playing four tables at once, but I would anticipate an increase in my total $ hour. Initially I thought that playing four tables would halve my hourly rate per table ... but given I was playing four tables my overall rate would still be double that of playing a single table. This was not the case, after trialling it for a few thousand hands I found my hourly rate was less than playing a single table!

Over the last couple of months I have given this a lot of thought and put it down to the following reasons;

1) The nature of NL dictates that the success of any session will often boil down to a few key decisions in key hands ... the calling of a big bluff, laying down a strong but inferior hand at limited expense, whether to call a pre-flop all-in etc. When multi-tabling I seem to have less information to base these decisions on having not followed the course of the game as intensley as I would normally, being distracted by the other tables.

This frequently leads to me laying down hands in +EV situations and potentially losing out on several large pots. The marginal decisions are also more difficult with less information to base a decision on ... hence I think I often call whilst multi-tabling when I could have made a simple laydown on a single table.

2) Large pots aside my stack is usually swelled by raking in more than my fair share of the smaller pots. When playing a single table I tailor this to the players at the table. For example not using continuation bets at such a high frequency against calling stations, using bluffs against rocks and those players defending a small profit, check-raising players who insist on using a continuation bet on every flop etc.

When playing multiple tables these moves are less tailored to the players and more 'robotic', which leads me to making the same mistakes that I often exploit in others that multi-table.

3) I use poker tracker and find it very useful, but when multi-tabling it is difficult to put the stats to a meaningful use, and examine past histories of new players that drift on to the tables. This leads to mistakes such as not noticing that the player that just re-raised you hasn't reraised in three hours of play ... so maybe your two pair has run into a set ... etc.

4) Players on tilt are harder to spot

5) It is site dependant, but I don't get on with overlapping tables.You often can't watch the action on tables when you are not involved in the hand, and the overall effect is somewhat chaotic. I know some sites (e.g. prima) allow you to shrink tables, but I would be interested in how you set yours up, and what hardware you use (large monitor?).


This post is about twice as long as i intended so I will leave it there, but your views in reduction in hourly rate whilst multi-tabling, compared to a single table, and how you manage the chaotic set-up would be appreciated.

Many Thanks

Jon.

WOW!  This is an outstanding thread - very well done indeed Totalise.

Excellent thread,


One thing I would like to say about those who claim to be bored with ring games.


One of the old poker players told me that they used to play this game:

they would get let's say $100 and treat it as a tournament buy -in.
they would then go on the low limit table and try to win 10XBB of the next limit as soon as they won this they would move limit up; if they lost they would stop playing.


So in a way they would create their own tournament where blinds would go up, they would treat each table as a table in MTT.

|I have tried this few times and although it took me roughly an hour to get my 10Xbb of the next level i have steadily progressed and after 3 hours managed to have good fun and extra few dollars in my pocket.  this approach is good for a discipline and control of your loses.

It does create a problem, but if they are raising with a wide variety of hands.. one of two things will happen:

a) you win the pot right away (if their hand is real mince, like a raggy ace)

b) they are also stuck with a marginal hand (albeit in position) and you have the lead in the pot. When people are playing with wide ranges and someone repops them, this is where they are hoping the oppo has a big hand, they want to flop something huge and stackeroo... so generally you wont meet with much resistance post-flop unless they flop pretty big

If you keep doing it, then slowly they will concede the battle to you, and move onto other targets. You can then sit there and allow that to happen, or you can reverse the bullying back onto them. Some people play great when they are the "captain" but terribly when other people are trying to captain them. If they are the latter, go ahead and attack them, they will make huge mistakes against you. If they dont do that, then just enjoy the mutual respect, and go after the weaker players

that is where randomisation comes into play... if you play your big hands and draw hands the same way, its very hard for people to read you correctly. The profit comes from these tables when people get sloppy. They all have the same quality of game when they are playing their best, but they have differing qualitys when they aren't playing their best, including yourself. if you ARE playing in a straightforward manner, betting your made hands and calling with your draws, you will get taken to the cleaners. You will notice that the best players in those games are the ones that make you think "man, he could have top set or 7 high here" essentially making you play the guessing game. When people have to guess to play against you, the battle is won

Saying all this, at the lower levels you dont need to pay as much attention to this, because your quality of opponent isnt so high... so playing hands in a straightforward manner (ie betting when you hve it, and not betting when you dont) is probably a good enough start to beating most of the lower limits

With regards to Nirvanas post quoted above, Id rather play at a table of unknowns over playing at a table with a few strong solid players I know well. The intention behind that is a bit ignorant, it assumes that because I dont know them, they cant be very good. Slightly simplistic, but for the main, it works out ok. IF players styles are well-known to you, then they probably give you as much a chance to take money from them as the unknowns, as long as you do it correctly. You might not win many big pots against these people, but you sure can chip away at a lot of small pots, and they add-up if you do it with enough frequency. Its the players that are wellknown to you, but have a great randomised style, that you want to avoid at all costs.






 

Jon

good post. I am afraid I dont have much to say on this.. as I have always found multi-tabling to be about as easy as playing one table in terms of observation/identifying bluffing points.

Maybe other poeple reading the thread can comment on it, as I am sure it is a problem that a lot of people have encountered

Sorry  =((

Totalise

Just a quick one. What sort of hand is your most profitable in a cash game?

I personally love a hand like 45 or 65 soooooooooooooooted. Mainly because i find them very easy to play, in that the flops smacks you or you miss completely, in which case passing or playing is a very simple decision. 45 would probably be my fave, as many times if it manages anything, it usually has an Ace involved.

There is one hand that has always stuck in my mind, i had played this guy on many occasions and knew his game pretty well, i raised in MP with 87s and he reraised me, this move (for him) meant AK 95% of the time. I called and the flop came 8 high, he bet the pot and i called, turn didn't help him and once again he potted it, i called again. I had contemplated moving back over the top here, but i honestly thought if it doesn't come an A or K, this guy is pretty much guaranteed to go all in on the river on what seemed an inocuous flop. I was prepared to take the chance, risk vs return etc.

Luckily, the river came a Q and he went all in, at the time we were almost joint CL's on the table, i called (which was quite hard, however confident i was on the read and tests your faith in being able to read and then go with it) and true enough he showed AK with nothing and my pair of 8's won a huge pot. He was not happy, the abuse i received was classic.

A few of the exchanges were:

Him: How the fuck can you play such a huge pot with just a pair of 8's
Me: I'd always prefer a pair of 8's than Ace high
Him: You fish make me so mad, flops smacking you in the face all the time
Me: GLUB
Him: I bet you rathole (run with the money) now, havn't got the guts to stay (he reloads at this stage)
Me: GLUB
Him: Sick to death of players raising with shit, then calling re-raises with shit and refusing to fold
Me: I rarely fold the best hand against a player whose cards are as good as turned over
Him: So you are a cheat?
Me: No, just good at reading telegraphs when they are sent
Him: Oh just fuck off you fish
Me: OK, will do, sorry about reading you so well, have a nice night

At which stage i left, not to look after the win, just purely to put the last nail in his coffin. I will never ever forget this hand.

In summary (for me) AA, KK etc. nice hands for sure, but for real pots, it's gotta be suited connectors.

hands that win big pots but dont often lose big pots

This isn't as obvious as it sounds, as its going to depend a huge deal on your villain in the hand

Suited connectors are the type of hands that against weaker players you win big and lose small, because they dont bet properly. Against very good players, they are almost the opposite, as they know how to bet, so you end up paying a high price to draw (which creates the big pot) and then missing and folding (which creates the losing) Also if you do hit/make your hand, you win small pots much more often then you win big pots. You naturally will win big pots with s/connectors, but probably not enough to make them a great profit source (against the better players)

The key to figuring out the money hands is to figure out the player. You know the type of player that always underbets their hand, but always calls big bets.. these are the guys that make your drawing hands your money hands. Against solid players that overplay big pairs, the sc'ers still make money, but not as much. Your money hand here is a small pair much more then a sc (the key to this is to get real busy on the flop, flop is 593, they have AA, you have 33, give them a chance to put you on KK/QQ/JJ, play it very very fast) Against the good LAGGY players, your suited connectors will almost certainly lose you money, because you dont hit enough flops to fade the times you fold postflop, and you dont win enough big pots when you do nail the flop. Against bad LAGGY players, they make a lot of money. Know your market.

I do think that people overvalue suited connectors. The overvaluing doesn't necesarily come from calling with them preflop, it comes from overplaying them post flop. If you (as in the generic) have a tendancy to overplay hands post flop, ie calling too much in terms of frequency and bet-size, its wisest to just chuck them away, and stick to playing hands that require less thought postflop, like AK (hit flop and continue) small pair (flop set) mid pair (flop overpair) and the like

Totalise / others,

I was wondering what strategy's you use in cash games when away from table. What i mean is, when not at the table what statistics / records / practices do you use to better improve your game.

I currently only use pokertraker. I find this very useful for the obv stats it gives and to record hands. But how best do you go about analysing these. Do you go over certain hands in a particular session (big wins or loses) to see if they could have been played diff. I do this, however, this does nothing for the hands you folded too early / won without contest which were actually incorrectly played.

i appreciate that experience is the best learning tool. However, is there a certain way you analyse your play after a session to pick up any important lessons that may not have been obv at the time??

Thanks again for all your efforts, i hope your Dad and others find all this helpful. I certainly am.

regards,
G

So towards the lower levels, suited connectors are more profitable and as you move up the scale, set against overpair is the one (in general).

I think to be honest i didn't even consider underpair setting up etc. as i have always seen this as profitable at every level.

Many times, especially last few months, i have found myself stepping up a level or two in an attempt to see some good poker. In essence i like playing on a table where i can be outplayed at times (learn something) and play for entertainment and studying of the game, rather than from a profitable point of view. If i can get a few sessions in on a higher table without severely damaging my roll, i have always found this more beneficial, than winning a few hundred bucks at my normal level. Bit like paying for a lesson etc.

Do you ever choose a table where you are more interested in having a good game at a good standard, than a profitable time? Do you have a level that you play for profit and one that you play for fun?

Back when I was first trying to go about it the correct way, I wrote down on a bit of paper each and every hand that caused me to feel any level of discomfort. It might have made you slightly uncomfy, it migh have made you very uncomfy. The key is that you were confused/uncomy and you dont know why

After the session was over, I'd drag up all these hands, and work through each one, looking at my action, the action of the opponents.. trying to figure out why this specific hand confused me.  If it was hard to figure out from one HH, it would generally become apparent from a few, and then you are in a great position to do two things:

a) iron out anything you were doing wrong, to ensure you dont get in that spot as often as you used to

b) use it to then put your opponent in the same spot you felt you were in at the time

Poker is a game of mistakes, the more tough spots you put your opponents in, the more likely you are to make money as it gives them room to mess up. Conversely, if you eliminate these confusing/tough spots as much as possible, it makes it less likely you will be the one making mistakes. Win~win

Also, analysing the big pots (both won and lost) is a good thing to do. Dont make the mistake of most players and assume you played well in the winning pots and played bad in the losing pots, because quite often you play better when you lose then when you win. Analyse them all in equal amounts.

Its certainly a lot of effort to do all this, but the rewards are huge. In most walks of life, you get out what you put in, and poker is no different.

in general, yes. Its hard to win money from the better players!


I dont know what that means. Maybe something written earlier got misunderstood? set is profitable wherever you go


this is OK as long as you can afford it. One thing i always tell others is to watch the higher limit tables. I dont just mean sit there and get agog at the $10k pots being pushed from pillar to post, I mean actually watch. Study. See what they have if it gets to showdown. Try and understand what they might have when they are betting/calling/raising. See what hands you need to do the betting/raising/folding. See if they target other people. If they do, try and understand WHY they do. watching these tables is a great studying tool as long as you are watching it to study


not really.. if I want a good time I'll hit the bars and try and fool some female into thinking I can give them a good time that evening. If I do play for fun, its usually at stakes like 10/25c, just to relieve stress. I'll never play high stakes just to have a good game at a good standard, playing 25/50 NL to get a lesson is ok, but I dont think that paying $5/$10k per lesson is value for money!!

How do you find it best to proceed when flopping 2 pairs with total junk in the blinds when there are 3 or more players in the pot?

e.g. on the BB you have 94os and the flop comes K94.

I tend to not win big pots in this situation but lose the odd massive pot. If i lead out i get called by KQ, KJ, K10 etc and when an overcard to the nine comes on the turn it gets very tricky.

When theres no reason to suspect people will do the betting for you, it makes most sense to go ahead and do it yourself. In spots like this, it gets quite tricky for people to "catch up". Normally on the turn they either are still lagging behind, or they have over-taken you (with some filthy straight draw getting there). Maybe you bet and everyone folds, if thats the case you weren't going to win much of a pot anyways, at least by betting you make them put money in there when its likely you have the best hand, rather then checking, and then letting them overtake you and have them reverse the fortunes on you

What to do if you get called and an overcard to your top pair comes on the turn, well I pretty much keep on firing, and then if they call again, check the river (**or see below) and see if I can elicit a bluff/value bet from a second best hand. You lose out sometimes when people check behind on the river, but you gain by letting them bluff off chips when they call for raggedy hands that dont get there.

**In these spots you dont do too badly by making a rediculously small bet on the river. Lets say you are playing 1/2 and by the river you have 2pr and the pot is $50. If you bet $5, then if they have a draw that missed, what on earth do they do? You are challenged their pride, making them think "wtf is this, he thinks Im gonna fold a $50 pot for $5 more? NO CHANCE!" and then you induce the bluff raise.

Compare this to betting something like $30, and then they still go through the same thought process, you might have escalated the pot to such a scale you dont want to call, so their bluff might work,  or you bet too much where they are scared to risk too many chips on the bluff in the first place.

Naturaly checking just lets them give up with their male pride in-tact.. so whilst Im no real fan of underbets, this is one spot where it can work out really really well assuming you do it against the correct opponent.

Yet another great response Totalise, been looking forward to that one.

This has to be the best thread i've ever read, congrats on that.

Great thread guys, I read teh first 3 pages in full and speed read the rest of it, but I'll take the time later today to go through it all and really get into it, it certainly has the potenntial to be a good e-book.

Could I suggest that maybe Blonde enlist the help of a few of the top players who post on here to go through it with Totalise and give their opinions before its finnished.  Iw ould be really interested to read that in full.

only just found this thread..bump as it's a must read for just about anyone, me thinks.

thanks to Byron for linking to it.

Great thread Totalise, utter respect for doing a cash game well.

When you were moving up what was the hardest level you found to beat and how did you adjust to this? I.E skip levels, shortstack, open up.

Nice thread Totalise, it's nearly a book already.

Not poker related, but I also played Oliver Wilson once in a scratch knockout match and the young'un did me on the last green. Which was fair enough until I discovered he was 11 years old at the time! He looked about 18 even then.. LOL.

Which I suppose is why he is on tour and the closest I've come to making a cut in a EuroPro Tour event is 4 shots... The height of my golfing achievement - a bit like winning a £20 re-buy at Gala...

Poker is my game now (maybe golf could interest me again when I hit 50 and the Seniors Tour lol) and reading this thread has got me thinking one thing -

Nobody is mentioning the rake. I play on a site that gives 75% rake back (it's true, no catch) and when I started to see how much I was being raped, it means I just can't force myself to play anywhere else: which I'd rather do because the site I play on is so low volume it's a joke.

How much of an edge do you think you need on the cash tables so as to not worry about the rake? From studying how they take it, it seems to me, and I might be wrong, that the higher up the limits you go, the proportionally less effect the rake has on your profits - which is why it's so difficult to build a bank roll from nothing. Anyone agree?

I am a winning player at the moment but I know the rake back is a big part of this.

You read fanciful stuff about players turning $50 into $10,000 and then losing it all; well that just isn't happening to me - I'm just steadily increasing by about 10% each month, with the odd downswing which puts me back to the previous plateau, and so on.

Because I'm playing at the low, low limits (2 reasons - lack of funds (blew it all in a deluded attempt to play tour golf), and a conscious decision to play down there while I'm still learning and improving) does this mean that I am plodding too much? Or does it always happen like this at these limits? ($0.10/$0.25)

I find I am far more profitable in the live cash games but that is a whole new subject.

Just wondering... (and yes, I am going through an horrific online downturn at the moment, which is when we all start to doubt ourselves...)

I mainly play low limit cash and find that the rake is about the same as my profit, but as this level is about 95% fish then its still easy to build up, just not quick.

hi Alex, thanks a lot. Funny how its only been less then 2 years since this thread and yet the game has evolved a lot since. Most of the stuff in here still applies, but its clear how much more advanced the game has got.

initially i had problems with 2/4,  it was the first step (back then) with an even numbered whole figure small blind, 0.25/50...0.50/1.. 1/2.. and it really made it hard to figure out the best way to size the bets for some reason. 3/6 was probably a level i dint even beat, it seemed so big, $24 pre, called, pot $48, cbet, and a call, had the pot at $100 even before you saw the turn.... and because the pots were 3 figures so often, it was a difficult level to beat pshychologically.

The psychology of poker is something that isn't really studied enough imo, not the mind games, or the reading, or the different levels of thinking, just the emotional control of handing the winnings and most importtantly,  the losses. I actually mentioned this earlier, about the happiness of winning vs losing, ie losing $1k making you more sad then winning $1k makes you happy means you need a deeper roll,  and also a lot of people move up far too quick, basing it on their roll size rather then their mental ability to handle it. Winning 30 buyins in a month at 2/4 and they go to 3/6 and hope to maintain it, and they are probably winning players theoretically at 3/6, but losing 4 buyins there is almost $2.5k, and this is a loss that you dont often get at 2/4, so its important to ensure that you dont only move up in accordance with your bankroll, but with your mental ability to handle losing if you do move up. Most people convince themselves they can do it, but they dont spend enough time thinking about that aspect of it before deciding to move up I dont think.

lol yes , Ollie was always destined for greatness. I also played a lot with David Skinns, I dont know if you ever played with him? He went to Tennessee ( I think) on a golf scholarship, he was really in the same mould as Oliver.

As for the rake, I guess you are playing on WSEX? the problem there is that you are probably trading win rate for rakeback.. your win-rate isnt linear in between sites... some sites that dont offer rakeback you might make 20 bb/100 with no rakeback, whereas on a rakback site you might make 3bb/100 but get 75% rakeback... so just becase you get rakeback doesn't mean that its the best option in terms of playing at the site. Use pokertracker to line up the stats and try to see which would be better for you.

You are defo right about it being harder to build a roll in terms of rake, especially in todays climate where you will get college students playing 16 tables of 0.25/0.50, and the quality being better then at 2/4NL on party 3 years or so ago... its a tough job to build a small roll online in a short space of time. You can counter this by saying you are building things more important then a roll, you are building solid fundamentals, you are building a solid mental understanding of how internet poker really is, you are building an understanding of how to approach poker in terms of roll management/study/table selection. Sure, sometimes people spin up small sums into big sums, but most of the time they lose it alll because they either dont have the fundamentals you will have built by grinding, or because they try and keep playing higher. Its a romantic poker story to think that turning $50 or $100 into $10k is a walk in the park, but for every $10k success story, the path is littered with $50's that have been thrown away chasing it.

Also dont ever regret trying to play golf professionally and failing, you had a dream and you chased it, when i was 15/16 i won our club championship, was playing county golf up to the B team, and had a handicap of 2.9 ( i think) , and a boat load of potential. I regret to this day not even trying to see where professional golf went. most likely it would have failed, but the not knowing prays on the mind. At least you had the balls to go for it. Be proud.

That is so true and very well put. No matter what my bankroll, at the moment the swings of anything above 2/4 are just too much for me to a cope with. A 2 BI downswing at 2/5 affects me a million times more than 10+ at 50$NL. Ridiculous but I'm not going back till I've found a way to deal with it. Which may mean waiting until massively over-rolled.

Totalise,

...thanks for the reply.

I don't regret trying golf professionally, in fact I wish I had tried it sooner as I was a very late starter to begin with. I played for Leicestershire who were bizarrely in the Anglian League so we never got to play against Nottinghamshire, so I never played with David Skinns or his ilk. I wish I had played for Notts as I live in the county and support the reds but I was a member of a club near Leicester.

Anyway, this is a poker forum(!) so I ought to make a poker related comment. The rake back is an issue that divides me. Yes, I play on WPex but I struggle to see how I would make more money getting no rakeback at all on a site such as Party for example.

Is the standard too high at WPex to prevent it being worthwhile? From what I've seen the players there aren't much better than anywhere else. But there are definitely FEWER of them that's for sure...most nights we average around 300 players online and at least half of those are playing in the freerolls.. not good.


Perhaps I should play on DTD where at least you get 30 per cent, and see what happens.

Also, another question regarding cash games. Is it better to a) buy in short, with plenty in reserve to top up with, or b) buy in for the max and keep topping up when I go below say, 80 per cent?

I can see valid arguments for both, but to behonest I lean towards buying in full. I know it depends on what you are trying to do but I would be interested in anyone's opinions on this.

epic

gg m8

Thats what I do now!!!!!!!!!!!

fml!