Who wants to learn cash game strategy?

[byronkincaid]

I feel an oblgation to try and help others make money as well

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

[totalise]

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 question

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.

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

[ACE2M]

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

[ACE2M]

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 

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

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

[Sark79]

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 

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

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

[totalise]

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

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

[Sark79]

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.   

[ACE2M]

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

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

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

[totalise]

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.   

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

[totalise]

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

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

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

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

[ACE2M]

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.

[totalise]

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

[Tonji]

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.

[totalise]

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

[ifm]

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.