Yeah, I don’t do AIM either. If I know your handles, Rogue, and when you and/or your GF will be playing, we can just try to play in the same room.
I’ve created a Straight Dope group on PokerRoom. Signing up for it allows access to private boards should we choose to use them. From the PR main screen, click on Pokah! toward the upper right. Click on Groups, then search for the group called Straight Dope.
PR also has private messaging (not instant messaging).
Winning Low-Limit Hold’em by Lee Jones is a good limit hold’em primer. It doesn’t teach you to be nearly aggressive enough but it should provide a good enough foundation to be a decently solid player at lower limits. Be sure to get the second edition.
I’ve only thumbed through Small Stakes Hold 'em by Ed Miller et al., but it’s a good follow-up once you’ve gotten a good amount of experience under your belt. It certainly clears any lack-of-aggression problems right up.
And of course there’s the classic Hold’Em Poker for Advanced Players by Sklansky and Malmuth. An excellent read, but some of the material is not really appropriate for a typical low-limit game.
I own Wilson’s Turbo Texas Hold’em. It’s a good program if you want to run simulations and test out strategies. It’s somewhat less useful for practicing your game. The AI is passable but nothing outstanding or particularly challenging. The program’s built-in advisors can be set to offer up recommendations on how you should play various situations but the advice is rather poor.
Thanks again for all of the replies. It looks like I was a little too late posting this though. It sounds like we might be heading to the casino Friday night to play some 2/4. I’ll just set a limit and if I lose that much, I’ll drink beer while my friends play.
I did get a stand alone PC game for Hold 'em. Some of the stats are kind of interesting. Last night I was paying to see about 18% of the flops. Out of curiousity, on an average night what percentage of flops do most of you see?
That’s about right on the money if you’re playing tight in full ring game. I’ve seen rocks play 10% and less but that’s just too readable. A good player amongst fish can see 40% of the flops and still easily win with superior post-flop play. Loose-tight profiles vary over the course of the hand. There are some players who play really tight preflop and then loosen up considerably. It’s quite common to see players who just have to see the flop but who then fold if they don’t flop the nuts. I average about 22% flops, which is probably considered a tad loose amongst the Sklansky crowd.
I’m curious as to how important this sort of percentage is. I have no real idea what percent of flops I see. I play if I have the cards and fold if I don’t.
In the short run, these type of statistics don’t really mean much since they tend to vary depending on a host of variables (luck, style and skill of your opponents, number of opponents, etc…). Over the long run though, a good percentage of winning players tend to have statistics that fall in certain ranges. So if you’re interested in improving your game, you can use these statistics to try to identify possible weaknesses in your game. For instance, if you pay to see many more flops than is typical, you might be overvaluing various holdings. You could then look at the weakest of your holdings you chose to play to see if you’re losing money with them. You might find that there’s nothing wrong with the way you’re playing, that your percentages are simply different than the average for no particularly bad reason. But at least it’s a place to start.
Otto I don’t know how serious you are about improving your game but I do know you alway show up in Hold 'Em threads so I would imagine you’re at least somewhat serious. If you know for a fact your sticking to a good starting hand approach then knowing such a number is somewhat academic. Most people, however, tend to underestimate the number of hands they play. A great program for viewing these stats is PokerTracker, which will analyze your play six ways from Sunday. It’s probably the best self-analysis tool out there. You can import your online hands from most rooms directly into the program. Check it out. I demoed a program called “PokerEdge” which gives you similar (though simplified) stats for all the players at your table on Party. It has data for about 4/5 of the players who play on PP and it has collected data on players since they started playing (since the product was launched). It is WELL worth the monthly subscription fee. You can immediately target the fish and learn an awful lot about anyone’s play in real-time.
Being on a Mac I can’t use most of the stats programs I’ve heard of. I know that I’m sticking to good starting hand selections (except for those rare instances when I go slightly mad and play something stupid because I’m in position). If anything I feel like I play fewer hands than average, at least it seems that way when I’m frustrated after two or three orbits without seeing a face card. I think I may start keeping some basic stats on my own. My most important stat, profit, is finally trending the right direction again so as long as that continues I’m good. Since I’m playing mostly for entertainment value I’m not that concerned about hourly rate at this point; so long as I get up from the (online) table with more money than I sat down with, even if it’s only a few bucks, I’m OK with it.
Remember that I’m really new to Hold 'em too. I’m just trying to make sure I’m in the right zip code with my hand selection.
I feel like I’ve learned a lot this week. The comments and charts from KidCharlemagne have been especially helpful. It seems just like everything else though. To quote a high school chemistry teacher (who was probably quoting someone else), “the more you know, the more you know you don’t know.”
I think I have a pretty good grasp on what to do with some starting hands. The borderline ones are going to take some work. The idea that you might want more people in the pot with a mid range starter was strange at first. Post flop betting is still kind of a mystery. It’s going to take a lot more reading and practice.
Last night I talked to the friend that is taking me (and three others) to the casino tonight. We talked about things like table etiquette and what a first time player wouldn’t know. There is something that is against the house rules that he called a “string bet” that I might have done on accident. I could still do it, even now that I know what it is.
It sounds like the play is a lot looser than what I’ve been seeing on the PC. If I had the time, I would reset the AI of the opponents to act more like he described. He thought that there were typically 6 or more people in on the flop. Some people have to be playing some real crap starters. Of course, those hands can be winners too, the odds are just against you on an individual level.
He also mentioned that he was actually done with the casino until we started talking about it last weekend. He and another friend played for about 6 or 7 hours a month ago or so. He said that they paid very close attention to who was making money. A lot of players came and went, leaving their $50 to $100 donations to the 2/4 tables. By the time they left there were only three people who ended their night up. Where did the money go? Of course the answer is obvious, it went to the house. He is talking about having more games at his house, where there is no house cut or tipping the dealers and the beer is cheap and cold. I’m looking forward more to these games than the casino trip at this point.
Anyway, I should be sitting at a table in about 10 hours. It might not be until Monday, but I’ll let you know how it went. Thanks!
String Bet: You have to make your entire bet in one motion or verbally call out your bet. If you’re going to raise you either say, “raise” or grab enough chips for the raise and place them in front of you. An example of a string bet would be to put out the amount of chips for a call and then go back and get more to make a raise. If you do this, an alert dealer will only allow you to call.
The reason for this rule is that you could make a call and then change your mind and raise based on the reactions to the call you made.
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Yeah, my friend explained it. It makes sense, but I didn’t know the term or that it wasn’t allowed. I guess I should have explained it, since there could be other beginners following this thread. No need now! 
The easiest way to avoid string betting is to get in the habit of announcing raise since verbal announcements are binding. This is what a dealer recommended to me when I was a novice and tried to string bet. It also speeds the game along since the next player can then act if you have to take your time counting out chips for your bet.
Some of that is stupidity on the part of the players (J3 suited! I’m golden!), some of it is probably the effects of alcohol (never drink when you’re playing) and some of it is what’s become known as the “Gus Hansen effect.” If you don’t know of Gus Hansen, he’s a professional poker player who has a reputation of being an extremely loose player. He will call and raise in almost any position with almost any two cards. He recently won a “tournament of champions” type tourney with seven other of the greatest and most successful players in the game today and knocked all of them out, in each case coming from behind in the hand. People watch him on TV, taking out players with hands like 97os, and think that’s the way to play. What they fail to understand is that a) the stuff on TV is a small selection of the hands that are actually played and they are selected for their dramatic value, b) Gus is a mathematical genius who either knows or can work out the odds he’s getting on his money in a matter of seconds, and c) Gus gets extremely lucky. In the short term you may lose some pots to the maniacs and calling stations, but over the long run you’ll find that you’re making your profit off them.
Well, I survived my first night of casino Hold 'em. I went to the casino with four others (my GF, a friend, his GF, another friend). My friend’s GF played Pai Gow, the rest of us played Hold 'em. I enjoyed myself. We all started the Hold 'em with $100 in chips. My two friends lasted somewhere between two and three hours. One left the table with $16 in chips, the other with nothing. They decided to go play Blackjack. I played for four hours and finished $6 down on the night. It was a cheap lesson. My GF did fine too, finishing about $35 down. Incidentally, my friends lost on Blackjack and Pai Gow too.
My tight play was somewhat of a joke at the table. By the end of the night I was using that to my advantage to get people to drop. I didn’t get any monster hands. I only got two pocket pairs all night. I won my best pot with the first. It was a pair of pocket deuces. I snagged a third deuce on the turn. The second pocket pair was 5’s. I think I folded them after the flop or turn. As far as my tight play, the joking was in good fun, so I didn’t care. I ended up leaving the table in the best shape anyway. Still, I don’t think I was getting great starters and their timing was generally bad. I got consistent crap when I was in a late or blind position (T5, 68, etc.). When I saw face cards, it was mostly stuff like a A7s or JT and I was in an early position. I folded a lot.
I mentioned in another post that my friend thought that there weren’t many winners (besides the house) at a 2/4 table. This proved true for our table. We got on this table when it opened. Maybe 8 people left and 6 new people joined while we played. Absolutely no one left the table up. No one still sitting at the table was up when we left either. The house was the only winner. I’m guessing that’s mostly because of the low table limit though.
Now I’m looking forward to my friend’s next game. Thanks everyone!
That’s exactly how you want to use your table image. Another consideration is that anyone who has recognized your tight play will probably try and get you to drop if there are no other callers with a weak raise. At a typical table, I always try to develop a rock image when I first sit down to play. Average players never seem to forget that first impression.