Oh, man. There are whole books about this stuff and he wants me to boil it down to a forum post … and I’m not real big on the whole idea of wising up the competition. Oh,well, it is a nice challenge.
The new school world class hyper-LAG (Loose Aggressive) players are playing maybe 35 to 40 percent of their hands – old school TAG (Tight Aggressive) players are playing around 15 percent … so playing 100% of your hands is out. The number one mistake made by poor poker players is playing too many hands, followed closely by going too far with them.
Not wanting to spoil your fun and not wanting to go on for 30 pages, how about something like – tighten up to big pairs (AA – TT) and big suited connectors (AKs - T9s) in early position, medium pairs (99 – 88) and the lower suited connectors (down to 43s) and suited Aces in middle position (forget about offsuit Aces with a low kicker except for trying to steal the blinds in late position), and the rest of the pairs in late position … and IF there is a loose player or two in the pot already (and there is NOT a BIG raise), sometimes consider the suited one gap hands like 86s. That gets you playing a realistic number of hands. Notice that it also means you will be playing very few hands in early position; that’s a good thing. Most of the time, it is a big advantage to act last. By playing few hands up front and more hands late, you will automatically be acting last on most of your hands.
Pot odds are important, but less so in no limit than in limit poker. In NL, you objective is not so much to win the (current) pot as it is to set up situations in which you can win your opponent’s whole stack. In a limit game if the pot odds aren’t there, you can’t call with your draw, but in NL, even if the pot is tiny, if you think you can win the other guy’s whole stack if you hit your inside straight draw, you go for it.
Generally, the best hand before the flop ends up being the best hand after all the cards are out, so playing better hands than your opponents gives you a built in advantage. However, while AA or JJ will frequently win without improving, hands like 76s are rarely the best hand before the flop and they must hit something to become the best hand … so to play hands like that you need to see the flop cheaply because most of the time you are going to miss the flop and will have to fold if there is any action (AK might win a showdown without improving but 76 will not, so big card strength is very important.)
How to play the hands: Generally, if you’re the first one in you should raise (three times the big blind is generally considered a Standard Raise but anywhere from 2.5 to 5 times can be common depending on the game). By raising, you gain some Fold Equity (everybody might fold and you win the blinds), and you often (but not in very loose games) gain position when everybody behind you folds and you get to play in position against the blind, and you tend to gain some control over whatever other players come in to the hand (you raised so you’re supposed to have a good hand so you have somewhat of a Fear Factor over the others.)
If you raise and get reraised by a player behind you, you should probably fold if you have one of your weaker hands (87s or 33 kind of stuff) because a reraiser is telling you “I have a big pair” and you have a weak hand AND you are out of position (you will have to act first on the flop and when you check [because most of the time you will miss the flop] he will bet [because that is what reraisers do … because they are “supposed to” have a big hand] and you will have no idea what he has and you will wish then that you hadn’t called in the first place … so give it up early with a hand that can’t go to the showdown on its own strength.
If you raise and you have AA or KK (or perhaps AK) and you get reraised, your objective now is to get all of your chips in the middle. If you think he will call if you just push all-in, go for it … or if he is a very aggressive type, just re-reraise (about 3 times his bet) and let him push all-in.
If you are on the button, you can call normal raises (but not reraises) very liberally IF the raiser has a big stack (and you do too) because you will have position on the raiser (that doesn’t mean you should play garbage – but you can play your normal hands in a raised pot). If you or the raiser has a small stack you don’t get the implied odds you need to call with small connectors (remember, you have to hit the flop with those hands and most of the time you won’t … so you need to be able to win a lot the time you do … so you need to play against somebody who has a lot of chips you can win.)
Once the blinds get big, things change. When people only have a small number of big blinds left, they tend to play scared. Now is the time to steal blinds by raising relentlessly if you are the first one in … loosen way up to try to steal but give it up quickly if you meet resistance. It’s been said that “You don’t win tournaments, you steal them.”
When the average chip stack only has enough to pay the blinds/antes for 10 or fewer rounds, the game enters the Move-In Stage. At this point, you are either going to fold or go all-in; you don’t have enough chips to fool around … so just push with you’re playable hands and hope everybody just folds and lets you have the blinds … but keep it to your normally playable hands so that when you do get called (they aren’t going to let you just keep pushing and stealing the blinds forever) you have a decent chance to get a little lucky and win the pot.
Now, realize that this is likely so different from the way you have been playing that you are going to get absolutely creamed the first time you try it, and probably the second time, too … but these are some (crude and simplified) steps that will help move you toward playing a better game.
Good luck.