Well, the neighbor’s new 60" plasma TV and a couple of bottleof wine conspired to keep me fromthe table. SOryy folks.
Standings!
1 Miss Take 76.8
2 Only Mostly Dead 75.6
3 nesta 72.0
4 Misnomer 70.6
5 Nanook of the North 70.6
6 Kyyrewyyoae 65.6
7 Gangster Octopus 64.3
8 Robot Arm 60.2
9 Duke of Rat 57.2
10 Dag Otto 52.0
11 Oslo Ostragoth 47.5
12 Yeticus Rex 40.7
13 Asterion 39.9
I could tell you my secret to sucess, but then you’d finish worse than 5th. 
I don’t know what to tell you. Some nights I sail through with hardly a beat, some nights it doesn’t matter what I have or how I play it, I get stomped. Maybe being really competitive is making you put too much pressure on yourself. I think that’s why I either do good or go out early most of the time, I just play along and let the chips fall where they may. If I go out 13th out of 14, sure it sucks and I hate it. That’s just the way it goes sometimes.
Not much of a pep talk.
I see you are ahead of me in the standings, that’ll cheer ya up!
My nights are all the same. From the first hand it’s just a long, slow trickle of chips until they’re gone. Maybe there’s one decent hand every hour, or I steal the blinds, but I haven’t been above the average stack in weeks. If I’m really lucky, I’ll manage to survive an all-in when I’m desperate and stick around for a few more minutes. But it’s one step above being a bot.
Play more aggresively? I tried that last week.
I’ve been here a year. Do I have any reputation yet, any patterns, any weaknesses you’re all exploiting? Would you tell me if I did?
I guess I’ll take that as a “no”.
I haven’t noticed anything RA. Maybe we could look at some of the hands you’ve played (or haven’t played).
Man, I don’t know. I’m sure not of the caliber to be offering much poker advice.
Just a hunch, and I may be totally wrong, but maybe you are too tight. You said you are very competitive, maybe you are too concerned with guarding your stack instead of seeking out and destroying other’s stacks. Or even semi-bluffing them off hands when you think they are feigning strength. You say you sit there and fold after fold, waiting for a “good hand”, sometimes you gotta get in there with junk and hope for some action.
Don’t take this as criticism of your style, I sure ain’t the one to ask for advice. I’ve been guilty of doing the same thing, and then when I decide to loosen up I get whalloped. Sometimes the synergy of playing junk loose and hitting some flops just happens. Sometimes you get whalloped, but at least you’re not just sitting there bored and folding. Just offering food for thought.
RA. Let’s try this off-the cuff experiment. Full table and you are dealth the following six hands:
How would you (generally) rate these hands pre-flop, with 9 players and you are you are first to act (meaning that everyone has folded around to you) in the following position:
With the caveat of course that normally things like how the table is playing, the size of your stack and where in the tournament you currently stand would matter. Just give me your basic hand rating.
I don’t know that any one hand, or even a few, is really what I’m getting at. I’d like someone who knows what they’re doing to watch over my shoulder for an evening and get their advice. But there are four hands from last night that stand out in my memory. I’ll check the history and post them later tonight.
For the quiz, do you want me to rate the hands, or rank them, or just say what I’d be likely to do?
Oh just rate them on a scale of 1-10 (10 = AA on the button, 1 = 72 off in the SB)
Here’s three of the four hands I remember. The other was early, so my history doesn’t go back that far. If someone else from my table can post it, I’d appreciate it. I had 4-5 suited (diamonds, I think) and made the flush on the turn, I think.
Hand 1:
7 players. Blinds 15 and 30.
Ad - Kd
I raise to 60.
Misnomer, MissTake, redhat, Oslo and nesta (SB) fold.
Duke (BB) calls.
Flop is Qh - As - Qd
Duke bets 30.
I raise to 60.
Duke calls.
Turn is 7s
Duke bets 120.
I fold.
Hand 2:
6 players. Blinds 30 and 60.
As - Ks
Duke folds.
I raise to 120.
MissTake, redhat and Oslo (SB) fold.
nesta (BB) calls.
Flop is Js - 10h - 9h
nesta bets 60.
I fold.
Hand 3:
10 players. Blinds 50 and 100.
Kh - Jh
redhat, OMD, Yeti, nook, Oslo and GangOc fold.
nesta bets 300.
Duke and I (SB) fold.
MissTake (BB) calls.
Flop is 7h - Qh - 6h
MissTake bets 650.
nesta calls.
Turn is 5c
MissTake bets 575 all-in.
nesta calls.
River is 8h
MissTake shows 10h - Jc.
nesta shows 10s - Ah and wins with an ace-high flush.
(ranking) and how I’d probably play it:
First-to-bet: (7) call.
Mid-position: (7) call.
Button: (8) call.
Small-blind: (9) raise.
2) A3 suited
First-to-bet: (5) fold.
Mid-position: (6) fold.
Button: (7) call.
Small-blind: (8) raise.
3) TT
First-to-bet: (7) call.
Mid-position: (8) raise.
Button: (8) raise.
Small-blind: (9) raise.
4) 89 suited
First-to-bet: (5) fold.
Mid-position: (6) fold.
Button: (7) call.
Small-blind: (7) call.
5) KJ offsuit
First-to-bet: (6) fold.
Mid-position: (7) call.
Button: (8) raise.
Small-blind: (8) raise.
6) A8 offsuit
First-to-bet: (7) call.
Mid-position: (7) call.
Button: (7) raise.
Small-blind: (8) raise.
(Looking over those answers, I don’t know if I’d be that aggressive in a real game. But also, being on the button of the small blind and having everyone fold around to you is kinda rare in our games.
And my rankings aren’t strictly linear. There are a whole lot of 1 and 2 hands, and not many 10’s at all. Think of it as anything 5 or below is an automatic fold. 6 I’d probably only play from the small blind.)
On that particular hand, I had Ac - Kc. Basically the same thing you had. A stout re-raise would have represented a set of Q or 2 pair, I’d have folded like a soggy tent (maybe ).
That’s what I thought you had.
Too small a preflop raise. The general average preflop opening raise you want is 3-3.5x the big blind.
Wouldn’t have folded here. Sure, he MIGHT have the Q. But the odds of that are far, far lower than him having a weaker ace than you, and 120 is not enough to push me out.
Again, too small an opening raise. All that does is price in people with marginal hands. The fold after the flop is fine though.
You’re already in for part of it, KJ suited is a good hand, why fold preflop? Yes, you would have gotten sucked out on and lost badly, but you can’t look at it like that. Calling is the right play. (Incidentally, calling an all in on a draw? Ew. Thats all I have to say.)
Ok, why would you call the BB when you’re FTA on the button with one of the best hands in Hold Em? AK is a raising hand, no matter what position you’re in if you’re first to act.
I would say the exact opposite actually. You’re not being nearly aggressive enough. Calling the BB with AK? Pocket 10s? Never. Those are raising hands. Limping with 8/9 or A/3 suited is ok, but not the good hands on that list. Limping with good hands is asking to take a bad beat from a marginal hand that got in cheap or even free(BB).
Here’s a story for you. I played in one of the $5 no limit tourneys the other night. I was in the big blind, with like 7/4 off or similar crap. Couple people limped to me. I of course check. Flop comes out 774 or something. I ended up taking a whole bunch of chips off a couple people that had big pockets. Why? Because they let me.
Let me say it again. Limping with good hands is bad m’kay.
That was my hunch before I even saw the hands.
Then think about MissT and the way she played that flush draw. Out for blood, a gunslinger. And she’s in first place. Sure, she screwed the pooch on that particular hand, but it gives a little insight into a totally different way of playing. And she played a much weaker starting hand.
It also gives a little insight into how Nesta (another solid player) plays. AT os probably isn’t all that much stronger starting hand that KJ suited, depending on position, but he was able to scare you away…out of the SB even. Had you called his raise, you’d have flopped a hand that would be powerful enough that you could certainly price him out of drawing for another heart.
Well Iwas going to come in here and spenmd some time on responinf to RA, but Nannok did an excellent job and pretty much echoes what I would have said. With any of those hands I listed I would raise when FTA when I am on the button or SB. You can probablysteal the blinds,you may get called, which is fine, those aren’t terrible cards to go into a flop with. The TT you definielty need to raise from early position. You want to push out marginal hands.
Basically, NotN is correct, not agressive enough.
I wanted to look at this hand a bit more. First off, you didn’t raise enough. The pot is currently at 105. For Duke to call he needs toput in another 30, so he is getting more than 3 to 1 to call. That is enough to let in marginal hands (in this case he didn’t have a marginal hand, though).
Then the flop came and Duke bet 120 into a 135 pot. So the pot is now 255. A call for you is 120 or slightly better than2 to 1 pot odds. Those are very favorable odds when AA with a K kicker. The only thing you need to worry about is if Duke has a Q. Certainly possible, but given there are two out there… I woul dput the odds at him having a Queen as decent but not enought to deflect the pot odds. There is a good chance he also has an A, but with a worse kicker.
In my defense, I posted my worst hands from this past week.
I played very aggresively two weeks ago. I was out in 15 minutes. The killer was when I went all-in and you turned out to have pocket aces.
I wish I had the other hand from this past week. I made a flush, bet aggressively and lost about 300 to a higher flush. My last three flushes have all been losers.
Aggressive play hasn’t been very good to me.
If you are newer to NL Holdem, you shouldnt be playing paint facing a preflop raise. You just don’t have the experience to get out of it when you’re done. You need to put yourself in positions where you have easy decisions(or as easy as possible). This means-do not call preflop raises with KJ, Q10,A10, K10, etc. You are either against a PP, which you are behind, or you are most likely dominated. Either way, by calling, you have no postflop read if facecards come but not yours.
AK is autoraise, from anywhere. I don’t really like reraising with it, unless you have to move all in. If you have AK, YOU most likely have someone dominated, or are in a coin flip. IF you hit top pair, you have top kicker, so you don’t have to worry about being outkicked.
I don’t understand why A3suited is a call from the button, but a raise from the SB. A good rule of thumb is that you raise with any A, and often any K on the button. Especially in later stages, stealing the blinds once per round becomes critical, especially when the deck goes cold. Again, if you are newish, maybe the Ax raise isn’t so easy yet.
If you raise before the flop, always lead out(unless you were bluffing the preflop raise and got called). If you have KK, and raise 4x the BB, and get 1 caller, and the flop is 5 A 9, I know the A is scary, but you have to bet that flop. You have to find out where you are in the hand. Remember, an A on the board means its less likely that opponent has one. AND if you check that, he can bet out like he has the ace, and at that point you have to fold.
That move is a rather common bluff. Any raised pot that you are in, if you are last to act, and an A has flopped, and no one has bet, you must bet it. You will take it down so often its ridiculously profitable.
I’ll try to make the tourney this thursday, I’m still steaming over my bad beat at the main event
I’d also want to ask Robot Arm, in hand 1–what about the 7s pushed you off that hand? If you are calling the postflop raise, you obviously aren’t putting your opponent on the Q. If you believe you have the best hand on the flop, that 7 can’t make you go anywhere.
AK should be 3-5x raise. On a flop like that, I would push probably 2/3 of the pot and evaluate. 2/3 is enough that 1)opponent might fold, 2)opponent with A can’t reraise, due to Q scare, and 3)opponent with Q WILL reraise, and you know you’re beat.
Actually, I like a check raise here. Check, come over the top, and 1)YOU represent the Q, and if he calls or reraises you can slow down on the next card.