HobbyIsBowling
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Jun 17, 2004
- Messages
- 1,436
alasdairm said:most hands i've played tonight involve 7 or 8 out of a table of 10.
so i adjust my game - raising more pre-flop to put these people out. then i'll have something half-decent like, say, J/10. then the flop will come 224 and somebody playing an A/2 (just because they have an ace) catches trips. i'm somewhat pot-committed and end up just taking a bigger hit.
First of all, you should almost never be raising JT(even suited) in a NL game. That's a checking/calling hand. I'd rather have A 2 OS than JT suited pre-flop(they're near even, just personal preference), so you really can't blame the person you mentioned for staying in. No offense, but If I knew my opponent was raising hands like JT pre-flop, I would be calling raises w/ ace rag everytime as well.
Second of all, if 7 or 8 people are calling every hand in a NL game pre-flop (even if there are no raises pre-flop), and also calling most pre-flop raises with borderline hands, then the blinds are much too low/the stakes are much too low for any type of coherent strategy. The only real strategy you could hope to employ here is to wait for the top level hands (AK, AA, KK, etc.), and then raise HEAVY, and continue betting heavy on the flop (if you didn't push all in pre flop) and hope someone didn't stay in for your orignal huge bet and get lucky. If more than a couple people call, odds are you're going to lose the hand anyways. That's micro-NL hold em online in a nutshell, unfortunately.
As you can see, that's not much strategy and not much fun either. If you plan on employing any kind of strategy that you would in a real life game, then you need to up the stakes immediately. If you don't have the bankroll for this, then you have a couple options.
1) Continuing playing in these micro-limit type games and hope for the best (you may as well buy a lotto ticket).
2) Get some scratch together and come back with a large stack in much higher stakes where you can fully execute proper NL strategy.
3) (My suggestion and what I did to build a decent bankroll) - Start playing the highest LIMIT hold em game that you can afford. If you're not experienced w/ limit hold em, then I recommend you read David Sklansky's "Hold em for advanced players". If you have a basic understanding of hold em and are intelligent enough(you are), then you will have no problem synthesizing everything in this book and putting it to use right away. The book is considered by some to be "dry" at times, but if you are interested in making serious money playing poker, then it is well worth it.
As much as this book will help you online(it helps loads), it will help you even moreso in live limit hold em casino games(the most common type of casino poker today). If you read this book, and practice online for a few months, you'll be ready to go to casinos on friday and saturday nights and absolutely CLEAN UP from the drunks and hold your own with the sharks. I encourage all of my friends to invest time in learning how to play limit hold em the right way as there is much more money to be made in limit than NL, but few listen. I don't understand why. I guess because NL is always on TV and everyone wants to be like the pros? The easy money is with the rich and/or drunk guys sitting at limit tables at casinos on the weekends, but I digress.
Once you build a big enough bankroll in limit (or thru other methods), then you can start playing true NL hold em online. At the higher stakes you will be able to use more advanced strategy and if you are a very good player, the profits can be overflowing.
Keys I've found to make money in NL(long term):
1) Always buy in for the maximum allowed buy in(I thank Super System for this bit of advice)
2) Whatever amount you buy in for, you should have at LEAST 10 times that amount of money remaining in your bank(preferably 15-20 times as much)
If you play on Pokerstars or UB( I think UB has it), you can play heads up matches. There is no possibility of collusion in these matches, and usually your opponents are fairly weak. The basic strategy you should use in NL heads up: If you aren't betting the pot, there should be a damn good reason for it. If you are calling a bet, there should be a gamn good reason for it. Follow that and you should make some money. The key(as in almost any kind of poker) is to get your opponent to frequently think "I have no fucking clue what he has". If you can do that, you're in the driver's seat.
Of course, you should take my ranting with a grain of salt. I've been playing hold em (limit and NL) for about 5 years, and while I'm no professional, I'm also not too bad either.
Another good poker resource:
http://forums.cardplayer.com/