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The official No Limit Texas Hold 'Em thread

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Interesting point. What is a "typical" FM ratio? How do we know what's high and what's low?

I want some advice on playing heads-up. I've crippled myself twice in tournaments by getting too involved with medium hands when heads-up. Example: I limp in SB with 63, BB just calls. Flop gives me a pair plus a gutshot straight draw. I bet out, get called. Bet the turn, get called. Check the river, call a small bet (he's short-stacked and basically pot-committed) and he shows me 99. Had something similar with a QTx board where I had T8 and lost to KT.

Basically, should i be pushing these middle pairs postflop, bearing in mind that it's heads-up, and no-one raised preflop?

Another point, relating to what Alasdairm has been saying about concentration: I played a lot of tourneys yesterday: in the last one, I was in the top 20 (40 paid) with about 150 to go, and I held that position right down till we got to the last 50. Then I lost it, and ended up going out in 46th.

My decision-making had been really good up till then - all day I'd been picking quasi bluffs, and calling all-ins with hands like AJ, and finding my opponent had Q8 or something. But as it got late in this tourney (which was 7-Stud, not NLHE), my judgment went to shit. I was chasing draws, over-valuing mid pairs, and on the last hand basically pot-committed myself with 9s, not even noticing that 1 player had bet and one raised before me.

A very interesting lesson on concentration and tiredness.
 
anyone wanna play a heads up tourney right now for 5 bucks? im not even that good....?
 
one site claimed that most tables either have a 20-40% (not much folded money, a lot of show downs) or 60-80% (a lot of folded hands)

simon - it sounds like that guy played you pretty tricky, maybe you should have gotten away from it, but any pair is generally a strong hand in heads-up..i guess your opponents playing patterns should influence your judgment here
 
I used to play poker all the time...not so much anymore. All my friends dont like it because they loose :D
 
Sim0n said:
^
Interesting point. What is a "typical" FM ratio? How do we know what's high and what's low?

I want some advice on playing heads-up. I've crippled myself twice in tournaments by getting too involved with medium hands when heads-up. Example: I limp in SB with 63, BB just calls. Flop gives me a pair plus a gutshot straight draw. I bet out, get called. Bet the turn, get called. Check the river, call a small bet (he's short-stacked and basically pot-committed) and he shows me 99. Had something similar with a QTx board where I had T8 and lost to KT.

Basically, should i be pushing these middle pairs postflop, bearing in mind that it's heads-up, and no-one raised preflop?
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I do not think pushing middle-pairs is a good idea unless you sense weakness. Either your opponenet is going to fold (being way behind), of if he calls he is way ahead of you and you are probably looking at 2-8 outs dependant on your hand. Basically a push here only gives him the ability to win money because he is not calling with anything you beat.
 
Sim0n said:
I want some advice on playing heads-up. I've crippled myself twice in tournaments by getting too involved with medium hands when heads-up. Example: I limp in SB with 63, BB just calls. Flop gives me a pair plus a gutshot straight draw. I bet out, get called. Bet the turn, get called. Check the river, call a small bet (he's short-stacked and basically pot-committed) and he shows me 99.
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Your limp was fine, provided you had a healthy stack. You hit a pair and a draw and you fired out - provided it wasn't a min-bet, that's fine too. You got called. There's a clue, but not a real definitive one. You check turn and call small bet. Good - you might still have the lead, and you have some outs - trips, 2 pr or your straight. I'm not sure about the call on the river, I don't know what pair you had - Top, middle or bottom pair? I might call w/top pair, but I let the rest go.

If he was as short-stacked as you say (< 10bb's) he shoulda just pushed pre-flop anyway, so really he played it like a mongoloid.

Had something similar with a QTx board where I had T8 and lost to KT. Basically, should i be pushing these middle pairs postflop, bearing in mind that it's heads-up, and no-one raised preflop?
Click to expand...

If you were first to act on that flop and you fired out, good. If you were second to act and were checked to, you should definitely bet. If you were 2nd to act and your opponent makes a 2/3 to Pot-Sized bet, I'd probably fold - unless you know him to be a bluffer. If that's the case, I might raise. But I wouldn't lose too much w/2nd pair, bad kicker. You'll have better spots.

I'll also raise A LOT pre-flop when heads-up, that'll make a lot of your decisions on later streets easier (or moot!)
 
here's an interesting hand that I bubble boyed out on last night at a 15 player home tourny.

I was chip leader by a bit with 4 people left. blinds 400-800
-Everyone folded to SB, who called. I called 83 off from the BB.
-Board comes 884. He checks, I figure that he doesn't have the other 8 and check the flop to let him catch up.
-Turn is a K. He checks again..i couldn't tell if it had hit, so I check thinking another card might catch him up if the k didn't.
-River is K and he checks. I raise to 3000 because I had showed him a bluff when he laid down a straight a few hands earlier..I thought he would call, thinking i was bluffing with nothing. He goes all in on top of the 4600 for a total of about 12000.
-I think about it for a while and reluctantly call....losing all of my chips to his kings full (I had 8s full)

I can think of a few ways of playing this hand differently. However, I don't think letting him catch up and bet a pair/bluff is a bad idea. He probably wouldn't have called a bet from me without at least a draw.

In the end, I just got greedy, still in love with my flopped trip 8. Since I still had a lot of chips, I should have just given away the lead, living to fight again on the next hand.

Do ya'll figure him on the K in this situation? How would you have played it?
 
Just a couple thoughts here, but I have the benefit of knowing the results, so don't take 'em too hard... :)

1) Big pots for big hands. Trips is a MONSTER heads up. Maybe you should have started building the pot early.
2) Turn is a good card to fire at, especially when checked to. You can kinda represent you have a K, and if he does maybe he'll try to take the pot away from ya there.
3) River is a 2-outer nightmare. Really nothing you coulda done there, even if you had bet the turn.
4) You didn't HAVE to pay him off, but it was mighty hard to put him on a K there after he checked the turn. Maybe that's why you SHOULD'VE bet the turn, to see what was up.

Overall though, not badly played, just bad luck. I don't play everything the same every time anyway - you have to mix it up, so while I don't love your line, I don't hate it either.
 
If I bet on the flop I'm sure he would have folded because he had been playing very tight all night. I do however like a bet on the turn, representing the K......especially if I knew he had the king! But I dunno, bad luck is definitely involved in this hand :D

thanks for the advice
 
Some thoughts on playing middle and small pairs,

Especially when there are many people still in the hand I think the best thing to do is to either call or make a medium size raise at most preflop. Then if you hit trips there are a few moves but if I don't get my trips I tend to bet anyway and hopefully get the pot if nobody has hit.

Of course It depends a lot on the people in the hand and your chipstack so I don't always raise after the flop when I have an underpair or middle pair but generally I think this is the best way to play small pairs.

(Unless you want a big coinflip pot, then you should go all in preflop I think)
 
what do ya'll think of massive database tracking programs such as poker sherlock? It basically keeps a huge online database of every player and presents pertinent facts about each player when you sit at a table with them.

Poker Stars has banned its use, but I don't necessarily see it as cheating....everyone else at the table can use it if they want to..

any random thoughts on this sort of software?
 
I have used a few shared database programs, but I still use Poker Tracker with PAHUD as my primary HUD of choice. I like the fact with PAHUD I can customize the stats I choose to display, and can customize the way I autorate players, really useful if you play limit as well as no limit and full ring vs 6-max. Huds really are only useful in cash games IMHO. Sharkscope is a different kind of tool than programs like Poker Sherlock, Poker Spy, Poker Pro, ect. Be careful what shared database programs you have on your computer if you play at Stars or Party, they might ban you even if you are not running it. Poker Tracker/ PAHUD and Poker Office are legal to use on all sites. Couple of useful links if you play MTT's for result tracking

http://www.officialpokerrankings.com/

http://www.bluffmagazine.com/thepokerdb/

This is a good one not too many folks know about for cash game selection, and it's free!!!!

http://www.nhbra.com/
 
nguboi said:
Pokerstars has been investiaged and compared to over a few million hands from pstars and other sites and Pstars DEFINITLY benfits all ins with A-rag agaisnt a pocket pair. There is a website out there that takes the results into greater detail..
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Source please?
 
Why would Stars need to rig the RNG? If they wanted to make more money, they could make more by changing the way they calculate rake than fixing there RNG. Stars makes a obscene amount of money everyday from juice, no need for them to try and squeeze a little more on games that have a $1 to $3 rake cap. When party was open to US players, they calculated there rake different than they do now.

Some of my personal rake stats over a 6-month time span on a few networks
Bonus/RakeBack is not subtracted from these numbers

3400 hands at $1-$2 6-max limit on Party I paid $267 in rake
1600 hands at $1-$2 5-max limit on Pokerroom I paid $139 in rake
10000 hands at $1-$2 6-max limit on Stars I paid $569 in rake

One huge difference between online poker and live poker is the amount of hands you see per hour. You are lucky to see 35 hands per hour in a live game, online you are going to see 60+ hands per hour per table, so of course you will see more bad beats online because you are seeing more hands. I am not a multi table god, and even I can play 9 tables of full ring at a time (when I am not high) for about 540 hands per hour. It would take you over 15 hours of straight sitting at a table playing to see that many hands live. The more hands you are playing, the more noticeable the variance of the game is.

One thing that players that win in live games and spew chips online fail to realize is that games are tougher online vs. live. A typical .05-.10 online game is way tougher than most $1-$2 live games. Most casinos lowest limit cash games are $1-$2 and full of players that think kJos is a good starting hand under the gun. Folks learning the game of poker online will learn faster because of the fact they can play way more hands in a couple of weeks than playing live.
 
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