major leak

hi.

So im having trouble reading people online. sets really. ill have TPTK or two pair and feel confident in my hand. all situations are different but im ussaly agressive. did anyone ever have trouble with sets alot? or just laying down what you think is the best hand?

KQ against AK/AQ is another place where im losing alot of money. basically how and when did you learn how to lay down a good hand?

in the back of my mind i always think there weak or bluffing. major problem for me.

Thank you very much

ryan

Hey Ryan, welcome to CC!

The key to online reads is to pay attention to betting patterns.

Preflop, does this guy raise a ton of hands from whatever position he's sitting at, or is he very tight? As an example, if you watch me play FR (full ring) and pay attention to how frequently I open utg, you should be able to infer that I'm not playing much junk from there, so you shouldn't expect me to show up w weak or speculative hands if I open utg. If you pay attention to how frequently I open the btn, you should be able to infer that I'm playing a whole lot more hands than just pp's and AK.

Postflop, does this guy bet draws on the flop? What does he show down when he check/raises? What does he show down when he donk bets the flop? Is he passive or aggressive? Does he only go to showdown w the nuts? Does he bluff?

Example - I'm playing against a very tight pf player who is extremely passive postflop, but when he calls the river he's always got the nuts. So, I raise pf and he calls from the blinds. Flop is 962r and I've got an overpair. He checks flop, I bet, he calls. Turn is a blank. He checks turn, I bet, he raises 2.5x my turn bet size. Since he's passive and tight, he's not going to be raising a draw here and he's not raising Tx. Chances are he's got me beat w at least two pair, more likely a set, and my overpair is no good at this point. (fwiw, this is an example of what's called the Baluga Theorem, that you should fold your top pair hand to a turn ch/r)

Example 2 - same hand, same board, same actions, but villain is aggressive and plays a lot of speculative hands. Here we may be behind 2 pair or a set, but this villain may be raising a straight draw or an overpair worse than mine (less frequently TPTK). Now a call may be more feasible (but may still be incorrect, depends on the villain).

slycbnew thank you for the welcome. As well as all that info to think about.
Im embarassed to say i do not pay attention to the people in my game as much as i should. i see whos playing alot of hands but other then that i do not take in account alot of the other info. ill start dioing this asap. it probally doesnt help that i play 2 or 3 screens at once. while still being new

ill have to focus on one at a time now.

will you enlighten me on why they call it a donk bet? im assuming you mean to open bet from ep?

thank you!!!!!!!

A donk bet occurs when a player calls a pf raise oop, and then bets the flop rather than checking to the raiser.

So, for example, you open in CO and SB calls. Flop is whatever. SB bets - that's a donk bet. It's very common for SB to instead check to allow you in CO to act first whether or not SB hit the flop, so donk bets are noteworthy.

From some villains, a donk bet is always a set, from other villains it's a very strong draw or a set, from other villains it's a small pp trying to steal the pot cheaply, and from other villains it's any of the above plus TPGK plus complete air (these guys make the game fun!!!).

Note that it's not necessary to be a donkey or a fish to make a donk bet, it's not an insult. I'm completely unaware of why it's called a donk bet, but suspect that it DID start as an insult...

A++++
Keep in mind - players are volatile and mood dependant...way way way to many factors to generalise.

This is what I always keep in mind. Every player cannot be so predictable because you don't know what's on his/her mind that day!

True, but a players decisions are logical a higher percentage than they are illogical (the logic its self may be flawed but a player seldom makes what is truely defined as a random decision)

So if you can understand your opponents logic than you are able to make more accurate predictions than if you subscribe to the notion that players are indeed unpredictable.

This is not to say that your predictions will be 100% accurate, but if your predictions are even 51% accurate then there is an edge that you can exploit.

I think the danger is that people dislike the idea of gambling and therefore assume that in order to make predictions, they must be 100% accurate where in reality so long as you are correct more often than you are incorrect then you will win more than you loose and thus show a profit.

Thank you for the clarification...yes, I know what you are saying & understand that players are predictable to a point. I was merely stressing a point that that all people are not predictable 100% of the time because of the human factor. But that too can be exploited & turned to your favor.

another thing you might try is to aviod clling raises with hands like KQ,AQ-AT. Playing hands like this especially out of position(OOP) can be costly when you do hit top pair you got to be worried about your kicker.

No problems

I also think that in order to make predictions, you must have something mathematical to base them on.

In order to make a logical decision, you must have some idea of the range of hands that your opponent may hold at this point in the hand. The next step is, assuming he holds that range of hands, what percentage do I beat, what percentage beats me and what percentage beats me but will fold to a bet.

From there you can make a logical decision of what you should do.

So when a player tilts, you may decide that he is more likely to shove draws or to over value TP or to bluff or whatever, but you need some evidence that these assumptions are true.

Knowing that a player may shove a flush draw may skew your decision to call with a TP. He may then show a set, the shoving of his set should also be included in the range you put him on, but if knowing that the maths says call then call you must.

Feelings don't really come into it. If his bet size seems large or he snap shoves, that may give you new information as to his range, but in order to win you need to make predictions and decisions that are simply more logical than those of your opponents.

Thank you all for the responses. It still amazes me how complex poker is. This info. is VERY helpfull.

Yes, this is a major problem and one I think I will always struggle with.

A recent thread asked to list your poker epiphany's.

One recurring point ........ they're not bluffing.

i agree. alot of studying to do.

Thanks

I usually will call a raise with A Q in position is this a mistake?