history analysis - advice

I know I'm a donk , if you want to prove it in a game , fine ,love to. but no need to say it over and over in this thread.

what I need is someone to tell me what I need to do to Improve . it's not 10,000 hands but close enough . I play all kinds of games ,sngs,mtts,but mosty hold-em $10 N/L , blinds are .05 , .10 .


oh what the hell , if you feel like calling me a donk , do it , lol ,I can take it , what do you think , go ahead eat my lunch






sorry for the format ,I don't type well (bible method)that was to long.

you're very very loose passive. looks like you're seeing way too many flops (even if this is mostly 6-handed, which i don't know if it is, you're seeing a lotttt of flops). this suggests that you're seeing the flop with a fairly weak range that will be dominated very often

your most common action besides folding is calling. you almost never raise or re-raise. and betting only at 6%!! there's a reason that the pros say aggression is the key to no limit hold 'em. it gives you more ways to win the hand, instead of just calling with marginal hands and hoping you have the best of it by the end. there are merits to playing some hands passively, such as pot control, making it harder for opponents to put you on hands, and letting your opponents bluff air/missed draws. but betting only 6% and raising 2% is really just never going to be a winning style. it suggests that you're open-limping preflop a lot and if you do raise, you almost never make continuation bets or attempt to bet and take down pots that are up for grabs

i'd suggest being much more selective with your hands preflop and, when opening the action, sticking with a raise-or-fold approach. if it's not good enough for you to feel comfortable opening with a raise, it's probably not good enough that you should be playing it. raising lets you take control of the hand and be the aggressor.. when you get called and the other player misses the flop, they will often just fold to a bet because they assume you have a hand. so along with raising, you should make continuation bets on the flop more often, even if the flop misses you. don't overuse this at 10NL, though, because certain people don't like to fold. that's why observation is very important

beyond that, you should overall just be more aggressive... as you're playing, i can pretty much tell that any time you raise postflop it means you have a hell of hand. the way you're playing now makes you too easy to play and predictable. maybe try raising a big draw sometimes to merge your range, and don't be afraid to raise your big hands instead of slowplaying everything. just try to gradually incorporate more controlled aggression into your game

kaboom got it right.

Try this for a month or so. It helped me to understand my game a whole lot. Do it with play money, I'd suggest the 10K sng's at fulltilt.

Only fold or raise. Just the act of training yourself not to limp or call, will improve your game. After the month, you'll come back to limping and calling, but you will be doing it with a new reason as to just what you are doing.

UTG only bet the monsters, AA,KK, AK, QQ, JJ. Be real ready to give up the QQ and below. ONLY 3BB raises here! Min Raises only very late in the tourneys when the blinds are huge. Never limp UTG PF !!!!!

UTG+1,2 A bit looser. Include connectors, mid PP's. ON OCCASION, raise big with babies 22,33,44,55. Otherwise fold em.

Mid position, 50% of the time or less, raise with upper mid connectors or pairs.

Late position, learn to steal. You can't steal every orbit, but 20-30% of the time you can.

At max you should only be seeing maybe 10-15% of the flops. Remember this is an exercise in self control.

Your results during this exercise are totally unimportant. What you want to be learning is;
1 to control that limp reflex
2 how powerful a raise really is
3 how powerful a reraise really is.

After a month, take a week off from playing any games at all. Fine to come here and reread articles, or chat it up, but no games for that week.

When you get back to playing, at whatever you want, you will have naturally evolved your game.

Then come tell me what a genius I am, and ask me why I am not filthy rich from my poker winnings....Or come tell me I am a total ass, and don't know didily or didy either.

OK , I'm gonna change it up for awhile , I have some hold em software I'll play on to practice . I do play better than that shows , that took a long time ,so my game has changed as time went on for better or worse . I do know I'm way to passive preflop unless I have a monster and even then I usually limp hoping someone will raise so I can re raise.

I do always fire a continuation bet (pot size), thats why I hate AK ,LOL ,if I don't hit it and get called ,then I have to fire another bullet or ck. fold.

It's very hard to build a pot starting with 10 cent blinds so I'm always slow playing to build it .to much I know, I'm always trying to ck raise. I play alot of hands because it's 10 cents and I fold on the flop if I don't get a good piece of it. I try to steal lots of pots when ck to me in position , but not so many that they can count on it . so many people know that it's all about aggression ,that I always feel like I can count on them to build the pot till I can re raise.

OK OK , I heard ya , I'm gonna practice your advice for awhile ,then try it for real . I'll let you know how it goes. thank you both very much for the help.

dj11 said:

kaboom got it right.

Try this for a month or so. It helped me to understand my game a whole lot. Do it with play money, I'd suggest the 10K sng's at fulltilt.

Only fold or raise. Just the act of training yourself not to limp or call, will improve your game. After the month, you'll come back to limping and calling, but you will be doing it with a new reason as to just what you are doing.

UTG only bet the monsters, AA,KK, AK, QQ, JJ. Be real ready to give up the QQ and below. ONLY 3BB raises here! Min Raises only very late in the tourneys when the blinds are huge. Never limp UTG PF !!!!!

UTG+1,2 A bit looser. Include connectors, mid PP's. ON OCCASION, raise big with babies 22,33,44,55. Otherwise fold em.

Mid position, 50% of the time or less, raise with upper mid connectors or pairs.

Late position, learn to steal. You can't steal every orbit, but 20-30% of the time you can.

At max you should only be seeing maybe 10-15% of the flops. Remember this is an exercise in self control.

Your results during this exercise are totally unimportant. What you want to be learning is;
1 to control that limp reflex
2 how powerful a raise really is
3 how powerful a reraise really is.

After a month, take a week off from playing any games at all. Fine to come here and reread articles, or chat it up, but no games for that week.

When you get back to playing, at whatever you want, you will have naturally evolved your game.

Then come tell me what a genius I am, and ask me why I am not filthy rich from my poker winnings....Or come tell me I am a total ass, and don't know didily or didy either.

Click to expand...

With those hand req. you're doing to end up with much much more than 10-15% of all hands. Also I very much disagree with raising big with small pair, raising from EP with SC and small pairs and I disagree with only raising 3x BB, specially on low limit games, where you need to protect your big hands.

A last thing I disagree with you is never limping UTG. This can be a very good strategy with AA/KK on a aggresive table.

You don't happen to speak French, do you? There is a good video on pokertube.com illustrating the exact concept discussed above in which a guy only raises or folds in a STT. But it's in French. If you do, here's the link:

Exercice_Isabelle-Mercier_02a (Partie 1/2) - pokertube.com
Exercice_Isabelle-Mercier_02b (Partie 2/2) - pokertube.com

Yeah if you use pokertracker, you know how they define a fish:

(1) Play > 30% of hands
(2) Does not raise preflop often
(3) (Bet + Raise) less than (Call)

You earned yourself the fish label! Just avoid the above three you will be fine.

Yeah, 10-15% is pretty much top 10 hands in early position and throw in some connectors and low pairs in late position.

dj11 said:

Try this for a month or so. It helped me to understand my game a whole lot. Do it with play money, I'd suggest the 10K sng's at fulltilt.

Only fold or raise. Just the act of training yourself not to limp or call, will improve your game. After the month, you'll come back to limping and calling, but you will be doing it with a new reason as to just what you are doing.

Click to expand...

skoldpadda said:

You don't happen to speak French, do you? There is a good video on pokertube.com illustrating the exact concept discussed above in which a guy only raises or folds in a STT. But it's in French. If you do, here's the link:

Exercice_Isabelle-Mercier_02a (Partie 1/2) - pokertube.com
Exercice_Isabelle-Mercier_02b (Partie 2/2) - pokertube.com

Click to expand...

Out of curiousity I watched the video (without sound; my French is pretty marginal) and then went to try it as dj suggested, but I could only get in the 2,000 level at Stars.

I'll have to try some higher levels, as the 2,000 is pretty limp/call-ish so it didn't work as well as it should. What I've discovered so far is what I already knew; I can't lay down a hand if I get played back at. Won some small pots but went out all-in preflop JTs to limped QQs, and the next one AJ to AQ that called from the SB with an ace on the flop.

In both cases they didn't show strength at first, and then I didn't believe them when they later tried to show strength. I'll keep trying it at some higher levels. Cheap practice.