A few questions about playing $25NL

I started playing a little bit today. I won $7.84 at Ultimatebet and lost about $1.50 at FT so not too bad.

Per ChuckT's recommendation I ordered Slansky/Miller's NLHE Theory and Practice. Until have read it I will just dally a bit. I read this:

[broken link~tb]

... and have a few questions about starting hands when you first sit at a table and have no reads.

Taylor's suggestions are:

Early position (UTG-UTG+1): Raise {AJs+, AQo+, TT+}, limp {22-99}
Middle position (MP1-MP3): Raise {ATs+, AJo+, KQs+, 66+}, limp {22-55}
Late position (CO-SB): Raise {most aces, most broadway, suited connectors, some offsuit connectors 22+}

My primary question is about limping. According to this you would only limp with pairs in early and middle position and would never limp in late position at all.

Those of you who have ever played with me are probably having a good laugh right now cause you know how hard this would be for me lol.

So a hand like KQ suited in early position gets folded?

Please remind me what broadway is. And I need an explanation of a 3 bet.

Thanks

Broadway is AKQJT so you may have any of the 'Broadway' cards.

3 bet. sb, bb, raise is the 1 bet, reraise is the 2 bet, and reraising again is the 3bet. Conventional thinking has it that a 4 bet (which often caps the betting, but not always) suggests highly AA.

As for the limping, I will defer to Chuck as he is the author, but it seems to me it limping is a read dependent thing. If the table is tight, and you don't do it too often, then out of position (oop) play can't be too bad assuming you can lay down to resistance.

a 3 bet unless I am mistaken is a reraise, 4 bet would be a re-reraise. so it would go 1 bet, 2 raise, 3 re-raise, 4 re-re-raise (shove).

dakota-xx said:

My primary question is about limping. According to this you would only limp with pairs in early and middle position and would never limp in late position at all.

Those of you who have ever played with me are probably having a good laugh right now cause you know how hard this would be for me lol.

So a hand like KQ suited in early position gets folded?

Pretty much yes, KQs is a fairly trashy hand in early position b/c were likely to get raised by a better hand. Then if were tempted to call the raise and hit a pair, then were probably gonna lose a shed load of money as it's a hand that has reverse implied odds against hands like say AK, AQ, KK, QQ etc.

It can be played aggressively in mid to late position imo.

Please remind me what broadway is.

Broadway cards are ones that make up a broadway str8, which is AKQJT

And I need an explanation of a 3 bet.

So pf a 3 bet is a re-raise. We have the big blind which is one bet, someone open raises which is 2-bet,, then you r/r which is a 3bet.

On the other streets a 3bet is a re-re-raise

Thanks

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^^^^

Well I had KQ suited in early position on one hand and decided to be defiant and limped in. CO raised and I had to fold lol. ( I figured it was a fluke and I was right and Taylor was wrong )

3-bet is typically.... re-raising a raised pot,.. usually 2.5x to 3x the reraiser's bet,... often insinuates a big pkt. pr., in an effort to take it down or to get it heads up w initial raiser.
"Someone's always 3-bettin' ya.... they're re-raising your raises often".
I find that limping in w sm to med. prs. in early pos. is too obvious a move on a strong table. Early limp = easy sm pr. read,... reraise them off the pot,.. then do you call out of pos.,.. or just toss off some more chips? Fold or raise some of the time,.. be more apt. to raise if a tight table and if you're decent (or good) at post-flop play.

Depending upon situation,.. w KQ limp early then re-raised,.. it could open you up for the possibility of 3-betting them yourself. They could be raising your limp with just about anything.

Taylor's suggestions were only for a table that you did not have reads on yet.

I would not advocate limp/calling or limp/3bet w/KQ in early position to be honest.

Regarding limping, the reason players limp with the likes of 22-88 say, or sc's is for implied odds. Your hoping to flop a monster and take someone's stack. So if you limp and say someone raises it to say 4-5xbb, you have really good odds to setmine and flop a monster.

The later your position, then the more value your small pocket pair/sc has, therefore you open raise with them in say mid-late position becaue now you have some fold equity pf as well.

Yep the thing about KQ is that you will rarely be hitting a flop you like with it, especially oop. Just remember that playing out of position is extremely hard to do. You have trouble controlling the pot size as well as building a pot with a hand. So to make up for this disadvantage, and the fact that there are 8 left to act, you need to make up for this by having an extremely strong hand.

Thanks guys - it is nice having all of you coaches available! It will take all of us to make sure I can earn at least $200 a week within a year so I won't have to go back to a real job.

what is limping then?

checking preflop?

peanutym said:

what is limping then?

checking preflop?

Click to expand...

Are you joking?

peanutym said:

what is limping then?

checking preflop?

Click to expand...

This is the "learning poker" section Stick; I'd take the question seriously unless there's other indications.


"Limping" is to complete the big blind in order to see the flop cards. If the blinds are 5/10, the rest of the players have the chances, for 10 chips, to see the flop.

This works counter to aggressive strategy which is generally considered necessary to be a winning player. Rather than limping, if you chose to play the hand, you should be raising, preferably to 3X the big blind or more.

NineLions said:

This is the "learning poker" section Stick; I'd take the question seriously unless there's other indications.

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LOL. OK. I was just asking because my sarcasm detector is on the fritz.

ChuckT's guide really applies well to 25nl FR. Again keyword: FULL RING. 6max as I have learned is a lot trickier ... you can play a very straight-forward game as I did and see 4bb/100 as a result.

The think about PPs is that you want value when you hit the set and when you limp late you probably will just get the SB or BB to call, hit your set and bet it, and they fold = no value. Plus being the raiser PF gives you a bit of control to cbet taking down people who make dumb PF calls to your raise. Early on with PPs, you limp in FR game assuming you are nittish/TAGish and call a raise to $1 or $1.25. This can get REAL expensive but over the course of 25 hands you're going to "hit it" twice stastically speaking and ideally for someone else's whole stack.

The key to fullring is to stay tight early, and stay aggressive late.

I played a bit better today, the tips really help. I only played an hour but left almost $20 up. I feel the addiction starting....

Beware, its easy when you're winning, not so much when you're losing. But I know you will get there.

eagle jim said:

Beware, its easy when you're winning, not so much when you're losing. But I know you will get there.

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Yea - I know I won't win every time. I just have to wait and see if the wins are more than the losses over time.

And I am not seriously into it yet. Just playing a little each day on 1 or 2 tables. I want to read my book first. And then work up to 4 tabling and decide how many hours a day I will play.

Once you find yourself playing a lot I highly suggest doing a sweat session with ChuckTs, Zachvac, or BW ... or even WVHillBilly or Belgio. Use Skype + Mikogo ... the tips you get while playing will be golden ... they've helped me!