Bad luck?

M

MDJ

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Hi,

First post, go easy on the noob please :)

Brief history - I've known about, and been playing, holdem casually for quite some years on and off, but never for money and never really sat down and decided to learn some proper strategy with an idea of dabbling in some online cash games, until now. Just played on instinct.

So after reading around quite a few places that offer basic strategy guides or ways "not to suck" as a beginner I was pleased to learn quite a few basic tips to get me on my way, it seems I was a typical fish LPP always calling to see the flop with trash hands and hoping to luck out on the turn or even river, no basic idea on betting, raising, table position or odds.

Now I've learnt a little I've noticed an odd thing happening, I seem to do worse/no better than I did before...

First thing I learnt was to play less hands and only call the premium hands, this only seems to be going one way so far in that I rarely, if ever, seem to catch anything on the flop worth carrying on with so I end up folding premium hands (which plays out correctly because the turn and river wouldn't have given me anything either, but still). I get beat by chumps constantly calling trash hands in the hope of getting lucky post flop, which they usually do, and I end up with nothing, whilst the garbage I always fold always seems to catch great flops :rolleyes:

I'm not really losing much money because I'm correctly calling when to flop, even with the good hands, it's just that I'm not winning even with the good ones :confused:

So am I just getting REALLY unlucky or am I still making some big mistakes somewhere? I've read and taken in the basics that should be helping me (except for odds as I just can't get my head around numbers) but I'm fairly confident I can quickly see whether I should play the hand or not based on what can beat me.

Sorry for long post but I'm baffled.
 
C

CactusCat

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I know what you mean. I've folded 38, seen the flop come 383, then the two players in the blinds go all in with the Ace high and King high flush on the river. It sucks when that happens for sure.

Even from a results-oriented perspective though, plenty of times your trash hands that smashed the flop would've been outdrawn so you end up feeling good about not calling preflop.

I can't even count the number of times I thought "I wish I'd called" because I would've hit two pair, but then would've been counterfeited against the overpair or top pair.

Another time I would've been flopped nut straight against second nut straight and top two pair, but would have lost to a full house by a river.

Or would have flopped trips with no kicker, and being up against trips with Ace kicker or a full house.

Or the times you fold J8, then see the flop come AJ8, and someone else having AJ. Now you're glad you folded right?

I've even folded pocket fives under the gun and would have been oversetted.

And so on. All these times not calling 1 bb ended up saving lots of big blinds. Add up all the times I would have hit big and won vs. the times I miss or hit big and would have lost, and it wouldn't be a huge difference.

Be patient, raise bigger with your premium hands, and work more on your reads on other players and try to win without showdown when you think they're weak.
 
M

MAX101

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I totally agree with Cactuscats last sentence,Be patient,raise bigger with your premium hands, and work more on your reads on other players and try to win without showdowns when you think they're weak,years of experience in one sentence!!!!
 
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HooDooKoo

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Also, there is no point in talking about --- or paying attention to --- what happens after you've folded a hand preflop. Doing so is results-oriented poker, and being results oriented can only teach you bad habits.

Being that you're relatively new to poker, you likely haven't put in much volume yet. Therefore, what you've seen so far isn't representative of anything. The worst poker player in the world can win in the short-term, and the best player in the world can lose in the short-term. What matters is how you fare in the long run --- and the absolute lower limit for a meaningful long run is 50,000 hands. So be patient and let variance even out before you start contemplating changes to the new style of poker you're playing.

Good luck.

-HooDooKoo
 
deluns28

deluns28

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You have to be comfortable playing premium hands and reading your opponent's hands. I do not agree in raising big for your premium hands because it will throw off hands that you can beat and get value from. You just need to be comfortable playing them post flop. You can raise standard 3BB or 3.5BB for your premium hands. You just need avoid multi-way pot. This is where the position is useful.
 
M

MDJ

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Great advice, thanks.

I'll stick with it and see how it goes. I'm reading so much at the minute that I think I'm consuming too much too fast. I'm starting to glaze over and one link will lead to another until I forget where I actually started reading...

I tell you one thing I am sick of, all these damn abbreviations to try and remember!

A question regards odds - most of the low stake tables I'm learning on have like a 15 second timer, it can take me this long to think about how previous bets/folds/calls have gone from each player and where my hand puts me, how can it be possible to calculate pot and hand odds in this time as well? It seems impossible.
 
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stefanorb

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Simple advice to check your luck: basically big money are played in all-ins. So, first of all, learn how to check the expected value of your hand when showed down in an all in (pretty easy work). then learn a little on how to use equilab to check the probability of win/lose the hand. the big point is, keep a spreadsheet in which you keep note of the all in, how much you won/lost and the expected value. Then, periodically, sum it all up. If your profit is way lower than the expected values sum - well, you're playing good poker, you are just being unlucky. This will help you also find some leaks in your game.

Cheers
 
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badalhoco345

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You have to play all the tournaments betting with big hands. Sometimes, trying to raise some more to avoid that situations that you describe. Of course that we will not win every hands or every tournaments but is the best way to have success. When you lose you have to think that better days will come and try to understand why you lose that hand to learn more and more.
 
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