Villain Reads
Hi all,
Been working hard on my skills for the last month playing Micros with Play Money mostly at 50/100 tables and SNGs. By reading various books/articles and playing daily I thought that I'd see little improvement but I don't have the impression that I improved.
- Is this a common thing to be successful at Micros without strong knowledge and getting bad results during the learning transition?
I can't tell if I've just been in a really long downswing or if I've just been playing bad (the latter being way more probable). It seems that so far the only way I can make it at the tables is by playing really tight. If I try new strategies I quickly get reminded that my tight play is more beneficial.
- Is this a common thing to play super tight and fold >90% of the time?
- Does folding too much makes me a bad player even if it gives me profits?
I noticed that the more knowledge I gained by studying the worse it got for my bankroll. Even if I was getting bad beats one after the other I kept playing to the point that I sometimes played tilted (lesson learned on that one). Almost as if trying to apply what I learned just made my play worse.
- Have I just been playing too much?
Any feedback is appreciated, thanks for reading.
Thank U 4 Posting.
Have you posted a hand where you tried the new skill and it failed if not do so and we can see if you properly applied the skill or not.
So firstly in free games villains do not fold. So tight play wins because they are not thinking about your hand so they will call with 2 pair say on a four flush board.
If you try to transfer tight play over to
real money it will work at low levels but not when the players begin to think about your
hands. You cannot just shove AA preflop and get called all the time.
So when we try to practice solid fundamentals in free games we lose more often because the villains are not thinking about poker it is more bingo.
Example: in free games you can open 10x preflop and get someone to call. The solid raise size is 3x. when you make that open size everyone calls. So AA preflop can have
equity sub 50% when everyone calls. So you will lose post flop more often.
Example 2 Free game villain has only a draw you can shove in a free game and get called. solid play would suggest you deny villain the correct price to call but making a pot size bet or slightly less. Some player will fold to that for real money never for play money. So you lose more often making the correct sizing.
My point is if you are practicing to play well in real money games vs decent villains you should be losing in play money hands. The chips are not worth anything so do not use them to evaluate what you are doing. Instead you must stop playing and get the hand history and review it to see if you were correct in your skills. A great example is
bluffing. In free games bluffs seldom work but you should be losing lots of pots bluffing in the correct spots. The reason is you read the player as weak you raise turn correct sizing and timing-bet river correct sizing and get called by third pair. Wooohoo you lost but you used skill that can be applied in real money games. Learning to
bluff in free games is a cheap way to get good at picking spots to bluff. Just ignore when a bingo player calls you anyway.
Hope this helps.
