Minimum Number of Hands to Play to be Profitable?

I have a question,

What is the minimum number of hands to play in a ring game? I want to play super tight, super aggressive big bet poker, but I seem to be doing this all wrong.

I need hands I can play in a $2/$5 no limit. It seems whatever hand I play, it seems to always be dominated.

I currently play about 40 hands, and it says I see the flop 38% of the time.

I am losing like this by being dominated all the time, I flop a straight with Q9, and someone flops a bigger straight with AQ board KJT.

What is the minimum amount of flop percentage, how often should I see the flop. What is the smallest number of hands I can play?

Like now I play all pairs, but someone said that is a mistake, I pay J9s, Q9s, K9s, someone says that is a mistake.

What is the minimum number if hands to play to be profitable at No Limit Texas Hold Em. I know just waiting for AA, KK, QQ or AK the blinds will make you a looser and the rake.

Please any information or direction will be greatly appreciated.

1st off--there isno way to play 'Super Tight-Super Aggresive"! They are TOTAL opposites! If you are playing Super tight, do you mean 'Nitty'? That is when you play ONLY the high cards. You can call it ultra conservitive if you want. And "Super Aggresive" means you will play ANY 2 cards, and that style is usually reserved for only the BEST of players--it is VERY tireing and stressfull. As for the number of hands played, that all depends on the kind of game you're in--is it a MTT--STT--SnG--Ring Cash?? What are the number of players on the table?? What's your position relative to those ON that table and what are THEIR styles? Their's alot to it--You can't just go to a table and expect to start winning right of the bat--you need to 1st OBSERVE the other players--your cards are the LAST thing that matters--Get READS 1st and go from there---And, most importantly, learn just what the styles ARE and to play them! As far as playing those hands you mentioned--you have to take into consideration --Where are you when you get them?? In some positions you would RAISE with some of them and FOLD with others--also what are the 'Pot odds'? Is it worth even being IN the hand--What are the 'Implied Odds'? Is it worth a 3-bet if it means you're only getting 3-1 on your money?? See--there's alot more to it than just knowing how many hands you should play in a game!

RickH2005 said:

1st off--there isno way to play 'Super Tight-Super Aggresive"! They are TOTAL opposites! If you are playing Super tight, do you mean 'Nitty'? That is when you play ONLY the high cards. You can call it ultra conservitive if you want. And "Super Aggresive" means you will play ANY 2 cards, and that style is usually reserved for only the BEST of players--it is VERY tireing and stressfull. As for the number of hands played, that all depends on the kind of game you're in--is it a MTT--STT--SnG--Ring Cash?? What are the number of players on the table?? What's your position relative to those ON that table and what are THEIR styles? Their's alot to it--You can't just go to a table and expect to start winning right of the bat--you need to 1st OBSERVE the other players--your cards are the LAST thing that matters--Get READS 1st and go from there---And, most importantly, learn just what the styles ARE and to play them!

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You are confusing some terms.

Tight vs. loose refers to which cards you play.

Aggressive vs. passive refers to whether you tend to bet and raise or just call.

It is perfectly possible to be both tight and aggressive, and it is in fact strongly encouraged.

KyleJRM said:

You are confusing some terms.

Tight vs. loose refers to which cards you play.

Aggressive vs. passive refers to whether you tend to bet and raise or just call.

It is perfectly possible to be both tight and aggressive, and it is in fact strongly encouraged.

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Not from how I've interpreted what he's saying, I don't think so. I KNOW you can play TAG and LAG--but from what I gather he' saying he means VERY conservitive in his play OR VERY aggresive in his play--Sure you can do both, but not at the same time, unless that's not what he meant! And OF COURSE you can play tight and aggresive at the same time--I do it often enough myself, although I'm known to be a generally conservitive player--I DO mix 'em up---But NOT at the same time.

Candy,
If you are playing 38% of your hands you are playing Loose not tight. If you are playing tight you will be seeing <20% of the flops and will have raised most of those (80-90%). Those numbers would be tight agressive or TAG. Not knowing your pre flop raise percentage, I am not sure how agressive you are being. If you are limping K9s, Q9s,J9s....those are not the type of hands to be agressive with. If you really want to play TAG you will raise all pp (at least 88+) AK, AQ and possibly KQ, AJ in late position. You will also open raise with pretty much any two cards in the Cut Off position on on the button.

The major problem with your stats is the tiny sample size. I play TAG (most of the time) and over 40 hands I may be 33/33 or 4/4 depending on the cards I am getting. You need to look at your stats over hundreds or even thousands of hands to get a true picture of your playing style.

Best of luck at he table!

jadakiss6986 said:

there no one way you can play to always win you need to mix it up depending on who your playing using your best judgement

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Is there a rule about new members not being allowed to use punctuation. Maybe we should send all the new members a grammatical textbook.
Dakota have you turned off the punctuation keys from our new members??

RickH2005 said:

Not from how I've interpreted what he's saying, I don't think so. I KNOW you can play TAG and LAG--but from what I gather he' saying he means VERY conservitive in his play OR VERY aggresive in his play--Sure you can do both, but not at the same time, unless that's not what he meant! And OF COURSE you can play tight and aggresive at the same time--I do it often enough myself, although I'm known to be a generally conservitive player--I DO mix 'em up---But NOT at the same time.

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It seems like you're contradicting yourself. You say, "of course you can play tight and aggressive at the same time . . . but NOT at the same time". You can play super tight and super aggressive. Someone who only plays AA is super tight, and if he/she bets 100% of the time on every street, he/she is also very aggressive. They aren't mutually exclusive.

Tightness and aggressiveness are not connected. They are seperate parameters with their own measurement.

Tightness or looseness refers to the number of hands played, or the vpip of a player.

Aggressiveness is how often the player is betting at the pot or raising. This applies both preflop and postflop.

A player who's vpip/pfr/AF go 15/3/5 would be tight/passive preflop, aggressive postflop. Just change the AF to 1.5 or something and now he's tight/passive preflop, passive postflop.

Players can beither either tight/loose and either passive/aggressive with any combination of those two, preflop and postflop each it's own category.

Candy, it sounds like you're playing a live game. You're correct that if you wait for QQ-AA or AK, that people are going to notice you've been doing nothing but fold for hours, and they'll only play with you if they too hold a powerful hand.

Your hand range is going to fluctuate based on the play of the table and your position. If the table is loose passive, as many lower limit live tables are, then you can definitely play any pp profitably from any postion. 22-JJ are mainly for hitting sets, and QQ-AA are truly powerful hands.

With the smaller pp's you're looking to take a cheap flop and hit it hard. You can also play AK-AQ and KQs from any position. This makes up 8.6% of hands.

As you get into later position, and you know that you can limp behind other limpers, you can start adding in:
suited connectors: QJs-54s - 2.4%
suited gappers: QTs-64s - 2.1%
I'd add in AJs, ATs - 0.6%
KJs, KTs - 0.6%
AJo, KQo - 1.8%

This makes up 16.1% of all hands. It's still pretty tight, but you're playing enough hands that people can't just put you on a particular holding. Keep in mind that you aren't playing all of these from every position either, so in reality, you're probably only going to be playing something like 10% of your hands.

I'm not sure what you mean by "big bet poker". But I'm inclined to believe you mean that you're betting often.

This strategy applies to a table that is more weak/tight than loose passive. If players are willing to call bets with light holdings, then you shouldn't be betting at them unless you have a strong hand. By the way, hands like straight over straight are just coolers, you're going to lose a lot there, and that's fine.

If players are folding to cbets, and are hesitatant to go on in a hand without a strong holding, then you should start raising more with the hands you'd be limping with at a loose table. You want to ideally get heads up on the flop with position against these players. Then you'll cbet the flop, and likely take it down.

If you could expand on what you mean by "big bet poker" maybe I could give you a better explanation of how to approach the style.

I really like what mase wrote down there.. read the stats good info.