Stuck after the first few hands of sitting down at a live game

I have sat down at a live table ($1/$2) and immediately (within the first orbit) been stuck for a large part (50%) of my starting stack. This badness happens when I receive big starting hands and end up losing. I spend the next hours "digging" myself out of the hole.

Two recent example of this where I was the preflop aggressor...

• Hero dealt KK in the CO on first hand after joining the game. Hero loses showdown to Villains 99 that caught a set of 9 on the flop.
• Hero dealt JJ in the SB on second hand after joining the game. Hero loses showdown to Villains 74o with a straight (Villain called all the way down caught gut-shot straight on river).

In these cases, I had no idea how the table was playing or the tendencies of the opponents. The type of hands I get myself in trouble with are too good to lay down preflop - and post flop they are not the nuts.

What are some ideas to keep out of trouble with big starting hands when first joining (sitting down) at a game?

How did the hands hand play out?

Keep tabs on 74o player. that's the kind of player you profit off of.

ohshootmybad said:

How did the hands hand play out?

Click to expand...

I was intending this to be of a more general nature rather than a hand analysis. Perhaps that is where I am going wrong in thinking about this! I seem to stumble into trouble frequently when I get big hands when first starting the game. Once I've played around 20 hands or so at a table I have a feel for the "big tendencies" of opponents and wouldn't get in as much trouble.

ohshootmybad said:

Keep tabs on 74o player. that's the kind of player you profit off of.

Click to expand...

Couldn't agree more - eventually, I did profit from him! Unfortunately since I dug myself a $150 hole against him with the JJ - I never got completely even with him because he had to catch a plane. I did take a couple of ~$45 pots from him before he departed though. As you can guess, he was playing less than marginal cards and didn't get lucky.


Some ideas I have are reducing my aggressiveness in betting when I am in the scenario of having a big hand immediately when sitting down. I hate to think about not trying to extract maximum value, but when I don't yet have a feel for the table, perhaps it is better to take a small win rather than a large loss?

These are tough. You only get KK if you sit for an hour or two. This is where I hope to make money and its tough when the reward is just your chips sliding away from you and to your opponent.

I believe you should keep in mind that is possible that the other plyers have beter cards. You shouldn't bet to much

Better starting hands
Larger preflop raises
3bet everything you can In Late Position vs wide openers, followed by a 1/3rd bet flop and 3/4 bet turn to get a fold
Cbet everything 80% psb in a single raised pot

Open raise 5x or more every hand when you believe you wont be 3bet
3bet when you believe you wont be 4bet
Check-Raise flops that don't scare you when OOP
Never call 3bets OOP
Never call a flop bet with MidPairGoodKicker Or worse Out of Position
Bet your pairs over 3 streets always varying sizing depending on strength
Never look at cards live, until it is your turn! This is a big one for physical tells.

Were you after something like the above?

I'm kind of relieved that i'm not this only person this is happening to.

I play on a few different websites but on more than 1 occasion i've noticed on 888 when i sit on a live cash table, my first hand has been AA, KK, QQ, JJ and i've been learning the hard way not to play these cards so early sitting at a table (unless you've been spectacting prior). No Matter How Tempting It Is

I've never won with these hands in this exact situation we're talking about, every time i got called all the way down to the River and i'd have the strongest hand until the River card.

I truely feel your pain on this one.

scubed said:

I have sat down at a live table ($1/$2) and immediately (within the first orbit) been stuck for a large part (50%) of my starting stack. This badness happens when I receive big starting hands and end up losing. I spend the next hours "digging" myself out of the hole.

Two recent example of this where I was the preflop aggressor...

• Hero dealt KK in the CO on first hand after joining the game. Hero loses showdown to Villains 99 that caught a set of 9 on the flop.
• Hero dealt JJ in the SB on second hand after joining the game. Hero loses showdown to Villains 74o with a straight (Villain called all the way down caught gut-shot straight on river).

In these cases, I had no idea how the table was playing or the tendencies of the opponents. The type of hands I get myself in trouble with are too good to lay down preflop - and post flop they are not the nuts.

What are some ideas to keep out of trouble with big starting hands when first joining (sitting down) at a game?

Click to expand...

Thank U 4 Posting.

You are always going to lose some chips in spots like this. The key is how did you play post flop not preflop.

The 99 flopped a set, when did the player raise you and how did you react? I assume you paid them off to see the 99 but why did you?

What did the river board look like and what range did you give your villain that you could call on the river with just one pair? A good pair sure but just 1 pair.

We cannot assume today in a live game that a villain will be making bets on 3 streets or a big check raise turn, bet river with just top pair. We have to know they are that bad to call action like that with 1 pair even KK.

So if we have KK and we get called by a player in any position vs us and the board comes
10 9 2 - 952- etc etc no paint cards we should be thinking 2 streets of value is all we can get. If the villain then attacks us we have to assume with no reads the villain is strong. Not A10 strong but 1010 99 22 109 strong. When the villain then value bets every street and seems comfortable we have to fold the river if not the turn.

QJ will raise flop but how do we show down vs that villain how did that villain not bluff us out of the pot? We have no read in a 1-2 game and we seem to be conservative with our first buy-in, which is fine but not optimal, but how did we not fold KK?

Next hand

JJ on a board of what- 43x- x -6 or 85x- x -6

How are we seeing the showdown on a board like that? You did not say you made a set.
Please tell me it was you checking behind when V tried to trap you. Or maybe you checked turn V bet 1 BB you called. On an all low board in a one pair wants to showdown type of game like 1-2 live what river bet size should we call with no reads on a board like that?

Was the board 6 9 10-x 8?
We have JJ we lose on the river to 66 99 1010 xx 88 10x 109 108 106 9x 98 96 8x 86 6x
the straights are QJ J7 A7 K7 Q7 J7 107 97 87 x7 75 74 73 72

29 hands. We have the 30th best hand but we made it to showdown. How did we?

You may have played the hand perfectly I do not know. The above are mistakes you may have made. If you did make these mistakes that is what you need to work on, not figuring out the perfect bet size preflop that gets all the winning hands to fold and all the losing hands to call you.
If you ever do figure that bet sizing out please share it with me in a private message

Hope this helps

scubed said:

I have sat down at a live table ($1/$2) and immediately (within the first orbit) been stuck for a large part (50%) of my starting stack. This badness happens when I receive big starting hands and end up losing. I spend the next hours "digging" myself out of the hole.

Two recent example of this where I was the preflop aggressor...

• Hero dealt KK in the CO on first hand after joining the game. Hero loses showdown to Villains 99 that caught a set of 9 on the flop.
• Hero dealt JJ in the SB on second hand after joining the game. Hero loses showdown to Villains 74o with a straight (Villain called all the way down caught gut-shot straight on river).

In these cases, I had no idea how the table was playing or the tendencies of the opponents. The type of hands I get myself in trouble with are too good to lay down preflop - and post flop they are not the nuts.

What are some ideas to keep out of trouble with big starting hands when first joining (sitting down) at a game?

Click to expand...

It sounds like you played fine and got unlucky.
The same can happen in reverse when you make the set.

A good question to ask yourself is 'if the hands were reversed would i have won/lost more than my opponent did?' and use that to guage if the way you played the hand was fine.

I've always found that bringing 3-5 buyins with me to the game eases this because I realize I'm there for the long run and that even if I get stacked I can buy back into the game.

It's also helpful to not think about how much you are up or down on the session but rather how good the game is, how good your seat is and how good you are playing. As long as you focus on these things you will make money in the long run, and it will keep you out of this mindset of 'chasing' or 'trying to get even' which are artificial.

Think of your poker playing as all hands in one giant session, all that matters is how you're playing and that at the end of ALL the hands you're up and not down, fluctuations in the short term shouldn't matter at all.


Mindset shifts will make you money and they'll help keep your emotions and your ego from hijacking your sound strategic play

Evan Jarvis said:

It sounds like you played fine and got unlucky.
The same can happen in reverse when you make the set.

A good question to ask yourself is 'if the hands were reversed would i have won/lost more than my opponent did?' and use that to guage if the way you played the hand was fine.

I've always found that bringing 3-5 buyins with me to the game eases this because I realize I'm there for the long run and that even if I get stacked I can buy back into the game.

It's also helpful to not think about how much you are up or down on the session but rather how good the game is, how good your seat is and how good you are playing. As long as you focus on these things you will make money in the long run, and it will keep you out of this mindset of 'chasing' or 'trying to get even' which are artificial.

Think of your poker playing as all hands in one giant session, all that matters is how you're playing and that at the end of ALL the hands you're up and not down, fluctuations in the short term shouldn't matter at all.


Mindset shifts will make you money and they'll help keep your emotions and your ego from hijacking your sound strategic play

Click to expand...

Ah, I love this. As I was scrolling through this was exactly what was going through my mind.

If you're sitting down at a table with one buy-in, don't expect it to end well. If the OP had been able to top up after his JJ got cracked he could have had all his chips back and all his opponents!