two big holes in my game

I have only a small sample of hands to work off, but two things have come out pretty strongly.

First, I'm pretty soft preflop. I fold preflop 85% of the time even at the blinds and button. Part of this comes from folding hands such as A6 offsuit in middle or early position, or folding dominated hands such as KQ offsuit after a limp is followed by a raise. The other players I see tend to call with questionable hands more often and some of them win a lot more.

Second, I never checkraise. My biggest pot so far came when I was on the button and had the nuts and the guy ahead of me kept betting aggressively with a weaker hand. I quietly kept calling him and ended up all in--and won. If I had turned the call into a checkraise would it have been better strategy?

Any thoughts on this?

buttgirl

Slow playing the nuts against an aggressive player is often a smart play. I look forward to it. Often puts that aggressive player on super tilt.

I would not worry to much about the preflop number. I usually want to know am I winning at least one hand on average out of 10. And then is that one hand eneough to pay for the blinds and rake. If you have a positive ev with an 85% fold rate then its fine.

What is the fold rate for the pros? Have not seen that in a mag or statistics anywhere It would be interesting to see.

I think u are playing microstakes. Even though others players do not care position is verry important even here. And also i think at microstakes it is not about how many hand u play but how well u play them.
The big problem with donks is that u cannot tell when one is getting lucky. I did not seen any excelent advice for playing at microstakes cose most of the time they play chaotic so be verry carefull with the hands u play when u play them. Preflop u can play by the book. After the flop if u did not hit it try to play so that u can control the pot. If is too expensive to see the next card just fold. One of the big mistakes i make and i think most of the beginners make is not folding to save money.

Slow playing the nuts against an aggressive player is often a smart play. I look forward to it. Often puts that aggressive player on super tilt

Click to expand...

yes,choose to raise or check depend on people who you play with is belong to which type,that is strategy.

Check-raising from the button would be some kind of record or something, lol.

You have your terminology a little mixed up, but yeah calling is pretty much the worst thing to do in NL

If you're playing micro or small stakes up to .50/1, tight play is a good recipe for winning with a fair degree of consistency. The main reason is simply because you'll run into enough situations where players can't release good but losing hands, and also where they play moderate holdings in large pots. You can make more if you're appropriately aggressive in such spots, but if you sit and wait for people to give you money, someone will more often than not, and enough to be profitable. It's rather boring to play this way though.

The percentage of hands you play only matters against those opponents who both notice and adjust. At micros, this isn't very many.

Mase31683 said:

Check-raising from the button would be some kind of record or something, lol.

You have your terminology a little mixed up, but yeah calling is pretty much the worst thing to do in NL

Click to expand...

Good catch lol. I'm not sure whether you're saying that playing come-hither is a bad idea, too. Other posters seem to like it.

buttgirl

Keep tight, but try and open your range on the button over tight blinds. I'll raise any A, any suited king, any suited connectors, etc, from the button when I think I've got a shot at stealing the blinds as well as hitting the flop hard if I get a caller

As for check raising, the best time to use it is when you're either up against a single aggressive player who you're sure will c-bet most of his range, or when you're out of position and have hit a set and think there will be action behind you if you check and slow play

i think tight play would be best suited and, as someone stated above, its all about position. its very difficult to play out of position, especially against calling stations.

i've just played one such pot against a guy who calls everything. i had JJ in the BB and he was on the button. he calls preflop i raise 4x with JJ. he calls. flop comes KT8 rainbow. so i fire in a Cbet. he calls. now-what is he calling with ? turn is a brick. now, out of position, do we cbet again? or check call? its very difficult having to act first. decisions are made much easier when in position.

(i opted for the cbet, which was called and left him with a tiny stack which went in on the river - he had the K.)

It's extremely difficult to assess if you have any leaks based on the small information you have provided.

Generally at low stakes tight is right, but your perception of tight and how to apply it might be very different from someone else's.

Here is some very good reading that should help you on your way and if you need any more info/advice on your game don't hesitate to ask there's always someone who will help.

https://www.cardschat.com/f49/10k-post-micro-stakes-full-ring-112836/

https://www.cardschat.com/f49/nits-apology-why-tight-right-me-154124/

https://www.cardschat.com/forum/learning-poker-57/special-1k-post-so-you-want-128262/

Jagsti, thanks for the links. I read them and they were valuable, even though the experts seem to disagree whether 25NL is soft or not.

I've noticed a lot of folding to my raises, so likely other players are reading my hands correctly as monsters. The hole is not being tight but playing predictably.

buttgirl

Sorry.. my immature side giggled at the fact that buttgirl made a thread about holes.....



I'll go sit in my corner, now.

I wholeheartedly approve of you giving yourself a time out.

buttgirl

Mortis said:

Sorry.. my immature side giggled at the fact that buttgirl made a thread about holes.....

Click to expand...

I also noticed that. :laugh:

thetaxman1 said:

What is the fold rate for the pros? Have not seen that in a mag or statistics anywhere It would be interesting to see.

Click to expand...

I don`t know about the pros, but we have previously noticed and remarked on the fact that, in the CC buyin games, the majority of the regulars from this forum are very consistent around 18-19% VPIP, meaning that we fold 81-82% of hands.

buttgirl makes a post about holes and you go sit in the corner?? Im gonna go sit next to buttgirl:eviltongu

Anyways, I play a standard TAG at 10nl. I opened my range up a bit and after 7k hands saw that my vp increased from 15 to 19 and my preflop raising was increased from 11 to 12. Also, I lost 8 BIs, most I've ever lost since tracking. i know its a small sample but I saw that I tended to call way more but raising only a smidge more.
I thought that folding 85% was a bit tight as well but most of the coaches at DTB advocate a 15/12 (more or less) range at my level. To become less predictable I've started defending my blind a bit more against BTN raises by player with similar stats as me. I've also started check raising a bit more.
Just my .02
Godspeed, buttgirl