uk player needs advice or tuition

im returning to online poker after a couple of years away from the game ,im a tournament player mtt sng freerolls ,and i am a solid player i seem to have trouble changing gears ,and i find aggressive plays difficult to time ,i have a good understanding of position ,pot odds ,implied and expressed ,have read harrington on holdem ,yet struggle against aggressive players and cant help feeling i fold too much ,resulting in a paniccy all ins with a marginal hands , i often fold and feel i perhaps play things too safe wanting the nuts or a strong hand to play,this puts me at a disadvantage with aggressive players who seem to run over me .i feel i would benefit from talking to a player who maybe has faced such issues and conquered them ,i play on paddy poker ,betfair, victor chandler and pokerstars. ive read lots of poker books but feel that there is a phsychological element missing in my game ,maybe i am in a wrong frame of mind whilst playing ,im slowly improving (i think) but any one who can help me improve would gain my undying gratitude and a good friend for life ,even if you are at a similar level to me or face similar dilemmas ,post or pm me and it will be greatly appreciated thanks

For physcological improvment in poker try getting a couple John Vorhaus (killer series) books they are quite good help me quite a bit . I know the problems your talking about they held me back quite a bit when I started playing online, agression is need to win in poker so if your being run over by agressive players stand your groud bet back at them occsionally and also trap them, this will stun their agression because they will know they cant just run over you.

Since you said you were just getting back into the game remain tight and from experince you will learn how to play slightly more loose and more agressive by getting a good understanding of flop texture ect, and if you are playing lowish limits near the bubble in tournament you need to play very agressive as most people are waiting to get in the money, however we are not. We are looking to accumulate enough chips to win tourneys not be in the money , (if your in the money 5/10 in an 200+ tourney you will probably make next to nothing or be in a loss but if you win once out of those 10 you will be well ahead.)

When you are playing tight dont call preflop unless getting good odds with suited connectors or something we want to be raising almost every hand we are in this gives us control of the hand.

Hope this help its a big post maybe too big :smile:

This may sound strange but why not train yourself to be more aggressive, if you are playing in freerolls then what have you got to lose, i occasionally play "reverse poker", it's a game i invented where the object is to annoy as many people at the table as possible by playing the worst hands and winning. Yesterday i called a 2xBB raise with 53 of clubs, flop came 5 K 5, i checked and the guy on my left raised big, i re-raised all-in, he called and turned over KJ.
Now the idea of the game is not to donk off your chips but to improve your skills playing marginal hands, learn about bluffing and to practice being aggressive.
I know this seems a sick strategy but the reason i invented this game is to teach myself to play more hands and be less passive, i have no fear now and when playing wild and loose you will find the other players do not want to play against you, your blinds will be folded more often and the pots you play will have less players, IF you can play this way and win chips they will fear you, IF you cannot fold then you will spew chips.
Now i don't play this way all the time and when i do i do not play just any two cards, i play hands that have a chance to win, i play hands like 53 suited and my personal favourite is 97 suited, but i will fold unconnected hands J4 etc. even if suited.
The way i start is to be a calling station, playing as many hands as i can (suited 2 gappers like 69, any A) but being very passive after the flop if i don't hit hard. It is not easy but if i accumulate a few chips playing this loose passive style then i will change into a raising machine, i will not limp and will raise with a wide range of hands, making continuation bets most hands i play.
It is a strange way to play but it helped me a lot, how to disguise my good hands, how to fold, how and when to bluff, how to use chips as a weapon, how to play the player not the cards.
I get called bad names quite often but i originally started playing this way because i was sick of bad beats and i wanted to dish some out for a change.
I think i may get roasted for even suggesting you play this way but as previously stated i get called bad names quite a lot and playing like this helped me get through my nit phase.

thanks for helping me out!!! these are all valid ideas and strategys that i will employ over the coming weeks ,its nice i got a couple of decent replys already both intelligently written and born from hard experience this is the stuff i need to be doing,as said earlier its about standing up for yourself when it is neccessary ,,after reading both posts ,i placed 2nd in a 30 man stt only $1 but i tried to forget my fears and bet at the right time and pressure the hand ,came form short stack to chip leader and didnt double up once!!!all raises and steals based on position seemed to work !!!! thanks for the help ,if you want to discuss poker and its associated strategys give us a shout



jack

put a post it over your cards and play a 9 man sng without looking at your cards, this way you are playing purely on position, picking up on weakness and using constant aggression to pick up your chips just play like 1 a night or something, i used to make it the first one i played that day/night so that i set up the right mindset for the rest of the session.

i played loads like this when i first started out to drum in positional play especially, as i wasnt really paying enough attention to it, i read somewhere in pokerplayer mag that annette obestrad does this online a lot, i think theres like youtube videos or something of it, also get pokertracker and with the hud, it makes it a lot easier to recognise who will fold to steal attempts and cbets on the flop, you just pick on these people and the natural result is that you learn to become more aggresive, concentrate on the textures of flops and bet at people when its not very likely theyve hit any of it

gl

I play alot like you jumping jack flash. I do it deliberatly. I love other players using aggression against me. If you throw a few hands in the muck against someone, they think they can take you off alot more hands than they really can. If you play the same weakness with bad cards and strong cards, agressive players are left to trust their instincts against you. If you play different hands differently, players get reads, wether you know it or not. I like to just wait and get my money in when I know im going to get called. Once you play super tight and pick your moment, you should simply get more aggressive, just marinally and use the super tight reputation you have at the table.

dvd-GT said:

I think i may get roasted for even suggesting you play this way but as previously stated i get called bad names quite a lot and playing like this helped me get through my nit phase.

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I won't call you any names since I know that this strategy can work at times, esp against weak opponents. Keep in mind that advanced or good players might well catch up on your strategy and rip you off in no time.

jumping jack flash said:

yet struggle against aggressive players and cant help feeling i fold too much ,resulting in a paniccy all ins with a marginal hands

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This is a kind of tilt. - You need to know when it is happening and regain control fast at this moment.
If there are some very aggressive players you need to trap them.
Going in with marginal hands obviously isn't very helpful.
Playing too tight makes opp likely to fold alot if you raise....
What you do want to do is to show a really marginal winning hand first and then double up on them with a strong hand. Try this by raising from the BB if it is folded to the button who limps in and the sb completes. If they fold to your raise: SHOW

Your image as tight will vanish and your strong hands will be payed off better.

thanks very much for the help! its all great stuff,i have started to incorporate a lot of these ideas in my game and am trying to read flop texture more and bet when i believe the flop wont have helped them (against one opponent that is) i have a poker odds calculater and tracker that comes with the ipoker network ,it gives each player an icon after 40 hands ,the icon shows what type of player you are e.g fish,rock,aggressive dog,elephant, each icon represents a playing style, my icon is a unhappy face which says that im reasonably succsessful but i like to hang on to my hands ,or perhaps i over play them ,yesterday in a 500 man mtt feeroll on betfair ,i was riding quite high with a 7000 plus stack when i was given AK suited ,in mid position i raised 5 BB was called by player behind everyone folded flop came 3 rags (cant remember ) i put in a c bet was called turn bought another rag i check the guy bets a little i call (blinded by my ak !!!suited) th river brings another lowish card ,there are no straight draws or flush draws i cant put this guy on any hand so i check the river he bets i call (again like a fool ,i eventually put him on aq or summat) he turns over j7 and had paired his 7 on the turn ,my stack was 1500 odd now ,i deserved to be beaten for playing like that ,i just couldnt let go of that ak , real rookie mistake ,this is leak that really needs plugging ,im sorry i couldnt remember the exact cards in the hand ,this just serves to show how much i need instruction ,thanks for the replys its much appreciated please keep em coming they really help

MATelford said:

Once you play super tight and pick your moment, you should simply get more aggressive, just marinally and use the super tight reputation you have at the table.

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This isn't applicable at all at the micros stakes mtt's and sng's, people will not notice in the slightest that you havent played a hand for an hour and will call you down with random garbage all the time, this results in your QQ or KK being cracked by J5 off, you going crazy on tilt and starting to hate poker, or thinking your better than this level and start playing higher stakes that your not rolled for at all, to try and prove to yourself that its the just the fishies at the micros making u lose all the time, which further results in you losing your roll quite quickly, trust me i used to do it all the time myself.

orangepeeleo said:

This isn't applicable at all at the micros stakes mtt's and sng's, people will not notice in the slightest that you havent played a hand for an hour and will call you down with random garbage all the time, this results in your QQ or KK being cracked by J5 off, you going crazy on tilt and starting to hate poker, or thinking your better than this level and start playing higher stakes that your not rolled for at all, to try and prove to yourself that its the just the fishies at the micros making u lose all the time, which further results in you losing your roll quite quickly, trust me i used to do it all the time myself.

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Yes but in this situation you should still become marginally more aggressive with more chips. So what I said still applies.