Right now all I can comment on is cash games as I haven't gotten enough scratch together for tourney's yet and I personally don't want to dick around in the
freerolls right now. I'd rather be making cash and thus far I've acquired about $31 in about 10 days. At playing 2 hours or so a day I'm proud of that and I've taken notes on how my game has increased and I'm playing .01/.02 microstakes. This doesn't mean I've been playing poker for 10 days. I've just decided to start playing
online poker. Here's how I've increased my earnings.
1. As I've learned to play different hands at different positions this has increased my win rate signifigantly. I mean 10/9 unsuited, 8/9 unsuited, rag aces (I particularly like A9 and A5 in late position). Open ended straight draws hit about 34% of the time by river. A straight flush draw hits a straight or better 54% of the time by the river. I've earned money playing these kind of straights consistently and closing out quite a few hands by semi
bluffing. And yes once or twice on a straight up
bluff.
2. Speaking of which I'm constantly reading articles, watching vids, and staying up on forum issues that come to me while playing. I write down questions I have and search the net for the answers and THEN if I can't find them I post here. I've ran across many many extra articles this way searching for my answers instead of posting them right away. One of which has changed my win rate dramatically. It's about good cards and betting! I understand that there's times when this doesn't apply, but if you have good cards you should be betting them and if you wanted to play them and were gonna bet out before some bets.... Call the bet if it isn't too strong. There is still part of this game that is up to chance. If you have good cards play them, you can't win w/o playing them. I swear to god more people raise the w/ hands like A/10, KJ, K/9, rag Ace more often than not. Put it to you this way. If I get a King/anything suited under the gun I gotta see that flop so I'm pumping in .08 - .10. It confuses the HELL outta people all the time cuz everyone thinks you have premieum hands. All I'm trying to do is get some of them would be callers to fold and catch 1 or 2 callers. If they RE-Raise, fold it.
3. When I grasped the concept of folding that REALLY put a clamp on large leaks. If you're on A/K paired K on the flop and your putting in value bets till the river and all of a sudden this guy puts u all in... Think about it before you chuck all in because you have A/K. It's powerful but it's still only a drawing hand. I read a fantastic article on A/K recently and it explained how properly folding A/K in certain situations will increase your winnings dramatically. Folding has made me money in the long run man... Swear to god.
4. Another concept I grasped is putting people on a range. I am constantly trying to get better at this. It isn't about nailing a certain hand on your opponent. It's taking how they are betting, the available cards, and putting them on a few hands. It's an artform and every avid poker player as far as I'm concerned should constantly be practicing this. Another thing that tight players don't like to do and it seriously inhibits their playing and winnings is placing information bets. Sometimes you don't have position and you may have the best hand and be worry about an overcard. Get that 1/5-1/4 pot bet out there. I LEARN SO MUCH about my opponents online this way. I have to quaduple the money I spend on information by the end of my session everytime.
5. Get this out of your head and I'm gonna piss a lot of people off w/ this comment but hear me out. This whole "variance" thing is B.S. All I can pin it on is a head trip. I played Baseball and that's like when a hitter goes into a slump. It happens to EVERYONE at some point or another. This is how you fix that. Confidence. U may get dealt 30 bad hands.... don't play them. Instead of taking down this massive pot trying to get all your dough back concentrate on those blinds hands. Win some smaller pots. Gain that confidence back and you get out of your funk, slump, varience.... whatever the hell you want to call it. Make no mistake about Poker. This is in every essence of the term a mind SPORT. I can bet most people experience variance after a bad beat. Don't sweat a bad beat. It happens.... ALOT believe it or not. We can't all be The Prince of Poker and even Scottie gets his ass handed to him sometimes. He just don't let it effect his next hand and we do!
6. USE your math don't RELY on it. There's times to use it and there's times to go by that information you gathered. You're playing people here... Living breathing and just as concerned about their money.
7. Continuation betting, 3betting, value betting, and Shoving, <------ You're best friends in certain situations
8. It's fantastic to go over hands after the fact but all the threads u see and charts and this and that.... Use what you know. Memorize some key things such as win percentages ect... I memorized the top 15 hands. As a matter of fact I HATE to play A/Q unsuited. It's a trap hand and needs to be played carefully and folded appropriately. And don't stop there, memorize other things as you retain info. Constantly be memorizing tidbits of USEFUL info.To step 9.........
9. I wish I had 10 steps but I'm not David Letterman. You gotta play to get better and that means your gonna need to spend money. If you're consistantly losing your bankroll over time than you are doing something wrong and it's probably a VERY VERY easy fix. Worst thing you can do is stop playing. Keep playing but start trying different strategies and that starts by reading articles.
Here's my favorite article
http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/214-Why-Not-to-Limp I don't care what site this is. No clue and don't even care who this kid is and what his credentials are. I read this article and got something from it. And when something clicks in your mind when you're studying the game of poker via articles and vids give it a boy scouts shot and if it works? Implement it into your game and build off of it! Why not right? That's whats great about this game. No two people play it the same way!
And my MAIN MAIN #1 rule... DO NOT get discouraged by people trying to impress you w/ their "knowledge" of the game. People who speak all high and mighty and this and that. They may know the game but have absolutely nothing to teach you. Helpful, insightful people give much better info. Don't let all the wanna be pros and half ass'd ameaturs at best pollute your mind w/ ridiculous info. I used to know a guy once who could recite the periodic table of elements. Where is he now? He drives a bus. I have no use for know it alls.
Sorry for the book but it sounded like you needed some advice and although I don't have years and years of experience this has what has worked for me. I guess you could call it the basis of my personal poker philosophy right now and I believe that poker philosophies like business plans should be constantly evolving and getting better. Remember... No 2 people play this game exactly alike and whether people like it or not that means EVERYONE has their own poker philosophy.
Good Luck and hope some of this helped you get back on the winning end of things!