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coyotegal
Rock Star
Silver Level
Paaaaaaaa-lease backatcha.....
This may be true for you, especially at bovada. It being anonymous and all... though I don't play on bovada much anyways.. Not so for me.. It all depends where you play, who your playing with, whether they know you from other games.. etc... etc... and I'd be willing to bet that over time ultra-tight will not be as profitable as a player thats hard to understand, if that player is tight-aggressive. Just my opinion.
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Beanfacekilla
Legend
Silver Level
LOL.
Hey I am ultra tight, but I do mix it up a bit also. I may play things like 5-7 suited on the button, and I have this thing with J-10 suited (I don't know why).
I understand what you mean about playing some junk to mix it up. However, I never play crap like 8-3 off or the like. The only exception is the 7-2. Once in a while I will raise that sucker and play it like it aces. And if I win without showdown, I will show the bluff.
However, aside from that, I play a tight game. Suited one gappers and connectors once in a while.
And I do agree that ultra tight may not be as profitable as LAG. But when a LAG goes on a downswing, they lose their roll. I am just not like this (once in a while I LAG out if table is right). I am very conservative. I am also used to playing with nothing but fishes (live and online). They are just so bad, they always call me with worse.
Anyways, blah blah I go on and on. I didn't mean any disrespect to ya earlier.
Just my $0.02
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Flsnookman
Rock Star
Silver Level
I really hate playing A x just for that reason. I am much more comfortable playing 6-8 7-9 etc. Again, I am just trying to learn too, so take any advice I give with a grain of salt. Also I never seem to get enough premium hands to wait around 4 em. Good luck and see ya out there.
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RickAversion
Visionary
Silver Level
Good point about Head's Up play. I did not realize in HU, it's basically 50\50 for either guy to win, assuming neither has pocket pair. I want to learn more about this. What other major differences and rules of thumb are there for HU play, as compared to playing at a table with 5-8 guys?
Aleksei
Legend
Silver Level
Well, HU is super-complex compared to other styles of play, because you will be playing far more marginal situations. It's more profitable if you're good at playing marginal situations, but it's more something for advanced players than beginners.
I wouldn't say you're 50/50 to win without a PP, because it's just so likely that no one will land a pair and it'll end up as a high-card battle, so very often high card broadways (Kings and Aces especially) are good showdown value hands and it's correct for you to just check/call them down to get value from Villain's bluffs. For the same reason, you are automatically ahead most of the time with any pair, but if the board dominates you (and especially if the board hits Villain's value range) you should proceed with extreme caution. In general, 1) most situations you'll be in are marginal/difficult so you'll have to have a good read on the situation, and 2) value ranges are usually worse than they are in multi-handed play (you will however, often get into tight dynamics where both of you play a lot of hands but have a tight value-betting/calling range so you'll be checking down a shit ton of hands, particularly against experienced players).
It is tough and takes a lot of practice to learn HU, but it's definitely worth your while. It teaches you faster than anything else how to navigate and exploit marginal situations (which helps your game in all formats), and it's vastly more exploitable than any other format.
I strongly advise against multitabling HU. You need to adjust and read a ton to play HU (plus you'll be playing every other hand at least and few of your decisions will be automatic). If you must multi, no more than 3 tables at once. Any more and unless you're a multitasking wizard (if you have a penis you're not, trust me biology says so
) you will not profit.
Beanfacekilla
Legend
Silver Level
HU play is potentially the most important area to focus on. If you are raising preflop in good spots, you are going to end up HU most times anyways.
Knowing how to play HU is essential to being a strong player.
And also; online play is still possible in the U.S.
I play online fairly frequently. Playing poker online is good practice. You can see tons of hands, and gain experience (to become a better player), for a super cheap price. If you want your game to improve, online play is a great way to help you achieve that goal.
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kmbpoker
Rock Star
Platinum Level
playing junk works even in the long run so long as you have a good plan before you put your 1st chip in the pot.know before hand that most likely you will be folding after the flop so do not over pay with your 1st bet and dont chase
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RickAversion
Visionary
Silver Level
I asked about HU play, b/c I have been playing "Sit and go" tournaments on Dragonplay Poker on my phone. This is a 5 man, winner take all. This is good practice playing anywhere from 1-5 players, as opposed to "cash" games where it's always 5.
AugustWest
Visionary
Silver Level
Dragonplay? Is this real money?
Beanfacekilla
Legend
Silver Level
No. It is play money I believe.
Play money is not real poker. Just a bunch of fools playing bingo, with absolutely nothing to lose.
Aleksei
Legend
Silver Level
From what I hear of NL2 and NL5 it's not that much different.
Beanfacekilla
Legend
Silver Level
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RickAversion
Visionary
Silver Level
As an update, I've been limping on on all early small blinds. I can gladly lose 9 of these blinds if I hit a random junk 2 pair where I can out someone with an all-in sleeper hand. When the blinds are larger, you need to play tighter, since you have finite chips, but early on, I'm going in on almost every hand, and it's been working well. When it works, it WORKS.
eg: Pocket 2 7
Flops 2 7 A.
Anyone's got that A, and they're going down!
eg: Pocket 2 7
Flops 2 7 A.
Anyone's got that A, and they're going down!
Aleksei
Legend
Silver Level
The problem is that that's not gonna happen often enough. You only draw 2-pair or better like 4% of the time with disconnected hands, and unless you're playing huge stations you aren't gonna get paid enough when you hit to make up for the expense, (and will often get coolered when you do), particularly because you're out of position.
I'll limp behind with random Qx+ Broadway rags sometimes when I'm up against a station, because I can hit top pair once and get paid (plus I know to bail out if someone better plays back at me) -- but doing that with any random two cards is idiotic.
Really, you should not be playing the SB without a lot of pot equity or speculative value, because the SB is just the most godawful position you can be in. No matter who plays back at you, you'll always be out of position and at an inherent disadvantage. Unless you're a good postflop player it frankly isn't overly wrong to just fold every SB.
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Propane Goat
Grinder and paint make me the welder I ain't
Moderator
The only times I've been typically playing the small blind in tournament play is to raise pre-flop when everybody has folded around and one of those players who just sits there and folds every single hand is in the big blind, or if that player has a much smaller stack than I do. If I'm the short stack or if I have seen that the player to the left of me likes to raise or re-raise from the big blind, then I don't bother. This so far has turned out to be an easy blind steal the vast majority of the time I try it under those circumstances, and I am still stumped as to why somebody would enter a tournament and just fold every single hand until they get blinded out. I've seen this multiple times already in STT's and sometimes it's more than one of this type of player at the same table.
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marcumx
Rock Star
Silver Level
i've been seeing junk hands win alot..i don't ever play them unless i'm in the blinds or on the button and everyone else has folded. i played 45 today because it was cheap to call, they were suited, and i flopped two pair.
Aleksei
Legend
Silver Level
Flatting 45s in position is a pretty good idea in general, imo. Just having position increases your IOs considerably (and being multiway even moreso), plus the blinds make it immediately profitable to call even if you're expecting to win slightly less than you put in postflop.
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RickAversion
Visionary
Silver Level
That's what I'm talking about.
And if there was a decoy high card like A K Q,
you'd have taken him for the whole stack.
MadMaddie
Rock Star
Silver Level
Do you know what the odds are for hitting your two pairs on the flop? I knew it was a longshot so I searched for it and saw it is 48.5: 1 That is less than 2%. Think about all the other 49 of 50 tries when you do not hit the two pair and then also add in the times you hit the two pair but the other player does not have the Ace or big card pairing and they just fold and you do not win any extra chips.
If you think about it you will see why it is not a good way to try to win.
S3mper
Poker Not Checkers
Loyaler
If anyone has said this im sorry but I don't think any one said this in any of the above posts but posistion matters as well for example in a MTT if your UTG you dont want to open or limp in with too many junk hands but if your on the button you can play junk hands and this is where what you said really comes into play if some one calls your button raise because they think your doing exactly what you are doing "stealing the blinds" and he hits but you hit hard its a good spot to be in cause your likely to get paid off a bit but if he doesn't hit and you miss aswell chances are your gonna pick up the pot on a C-Bet if you miss and he hits you can just release and dont compound the foul
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