Had a couple solid sessions at .o1/.02 on Stars. Got paid off on a couple hands. Also had a couple of second best hands with trips where I paid off, but I’m up over the past few days. I may post some hand histories when I get a chance.
Looking forward to trying out FT this weekend…
BR – Stars – 69.00, FT 12.50 = 81.50. My .01/.02 PTBB/100 is still around 17.8.
A quick post. I read a a recent blog entry from Ed Miller (notedpokerauthority.com), and wanted to post a portion of it really quick. This is blatantly quoted from his site. I’ll offer some comments afterwards:
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Don’t Play Trash
Fold your trash hands. Most hands are trash. It’s easier to define what’s not trash, so I’ll do that. The “Not Trash” list:
All Pocket Pairs
Two suited cards Jack or Higher (e.g., K J )
AK, AQ, AJ, and KQ offsuit
Ok, it’s not quite that simple. I have another list, the “Sometimes Trash” list:
Suited Connectors (e.g., 8 7 or J 9 )
AT and KJ offsuit
Suited Aces (particularly the big ones like A T )
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This should be totally obvious to experienced players, but to beginners, you may not realize it. Yes, any 2 cards can win, but more often than not, you need solid cards to play.
For those of you playing too tightly – AA, KK, QQ, JJ and AK only, you’re forgetting your implied odds on smaller pairs and suited connectors. You become too easy to read, and people will fold to your preflop raises, and you’ll never get any value out of your hands.
Everything depends on the situation, but it’s hard to go wrong using this as a guideline if you don’t know where you’re at, if you’re unfamiliar with your opponents, or you’re on a short bankroll.
Play hands that offer the opportunity for high implied odds situations – pocket pairs that make sets, big cards that flop top pair or better, suited aces that make nut flushes, and suited connectors that make straights and flushes.
There’s not much reason to play more hands than that in an internet cash game where you don’t see your opponents enough for them to pidgeonhole you. If you have an unusual situation that calls for it, like a multiday tournament where you need to make adjustments, fine, but at microstakes NL, you can stick to the basics and you’ll win.
I first really started getting in to poker about 5 years ago. A friend of mine and I started discussing it at work a lot, and we started playing a lot of heads up matches for lunch in a quiet conference room. We used a pad and pen to keep track of points instead of using chips, because chips might be scrutinized at work.
Anyway, as time went on, and we read books and studied the game, we started to write about what we thought we knew. The idea was to make a nice concise document of notes that we could use to improve our game. My friend recently asked me if I still had a copy of the document, and if so, would I send it to him, because he was curious about it. He and I have both played 100,000 hands or more since then, online, in home games, and casinos, and he wanted to know if he could measure his growth as a player against the document. After looking at the document, I’m positive he can. We were wrong about so much.
While I think we worked on the document for over a year, I only found several copies of the document edited over a 4 month period, the last being April 16, 2004. That would be yesterday. So, in honor of the 3 year anniversary of the last edit to the document, I thought I would post some snippets of them here, and then critique them, because after looking at the document, while some of our ideas were spot on, many of our notions were incorrect. This article will focus on one idea in the document which I feel was spot on. Here we go:
This is probably the smartest thing we said in the whole document. While I’m breaking that rule by educating you now, I’m not doing it at the table. At the table, you should only be focused on winning and learning, not educating. It was based on something that we were seeing a lot, and I still see online a lot. My friend and I actually sat at a table at the Sahara in Las Vegas, where a woman would buy in for $20 at a 1/2 limit hold’em table. (10BB). She was playing like it was blackjack. She’d put $20 down, and get her stack. There would be action in front of her – bets and raises. She’d only call. The flop would hit, and then she would look at her cards. If the flop hit her hand, she would start clapping excitedly, like she caught blackjack. If it didn’t hit, she’d complain. At that point there would be betting and raising. She would always call or check, regardless of her hand and the action. At the end of the hand, she would turn over her cards. The dealer would then explain to her what her final hand was. If you could beat it (which you would know anyway), you would show your hand and take the pot. She would then buy in for another $20 dollars. If everyone had missed and she was excited, it would get checked around, because she wouldn’t bet. You would wait for her to show her hand, and then fold if you couldn’t beat it. She was literally the worst hold’em player ever. What is the point of this story? She did this over and over, and no one told her to buyin for more than the minimum, bet when she had a hand, fold when she didn’t, to not show glee when making a hand, and disappointment when she didn’t. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to stay at that table for too long, because we had dinner plans with others, but had we been able to, we would have stayed at that table all night, or at least until she left, and we would have never said a word.
When you sit at a table in a casino or online, and you have someone saying things like ‘You’re an idiot, why did you call 2 pot sized bets when you only had bottom pair?!’ they are teaching people how to play better. Educating players only makes them play stronger poker against you, making it more difficult to win their money. It may bum you out that someone sucked out with bottom pair, but really, you want that person to call with the worst of it every time. Over the long run, that is going to make you a lot of money. Why stop someone from making that call? Anyone that critiques play or explains play at the table is either doing it to feed their own ego or is very frustrated, but either way, you can rest assured that they are not an advanced player. Anyone who has thought about the game long enough will know that teaching a table full of players to beat you is not in your best interest. Don’t do it yourself, and do your best to request others not do it as well. A simple ‘nice hand’ ,’well played’ , or ‘one player to a hand’ to keep the table happy does a lot more for your long term profits than ‘who calls an all in with no pair and no draw?!!’
In poker, the person who makes the least mistakes over the long run wins the money. If everyone plays perfect poker, and no one makes mistakes, you can’t win any money. Don’t teach people to not make mistakes against you while at the table. Writing in a blog to educate your mom is another story.
BR ~65.00
Won a 45 man SNG (1.20) for 14.00.
Card dead most of the tourney. 2 critical hands I sucked out on preflop all-ins- 77 vs QQ, caught a 7 on the turn, another hand I had AJo vs. AK, caught the runner runner flush, it was enough to keep me a live. Made a big laydown with ATo in the BB, guy showed AK, my M was under 4. Usually that’s an instacall for me, but the guy was really tight so I had a good feeling about it. Got paid off when it was down to 3 and I had KK, that basically won it for me.
BR 61.05
I didn’t play much over the past few days, I’ve been busy with the holidays, so this is my first update in a while. I’m basically getting destroyed. I kinda promised myself this would not be a bad beat forum, so I won’t post anything specific, but basically any 2,3,4 outer, any flush draw, any straight draw, they are all landing for people.
I should mention that I’ve entered about 8 1.20 tourneys, and 1 4.40 tourney and cashed zero times, so that amounts for some of the BR dip, but mostly it’s getting stacked with my money in good.
BR 47.74 and dropping…
An oxymoronic post – I’m mentioning that there’s really nothing worth mentioning from last night. I played about 20 hands, then had to do some real work. No hand histories worth discussing, nothing memorable. Thought I might get back to it after getting done with my work, but I had other things to do.
I’ve decided to create a blog to discuss my online microstakes poker adventures, mostly so I don’t have to send the same emails and have the same discussions with my small group of friends that play poker.
What do I mean by Microstakes? Real small stakes – where the blinds are real small, as low as .01/.02 No Limit.
I’ll be discussing hand histories, Poker Tracker stats, books, theory, bankroll management and whatnot. I almost called this ‘Teaching My Mom to Play Online Poker’, but she’s (hopefully) not the only one reading this.
Reasoned discussion is welcome.
