Re: Poker: How you can get started, succeed, and many myths and f
the fundamentals say play with the top of your hand range. expand when you have good position and tighten up in early position. also there is the gap theory where if someone raises their hand, you want to be calling/raising with hands that are ahead of his range.
if you want to get into the advanced thinking and actual reasons of why we do this... bear with me.
assuming stacks are 100 big blinds deep (normal tables. 100nl .5/1 blinds for example), you want to call with hands that have good potential to make the best hand or hands that have excellent equity on flops.
if someone is raising utg with any pocket pair or aqs+, you know your range needs to be above theirs. when you are given ato on the button and a tight under the gun raiser raises, at best you are coin flipping with them in terms of equity. if someone that plays like me raises from cutoff on a lower limit table, i'll have 56s+ 89o+ any broadway, any pocketpair and many axs, kxs, and qxs hands. here if you have ato you should call or possibly raise (but thats another topic)
think about calling with ato. what do you hope to happen on the flop? when the flop comes a83 rainbow, and you get check/raised, where do you stand? most of the time you are going to bet this flop and the guy will fold. you take down a small pot. when the guy raises into you or you get check/raised, you are behind a lot of the time and end up losing big pots. the concept here is that hands like ato are good for picking up small pots but bad because its hard to put down and can easily lose you big pots. other hands that are overvalued but easily dominated: kj, qj, tj, 9t, a2-aj, kt, etc. not saying you shouldnt play these hands. just saying that when you are deciding to call, raise, etc, take note that your hand can easily be dominated. rarely call with these hands but feel more free to raise these hands from middle, late position in 6max games.
also, with pocketpairs at the lower levels, consider calling these from any position if you know the opponent is likely to get most of his chips in at least 12% of the time. this gets into implied odds. also, be sure to google pot odds and learn about that.
you will be a winner at micros or low limit casino games by just following this alone
the fundamentals say play with the top of your hand range. expand when you have good position and tighten up in early position. also there is the gap theory where if someone raises their hand, you want to be calling/raising with hands that are ahead of his range.
if you want to get into the advanced thinking and actual reasons of why we do this... bear with me.
assuming stacks are 100 big blinds deep (normal tables. 100nl .5/1 blinds for example), you want to call with hands that have good potential to make the best hand or hands that have excellent equity on flops.
if someone is raising utg with any pocket pair or aqs+, you know your range needs to be above theirs. when you are given ato on the button and a tight under the gun raiser raises, at best you are coin flipping with them in terms of equity. if someone that plays like me raises from cutoff on a lower limit table, i'll have 56s+ 89o+ any broadway, any pocketpair and many axs, kxs, and qxs hands. here if you have ato you should call or possibly raise (but thats another topic)
think about calling with ato. what do you hope to happen on the flop? when the flop comes a83 rainbow, and you get check/raised, where do you stand? most of the time you are going to bet this flop and the guy will fold. you take down a small pot. when the guy raises into you or you get check/raised, you are behind a lot of the time and end up losing big pots. the concept here is that hands like ato are good for picking up small pots but bad because its hard to put down and can easily lose you big pots. other hands that are overvalued but easily dominated: kj, qj, tj, 9t, a2-aj, kt, etc. not saying you shouldnt play these hands. just saying that when you are deciding to call, raise, etc, take note that your hand can easily be dominated. rarely call with these hands but feel more free to raise these hands from middle, late position in 6max games.
also, with pocketpairs at the lower levels, consider calling these from any position if you know the opponent is likely to get most of his chips in at least 12% of the time. this gets into implied odds. also, be sure to google pot odds and learn about that.
you will be a winner at micros or low limit casino games by just following this alone
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) I think thats pretty good considering 2 days ago I didn't have any idea how to play poker.
they are the actual numbers from my experience of playing poker for a living and having access to the stats of many others who play poker for a living. The reason your numbers are low is that you have a professional 200NL player only playing 8 tables when most play 16-24. Don't forget about bonus/rakeback as well. A good player at 200NL makes $150/hr.
