Comments: aokrongly's 19 Starting Hands

first of all I'm at the very beginning of being a noob at hold'em. It's awesome to have a forum like this to look up the advice of players with skills. I'm trying out 19 hands at the moment, so far it looks pretty good, but I feel that even with what I feel is strong hands I get pushed out easily postflop. Someone will raise me a lot more than I feel is prudent calling, so I fold. I know this reaction is a definite way to start losing money, but it's just hard not playing more hands too. With the 19 hands and then getting pushed off when you hit one of those hands...just feels like I'm not in the game at all.

So I'm still only on playmoney, sure someone will have something to say on that, but being a total noob and all, I figure I'd rather not waste my money here in the beginning where I'm completely blank. My playmoney thing has gone bust several times before, but then you get to start over. Today, playing on 3 tables concurrently I went from 1000 to about 10000 playmoney dollars...so so far at least, and at playmoney, the 19 hands system works for me.

Welcome Soren. Yeah, get a little dough on a site soon and play microstakes. Play vs real money is night and day. Nevertheless, you are going about learning the game the right way - cautiously.

soren, thats how i did it a couple years ago.

i started in play cash games. learned to bully tables badly. learned the power of the "all in" push. built a huge stack, and got used to what they call "variance." i started getting seriously bad suckouts with people calling me with crap. i quickly learned...thats part of the game. better hands hold up...most of the time, but not always. and, YOU CANT FORCE SOMEONE TO FOLD.

i moved to play tourneys because i saw some WPT stuff on tv and thought it looked cool and full of glory. then, i saw Moneymaker take down the world series with some "made for tv" bluffs. i was hooked, and thought i was a king.

i deposited some money on Pacific, $25, and worked it up to about $180 in a week. then, that damned variance hit. i cashed out $50 (so i could say i walked away a winner), and eventually lost the rest.

i found FTR and read about Bankroll Management and Bonus chasing. i decided to give it another go, and my brother transferred me $25 on stars.

yadda, yadda, yadda, 18 months later i had about a $3000 bankroll. (by no means a meteoric rise)

bottom line is: you are doing it the right way so far. do a lot of reading here and post your questions in the forums. you have another tremendous advantage...VIDEOS. i would watch them all here on FTR first. there are other subscription sites that are reasonable, once you have the bankroll. (a couple members here started Grinderschool.com for very low stakes players; i would look at them.) there is software, you will undoubtedly hear about while here...like PokerTraker. again, when the bankroll dictates.

but, again, you are doing it the right way...slowly. hopefully, this is the beginning of a fulfilling hobby for you ...or a successful career, if thats your desire.

whatever your desire, you have come to the best site, in my opinion. it has helped me and many others.

welcome and take care.

Warpe and Chopper, thanks for the words of advice, it's nice to know that I'm on the right track. So far it's all fun and games, and I hope that it stays that, but of course, I wouldn't be sad if I at some point could make some tidy money on the side of what I do now. I'll stay with 19 hands and read up as much as I can here on ftr. Thanks for the nice words

Soren, from what you wrote about making 10x your bankroll in a week and losing it all, I have to assume you aren't using Bankroll Management. Read up on that before you put money in.
Maybe read a few blogs, where people write about Bonus chasing and just starting out with very little and make themselves into good 200nl+ players.
Good luck starting out, hope it works out for you.

id say play as many hands as u want, but just never call preflop unless its 4 way or more!

Well, I'm relatively new to FTR, and I'd like to say thank you. I'll be trying your 19 starting hands strategy and see how I fair.

So far so good! Thanks for writing this.

Cheers!

Hmm......what seems to be missing in the original post?

I just started using the 19 hand strategy and so far it's working very well.

My question is, when playing the 19 hands do you still take position into account when playing preflop, or do you just play the 19 hands from any position?

Thanks.

I would suggest using this strategy until you finish reading all the beginner digest and start posting hands. Until you actually start your poker training I would use this as a jump off point. But I would start adjusting away probably after the first session and know why I am doing what I am doing.

Read this, then Renton's guide and then Sauce's guide and then Renton's ABCD theorem and lastly all of ISF's articles.

I'm putting this theory to the test right now.

Can't bring myself to play so tight in an MTT though, I like suited connectors too much.

theory still works. but, it has never proclaimed to be maximizing your profitability. its for beginners. those that learn the game as they go will soon drift away from these hands by adding others........correctly.

I'm surprised this crap hasn't been deleted already.

I hate cash rooms. Ended up losing $2 after aces got cracked by KQs.

Screw this theory, screw cash rooms. I'm staying with the SNGs and MTTs.

Looking at a chart of starting hands will help you some, but you need to know why the hands are good in the first place for you to make any progress. Think about these questions: why do you need a stronger hand in early position to open compared to being in late position? Why are connected and suited cards more profitable when there are a lot of people in the hand compared to two high cards? The answers to these questions are on the forums and in the guides, though not explicitly stated.

Think about these questions.

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Comments: aokrongly's 19 Starting Hands

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Comments: aokrongly's 19 Starting Hands