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OFCP - What to do when the cards aren't coming your way?

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  1. #1

    Default OFCP - What to do when the cards aren't coming your way?

    OFCP - What to do when the cards aren't coming your way?

    Hey All

    New to the forum, new to OFCP.

    I managed to lose my entire 1,000 points pretty quickly within an hour today. I don't feel I was playing poorly. I just wasn't getting many cards to play with. In Hold 'Em, I probably would have just tightened up, waited for a premium hand or two, played position even more than normal, and wait for things to turn. In heads-up OFCP, that just doesn't appear to be an option.

    What do you do when you go card dead in OFCP?

    Thanks - Jeff
  2. #2
    You can't really do much except try to minimize your losses. Even when you know you're gonna lose the hand, try to avoid a scoop by winning 1 hand and saving 5 points, which doesn't seem like much but it will add up in the long run. OFCP is very different from no limit hold'em, so you can't treat them the same. There's very little bluffing in OFCP and the game is much more mathematics oriented. If anything, I think the game is much more similar to blackjack than hold'em. So just learn basic strategy, set yourself up for good draws, and maximize your EV in the long run.
  3. #3
    I'd argue that "luck" and "streaks" are illusory, concepts that we overlay on raw experience in an attempt to make sense of random variance. I'd further argue that you should play POFC exactly the same whether you think you are "running good" or "running bad"--however, I'd argue that this isn't true in most other forms of poker because people's perception of you matters in games like Hold'em and Omaha. Still, POFC is all about probability. If you make the play with the highest expectation every time, you will show the highest profit over time. Any deviation from the optimal play costs you money--yes, in a given hand, specific cards will fall, and many times a lower-percentage play will outperform a higher-percentage play in a specific instance, but since you can't know what cards are going to fall, always making the most +EV play will do best in the long run.

    POFC is so volatile that you will have huge swings. Play for 5 or 6 hours and you will often have periods when you lose or win 100-200 bets fairly quickly. But if you let your decision-making be influenced by short-term variance, it will cost you in the long run.
  4. #4
    MadMojoMonkey's Avatar
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    +1 for OneByPhi

    I couldn't agree more.
  5. #5
    Eric's Avatar
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    Yeah, the short term swings can be brutal but it all evens out eventually in the long run.
  6. #6
    One last thing, if you're sure a downswing is attributable to the fall of the cards, keep playing as solidly as you can, and things should turn around. But if you're consistently losing to another player, watch his play carefully and see if what he's doing differently shows you holes in your own game.

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