I struggle to make sensible pre-flop decisions

First off, I'm new here and look forward to spending more time on this forum as my poker skills increase. I have played poker for many years, but only recently become aware of things such as how important pot odds and hand odds are. At the moment I play solely online, and to help me I use a poker calculator which churns out the pot odds against my hand odds to help me decide whether something is worth a good play or not with value.

I tend to find my playing post-flop is decent, and I don't get sucked into big bets if I feel I haven't got a better hand than my opponents. One problem which I do face quite often though is pre-flop calling relative to my hand.

Earlier I was sitting at a play money table on Pokerstars, 5/10 Small/Big blinds. Pre-flop someone bet 160 and I had pocket kings, I called. Was this the right play? According to my calculator the bet was value, the pot odds were lower (in percentage) than the win odds, so there was value, but I only had a 600 chip stack.

I notice this quite often pre-flop where people will call or raise big amounts, and sometimes I feel annoyed when I call and end up losing such a hand. I like to keep my poker as consistent as possible, and what I mean by this is to keep profits and losses consistent, rather than having huge swings of losses by calling sometimes silly bets.

Aside from learning what beats what and the basic rules of the game, play money NLHE has nothing to teach you. An integral part of poker is the fact that you have to risk actual money. Even 1 cent / 2 cent games would be infinitely better than play money.

KK is a super premium hand and generally should reraise and make the pot bigger at every opportunity.

hi leslie u say u played online poker for many years, come on KK is a reraise hand pre flop. if he shoves preflop with play money, he could have any hand. poker calculaters cant tell u what to do, its weather u want to run or not. if its a cash game u should have some idea how hes playing .

Originally Posted by Renton

Aside from learning what beats what and the basic rules of the game, play money NLHE has nothing to teach you. An integral part of poker is the fact that you have to risk actual money. Even 1 cent / 2 cent games would be infinitely better than play money.

Agreed. That said, even with play money it is awkward calling 160 from a stack of 600 with KK preflop. It then sets up an uncomfortable decision if an ace flops. I just re-raise all-in pre-flop instead of calling.

Hey there Leslie. Welcome to the FTR forums.

It's refreshing to see a first post like yours here on the boards, and it's good to see some of our veteran posters giving their thoughts. I agree with Renton that micro-stakes real money is far better for gaining experience once a player understands the game rules.

In the situation you're referring to, I've never put any serious thought in a play money hand but in your position I'm sure I would have just shoved my remaining stack there as Eric suggests.

In the old days the minimum deposit on a lot of sites was $50 with the lowest stakes being $5+1 tournaments and $0.50/$1 cash games. Nowadays with $0.01/$0.02 cash game options available along with plenty of tourneys under $1, a $10-$25 real money deposit can go a long way and serves as a very economical way to gain skill.

Best of luck at the tables and hope to see you around here on the boards!

-David

Welcome to FTR.

i agree with what the others have said regarding play money not being that valuable in terms of becoming better at poker.
I am curious about this calculator you describe, can you provide more information on that?

Originally Posted by GreatLeslie

to help me I use a poker calculator which churns out the pot odds against my hand odds to help me decide whether something is worth a good play or not with value.

Earlier I was sitting at a play money table on Pokerstars, 5/10 Small/Big blinds. Pre-flop someone bet 160 and I had pocket kings, I called. Was this the right play? According to my calculator the bet was value, the pot odds were lower (in percentage) than the win odds, so there was value, but I only had a 600 chip stack.
.

Welcome to the forum!

I like to get in cheap on pre-flops. I have practiced folding a premium hand when I wanted to test my self-discipline. My goal might be practice to only go in with premium hands if no one raised pre-flop, just to show I could practice self-discipline if needed. Needless to say, that is seldom and I agree to it myself when opening the table and sitting down before any hands are dealt. Same idea as saying I will go a day without eating deep fried foods for a day, to practice self-discipline at the table. Any other day that I am not testing a needed future skill, sorry, but to a raise of 160, while holding KK and 600 chips remaining, in a 5/10 play money game, I will call or raise.

Thanks for the replies people. I will play micro stakes soon, and although other people do treat play money differently (which I do notice a lot), I do play it as though it was real money, and make the same decisions.

Eric made a good point about the Ace coming up on the flop, and this was a concern during that hand.

Originally Posted by GreatLeslie

Thanks for the replies people. I will play micro stakes soon, and although other people do treat play money differently (which I do notice a lot), I do play it as though it was real money, and make the same decisions.

Eric made a good point about the Ace coming up on the flop, and this was a concern during that hand.

Yeah, having one player raise it 16 times the big blind when we hold KK is fantastic. Time to shove and hope he has something like AK or a pair other than AA.

Hey GreatLeslie,

It's great that you're able to take the playmoney seriously and play as if it was microstakes. As Renton pointed out, however, that the game in general will play differently from microstakes. Even if you are playing the same, other ppl won't be, so any kind of trends/information you get on the average player will be skewed and off from reality.

I agree with the sentiment on playing microstakes > playmoney asap.

Also agree with the points that KK is a premium hand and should be re-raised/shoved pre-flop.

I'm guessing not many people here played play money on pokerstars for years before they made their first deposit.

I did. You can certainly stay a noob for a long time when there is no risk to heighten your senses and trigger your risk-aversion response.

However, one of the most important things in poker is reading your opponents and responding. You can certainly do that on play money tables on pokerstars. The problem is that the opponents on play money represent a very limited class of donks, and not many people on real money tables will be so broadly bad.

If you can comfortably navigate all the various groups on pokerstars play money, then you still have only a small skillset in the bigger picture of poker. I mean, when I made my first real deposit, I could comfortably sit at any play money NLHE table on stars.

The only tables that were inconsistent were the nosebleed tables. (The high stakes tables with a waiting list 20+ long, where the standard pre-flop open is a 200bb bet. You have to win a lot of all-in flips to be able to play any post-flop game there, and so the swinginess is absurd.)

My point is that I could still beat those tables, and I was jumping back and forth between 6-max and FR, too.

NONE of that was good study, or good practice. As soon as I made my first (only) deposit, I quickly learned that I had terrible skills, and I couldn't beat the lowest stakes.

It didn't take me long to realize that I needed help, and I paid an FTR reg for a 1-hour lesson that turned me around. I had a lot of skills built up, but they were all over the place. I had a lot of bad habits mixed in with good, and a little outside help was supremely needed. (Thanks again, bikes.)

So.

Can you learn on play money? Yes. IF you put in the effort to study. It'll be slow, and there will be a lot of bad lessons learned which can only be used on terribad fish opponents.

The question about your pre-flop game on 5/10 play money on stars is kind-of null*.

Unless I'm wrong, the max buy in on those tables is 2k, which happens to be the same amount of play money chips that you can get added to your account if you "go broke" of play money. So the super terribad fish who can't win enough to sit at a bigger blind can still sit here comfortably. They only have to be good enough to make their chips last the time limit until they can get new chips.

The result of all this is that most of the opponents at 5/10 and below are truly unskilled. They may be great people, but they're fish at NLHE.

In general:
No one understands position.
No one understands a "starting hands" chart.
No one understands bet-sizing.
No one understands drawing probabilities.
No one understands pot-odds.
No one understands ranges.
No one is paying attention to anything but their own cards.
Everyone assumes that you should play like they do, and if you don't, then you're dumb.


IF you're doing any of those things (fess up... we were all there once), then I suggest picking one and getting your study face on.

There is almost no case in poker where raising KK pre-flop is bad. If you played against someone for a million hands and the only time they ever went all-in pre-flop was with {AA, KK}, then and ONLY THEN would raising KK pre-flop be bad - and only against that 1 opponent.

/-----/
* Understanding position and starting hands is part of the picture, but so is thinking about your opponents' ranges as a factor which shapes your own ranges. Pre-flop game when everyone limps and no one is folding is very basic. You fold sometimes, and raise instead of limping.