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I not only suck but am a newbie, thus qualified to comment.
Ok, one table only and that. When I started I played one table. This became a disaster pretty quickly. I got bored and played lots of hands I should never have played. This will happen. The same thing happens if you play for stakes that are too trivial to you. To fix that you need the discipline to fold every single hand, if it's crap - and you need to remember that it doesn't matter if you're playing for peanuts - all values need to be translated into big blinds and considered only as relative to blinds.
Playing for peanuts was never a problem to me. I grok the principle of value only being relative to big blinds and can evaluate with that perspective. You don't seem to have a problem with that either so that's good. The $ sign is completely unimportant - consider bets only relative to big blinds or full buy-ins.
Boredom was worse for me. I got around it by multi-tabling. Now, a word of caution - if you suck at one table it's likely that you'll suck more at multiple tables as you have even less attention for each individual table and will make more mistakes.
That said, for me it was still a worthwhile exercise. I ended up having to fold an awful lot of mediocre hands that I wanted to play simply because I didn't have the mental capacity to play them. Fact is - that did me a ton of good as I got used to folding utter crap instead of playing them. And once you've got yourself involved in playing 87s, 44 and some other mediocre hand that has hit the flop for dubious value on 3 tables as you hit AA on the fourth table and you really want to maximise the value of the AA and just don't have the mental capacity to deal with 4 hands in different stages at one time - then you ask yourself why you play hands of dubious value in the first place.
Another thing that I learned is not to take your quality hands too seriously. When you hit AA and KK and you bet them PF you'll win the blinds more often than not. That's fine. Another time you may play AA to perfection having all chips in and be sucked out to a 77 hand that made a huge mistake to get into the hand in the first place - yet catching the third 7 on the river. You learn to stop thinking about your quality hands as special once you've seen them 10, 20, or 100 times. You need to get over the idea that they are 'magic' and play solid poker whether you get them or not. Only having seen many hands will enable you to view hands dispassionately. AA is just as likely to be a disappointing set of blinds as a payoff of any value - and many payoffs will be modest as well as people fold to you post-flop as they all missed the flop.
Once I got de-sensitized and got more of a feel for how much I'd really like to know about the opposition I found it great to move back to one table. The correct answer to the boredom question is that if you're not following the actions of the people at your table and taking constant notes then you're spending your time wrong - if you do that, you shouldn't get bored. It's one of many changes that you need to do occasionally to work on different parts of your skills - full ring to 6max to headsup - single table to multiple tables - maybe even full ring to sit'n'go and back. Just, try not to do it aimlessly, but with a purpose. I do single table to have max concentration for every single hand. Then I multi-table to put some more stuff on the backbone and to provide me with a larger chunk of hands that I can analyse to identify my leaks.
Now, let me get around to the subject of reading hands. First an observation. We bet aggressively because it is the most effective way to reduce our villain's range.
Scenario 1: We get AA, bet 4xbb, villain calls in BB and we see a flop with 2c, 5h, 8d. Villain checks to us, we put in a continuation bet and villain raises us to 3 times our bet. What happened? We ran into 88 on a somewhat loose villain. We've shown strength and he's not afraid to bet strongly into us so we can put him relatively firmly on 88 at this point and fold.
Scenario 2: We get AA, limp in, villain checks in BB, same flop, villain checks, we bet and villain raises - what does he have? 22, 55, 88, 25, 28, 58? 99-AA? 34? 67? We've shown weakness pre-flop, so we don't know if his bet is because he's strong or because he thinks he's less weak than we are.
As these two scenarios clearly describe it is our pre-flop raise and how our villain responds to it that begins to tell us something about his hand. Imagine if you will if you go all-in every time you want to play a hand (and it's a new villain who doesn't know you every time) - you'll only be called by AA or KK. The 3-4x bb that is described as standard is intended to greatly cut down on the number of hands you need to consider as you progress through a hand. If you do a 2x bb raise you'll be called by an awful lot of suited connectors, suited one-gappers and pocket pairs who might fold to a 4x bb raise.
It may occur to you that you do want to be called sometimes and therefore consider lowering your standard raise to something less than 4x bb. While this thought isn't necessarily wrong - it is not particularly helpful. What you're trying to do at this point in your poker career is to BEGIN to learn to read hands. And for the purposes of beginning to learn to read hands a NARROW range of hands that see the flop is not a bad place to start. Therefore, keep up the healthy pre-flop raises.
In the beginning I mentioned the value of bets as being separate from the $ value. At the stakes you play, this is unfortunately not always the case for our villains. You'll see people calling with crap because it's only 8 cents and the money isn't important to them. If you're up against a villain like that you just have to wait until you hold something solid. But most people will pay at least a minimum amount of attention to what they're holding and whether they're hitting the flop or not, and then it makes sense to pay attention to their betting/calling patterns and try to determine based on those what they have.
Ok, JJ hand, let me see what I think.
You're UTG and you raise. This communicates a strong hand (as you should play half the hands from UTG than you should from the button) so they should assume you have QJs+, KQ+, KJs+, AJ, 99+ as an example.
They think you have that, and yet MP1 and CO call. They know they'll have position on you which widens their range a bit. They may also consider you aggressive and likely to bet aggressively post-flop which means any made hand they end up with has higher value because they'll be paid off better on it (implied odds). Personally, I wouldn't call with many hands here, but judging by the hands they did play these guys are more loose than me. So with the benefit of hindsight let's call their range any suited ace, any pocket pair, high connectors or one-gappers, suited or not.
(PokerStove notation): 22+,A2s+,KTs+,QTs+,J9s+,T8s+,98s,87s,76s,ATo+,KTo+ ,QTo+,J9o+,T8o+,98o,87o
Flop comes and PokerStove says: JcJs 50.866%, the other two 24.567% each.
You place a pot-sized bet and they both call. There could be an element of "we're playing for peanuts" here so we can't give them full credit for a strong hand, but at the same time we can't really rely on the villain having made a mistake every time. At this time they should have a straight, straight or flush draw with a pair or ace (aces are magical), a straight and flush draw. A low pocket pair should fold, two unpaired overcards should fold. QJ would possibly raise (unless he's slowplaying it for more value). Trips, two pair and higher overpairs (if slowplayed pre-flop) should raise to prevent anyone who is drawing to a straight from completing it - hoping either to get draws to fold or to give them odds that make it -EV to call. So given that they called, 88, 99, TT, JJ, QQ, KK, AA, 98, T9, T8 are out of the range. Top pair good kicker or top pair top kicker are questionable and left out of this hand range.
(PokerStove notation): 77,AJs,A7s,QJs,87s,76s,AJo,QJo,87o
Turn comes, and assuming that BOTH hands have the mentioned range PokerStove says: JcJs: 8.975% - each of the other two 45.512%. Realistically we can maybe throw in a lot of made pairs and overcards that should have been folded to tweak it more in your direction, but if they didn't fold weak hands on the flop they should be folding now on the turn.
When the 6c comes on the turn there is only one gap to the straight and noone can stay in the hand without considering whether they can beat a straight. A straight draw may still stay in the hand if it has an overcard to the straight (like the J) in the hope that it'll beat the potential lower straight. Or the range considerations of the other people in the hand may have excluded any hand with a 7 (except 77) from having called the pre-flop bet, effectively ruling out the straight as a potential made hand at this point. (This would be mistaken, obviously, as 77 is most likely in our villain's range - though it might not be in mine)
Those that SHOULD have folded on the flop and didn't - should have folded now - PokerStove range same as on flop imo.
Given the above range PokerStove gives JcJs 0% chance to win on the river.
When the A comes on the river you are right to be cautious and check. It is not uncommon for people to be married to an AQ or AJ hand and just not being able to put it down even if they really should have at this time. A hand with a 7 is possible (such as the 77, or the A7s that someone held which is still a hopeful straight-draw with an A that can pair on the turn or river that someone might call a pot-sized bet with on the flop). People's willingness to stay in the hand given healthy betting should cause some pause. When people start betting on the river you need to ask yourself the question that has been asked here by others.
Of the hands listed in PokerStove notation on the flop there is exactly ZERO hands that you beat. Hindsight is 20-20 obviously, so you might want to argue that some top pair, top kicker hands should be included but when you're up against two villains you have to assume that at least one of them has one of the listed hands. Both, if they don't suck.
Comments:
AJ, A7, 77, QJ - all of these would have been happy to be calling you, and would have beat you at this point.
67, 78 - these hands would have you beat. Dubious pre-flop calls, except perhaps if suited - still a loose play if so, 97s would be too far fetched.
While one of your villains did play J9o and you would have beaten that on the river if it was the only hand you were up against, it is weak enough that I'm pretty sure he played the hand wrong. If you assumed that hand in his range you'd be more likely to be wrong and cause yourself to make stupid decisions.
AA, KK, QQ? Not really - these would have re-raised you PF so they are out of our villain's range. Even if they slow-played them PF I wouldn't be surprised for them to be played same as the trips - as in raise on the flop - never call.
TT, 99, 88, T9, T8, 98 - these should have been raised on the flop to avoid a drawing hand from completing (even if T9, T8 or 98 were both spades). They'd still have you beat though.
AK, AQ, AT, A9, A8 would have you beat, but should have been folded on flop or turn.
KQ, KJ, JT, QT, KT are the only hands in the range of possible villain hands come the flop that you could beat. And I think they should all have folded on the turn (along with J9), if not the flop.
Comment on the PokerStove result - let's assume for a second that the turn came 3c instead of 6c so it wouldn't help the people drawing to a straight. For the sake of simplicity reducing it to one villain. Consider this:
Flop comes, your hand is JcJs and the opponent range is 22+,A2s+,KTs+,QTs+,J9s+,T8s+,98s,87s,76s,ATo+,KTo+ ,QTo+,J9o+,T8o+,98o,87o. Your equity is 69.582%, the villain's equity is 30.418%. You make a pot sized bet, it is called and the turn comes 3c.
Your hand is still JcJs, but because the villain CALLED instead of folding or raising his range is now 77,AJs,A7s,QJs,87s,76s,AJo,QJo,87o. Your equity is 61.039% and villain's equity is now 38.961%.
Useless card, how can your equity be any worse? Surely it'd have to be better as there is now only one card that someone can outdraw you on instead of two? Wrong.
Even though the turn helped absolutely noone the knowledge that the villain didn't fold eliminates a lot of hands that you beat from his range - the knowledge that he didn't re-raise eliminates a lot of hands that beat you regardless from his range.
Now - congratulations to anyone who made it to the end, and I hope I made at least a little bit of sense. I'm a newbie as said, but I think I've gotten around to a good portion of the thought processes involved in beginner level hand reading in this post. Feel free to shoot holes in what I said where I don't make sense.
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Where there anything I could have done to not suck out here?
, J
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, T
(3 players)
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Originally Posted by Lonny
I am probaly also going way to far with my 
), and I am having a hard time finding out what I am doing wrong...
($1.05, 2 players)
($1.05, 2 players)
