a road to reduced frustration?

my style of poker is one that leans towards the tight side pre-flop.

it's a winning method

lately, i've watched a disproportionately large number of hands go by where my folded hands would have hit big.

like i usually throwaway most hands from SB. I muck KQo early position, and baby pairs early position on my fairly loose tables. And I don't like it when i see that my hole cards would have made full houses, 2 pair, quads (!), flush, etc.

is poker less frustrating if on the borderline cases, we click that 'call' button instead of the 'fold' button?

It gets more frustrating if you make those changes and find that you arent playing as profitably. If its disproportionate then overtime it will even out. You cant change your style of play because you are "running hot" atm. Thats fish talk that is.

I think that can work and your profit would stay around the same. I think it's Sklansky that states "There are so many hands that are borderline, that is, they break about even in the long run, that it doesn't matter if you play all of them or none of them, you'll earn the same amount of money."

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Originally Posted by Pelion

It gets more frustrating if you make those changes and find that you arent playing as profitably. If its disproportionate then overtime it will even out. You cant change your style of play because you are "running hot" atm. Thats fish talk that is.

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Quoted for truth.
That pelion, he's smart, he is. He should be playing 1000NL at the very least.

Just start raising rags from early postion.

Flop it like it's hot.

73o UTG raise 4x flop comes A73.

Get AQ all in on the flop. Stack him and say ty.

Welcome to the 1k post club, Muxy.

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Originally Posted by SonOfAkira

That pelion, he's smart, he is. He should be playing 1000NL at the very least.

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Rofl. Im on my way to the bank for a loan tomorrow :D

j/k

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Originally Posted by salsa4ever

my style of poker is one that leans towards the tight side pre-flop.

it's a winning method

lately, i've watched a disproportionately large number of hands go by where my folded hands would have hit big.

like i usually throwaway most hands from SB. I muck KQo early position, and baby pairs early position on my fairly loose tables. And I don't like it when i see that my hole cards would have made full houses, 2 pair, quads (!), flush, etc.

is poker less frustrating if on the borderline cases, we click that 'call' button instead of the 'fold' button?

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?

i like the slansky quote. that feels about right to me.

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Originally Posted by sykotik489

I think that can work and your profit would stay around the same. I think it's Sklansky that states "There are so many hands that are borderline, that is, they break about even in the long run, that it doesn't matter if you play all of them or none of them, you'll earn the same amount of money."

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Yeah, I remember reading this, although I can't remember whether it was in ToP or SSH. This is why I normally like to limp in on those borderline hands, although I agree with salsa and usually fold them if I'm UTG/UTG+1.

Ok ive been thinking about this in the shower (is that weird?) and heres what ive decided.

You cant adjust your play purely because of runs of hot or cold cards but you can and should adjust depending on the ranges of hands your opponents play.

Two extereme examples are:

1) You fold KQ, Villain has AK. You would have hit top 2 pair on the flop and proceeded to take a nice chunk of his stack.

- this isnt going to happen too often. Most of the time he will take a nice chunk of your stack instead.


2) You fold KQ, Villain has K2. Villain hits top pair and proceeds to give his stack to the guy with K6.

-Now you most definatly should be playing KQ, and probably down to K9 aswell.


If the table is loose then KQ should be played (but probably still folded to a raise depending on how loose the raising requirements of the player are). If the table is tight the KQ should probably be folded out of position because you will win alot of small pots and then lose a big one.

If tight preflop is working then stick with it. How the cards fall is largely irrelevant. I try(not always succesfully) to ignore how the flop would hit my folded hand and just glean any info possible from how opponents played it.

Yeah you might miss some miracle flops but you will also miss many good flops where you're beat and can't get away from your hand as well as the many flops you will fold.

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Originally Posted by azureXsmurF

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Originally Posted by sykotik489

I think that can work and your profit would stay around the same. I think it's Sklansky that states "There are so many hands that are borderline, that is, they break about even in the long run, that it doesn't matter if you play all of them or none of them, you'll earn the same amount of money."

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Yeah, I remember reading this, although I can't remember whether it was in ToP or SSH. This is why I normally like to limp in on those borderline hands, although I agree with salsa and usually fold them if I'm UTG/UTG+1.

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Not that it matters, but I am pretty sure this quote originated from Mike Caro.

As for the OP, I think it is probably less frustrating to play tight. I think as you grow as a player though, you should start playing more of those borderline hands. I am not talking about 73o, but KQo from early position is often worth a raise. It sucks if you get reraised... but these are the situations you have to eventually learn to deal with.

However, as this is the beginner's circle, I will add that this type of opening up your game should not be done until you are a documented winner to the game; not just when you think "well, I'm good enough to try some new stuff now"
Also, you should change your style slowly... not make drastic changes and hope they all work out together.
If you start playing a lot more hands,and the way you play each of those hands, then you start to win less money(or lose more), how will you know what change it was that hurt you, and which ones helped?

Good Luck.