What I've learned after 10,000 hands
This is a follow-up to an earlier thread. Again, I'm not a guru - just posting what I've learned, charting how my game is growing, and hopefully helping some other NooB out.
- I'll stick with my earlier point, but rephrase it a bit so as to avoid all the conflict. My biggest leak, and my biggest source of profit, has been overvaluing top pair and (especially) overpairs. Having TPTK is great, and AA on a low board is wonderful. If that's all you've got and someone wants to play for your stack, then watch out. Unless you've got a solid reason to doubt this player in this hand, then giving serious thought to getting out of the hand. There are folks who'll call a TAGG's bet with anything in the hope of catching some weird flop and stacking off against an overpair, and this is profitable if they get paid off on those few times they hit. Remember, a hand like 97s will crack aces something like 20% of the time -- if you can take a quick peek for 4 big blinds with a chance to take 100 big blinds when you hit, then this isn't a terrible strategy after all.
- Tight play works, with exceptions. The exceptions can be identified by experience -- at least, I'm starting to see them and adjust, but there's no way I could have 5,000 hands ago. Even better -- slight adjustments to my original mechanical tight playing style (thanks, AOKrongly!) are boosting my profitability quite a bit -- it's a solid platform to build on.
- Bluffing is something of an art. There's a rhythm to a game, and I'm beginning to get a feel for it. I sometimes find myself betting into a table not because I planned to, or because it's something I thought through, but because it felt right. There are likely folks here who can explain this in terms of flop texture, reads, betting patterns, your line, and the rest, but for me the best I can do is say there are good times and bad times to bet. Sometimes I can pull a big bluff off without effort; most of the time I try to force it I'm just spewing chips in a donktastic fashion (generally before I've gotten the feel for a table). There's a lot more to it than big bets on each street.
- Don't bluff calling stations. This is the source of the above leak -- some folks can't be pushed off a hand, period. It's lovely to have these people in a hand with you, as they'll always pay off your value bets, but don't waste the chips on a bluff as they just don't know how to fold.
- I tend to lose the most money when I'm at a fresh table, before I know the players. I think it makes sense to play basic ABC poker until you've had a chance to observe for a bit - I find it really helps me out.
- The more I play, the more I notice that some tables (and some players) are much more profitable than others. There's a lot to be said for seeking out bad players and profitable tables and investing your time there rather than in other places.
- Some games are more profitable as well. On nights when the full ring games are all uber-tight, you might find that the 6-max tables are full of folks seeing 90% of the flops and betting them aggressively. If so, that's the place to be that night, even if you're more of a full-ring guy.
- It helps to pay attention to those loose players who seem able to reliably triple their stack size in a session. They're doing it through solid play rather than relying on cards alone, and it's something to try and learn. From where I sit, this is a better player to try and emulate than the set hunters you run into with a 7-8% V$PiP.
- PokerTracker's worth the money. The interface is miserable, but it's definitely worth buying and using early in your career -- otherwise how do you really know how well you're doing? Add in Pokerace HUD if you're going to multi-table -- the stats overlays are particularly useful when you're up against someone for the first time at this table and you've got a record of their past play right there.
- Predictability is a weakness. Mix it up a bit.