Growing the pots?

I have known the rules of poker for a long time, but am now getting very serious about playing. I have the cash to play a decent BR but am limiting myself to $100 of my own money per month, and forcing myself to grind it out at the .05/.10 tables as has been suggested in numerous posts throughout this forum. (Thank you number one to all the posters in this forum, because even at lower tables I am down about $50, though due to a bonus it is only about $20. On days off I tend to play 10 hours or more, plus 2-3 hours per night on work days which even at these low stakes can hurt us little fishies :wink: )

Now I am finally getting closer to the break even point each session, and even coming ahead some, as my game play improves. I had thought my biggest leak was not getting into enough hands, and have since realized that by correcting that, I was getting into too many hands. Limping in with 6 other people and having even A9o can be disastrous, and cause you to make tough decisions. Maybe later when I get better at making reads I can do that, but for now I am sticking with the Pre Flop suggestions given throughout this site.

This is where the problems start though. If I have, for example, AKs in late position and I raise say 3-4xBB, I get the table down to maybe 2 other people. Sounds good and from what I understand, this is what I want. Now we see the flop and I see A49 rainbow, or even A49 two suited. It is checked to me and I bet the pot; everyone else folds I got very small winnings. When I try and slowplay though, I seem to get callers and then get burned on the turn or river.

A prime example was last night. I had AKo and raised 3xBB, two ppl stay in and flop comes 10 J Q, rainbow giving me the nut straight. I bet about 30% of the pot and get one caller. Turn comes adding a second spade to the board. Now I am looking at villain having a potential flush draw. 17% chance for him to hit it so I bet the pot to take him out of pot odds range. He calls anyways. River comes with a third spade. I check and he bets 50% of the pot. Maybe I'm wrong here, but I feel I have to call and at least see for myself. (Yet another leak, table cop, so thank you number two for the posters that warn against this and also to the people that tell you to write over and over what leaks you will not do any longer - I am getting much better at not being the cop). Sure enough he has the flush and I lose. I don't mind losing the call money I put in on the river. What gets me is I feel I have two choices...win a small pot, or grow a pot and take a greater risk losing it.

Should the majority of my wins come from winning before the turn? When should you give just enough pot odds to entice a call? Thanks (number three) to the vast amount of information here, I am becoming a much more aggressive player. Now I feel I am a little too aggressive and win smaller pots because of it. Any suggestions?

I know it's not your first post, but welcome to FTR.

You are entering the world of post-flop play now. If everyone is folding the flop to cbets, cbet everytime. Taking down 9bb (2 callers + blinds) is a decent sized hand. If that happened once every other orbit and you folded all other hands, you would be up 6bb (3BB) which would result in ~30BB/100!!! So it's not a terrible result.

Also, after you've hammered away at them for awhile they should start playing back at you.

It may be table selection ($2 avg pot, 40% see the flop or better), although I doubt it at 10NL. Identify the calling stations and value bet every decent+ hand.

Don't slowplay unless you flop a fullhouse or better, even then it's often wrong. You have to bet the flop to build the pot. If they fold the probably didn't have a good hand to play for a big pot anyway. If you feel you must slowdown, do it on the turn.

Post your HH, read what others post. It'll come around. Keep in mind you should be value betting mostly, not worrying about tricky villain play.

Big hands - big pots, small hands = small pots.
TPTK is by no means a big hand, if you raise preflop, get callers, hit TPTK and take the pot down thats nice.
You will win your big pots by hitting your sets and getting paid by TPTK

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Originally Posted by swiggidy

I know it's not your first post, but welcome to FTR.

You are entering the world of post-flop play now. If everyone is folding the flop to cbets, cbet everytime. Taking down 9bb (2 callers + blinds) is a decent sized hand. If that happened once every other orbit and you folded all other hands, you would be up 6bb (3BB) which would result in ~30BB/100!!! So it's not a terrible result.

Also, after you've hammered away at them for awhile they should start playing back at you.

It may be table selection ($2 avg pot, 40% see the flop or better), although I doubt it at 10NL. Identify the calling stations and value bet every decent+ hand.

Don't slowplay unless you flop a fullhouse or better, even then it's often wrong. You have to bet the flop to build the pot. If they fold the probably didn't have a good hand to play for a big pot anyway. If you feel you must slowdown, do it on the turn.

Post your HH, read what others post. It'll come around. Keep in mind you should be value betting mostly, not worrying about tricky villain play.

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Thanks for the welcome.

Let me see if I got this straight; 30xBB out of 100 hands is good? At the level I am playing at, this means a little less than $3.00 per hour without multitabling (which I totally suck at right now). I don't mind$3 per hour, if that is a proportionately good amount. I guess maybe a good question(s) would be, what would be a good percentage to shoot for, what figure am I looking to get a percentage of, and what time frame (ie... number of hands) am I looking to see that money? Am I looking to get a percentage of the BB? Unless you sit at a no max table there is a maximum buy in, currently $10 at my level, so should I be looking for a percentage of that $10?

Knowing these things will help me determine if I am doing well or not. This leads me to another question/problem. If I understand you right and 30xBB out of 100 hands is good, then I should see around $3 per hour. I'm sure you know how easily it is to lose $3.00 or more in one single hand. It kills me to think that playing good, solid poker for two to three hours can so easily be wiped out. I know that I want to lose as little as possible on the hands where I am beat and win as much as possible in the hands that I am not, (I am fully trying to play that to the max!) but at such low limits it's not all that uncommon to see 20-30xBB bets hitting the table. With some limpers and callers it is easy to see a $1 pot pre-flop. Betting the pot one time after a PFR can wipe out nearly half of your last hours work. So if I am winning 30xBB/100, then losing one bad beat or legitimate loss to a better hand, I am pretty much at break even. This exact scenario is pretty much a summary of how I play right now. Win .50 - 1.00 every few orbits then lose $3.00 and end up behind or just barely ahead.

There is also the very real possibility that I am letting those unproportionate BB bets hit the table due to my inexperience. I just can't see sitting at a $50/$100 table and someone dropping $3k in a single bet. Maybe I am wrong since I have never sat at those tables.

Final question (just so I don't have to start a new post), should I play 6 max or 10 max tables and why?

All thoughts and opinions are welcome.

Sorry, I over-estimated your background. FYI, BB is big bet, which is 2x the big blind (bb). It's a limit thing that has carried into PokerTracker (PT) and PokerOffice (PO).

30BB/100 in unsustainable long term. 10BB/100 is doing extremely well. For an accurate number people say you need 100k+ hands. For some clue 10k will do. There is a sticky that discusses win-rate. Also, this win-rate is an average. Sometimes you loose money, sometimes you breakeven, it happens. Here's a pic of my play one day. The peak is +3 buy-ins (+150 BB) the valley is -3 buy-ins (-150BB), I wasn't doing anything particularly wrong, it just happens (also note, that's 4k hands):
http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/8...nltodaypm3.jpg

If you have an edge post-flop then you will make more $/hr at 6max because you play more hands. If you don't have an edge then you will loose more $/hr. So if you have an edge over the field post-flop, play 6max. If you don't, or can't answer that question play FR.

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Originally Posted by Percival

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Originally Posted by swiggidy

I know it's not your first post, but welcome to FTR.

You are entering the world of post-flop play now. If everyone is folding the flop to cbets, cbet everytime. Taking down 9bb (2 callers + blinds) is a decent sized hand. If that happened once every other orbit and you folded all other hands, you would be up 6bb (3BB) which would result in ~30BB/100!!! So it's not a terrible result.

Also, after you've hammered away at them for awhile they should start playing back at you.

It may be table selection ($2 avg pot, 40% see the flop or better), although I doubt it at 10NL. Identify the calling stations and value bet every decent+ hand.

Don't slowplay unless you flop a fullhouse or better, even then it's often wrong. You have to bet the flop to build the pot. If they fold the probably didn't have a good hand to play for a big pot anyway. If you feel you must slowdown, do it on the turn.

Post your HH, read what others post. It'll come around. Keep in mind you should be value betting mostly, not worrying about tricky villain play.

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Thanks for the welcome.

Let me see if I got this straight; 30xBB out of 100 hands is good? At the level I am playing at, this means a little less than $3.00 per hour without multitabling (which I totally suck at right now). I don't mind$3 per hour, if that is a proportionately good amount. I guess maybe a good question(s) would be, what would be a good percentage to shoot for, what figure am I looking to get a percentage of, and what time frame (ie... number of hands) am I looking to see that money? Am I looking to get a percentage of the BB? Unless you sit at a no max table there is a maximum buy in, currently $10 at my level, so should I be looking for a percentage of that $10?

Knowing these things will help me determine if I am doing well or not. This leads me to another question/problem. If I understand you right and 30xBB out of 100 hands is good, then I should see around $3 per hour. I'm sure you know how easily it is to lose $3.00 or more in one single hand. It kills me to think that playing good, solid poker for two to three hours can so easily be wiped out. I know that I want to lose as little as possible on the hands where I am beat and win as much as possible in the hands that I am not, (I am fully trying to play that to the max!) but at such low limits it's not all that uncommon to see 20-30xBB bets hitting the table. With some limpers and callers it is easy to see a $1 pot pre-flop. Betting the pot one time after a PFR can wipe out nearly half of your last hours work. So if I am winning 30xBB/100, then losing one bad beat or legitimate loss to a better hand, I am pretty much at break even. This exact scenario is pretty much a summary of how I play right now. Win .50 - 1.00 every few orbits then lose $3.00 and end up behind or just barely ahead.

There is also the very real possibility that I am letting those unproportionate BB bets hit the table due to my inexperience. I just can't see sitting at a $50/$100 table and someone dropping $3k in a single bet. Maybe I am wrong since I have never sat at those tables.

Final question (just so I don't have to start a new post), should I play 6 max or 10 max tables and why?

All thoughts and opinions are welcome.

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Poker is a gambling game. You can't be good at it if you're not willing to gamble. If you're not prepared to lose your stack on every single hand, you can't play properly. If you don't lose your stack once in a while, you're not trying hard enough to win. Just watch a $50/$100 table if you can. They do make $3000 bets and regularly.

To make any decent money, your STAKES * TABLES figure needs to be at least 400. That is 4 tabling 100NL or 2 tabling 200NL. Then 5BB/100 will make you about $14 per hour. If you can get a bonus on top of that for $7 per hour that's $21/hr, not too bad

Play full ring (10-handed) for now. On these tables you will almost never be playing marginal hands - you need to be sure that your overall number of hands played (not including the big blind) is no more than 20%. Absolute minimum pre-flop raise percentage should be 5% - between 5 and 10 is ideal. Over 10 is probably unwise as your post-flop skills are unlikely to be well enough developed; under 5% and you're going to be letting too many drawing hands into the pot and not being paid off enough when you do hit decent hands.

At $10NL you need to up your PF raise amount to at least 5x + 1x per limper. It's easiest if you keep your raise amount the same every time, as it doesn't give away clues as to the strength of your hand, and it helps it become automatic.

The nature of no-limit means that you can lose in one hand what you might have expected to win in the entire session (or more). That's how it goes; if you can't handle this, then move to limit - this isn't a snidey remark; it's important to know you have the fortitude to take the inevitable lost stacks.

You need to watch your expectations; 30BB/100 (with BB = 2x big blind) isn't possible outside the short term; 20BB/100 is JUST about possible if you play flawless poker; 10BB/100 is about the area you should be aiming at. Even 5BB/100 is solid, winning poker. Which equates to, yes, $1 per 100 hands. Those are the stakes your playing at - don't allow yourself to get impatient about making $$$.

I hope you're also aware of the long term nature of the game. One thing that ALL beginners do is rejoice if they make $20 one day and sob if they lose $15 the next. But - overall that means you've made $5! Which is what a very good player at this limit can expect to make in 250 hands! But! judging it after 2 sessions is just as bad! Statistics that indicate success or failure at poker only start to have meaning when you've played AT LEAST 10,000 hands - that's the figure you'll see on this site when people do check-ups, posting their stats for other people to look at. But even then, 10k hands is very much short term. It is perfectly possible for a very good player to be down over 10k hands.

Let's break it down even further - let's say we want to look at our stats with AA. Well, in 10k hands you can expect to be dealt AA forty-five times. But we've already discussed that TEN THOUSAND hands is a poor sample - so forty-five is an almost worthless one!

To illustrate: let's say that the first 44 of these hands return a BB/hand of 5 (which is about normal for a decent player). At $10NL, this equates to $44. Then, you receive AA on hand 45. You have a big stack - say $20, thanks to previous good play - and so does the villain. he pushes pre-flop - yes! - and you call gleefully. But this time, his QQ hits a Q on the river and he takes you down.

Suddenly, your $44 has become $24 and your 5BB/hand has become 2.7BB/hand. On the turn of a single card! Clearly you haven't become half as good in the blink of an eye - it's just that the statistical pool is too small and as a result, blips like this will skew the figures. In the long term, you'll be fine, assuming you play well, so don't let yourself be either upset or overly confident by short terms losses or gains.

Betting - as a rule, make sure your bets are between 50% and 100% of the pot. You seem aware of the pot already, which in itself is something a LOT of $10NL players don't realise - they see bets in terms of absolute sizes, as if a $1 into a $1 pot and $1 into a $9 pot are equivalent.

The 50-100% rule is very straightforward - it gives drawing hands bad odds, but it doesn't overcommit you to pots where you might already be behind, and it doesn't push out all the weaker hands you WANT to call your bets. Personally, I tend to bet in the 2/3 - 3/4 range (this is at the $50NL/$100NL level) - at $10 I might bet a bit bigger because drawing hands have less of a clue about odds. So pot size is fine, but you might want to tailor it down slightly. Remember, only bet bigger or smaller than the 50-100% range when you have a specific read or specific play in mind - maybe you have a boat and want flush draws to stay in, or maybe you're playing a calling station who'll call any size bet when you have the nuts.

All-ins - you will have to do this from time to time, and you ain't going to win them all! The key rule here is try and make as many of your all-ins as possible YOUR moves rather than the villain's - this way, you are forcing them to make tricky decisions, which may well lead to a fold, rather than the other way round. You should only be calling an all-in with either the near nuts, or with a good hand against a player where you have a very strong read that they are bluffing or overbetting a marginal hand.

As for bluffs - at $10NL it tends to be pretty easy to spot the bluffers, because they usually overdo it. Most players - and I'd say at least 80% - play very "honest" poker - they bet with good hands, check with bad hands, and if they raise, they have a monster. So it's easy to spot the players who are betting and raising every hand they're in - feel free to be cautious and aware for a few hands while you get y0ur read, then BAM - let them make a move and re-raise them/call their all-in with your set.

The higher you go, the narrower the band of play tends to become - you'll still get loose and tight players, passive and aggressive ones, but the extremes are fewer and the maniacs will be the ones playing 45/25 rather than 90/50 (that's hands played %/hands raised PF %). But you don't need to worry about that for the moment!

Anyway, this is just a few random thoughts - hope it's useful.

nh biondino

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Originally Posted by biondino

Play full ring (10-handed) for now. On these tables you will almost never be playing marginal hands - you need to be sure that your overall number of hands played (not including the big blind) is no more than 20%....

...The nature of no-limit means that you can lose in one hand what you might have expected to win in the entire session (or more). That's how it goes; if you can't handle this, then move to limit - this isn't a snidey remark; it's important to know you have the fortitude to take the inevitable lost stacks.

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First I want to thank you (and everyone else that have been so helpful), for taking the time to be so thorough in your answers. I appreciate the fact that you are straight forward but not condescending. Limit may be a better choice for me here in the beginning stages, but I feel that NL is the place to really make the money so I am willing to lose money at first to perfect this game. I have read the posts though about not limiting yourself to one game, and do plan in the future to learn the strategies of others as well, such as 7-card stud etc...

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Originally Posted by biondino

You need to watch your expectations; 30BB/100 (with BB = 2x big blind) isn't possible outside the short term; 20BB/100 is JUST about possible if you play flawless poker; 10BB/100 is about the area you should be aiming at. Even 5BB/100 is solid, winning poker. Which equates to, yes, $1 per 100 hands. Those are the stakes your playing at - don't allow yourself to get impatient about making $$$.

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This is part of what I wanted to learn. I definitely don't mind grinding it out, I just needed a deeper understanding of what is winning poker and what is self deception :wink:

As I stated earlier, I could afford to put in a bigger BR, but I am not naieve enough to believe that more money will make me a better poker player.

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Originally Posted by biondino

I hope you're also aware of the long term nature of the game. One thing that ALL beginners do is rejoice if they make $20 one day and sob if they lose $15 the next. But - overall that means you've made $5! Which is what a very good player at this limit can expect to make in 250 hands! But! judging it after 2 sessions is just as bad!

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I am very aware of the long term nature of this game, and am definitely looking at it in those terms. I would not bother spending the time I have spent studying for unrealistic thoughts of getting rich overnight. At the very least I would like to make a decent amount of supplemental income for years to come. Like many beginners though, my overall goal is to do this for a living at some point in time. I don't dream of being a poker superstar whose name is known throughout the poker world, but playing well enough to spend the time playing poker that I spend at work and doubling my current income IS my motivating factor. I believe that $200k a year is very achievable if you treat it like a full time job. I have already proven to myself through past experience that I have the self discipline to work it like a job.

As for the rest of your reply, thank you very much for the knowledge. I read and re-read, then I play. After that, I read some more and re-read things again until they become second nature. I have notes that I have read at least 15 times, and still when I read them again, I learn something new that applies to my gameplay. I literally go to sleep thinking about poker, and wake up thinking about it as well. I truly am treating this as a career change and thank you for helping to make this happen.

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Originally Posted by Warpe

nh biondino

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Second that. This post needs to be extracted and stickified. wp sir.

Edit; to OP: you sound like your very motivated and determined, and willing to put in the hard work that poker playing is. This is probably the most important trait of a great poker player, and I wish you good luck on your quest to become one!

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Originally Posted by swiggidy

Here's a pic of my play one day.

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Wow, 4k hands in a day, is that common for you? I feel lazy when I read about people putting in that many hands a day. How many tables are you playing?

Thanks guys - I just wrote down whatever came to mind. Feel free to disagree with any of it!

Percival, you do sound like you have the right approach, the right discipline and all the ammunition to make a good go of poker. I'm not sure I'd see it yet as a career change because, as your experience grows, you'll find your emotions and your pragmatic considerations always changing.

Personally, I know for certain that I DON'T want it ever to be a career - I want it to be a hobby, and one which makes me money (I was going to say "ideally makes me money" but I know that if I became a long-term loser I would either quit or move down to stakes and games I know I can beat), albeit in small quantities. This gives me a different outlook to others, who are more determined, more focused on winning, moving up, and making some or all of their income from the game. Good luck to them - there are many who have succeeded and many others who deserve to succeed.

But poker, more than most things, is a game where experience - literally grinding away thousands upon thousands of hours - is the be all and end all, and until you've had that experience it's impossible to say how you will feel about the game. So I suggest to you that you keep your admirable approach but maybe lower or relax your expectations slightly - it's a fact that very few poker players can make a successful career of it and if you don't manage to become one of them it'd be a real shame if that spoils the game for you forever.

nice posts.

taking down the small pots is fine. just try not to lose a big pot because you slowplayed.
i think AK hand with a flop of QJT was just a bad beat. you're opponent was a fish. i don't know if i would have played it the same, but it was a bad beat.

i think the main strategy for beating $10NL is just playing the best hands.
raising preflop with all your top hands. AQ+ and TT+ is tight enough, but I think you can go a bit looser than that. maybe AJ too and when you're in good position with not many players left in the hand you can raise a lot more hands. (if other players have raised or there are a lot of limpers you may have to tighten up even more).
youre preflop raising should be 4xbb + 1xbb for each additional limper. (maybe even 5xbb as biondino said)
play more hands when you're on the button/cutoff and fold more hands when you're in early position.

i think your main aim is for most of the pots you win to be small ones, and the big pots you win to be against the loose fish and that will pay you off with weak holdings.

never slow play your hands (or almost never). if you flop quads and you check the turn and river and then decide to start betting you are going to win a small pot even if you do get called or your opponent improves his hand. if you make a 50% of the pot bet on the flop you can start to build the pot and the possibility of winning a big pot.

also, you have raised preflop and there is only one more opponent seeing the flop - make a continuation bet (cbet) of about 1/2 to 3/4 of the pot. a lot of the time your opponent misses the flop (66% if he has 2 unpaired cards) and you can take the pot down even though you have missed too. don't carry on your bluff though on the turn and river if you get called on the flop.
if the flop looks very dangerous, there are a lot of players in the pot, you are out of position, your opponent doesn't respect your cbets, then it might not be a good idea to make the cbet.

i think your main aim is to play the best hands. never slowplay. always bet your good hands. win small pots. lose small pots. make your profit from the fish that will pay you off with TPTK/WK when you've flopped 2 pair or better.
an extra is cbetting and stealing the blinds (eg it's folded to the you on the button. you can make a raise of 4xbb with a hand like 65 and try take the pot then. if you get a caller and he checks the flop then cbet. if he's still in the hand now then give up your hand, unless you've hit a hand yourself)

gd post by biondino.
i'm a low stakes player too btw. i'm not an expert at all

Good post, but..

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win small pots. lose small pots.

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.. you might want to win BIG pots and lose small ones ;).

This entire thread needs to be stickied and entered into the Beginner's Digest.

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Originally Posted by flotu

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Originally Posted by swiggidy

Here's a pic of my play one day.

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Wow, 4k hands in a day, is that common for you? I feel lazy when I read about people putting in that many hands a day. How many tables are you playing?

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Crap :oops: , I'm a liar. The last 2k were from 1 day. The first 2k were from the two previous days.

For the 2k I was 4 tabling 6max, which yielded 400 hands/hr. I'm currently 3 tabling with a goal of 1.5k hands/day.

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Originally Posted by Wooderson

This entire thread needs to be stickied and entered into the Beginner's Digest.

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I dunno if I can put a thread called "growing the pots" into the beginner's digest with a straight face.

Thanks for the suggestion though, I'll think about it. I'm trying to leave the stickies as clutterless as possible, so I'll do it when I think of a good way to do it.

remember that slow playing a big hand can make you lose a LOT of chips, while playing it strong off the bat is safe.

one thing that has helped me lately is being satisifed with winning pots on flops and on turns, even with monsters. why? because I won the hand, and didn't lose anything. thing about monster hands is that you have to remember that's when you'll win the most, but also when you will potentially lose the most. play it safe, take it down early.

i'm much more satisfied now watching my chips slowly grow up and up, rather than the highs and monster lows I would get before.