New player, when to start playing for real money?
Here's the story; I stumbled on to pokerstars about 3 months ago. Though it was great cause I could play NLHE for free. So I get my first 1000 in play money and go set some tables. I played like I did when playing with friends (always seemed to hold my own there). Well needless to say, bust, bust and bust. But after a couple of days I manged to get to 40k in chips. So up to the next table. Before long I have got 400k in chips, and am starting to get pretty arrogant. Go over to friends house now and wipe the tables clean. I think; I am poker God. So, why not, I deposit some real money into my account, $25.00 and start playing .01/.02 NHLE, I do pretty well. Over the next few days I am up to $50.00. Then it all came crashing down. BUST. I then go back to play money, and can't win there either, so I start reading this forum and strategies section. Wow, I was not only a fish, but a school of the blessed things. My pre-flop betting before I read all this good stuff, was horrible. Seriously, any face card was worth 1xbb raise, any 2 face cards was worth 2xbb raise, any suited connectors 2xbb, suited faces 3xbb and suited face connectors 4xbb, pp ranged from 2xbb to oh my God, all-in.
Now, I will not play any hand that is not worth raising, with the exception of mid pp's which I will call raises for set value, only and I mean only if my stack can afford it, and their stack can pay off. And when taking into consideration if my stack can afford it I have to have enough to fire a full pot c-bet even if I didn't hit my set. BTW, I am only playing S & G's now, ring games seem to tedious for me, and I like the action of tourney style play, I absolutely love being on the bubble pushing 10, 10 into an unraised pot to see if I get any callers, and hopefully double up. Anyways, in the last two weeks I have managed to turn my dwindled down to 120k in chips to 1.6M, playing at the 25k 9 person sng's. Mainly though, I make good plays, however I do on occasion make stupid moves, then ask myself why I did that.
But on to my play now. I am extremely tight (or at least I so believe) early in a tourny in early position, the worst hand I will play is K/Qs. On the bubble I will go as low as A/Jo. I will not play mid pp's in late position unless it is folded around to me, I prefer to play mid pp's in middle postion, this seems counter intuitive, since you generally want position for those cards but I would rather have the first bet with them. Here is the reason why, 90% of the time I raise pre-flop I will be the last person to raise going to see the flop, that being the case I want to be the first person to fire at the pot. 50% (or there about) of the time, everyone who was eager enough to call my raise will fold, 30% of the time I will get a call (sorry, this makes no sense to me) and 20% I will get a re-raise. re-raises, them there are tricky, I now then have to put my opponent on a range, and see what the board looks like. But generally I treat a re-raise as tptk, over pair or a set. Usually I am folding unless I have witnessed my guy multiple times raising with middle or low pair. Rarely, my gut will tell me to fire a re-re-raise, but this is only if I have shown down some monsters previously and my op is not a tight player. But I got to tell you, it feels really good pushing 7, 7 on a flop 2, 6, 10 to be called by A K. You got to love people who will call all-ins with A K without hitting the flop. But I digress, the point; playing middle pp's the way I play them has thus far been in my favor.
Most common position to find me in a sng. Short stacked with 5-6 players left. I am here because either I have not had a single hand yet or because I got cracked, you know the story-- A's raises pre-flop something stupid to get called by 3/5s and catch the flush on the river. But that is alright, it is poker, things like that tend to happen. But here, short stacked 3 out of the money, this is my bread and butter, all the hands that I have disciplined myself to stick to are now huge. If I am betting pre-flop with no re-raises, I am willing to push the flop. By the time 4 players are left I am usually sitting pretty good, 2nd or 3rd chip leader. Now I start putting pressure on the chip leader and the bubble. My range at this stage is very unpredictable, mainly at this stage I have people scared, which is fine by me. I generally finish 2nd or 3rd. I only have a handful of 1st's, I get so loose in my range that I forget to stop and respect good bets. I am at this stage playing like the other people were at the start of the sng, well, not quite that loose, but suited connectors are always raised pre-flop, I am betting strong on any pair and I am stealing the pot on tplk. But because of this I am really susceptible to over pairs, and that is generally how I go out. Oh, you re-raise me, ok, I'll push. Hey, that's a 3-bet, I'll push. And bad beats, well I can say I claim one for about every 10 that happen to me, so when there is 3 people left at the table I push and get a caller, I am generally done.
So that's that, it thus far seems to be a winning formula, but I would like to get a few more 1st's. And of course I want to start playing real money sng's, but simply put, I am not sure I am ready for them, I am sure to face more re-raises, but should get less fish, but maybe it will be the same amount of fish. I don't know.
