Total donkey: Beginner ?'s

[suckout]

Hey everyone,

I've playing LH at the micro's for around a month now. After messing around a bit in a couple of low stakes home games I read Cloutier & McEvoys "Championship Hold 'Em", and Super System 2, with special attention paid to Jen Harmans LH section. I've been lurking here & two plus two, reading for an hour or two a day as well. I signed on for the no deposit $35 bonus at VC Poker, got my initial $10 and hit the .02/.04 to see if I could build a roll from air.

I'm playing at VC Poker / ipoker network, all at FR (10 handed) tables where 40-60%, and sometimes even 70%+ are seeing the flop on average, so very loose & fishy. The players are a crazy mix of ultra-aggro LAG wannabes (10%), typical loose/weak fish (60%), supertight/weak (10%) and TAG-ish, Sklansky reading BR builders like myself (20%).

The beats nearly drove me to quit at the beginning. The first 4 or 5 quality hands I played for real money online, all AK, AQ, and KK etc got cracked by weak draws. Welcome to SSLH! But I kept chugging along, sticking mostly to the charts and "by the book" type play the forums advise for SSLH. Despite a few hands where I've spewed off a few bets in frustration trying to get a station to fold, I think I'm doing alright.

First ? I have is re: win rates. My first 2000 hands on .02/.04 I averaged 13bb/100, but I've hit a flat spot the last few days and dropped to 8.5bb/100. I actually got depressed at not having a winning day after 2 hours of play, lol.. think my ego is getting into this. Is this WR decent for the micro's? Is it high and I'm looking at variance with a levelling out to come? I'm not terribly worried about the number, just playing enough to gather 300BB for the .05/.10 game.

There are a few specific situations I'm having trouble with:

First, overcards (AK) after missing the flop in a multi-way pot. Unless its a TAG regular I'm in the pot with, betting never provokes a fold, and they'll call you down with a crazy range of hands. In the last couple of days days I've been called down and then re- raised on the river by a a J3o who'd hit nothing and had no draws, and today I played a pot where a guy who'd flopped a set and turned a full house heads up check/called all the way down while I was firing away thinking my 2nd pair/A kicker might be good. WTF?!! The odds are usually there to call, but I've read quite a few warnings about getting coolered in this situation by "poison anchor" types who call A2o, hit the 2 on the flop, the A on the turn or river, and then barbecue your TPTK because you think they're overplaying some draw or 2nd pair. The only really reliable tell I've worked out in these situations is when is when some calling station suddenly begins leading into the pot when the board pairs or the flush hits, or when one if the TAG regs leads into a pot. Other than that, its complete mayhem.

I've learned to be very careful with hands like AT, KJ etc in FR.. in fact I trapped myself with AT vs. AJ today despite being careful only to play it late and in an unraised pot.

Hitting a crap hand in the blinds is another leak. I've got T3o and get a rainbow flop of 2 7 T, what to do now? I'd been leading into multi-way, unraised pots OOP in this situation, thinking I had the best hand now and I should make the draws pay, but got punished quite a few times. Now I play it like a draw.. 5 outs.. unless its checked to me and the flop looks completely innocent.. then I'll raise the flop and fire at the turn again if nothing too frightening hits and its checked to me again. It always seems to be the turn raise that clears out most of weak/loose types, but even then I get called by people without even an over.

My last ? involves playing big draws, open enders and nut or 2nd nut flushes on the flop. I believe Harman says ram and jam it regardless of opponents, but quite a bit of advice I've read on the 'net for SS seems to contradict this. I think Harman is writing for games were your semi-bluff will have value when you don't hit the draw, which is hardly ever at micro-stakes. Most of the advice I've read says bet into 3+ opponents b/c your equity is around 35%, but you're only putting in 1/4 or less of the money. Makes sense to me. What criteria do you use for deciding whether to put bets in with draws like that? Obviously if you've got 4 stations in the pot, you get as much in as possible, but what about the marginal situations.. 2 players, or heads up? If its a TAG I'll bet it b/c I actually have fold equity, but other than that I'm at a loss what to do with these hands other than just check/call/fold in line with the odds the pot is laying me. Gee, maybe that is the answer, lol.

I also keep getting brain freeze when I hit a big hand and doing the dumbest things.. mostly not putting in every last bet I can when I'm an odds on favorite but don't have the nuts, always worrying about being dominated. Even when I had Q3 and flopped QQ3 I was looking 5 times at the turn and river cards (harmless) when they were spewing at me before rather gingerly reraising. One had hit a set of 7's on the turn, the other had AA.. hell of a pot. I hope experience will cure this.

Thanks in advance for reading and taking the time to respond.

[LawDude]

1. Don't analyze win rates until you have at least 10K-20K hands.

2. How you play overcards post-flop depends entirely on your reads of opposing players. You need to put them on a range based on what you have seen from them in previous hands. Are they likely to call you down with air? Will they raise back at you to bluff? What about when they have a good hand, what will they do?

The other thing to keep in mind is the size of the pot. It's a lot easier to continue to play your overcards if there is enough of a pot to justify a play in the hopes that your hand may improve. If the pot is small, you can't get opponents to fold, and you think that you are behind your opponent's range or that the flop hit him, you probably should just dump them.

2. With respect to crap hands in the blinds, obviously, if you hit top pair weak kicker from the big blind, there's nothing wrong with trying to win the pot on the flop with a bet. But if you get resistance or several callers, you have to slow down. The reality is that unless you get a BIG flop, these "big blind specials" can often turn out to be second-best hands. Play with caution.

3. There's 2 reasons to bet your draw-- to semi-bluff and to build the pot. If everyone is calling you down, then obviously the bet has no value as a semi-bluff. It still builds the pot, though, and since you are getting people to call you down there's value to that when you hit your draw.

The criteria I use for these bets is how strong my draw is. The more outs I have, and the less likely someone else is out there who can beat even my improved hand, the more I think these semi-bluff / pot-building bets are fine. Thus, straight + flush draws with overcards > straight + flush draws > nut flush draws > other flush draws > open-ended and double-gutshot straight draws > gutshots.

4. You'll get used to river betting, as you gain more of a sense of what villains' betting patterns tell you about their hands.

[Chopper]

hey suckout, welcome aboard. love the name.

as for WR, yes, 8.5 is great. personally, i think anything over 5 is awesome at the lowest levels, too, because the betting structure of this game, imo, just doesnt allow you to get too far ahead of yourself before a bad run of suckouts brings you back to earth. a little higher, i look for 3+, and over 2/4, imo, anything positive is nicely done.

however, dont let that discourage you. these days the NL games are pretty tough, too. and, it takes quite a bit of study to beat 100NL ($1/$2 equivalent in terms of big bets) for a 3+. so, if you are beating 1/2 for a 2 or 3, you are practically making the same amount of money and you will clear bonuses faster/earn rakeback faster, imo.

AK has 6 outs, if clean, so technically its a semibluff. but, i dont like betting w/o 8+ outs at these super low stakes. there are just too many calling stations for your cbets to work. i think you are on the right track when you are looking for the tighter players to bet into in this situation. but, if i am oop, i will c/f a whiffed AK at least 50% of the time because 44 and bottom pair will call me all the way to the river. however, when running hot, i tend to cbet that AK a little more and because i tend to catch the 6 outer when i run well, i bet it for full value all the way down when that station is calling with 44. but, as a general rule, i dont cbet oop w/o a decent draw. in position, i like to cbet everything HU or even 3way.

leading crap hands that flop weak TP's is rough in multiway pots. you are likely best, but dont figure to hold up by showdown with all the donkeys drawing to crazy stuff all the way. you just dont know where you stand, so there is no good way to play it for a nice profit. therefore, i treat it like the marginal, almost reverse implied odds hand, that it is and just c/f. i may mix in a c/c once in awhile, but T3 is just not strong enough on a board like that, imo.

big draws, i will ram it HU because of the FE i "should" have. and, it helps me in other HU situations against this guy if i dont always wait for strongish made hands to really pump a pot. in other words, it helps my real hands get called, too.

multiway, i watch for a concept called "relative position." i dont want to force players to call two bets cold by raising. all that serves is thinning out a field i want to pay me off when my draw comes in. therefore, i usually try and c/r the flop....since i do that with 2nd pair good kicker and top pair hands, it balances out my plays rather well making me harder to read....not that these guys are reading me (but some serious players are trying and the balancing is really more for them.). i will lead if there was no raise and the table is running passive. however, if the betting is likely to come from a player on my right, i lead, too. if the betting is coming from a player closer to my left, i c/r with confidence. it just builds a bigger pot and keeps players in the hand...tying them to their crappy hand longer.