Starting real money poker finally

[AFchung]

Pokerstars had some sort of promotion, where the play money players all received 5 dollars in real money. After quitting for a long time, i finally started playing poker again

Anyways, I headed off to the lowest micro stake at 2NL. After a few hours of play, I got my bankroll to $11. I read the bankroll management guide and it recommended me have 15-30 buyins.

1. Does this mean I was suppose to have 30-60 dollars before even playing 2NL?
2. Also, when should i move up to 5 NL?
3. I had KK and there was a raise, re-raise in front of me. Can i just shove here?
4. If you have a high pocket pair (raised preflop and got called) and an overcard comes off, what would it take in order for you to release your hand?

[ponyboy]

1. According to BR Management yes, however just keep playing with your free money. Good start.
2. Move up generally at about 15-20 buyins or $75 at least. If you want to move up sooner you can do it at about $50 and buy in for half the total each time.
3. Yes. If you run into AA you're behind, AK you're ahead. At 2NL you're probably against anything paired to anything suited.
4. A raise to my continuation bet. A call means I'm being careful after the turn and river because you may be getting slowplayed or drawn out on.

[Monty3038]

Pokerstars had some sort of promotion, where the play money players all received 5 dollars in real money. After quitting for a long time, i finally started playing poker again

Anyways, I headed off to the lowest micro stake at 2NL. After a few hours of play, I got my bankroll to $11. I read the bankroll management guide and it recommended me have 15-30 buyins.

1. Does this mean I was suppose to have 30-60 dollars before even playing 2NL?
2. Also, when should i move up to 5 NL?
3. I had KK and there was a raise, re-raise in front of me. Can i just shove here?
4. If you have a high pocket pair (raised preflop and got called) and an overcard comes off, what would it take in order for you to release your hand?

Ok, let's start with the first one... well, yes and no. You were given free money and made something from it, with no starting roll you built a little bit... stick to .01/.02 but be ready for a variance swing that can potentially take you out.

2) When you have 30-60 buy ins for .05 is when you move up... that would be a max buy-in of $10, so $300-$600 in you Bankroll, as I see it.

3) Very dependent, post hand if you can.

4) Read on the player, depending on the hand, stack sizes, etc... need hand examples really to determine a good answer.

If you're new, welcome to FTR... post some hands and you'll get better comments.

[AFchung]

thanks for the input guys i'll see if i can find that KK hand in a bit

4. A raise to my continuation bet. A call means I'm being careful after the turn and river because you may be getting slowplayed or drawn out on.

a lot of ppl like to re-raise my c-bets with nothing. sometimes if the flop is really raggy and they raise my cbet, i'll come over the top and they will fold.

edit: i dont know how to use the hand converter or where to find the hand history file, but this just happened to me

- Dealt KK late position. Raised 6x (into 3 limpers)
- Flop: A78 different suits
- Villain bought in for only $1 in a 2NL game, and raised 3/4 the pot. I was last to act, so i folded

[d0zer]

a lot of ppl like to re-raise my c-bets with nothing. sometimes if the flop is really raggy and they raise my cbet, i'll come over the top and they will fold.

A lot of people will re-raise a c-bet with TPGK or the like to 'see where they're at'. when you come over the top, they take that as a sign they're beat, and fold.

I doubt 5NL players are good enough to fight back at c-betters with air for the most part.

[Stacks]

You want around 20+ buyins for the level you want to play, because of the variance associated with poker and how you can play good but still lose at times. But when given the free money there just go ahead and give it a try and play 2nl until around $100 and then give 5nl a try. It's okay to be somewhat more aggressive with your BR at the microstakes because not much changes from 2nl to 5nl. Just buy in for 100bb and play it that way. ALso be prepared to drop if your BR hits something like $80.

And on the KK hand you should make it a point to never fold KK preflop at 2nl. They think any pp is boss so alot of the times they shove or raise you have them dominated. Sure you will at times run up against AA, but that doesn't happen often.

Ha! I got the free $5 as well because I had a previous "play-money" account from a while back. So, I did what any honest gambler would do. I logged into my old play money account and transferred the $5 to my "real-money" account I've been using all along. Hey, it's only $5 but I'll take free money any day of the week and twice on Sunday. Now if I could just get rakeback there...

[Outlaw]

Start with about 20 buyins at 2nl or 5nl. This means either $40 or $100. Now, don't put anymore money into your poker account ever. Instead, grind through the limits and get good at poker. Then, the higher you get, take a slightly higher bankroll requirement than the stakes previous so that you better protect your poker bankroll.

When you have $100, play 5nl. (20 buy-ins)
When you have $250, play 10nl. (25 buy-ins)
When you have $750, play 25nl. (30 buy-ins)
When you have $1750, play 50nl. (35 buy-ins)
When you have $4000, play 100nl. (40 buy-ins)
When you have $10000, play 200nl. (50 buy-ins)

If you follow this and regularly play and work on your game, you'll be making a lot of money in less than two years imo.

[Robb]

First, congrats on doubling your free money investment. Yeah, you might go broke - 5 BI isn't enough. But why worry? It's house money. Just play solid and maybe you'll grind a few BI's.

Second, listen to the bankroll management posts from guys like Spoonitnow (above). Grind up to $100 and then head for 5nl, and so forth. It'll take a while, but you'll be learning how to deal with these situations you're asking about.

Third, not much to add on strategy. Everyone has weighed in with good stuff.

Good luck, and post some hand histories. Use WeakTight's hand converter. It's very easy, and they have an FTR export that works very well. And they store the HH for you to link to, if you want. Once we see some HH's, we'll be able to help you better.

[d0zer]

I started at 25NL with 2BI and worked up a roll for 25NL with that. took a few months...

If you're solid, at the micros where the play is pretty loose, the odds are weighed fairly well in yer favor. Lookit Pyth running like some disgusting double digit ptbb/100 over 50k+ hands.

[AFchung]

how do i look for a specific hand in my hand history? there's a bunch of .txt files in there, but i'm not sure how to sort through all of it

also, how can i use poker tracker to show graphs of my poker playing? i have it set to auto-import, and i let it import as i play, but other than that i havent touched PT

[Stacks]

AF, if you remember when the hand happened you could just sort by date and look through it that way, but that's somewhat difficult if you played alot of hands. The best is to look at your sessions in PT and find the hand that way in PT.

And about the graph what are you running PT2 or PT3?

[AFchung]

i'm still running PT2 and dont plan to upgrade to PT3 unless i get a little bit more serious with poker. and about the hand histories, i played for like 3 hours so looking for one specific hand would be pretty challenging

[Outlaw]

Upgrade to PT3, seriously. I did it 2 days ago and am wondering why I didn't do it sooner. Its well worth it. If you can't afford it right now, use the 30 day trial until you can. I didn't use hud until now, I used Hold'em indicator. Hud is far superior in every way.

Better stuff about PT3:
1. Runs smoother.
2. Easier interface.
3. Built in hud.
4. Built in graphs.
5. 3-bet % in hud.
6. Built in hud.
7. Did I mention graphs and hud is built in?

[Robb]

i'm still running PT2 and dont plan to upgrade to PT3 unless i get a little bit more serious with poker. and about the hand histories, i played for like 3 hours so looking for one specific hand would be pretty challenging

Holdem Manager has a microstakes version for only $55. It's equivalent or better than PT3. Both have built-in HUD's.

If you're using PT2, then PokeEV is a free add-on program that will produce pretty graphs, though the sites it works with are a bit limited. In PT2, to find specific hands, I do the following.

First, on preferences tab, I default to looking at today's hands. I have the "day/time preferences" set so the new day starts at 4 AM, tomorrow, since I often play until after midnight, but rarely past 2 AM.

Second, after every session, I glance through a few hands. You can sort by big winners and big losers in the Games tab.

Third, I usually note troublesome hands while I'm playing. I keep track either mentally or on a notepad what my starting hand was. When I'm done playing, I go to the General tab, scroll through the opening hands until I find the right starting hand, then watch all the hands where I started with those cards in the replayer (click tiny square icon above HH's with "r" on it). When I've found the specific hand, I click on it and copy the HH text and head for WeakTight.com.

For your situation, the thing I do that might help you most is that I often post HH's during a session. I just get it from the "instant replay / HH" on the site, depending on where I'm playing. I open my web browser in the background, with tabs for both weaktight and FTR. Every time I play a hand that confuses me, I consider posting it.

That's probably more detail than you wanted, but you seemed to be asking about some of the basics. It was hard to tell what you knew about PT and what you didn't. So I hope this actually helps.

[oskar]

- Dealt KK late position. Raised 6x (into 3 limpers)
- Flop: A78 different suits
- Villain bought in for only $1 in a 2NL game, and raised 3/4 the pot. I was last to act, so i folded

VERY conservative laydown. This could easily just be a beefy feeler bet. I would call and wait for the turn. You have to be aware how often your opponent raises post-flop. If you have played with him for at least an hour and he never made a play like that with air or a draw - I would still call and re-evaluate on the turn.
A raise wouldn't be a bad play either. If you get 3-bet you are probably beat. If he has a weak A, he'll probably slow down on the turn.

[AFchung]

Thanks for the comments everyone, especially the PT3 post. it was very informative. I clicked around my PT and had a few questions

1. In the general tab, where is AK and KK? They don't show up. It goes from AA to AQ. Maybe there was an import error or something?

2. what is BB/100? After a few sessions of 2NL it says my BB/100 is 32.35

3. Here's a hand history that confuses me when i look at it again. Hopefully someone can shed light on what's going on because I have no clue what happened here

$0.01/$0.02 No Limit Holdem
8 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG 00Govan00 ($4.00)
UTG+1 Doktorn ($2.85)
MP1 eggraid ($4.15)
MP2 rlbjhk ($2.91)
CO Hero ($1.87)
BTN F.Pessao ($1.47)
SB amazing3dg ($2.23)
BB L4M3R1 ($5.04)

Pre-flop: ($0.03, 8 players) Hero is CO
4 folds, Hero calls $0.02, F.Pessao raises to $0.08, 2 folds, Hero calls $0.06

Flop: ($0.19, 2 players)
Hero checks, F.Pessao bets $0.04, Hero raises to $0.12, F.Pessao calls $0.08

Turn: ($0.43, 2 players)
Hero checks, F.Pessao checks

River: ($0.43, 2 players)
Hero bets $0.02, F.Pessao calls $0.02

Final Pot: $0.47
Hero shows:
F.Pessao shows:

Hero wins $0.47 ( won +$0.25 )
F.Pessao lost -$0.22


=========================================

4. Here is another one


$0.01/$0.02 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG Hero ($1.99)
UTG+1 pizo73 ($1.09)
CO buddyanton ($1.77)
BTN Animál ($4.73)
SB Spezz2 ($2.11)
BB DemonClean8 ($4.91)

Pre-flop: ($0.03, 6 players) Hero is UTG
Hero raises to $0.06, 3 folds, Spezz2 calls $0.05, DemonClean8 calls $0.04

Flop: ($0.18, 3 players)
Spezz2 checks, DemonClean8 bets $0.13, Hero raises to $0.39, Spezz2 folds, DemonClean8 calls $0.26

Turn: ($0.96, 2 players)
DemonClean8 bets $0.60, Hero goes all-in $1.54, DemonClean8 calls $0.94

River: ($4.04, 2 players)

Final Pot: $4.04
DemonClean8 shows:
Hero shows:

DemonClean8 wins $3.84 ( won +$1.85 )
Spezz2 lost -$0.06
Hero lost -$1.99

[Stacks]

1) If you are sorting by hand then I believe it goes through all the Aces, such as AA, AK, AQ......A2, then to the Kings.

2) That is your winrate. bb/100 is how many big blinds you win in 100 hands on average. ptbb/100 is how many big bets (big blind x 2) you win per 100 hands on average. Also an important note PT says bb/100 but they are really measuring in ptbb/100.

3) In hand 1 (33) you hit a set on the flop. You should have bet out strong there, probably the size of the pot and see what happens there.

In hand 2 the villian caught 2 pair on the turn to beat your pair of Aces/Queen kicker.

[AFchung]

1) If you are sorting by hand then I believe it goes through all the Aces, such as AA, AK, AQ......A2, then to the Kings.

2) That is your winrate. bb/100 is how many big blinds you win in 100 hands on average. ptbb/100 is how many big bets (big blind x 2) you win per 100 hands on average. Also an important note PT says bb/100 but they are really measuring in ptbb/100.

3) In hand 1 (33) you hit a set on the flop. You should have bet out strong there, probably the size of the pot and see what happens there.

In hand 2 the villian caught 2 pair on the turn to beat your pair of Aces/Queen kicker.

i understand the breakdown of the hands and what happened, but internally i dont know if i did the right thing or not. At #3 the flop was dangerous, and on 4th and 5th street came 4 diamonds on the community. I felt i couldn't bet for value

in the second hand, was pushing AI a bad move? what else could i have done differently to play this hand better?

[JKDS]

bet the shit out of hand 1. every hand with an ace has a draw, diamond draws, and suited connector draws are all over the place. bet bet bet bet bet. After seeing KJ with no diamonds, i think i pound my head into the computer, laugh hysterically for 5 minutes, then go back to playing. i check call river.
hand two is standard i think.

generally, i tend to raise more in micro stakes games, people here call to liberally and i want them to pay for it.

[oskar]

hand #1
overbet the pot on the flop after he bets. This is a horrible board, and he could have all kinds of draws.
The turn totally sucks. I would still bet. You aren't folding anyway. If he re-raises I wouldn't know what to do frankly. It would be a 50/50 situation. This is also a perfect card to bluff at and at 2nl people stack off with 2 pair on a board like this.

2c on the river.
Is actually not such a horrible play.
But there's a good reason to do it and a bad one. - either way you should have bet a little more.
I'm curious why you did it.

[Robb]

2) That is your winrate. bb/100 is how many big blinds you win in 100 hands on average. ptbb/100 is how many big bets (big blind x 2) you win per 100 hands on average. Also an important note PT says bb/100 but they are really measuring in ptbb/100.

This depends - PT2 was configured to read BB/100 when I first installed over a year ago. Check the "preferences" tab, it's in the right hand column just below the "level" select check boxes. Click on the "what's this" link to figure out the settings.

BTW, FTR regs quote their ptBB/100 almost exclusively, even when they just type in "BB/100."

In the general tab, if AK isn't showing up, it means you didn't import an AK hand during the session.

[Robb]

Hand 1 (33), bet about $.25 on the flop. Pot the turn. You can ease up on the river, if you're worried. Remember, on the river against a made flush, the set ALWAYS has 10 outs: 3 each of the 8 5 4 make a full house, and the case 3 makes quads. Be willing to bet sets even into scary boards. Remember, all the non-nut flushes have to worry about being the 2nd best flush.

Hand 2 (AQ) I like the raise on the flop but not the turn. He's shown the willingness to play back. I know he "caught" the 9 on the turn, but even before that I'd have probably just called it down. Pot control. Remember that TPTK is usually good, but if villain's willing/eager to play for stacks, it probably ain't. But at these stakes, going broke with TPTK isn't the worst idea ever.

As a final point, imo the winning players at the micros do a good job of NOT getting stacked with TPTK while stacking lots of the others when they hit TPTK. Of course, it's hard to lay it down when they're agro with crap so often. So, like I said, not a terrible play here, imo.