Online Play - A different Game Altogether

dvdfan

Hi,

Ive read the harrington books and alot of online articles, im familiar with pot,implied odds what hands i should and shouldnt be playing pre-flop. Ive managed to control tilt, simply using pot odds makes this easy, i just tell myself the odds arent good enough, before i knew the odds i was chasing straights and flushes too much. Anyway, in theory i can play a good game BUT........

Playing online is a different ball game, continuation bets, semi-bluffs etc are all out unless youve got to the latter stages of an STT and you know your opponent has some poker skill.

So, when i raise to 200-300 in a $5-$10 STT (initial pot 1000) when i have a pair of 10's to deter action im wasting my time, more often than not theyll call with anything half decent J10 QJ 44 u name it. The same problem comes with KK,QQ,JJ in a proper game if someone called a big raise id be pretty sure they have a decent hand and if i had QQ and a king or Ace flopped id be ready to drop the hand if i got a raise, however online if someone calls a raiseand K or A flops you havent a clue what they have and even though theyre raising every hand they could have hit a hand this time.

Also when i raise or re-raise with a good hand maybe AK,AQ there always seems to be someone thats willing to go all in.

So has anyone any advice how to deal with these situations where you have more than 1 very aggressive players on a 9 STT where youve not long to judge their play. Should i just be calling most hands instead of raising until the later stages to avoid having my 200 raises (1/5th of my starting pot) gobbled up with all in and massive re-raises???

Mostly im still doing pretty well in STT's ITM around 50% and 20%+ ROI but i cant help thinking all them raises im losing could give me a healthier stack when it gets down to the last 3 as im only winning about 9-10% which isnt great considering im getting to the last 3 50% of the time.

bubbleking

a tactic i find the best at lower stakes STT is to sit and wait for a premium hand then push. this may seem stupid to higher stakes players but it is incredible how often you get called with marginal/dominated hands. at this level the real poker starts just on the bubble if your lucky so its just a case of being patient and letting the fish die.

ArmaniJeanss

Are u playing on PPP or any of the Tribeca skins?

If so at $5 or $10 games I wouldnt bother raising in the first level (I'm assuming this is when you are raising to 200) with the likes of TT,99 etc, just limp in for set value.
Save your open-raises for level3 50/100 unless you have QQ+, AK.

dvdfan

Yep, Its Paddy power. i assume so that paddy power poker is full of fish compared to other sites. All the better so. Not raising when the blinds are so low makes sense, no point raising 200 to win possibly just 20/40 blinds.

When you say a premium hand i assume you mean the top 5 AA,KK,QQ,AK,JJ

I pretty much play very tight so i would only raise with them in the early positions with the above and probably A,Q aswell. So thats probably why i do well, its just annoying to see my raises re-raised only to throw them down and see Ace Rag or 22

fobster

All you need in the tribeca $5 stts is patience and lots of it. Let the donkeys knock each other out in the early stages, and start making your move when there's 5 players left.

Of course when some players check on the bb with pocket aces there is little you can really do that can work against them.