I dont want to be a fish anymore

y

I started playing poker online about two years ago with some up and down results. All in all online I guess(and i hate to admit it) im a losing player overall. Realistically im only 20% of the player I have the potential to be. I just found this site and already my games improved but i've still loads of leaks. Among the biggest are:

Bankroll management
TILT
Patience

I've no aspirations to be a pro I just love the game and want to quit leaking money. I think i've finally got the bankroll management under way (using the 20 buy in rule) and gone back to basics and starting from the bottom.I've found the more tables i play the better my patience. There's lots of posters on here and their knowledge of the game just astounds me. I feel like i've been sleeping the past two years.

Q.Any one any solid advice that they wish they knew when starting off?

Q.Also Anyone been consistently losing and one day decided (or found something Groundbreaking) that turned their game around?

Its hard going back to the drawing board but its time to be realistic. Also if anyone has any good sites, docs. or pdf's i could maybe read in work I'd appreciate it. Two years on and mucho money later its sad to think i'm only asking for help now. Help???

OverTheTop

read harrington on holdem 1 and 2

Hank Scorpio

dont bluff at low stakes, bet hard with big hands preflop and flop if u hit.

if u lost to a better hand dont go on tilt , this happens

if u lost to a weaker hand relise what u did wrong unless u got totally sucked out on

SetOverSet

OverTheTop wrote: »

read harrington on holdem 1 and 2

+1 for tournies.

I'd start by reading everything on here http://www.pr0crast.com/2+2.NL.Anthology.v1.htm. go to http://ryanfee.com/ and get the free 6-max strategy guide. It's certainly worth a read.

gl

Lafortezza

Stickys at top of this forum might help.

ianmc38

You seem like a genuine guy so if you PM me all your HH I'll take a look through them and give you some pointers.

cooker3

SetOverSet wrote: »

+1 for tournies.

I'd start by reading everything on here http://www.pr0crast.com/2+2.NL.Anthology.v1.htm. go to http://ryanfee.com/ and get the free 6-max strategy guide. It's certainly worth a read.

gl

Definitely read these

ianmc38 wrote: »

You seem like a genuine guy so if you PM me all your HH I'll take a look through them and give you some pointers.

Take up this! Such a great offer by Ian.

In general play, review and post hands up where your unsure of the correct action. Go to HH threads and reply to other hands, don't be worried about giving wrong advice. It will probably the best thing you could do. Keep doing this, never stop learning and it will come to you.

Macspower

ianmc38 wrote: »

You seem like a genuine guy so if you PM me all your HH I'll take a look through them and give you some pointers.

this is a fine offer to what seems to be a genuine guy.... wp Ian

^^^ DO THIS.......

one last piece of advice.... ^^^^ DO THIS ^^^^

ocallagh

For me, studying my stats from poker tracker was a fairly quick fix.

VPIP and PFR stats. If these are off track you need to focus on preflop basics which are easy to fix with a bit of discipline. Most of your leaks will stem from this.

AF and 3/bet stats - these are important but not as easy to fix.

The four stats above will vary based on your general style of play, but they should all fall within a certain range. W$SD and winrates for premium hands are two other stats to look at

Once you are at least opening with the right hands you can move onto postflop play. From here you should start posting up hand histories in the theory forum and people here will be quick to point out any obvious mistakes you can fix quickly enough.

From then on, it's practice


edit: how did I put a smiley at the top?

Ste05

ocallagh wrote: »

edit: how did I put a smiley at the top?

EDIT: (Got it wrong first guess... go me the ultimate mod... )

You clicked the button below the box where you made your post.



Also, to the OP.

You've made the first giant leap, by finding sites like this, post and reply in hands on the HH forum and you're game will improve immensely. Just leave your ego at the door is all I'd recommend.

pocketdooz

Something from Zuuroy that I think could help alot

zuutroy wrote: »

The next thing I want to include is a list of questions you should ask yourself before every single action (Do this when you’re 1-2 tabling initially). This is completely lifted from a Phil Galfond article, which IanMc initially gave me the link to and it’s awesome. If you can apply these to every single decision you’ll make a lot of money from poker:

What am I hoping he does next?
Is this bet going to make him do that?
What do I want him to fold?
What to I want him to call with?
What do I want him to raise with?
What am I representing?

The 3rd one will save you a lot of money particularly against bad players. If, like me you tend to make some awful calls when it’s plain you’re beat. Just stop before you rush for the ‘hero-call’ button and ask yourself “What is he doing this with that I beat?” Very often when you're facing a 3rd barrel from a bad player and you have a one pair hand, the answer is little or nothing.

ianmc38

Sorry about that but Halfbaked hacked my account last nigth and posted loads of ridiculous posts like the ones above. Obv I wouldnt have the time to do that for myself let alone others as Im currently in India and have feck all free time. However, Peter feels so bad that we agreed its only fair that he does the HH reviews for you as a way of saying sorry for wasting your time like that.

GL.

Ian

Samba

ianmc38 wrote: »

Sorry about that but Halfbaked hacked my account last nigth and posted loads of ridiculous posts like the ones above. Obv I wouldnt have the tiem to dot hat or myself let alone others as Im currently in India and have feck all free time. However, Peter feels so bad that we agreed its only fair that he does the HH reviews for you as a way of saying sorry for wasting your time like that.

GL.

Ian

He's an evil man

Mr. Flibble

y wrote: »

Q.Any one any solid advice that they wish they knew when starting off?

I was probably told this early but it didn't get through for a long time.
Play aggressively. This doesn't mean play loose. It means betting yourself when you would call a raise to you. Raising when you have fold equity & a draw. Don't slow play big hands. Bet them as hard as you would bet a big draw (which should be hard).

y wrote: »

Q.Also Anyone been consistently losing and one day decided (or found something Groundbreaking) that turned their game around?

Two things for me. Having a proper bankroll allowed me to open up my game a lot. Losing a buyin no longer caused tilt as it was 1/20 of the roll in my account.
Also, proper bet sizing helped. If you're playing .50/1, the and the pot is 45 on the turn. Don't bet 15. Don't bet 25. Bet 30+.

Stoko

Mr. Flibble wrote: »

Raising when you have fold equity & a draw.

What do you mean by this? Sorry for the silly question.... would you mind to give a very simple example?

pocketdooz

Stoko wrote: »

What do you mean by this? Sorry for the silly question.... would you mind to give a very simple example?

AFAIK . . . . here's a simple eg.

You hold A h 10 h , Flop comes down J h 9 c 8 h

Opponent bets in to you. You currently only have Ace high but have

fold equity . . . if you can make him fold a % of the time by raising.

a draw . . . the nut flush draw (9 outs) and an up and down striaght draw (8 outs)

So you can win two ways, by making him fold the best hand by raising (depending on stack sizes, position and history, the % will change) or by drawing out (17 outs twice).

Mr. Flibble

Stoko wrote: »

What do you mean by this? Sorry for the silly question.... would you mind to give a very simple example?

Basically it means semi bluffing. If you are sitting there with a Ah Qh and have called a pre-flop raise. If an opponent raises before the flop and then bets out again on a Th 2h 6c flop, short of any info on the player telling you differently, you are better off rereaising over just calling.

Few reasons for this.
1) Chances are he doesn't have a strong enough hand to want to play a big pot and you'll win right away.
2) If he does call you have a reasonable chance of winning against any hand.
3) You should play your sets and other strong made hands in a similar way. In those cases you will have a huge % chance of winning the hand over most of his hands - but your opponents will never know if you only have a draw or a made hand. Makes it very difficult for them to play you.

SetOverSet

OP, this may seem obvious, but when you're playing online don't be doing other things at the same time that'll distract you, like emailing mates, doing your online banking or whatever. Concentrate and focus on the game and everything that's going on at the table, especially when you're not in a hand. You never know when you pick up some information that'll help you later.