can people be taught how to play poker?

[drpugilist]

damn hc im still trying to catch up from earlier!!

 

[HarryCaray]

There's really no short-cut for getting in there and playing lots of hands, and learning by experience.

A few things I've learned over the years:

- Position is under-rated in poker, hands you'd play in late position you should quickly throw away in early position
- Don't flat call raises with easily dominated hands: AJ, KJ, KQ, JQ - even AQ is problematic
- If you're the first one in the pot, and you have a hand good enough to call, come in raising
- Don't ever try to bluff a donkey

The absolute most important rule in low stakes hold'em. I would add to that, also do not call a fish light.

You do not beat fish with flashy check-raise bluffs and hero calls. Save those for opponents with a brain.

The #1 way to beat fish is to take them to value town. Just bet the fuck out of your big hands. They always call. Never bluff and never station them down.

 

[HarryCaray]

damn hc im still trying to catch up from earlier!!

Just getting some thoughts out. I love to talk poker, I could vitterd this thread up to 50 pages if people are listening.

I'll slow down and let you digest.

If you play tonight, post hands you have trouble with.

Do you have a HUD yet? I would seriously consider getting Holdem Manager 2. It has a 30 day free trial. One of the things it does is keep your hand history and let you export specific hands from your session. That would be helpful here in helping you learn.

 

[HarryCaray]

by reading this again, it makes a lot of sense to me but i dont think im paying enough attn to what the other players at the table are doing. for ex last night i was folding every hand while checking my "cheat sheet" of starting hands and watching the all star game. which brings me to another question. if i were to play multiple tables online as some do, how in the hell are you supposed to keep up with what your opponents are doing?

It's called a HUD. It tracks your opponents vital stats and displays them right on the screen. It does the paying attention for you. You can know at a glance who is aggressive, who is passive, who is a fish, who is a shark. It's invaluable.

 

[drpugilist]

Essentially the goal of bet sizing is to get your opponent to make mistakes. Mistakes you can trick your opponent into include:

• Overpaying for their draws (not getting proper pot odds to chase)
• Calling with weaker made hands
• Folding better made hands
• Mistaking your bet sizing for strength/weakness and thereby misreading your hand

Being able to read their hand helps. If you are relatively sure on the turn that they have a flush draw, don't bet 1/5 pot. You're giving them the correct odds to chase. Bet 4/5 pot if that opponent chases a lot.

If you are relatively sure they have some kind of made hand of mediocre strength, and they tend to puss out on the river, fire away a big river bet with nothing to get them off their hand.

Give him the opportunity to make a -EV play.

this is just difficult for me to understand. i understand that if the board is "wet" i think is what you referred to it as earlier, that there is potential for an opponent to make a big hand but how would i ever know if they had a weaker made hands or to make them fold made hands etc?? i think this goes back to the pot odds as discussed earlier in the thread. which i havent even begun to put into play yet.

 

[festeringZit]

one good thing i did do last night was fight the urge to move to a bigger game. i really would like to learn how to play properly with all of the intricacies of the game at my disposal. its just so damn boring seeing one or two flops per hour. is this normal, or was i just getting a bad run of starting hands? considering playing again tonight for a few hours. im sure everyone in the rx would like to sit at the table with me!

Playing just one table can be boring... Try to play 2 or 3 at a time?

One or two flops per hour is definitely too tight...

 

[drpugilist]

There's really no short-cut for getting in there and playing lots of hands, and learning by experience.

A few things I've learned over the years:

- Position is under-rated in poker, hands you'd play in late position you should quickly throw away in early position
- Don't flat call raises with easily dominated hands: AJ, KJ, KQ, JQ - even AQ is problematic
- If you're the first one in the pot, and you have a hand good enough to call, come in raising
- Don't ever try to bluff a donkey

yeah fz i understand the position thing. im beginning to think that a big part of my prob is not paying attn to what other players are doing? maybe?...

 

[drpugilist]

The absolute most important rule in low stakes hold'em. I would add to that, also do not call a fish light.

You do not beat fish with flashy check-raise bluffs and hero calls. Save those for opponents with a brain.

The #1 way to beat fish is to take them to value town. Just bet the fuck out of your big hands. They always call. Never bluff and never station them down.

im assuming donkeys are bad players (like me!) and fish are good players?

 

[drpugilist]

Playing just one table can be boring... Try to play 2 or 3 at a time?

One or two flops per hour is definitely too tight...

i mya have been exaggerating on how many flops i saw but it wasnt many more than that. strictly going by the sheet posted earlier in the thread

 

[drpugilist]

i dont understand this hud thing either? again this thread is going way to fast. im gonna try to reread some of this stuff. thanks for everyones help and input

 

[HarryCaray]

this is just difficult for me to understand. i understand that if the board is "wet" i think is what you referred to it as earlier, that there is potential for an opponent to make a big hand but how would i ever know if they had a weaker made hands or to make them fold made hands etc?? i think this goes back to the pot odds as discussed earlier in the thread. which i havent even begun to put into play yet.

You will need to get good at hand reading. It will come in time. You probably have already started to get a sense of when an opponent is strong or weak. As you get better you can actually start to narrow down your opponent's likely range of holdings. Obviously it's an imperfect science.

Start here

http://www.pokernews.com/strategy/thinking-poker-getting-started-with-hand-reading-1-19506.htm

 

[HarryCaray]

im assuming donkeys are bad players (like me!) and fish are good players?

Donkeys and fish are both nicknames for bad players

 

[Bourn]

im assuming donkeys are bad players (like me!) and fish are good players?

Donks are players who call or reraise every raise and throw chips around like nothing. Fish are players who don't necessarily raise but will call every raise to stay in the pot hoping to catch their pair or straight. They're "fishing". Donks are obvious to notice. Fish you notice when the player just calls staying in the hand then fold once the river comes and they didn't catch their card. <-- Over and Over

 

[festeringZit]

zit, you would be one solid opponent.

I don't consider myself to be that great... My ultimate goal in poker (like most) is to make money, and to do this
I always play against (at least some) inferior players, and when I do - I'm able to make money by playing pretty much ABC poker.

The *really* good players would be able to exploit my ABC poker, but at levels up to $1/$2 NL, my
strategy is profitable.

About the only thing I do that isn't inline with "ABC" poker, is to sometimes float players that I think are too aggressive
(and will actually fold), and try to take the pot away on future streets.

 

[drpugilist]

More advice on bet sizing on later streets. Preflop and flop are more standard, turn and river get a little more important. After all, the pot is generally bigger and therefore the bets are generally bigger, making those streets more important.

First off, this is going to sound obvious, but think about what you are trying to accomplish with your bet before you make it. I mean, really pause and think. What specific possible opponent holdings are you trying to target?

When you boil it down, you're only trying to accomplish one of two things when you bet.

• Get your opponent to fold a better hand
• Get your opponent to call with a worse hand

There are other nuances, namely blocking bets to try to draw cheaply, and protection bets to try to take the pot down when you have a vulnerable but likely winning made hand. These two obviously don't apply to the river though. I am not a believer in betting or raising to "find out where you're at".

So, based on which of the two objectives you are trying to accomplish, think about exactly what hand you are targeting.

For example, if you have AK and the board is K T 9 4 4, you might bet the river for value. But specifically you're doing it because you think you can get called by worse. The hands you are targeting here are KQ, KJ, AT, QQ, etc. If this is the case, and that's what you're trying to target with your bet, you want to bet the most you think they will possibly call with those hands. In this example, you probably don't wanna bomb a pot sized bet because lesser hands likely won't call it.

If you have AK and the board is Q J T 6 2, you have the nut straight, and you'll obviously want to bet it for value. Here you are targeting AQ, AA, KK, QQ, JJ, TT, QJ, QT, K9, 89. A lot of hand combinations that will call a bigger river bet, so size accordingly.

If you have AT and the board is A K 9 9 3, really what you have here is more of a bluff catcher. What specific hands can your opponent have that they will call with? AK, AQ, AJ, A9 all beat you. Any other ace chops with you. There are just not that many worse hands that your opponent will have with which they will call a bet, so I'd likely opt to check back here (or check/call or check/fold out of position depending on opponent).

Same story on the bluff side. If you're trying to push your opponent off a hand, think to yourself what specific hand you're trying to get them to fold.

If you have QJ on an A 9 9 4 3 with three hearts board, and you decide to bluff (because you read your opponent's hand as mediocre strength), what are you trying to get them to fold? It is reasonable that a good player will fold an ace to your bluff that is disguised as a value bet. So tell yourself "I'm going to try to get him to fold AT", and bet an amount that would fold out that hand. There is no sense in trying to bluff out your opponent's ace by betting 1/5 the pot cause they won't fold. Yet I see players do it all the time at lower limits.

If you have AK on a J J T 9 3 board with 3 hearts, and your opponent has been calling you on other streets, it's likely they have trips, a straight, or a flush. So I wouldn't even bother bluffing here usually, because you're not going to accomplish your goal of getting them to fold very often.

Hand reading just becomes so important when sizing. You're probably not a great hand-reader yet, but at least have some conviction with your bet...do it to accomplish a specific objective.

Another important concept when bluffing is realizing what you can realistically represent.
Level 1 is playing your own cards
Level 2 is considering what your opponent might have and acting accordingly
You really wanna get up to level 3, where you are also considering what your opponent might think you have, i.e. what are you representing.

Maybe I'll talk more on that later cause I wanna go hit the tables!

man this is good stuff. ive never even attempted to try to figure out what my opponent may have. maybe i can work on that tonight.

 

[festeringZit]

I don't consider myself to be that great... My ultimate goal in poker (like most) is to make money, and to do this
I always play against (at least some) inferior players, and when I do - I'm able to make money by playing pretty much ABC poker.

The *really* good players would be able to exploit my ABC poker, but at levels up to $1/$2 NL, my
strategy is profitable.

About the only thing I do that isn't inline with "ABC" poker, is to sometimes float players that I think are too aggressive
(and will actually fold), and try to take the pot away on future streets.

FYI:

Floating is when you call a bet on the flop with nothing, and maybe even no draw - but you think your opponent is weak, and you can
take the pot away from them on future streets with a bluff. I wouldn't advise trying this until you've mastered some of the more
basic concepts. As you have to have a couple reads on your opponent to do this: 1. that they are weak 2. that they will actually lay
down their hand to a bluff

 

[HarryCaray]

man this is good stuff. ive never even attempted to try to figure out what my opponent may have. maybe i can work on that tonight.

You're on your way my friend. This is the first step to getting good at hand reading...just start taking guesses based on their actions, and fine tune from there.

The beauty of practicing hand reading is that you can do it with hands you're not even playing. If 2 players get involved in a pot that you're not playing, watch it and try to guess what they both have.

 

[drpugilist]

You will need to get good at hand reading. It will come in time. You probably have already started to get a sense of when an opponent is strong or weak. As you get better you can actually start to narrow down your opponent's likely range of holdings. Obviously it's an imperfect science.

Start here

http://www.pokernews.com/strategy/thinking-poker-getting-started-with-hand-reading-1-19506.htm

glad i read this thanks for posting. when i think of reading an opponents hand, i think of pinpointing exactly what they have but this made me look at it from a different perspective. very good.

 

[drpugilist]

FYI:

Floating is when you call a bet on the flop with nothing, and maybe even no draw - but you think your opponent is weak, and you can
take the pot away from them on future streets with a bluff. I wouldn't advise trying this until you've mastered some of the more
basic concepts. As you have to have a couple reads on your opponent to do this: 1. that they are weak 2. that they will actually lay
down their hand to a bluff

my next question was going to be what is "floating"! thanks.

 

[drpugilist]

You're on your way my friend. This is the first step to getting good at hand reading...just start taking guesses based on their actions, and fine tune from there.

The beauty of practicing hand reading is that you can do it with hands you're not even playing. If 2 players get involved in a pot that you're not playing, watch it and try to guess what they both have.

yeah but what if i dont get to see both hands which seemed to happen a lot last night. kind of frustrating