Full Ring advice
 

Hi to everyone. I would like to have a feedback about a particular situation.

I read "Small Stakes HE" by Sklansky cause someone wrote here that this is the best book for the stakes in which I want to start (0.02/0.04 PS). I read it and it's great but I have a problem.
I play at this kind of level and when I play at shorthanded tables I have no problems, while it is completely different when I play at full ring tables. When I played SH I had no negative sessions, while on FR I loose consistently.

I tried to change my way of game a little bit: first I tighten up, then I started to be a little more loose (which is always more thight then Sklansky's advice).
It is unuseful. I have no problems with bad beats but litterally people call everything and you have to play against 6-7 guys. If you don't hit the nut, there are no possibilities to win... and it has to be the nut till river.

I don't like to accept easy solution and I would like to understand if I simply cannot win at this level FR (and I have to play just SH) or it is a problem of mine.

Thank you for your opinions. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Re: Full Ring advice
 

Small Stakes holdem was written primarily by Ed Miller.

If you never had a losing session playing shorthanded then you haven't played enough sessions and you have had sick luck. The variance in shorthanded games is greater than that of the full ring. In full ring tighter play is generally the best approach. A VPIP of 15% isn't overly tight, whereas in shorthanded play you would be broke quickly with a VPIP that low.

Re: Full Ring advice
 

Maybe but the fact is that in SH play I rarely arrived at showdown (I suppose it is not so much about luck), while in FR I always arrived there and I saw some amazing things (and I played just very good hands!)...

Re: Full Ring advice
 

hi chip, you'll need a large sample size to be sure of anything in this game. at least 10k hands or so of lhe should be enough to spot basic trends, however. i have a hunch you may not be there yet. we all go through crazy short term stretches of variance.

Re: Full Ring advice
 

If you never loose at SH, just play that. I wish I had this problem. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

Re: Full Ring advice
 

I would advise skipping .02/.04 altogether and trying something higher. I think the amount of bad habits you learn there far outweighs any good habits you might pick up.

Re: Full Ring advice
 

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I would advise skipping .02/.04 altogether and trying something higher. I think the amount of bad habits you learn there far outweighs any good habits you might pick up.

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Agreed.

Re: Full Ring advice
 

Your .02/.04 FR experience is almost certainly variance (perhaps with a dollop of bad postflop play...like mine). Those 6 or 7 guys are hemorraging money and if you hang around you will drink their blood. :very evil icon that we should have:

You may need to hit the nut but when you do they'll pay you enough to make up for all the bad beats. It just may take 10,000 (or more) hands for this to be apparent.

However, as said above you may pick up bad habits at that level that will set you up for serious losses when you meet the proverbial "players who will respect your raises."

I have only managed to work my way up to .10/.20 and the games are significantly tighter there than at .05/.10 which in turn is tighter than .02/.04. In fact on Stars the .10/.20 can get rather nitty (though there are still 70+ VP$IP players to be found). Just last night I didn't feel like I had the concentration for .10/.20 so I dropped down to two-table .02/.04. Naturally I lost. [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]

Re: Full Ring advice
 

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I would advise skipping .02/.04 altogether and trying something higher. I think the amount of bad habits you learn there far outweighs any good habits you might pick up.

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True on some many different aspects of the game.

Get out and up if you can.

Sarge[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]

Re: Full Ring advice
 

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If you never had a losing session playing shorthanded then you haven't played enough sessions

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This is exactly what I was thinking when I read OP. It's impossible to ALWAYS win every single session. Have you noticed that even the best pros in the world don't win the WSOP every year? [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

It sounds like, from what you've posted, you've played only very few hands at both FR and 6m, which means that your sample size is so small that you won't be able to draw meaningful trends about how well you play each based on your win rate alone. Once you've played about 10K hands, you should have a better idea of what your win rate is (and even at 10K hands chance error is still a possibility but at least it's less so).

Re: Full Ring advice
 

Thank you for all your advice.
About skipping that level, I would like to do that but my BR doesn't permit that.

About the sample of hands, it is true. I will wait to understand the situation. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Re: Full Ring advice
 

At what level does the play start to be better enough not to have an average of 5 guys into each pot (even when 3-bet) ?
I am rolled enough to play 10c/20c, 25c/50c and 50c/1$ (according to 1000, 500, and 300 BB bankroll).
What should I try ?

Also, what stats are standard in SH ? FR ? (`m talking `bout V$IP/PFR)

Thanks

Re: Full Ring advice
 

For the last question --> faq, for the first: .25/.50 is your game!

Re: Full Ring advice
 

Fret, wtf!, where have you been ?!

Re: Full Ring advice
 

Living life, doing exams, quitting job (this technically makes me a pro, lawl), playing poker, currently writing diploma thesis. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: Full Ring advice
 

[ QUOTE ]
I would advise skipping .02/.04 altogether and trying something higher. I think the amount of bad habits you learn there far outweighs any good habits you might pick up.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is very true, I had the same exact problem with FR .02/.04 although I was usually a winner at SH. Then I realized, playing that limit actually made me paraniod about miracle cards which dragged me into a passive play. I found myself calling and thinking "what the hell, if i win, i win, no need to lose money on a 2 outer, these guys aren't folding anyway and somehow they catch cards."

The moment I saw this, I quit the limit, moved up to .05/.1. I started playing poker about 2 months ago so I am not winning too much in total, but the experience at this limit is giving me good habits.

So push your bankroll a bit, an extra couple of dollars has less value compared to the "correct" knowledge you will acquire.

By the way it is my first post, and never thought I would be giving an advice at this point, but as I said I had the same problem and figured this might help. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: Full Ring advice
 

I actually don't get all the fuss about .02/.04 being nigh unbeatable. When I cashed out at Stars, I left 5$ in to play the nano-limits, and I was crushing them with over 10BB/100.
As long as you play tight preflop and aggressively protect your made hands postflop, there's nothing keeping you from walking away with all the other peoples' cents...

You just have to stick to some decent basic strategy, and value bet the hell out of your hands. Same goes with .05/.10.

They may not respect your raises, but as long as those are for value, they're not nearly drawing out on you as much as you think...


However it is true that, if you're new to the game, you're going to develop some bad habits (overplaying overcards, seeing the showdown too much, etc.). But one has to start somewhere, and as long as you try to keep improving your game, the nanos are as good a place as any to start...

If anything, you'll learn to appreciate bad beats, and avoid tilting. It's the occasional bad beat that keeps the fish returning to donate their money to you!!!

Re: Full Ring advice
 

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I actually don't get all the fuss about .02/.04 being nigh unbeatable.

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I don't think anybody said anything about it being unbeatable (unless I missed something?). People were saying don't play it because you develop bad habits there.

EDIT: Never mind. I just realized that this was something the OP said right at the top of the thread

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If you don't hit the nut, there are no possibilities to win

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Duh. Way to say another dumb thing, neurotiq. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: Full Ring advice
 

Your losses at 0.02/0.04 could be just variance. Although I think you might face other challenges as well. Could it be you are playing your AKo and hand similar hands too aggressively post-flop, while folding hands like QJs pre-flop?

I think 0.02/0.04 is very beatable. In fact, it should be highly profitable. In higher levels people spend a lot of time to find a loose passive player. And here you have them in abundance! But the profits come from POST-flop play. If 6-7 players see the flop, and you see the flop 35% of the time, you are still tight enough to make profit. If there is a problem, I don't think it is in your pre-flop play.