Default starting strategy

[mr_hanky]

What is your starting strategy when you first sit down?

I have noticed that I have a default strategy if I sit down at a table of unknown players with no immediatley obvious holes in their game.

I play 6-max NL50 at UB.

I sit down and play really tight- raising of 5% of hands and not calling any raises by anyone. NO bluffs.
My stats are probably 5/5/0 for about 20-30 hands.

After I see how they are playing, I start making blind steal attempts and reraising light against the blind steal attempts from late-position aggressive players. Because of my rock-tight image this usually takes the pot down uncontested.

I then gradually open up my game, raising more against the limpers and blind stealing against selected players. By the end of my session my stats are like 22/20/3.

[Conspire]

I tend to play tighter against unknowns as well, I will then open up a little more after I showdown a good hand.

[Gonso]

Everything sounds fairly standard, although 5/5 might be a little too tight, but eh. That may not be a bad way to go at NL50.

The other thing is that 22/20 sounds like your PFR might be a little high (I'm at 22/17). At lower limits you could probably be a little more passive and limpy preflop against softer players, and make your money postflop.

[AaronBrown]

While it depends on the circumstances, I generally go the opposite route. I start playing extremely loose. I want to maximize my advantage during the time they don't know me. Also I prefer to create a table image of someone who's money can be taken, because that's a first step toward long-term profitable play.

To me, playing tight until you've figured things out is playing not to lose, rather than playing to win. It's standard conservative advice, but I think it's given more to protect the reputation of the person giving the advice than to help players make more money. If you tell people to start out loose, some players are going to lose a lot of money quickly, and they will blame your advice. The ones who go on to make money won't remember how you helped them.

[JavaNut]

I see it mainly as a question of how you yourself play best. If you need to be in a comfort zone to be able to open up and be really aggressive (where I agree you win the most) you should not start up be being way behind in every session you play. Because you will not get into a comfort zone, and your attempt to open up will just make you lose money, which is not the objective.

Dig in, get comfortable, then attack is exactly what the doctor ordered for most players. Only if you are a natural LAG, you can start by attacking.

Another thing is can you learn to be a natural LAG? I don't know, but I guess that it should be possible for many, but definetely not all.

[Gonso]

I'm not sure, but then I'm not a LAG in NLHE, natural or otherwise. I see AB's point, a good one as usual, but his approach doesn't work as well for me.

Against people I haven't played with before, I may try to make a few action moves and loose calls for advertising/image reasons, if I can do it relatively cheap.
In general though, I don't like diving right in and trying to go to town. While your opponents don't know much about you right off, you don't know much about them either.

As far as it being standard conservative advice, and a 'trying not to lose money' approach, well... there's a lot of truth to that. I definitely don't like getting into marginal situations early on without having any reads or anything to work off of.

[scotty M]

I've never played higher than $2-4 NL. I've also played in MTT's up to around $150 buy in.

That being said, I always assume that every player at the table is a bad player until they show me otherwise. Early on I play very tight, no bluffing, no resteals, nothing fancy. Once I get an idea of how everyone else is playing, I adjust my game accordingly.

My natural style is LAG, and starting out with a tight image actually helps me out here. Once I've figured out who I can push around by being aggressive, the tight image can really pay off.

[Dozer60]

POKER is gambling- you have the intelligence quotient of less than 25 the high is 165

[Gonso]

[ QUOTE ]
POKER is gambling- you have the intelligence quotient of less than 25 the high is 165

[/ QUOTE ]

Please stop posting. I don't know if you're senile or lonely or what, but your threads and replies have been nothing but poorly written stabs at poker theory and people who study poker seriously, which is everyone here to some degree.

If you ever want to figure out how 22 year old kids are destroying you at the table, come back and try to learn something.

You talking about someone else's IQ is a joke, by the way.

[Check2TheLady]

Poker is gambling. For the better players it is gambling with an edge. We are all trying to increase our edge through discussion and analysis on forums such as this. If you have nothing constructive to say, say nothing.