Beginners Common Mistakes

[jackaaron]

In No Limit tournaments (STT & MTT):

Playing way too many hands out of position.
Min-raising with great hands, and not understanding why people call their raise with a wide range, and stack them.
Not having the ability to ever understand how to get off TPWK.
In lower limits...attempting the call flop, call turn, reraise river bluff like their favorite pro with absolute air way too often.
Drawing to a flush no matter what the pot odds dictate.
Defying logic and betting small on big hands, and betting big on garbage hands way too often (it's good to mix things up, but bad players actually do the bet small with nuts/bet big with garbage way too often).
Not understanding how position can be to their advantage.
Not putting opponents on a range of hands.
Going nuts early in tourmanets to gain a big chips stack, then when they get it, tightening up later, and on the bubble.
Not having any understanding whatsoever of bubble play.
Showing hands way too often.
Emotions:
Taking other player's actions personally.
Wanting to "show" the bully of the table that they can't be pushed around.

[Greg Miller]

#1 beginning NL mistake: stacking off with a pair. Don't play huge pots with top pair or an overpair unless you KNOW the other guy is spewing chips with something even weaker (and yeah, there are plenty of times at Party $25 NL where you're going to know that).

Other common mistakes: bets that have no relation to the current pot size, calling pot-sized bets with draws when the other guy can't or won't pay you off enough to make it worthwhile, pushing preflop with a big starting hand, pushing preflop with a weak starting hand, playing at sites or stakes populated by players they can't handle.

[kazana]

A mistakes that just screams "fishy" that I spot at 25 & 50 NL fairly often is a player not betting enough to give draws incorrect odds to call. Especially if the pot is fairly big.
Always worthwhile a note.

[AKQJ10]

[ QUOTE ]
#1 beginning NL mistake: stacking off with a pair. Don't play huge pots with top pair or an overpair unless you KNOW the other guy is spewing chips with something even weaker (and yeah, there are plenty of times at Party $25 NL where you're going to know that).

[/ QUOTE ]

Good advice, except I question that last parenthetical a bit. There are plenty of times when you're going to assess the probability as sufficiently high to get all the money in. That's not quite the same thing as KNOWING your opponent has an inferior hand, because total donks are allowed to flop sets too. If you figure your opponent for a range of {set, two pair, flush draw, any top pair, some middle pairs, some pocket pairs} then you can play top pair rather strongly. But every once in a while Villain will catch you with a monster, and that doesn't mean your read was wrong.

Of course true donks slowplay their sets and come alive on the river after at least three suited cards have hit the board, but that's a different topic. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[kazana]

[ QUOTE ]
Of course true donks slowplay their sets and come alive on the river after at least three suited cards have hit the board, but that's a different topic. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]
No, it's not. That's also ALWAYS worth a note. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

In fact, it's right up there with the specialists holding AA, limpcalling preflop, flat calling up to the river to push it on any board. Chronic slowplayer. And extremely bad at that. Worth another note.

[AKQJ10]

Personally I'm more fond of the minthreebettors who tip their hand without wrecking my implied odds. Postflop play is easy when you know exactly what your opponent has.

[Psycho Boy Jack]

[ QUOTE ]
Never open-limp offsuit hands.
Never cold-call offsuit hands.

[/ QUOTE ]
I agree that since i began to play offsuit connected hands, the game is much much interesting, and i win many more hands. But isn't there a risk to play too many hands like that ?. since i play those hands, i find myself playing 50% of the hands. is it a problem you think ?

Thanks
and agaiin.. sorry for the english. (soon i'll speak good enough to stop posting this sentence).

[Acein8ter]

Since this thread is still up, I'll add another comment.

Inability to lay down a hand. 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc best.

If you have played a while, you probably had a streak where you were playing well and made some $$$. (I'm not talking upside variance or on a 'heater')

I'm talking about a time when you were making GOOD decisions. Laying down TPTK against aggression.

Example: AK on a K T 8 rainbow board against a large bet or re-raise. Laying it down is hard to do, but you can be up against KT or a set of T's or 8's. It's plays like this that keep the good players in +EV,,,,,,$$$.

Good players can laydown AA off the flop against huge aggression, beginning players cannot. It's tough to do, but as you probably have found out, you have lost to a set many times with this hand as well as with KK.

Your hand PF = AA and raise. Get called w/TT. Flop is Q T 3 Rainbow. Looks good for a hugh bet or maybe an AI right???

When we lose a hand and go on slight tilt, it's easy go get tunnel vision and only see our 'sucker' end of the str8, Q high flush or our TPTK.

Basicially, you/we need to be on 'top' of our games at all times, EVERY hand. Good players also have good concentration.......HOURS.

Best of luck...

[AKQJ10]

[ QUOTE ]
Inability to lay down a hand. 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc best.


[/ QUOTE ]

This is a much bigger problem in big-bet poker than in fixed-limit poker. It is also a problem in fixed-limit, especially in pre-river betting rounds, but it's a lot less costly than routinely calling half-to-full-pot-sized bets with inferior hands.

[TheFresh1]

I see way too many people overplaying medium to high pps. Sure, JJ is a great hand, but not so much against 4 opponents with a AK-x flop. Most beginners will not fold when faced with bets after the flop in that situation, for whatever reason.