Undisciplined Players

[sk8ram]

1. Poker is a long term game, eventually you'll start destroying people who like to call a raise with q6 os.

2. Don't wildly adapt your game because of suckouts. The fact that they are happening shows you you're getting your chips in favourite, and that's perfect.

3. Stick with ABC poker and hope the competition doesn't get smart any time soon.

[resboard]

Not to be rude but you sound like every player who is just getting started in poker. Chances are you probably aren't playing as good as you think you are, but if you are then just take it in stride and be glad people want to give you their money so easily. Just think if everyone played good solid poker, how much money could you win? Don't let the lucky streaks of fish, turn you into playing like one also.

[OziBattler]

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But I'm getting mixed signals here. Is a pf raise supposed to be 3X the BB or not?

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poker is a situational game and thus the answer is often 'it depends'. No offence, but if you are asking this question above then you probably need to start working out how to adjust in different games. What you need to do is start figuring out how it depends. betting guidelines are just that...guidelines...what is right for one game isnt right for another and you just cant play cookbook poker all the time. FWIW you probably have an edge of the players you are playing against and with some fine tuning you should be able to crush them. goodluck.

[Graveraver84]

be prepared to lay down a hand if you miss. when you do hit, you'll most likely be ahead, and if he hits with his q-6 you'll have him beat most of the time, so just let him bet into you and milk the guy

[PantsOnFire]

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"Undisciplined" may not be the word I'm looking for...

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You're right, the word you are looking for is "loose".

In these types of tourneys, I push a lot more than normal. Against good players, pushing all-in a lot is going to lose you some value. Against these players, you will get calls that good players won't make. If you hit TPTK on the flop and there is no possible straight or flush just push all-in.

I would only make pf raises with very good hands. And I would make the raise very large. I would look to reraise all-in with my best hands. If you make it to the flop and it looks good and dry, I would push immediately.

When playing against players this loose, top pair or even two pair is not going to win a lot of pots when you get to the turn or river. So I would get into as many pots as I could with hands as bad as 98off or Kxs and of course every PP and be the guy that can beat two pair.

Basically, I would be very aggressive pf and on the flop with made hands. I would be passive with speculative hands until I hit and then bet big.

You are right that bluffing is probably a no-go. And you would only want to slowplay monsters. And in this game, betting 60% of the pot is probably slowplaying.

[Terremoto]

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I just feel that bad habits playing free poker will migrate to bad habits when real cash is on the line. I don't want to play like that; I am a TAG pretty much all the time. I just can't see me becoming as wildly LAG as some of those I play with.

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If you're truly playing TAG, you won't develop bad habits by playing against LAG's. Generally I've found it to be best to play the opposite of my opponents. I'm not too terribly experienced, but freerolls and the micro's where I play, are full of LAGs as well as loose passives, so play good cards aggressively for value. Pay attention to their tendencies as well, and you will pick up patterns and know when to get away from a good hand too. And every once in a while, if the table I'm at starts to fill up with TAG's, I may LAG it up a bit and steal before I leave to find another table.

[JJT]

To "resboard", I'm not that new at poker; I've been playing for around 2 1/2 years now.

I'm hearing and understanding what everyone is saying, but I have some questions that aren't newbie, exactly, but still this late in my poker life, puzzle me.

In the earliest rounds, with or without raises, in or out of best position, should I play Kx? I used to, but I don't any more and of course there's a king in the flop.

If I have Ax, and the table is, for example, 3-7-3-4-9, and it's checked to the river around to me, is someone slow-playing, or if I put a raise in will I take the pot?

One hole in my play is not knowing how much is in the pot for odds purposes. In another place I played a non-dealing player would reach over and count the chips to see. I don't know if Robert's Rules apply to the type of poker I play so is that really permissable? I know for me trying to eyeball the chip count is arduous and probably wrong anyway.

I won't change my mode of play, but geez I wish some of the better players here could play some of those I play against. It's pretty frustrating, variance to be expected or not.

[RapidEvolution]

I'm pretty sure we've all played them at some point (unless someone started off at $1/$2 online). [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] I usually tighten up at tables like this and bet for value with my strong hands (since players like this are less likely to fold). Also, don't bother trying to bluff. For your A-x example, I'd probably just check it down. You might have the best hand with Ace-high, and if not, you might get called by someone with a 2-4 offsuit and lose. Remember that bets like this only win you money if there's a worse hand that'll call you, or a better hand that will fold. (At these tables, it seems, the latter will rarely happen). Best of luck to you and hang in there!

[Terremoto]

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In the earliest rounds, with or without raises, in or out of best position, should I play Kx? I used to, but I don't any more and of course there's a king in the flop.

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You will fold the winning hand quite often in poker. Playing Kx or even Ax from any position (but especially oop), can get you into trouble when you hit it on the flop. You can easily be outkicked.

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If I have Ax, and the table is, for example, 3-7-3-4-9, and it's checked to the river around to me, is someone slow-playing, or if I put a raise in will I take the pot?

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It really depends, someone could be slowplaying a strong hand, hit 2nd pair, or have nothing with a missed draw. More info. about how the hand played out would help. When you say "checked around", it sounds like there are several players in the hand, so I'd proceed carefully and most likely would check having hit nothing, and be happy if my A kicker took it.

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In another place I played a non-dealing player would reach over and count the chips to see.

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I could be wrong, but that sounds like a big no-no. Some home games can be fairly loose with the rules, and I don't like to be a nit, but technically I believe you can't even ask for a count of the pot. In the nlhe home game I play in, I sometimes lose track of the size of the pot and just eyeball it. I can usually come up with a reasonably accurate count by staring with the larger denomination chips and working my way through it. It doesn't have to be exact, just close enough that you're bet size accomplished what you meant.

[Jobo]

oi, you know i've been playing at an infrequent home game with a bunch of loose aggressive hieniken-drinking vietnamese... your tourney peers sound suspiciously like some of these fellows! when i began playing with them i was an absolute poker-n00b that landed on the losing end of things after every night of playing "you know the next cards gonna be?? NO? me neither! ALL-IN!! hahahaaha!". then i grabbed a couple books.

a few months later... well, i'm still no pro at this game, and i make crazy mistakes all the time, especially online, but against these loud laughing Viet. i have one helluva good time now that i've learned how to fold appropriately, and how to bet big when i hit the flop to eat all their chips.

my best night to date was just last weekend, i made a nice little folding octagon poker table and brought it out for its debut. 3$ buy-in/re-buy for 40 chips, 1&2 chip blinds, and at the end of a couple hours i was up $80!

hyper-loose-aggressive players are your best friends! play slightly-tight very-aggressive for the first rounds until you chipstack can take a good hit, then loosen your PF hand-selection quite a bit, call those crazy early raises with your spare chips and then punish them when you hit the flop. you didn't hit? fold, cuz you can't win with a bluff against these fellers. fold, and dont worry that you called a 3$ all-in. you've a huge stack to be liberal with and that lets you play more hands and win more hands. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]