A week in the life of Poker Pro, Snowbank

[Skys]

Charts are a good guideline to begin. Some players keep using them, and I won't say that's wrong but the hands you open should highly depend on who you have on your left (and what you are comfortable with).
Say we have a super light 3-bettor on our left (somebody who keeps re-raising you), It might not be a smart move to now open a wide variaty of hands when you are EP (early position)
I would them drop small suited connectors, low suited Aces, I would stick more to a tight opening range that consists of pairs, strong suited aces.. broadways
Same goes for a calling station on your left, might not be a smart idea to open 34s in MP, when you have a calling station in the CO (straight to your left in a 6-max setting). He calls you with any Ax, any Kx, any Qx... well... Open poker stove... check yourself what it means to have a high cold calling %.
Thats not your biggest problem, it's kind of hard to bluff a calling station with 4 high even if the dude has thirth pair, low kicker.. He will call, that's his nature.

So, whenever I see a question like: Should I play THIS hand... A good poker player will always say: It depends.
Same as in business.
It depends a lot, on position, on players to your left, your image, how good of a hand reader you are..etc etc

In that regard that are no 'unplayable hands', if you are in the BTN (the best steal position there is), a hand like Q2o is perfect to open with two nits in the blinds, with a strong player (good handreader etc) I would not open it if I know/think he is better than me, with two loose type of players I would never open it.

/ ex pro poker player (retired 2012, played up to 400nl)

 

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[johnp]

Does anyone know of any online poker sites to play on in the US? (for real money) I have been having a terrible time trying to find sites since Poker Stars, Full Title, and the others were removed from the market. I did find one called Bogart poker or something like that. It's Mac compatible and US only apparently. But I'm not a big fan of that one. It crashes a lot on my computer. Any good ones that I'm missing?

 

[TK1]

Charts are a good guideline to begin. Some players keep using them, and I won't say that's wrong but the hands you open should highly depend on who you have on your left (and what you are comfortable with).
Say we have a super light 3-bettor on our left (somebody who keeps re-raising you), It might not be a smart move to now open a wide variaty of hands when you are EP (early position)
I would them drop small suited connectors, low suited Aces, I would stick more to a tight opening range that consists of pairs, strong suited aces.. broadways
Same goes for a calling station on your left, might not be a smart idea to open 34s in MP, when you have a calling station in the CO (straight to your left in a 6-max setting). He calls you with any Ax, any Kx, any Qx... well... Open poker stove... check yourself what it means to have a high cold calling %.
Thats not your biggest problem, it's kind of hard to bluff a calling station with 4 high even if the dude has thirth pair, low kicker.. He will call, that's his nature.

So, whenever I see a question like: Should I play THIS hand... A good poker player will always say: It depends.
Same as in business.
It depends a lot, on position, on players to your left, your image, how good of a hand reader you are..etc etc

In that regard that are no 'unplayable hands', if you are in the BTN (the best steal position there is), a hand like Q2o is perfect to open with two nits in the blinds, with a strong player (good handreader etc) I would not open it if I know/think he is better than me, with two loose type of players I would never open it.

/ ex pro poker player (retired 2012, played up to 400nl)

Thanks a lot for this response.

If you have some time on your hands:

Can you tell us a bit more about 3-betting / basic strategies for beginners?

Thx

 

[RBefort]

Does anyone know of any online poker sites to play on in the US? (for real money) I have been having a terrible time trying to find sites since Poker Stars, Full Title, and the others were removed from the market. I did find one called Bogart poker or something like that. It's Mac compatible and US only apparently. But I'm not a big fan of that one. It crashes a lot on my computer. Any good ones that I'm missing?

Played online poker "professionally" myself from 2008-2011 when it all went to squat. There are still sites around, but the games are terrible. By that I mean more of the background behind it all. First, most of the software just plain sucks. It's very difficult to multi-table a ton, withdrawals take weeks/1-2 months at best (unless you can transfer it to another player and get in return, but you pay vigs or "fees" for this; lowering your earnings). Tournaments especially, are much smaller than they used to. I was more of a tournament player and used to play for 1000's to first. Now, you only play for a few 100. Yeah sure, if you make 30-40k a year like I do right now, 600 tourney win is more than I make in a day's work in the office; but do I really want to waste my free evenings on this all the time, let alone give up my job? No. Cash games, like the OP plays, are where it is at. But, there are tons of less fish nowadays. Same people sit at all the tables. If you are a solid winner, it's still OK I guess. But most of the money comes from playing with tables loaded with fish, not 5 of 6 being winning regs. Sites still around: Bovada, America's Card Room, Broadway Tables, 5 Dimes, Merge Network: Black Chip Poker, Carbon Poker, RPM poker Revolution Network: Lock Poker, Cake Poker. There are a few others, but those are the most common ones. If you really want to just mess around for cheap, sign up to club wpt for 20 bucks a month and play tourneys using points. Think you can still win prizes and entries to live poker tournaments. But, this just wasn't for me. So beware, if you join one of these sites I listed above and want to cash out, you won't see your money very quickly. I've always traded mine off with another player for 10-15% fee (ie I win 1k and want to cash out, they give me 850-900 for this just to get instant-cash in my bank acct)

 

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[RBefort]

Epic thread. No saying whether I'll get into it or not, but it looks pretty fun. Speed+

I have a little bit of a not-so-poker-related question. How has poker playing and getting to the point of making solid money from it affected your emotions and your dealings when in the Fastlane business world? I'm pretty curious.

Just going to speak from a hypothetical point, as I have done the poker but not the business world specifically. Making solid money from poker makes you never want to work for anyone else really. I am sitting in my cube typing this. Even grinding 12 hour days, with the right Life balance, beats working in a cube for someone else; especially making more money. Greater money+freedom from poker has to be weighed with security+benefits offered by a real job...and this is what I struggle with because they are complete opposites and weigh equally. I even tried MJ's matris . In the business world when working for yourself, making solid money gives you confidence in tackling stuff on your own. You are used to building from scratch, being creative, working many hours on something you want to learn, etc. To be a great player, you can't be affected by variance, unlucky streaks per say. In the business world, you might not feel anything if your sales went down one month (not saying this is a good thing, but you won't freak out, then overcorrect, etc). It creates a mindset of just improving at whatever you're doing and grow that roll. Poker can kind of make you introverted though, so maybe in this aspect you might be affected in the business world in dealing with other people. Taking a huge cut in both time and freedom working in a cube was the worst feeling in the world :/

 

[Skys]

Thanks a lot for this response.

If you have some time on your hands:

Can you tell us a bit more about 3-betting / basic strategies for beginners?

Thx

Sure. 3-betting is re raising the opening from another player.
Most players on-line use a hud, so .. some light 3-betting would be a good strategy if you don't want your fellow grinders to know you are a complete nit when it comes to 3-betting.
Let's say.. extreme example, somebody has a 3-bet % of 2-3, that means he is 3-betting premiums only (QQ+, AK+, where QQ might nog even be in there)
So, what you can do, to just become a little bit looser with 3-betting, is 3-betting some hands 'as a bluff'. As a bluff, is a bit debatable, because if somebody always folds to 3-bets, and only 4-bets (re-raising your 3-bet) his premiums... Are you really bluffing? You are extracting value. Somebody is making a mistake by folding to to many 3-bets and you make money of that mistake by 3-betting the sh-- out of him.

So, again.. it depends... If somebody never folds to 3-bets, its probably not so smart to 3-bet your 35s, especially not if this guy always calls and never re-raises.. and is a calling station pre and post flop.

So, for a 'general' strategy, which always work well: DON'T BLUFF CALLING STATIONS.
The lower you play, the more calling stations you will encounter. We call them fish. You can bluff fish, but, as a 'general rule of thumb', don't do it until you are learning to become more aware of things like table dynamics.
Until you learn how to get reads (which is extremely important) you might want to follow that strategy.
Now, let's say you became better. Now you see this 70/2 player at your table (70 = VPIP (voluntary puts money in pot), 2 = PFR (pre flop raise... that means, that this type of player is SUPER passive, he likes to play every hand and he probably does not like to fold very much).. but, you have a read on this guy. This guy loves to call 3-bets, but, once he misses... he is gone... Should you 3-bet him? Yes.. a lot. You should pound on him, constantly.. You should make your 3-bet sizes bigger so you get more money in the pot... This is low hanging fruit you have to take.

3-betting.. Man, there are whole on-line seminars about 3-betting..it goes really deep.. But, when you play low (which you should, when you begin) I think the best strategy is to just 3-bet for value (QQ+, AK+) and widen your value range (1010+, AQ+ etc) when you notice that somebody likes to call a lot. Why? Because in general, when you play low, you don't really encounter the same player often enough + most people are terrible at paying attention (they find it more important to earn rakeback, which means most grinders play 6+ tables, they don't focus on getting reads). Plus, people are paranoid like hell. If you 3-bet them a couple of times at lower stakes, they will adopt. People adopt way to quickly at lower stakes, for emotional reasons, not logical reasons).
This (super big player pool, people not paying attention and people over adjusting or not adjusting at all.. rarely the right way) makes you not having to worry that much about balancing your 3-betting strategy.. Stick to the premiums, good hands... And don't cold call to often either (cold calling is when somebody raised pre flop... calling their raise). It's almost always better to be the aggressor in poker.