Big Poker Weekend?

[snickers99]

snickers I discovered your problem. You're way to fucking tight!

Yeah, I know.

[snickers99]

I probably would have left this table a while ago, but hanging around to watch you pwn.

[mewsiclovr]

Loosen up or something

[snickers99]

You guys should know by now that I suck at poker.

[mewsiclovr]

That's because you're so tight, when you come out swinging everyone folds! Over 30 hands I have you at zip aggression.

[mewsiclovr]

haha, screw trying to keep the pot under control, I'm just potting it each time I have top pair!

[snickers99]

That's because you're so tight, when you come out swinging everyone folds! Over 30 hands I have you at zip aggression.

I know I'm too tight, but tonight especially. I just had pocket tens...highest pair all night. Oh, and just had AK. I'm really getting crap cards.

[caffiend]

I know I'm too tight, but tonight especially. I just had pocket tens...highest pair all night. Oh, and just had AK. I'm really getting crap cards.

You're looking at it all wrong. Instead of saying you're too tight, say you practice good table selection! I have four winning sessions this week, 8%, 8%, 14%, 15% VP$IP. In a couple of those, I could've even found folds for some weird shit I went fishing with. What a bunch of lugnuts in those games.

[johnny]

I hate that fuckin site.

[snickers99]

Dealer: Game #8592570482: FBT99 wins pot ($0.17)

YESSSSSS!!!!!

[caffiend]

Dealer: Game #8592570482: FBT99 wins pot ($0.17)

YESSSSSS!!!!!

Sweet. I think my favorite one this week might be these two back-to-back hands. The funny part is, this guy had been buying pots off of people all night prior to this, and ended up going in the tank on the turn in the second hand. I could almost hear the wheels spinning while he debated looking me up.

PokerStars 0.02/0.04 Hold'em (9 handed) TightPoker converter

Preflop: Hero is UTG with , .
Hero raises, 1 fold, MP1 calls, MP2 (Zero) calls, MP3 calls, 4 folds.

Flop: (9.50 SB) , , (4 players)
Hero bets, MP1 calls, Zero raises, MP3 folds, Hero calls, MP1 calls.

Turn: (7.75 BB) (3 players)
Hero checks, MP1 checks, Zero checks.

River: (7.75 BB) (3 players)
Hero checks, MP1 checks, Zero bets, Hero calls, MP1 folds.

Final Pot: 9.75 BB

Results hidden below:
Hero has Ad Ks (high card, ace).
Zero has 2d Qd (high card, queen).
Outcome: Hero wins 9.75 BB.

PokerStars 0.02/0.04 Hold'em (9 handed) TightPoker converter

Preflop: Hero is BB with , .
UTG calls, 1 fold, MP1 (Zero) calls, 5 folds, Hero checks.

Flop: (3.50 SB) , , (3 players)
Hero bets, UTG calls, Zero calls.

Turn: (3.25 BB) (3 players)
Hero bets, UTG folds, Zero folds.

Final Pot: 4.25 BB

Results hidden below:
No showdown. Hero wins 4.25 BB.

[snickers99]

I know I'm too tight, but tonight especially. I just had pocket tens...highest pair all night. Oh, and just had AK. I'm really getting crap cards.

You're looking at it all wrong. Instead of saying you're too tight, say you practice good table selection! I have four winning sessions this week, 8%, 8%, 14%, 15% VP$IP. In a couple of those, I could've even found folds for some weird shit I went fishing with. What a bunch of lugnuts in those games.

I'm usually around 20%, but I think I was around 12 or so when Mew and Johnny were at the same table. It got better. I ended up around 21% for the night. But lost about $5 (.02/.05 NL). I know I need to loosen up and get in there and mix it up. I don't play enough NL to be comfortable doing that.

Mew...to finish what we were talking about at one point. I've had AA vs KK 4 times since switching to NL (about 5,800 hands) and I have lost three of them. All in pre-flop. Each one spiked a K somewhere along the way. That's gotta change! Oddly enough, I haven't had KK vs AA yet.

Fun playing with you guys. I'll be back at it tomorrow.

EDIT: WTF....I am now a loser with AA!!! Even thou I have won 75% of the time, I'm at a net -.99 (all .02/.05 NL). AND I'm at a net -.58 w/KK even thou I've won 70% of those!! ARGH!!!!

[caffiend]

I'm usually around 20%, but I think I was around 12 or so when Mew and Johnny were at the same table. It got better. I ended up around 21% for the night. But lost about $5 (.02/.05 NL). I know I need to loosen up and get in there and mix it up. I don't play enough NL to be comfortable doing that.

Me either, honestly. I've never really cared for the format. I will say that I've found some of the stats to be pretty subjective though. I've always felt like I play more hands in limit, maybe because I actually play them to the end or maybe because I steal more in no-limit.

As far as getting in there and mixing it up, I think that depends on the situation too. I once complained to someone back in the day that I hated dealing with the big stack bullies that were all over Party. What I meant was that you'd often find someone with three or four buyins on the table snapping up the blinds with huge raises. Even if they sucked, the fact that you couldn't put enough on the table to stack them all at once bugged the hell out of me.

He laughed in my face! "Get a big stack and push people around? That's exactly what you do!" I shrugged it off, because I rarely bet without the goods. It came back to me when I was wondering why the best way to play poker was no-limit in the afternoon and limit at night though. It's because in the peak hours there's way too many maniacs to push people around, you just need to catch them. When things are slower online, you can generally run people over just by stealing the blinds or betting the best hand on the flop.

[snickers99]

I shrugged it off, because I rarely bet without the goods.

This is my general micro-NL strategy. Sit around, wait for monsters, get paid. And it was working pretty well. Just haven't had a lot of monsters lately. Sure, I still try to get in cheap with suited connectors, one gappers, etc. And I play the occasional garbage hand from the SB. And the occasional pot steal when I think nobody has anything.

[johnny]

Oh no, Johnny is gunna post poker strat advice. Keep in mind my poker IQ score when reading.

From the sound of things I'm worried that you might sit at a table with the goal of making your VP a certain number when you shouldn't have any idea what your VP will be unless you've spent time observing the table and know what your seat is. There are times when a VP in the teens will be entirely appropriate and I'm guessing on those micro tables it could be rather often. Don't let your desire to not be a tighty make you push money into maniacs that might be sitting to your left or push you into a rock with the nuts when a maniac to your right raises.

I'm gunna brag here for a sec and post my chart from this year so far:



The big downturn at the end was just from me pushing that stack into that guy playing KT or whatever it was when I had AA. Losing 10 bucks on a 5 cent table really fucks up your graph.

My average VP for that run is in the mid teens. Some might say that it was too tight, but I feel it was appropriate for the table conditions I found myself in. I had VPs as low as 3.5 and as high as 40 with a minumum of 50 hands. A good example was the table on Full Tilt that I mentioned last night. I had too much going on last night. There was the $50 table on FT. FT was slow last night and I didn't want to play any other tabels there so I opened a $25 table on Stars to work on that bonus. Then I joined Mewsic and yourself, all the while talking to Spammy and I was playing on a crappy laptop and could only see 1 full table at a time. I was basically ignoring the FT game and got a really straight, tight image so much so that the guy to my left mentioned how nice it was playing after me. I waited for a few more rounds then used that image to bluff $23 from the table when I was in position to do it. I was lucky, they actually seemed to be paying attention. However, being tight might have also gotten me action because the table still had 2 loose aggressives who might have thought that they could make this rock lay down on a rag or scary flop with a bet or raise with any 2 cards. But last night the table had gotten a lot tighter than when I started and I was able to get paid when I switched gears. Switching gears into a bunch of looser players would only have me donating because I'll get called down or raised while a 5x PFR with AA is still going to get callers who are playing only their cards or think they will outplay me post flop anyway.

So basically if you've got some maniac(s) to your left I think waiting for a premium holding and playing tight is 100% ok. If the table folds to you or has a limper and you have tight or average players to your left that's different. It's all going to depend. But don't go in to a game thinking that a low VP should be avoided. Your VP isn't a reflection of your game as much as it's a reflection of the tables that you're choosing to play at. If you're losing or think you should be winning more then take a look at your VP in comparison to the conditions surrounding your play.

Critiques of this are very welcome!