Texas hold 'em. Any tips?

[Berzerker]

Sorry Slow, I dont play hold em. I play 9 card Omaha hi-low at poker room com, and although its play money I'm up several 100,000.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
250 hours of play, give or take.

So even with some impressive skill and a fantastic win record of tournaments, you still get only $40 an hour? That's not the fantastic return I thought it'd be with those kind of stats.

[Az]

That's because he doesn't play with the big boys. He preys on the miserable.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Az
That's because he doesn't play with the big boys. He preys on the miserable.

Hey. I've been playing the largest available buyin sit and goes (100$ a pop), and I'm still winning

The problem is that my edge goes down, so even though my actual take goes up as I play the larger tables, the variance compared to the profit is much larger. Playing at small tables I can't go an hour without winning

Playing at the largest tables I can have weeks that I'm down

[Az]

So it's the same gain, but a larger risk -> not worth it.

[Brundlefly]

Can somebody answer my question about what makes you feel safe playing w/ real money online? What makes you think other players arent colluding?

[Flubber]

Originally posted by bfg9000
Can somebody answer my question about what makes you feel safe playing w/ real money online? What makes you think other players arent colluding?

What type of collusion are you thinking about? Even if four players are co-operating, you still only lose the same money each time you lose a hand. I guess the fear would be that the colluders could know not to waste money betting and only have the best of their 3-4 hands take you on. Over time that could wear you down as you would be unlikely to be able to suck money out of more than one player on any given hand. Plus if the colluders had a variety of good hands pre-flop, they might assume that one of them MUST be a winner and therefore stay in regardless.

I'm thinking here that one of them has AA. The others could stay in with tiny hands just to see if something hits for them on the flop

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by bfg9000
Can somebody answer my question about what makes you feel safe playing w/ real money online? What makes you think other players arent colluding?

a) They keep track of who plays with whom, and suspicious patterns are investigated

b) Some might be colluding, but whatever harm they're doing is insufficient to kill my edge

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Flubber


What type of collusion are you thinking about? Even if four players are co-operating, you still only lose the same money each time you lose a hand. I guess the fear would be that the colluders could know not to waste money betting and only have the best of their 3-4 hands take you on. Over time that could wear you down as you would be unlikely to be able to suck money out of more than one player on any given hand. Plus if the colluders had a variety of good hands pre-flop, they might assume that one of them MUST be a winner and therefore stay in regardless.

I'm thinking here that one of them has AA. The others could stay in with tiny hands just to see if something hits for them on the flop

That's not how you collude.

Playing cooperatively can take a number of forms, including using a raise-reraise strategy to bluff people out of pots which they'd otherwise play or to suck money out of people when one of the colluders has a monster.

In other words, say I'm person A, colluding with person B and in the hand with sucker C. I've made a straight, and I feel that C has top pair with a good kicker. B has missed completely. There's 100$ in the pot, and everybody has 125$ left. I'm first to act, then B, then C. I check. B bets 75$ with absolutely nothing. C calls. Now I raise all-in, B folds, C calls the extra 50$

Assuming C respects my play he would never have called the 125$ cold (if I'd gone all-in right away instead of checking), but now he's been drawn in slowly.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


That's not how you collude.

Playing cooperatively can take a number of forms, including using a raise-reraise strategy to bluff people out of pots which they'd otherwise play or to suck money out of people when one of the colluders has a monster.

In other words, say I'm person A, colluding with person B and in the hand with sucker C. I've made a straight, and I feel that C has top pair with a good kicker. B has missed completely. There's 100$ in the pot, and everybody has 125$ left. I'm first to act, then B, then C. I check. B bets 75$ with absolutely nothing. C calls. Now I raise all-in, B folds, C calls the extra 50$

Assuming C respects my play he would never have called the 125$ cold (if I'd gone all-in right away instead of checking), but now he's been drawn in slowly.

I think people could collude the way I mention as well. It would be very tough to get a fix on anyone's betting patterns when 3-4 players could stay in anytime they just KNEW that one of them had the best hand

[KrazyHorse]

But where's their upside there?

[Brundlefly]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse

b) Some might be colluding, but whatever harm they're doing is insufficient to kill my edge

what is your edge?

[Flubber]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
But where's their upside there?

1. On a hand they will win anyway, nothing other than confusing you or maybe sucking you in a bit if one of the betters has been acting as a bluffer is the first to bet

2. More generally-- playing multiple hands gives them insurance against bad beats since more flops are to their benefit

3. Also they can manipulate chips on hands you fold-- Perhaps they don't want to eliminate each other. Its pretty easy to move some chips to the short-stacked guy-- or maybe they want to increase a chip leaders chip count .

4. Seeing more cards change the mathematics on a lot of hands. Seeing a K on the flop is less scary against your QQ if you know that your partners already folded a K2 and K3.

5. Bottom line is that a lot of the logical assumptions you startto make on players will turn out to be false if they are collaborating. They can be unpredictable and set up behaviors in hands you are not in since it only moves chips among them.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by bfg9000


what is your edge?

I think he means that he is winningso whatever effect it has has been insufficient to overcome his abilities. I tend to think the effect would be muted on many hands but that there could be particular hands where collusion could have a huge impact.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Flubber


1. On a hand they will win anyway, nothing other than confusing you or maybe sucking you in a bit if one of the betters has been acting as a bluffer is the first to bet

Yes, a valid strategy

2. More generally-- playing multiple hands gives them insurance against bad beats since more flops are to their benefit

No, no, no. Completely wrong. Though "they" as a collective will win more pots percentagewise, they as a collective are also risking more money for the same gain (i.e. my money). Say I have AQ and one of them has KK. I'd much rather play in a pot with the KK plus my hand plus 3 other hands than just my hand against KK (where I'm a 3-1 dog) since the other callers increase my pot odds. That's why it's very often easier to call a bet when many other people have called it than when nobody's called it (assuming I know I'm behind, I'd like everybody to keep playing so that my draws are inexpensive relative to the size of the pot). If I was colluding with my buddy and we weren't going to pull some tricky check-raise bull**** then I'd tell him to fold preflop whenever I got a big hand so I could isolate players. In other words, your strategy would actually cost them chips in the long run.

3. Also they can manipulate chips on hands you fold-- Perhaps they don't want to eliminate each other. Its pretty easy to move some chips to the short-stacked guy-- or maybe they want to increase a chip leaders chip count

Quite true, though this is less of an advantage than you think.

4. Seeing more cards change the mathematics on a lot of hands. Seeing a K on the flop is less scary against your QQ if you know that your partners already folded a K2 and K3.

Quite true, and that's the basic level of collusion; improving your information. Altering your play to take advantage of collusion can be much much more powerful, however, as the likelihood of you gaining very valuable information from your partners' very limited additional information (say 4 cards every hand) is not that high

5. Bottom line is that a lot of the logical assumptions you startto make on players will turn out to be false if they are collaborating. They can be unpredictable and set up behaviors in hands you are not in since it only moves chips among them.

Yes, and I'd rather not play against people who are colluding against me. But people who are bad players remain bad players when they collude. When theree are players who seem to consistently win chips from me I tend to avoid getting involved in hands with them anyway, focusing my attention on the fishes...