I've been reading the forms and playing for just a few months now. Trying to get better and learn as I go along.

A few things I've picked up along the way so far and would like some feedback. All of the below actions are based on if I am first to act.

Please feel free to correct me where I'm mistaken.

1. don't open limp... raise or fold.

2. don't be first to overlimp... raise or fold. I'm understanding this as to mean don't limp after one other person has limped in.

3. don't be first to cold call... raise or fold. (Cold calling would only be advisable if 2 or more have already cold called?)

Side Notes:

I've been following the STARTING HAND CHARTS in SSHE, is this still relevant or is there and updated version?

I'm finding myself playing what I think is "FIT OR FOLD" and not sure just how to correct this mistake.

example:
I'm in MP with JTs, folded to me
I RAISE
two cold callers
SB & BB call
5 players to the flop and I totally miss the flop.

my play has been to check/fold... feel like I totally misplay these types of situations.

Looking forward to the replies.

1. Play tighter preflop until you get better.
2. Learn to estimate outs.
3. Cbet against 1-2 opponents. Check/decide against more.
4. Don't open limp 75s from UTG. (inside joke...)
Follow SSHE recommendations on what to do preflop.
5. Post hands you have a question about.
6. Practice counting pot size.

Bankroll management, bankroll management, bankroll management. Play within your comfortability.

You state you're a beginner player, don't price yourself out of the game(lose so much, and early on, you can't afford to play) even before you improve.

most important: have fun!

Read the stickied threads.

The charts are still a great place to start. However, if I remember correctly the charts don't account for every position, but instead the charts group together positions into late, middle, and early positions. This is not the whole story when it comes to preflop play. It's just a starting point. Soon you should start to recognize that you should open raise wider the later your position and tighter the earlier your position.

are you sure?

might be better for some to play looser and try things although it might be costly at first. it can be hard to get better sitting on the sideline.

looks good

Seems like a fine place to ramble about postflop stuff to me.

Protection is out and equity realization is in. Sure, once in a while you're way out of position and have a top pair middle kicker on the T82r flop that wants to play heads up against a late position flop bettor. You're usually going to be in a blind when this happens because of the usual preflop action where it limps to you in the small blind or big blind. In other situations, like facing a large field after you've raised preflop and got a bunch of callers, you might be tempted to think "oh I should check raise here to protect my hand better." when you should be thinking this:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17...cement-355397/

Other times to check raise would be when you've coldcalled in one of the blinds. Someone raises preflop and gets a few callers. You're in the small blind with JTs and call. The flop is JT4r. Sweet, should you bet or check raise? This will depend on the betting frequencies of the other players. With a hand this strong, you're going to win money on this hand in the long run no matter which way you play it. There have been long threads about spots like this one. In the end it always comes down to your opponents' betting frequencies for a few reasons. There's the danger of a free card which argues for a bet. The more often they bet the flop, the better a check raise becomes. Also, while most of your opponents may be bad at poker, the good ones are aggressive. If you choose to bet strong hands on the flop with a good player in the hand, you need to be wary when you check because of the weakness of your range. Remember all those strong hands you bet? You can't hold them when you check in this spot and a good player will notice.

That's why I check 100% in lots of spots, particularly when someone else has raised preflop and I'm out of position to that preflop raiser. I still use the donk bet now and then to get value on dynamic boards that hit my range hard, but I don't think checking on all flops would be a bad place to start after calling a raise out of position no matter how many players are in the hand.

Like I said, protection is out and equity realization is in. So how do we know how much equity we can realize with certain hands? We don't. Multiway limit holdem is far from solved at the moment, so the best we can do is estimate a realizable fraction of the pot that we own at any given time in a hand.

Some hands realize more equity than pokerstove would show. These are the monsters under your opponent's bed.

Other hands realize less equity than pokerstove would show. These are typically bluffcatchers.

Then there are junk hands, which must be folded or checked. The exception to this rule occurs when you hold a busted draw heads up on the river. Here's a fun one from a while ago:

five limpers and the small blind calls, I check the 42o in the big blind.

35Tr

I check, guy bets, few calls, I call.

To

I check, guy bets, folds to me and I call.

K

I check he checks, I show and declare, he shows 42s that he limped in middle position. We chopped it up.

Even though it was a 4/8 game, I think the river is a must bet in his shoes because he holds the worst possible hand.

Other than river situations, I highly recommend that you abstain from pure bluffing when you have three or more opponents. Multiway bluffs should typically be semibluffs that have a decent shot at improving. The reason is that your opponents' folding frequencies multiply together to the point that pure bluffing is futile. I think I've made one 3+ way pure bluff at 4/8 on the flop or turn in my life. It's a rarity that you don't need to concern yourself with yet. As of now, you should be focusing on value betting, check raising for value, and making high expectation bets or check raises with strong draws. Typically, the fewer people that are in the hand, the less outs you need to make a flop or turn bet with a draw. I like to think of this as making pull bets and check raises that trap opponents for multiple bets when I have a strong draw. With fewer opponents, you can start making some lower equity bluffs, particularly when you hold a strong range against one or two opponents. This usually happens when you raise preflop and only the blinds call.

Ok I'll stop rambling now.

1. Know your pot-odds. Get in the habit of counting the number of bets in every single pot at every stage of the hand.

2. Learn to estimate the number of outs you have -- the SSHE has great tips on doing this.

3. Make a little table -- which you will memorize -- showing the pot-odds you need for any given number of outs.

Put all three together in a manner that will help you decide, at any given point in the hand, whether you should stay in a hand when you think you're behind (which will be most of the time).

+1 on practicing doing on-the-fly equity calculations.

I'll add that it pays to be a bit conservative on these (as I've finally learned). For example, when you have a flush draw and get multi-way action, you probably don't have the "full" 9 outs to hit your flush (all that action suggests that someone else might have the same draw). Moreover, if you aren't drawing to the nut flush, discount that number some more to make up for the times you get sewared and lose a lot of $$

^^ Yep. It takes some practice and experience to do it well. The advice in SSHE about discounting your outs is right on, as is the section on "hidden" outs (e.g. when catching a card will counterfeit your opponent's two pair, etc.).

Another piece of advice: Strictly keep accurate data on your sessions. That's easy if you're solely playing online, but it takes a bit of initiative if you're playing live.

I use the PokerJournal iPhone app, which makes it a breeze. I know exactly how long each session is, right down to the minute, as well as exactly how many pots I won, how much I paid in rake, how much I spent in tokes, what my winnings are both before-and-after tokes or rake, etc. Then I import my data to Excel and R where I can do whatever kind of statistical analyses I wish.

Among other things, this will help you immensely in dealing with variance. No matter how good you are, even if you're a winner in the long run, you're going to go through long losing stretches because of variance. These downswings will cause you to question yourself -- which is fine to the extent you use these opportunities to examine your game objectively -- but many people react negatively and change their strategy for the worse.

If you can show yourself with reasonable statistical confidence that you're beating the game in the long run, you'll recognize these downswings for what they are, and you'll be less affected by them. By the same token, winning stretches can make you unjustly confident about your skills when you should be plugging your leaks instead. You need to be aware of these things.

Keeping data will let you see explicitly how variance is affecting your win rate, and it will make you a more disciplined player with the ability to examine your game objectively rather than being influenced by short-term swings. In short, it will give you the benefit of the long run perspective.

I want to thank everyone for all the replies.

Seems a little overwhelming at times with everything that I'm reading and learning. Still at it though and I'm sure there will be more questions I'll think of.

Quick shoutout to minraise_ninja... you mentioned "+1 on practicing doing on the fly eqity calculations."

Have no idea just exactly what that means. I'm playing live and would appreciate if you could explain further how this is accomplished.

Thanks again...

^^ First, familiarize yourself with the concept of expected value. I don't recall off the top of my head if SSHE discusses it, but many beginner's level books on poker and gambling have some kind of description of it.

Basically:

Let Pr(win) be the probability you win a bet.

The probability you lose the bet (ignoring ties for now) is Pr(lose) = 1 - Pr(win).

Let $(win) be the amount you stand to win, and $(lose) be the amount you stand to lose.

Then the expected value of the bet is defined as:

EV = Pr(win)*$(win) - Pr(lose)*$(lose)

For example, if the bet is that you will win $1 if a six-sided die rolls 5, and you will lose $2 if it rolls some other number, the expected value is:

EV = (1/6)*$1 - (5/6)*$2 = -$1.5

If the EV is negative, that means the bet is a loser for you. In this example, you can expect, in the long run, that you will lose on average $1.5 for every roll of the die you bet on. You don't want to take bets with negative EV; you want to take bets with positive EV.

The upshot of this is that for a given bet, a small chance of winning requires a larger potential payoff to offset the smaller chance of winning.

For example, if your opponent has the best hand on the turn, but you're drawing to the nuts, you need a pot that's big enough to make it worth calling the bet. So if your chance of catching the nuts is 1-in-5, you need a pot that is at least five times as big as the bet.

So to evaluate the expected value of a bet when you're behind, you need to know (1) how big the pot is; and (2) what are the chances (e.g. how many outs you have) for catching the winning hand.

Now, this is all complicated by the fact that there can be ties/split pots, and by the fact that you may end up putting in more bets in the future etc. But that's the basic concept.

^^ Adding to this, what the concept of expected value implies, as a very general rule, is that you should be more reluctant to fold when the pot is large, and more willing to fold when the pot is small.

That's a decent rule of thumb to apply for now while you practice counting bets and outs and learn to put it all together in a more precise fashion.

For example, if you're heads up, and there's only 2 or 3 big bets in the pot, you should generally be willing to fold if your opponent appears to have a stronger hand than you.

On the other hand, when there's something like 7 or more big bets in the pot, you should be more willing to stick around for one bet.

If there are multiple bets to you, you need to consider the ratio of the pot size to the total amount you'll have to pay to stick around. When you're getting odds of something more than 7-to-1 on your money, you should be more willing to stay in.

This is all very general though, and there are many nuances you'll need to master.

play tighter preflop until you get better: check
learn to estimate outs: check
practice counting pot size: check

bankroll management x3: check
have fun: check (although I got to tell you it is fustrating at times!)

reading stickied threads: check

protection is out and pot equity is in: check
I'm not having any problem with RAISING pf on later if I believe I have a good/best hand

BigBadBabar public service announcement: double check

pot odds table/memorization: check

Poker Journal app: check

on-the-fly equity calculations, concept of expected value: I know you guys are typing English words, but it's all Greek to me...
I know this is all important, I'm just not sure how to go about learning how to apply this to live games. Would this be something that is learned with experience?

Look forward to the replies...

Don't forget about position. It's tough to consider everything as a newbie. I am hyper aware of position and the cards I need when I'm in a hand. Stay alert and pay attention. Look left as the action heads your way--there's information there. Learn to act quickly when the action reaches you and don't worry about being slow. Also , keep playing for a bit when the fish leave. Play the "better" players tough and try to learn from it.

Yes. Download Equilab, which is a great tool that costs nothing. Play around with it and get to know the features. Here's a post about getting the most out of an equity calculator:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/35...-tl-dr-449010/

I'll take a shot at explaining "expected value".

Let's play a game. We flip a coin. You give me $2 if it is heads, and I'll give you $1 if it is tails. Do you want to play that game? No? But you'll win half the time. Switch it around where I give you $2 for tails and you give me $1 for heads and you probably want to play that game as long as you can.

Let's play a different game. We roll a 6 sided die. You win $1 from me if a 1 or 2 hits, I win $1 from you if a 3, 4, 5, or 6 hits. Do you want to play that game? No? But you win or lose the same amount as me.

The reason you don't want to play either game I propose is that in the first one you don't win as much as when you lose, and in the second one you don't win as often as you lose.

Expected value is calculated by multiplying the probability that you win times the amount you will win, and then subtract off the amount you will lose times the probability you will lose.

For example, in game 1, half the time you win $1, and half the time you lose $2. The math is (1/2 * $1) - (1/2 * $2) = -$0.50. So each time you play, on average you expect to lose 50 cents. Over the long run, let's say 100 coin flips, if the exact average hits of 50 heads and 50 tails, you will lose $50. You might get lucky and lose less. Heck, you might even get really lucky and win a little something. But this is really not a game you want to play.

In game 2, you win 1/3 of the time, and lose 2/3 of the time. (1/3 * $1) - (2/3 * $1) = -$0.33. Play that game 100 times, and you should average losing $33.

Poker is similar. You want to find situations where the likelihood you win and the amount you win are positive. "Positive Expected Value" is often abbreviated as "+EV". You raise with AA not because it wins every time, but it wins more than its fair share and you want to play for more money so over the long run, you will win your fare share of that larger amount of money in the pot - it has a positive expected value.

The trick is to identify the +EV situations, or picking the one with the largest EV out of several choices.