I am a newbie to poker but I have had some significant success at the local casinos over the last few months. I am by no means a great poker player, if anything mediocre. However, I notice that a lot of people at the local games tend to get involved in a lot of questionable hands. I suppose if they have a big bank-roll they don't care, whereas I don't have a huge bankroll so I do care.

By playing very conservative and tight, only getting involved with big hands, I seem to be making profit every time I play. Is this complete luck and a bad strategy, or what? I realize this would absolutely not work at higher limits, but at this level it seems like very little investment for a good chance at a significant reward.

I notice some guys tend to limp into almost every hand and occasionally catch a big flop. But overall, I seem to do better and better the tighter I play. Folding lots of hands pre-flop, especially to any raise, and raising hard when I get a big hand.

I have very little tournament experience but from what I gather those guys tend to play a lot looser and many more questionable hands than a live player.

BTW, I have been buying in for typically $100. Stupid, I know, but it seems to work out when I play tight with it.

I know this is NOT the optimal way to play poker. I am asking if it can be consistently profitable specifically in a 1-2 live setting against people who are playing too many crap hands.

My observation is that a lot of people don't want to sit at the table all night so they start playing wild and hope to hit a big hand and don't really care if they lose their money. They want to go home rich or lose it all. The way I have been playing is a very low-risk, medium reward style and is more reliant on waiting for good cards and opportunities and less focusing on making amazing poker plays.

What do you all think about playing like this, specifically in 1-2 no limit live games? I typically buy in with $100(stupid, I know), but as I stated I don't have a big bankroll to be throwing around at the moment.

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

You have found one of the great observations of low-limit live poker, a tight aggressive strategy works wonders. By playing less hands, you put yourself in less difficult decisions such as hands that have RIO. You are definitely right, who in their right mind would drive to a casino and fold most of their hands and only play 10% of them? Truth is, not many people are willing to do this and your discipline has effectively allowed you to print paper money when your at these games.

However, I advise you to buy in for full(at least 100BB) so that you can maximize your earnings when you are in a hand when you have the proper bankroll. Also, if you are looking to move up to higher limits this strategy will be less effective since most of your opponents will be observant of your table image and realize you play few hands and will adjust accordingly.

"Tight is Right, Tighter is righter" - Phil Hellmuth.

Playing a tight aggressive game will net you a profit in the long run against the right people. It seems like you are hitting a nice upswing in variance, but eventually you will get hands cracked. It's normal.

People play poker for different reasons. Some like the entertainment value, others just enjoy a night out drinking with fiends. Some of us play to make money. I'm not the best person to ask here in terms of optimal strategy ( trust me, about 50 people will come in here and tell you what is, and some of them will even be right! ) But I will say you have a great base to work from.

Welcome to Live Low Stakes NL hold'em! The best way to learn is to discuss hands on here, talk with other people that play poker for a living, and experience. Good luck and stay awhile!

The long and short of it is yes.

While not optimal, picking only fat +EV spots is...guess what....fat +EV.

You should continue playing the same way you have been playing, but raise your buy-in.

And honestly, I'm not sure that your approach isn't optimal for 1/2. It depends greatly on how loosely your opponents play, and also what you consider to be "very tight".

I agree with the above responses (and with you; you seem to have figured it out) and will add:

As your BR goes up with your experience/comfort level, you should open up a bit on the button / co. Don't do stupid things like calling a raise with a suited connector when your stack is too small, but do try raising that same suited connector over limpers. When you first start playing these hands you will probably lose some money due to lack of experience. Just practice and consider this the cost of education. If you lose a buy in, revert to your normal nit tag strategy until you win 2 more.

This has been my strategy for learning the game and it's working well so far. The key is to open up a tiny bit at a time, and to do it when your winning/confident (that is, do it when your the opposite of tilted).

Good luck sir.

Greetings and welcome to the forum....

Based on your comments, and taking into consideration you're a newish player, you're certainly on the right track. For now just keep doing what you're doing.
After some time and more experience you may choose to start making some slight tweaks to your str8 forward ABC approach to the game. After that, one things leads to another and you may choose to play more sophisticated at higher stakes.
Kindly keep in mind that when you limp, then ck call a raise, then hit a set, only the lowest stakes players are going to pay you off w/ their over pair. The dummies go away quickly as the stakes go up. Even some dummy $1/2 players may eventually notice that you ONLY play the nuts and and will choose to fold when you bet.

As a practical matter, generally speaking, there are 2 ways to win a hand.

1) Everyone folds and you collect the pot.

..This seems straightforward and easy to understand, but WHY did everyone fold? Did you bet enough, table imagine, players to dumb to read their own hand, a position play, and the list goes one...including "outplaying" your opponent.

2) You take the hand all the way to a showdown and the best hand wins.

At the lowest stakes number 2 wins more hands than number 1. There's something to be said for "simple player = simple hand".
Everyone knows that five cards of the same suite is a flush, and a flush is a pretty good hand ....often the winning hand.

Please don't misunderstand, you're on the right track and playing a low varience "winning" style of poker for where you are right now in regards to your poker development.
That said, you're missing lots of opportunity for more value.....and as said above, you may choose to gain more experience over time, choose to educate yourself more and ultimately become more than a simple ABC lowest stakes player.

best wishes sir.....

EDIT: BTW, the LOWEST stakes games have the HIGHEST varience. The reasons include, but not limited to; players checking their monster hands -such as a set on the flop & turn, because they're "too scared" (too dumb -because what they're really doing is losing value) and/or trying to be all tricky & trappy -because they *think* they're cute, or because they get off on a ego trip bombing in w/ a huge ck raise after you commit some chips to the pot.
My point is, varience is part of the game. This means you're going to loose, sometimes more than you're fair share of the time. However at the lowest stakes dummy players will make weird calls and bets that you'll NEVER be able to figure out...it is IMPOSIBLE to range the hand of some lowest stakes players. These are the very players that will get a miracle-miracle 2 outter suck out on your dam good hand. This can cause heart burn for good players, and can effect your bankroll in a serious fashion.
One more note....good players rarely get miracle suck outs. The reason is simple, they always have a dominate hand when they put chips in the pot. Bad players have to win "sometimes", or they would never play again...they like to gamble, and most of them don't have a clue about the math of the game,

It truly depends on why you're playing - you should ask yourself this question every 100 hours of playing time. If you're playing just to hang out, but not lose big in the process, and maybe pick up 2-3 bb an hour, then the fundamentals you are using are rock solid.

If you then change the reason you are playing to wanting 7-10 bb an hour then in general a tight image is the least profitable, because V's essential weakness, of calling too much, can't be properly exploited.

Notice, I'm talking about image which is not the same as reality. Image changes quickly at a table and some players don't even pay attention.

Welcome OP!

I think your being to harsh on yourself: you can absolutely be a profitable poker player with a very tight style of play! Infact many successfull high limit players have a very tight foundation in their game, for example Barry Greenstein- regular in high stakes cash games for countless years. Of course you need to expand and learn more to develope your game, but as a solid foundation to start with i believe tight rockish game is fantastic.

Number one leak in live low stakes games by my opinion is playing too many hands from all positions at the table= poor hand selection. You have a good advantage on many players when you come in with a superior range everytime you enter a pot with them- i am not surprised at all that your making profit.

I started out myself very tight (so i totally understand where youre coming from), some players would say nitty- without me caring much about that. I dont just play 9-4 suited because its pretty suited cards like many (losing players) do and make fun of me for being tight at the same time. (Its quite funny though, i rarely hear any stupid comments about my nitty style of play when i cash out profit at the end of session when they are felted and just have empty wallets left )

When you keep developing, keep playing, keep getting new experiences, it will come naturally to expand your hand selection a bit, especially from good table positions like HJ and the button. You will eventually start to maybe open good suited connectors like 7-8 suited or 8-9 suited from position, and starting to get comfortable 3 betting preflop with hands like AQ or maybe 9-9. I still remember my own very first 3 bet preflop without KK/AA-AK, and that was pretty scary My advice though will be to not force it, but take your time and let the process come by itself. When you write, discuss and reflect more on poker it will help your game tremendously OP- so i hope you will use the resources that 2+2 holds.

Op, don't knock yourself too hard. It looks like you've adapted what you have into a profitable style.

Just understand that people WILL start to notice you're nut-peddling and will stop giving you action, so you might want to throw an occasional straddle out or something to give the appearance of being being in for the gambool.

Your success owes thanks to the type of game you're playing. You're not going to be as profitable at a table with a bunch of "tights" (as Doyle calls it) like yourself. You happen to have come accross a game counter to your own style, which is +ev. In this loose game, tight is right. When you're playing the OMC's at the dogtrack on Wednesday afternoon, tap you're inner LAG. If everyone's playing weak/passive limp poker, "Raisey-daisey". But if there's allot of raises and 3-bets, slow down and let the others do the heavy lifting.

Not much to add to what has already been said. Read the stickies in this forum, there's a wealth of information linked. A mistake many new players make is that they feel the first thing they need to do is to open up their range. There are many other things you need to do better that will also lead you to greater profits, such as bet sizing and value betting. Ignore everyone that tells you that you need to be a LAG to win good money at LLSNL.

You can win at almost all 1-2 and 1-3 NL games playing a true TAG style. Most profits from LLSNL is capitalizing off opponents mistakes (which are plentiful) and avoiding mistakes yourself. This style will win but its not that fun, right? When you walk by LLSNL tables and see 800bb stacks those are the guys who are playing LAG, seeing flops and playing with aggression. TAG style wins, LAG styles wins big with more ups and downs.

But if you are a beginner i recommend playing TAG.

If you play in my games, play crazy LAG and dump your chips to me. Otherwise, follow GG's path to profits:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17...-3-nl-1303247/

No, seriously.

play super tight, but start to open up your game on the button and cutoff with a slightly larger range

BUT only do it with 0 or 1 limpers to avoid swingy spots if you are that underroled

i have a massive roll for 1-2 and 2-5 so i play a little looser than what i just saud but this is my strategy for 5/10 and 10/20 to avoid big losses and keep winning

It is probably the best way to play for a beginner in loose games where players make numerous post-flop mistakes. It allows you to play hands that are generally profitable and make less mistakes. You can play tight and still be unprofitable if your post-flop mistakes are huge. Playing tight pre-flop allows you to focus on post-flop decisions where the money is won/loss, especially turn/river decisions.

Against whom?

Against someone who plays too many flops, and sticks around too long with draws, yeah you can make money.

Against other tight players, not so much.

So I would add:

Pick your poker table like you pick your craps table. Full, drunk and rowdy.

Pay attention to bet sizing advice here in the forums. Bet big. Figure out the most you think those dopes will call, then add $5.

Good luck and welcome.

playiing tight works at all levels.

For being a "newbie" you definitely got it figured out pretty quickly. 1/2 is easy to beat if you can keep playing pretty much the way you described in your original post. Master that ABC game, extract value and get a strong feel for the game. Once you get the fundamentals down the game gets easier and easier and you'll be able to take your play to the next level and start crushing the game....turning those " medium reward" sessions into monster 500bb wins.

Keep doing what you're doing kid, its impressive. Oh, but one more thing- buy in for $200 at LEAST. Never sit with less than 100bb. Good luck

in loose games where few are paying attention then yes, playing ridiculously tight will be very profitable. in tougher games you'll have a hard time getting paid off so table select accordingly and fold your way to success.

Don't worry about this vague notion that you are somehow ascribiing towards greatness; with regards to poker. Poker is a game of managing luck. It's more entertainment and mental exercise than anything. Greatness is something that happens when you bang the head cheerleader after posterizing your first dunk.

This is actually very debateable.
I'd already sorta arrived at this conclusion long before I ever read this. My reasoning was I'd likely pick up a few small pots before I went nuts anyway, and I'd rather gamble with someone else's money.