Didn't even think about that. Ty, I'll try it.

Getting top 3 in SNG is hard right? How does people win SNG so easily? I am okay with those SNG that the top 5 places are paid as the winning chances are higher.

ok, what would you say is different?

Between what and what? Sit n gos and tournaments? Playing tight and playing loose late in a tourney?

If you're asking why I suggest you might do better playing tight even late in a low-stakes tourney, it's because if you're patient, you'll often find spots where you have a huge edge against bad players. If you're impatient, or if you play loose, you'll more often end up with only small edges. So while you have some chance of building up a big stack that way, you also have a much higher chance of going broke. At higher stakes, you can't find as many spots where you have huge edges, which means you can't play quite so tight.

How do you enter flushes and FDs into pokerstove?

Like say for instance you want to include these in the V's range, I'm at a bit of a loss on how to put these in without typing in every single combination of a flush...

or say preflop you want to include "any suited ace" how would you do this besides typing in "A2s, a3s, etc. etc"

Hold down the Shift button on your keyboard while you enter the hands, then deselect the suits you don't want.

For all suited aces hold down Alt + Shift and click on A2s.

Sorry, still don't get what you mean to enter a made flush or FD. could you give me an example please?

thanks

Click the button marked "Player 1" then click the tab marked "Preflop".

No, I mean what is different in terms of playing strategy between a STT and MTT as you said "that is the 'theoretically correct' way to play any tournament format - tight early, loosen up later." Can you given any differences between the two or should the transition be seamless for a STT player switching over to MTT

Depends on what level you are playing at. $5 or less I place in the money a lot of the time. People win sng's because they get better cards or because they play (on average) better than the players they play against. If the top 5 get paid, there have been more entrants so it isnt necesarily easier to win because yo uhave a larger field to get through,.

If you're good at STTs, you'll probably be good at MTTs, but they're quite different things. MTTs are way way longer, and require a lot more patience. You move tables a lot, unlike in a sng, so you need to adjust to new players. But most importantly, MTTs have a much, much longer structure than STTs. You need to know how to adapt to that.

It's way too big a topic to discuss in one little forum post, btw.

If you're to play 2.50 $ 180 players and some micro/low tourneys, what stats would you use?

I think this is an interesting question.

Poker books talk about "weak tight" players but I don't think that's exactly it. I haven't really seen something in the books that corresponds exactly to the way "nit" is used in this forum, although "rock" comes close. 2plus2 tends to use the term "nit" disparagingly but in part I suspect it's because you can't squeeze any money out of these people.

We tend to judge players across two dimensions:
1. How tight they are, or in other words, what percentage of hands they play pre-flop.
2 How aggressive they are, which I think refers primarily to the extent to which you take the initiative in the hand. If you are the one betting and raising, even if your hand isn't all that good, you are aggressive. If you are the one checking and calling, or checking and folding even if your hand wasn't that bad, you are passive.

Note that you don't have to play a lot of hands to be aggressive. You may only play one hand an hour, but if you make a big fat pain in the ass out of yourself when you play that hand, then you are "tight" and "aggressive."

The average poker player is loose and passive. They limp into a lot of pots, and if they don't like the flop, they typically check/fold.

Nits are tight and passive, but they don't tend to run away very easily. They are actually pretty stubborn. They only play quality hands and if they call you are in trouble, and if they raise you are in huge trouble. They only fold if they don't have a hand, so you can't really chase them off anything.

My theory is that nits are aggressive, but they tend to express this aggression in indirect ways, for example by flopping the nut flush, and then checking/calling until the river, where they finally check/raise you the minimum amount, and then tell you to go **** yourself (on the inside).

Playing this way is profitable. The little old people who come to the casino every day, the little old regulars, they tend to play like nits because they don't have money to waste on bad poker and to them, even a little bit of money is cool. Most of the people on this forum would put a bullet in their head before they would play this way because it is excruciatingly boring.

Little old ladies can be weak tight. You might be able to blow them off a hand with a big bet. Little old men are nits. You won't be able to get them off a hand for nothing, if the hand has value.

Your goal is to be tight and aggressive. You don't play many hands, and when you get one, you look at it this way. Your hand is a stick. Your job is to take that stick, and start beating your opponent. You keep hitting your opponent with that stick until he either runs away, or stands up to you. If he stands up to you, its OK to look down, and wonder if you need a bigger stick. If you do, maybe YOU should run away. But if you look down and see a really big stick, like a big baseball bat with old rusty nails sticking out of it, well then you know what to do. Hit him again, only harder this time.

The nit is playing defense. He's not fighting back, he's just standing there taking it. That should make you nervous. Real nervous, in fact.

I think of nits as robotic multitablers with super-tight stats - 10/7 or less in FR - and they exclusively play for big overpairs and set mining. When they have it they will bet / raise and when they don't, they fold.

I don't think nits are necessarily passive at all. In fact, nits can be quite aggressive when they have a hand. Nits just aren't typically very creative. They don't float, they don't 3-bet light, they don't 3-barrel bluff, they don't bet for thin value. They stick to solid starting hands, and tend to bet or call when they have it and fold when they don't, and they will be far more willing to fold a medium-strength hand than your average player would be.

I don't think it's the optimal way to play poker, but I think it's a lot more likely to be profitable than the way many players play. I'm a recovering nit ( ), and I made quite a lot of money playing that way, at low stakes anyway.

Quite of the 10/5 nitty set-miners seem to like limping or min-raising Ax suited too. There is some fat value to be gained against these players (if stealing is "thin value"), but it's usually by beating them at their own game: flopping a set when they have an overpair they can't fold.
There are a few players on Stars full ring 2NL that somehow win at 10 or 11bb/100 with stats like 11/2 and 9/3. When they try 5NL, however, they get killed.

Aggression factor vs Aggression percentage

I have percentage on my HUD ,and honestly I'm not entirely sure how to use it. I just kind of have an "idea" of how aggressive someone is, but a quick summary would be grand.

It's very straightforward and has been posted many times.

Try searching for Aggression factor vs Aggression percentage in 2+2 or on the forum for your HUD.

Oh what the heck. I just did that for you. Here you go.

Yes. When they have to wait dozens of orbits to get a hand they like, no way are they going to fold AA, Beluga be damned.

I'm not really a beginner but I haven't played poker in many years and I feel like this is a dumb question.

Using the $20 left in my roll I thought I'd try getting back to my former 100NL glory. I just looked at the rake I'm currently being charged at Stars and got quite a shock.



Almost 40% rake?

Am I reading this right? Or does "Rake Attrib" include rake paid in hands I lost too?

Won and lost.

No. The rake figure is how much rake was taken off the table. The winnings is how much profit you had after the rake was taken.
Rake is usually between 5 and 10% of all pots, and works out at between 5 and 10bb/100. It's common for winning players in the micros to pay as much rake (or more) than they actually made in profit. e.g. You might win at 4bb/100 (post-rake), but be paying 5bb/100 in rake, but you wouldn't say "the rake is 125%" because it's not. Playing 2NL on Stars, where rake is "the lowest in the industry" at 3.5%, I still paid $50 in rake while making my first $50 in profit.
It's quite eye-opening to think that for every dollar that you make, the site is usually making 50c or more. It doesn't really seem fair, does it? :/

What are the standard bet amounts for:

Pre flop:
3bet - I usually bet about 3 times what's on the table.
4bet - Don't have a clue about this one.

Continuation bets:
Flop: 3/4 of pot?
Turn: 2/3 of pot?
River: Half pot or all in depending on the hand?

what game do you play, rat?