10 BI swings can be standard, a lot of the times the last few buyins are bad play/tilt induced, though.

I keep hearing that once you cashout a hex is put on you to start loosing. I have only been playing online a few months and have made a few cashouts. Not sure if its just because i am looking for it, but I can't seem to get a hand to hold up now.

Yay Utah.

I'm from St. George.

crazy hot there salt lake city here..

how often do you play in mesquite? I have only played there a handfull of times but have never found a good game.

Never, I'm only 18. =(

My dad was the head accountant at Casablanca for awhile.

For the past three months i have been studying Ed Millers Small Stakes Hold'em and have been getting favorable results. But I don't think I am maximizing my wins. My question is this: when playing 1-2 limit what should you buy in with and what is a good hourly expectation?

Are you playing live or online?

Standard bankroll for limit is 300BB but YMMV. You always need to have at least 12BB buy in for obv reasons, I typically buy in with 30BB and reload if I get low.

Your hourly rate will depend on whether you're playing live or online. Online, 1/2 games are pretty tough compared to live. Live, if you've read and understood SSHE you can crush most games and easily stay ahead of the rake.

Online, any positive win rate is good. Usually winrate is discussed in terms of BB/100 hands, so if you're winning 2BB/100, that would be pretty good. I understand that the rake structure isn't so favorable at 1/2 games. Just convert that to hands/hr for your hourly rate, I guess.

For online play, SSHE really isn't the standard at the 1/2 level. The players are (generally) not loose-passive. The games are much more aggro so you'll need to adjust. The Stox book (Winning In Tough Hold Em Games) might give you some more material to think about.

St. George? That town has changed a lot over the years. Got stuck there for two days when I was a kid travelling with my family when our car broke down. Had to have a water pump shipped down from SLC since parts for a 409 C.I.D. Chevy weren't very common. Not much was going on that I remember, but while passing through a couple years ago it seemed like the town had grown a lot.

/end thread derail

Online rigged games and cashout doomswitches have been debated endlessly, and it's not in the best interest of the online poker sites to do it. CMAR has an excellent post regarding this topic somewhere in this section before he locked it, do a search and you'll find it. Other than the recent scandal about Superusers (which has nothing to do with anyone cashing out), there aren't any such issues on any reputable sites.

Section 2)

Beginners Forum Frequently Asked Questions

I don't understand min raising.

Blinds are 10/20

UTG raises $30 to make the total bet $50. So the CO wants to min raise. The CO would then raise $30 to make it $80 or $50 to make it $100? Lets say he raises $30 to make it $80. Now what can the button do? Does he raise $30 to make it $110 or does he raise $60 to make it $140?

The minimum raise is the size of the previous raise. So if the big blind was 20, and player 1 raised to 50, the next minimum raise would have to be to 80. After that it could be re-raised to 110.

Note that the above is standard, but there are a few poker rooms out there that have house rules where a re-raise must double the previous raise and call. E.g. after player 1 raised from 20 to 50, the next raise must be to at least 100. This is definitely unusual and you'll probably never run into it.

Alright thanks you made it very clear.

What does variance mean?

I keep hearing people refer to "min raise" what exactly do they mean ??


thank you

You have a theoretical winrate which is your sample mean winrate...variance defines how far from the mean over a certain sample size. For the purpose of poker stats you can essentially think of it as standard deviation.

There are also other connotations. Sometimes you make the right play...say shoving two pair on the river against a station when he traps you with a set. Most of the time he has one pair and usually calls too so your play was correct the loss can be chalked up to variance. Other people consider downswings when they complain about variance..so when you aren't a big winner it may seem like you have more variance though at micro stakes your variance is generally much lower especially if you play tight

It's the minimum raise allowed typical to a no limit or pot limit game.

Using the earlier examples, and assuming large enough stacks:
SB posts $10
BB posts $20

UTG could call $20 or raise a minimum of $10 for a total of $30 (the BB is considered the opening bet), however he chose to raise $30 to a total of $50. Players acting after UTG could fold, call $50, or re-raise (3-bet) a minimum of $30 ($50-$20=$30) for a total of $80.

The same applies to each street, once the inital bet is made (and a minbet here is $20) a player acting after the initial bettor can raise at least the amount of the bet. For example lets say UTG's raise was called by the button and the SB. The SB can check, bet, or fold (although open folding isn't recommended), and he checks to UTG who bets $50. Now the button can raise at least $50 to a total of $100, which would be a minraise.

Can I get a link to starting charts for LHE 6 handed and 9 handed?

thanks.

OK here is my dumb question. I would like to post a hand hx for review. Stars has sent me an Email of the hx, but I cannot figure out how to paste it into the hand hx converter or otherwise get it into the small stakes mtt forum for review. Any help for the information age challenged player would be appreciated.

****Official TwoPlusTwo Hand Converter Thread****

Do you know how to cut and paste?

Good Morning All

A few dumb questions (this thread is just what I have been looking for, hurrah!). I did search, but could only find hits on the terms being used, no definition/explanation.

1. Term 'cover' or 'covered'?

2. Term 'isolate a player'?

3. Value of individual hands - how are they worked out? I am reading Ryan Fee's 6 Max NL Strategy Guide (which is way over my head BTW, but I'm reading it anyway) + other books, and I come across starting hand advice like 'in these situations drop A9o, or add in hands like A8s'. What's good about A8s (apart from that it has an Ace and is suited)? How did they work these out? I know I can get all sort of statistical values out of something like pokerstove - but this doesn't take into account position and type of game (or does it?) ?

That's all for now, but I am sure to be back.

Many thanks

1. When you have a player covered, you have more chips than he does. So if he goes-all in, you're said to have him covered if you can match his all-in bet without going all-in yourself.

2. Isolate means to raise behind a player that's already in the pot in an attempt to get him heads-up. For example, if a loose player raises or limps ahead of you, you may raise with a weaker than normal hand so you can play them heads up for the rest of the hand.

3. Whatever hand advice you're reading should include the type of game you're in plus position. It should also consider how many people are in the hand already. Indeed, you could use pokerstove to give you an idea of a hand's equity. The higher a hand's equity, the greater it's value. But most of a this is intuitive: high pairs and high suited connectors have the greatest value; low pairs and low suited connectors are valuable when there are a large number of people in the hand; and offsuit hands gain in value to the extent there are fewer people in the hand and at higher the cards are.

If you use pokerstove to assign hand ranges, you could argue that it does somewhat account for game type and position, since you would use those factors to assign ranges.

Thanks MoonOrb, that's a great reply - very informative.

I can learn anything off by heart, but I am now trying to understand more of the how's and why's instead of just the what's - so I can start working things out for myself instead of just blindly following a pro's advice. So the intuitive bit is interesting - but it's just not intuitive to me! Is there a good source of this type of info, ie what type of hands play well/bad in certain situations?

many thanks

what does it mean when people post square brackets like;

[ ] something or other (usually in title)

or when they do a quote from earlier post and just write;

This.

?