"Undisciplined" may not be the word I'm looking for, it sounds too pretentious, but I can't think of any other way to describe the people I play poker with. This is free, for-points B&M NL poker and a lot of the players are the type who've learned from someone who've learned from someone else. I don't think a one of them has ever read a poker book, so what you have are the "play any 2 cards" from any position types, super-bluffers, and major suck-out artists.

What is the point of trying to play smart, or at least ABC, poker when no one else does? It's not that I don't take chances, when I can, but I've found that for me, playing rag hands just doesn't work. Suited connectors and suited one-gappers? Seldom, if ever win with them. And there's no point for me to try and bluff. Even if I have a good hand and raise significantly, I get callers who then go on to suck out.

One example, I had A-K in the BB, with blinds 200/400, and raised it 1600 to go. I got one caller. He had Q-6o. This guy tabled a straight. Why was he even in the hand? I thought the idea of a raise was to weed out the poor hands.

Sometimes I leave these games with the worst tension headaches because I just don't know how to play against these types of players. Any advice?

be happy he played Q6o against you for a raise? thats my advice

When someone sucks out they've made a mathematical mistake this means money for you in the long run.

How did the AK hand play out (including stack sizes, position), I'm far from perfect myself but one of the things I've learnt is the worse the player the easier they are to beat.

You have to review your hands and see if you made a mistake.

If you're playing in freerolls, you'll always encounter maniacs.

im very disciplined

and say hello to Captain Variance. Seriously, the games you describe will probably have lots of it...when you get postive variance youll be laughing all the way to the bank. suck it up and ride it out and youll be fine in the end. If you cant stomach playing those games then maybe seek out a game that is loose but more passive but be careful about wishing that they would respect your raises, you just might get what you ask for

This is a common misconception. Raising accomplishes many things. When people call too much, the main purpose of raising is to get more money in before they see that their garbage missed.

That your opponent made a mistake from a call generally means you benefit on average. You don't win every hand, but on average, you should do better than if the player correctly folded.

I play poker to win money (and sometimes for social reasons). Playing solid poker will win a lot of money in these games.

Part of the problem may be that your expectations are too high. You shouldn't expect to win the tournament every time you outplay your opponents. If there are 10 players, and you win 20% of the time, that's great, even though you will lose 80% of the time. You can't sustain anything like that in tough games where people fold Q6o.

AK is a very strong hand, but it's not a huge favorite over some poor hands. You shouldn't expect to win every time you have it.

If several people limped in, and you raised to only 4 times the big blind, then your raise was quite small, and it's suprising that you only had one caller.

If you're unhappy with your results against the muppets good luck when you come up against some real opposition.

You're probably playing too big for your bankroll if suckouts bother you so much.

Just like what everyone else said be happy about your situation and realize you can't and will never win them all.

Some advice for you in these games is to find their threshold point for calling preflop raises. Im sure Q6o is not calling an all-in and if he will then push all-in. But somewhere between that 4xBB and an all-in is a threshold point that he is going to call some and fold some. The idea here is to put him to a tough decision. If you miss the flop then just make a small cbet or check it down. If you hit the flop take him for all his chips.

Get lots of money in preflop to build a potentially enormous pot. When you hit your hand these kind of players in the type of tournament your talking about are going to pay you off a lot because all they see is all the chips in the pot and they know the only way to win those chips is to put more in.

Its a great thing. BUT YOU WON'T WIN THEM ALL!

This game isn't a bankroll situation. It's free poker, we start with 740 in chips and build on that, and the Q6o suck-out didn't hurt my stack at that point altho a 1200 raise was quite a bit.

But I'm getting mixed signals here. Is a pf raise supposed to be 3X the BB or not?

I just feel that bad habits playing free poker will migrate to bad habits when real cash is on the line. I don't want to play like that; I am a TAG pretty much all the time. I just can't see me becoming as wildly LAG as some of those I play with.

1. Poker is a long term game, eventually you'll start destroying people who like to call a raise with q6 os.

2. Don't wildly adapt your game because of suckouts. The fact that they are happening shows you you're getting your chips in favourite, and that's perfect.

3. Stick with ABC poker and hope the competition doesn't get smart any time soon.

Not to be rude but you sound like every player who is just getting started in poker. Chances are you probably aren't playing as good as you think you are, but if you are then just take it in stride and be glad people want to give you their money so easily. Just think if everyone played good solid poker, how much money could you win? Don't let the lucky streaks of fish, turn you into playing like one also.

poker is a situational game and thus the answer is often 'it depends'. No offence, but if you are asking this question above then you probably need to start working out how to adjust in different games. What you need to do is start figuring out how it depends. betting guidelines are just that...guidelines...what is right for one game isnt right for another and you just cant play cookbook poker all the time. FWIW you probably have an edge of the players you are playing against and with some fine tuning you should be able to crush them. goodluck.

be prepared to lay down a hand if you miss. when you do hit, you'll most likely be ahead, and if he hits with his q-6 you'll have him beat most of the time, so just let him bet into you and milk the guy

You're right, the word you are looking for is "loose".

In these types of tourneys, I push a lot more than normal. Against good players, pushing all-in a lot is going to lose you some value. Against these players, you will get calls that good players won't make. If you hit TPTK on the flop and there is no possible straight or flush just push all-in.

I would only make pf raises with very good hands. And I would make the raise very large. I would look to reraise all-in with my best hands. If you make it to the flop and it looks good and dry, I would push immediately.

When playing against players this loose, top pair or even two pair is not going to win a lot of pots when you get to the turn or river. So I would get into as many pots as I could with hands as bad as 98off or Kxs and of course every PP and be the guy that can beat two pair.

Basically, I would be very aggressive pf and on the flop with made hands. I would be passive with speculative hands until I hit and then bet big.

You are right that bluffing is probably a no-go. And you would only want to slowplay monsters. And in this game, betting 60% of the pot is probably slowplaying.

If you're truly playing TAG, you won't develop bad habits by playing against LAG's. Generally I've found it to be best to play the opposite of my opponents. I'm not too terribly experienced, but freerolls and the micro's where I play, are full of LAGs as well as loose passives, so play good cards aggressively for value. Pay attention to their tendencies as well, and you will pick up patterns and know when to get away from a good hand too. And every once in a while, if the table I'm at starts to fill up with TAG's, I may LAG it up a bit and steal before I leave to find another table.

To "resboard", I'm not that new at poker; I've been playing for around 2 1/2 years now.

I'm hearing and understanding what everyone is saying, but I have some questions that aren't newbie, exactly, but still this late in my poker life, puzzle me.

In the earliest rounds, with or without raises, in or out of best position, should I play Kx? I used to, but I don't any more and of course there's a king in the flop.

If I have Ax, and the table is, for example, 3-7-3-4-9, and it's checked to the river around to me, is someone slow-playing, or if I put a raise in will I take the pot?

One hole in my play is not knowing how much is in the pot for odds purposes. In another place I played a non-dealing player would reach over and count the chips to see. I don't know if Robert's Rules apply to the type of poker I play so is that really permissable? I know for me trying to eyeball the chip count is arduous and probably wrong anyway.

I won't change my mode of play, but geez I wish some of the better players here could play some of those I play against. It's pretty frustrating, variance to be expected or not.

I'm pretty sure we've all played them at some point (unless someone started off at $1/$2 online). I usually tighten up at tables like this and bet for value with my strong hands (since players like this are less likely to fold). Also, don't bother trying to bluff. For your A-x example, I'd probably just check it down. You might have the best hand with Ace-high, and if not, you might get called by someone with a 2-4 offsuit and lose. Remember that bets like this only win you money if there's a worse hand that'll call you, or a better hand that will fold. (At these tables, it seems, the latter will rarely happen). Best of luck to you and hang in there!

You will fold the winning hand quite often in poker. Playing Kx or even Ax from any position (but especially oop), can get you into trouble when you hit it on the flop. You can easily be outkicked.

It really depends, someone could be slowplaying a strong hand, hit 2nd pair, or have nothing with a missed draw. More info. about how the hand played out would help. When you say "checked around", it sounds like there are several players in the hand, so I'd proceed carefully and most likely would check having hit nothing, and be happy if my A kicker took it.

I could be wrong, but that sounds like a big no-no. Some home games can be fairly loose with the rules, and I don't like to be a nit, but technically I believe you can't even ask for a count of the pot. In the nlhe home game I play in, I sometimes lose track of the size of the pot and just eyeball it. I can usually come up with a reasonably accurate count by staring with the larger denomination chips and working my way through it. It doesn't have to be exact, just close enough that you're bet size accomplished what you meant.

oi, you know i've been playing at an infrequent home game with a bunch of loose aggressive hieniken-drinking vietnamese... your tourney peers sound suspiciously like some of these fellows! when i began playing with them i was an absolute poker-n00b that landed on the losing end of things after every night of playing "you know the next cards gonna be?? NO? me neither! ALL-IN!! hahahaaha!". then i grabbed a couple books.

a few months later... well, i'm still no pro at this game, and i make crazy mistakes all the time, especially online, but against these loud laughing Viet. i have one helluva good time now that i've learned how to fold appropriately, and how to bet big when i hit the flop to eat all their chips.

my best night to date was just last weekend, i made a nice little folding octagon poker table and brought it out for its debut. 3$ buy-in/re-buy for 40 chips, 1&2 chip blinds, and at the end of a couple hours i was up $80!

hyper-loose-aggressive players are your best friends! play slightly-tight very-aggressive for the first rounds until you chipstack can take a good hit, then loosen your PF hand-selection quite a bit, call those crazy early raises with your spare chips and then punish them when you hit the flop. you didn't hit? fold, cuz you can't win with a bluff against these fellers. fold, and dont worry that you called a 3$ all-in. you've a huge stack to be liberal with and that lets you play more hands and win more hands.

I thought the idea of a raise was to weed out the poor hands.



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The point of your raise is to cause them to make an error. you raise the largest amount that would be an error to call that they will still call. In the long run you will win.

I may be missing something here, but are you saying you've been playing poker for 2 1/2 years and still haven't played in a game where cash was at stake?

I started out playing in something called the National Poker Tour. It's a multistate, bar-based, free poker MTTs where you earn points and play in monthly and yearly MTTs for payout, so yes, for a long time that's all I played. After that ended, some of us from that gathered at a couple of people's houses once a week for a $10 buy-in games, with no more than a couple of tables. I have been to Vegas, even played NL at the Bellagio, not to great success, but I played. Recently I started playing at another bar in a guy's private MTT, but again for points, altho the monthly and yearly pays out, too. I see you're from the UK, so I guess you don't have B&M freerolls there, I don't know.

So, I played poker at 2 places tonight. At my usual place I busted out after 2 re-buys before the blinds rose to 25/50. Not wanting to go home so soon I went to this other bar (pointedly called "All-In") and after playing there I think I will give up playing poker with local people.

Or, I think a new word should be added to the TAG/LAG/PAG definitions and that's WAG, with the W standing for wild-ass. These people were insane. There's no such thing as ABC poker playing with them.

It didn't matter what you raised the blind to you got a caller, and usually with a totally [censored] hand that invariably hit the table. Have Ax? Go all in. Have 7-10d? Raise 7 times the blind because you have "2 over cards" and the flop is 6-5-4. Knowing these people in this short time, me, with pocket 7s, figured she was playing 7-3, so I folded. Why else would you raise like that? So she lost her "over cards" to a pair of sixes.

And of course play any 2 suited cards as this one woman kept whining as she raked the pot after pot.

In this particular game the blinds rise by a factor of 4, I think. After 1/2 it becomes 2/4, 4/8, 8/16, etc.; my math isn't good so I don't know what the factor is. But at the end when there are only 2 people left, they chop the pot based on chip count, so out of 4 games I chopped once, having the lesser chips.

Anyway, I can't do it, I can't play with them. They kept telling me that I'd have to play their way and I just can't. My luck, after whatever little ability I have, just doesn't work like that.

So either I go back to playing on-line, move to Vegas, or give up playing poker all together. I can't deal with this.

With regards to my earlier post, I just think that people are more likely to play in a loose (and sometimes crazy) way when there isn't really anything at stake for them. I've played a few free roll tournaments myself in the past and even though there were money prizes at stake I found my concentration drifting and I ended up playing a very lag style which is pretty much the opposite from my usual game. When I know that I'm playing using money from my bankroll then I find I'm far more disciplined in my play.