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Beginner/Basic Question Thread Beginner/Basic Question Thread

01-06-2011 , 01:14 AM
Hey guys. I have been playing poker recreationally for about 6 months or so, and have recently gotten a little more serious with it (reading strategy, posting on forums, studying my game sticking to bkr management etc)

Over xmas break my friend gave me 2 dollars and I ran it up to 40 multi tabling 2NL on Stars. Then I hit a HUGE downswing for me and got down to about 20 dollars. Then I just decided to play a SnG out of tilt or soemthing else. Anyway I once again took up playing sit and gos. In 2 days I have bought into 8 ($1.20) SnGs on Stars and am up a total of ($10.20) for all of them.

I feel like I understand how SnGs work and people's mindset but what I would really appreciate is if someone could take the time out and watch me play 1 or 2 SnGs and coach or tell me their opinion of how I am playing.

Also, my bankroll has bounced back a bit but is $25 too risky to be buying into $1.00 +.$20 SnGs with?
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01-06-2011 , 01:28 AM
you really need a bigger sample size to see if you can win in sng´s. also get sngwizard and train the quiz/review every session.

the micro sngs are pretty well beatable but you might suffer a downswing to 0$ with your small bankroll pretty fast! good players can achieve something like 40% in the money over a bigger sample. if you happen to be unlucky you might just loose 10 or 20 buyins in a row.

if you want to get serious you need to work on your game and read around in the link-collection thread alot. you also will likely need to cash in more to get started, as sngs can be pretty swingy and 1 bad swing can end your career
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01-06-2011 , 12:49 PM
are there any pros at the 1 and 2 dollar sng on full tilt/?well maybe not pros but like regulars...say for exsmple the 6 max would there be like 5 fish and 1 reg on average?
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01-06-2011 , 02:28 PM
There definitely arent pros who make their entire living, but there are winning players. There's prob more losing players, but youll still have some winning and breakeven. The rake is so high at these lower levels that you need beating them by more to make the same ROI as you do at higher limits.

Im gonna be grinding the $2 super turbos friday through sunday for SNG madness, so Id stay off those if I were you.
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01-06-2011 , 07:35 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rusemandingo
There definitely arent pros who make their entire living, but there are winning players. There's prob more losing players, but youll still have some winning and breakeven. The rake is so high at these lower levels that you need beating them by more to make the same ROI as you do at higher limits.

Im gonna be grinding the $2 super turbos friday through sunday for SNG madness, so Id stay off those if I were you.
SnG madness is when all of the grinders / winners come out so unless you are one of them def. stay away. I learned my lesson
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01-06-2011 , 07:40 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by ilb3
SnG madness is when all of the grinders / winners come out so unless you are one of them def. stay away. I learned my lesson
So if you're a grinder/winner does this make you (me?) BE and you're just playing for prizes/rakeback/IM? Table selecting near impossible?

I'm wondering if I should stick around long enough to hit my IM and then play on stars... haven't played a SNG weekend before. Is there a general consensus from regs on what to do/play this weekend?
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01-06-2011 , 09:28 PM
I had the largest overall score in group A by a decent bit last time, so I think Ill be okay. Theyve switched up the scoring a little bit, but I think it still favors super turbos grinders and thats my main game so I should be good.
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01-06-2011 , 09:29 PM
Does anyone know if anything close to what table of interest was, exists. Even something that just moved tables from the main stack to a 2nd when the final table was reached or when a certain amount of people were left would help immensely.
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01-06-2011 , 09:35 PM
Hi there,

I want to ask do you guys have any tips how to improve on multitabling?I play non turbo 180 and MTTs.My sess starts at 18:00 with 8 tables.I keep registering until 01:30 but after I drop from my starting 8 tables I never go up more or less then 6.Atm its the number I can handle with quality in my game.So I am registering for 7.5 hours and ussually get like 20-25 games.I believe it looks like a big waste of time for more serious grinders.How could I improve at playing more tables and spend my grinding time more effective?
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01-07-2011 , 01:25 AM
I posted earlier in the thread after having a really bad 800 game sample playing mainly 16s, but didnt get any real response, other then someone trying to 1-up me with their graph. I'm curious how common is this and how often should we be expecting it? I've been doing a TON of video watching and working on my game, so I know im AT LEAST a winner at the 16s. I'm no sippin_criss but I think I can expect at least ~4-5% if i do a bit of game selecting. This is about 60% 16s, and the rest are mainly when I moved down to work on my game @ 6.50s with some $13 6max mixed in. I know its not a gigantic sample, but its pretty discouraging, as I've only played about 4k STTs so far and still consider myself pretty new to them.

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01-07-2011 , 01:28 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by nejuokai
Hi there,

I want to ask do you guys have any tips how to improve on multitabling?I play non turbo 180 and MTTs.My sess starts at 18:00 with 8 tables.I keep registering until 01:30 but after I drop from my starting 8 tables I never go up more or less then 6.Atm its the number I can handle with quality in my game.So I am registering for 7.5 hours and ussually get like 20-25 games.I believe it looks like a big waste of time for more serious grinders.How could I improve at playing more tables and spend my grinding time more effective?
Improving at MTing is real simple. just add table very gradually. If you feel you reached X number of tables and you are real overwhelmed, play 2-3 less and work on making quick decisions. If you tile your games, you may want to think about cascading or stacking, depending on how many tables you want to ultimately play.
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01-07-2011 , 09:44 AM
same question as here : http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/32...ns/mix-953388/
Hey,
I took some months of poker due to some personal reasons ( eye operation, broken wrist) and decided to not play for a couple of months.
I want to start back playing in february after exams this month.

I'm looking to start playing the 1.75 turbos and 2.2 HU sng's on stars

Any recommendations? Should I play those both types at the same time (I don't mean at the exact same time but like mixing up sessions with a session 9man turbos and a session of some HU sng's)
Or should I just focus on one part of the game.

Please no trolling and serious answers only.
Any personal experiences would be appreciated.
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01-07-2011 , 12:52 PM
can you recommend any good free script which auto clicks time bank?
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01-07-2011 , 03:10 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by gabrielarocks
So if you're a grinder/winner does this make you (me?) BE and you're just playing for prizes/rakeback/IM? Table selecting near impossible?

I'm wondering if I should stick around long enough to hit my IM and then play on stars... haven't played a SNG weekend before. Is there a general consensus from regs on what to do/play this weekend?
When I played the SnG madness last time on FTP I had little idea what I was doing poker wise. I playing the micro limit turbos on there 9 handed forget the buy in amount but it was SOOOO much slower than usual. It became a wait for aces and then ship it fest, until the blinds went up at which point the people who got aces beforehand waited for shortstacks to blind out.


Quote:
Originally Posted by nejuokai
can you recommend any good free script which auto clicks time bank?
Tableninja does it. You can get a 30 day trial via HEM
Beginner/Basic Question Thread Quote
01-07-2011 , 03:30 PM
nejuokai what site are you playing on? If it's not stars/tilt you might have trouble.

Head over to the software forum, a search for timebank should yield a ton of results. If you have trouble finding something just make a thread there, software guys are usually pretty helpful.

If you're on stars/tilt 2 scripts by Maximus FTCash and Starscash are great. They're made for cash but you can use with tournamenrts and both feature time bank clicker and a bunch of other useful things
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01-07-2011 , 06:49 PM
I am on Stars and I 180s and MTTs guy.So which one you should recommend?
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01-07-2011 , 09:09 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by fish491
same question as here : http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/32...ns/mix-953388/
Hey,
I took some months of poker due to some personal reasons ( eye operation, broken wrist) and decided to not play for a couple of months.
I want to start back playing in february after exams this month.

I'm looking to start playing the 1.75 turbos and 2.2 HU sng's on stars

Any recommendations? Should I play those both types at the same time (I don't mean at the exact same time but like mixing up sessions with a session 9man turbos and a session of some HU sng's)
Or should I just focus on one part of the game.

Please no trolling and serious answers only.
Any personal experiences would be appreciated.
Try playing both imo. I spent a bit of time learning HU sngs just to improve my 9-man game and it helped quite a bit. If you get tired of grinding one game it's nice to have a different game to switch to, helps keep you motivated. HU sngs are also good when you don't have as much time to play.

I'd choose the $2 + 0.10, 4-man HU sngs for much lower rake, even though the variance will probably be a bit higher.

Playing HU sngs obv helps your HU game for 9-man sngs, but more importantly it lets you learn better thought processes postflop (e.g. when to cbet). Read all of spamz hh reviews twice, then read them again, they are that good.

Last edited by IFoldPktOnes; 01-07-2011 at 09:32 PM. Reason: also if you are just starting with HU sngs, just 1-table you will learn faster / play better
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01-08-2011 , 12:00 PM
This may be asking too much - my apologies if it is. I've just gotten back into playing poker after a 5+ year break. I'm playing almost exclusively 6 man turbo SnG's in the 5 & 6$ range right now in the hopes of learning this new (to me) game of 6 man sng - and in the hopes of building my 300$ bankroll and getting skilled enough to move up in limits.

It's very early - I've only got 31 tournies and 2000 hands logged so far. Over those 31 tournies (way to early to be any kind of meaningful data) - I'm pretty much breaking even (+ $4 total).

Playing with HEM - I'm looking at the 'player analysis' of me - and some things bear considering right away. Here are some highlights:

General:
High fold to flop CBet 26/42 (62%)

Flop vs PFR
Low bet 3/44 for 6.8%
High Check Fold 16/22 for 72%
Low check raise 0/22
low raise 0/22

Limped Flop
Low Bet IP 23/92 for 20%

Turn
Very low bet 45/224
low check fold 19/41
High Check Raise 6/41

In general - I'm at 27 vpip; 12 raise

Again - I understand the sample size is so small as to be worthless - but I'm looking at things like folding to a continuation bet 62% of the time - and trying to mesh that with tight early play and not getting fancy - and getting away from hands immediately in the early rounds in particular.

Also - for these 6 man, low stakes turbo's because it becomes such a push fest in the later stages - how meaningful are the stats anyway? In particular for the player analysis, I'm not finding a way to limit that analysis to just the early rounds (as an example)
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01-08-2011 , 03:12 PM
How normal is it to get shortstacked in a turbo 9-man sng? Do you need to play as tight as you play in non-turbo sngs? I'm talking about the smallest stakes, 1-2$ sngs.
I find myself too often in such stupid situations because of the need to move all-in: like, I have AK, I have less than 10bb, I move all-in, get called by an idiot with K9o and I lose. I know variance and stuff, but maybe I'm just playing too tight early? Maybe it's better to play looser in the beginning than to be shortstacked and need to risk closer to the buble? I don't know my stats, but I'm opening only solid hands in the early stages - JJ+, AJs+, AQ+ EP, adding KQ, KJ, A9+ in LP and limping pocket pairs and sc's.
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01-08-2011 , 03:32 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nuca-Cola
I'm opening only solid hands in the early stages - JJ+, AJs+, AQ+ EP, adding KQ, KJ, A9+ in LP and limping pocket pairs and sc's
Some might disagree with me but you're not playing tight enough for a turbo. There's very little maneuverability with our stacks and stabbing at pots and hoping for speculative hands to hit is going to leave you with that awkward stack most of the time where the blinds are going up and any open is going to leave you pot committed.

I normally play NTs but have been hitting the $12 turbos all weekend and it's a completely different game of poker. So many regs with polarized ranges and fish getting ATC in the middle that trying to exploit small edges can leave you crippled. Know when you're ahead, get your chips in ahead and be ok when K9s beats your AKo. It happens a lot. Multi tabling helps (me) deal with that since it gives me a better picture of variance... if you're just single tabling, the bad beats will bite you a bit harder. Just deal with it and tighten up.

edit -- and you *should* know your stats. Get a HUD, try a demo, whatever... absolutely necessary if you're going to take this seriously.

Last edited by gabrielarocks; 01-08-2011 at 03:39 PM.
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01-08-2011 , 03:50 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by gabrielarocks
Some might disagree with me but you're not playing tight enough for a turbo.
So... I remove KJ, A9+ in LP from my range. What about limping pp and sc early? When I say early, I mean only the first two levels.

And what should be my all-in range, say, when we're 6 handed or less when I'm less than 10bb? I usually try AJ+ and any pocket pair in EP and KQ, KJ, A8s+ from btn or sb when folded to me.

I had a trial HUD, it expired. Can't afford to buy one now, will surely buy it later.

So, getting shortstacked in the later stages due to the fact that we are playing so tight in the beginning is OK?

Last edited by Nuca-Cola; 01-08-2011 at 04:07 PM.
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01-08-2011 , 06:13 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nuca-Cola
So... I remove KJ, A9+ in LP from my range. What about limping pp and sc early? When I say early, I mean only the first two levels.
I would never limp a SC in EP under any circumstance. PP might be ok (more in NTs) but be prepared to face a big 3bet or push which puts you in a real difficult situation. Implied odds are usually big but a couple misses will destroy your stack and image. If I see a lot of EP limping, I color mark a player as a fish unless he's just unbelievable post-flop.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nuca-Cola
And what should be my all-in range, say, when we're 6 handed or less when I'm less than 10bb? I usually try AJ+ and any pocket pair in EP and KQ, KJ, A8s+ from btn or sb when folded to me.
6 handed is usually a bit too early to be pushing very wide regardless of your stack size. Anyone that calls you is probably going to be dominating that range. I personally don't mind losing a little fold equity to make sure my edge is larger. Again, there's no 'play these cards at this time' rules for this. A lot of it is going to be villian read dependent and again that's where a HUD is going to help.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nuca-Cola
I had a trial HUD, it expired. Can't afford to buy one now, will surely buy it later.
Both HEM and PT3 offer demos so whatever one you had, get the other one.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nuca-Cola
So, getting shortstacked in the later stages due to the fact that we are playing so tight in the beginning is OK?
Typically, yes. A lot of my wins came at 1000 chips with 5 players to go. Next thing you know you hit a couple premium hands in a row and you just tripled up into the money. My philosophy is that I really only have to win 1-2 big hands to have a workable stack on the bubble.

Keep in mind that most of my experience is at non turbos and I'm only commenting here because it's all fresh in my mind after having to adjust my game this weekend. But based on the games I've won and the notes I've taken on regulars at this level (11+1), it seems to be the general way to play. There's not a lot of speculative hand play here... drawing hand value goes down since you'll be forced to make decisions for all your chips on the flop/turn more often.
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01-09-2011 , 09:29 AM
Is there any good articles (or videos on any sites) on understanding how ICM effects your decions? I don't mean how to use SNGWiz etc, but more like understanding why and how different players' stacksizes effect your actions and how different payout structures should change your strategy etc. I'd imagine it would be better to understand why we do something, instead of just learning somewhat correct ranges for one structure SNGs without really understanding the theory behind it.

I currently think I'm playing decent mid/endgame with 70/30 structure, but change the structure to anything else (eg. DoN or 50/30/20) and all of a sudden I have no idea what I really should do and playing just by intuition.

FAQ didn't seem to have much except "What is ICM?" which didn't really cover this and I couldn't find much else. I'm sure this has been asked a million times and I'm already sorry for asking it once again
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01-09-2011 , 10:39 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by chinz
Is there any good articles (or videos on any sites) on understanding how ICM effects your decions? I don't mean how to use SNGWiz etc, but more like understanding why and how different players' stacksizes effect your actions and how different payout structures should change your strategy etc. I'd imagine it would be better to understand why we do something, instead of just learning somewhat correct ranges for one structure SNGs without really understanding the theory behind it.

I currently think I'm playing decent mid/endgame with 70/30 structure, but change the structure to anything else (eg. DoN or 50/30/20) and all of a sudden I have no idea what I really should do and playing just by intuition.

FAQ didn't seem to have much except "What is ICM?" which didn't really cover this and I couldn't find much else. I'm sure this has been asked a million times and I'm already sorry for asking it once again
This is always a good read:
http://cvsng.blogspot.com/2007/11/partial-sng-book.html
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01-11-2011 , 12:32 AM
Anyone wanna be my sweat session buddy for micro 9 man SnGs on Stars?
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