Poker Discussion
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Full Tilt · PokerStars · Ultimate Bet · Players Only · Doyles Room
Ive read alot of posts about people that win big on one site and cant win at all on another site. This usually transpires to a long post about how such and such site is rigged or is full of fish blah blah....
I have even experienced it in my own circle. Last Winter i was making about $2000 dollars a month at party poker, and attempted to move to pokerstars like 6 times. Unfortunately I went broke every time i played at stars. It was very frustrating because i loved stars as a site and an interface but i flat out couldnt make money there...
So I had to go into the think tank and reanalyze my play. One thought that came out of my analyzation was that I was completely underestimating the difference in players from site to site. I made the assumption that a $30 sng on party is the same as one on ub or stars or anywhere else.
Your ability to measure the temperature of the water and figure out the style of play at your table is absolutely crutial to your success in poker. Poker is very similar to the game of paper, rock, scissors... In PRS, there are three weapons of choice each one is a strength against one weapon and a weakness against another. In PRS though you show your weapons at the same time.
Poker is very similar to PRS in that different styles of play have strengths and weaknesses against other styles of play. When the WSOP hit its explosition over the last several years, many pros struggled against internet players, not because they werent better, but because the donkish style of internet players was counter productive to the usual style of internet pros...
There are many styles of poker. There are tight players, tight aggressive players, loose players, donks, fishies, fearless players and more. But the best players are the ones who can switch styles at the drop of a hat. Imagine if you approached PRS by saying im a rock style player, I like to be a rock and stick with it. You wouldnt last long as people quickly adapted and smothered u with paper all night long.
Whenever you sit down at a poker table, even if its the same 1$ rebuy all in fest, or $300 super u have played for the last several weeks, you need to reset your poker style and adapt to the table. When you do this look for several things:
1. First look for tight / loose. Are the players only playing premium hands or are they just playing just about anything but 2-7
2. Second look at their aggression. Aggression is different from tight loose. When they hit a big hand, do they check? Check Raise? all in right away?
3. Look for experience. How do you know if players are experienced? Look for good / bad plays. I look for big laydowns. When you are 99% sure a guy has ak and he folds to another allin with middle set, you know hes an experienced player, vs a guy who immediately calls.
4. Fear / Fearless. Will they call you even though you have the best hand and fish you out, are they scared of your big bets?
Once you gather the information now you need to alter your play to adapt it. A perfect example of this was the $10+1 mtt on Ultimatebet last night.
I jumped into a tourney where my tables were full of similar players. Fairly tight aggressive. When ever they got top pair with a nice kicker they were ready to push. It also became obviously quickly that there was a lot of novice players who played very timidly.
The result?? I donked and fished my way to 2nd place and $500. Early on i called suited cards and connectors with wreckless abandonment. It worked to a charm. Anytime someone raised 2-5x the blinds i would immediately call. Would i do this normally? No. But against this style of competition the results were astonding.
Couple key hands:
10 hands in i caught 34 hearts in the big blind. a guy 4 to my right raised it 5x the bb to 100. I immediately called and the flop came A33. He pushes his AJ all in and i call to double up.
In the 2nd hour, there was a guy(name changes) named dave. Dave loved to raise and played loose, but anytime he was rised all in he would fold. I was 2 to his left and with the blinds at 100 200 he raised to 900. i put him on KQ and called with 56. Flop came Q92. He immediately fired a bullet betting another 900. Turn came an Ace. He bet 900 again. Knowing his play and style i had a feeling the A didnt improve him so i immediately pushed all in. he went in the tank and then folded his KQ. I gladly showed my 56.
By the time we hit the bubble i was coined as a fishie / donk very loose. This ws obvious because anytime i raised limpers or blind stealers they reraised me with wreckless abandoment. This meant it was a great chance to change my style up.
So in the third hour i wasin middle position, and i caught KK. Just 4 hands prior with KK i reraised a raiser and showed my KK. So this time i just smooth called(again not a normal play). Then a guy in late position raised 5x the bb to 2000 hoping to pick up the blinds and my limp. He had also been an AX raiser to i paused, and then pushed all in. He laughed thinking i was bluffing and called with AJ. The flop came A65 all hearts, fortunately the turn was a heart and my K of hearts prevailed.
I have always had success tight, but the problem is when your tight at a tight table you lose blinds and play lots of coin flips.. If you want to take your poker game to the next level i would encourage all of you to practice all styles of play.
Last but not least always try to play the opposite of what people expect you to play. Play into their hands. Poker is always evolving and there will always be a majority of average players that follow trends. If you can learn to beat those trends and stay ahead of the status quo, you can be one of those elite players who win on a consistant basis.
rob
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By
finny
on
01-19-2006 5:04 PM
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WOW, you're the only person i've ever heard call it PAPER, ROCK SCISSORS
as opposed to ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS...
..........good post though
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Lilprog,
Thanks for more insight on how to improve my game. Another great post.
whodatdare
"I'm whodatdare and I endorse this post"
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VN post sir. Articlize this post P5's. TY
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Lisa: Poor predictable Bart...always chooses Rock
Bart: Good ol' Rock, nothing beats Rock.
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"In PRS, there are three weapons of choice each one is a strength against one weapon and a weakness against another."
ahhhhh the poker conundrum next question...... Does Omniscience contradict free will?
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On a more serious note...good post. And it made me think of this article by Mike Caro: http://www.pokerpages.com/articles/archives/caro32.htm ....which is about a much more mechanical aspect of poker than your post, but still related.
Mike comes up with a game where you can choose a hand from this list:
4 4
J T
AK
...and then he will choose one to play against you. It's a simple demonstration of the circles of "strength" that are inherent to poker.
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I read that article. Good point...
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This is OT but here it goes...
Back in my baseball days, we played a team who challenged our team to a rock, SCISSORS, paper match for a dugout in a tournament. They were ragging on our team for being from a wealthy suburban town (was a bunch of farm boys), and then they claimed we were too good even for rock, SCISSORS, paper. They refused to play rock, PAPER, scissors for the dugout and took it anyways...because they were farmboys after all.
Just a story, I'm done now...
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nh lilprog. ty for the post and to whoever pointed out the link w/ the caro article ty also
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I understand that Scissors can beat Paper, and I get how Rock can beat
Scissors, but there's no fucking way Paper can beat Rock. Paper is
supposed to magically wrap around Rock leaving it immobile? Why the
hell can't paper do this to scissors? I'll tell you why, because paper
can't beat anybody. A rock would tear that shit up in 2 seconds. When I
play rock/ paper/ scissors I always choose rock. Then when somebody
claims to have beaten me with their paper I can punch them in the face
with my already clenched fist and say, "Oh shit! I'm sorry, I thought
paper would protect you. Asshole."
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By
Scha
on
01-20-2006 5:53 AM
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Paper beats rock like 27 cracks AA ;)
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Cool Post... This made me think of Tennis Tournaments... Surface, Brand of Ball, weather, opponent. When I first moved to FL after college I got very frustrated that all the tournaments were on clay... I was raised on hard courts and was/am a die hard serve and volleyer... I tried everything i could think of to become a dirt baller... nothing worked. After a particularly terrible match to a hack (8 or 9th loss ina row) I decided F it.. I'm playin my game. Still took some small tweaks to crack the top end of the rankings.. but I enjoyed it more and was competitive MY way.
One of the things I like about poker is that style can and should be unique in a player... similar to boxing, fencing, tennis, wrestling, chess... any sport/game where you directly affect your opponent with your actions. The variables make it unpredictable and uncomfortable at times... but hell, if it was easy I doubt many of us would even play th game.
gl e1, Rich
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I don't know if anyone cares, but I heard that roshambo is a metaphor for the following:
Rock= Power
Paper= Money
Scissors= Wisdom
Power defeats wisdom, money defeats power and wisdom defeats money.
Not sure where I heard (or read this)...possibly in a trip report at tiltboys.com
-El Burro
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PocketFives.com, 2008
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