Hello and great site.

[SuperDave9x19]

Howdy

Old School poker player (40 yrs old started at 5yrs for fun 7 yrs for money) who just decided to try on line poker. Damn it moves fast and you learn a lot playing at internet speed.

Read all of this forum over the past 4 months and it has been helpful. I am still at the crux of winning instead of losing, but I go up and down around my -$20 point to +$100 on my $50 starting bank on $5 1 table SnGs at Pokerstars under name SuperDave9x1.

A few comments.

... a strategy I have generally used and continue to use is I Never bet all in before the flop if more than 4 players. Don't get me wrong, If I have pocket As I will bet it, and bet it strong. But I always lead the other guy to "all in" if I feel all in is a good idea, then I call it. When I go all in and am called, I get beat an awful lot.
QUESTION: How foolish is this? After all the times I see others getting busted on Pre FLop all ins on "statistically better hands" I just see no point in all in before flop betting.

... when I go down hard it's ALWAYS cause i raised my stake above my sensible limit. I still am a sucker for getting ahead slowly then losing my week of winnings in one bad rush of higher stakes. I need to wise up on this. I knew this was a weakness yet i repeated this folly this weekend, grinding $25 to $120 then blowing it back to $40.

... I love to steal pots by betting strong. Sometimes it is easier to steal 5-6 small pots out of 10 than to win 1 bigger hand. Obviously it's easy to get caught here but In low stakes single table i generally have a good feel how people will bet. This is another reason why I only (90-95% of time) CALL all ins instead of betting it. Plus I can accept folding to a raise after betting 3xBB in an attempt for a 6xBB steal. I look at this in 2 ways. Firstly, I take 3 out of 5 when i try, so it is profitable. 2nd, it keeps people wonderring WHAT I AM GOING TO DO NEXT which is priceless. So long as I do this with a small portion of my stake for small regular gains, this works well for me.
QUESTION: Is this something I should cultivate for larger $$$ or is that plain stupid. Seems dumb to me but it is my most reliable small gainer and I hope to grow it's effectiveness.

... Biggest thing to take advantage of (in the games I play) is others' inability to fold to smaller bets.

... I have always considerred poker a social game where I can win some money, paying for the night out. Clearly I need to think of it more seriously.

QUESTION: Along this line of thought, am I foolish for showing hands when I don't have to?

I only show hands if I believe it gives me an advantage (annoying others who lost to crap, arrogantly showing my AA) of psyche over opponents. Is this dumb at low levels. I dunno how well people remember who does what but many folks are better than I at memorizing. I try not to "show" in a consistent manner and I am sure to "muck" things I really do well on unless i wanna make someone a little mad at themself for letting me get the money.


Look forward to playin some of y'all, but that will likely have to wait till I go up to higher stakes.

[arkana]

... when I go down hard it's ALWAYS cause i raised my stake above my sensible limit. I still am a sucker for getting ahead slowly then losing my week of winnings in one bad rush of higher stakes. I need to wise up on this. I knew this was a weakness yet i repeated this folly this weekend, grinding $25 to $120 then blowing it back to $40.

Dont run before you can walk unless you like falling.

Oh and welcome to the forum.

[SuperDave9x19]

this is my 3rd time for going too high a limit in as many months. I always tell myself don't do it, and 90% of time i listen to myself.

[Miffed22001]

Obviously you need to stop going above your limit, but i will say tha all of us have done it at some point. Think of the losses as a learning curve toward better discipline. Just remember to keep winning not play for higher sakes :P
You probably need to take a visit too the sng forum where your general questions may be answered better.
A ood sng strategy is just to stay tight until either you bubble/itm or the blinds start getting big. Then its time to selectivly raise/push to win blinds and hopefully itm.

[salsa4ever]

welcome.

yeah what they said. There's a right way to move up in stakes and a wrong way. You're doing it the wrong way. It's HARD to move up in stakes because the money affects your play no matter who you are (maybe less so in a SNG). Don't think "i'll have a dash at X+Y". If you're going to move up, think: "Okay, I have a $100 bonus at Stars. I have to play 100 $15+1 tournaments to clear it. I don't care how I go, I'm going to play 100 tournaments, win lose or draw". That way you start thinking about your money as "buy-ins" again rather than OMG $16! What if you don't have the bankroll to do that? Don't move up.

If you think u got the best hand pre-flop, then move it in. AA, KK, and AK (i think AK plays stronger 4 ways all in than QQ). It also depends what your strengths are: are you great at maneuvering a short/medium stack 5-6 handed, or good at bullying the table?

Do you have a PStars bonus? You get $0.6 back for every $0.5 you pay in entry fees, which will help u a lot if you're a breaking evenish player.

[bluedevil907]

Welcome to the forums.

I know what you mean about going above your bankroll, today was my first time to finally clear my $50 bankroll to $55, but I would have done it long ago if I didn't accidentally join a $14 rebuy for a WSOP seat. Just keep playing at the limit you can handle swings, and with solid play you'll eventually move up.

I hardly, if ever, show my hands, unless I think I can put someone on TILT. Other than that, there's very few occasions where it will do more good than bad.

Don't be afraid to go AI pre-flop with the best hand. While you're definately improving your odds with less players in the pot, AA and KK are really solid hands and you can't begrudge to much over the occasional suck-out. (As for AK, I believe it actually does worse in multi-way pots than QQ).

I recommend solid TAGG poker until you've got a lot of experience under your belt, but don't be afraid your strategy a little bit in tournaments to make the best use of your table.

[SuperDave9x19]

did it again.

Tried a single $15 turbo and won it. With a $50 bankroll that's almost doubling it.

So i tried 3 more times. Back to $50.