Mindless 25NL 10max Strategy

[cagedman]

*repost* I botched this and posted in small stakes accidentally :-)

I'm looking to design a profitable system (not necessarily maximally profitable) for a friend (total novice) that would be idiot proof until he got a better feel for the game/made his way through the standard literature, how would you do it? Think it's possible? The small stakes folks seem 'skeptical' at best :-)

I think this is my rough idea so far... what do you guys think? The unpaired hands are harder to provide a rubric for.

Only following hands played PF: 22-AA, AK, AQ, KQ.

Preflop:

Pairs 2-JJ: Limp or call minraise only.

Pairs QQ-AA: Raise 6xbb. If reraised, reraise pot with AA or KK, call up to pot sized bet with QQ.

AK, KQ, AQ: Call up to a 6xbb PF raise; if not raised, raise to 6xbb PF. Fold to reraise.


Postflop:

AA-QQ:

AA- Pot it every action.
KK- Pot it every action. (?? what is A hits?)
QQ- Fold if A or K hit on flop, else pot every action.

22-JJ: If hit trips, pot every action, else checkfold.

AK, KQ, AQ: Paired the board: Bet pot every street, else check-fold.

What do you guys think?

Any other simple caveats required to avoid huge -EV moves? Maybe if flop is monotone and have none of suit, checkfold in every situation? These are obviously sub-optimal plays, just looking for a way to make entering pots with those 16 hands +EV overall.

[josie_wales]

Id say just focus on two things with him, rather than specific starting hands.

(1) Positon and its importance in determining what to play.
(2) Hands that you want more people in/Hands you want less people in.

jw

[Ghazban]

Even if your buddy's a novice, he won't learn much by following a formula. You learn in poker (and in life) by making your own decisions and observing the consequences. I'd recommend playing for stakes that he can lose without becoming financially inconvenienced (sites other than Party spread NL games with nickel/dime blinds or even as low as $.01/$.02) and just play some hands. By telling him exactly what to do in every situation, you're not teaching him to play solid poker at all. Whether you bet, fold or raise isn't nearly as important as WHY you bet, fold or raise.

[The4thFilm]

Bet any flop that you raised with if there are 3 or fewer opponents. If you have position raise weak flop bets with anything.

[TerraUbrett]

I understand what you're trying to accomplish, but there are gaps in the strategy that will burn him. I think starting hands are important, but if you say he is getting the appropriate literature then he will learn them. I would tell him to stick to micro limits just so he can begin applying what he is getting from books to his playing. As long as he sticks to .01/.02, his losses should be minimal.

[The4thFilm]

Playing .01/.02 is a bad idea IMHO since the pots are 40-50x BB and unrealistic of "real" poker.

[TerraUbrett]

People say the same about .50/1.00 rooms. My point is that attempting to put together some cheat sheet might even work for a day or two, but instead read the books, play micro limit just to get used to the game, and move up gradually. You don't want him to take his cheat sheet as god. We could put a cheat sheet together, but it would be a mile long...well, it's actually already been created by someone, it's call "Small Stakes Hold'em".

[tabish]

I agree with the others posting here - there's too many situations to worry about in a cash NL game to want to make a "cheat sheet". No matter how much detail you put into it, there's no formula for winning at these games.

There's actually a decent $10+1 SNG cheat sheet that was posted in that forum a while back... that kind of game is much more amenable to a playing guide because just being ultra-tight while other players bust out is often enough to get you close to the money.

[cagedman]

I think I kind of botched the thread...

It was not so much a 'how to teach someone how to play' as it was a hypothetical (although if possible I was going to give it to my roomate to test it out for kicks).

I did a little back-of-napkin and I've got a gut feeling that it's possible to create a reasonable length rubric for making a couple BB/100 with zero creativity. Wouldn't be possible offline since there'd be no chance to be paid off seeing 12% of the flops.

Here's my premises:

1) I think it's possible to be profitable playing only 22-AA, AK, AQ, KQ.

2) Given (1), I believe it shouldn't require more than a dozen or so conditionals per hand 'archtype' (there's really only five IMO (22-TT), (JJ-QQ), (KK), (AA), (AK,AQ,KQ).

So.. given the original post.. if you followed it blindly for 100k hands at 25NL 10 MAX, do you think you'd be up at the end? If not, do you think there are a reasonable number of tweaks to make it so? If so, what are they?

It's more of a puzzle than anything IMO.

[Brothernod]

2 things to say

1) Limit is MUCH better for bot like play since a decent NL game includes minor bluffing and consideration of other people's stacks and such.

2) I'm almost positive i've seen mention of a poker program that can be used to run simulations. Perhaps you should look this up and test your theory on a 100k hands like you said. I don't know the details of the software or how powerful it is so ::shrug:: just a thought.

[pfkaok]

I think that it would work theoretically, mainly b/c of the super loose play at Party 25 combined with the small stacks. Though I think that part of it should be to change tables once you get to $50 or so. with a formula this simple I think that you'd probably be able to tell if its beating the game after 10k or so hands. Not be certain, or have a great estimate of your win rate, but if you're up $400- $500 after that time you'd be safe to say its at least + EV. I agree that a bot would probably work better at limit, but when you're always potbetting or raising at Party it really is kind of like playing limit with a REALLY short stack. Normal PF raise, flop bet, then you're allin with either a flop raise or turn bet... Id be interested to see if this works. If your friend doesn't want to do it, I might just take a few days and 8-table using this just to see what happens.

[MasterShakes]

I completely understand your purposes here. Like others have said, this isn't a good way to learn this game, but I do think it is a very good way to get certain concepts drilled into the head of a novice player.

I would make the following changes to your strategy:

1) Don't play KK so aggressively when an A flops. I understand that this might not be a great move for somebody with more experience, but for a novice player, I think automatically backing off is the better move. Perhaps potting the betting regardless of the A and then backing off against aggression might be a good move also.

2) Don't call big PF raises with KQ, and possibly not even AQ. I routinely fold AQo against decent sized raises because those raises so often mean that I'm dominated. At least with AK, I think I can profitably get all-in on the flop when I hit. Given that this play is intended for a novice, stay clear of marginal plays like this.

3) Raise with JJ preflop and be willing to get all-in on the flop when undercards fall, unless dealing with an extremely coordinated board (and further, be willing to explain what a coordinated board is - even novices understand this concept).

4) With the lower pairs, simply explain the rule of 5 and 10 to this person. I think folding these hands to anything more than a min-raise is more than a marginal error and will cost this "system" a significant amount of profit.

5) I could see how some may want to add the drawing hands in extremely good situations to any system, but given that post-flop play with these types of hands in NL is often tricky, I think you're fine leaving them completely out of the strategy.

6) Be more specific about betting situations. What I mean is that, based on what you've told us, all you're telling him to do is to "pot it on the flop..." or "raise this much...". As far as I can see, you're not telling him to get all-in with AA and KK every single time he has the opportunity to, which I believe is indisputably a proper strategy at NL25, at least on Party. Unless you want him to assume that he should get all-in every single time that you tell him to "pot it," I would be more specific.

This should get your friend much closer to basic, ABC poker that is often played by even experienced players at these limits. I do completely agree that any absolutely complete strategy for these games would be extremely long, but it is definitely possible to write out a basic strategy guide like this and be profitable for a pretty satisfying amount.

[pfkaok]

Yeah, I definatly agree with leaving AQo and KQo out facing a decent raise. These are very margainal hands vs. raise, and for a novice he'll likely get into some VERY -EV situations by calling with those hands. He'd do much better calling a 4-5x BB raise with small-mid PP than with KQ. Even if you call say $3 at Party 25, which would violate the 5-10 rule, it wouldn't be THAT bad of a play, esp if you're closing the betting PF. You get so many multiway raised pots, and people pay off so much, that you could probably profitably call a 6x BB raise most of the time. Plus, for a novice, the small PP are the easiest hands to play Postflop... Again though it would be a very fun little project.

[Justin A]

I agree with this post very much. AQ should be folded to raises.

I think with AK you should reraise, all in if possible. With a novice player you want to push preflop edges as much as possible. Party 25 players will call with AQ or KQ enough to make this profitable.

I agree that playing JJ like a big pair is profitable on Party 25.

Justin A

[cagedman]

Great discussions...

How about this:

System Hero open raises w/AQ/AK/KQ PF and gets caller(s).

hero flops a pair (TPTK or TPGK)

1) Hero has opportunity to open the action (checked to him or first to bet) by potting it and gets reraised.

The move is? (Lets assume player is smart enough to consider what's left in his stack when deciding to move allin or fold, if that's a variable here)

2) Action to hero, PF caller has opened the betting with a pot sized bet or less.. hero's move? If hero raises pot and is reraised, hero's move?

[cagedman]

Second conundrum:

JJ-KK: hero raises PF, gets call(s). hero bets pot on overcards, gets a caller, overcard hits on the turn.

[pfkaok]

1) I think that if Hero is raising those hands PF to 6x BB, then it could just be considered an all in with a flop raise. If its not all in then just consider the raise to be for the amount of the lesser stack size... In most situations it will be at least close enough that getting allin on the turn is almost certain. As long as its not much more than a potsized raise I would say almost alwasy call on Party $25. The 2 pairs and sets you'll run into should be far outweighed by the TP no kickers, or even 2nd or under PP's that will glady go all in with you. I think that this is one of the key reasons why the system would be much more effective if you switch tables before getting too big of a stack. I think its pretty much the same for 2)

As for the 2nd connundrum, I think that you could just check/fold if an A hits, but probably push if you have J's, or Q's, and a Q or K hits. I"m not sure if this is right, but people play Ax vs a PF raise so much that they'd proably hit it, and if they did they'd most likely bet it, so folding would probalby be right. A lot of times they'll stay with just an A even when missing on the flop, or they could likely have made Aces up. You'll get bluffed occasionally, but I don't think you'd be losing too much EV by just always folding there.

[cagedman]

[ QUOTE ]

As for the 2nd connundrum, I think that you could just check/fold if an A hits, but probably push if you have J's, or Q's, and a Q or K hits. I"m not sure if this is right, but people play Ax vs a PF raise so much that they'd proably hit it, and if they did they'd most likely bet it, so folding would probalby be right. A lot of times they'll stay with just an A even when missing on the flop, or they could likely have made Aces up. You'll get bluffed occasionally, but I don't think you'd be losing too much EV by just always folding there.

[/ QUOTE ]

My thinking too... anyone else care to pop in and corroborate this?

[GimmeDaWatch]

Of course, its impossible to make ironclad rules about every situation in poker. Playing alot of small stakes would be a better idea. Also, you call a 6xBB raise w/KQ but fold anything more than a min-raise with JJ? Cant say that I like this.