difference in little limits on party?

[mhardy]

Hi -

I have experience playing winning cards but this is my first try with HE and online poker. Started on party $0.50/1 limit a few weeks ago to get my feet wet and shake off the rust. Although I had heard/read beforehand, the insanity and number of thrill gamblers there is amazing. But I can handle it/win no sweat and never expected to spend more than a couple weeks at that level.

Started $1/2 last night and the contrast couldn't be starker (mostly 2-3 and occasionally 4 see the flop and after three hours on two tables saw mostly 2-handed showdowns if turn/river weren't folded outright). I still saw an awful lot of hands I can't believe anyone would play but all in all am more comfortable here.

So my question is, having expected there to be almost as many thrill gamblers in $1/2 and then not seeing them (but only playing for three hours), what kind of play should I expect to see on average in party's $1/2? Is there really this much difference between party's $0.50/1 and $1/2 or was this just some freak occurrence?

Mike

[zuluking]

There are a ba-zillion threads on this topic, just do a search.

[FishHooks]

I find the .50/1 to be more loose agressive since all bets are "only 50 cents or a dollar more" as most people on party say.
The 1/2 seems much more tight/passive i ran really well at the start then i realized I proboly need to cut down on some of my open raising hands in EP because most games I was in were 3-4 handed and a lot of less people cold-call.

[UncleSalty]

Welcome to the forums!

First, let me address what I percieve to be a dangerous misconception in your original post. Assuming that $.50/$1 is an easy warm-up for someone with "experience playing winnning cards" might prove to be a rude awakening.

If most of your experience was playing another form of poker in Brick and Morter casinos, perhaps my warning isn't needed. However, a lot of people think that because they routinely beat their friends and co-workers in a Friday night home game they will be able to crush the lower limit online games without any study or preparation.

Certainly, there are enough thrill gamblers at Party $.50/$1 (we call them "Fish") who are donating so much of their money to each pot that a reasonably intelligent person could do well without much in depth knowledge of Texas Hold'em. Indeed, there are a great many fish at $1/$2 and $2/$4 as well. But it's certainly not a "no-brainer" to beat these games. To think so belies an attitude that may be very damaging to your bankroll if you begin playing above your head.

I apologize if this response seems condescending, and if you are truly a seasoned player with good knowledge of bankroll management and a realistic view of the variance in this game I'm sure you will do well.

That said, stick around! There are a great number of extremely knowledgeable posters who graciously donate their experience and advice to new players, and your skills will advance exponentially faster by reading and analyzing the posts here than they could by trying to go it alone.

A couple of hints to get started:

1. The most important thing you can do as a new hold'em player is read the FAQ for new players maintained by BTSpider. The FAQ is "stickied" and always appears at the top of the micro-limits forum. This FAQ will give you some guidelines regarding the etiquette of posting hands, and answer a great deal of basic questions about the game.

2. Buy yourself a copy of Small Stakes Hold'em by Ed Miller. This is the definitive guide to the game, and is published by the company providing this forum. You will read and re-read this book for the rest of your poker career.

3. Buy a copy of Pokertracker. Pokertracker is a database management tool which keeps track of every hand you play and also the hands of your opponents. It is a valuable tool for analyzing your game in the long run and I can't recommend it enough.

Best of luck and see you on the tables.

-Salty

[FishHooks]

One thing I got in a really bad habit of doing when I first started was waiting too long to find leaks in my game. I would have a good run, would do less studing and reading of poker then I would hit a bad streak and think its just bad luck, but in reality it was many leaks. Your going to have a ton of leaks when you first start, and its important to keep reviewing your game even when your doing well, a mistake I made. Just my 2 cents

[cdy]

mhardy,
It will be difficult to judge the texture of the $.5/1 and $1/2 games over the next few days. Party's reload bonus has attracted all of the low-limit bonus whores, who typically prefer to clear at those two levels because of the friendly rake structure compared to $2/4 and higher. Tonight I am finding the games to be much more tight/passive than they typically would be at this time on a Monday night. I would estimate the average pot size is about $2-3 less on the $1/2 level as we speak. The games are still good and beatable, just not as profitable currently as they normally are.

[benkath1]

[ QUOTE ]
Welcome to the forums!

First, let me address what I percieve to be a dangerous misconception in your original post. Assuming that $.50/$1 is an easy warm-up for someone with "experience playing winnning cards" might prove to be a rude awakening.

If most of your experience was playing another form of poker in Brick and Morter casinos, perhaps my warning isn't needed. However, a lot of people think that because they routinely beat their friends and co-workers in a Friday night home game they will be able to crush the lower limit online games without any study or preparation.

Certainly, there are enough thrill gamblers at Party $.50/$1 (we call them "Fish") who are donating so much of their money to each pot that a reasonably intelligent person could do well without much in depth knowledge of Texas Hold'em. Indeed, there are a great many fish at $1/$2 and $2/$4 as well. But it's certainly not a "no-brainer" to beat these games. To think so belies an attitude that may be very damaging to your bankroll if you begin playing above your head.

I apologize if this response seems condescending, and if you are truly a seasoned player with good knowledge of bankroll management and a realistic view of the variance in this game I'm sure you will do well.

That said, stick around! There are a great number of extremely knowledgeable posters who graciously donate their experience and advice to new players, and your skills will advance exponentially faster by reading and analyzing the posts here than they could by trying to go it alone.

A couple of hints to get started:

1. The most important thing you can do as a new hold'em player is read the FAQ for new players maintained by BTSpider. The FAQ is "stickied" and always appears at the top of the micro-limits forum. This FAQ will give you some guidelines regarding the etiquette of posting hands, and answer a great deal of basic questions about the game.

2. Buy yourself a copy of Small Stakes Hold'em by Ed Miller. This is the definitive guide to the game, and is published by the company providing this forum. You will read and re-read this book for the rest of your poker career.

3. Buy a copy of Pokertracker. Pokertracker is a database management tool which keeps track of every hand you play and also the hands of your opponents. It is a valuable tool for analyzing your game in the long run and I can't recommend it enough.

Best of luck and see you on the tables.

-Salty

[/ QUOTE ]

Excellent post! You should post this in the beginners forum, or add it to the FAQ. Puts the whole 'online players are idiots, I can beat this game easily' into perspective.

[UncleSalty]

Thanks, I will post this in the beginners forum if someone can answer my "HTML illiterate n00b" question:

How? How do I post a link to this thread, without the link being the huge mess of characters I see in my address bar at the top? (I imagine the answer is just the HTML code for a hyperlink to this address applied to a string of text of my choice, but I am a complete HTML donk.) Someone please educate me, because I'd like to be able to post references to specific threads anyway.

Thanks for the props!

-Salty

edit: PM me the answer, 'cause I'm gonna delete this post once I get edumacated

[UncleSalty]

Okay, too late to delete, so we'll just add this bit of fundamental knowledge to the post. Credit goes to Thigh:

[ QUOTE ]
Hilight the address bar of the post in question that you want to reference, right-click and selcect "copy". Then create your post, click on the URL button, and paste the address you copied earlier into the box. Hit okay, then it'll ask you what you want to name the link. Then hit okay.

That should do it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks!

-Salty

[popniklas]

very good post, salty.

however, for a new player i would recommend reading matthew hilgers "internet texas holdem" prior to small stakes hold'em. SSHE is indeed not a beginner's book and some of it can be a bit hard to understand if you're not very experienced. also, if you misinterpret it's advice, you may start playing overly aggressive. don't get me wrong though, SSHE is a great book, i just think you should have read other books first.

[UncleSalty]

[ QUOTE ]
very good post, salty.

however, for a new player i would recommend reading matthew hilgers "internet texas holdem" prior to small stakes hold'em. SSHE is indeed not a beginner's book and some of it can be a bit hard to understand if you're not very experienced. also, if you misinterpret it's advice, you may start playing overly aggressive. don't get me wrong though, SSHE is a great book, i just think you should have read other books first.

[/ QUOTE ]

Mason Seems a bit ambivalent on this book (http://archiveserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=450677&page=&view=&sb=5&o =&vc=1), but I guess you're right that SSH is a bit advanced. Still, Hilger and Jones are probably both ok choices for newbies, provided they understand that truly good poker begins and ends w/ 2+2 /images/graemlins/cool.gif

Edit: Hey! That posting URL thing really works! Thanks Thigh! /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[DavidC]

Don't listen to salty; his brain barely even shows up on x-ray!

[popniklas]

ITH is not the ultimate beginner's hold'em book, but it does the job. so does WLLH (winning lowlimit hold'em by lee jones), although i think ITH is better and more comprehensive.

but.. what i forgot in my last post is that ed miller just released (or very soon will release?) his book "getting started in hold'em". my guess is that it will prove to be the best beginner's book on hold'em so far.

[UncleSalty]

[ QUOTE ]
my guess is that it will prove to be the best beginner's book on hold'em so far.

[/ QUOTE ]

Aye, she will...

And I mentioned Jones. /images/graemlins/wink.gif