Looking for a few tips for Empire

Hi guys,
I just switched over to empire from PP and I'm having problems. I have played at PS and PP, I started with a $50 bankroll playing .05/.10. I play for fun mostly, I like having a hobby that I love and has cost me $50 for months of enjoyment. This weekend I played in 4 tournys and finnished 2nd, 49th, ~300 and out early in the last all with 1k+ people.

Now for the problem, I can't seem to post any wins on Empire .50/1.00 tables. I have about ~2k hands in and just seem to lose more. I switched to a very tight play(10-14% to see flop) and I'm thinking this was a mistake. I normaly play SSH style and was runing around 25-28% to see flop before I went tighter. I'm thinking more and more that tighting down has hurt more than helped me, the games I seem to find have 3-4 people calling the flop out of 10.

Would these games be considered tight? Do you think I should play a few more hands preflop? I switched over to empire from PP for the rakeback, was this a mistake? Sould I just buck it up to a bad run and keep plugging away? Should I play a little looser on tight tables and visa versa?

Thanks

[Pov]

The Empire .50/1 tables are the same exact tables as the Party .50/1 tables (assuming you meant Party Poker when you said PP).

A 10-14% VPIP is too low for optimal play at these tables in my experience. Similarly 25% is probably a little too high. But don't play for stats since that can get you into trouble as well. Anyway, if you're consistently losing money at .50/1 and you know what VPIP even *is*, it's probably not your preflop play that's really costing you. Just make sure you pay attention to the following two major points:

a) you should rarely be calling two bets cold
b) avoid playing offsuit "big" cards such as KTo in early position

More than likely you're losing your money postflop, but of course that's much more complicated and difficult to analyze. However, I would guess you're most likely not forcing your opponents into enough errors with good tactical betting and raising. Yes, you will frequently be drawn out on, but you have to get the money in on those big pots when you have a good hand. One big win pays for multiple draw-outs. Your job is to try to make them draw incorrectly or as close to incorrectly as you can.

Those are just some guesses. Your best course of action is really to post some hands and get some feedback and even better is to read a lot of hands posted by others and try to figure out what you would have done, then see what the advice of others is. This process of learning how to think is more critical than anything, IMO.

[manpower]

Pov's advice appears to be sound. However, it's more likely that you're down simply because of variance than the way you've been playing. Hell, I played almost 2k hands between yesterday and today and I'm down too. If you stick around these forums for a while, you're gonna find out that the 'long run' is really long. I mean really long.

Go back to playing like Ed says and you should do fine at the bottom limits. For help with your game hit up the micro-limits forum. And always, always keep at least 300bb in your roll if don't want to go bust.

Thanks for the replies guys! There are a few things I did want to mention. Yeah I ment Party Poker, I spent alot of time there on the newb/regular tables. I know Empire is a Party skin but something seems different, maybe it's just a bad run of cards messing with me. I havent tracked my VPIP, my stats are pure to see the flop including bb/sb. I was hopping to be in the range where I could pull some money out of my roll and buy PT, but this downswing has made me hold off.

I think you just might be right on my postflop game, I do seem to have a few leaks. I noticed I have made a few calls in bb/ss postflop that were not the best. I also noticed that while it didn't seem like it while I was playing last night, I cold called a few times that were dumb.

I'm also thinking this might just be my first long term downswing, I have been down a bit before but it seemed like it was one table or one night that I couldn't catch a pair to save myself, and the next table or day I would do fine. Last night I played at a table for an hour and saw the flop twice, It seemed like I had 27/28/29/38/39 about half the time.

Thanks for the help guys,
PS hit 41st/~760 in a bodog tourney last night.

[SheridanCat]

While it could be variance, pay close attention to your play. Try posting some hands that you had trouble with in the appropriate forum.

[ QUOTE ]
I cold called a few times that were dumb.

[/ QUOTE ]

Do this for now. Never cold call preflop. There may be times later when it's proper, but for now just never cold call and see if that helps some. If you think the hand should be played, given all the other factors, raise it. If you don't think it's good enough for a raise, fold.

I always feel a little dirty when I cold call preflop. That's why I almost never do it. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

Regards,

T

[Dave H.]

and, postflop especially, think "raise or fold" rather than "call" the majority of the time. That alone (folding rather than calling) has allowed me to pitch my losing hands rather than hang on and lose more bets. And, conversely, it (raising rather than calling) causes the winning pots to be that much larger and ruins my opponents' drawing odds.

[JonPKibble]

[ QUOTE ]
I know Empire is a Party skin but something seems different, it's just a bad run of cards messing with me.

[/ QUOTE ]

FYP.

[ QUOTE ]
I havent tracked my VPIP, my stats are pure to see the flop including bb/sb. I was hopping to be in the range where I could pull some money out of my roll and buy PT, but this downswing has made me hold off.

[/ QUOTE ]

Would you buy textbooks after taking a class, or before?
Would you buy tools after building a house, or before?

I mostly only cold call AA/KK/AKS/QQ/AQS sometimes AKo but I still do it from time to time on AJs/KQs/KJs/QJs which I think I need to completely stop. Thanks Cat!

I have seen people talk about this before on the forums and it throws me off a bit. I think of times when I’m on a strong strait/flush draw and I hate to raise those unless it’s a rags flop and never cold call them, but folding them? It would force me to play a little tighter post flop. I’m going to play around with this and see how it works out over the next week. Thanks Dave!

Well I agree that it would be a very valuable tool, but I just realized such a program existed a few weeks ago, because of this I never saved a single hand history from months at PS/PP. I have also played about 80% SNGs up till the last two weeks. I have a simplistic tracking program I use for SNGs. So I was not in a hurry to spend $55 for a program to track around 20 % of my hands. I decided a few weeks ago to make a purchase to increase my skill at the time I felt that adding SSHE to my poker book collection was a better investment than a tracking program to track the few hands I have histories on (saving them all now). Don’t most people like to have 10k+ hands in PT before coming to any conclusions about play? I think I read that in a post here somewhere. Well it’s my b-day next week and Gf is asking what I want…. Hum I might just get PT /images/graemlins/smile.gif. I was under the impression that PT was best for ring games. Will PT mix the stats of my SNGs/Rings and distort my stats? Thanks Jon!

Thanks for the replies guys,
Crazy

[ackid]

" I mostly CC AA/KK/AKs/QQ/AQs and sometimes AK".

That could be it there, you should be 3-betting these hands instead of CC them. You can also add JJ and TT to this list.

Dont CC AJs/KQs/KJs/QJs unless your in late position and at least 4-5 other Cold Callers are already in. This way you will have a position advantage if you flop a good draw and will get payed of when you hit.

IF you are the first one in you should raise AJs/KQs.

[smoore]

Cold calling is VERY bad. If I cold call, I do it with something like 88 or 99 multiway or up to JJ, *sometimes* as I think I'm playing for a set... I don't get a chance to reraise JJ much, it's capped to me when I have to call cold. I'd rather go ahead and cap w/JJ than let it go for three bets just calling. I'm folding 77 if it's been open-raised. Correctly cold calling happens only once every three or four hundered hands, MAXIMUM, IMO.

Honestly, if it's worth a call you really need to be raising it. Calling is for draws when you have the odds... any made hand is raised or folded postflop.

Well I did ok last night. I only CC once on PP AA and won. I normaly mulit a combo of up to 3 LHE .5/1 and up to 3 freeroll/MTT tables never going over 4 tables at a time. I decided to cut back to one limit and one tourny last night and started watching my play and others alot more. It worked I made some raises against other players that liked to see the flop them fold and was up about 15BB in around 2 hours. I think I shot myself in the foot around 2 hours in I was well into a freeroll and short stacked. I called an all-in before blinds were to criple me and someone called with t6o vs my AKs, 6 on the river put me out. I decided to multi a few .5/1 and thats when I started giving money back and ended the night down around 5BB. The funny thing I seemed to notice last night was that the more I try to improve my game, reading books reviewing hands ect, the worse I seem to do. I have always done very well at math and I think I tend to like to follow the "correct" play too much. I noticed while I was playing the one .5/1 table I was able to make several predictions about what others would do and made a few raises against players I knew would fold. Well I'm going to take a day off and check through some of my hand history files.

Thanks for all the repies
Crazy
PS GF is going to hook me up with PT w00t!