[smoore]

'grats on your success.

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First, I'm usually in the top several but I haven't won first at al

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keep plugging away, you'll get one.


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Any suggestions about how to play against stronger players that arent pros?


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Don't value bet as much, play much stronger starting hands, bluff more because a stronger player can lay down a moderate hand if you represent something massive. Checkraise them more than you would a fish, even if it's a check-raise bluff. A straight bluff doesn't work nearly as much as a HUGE checkraise bluff against a semi-tough opponent. Hopefully you've started to notice the "texture" of the hand you're in at the moment. You should play quite differently against two strong players and one weak player as you will against three weak players in any given hand.

I hate to break it to you, but you're probably still a weak player. Don't go thinking you're some shark right now. You have a lot left to learn. As long as you stay humble you will have great success. DO NOT GET COCKY.

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So my question is how hard is too hard to push early game?

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Don't gamble early. Push hard when you KNOW you have the best hand, be happy to get in small raises otherwise (or even call). Say you start with 1000 chips and have a chance to double up on a marginal choice early. You would have 2000 if you managed to double, but you'll be out if you're wrong or get just a LITTLE unlucky. Those 1000 chips are going to mean squat when the blinds are 250/500.

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lso, I tend to 'follow the blinds' and so do most of the players I play with...so if the blinds are at 1-2 then they tend to bet the min a lot 2...maybe sometimes 4...except for on the end someone will bet big to take the pot? Is there a way to exploit this pattern?


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Textbook crappy poker. Yes there's a great way to exploit it, RAISE. Just raise. Raise early, raise often. Don't minraise, that's horrible too. There's a simple formula, where I say 3x, you sometimes want to use 4x (very low blinds or very loose players):

Preflop: If you want to play the hand, either limp or bet 3xBB+1BB per limper. If someone has raised and you want to isolate them, at least TRIPLE thier raise. If you have the table covered then pushing is a great option. If someone has raised and you want action, call the raise. NEVER, NEVER, NEVER double the raise, give them a reason to fold.

Flop: Open for 2/3 to 3/4 the pot. Pick one of those ratios and stick with it. DO NOT bet better hands more and weaker hands less. People like me will pick up on that and tear you up. If someone else opens for a reasonable amount (like we would), do your pot odds calculations and see if you should call. If you should raise think about slowplaying (see recent thread). We shouldn't slowplay and we think we have the best hand? We raise THREE times thier bet, we never double. Doubling sucks.

Turn: Standard bet is 1/2 pot. Unless the stacks are really deep any raise is pretty much all-in if you've followed the above advice.

River: checkraise, checkfold or bet depending on situation. Your hand should not even go this far normally.


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Also, I find that I do better with smaller blinds and when the blinds get big I start losing money.

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Early game = survival
Mid game = chip gathering
Late game = kill shots

Read posts in MTT and STT forums here about "late game strategy" or whatever. Also, read Harrington on Hold'em from 2+2. If you get below 7-10 BBlinds you are in "push or fold mode". My threshold now is 7, when I was a n00b it was 10. Use that strategy, it works great. "I am under my threshold of 10 big blinds, if I want to play a hand I push all my money in preflop, otherwise I fold."

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Next, I notice the players who finish higher than me tend to push a lot of money in late...

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Slowplaying if the board is out, stealing if preflop. I'll do this all night long and then just flat push AA in the same spot, knowing someone has picked up on my stealing and might call with something as bad as JJ.

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Further, I have a hard time pushing in gigantic amounts of money on a bluff...

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That's the only way a bluff works usually... find the spots where you can honestly convince yourself "I have the flush." "I have the nut straight" and do it there. If they pick you off too often take the bluffing down a notch. The real trick to bluffing is to convince YOURSELF you have the hand you're representing.


Your hand selection is pretty arbitrary and more suited to a limit game, IMO. Read HoH and ToP. If you play QJo I want you in my NL tournaments [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] (God do I hate that hand).