[sweetjazz]

Just curious, but why do you play NL instead of limit? Looser play gets punished a bit more in limit, and you can do pretty well up to about 3/6 or 5/10 limits playing straightforward ABC poker. (Not that I recommend jumping into those games right away, as there are some adjustments you need to make, specifically when to call down with moderate hands facing aggression. Plus you do need to make more loose calls in limit than in NL because of pot odds.)

I come from a limit background and am just learning no-limit. I am still pretty clueless in NL, but it seems like you need to really think about how much fold equity you have in various situations. Like you say, if people are always folding to a big bet when the third card of a suit comes when they don't have the flush (let's assume your bet is big enough to kill the odds for sets and one-card flush draws to try to hit their hand), then you need to figure out that possibility in preflop and flop decisions. For example, let's say you decide to play T [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 7 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] in late position against an EP raiser. Flop comes K [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] 8 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 6 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]. The EP raiser makes a continuation bet of half the pot. Obviously, you can't call trying to hit your gutshot if your opponent is halfway decent. But what about other possibilities? Can you steal the pot if the turn card is a spade? If you call the flop and EP has missed the flop (say with AQ or maybe even TT), will he check and fold to a bet on the turn? Those possibilities might mean that calling the flop is superior to folding. Or if your opponent is very aggressive, firing second continuation bets a lot, or makes a lot of loose calls, then obviously this is not the time to continue on in the hand.

The key is observing your opponents and deciding what hands to play and how to play them in order to exploit the way your opponent plays. Against a loose opponent who calls down too much, solid tight play seems close to optimal. (You can probably get away adding additional hands depending on how loose and how passive/predictable the opponents are.) But against tighter players, you have to look for ways to exploit their willingness to fold. And you also have to observe when they change their perception of you from tight aggressive to loose aggressive (or more generally, from someone who raises with solid value to someone who bluffs a lot). Once they perceive you as a bluffer, your goal should be to tighten up and try to trap someone for a lot of chips.

Well, that's how I understand NL, but I'm just a beginner. So take what I say with a grain of salt. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]