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.