big O8 downswing

[BadBatsuMaru]

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You're way too passive with that hand. Raise PF, raise the flop.

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Yeah, I know I was way too weak with that hand. It was really just an example I had of how weird the converter acts when I put O8 hands in it.

[BadBatsuMaru]

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You guys are way too tight, A34 and A35 hands are good hands especially if it's suited to the ace. A3 doesn't always need the 2 in order to be the best low.

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I've been playing every A-3-4 I get, and every A-3-5 with a suited A. I was referring to Krieger saying that ANY three prime cards are good, and specifically talking about A-4-5, which is not a hand I like playing because it doesn't seem to have much potential unless you hit a miracle flop with both the 3 and 4. I'm sure it would be much more playable in shorthanded or higher stakes games where you can be aggressive and limit the field. Do you really think A-4-5 is worth playing in loose games, though? The only A-4-5 hand I can think of that I like is A-K-4-5 with the suited A.

[BadBatsuMaru]

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Just a bad downswing - it happens. It's frustrating when you're at a table playing only premium starting hands and every flop misses you when some donkey is there playing every hand till the river and winning pot after pot.

Just give it time for the numbers to even themselves out.

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I'm hoping that's what it is. When I've been having stats like only winning 2-3% of hands in a 3-hour session, I know it's mostly bad luck, but I'm sure there are times I should be much more aggressive (like the hand I posted above). There are also a few hands where I've gotten squeezed with high and low capping, and I'm stuck with the 2nd-nut low and 2nd-best high and feel like a real idiot for staying in... It's not like I can be sure the one of them has the nut high and the other one has the nut low, but I still feel stupid.

[pokerswami]

I agree with Yads who wrote
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You guys are way too tight, A34 and A35 hands are good hands especially if it's suited to the ace. A3 doesn't always need the 2 in order to be the best low.

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If A34x and A35x aren't profitable long term then these games may not be as loose and juicy as you think.

Are the tables full and loose, and do the players have lots of cash in front of them?
Do multiple players call bets and raises after the turn?
Does almost every hand require turning over the best hand at showdown?
Is it nearly hopeless to try to narrow the field down to 4 players or less before the flop?

These are all signs of good, loose tables. If your tables are this good, then your're playing too tight.

[Beavis68]

Toss AAxx unless the X is T and higher or 5 and lower.

Tighten up on the high hands, play only double suited or at least one suit. No QJT9.

Don't forget A3 especially with suits and backup.

I too was killing the party game then hit a big down-turn, I am playing on PS right now, and it is even worse, winning about 3% of hands.

[Yads]

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Hmm. I can appreciate a smartass comment as much as the next guy, but the simple fact is that plenty people have been posting O8 hands and the converter seems to work just fine for them, so I thought maybe someone would know what was going on when I try to convert hands.

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That's because people are typing the hand out manually and aren't using the converter since it's, as you've noticed, is broken.

[djr]

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You guys are way too tight, A34 and A35 hands are good hands especially if it's suited to the ace. A3 doesn't always need the 2 in order to be the best low.

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I never said don't play A3xx hands, I said avoid low only hands that need two low cards to make it a nut low. And, yes, A3 will win the low sometimes without spiking the deuce, but why chase only half the pot when it's not the nuts? It tends to leave you with less chips in the long run. (Of course, if you also have a reasonable high to go along with it then that is a different ball game).

[Yads]

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Do you really think A-4-5 is worth playing in loose games, though? The only A-4-5 hand I can think of that I like is A-K-4-5 with the suited A.

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I'll agree that A45x should only really be played in a hand like you described AK45 suited to the ace or AQ45 and even so I would dump this hand from early position unless the game was really passive. I'd also open raise with it from middle position if the game was tight.

[Yads]

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I never said don't play A3xx hands, I said avoid low only hands that need two low cards to make it a nut low. And, yes, A3 will win the low sometimes without spiking the deuce, but why chase only half the pot when it's not the nuts? It tends to leave you with less chips in the long run. (Of course, if you also have a reasonable high to go along with it then that is a different ball game).

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No you said that A34 and A35 hands are virtually worthless outside the blinds. This is incorrect. Do some simulations of these hands up against a couple of random hands and an A2 hand. I think you might be surprised by what you find. Sure I agree A3 with nothing else going for it is usually junk, but 3 wheel cards with a second nut low are not worthless hands.

[FeliciaLee]

First off, do you have Zee's book? I think it is perfect for the microlimits online. I have used/seen other strategies and none of them produce the results that Zee's strategy produces at these limits. I had a conversation with Steve Badger a couple of weeks ago at Commerce about his low limit O8 strategy, and told him that something that aggressive could never work online at these limits. He chuckled and said something about it being the California way, that the live games are ultra aggressive and you have to be willing to up the variance in order to get good results. He didn't argue with me that in online microlimits, it wouldn't work to be that aggressive.

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I don't know that I'm playing that badly. My party stats have me seeing about 22% of the flops over several thousand hands, but I've only won 3%.

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Is this outside of the blinds, or including them? I only see about 20% altogether.

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I'm only playing ring games, 0.5/1 tables with an average pot over $10 and the occasional 2/4 table with an average pot over $40.

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Why the big jump in limits? Does Party not have 1/2? Does the 2/4 just have a reputation of being fishy?

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high hands all between T-A (except trips)
9-T-J-Q


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This might be your weakness, right here, especially if you are not adjusting for position. High hands lose a lot of their power in these loose, fishy games. You might be bleeding off a lot of little bets by playing ALL of these hands.

As much as it seems contrary to a decent player to play in a tight/passive mode, that is often what is called for in these ultra loose low limit games. I am super tight, hiding in the weeds checking and calling until I cannot be counterfeited, have a scoop-type hand, or have a hand that has more outs than misses and other type situations. Then I can come to life and be ultra aggressive. Until that point, though, I don't sit around bleeding off small and/or big bets to super fishy players who might have 599K and hit a set of nines to my AA23, lol.

I'm not saying that tons of bets and pressure don't work at higher limits, they do, but at microlimits, the guy with 599K is simply NOT going to lay his hand down preflop no matter how many bets you make it. Nor is he likely to lay it down postflop if a king comes along, the board doesn't pair and the board is not coordinated. He will take that pair of nines all the way, and if you continue to push AA in those situations against six or seven fishy opponents at once, you will bleed off a ton of money.

Yeah, sometimes your hand was good, or sometimes you would have hit had you stayed all the way to the river. But most of the time you simply would have lost money.

In the long run, at these games, it's so much about the bets we save, not the giant pots we win.

Overall, since I have been playing microlimit O8 online, I am up about 400 bb's. This is playing .25/.50 and a little .50/1.00 at UB, mostly just to pass the time in the winter when my blood sugar is bad (I have diabetes). I have played about 150 hours, so you can see that my win rate is super slow, yet steady. I have been down as much as 40 bb's in a session, but I have never had to reload, and have just slowly taken in the money, over time. So what if it takes a while? What else do I have to do, lol? My variance is low and I can play by rote while ill.

I am a loyal devotee of Ray Zee...as if you couldn't tell, lol, so these are just my experiences. Hope they give you something to think about, at any rate.

Felicia [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]