Please help my wife....

[pzhon]

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You think KK and AA hold up well against 4 or 5 other players ?

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Yes. It's a common misconception that they don't, but AA and KK are even better against multiple players. By the way, AKo is fine in multiway pots, too.

What you don't want to do with AA is let many people see the flop cheaply, then give your stack to anyone who outflops AA. However, I'd happily get all-in preflop with 9 other players with AA or KK.

[pzhon]

I came up with a push/fold strategy for bonus clearing for the Online Blackjack Guide. You can find it here: Basic Strategy for Hold'em

The problem with using the short-stacked NL startegy for Absolute is that there is an unusually high minimum buy-in, 40 big blinds, while my strategy was designed for buying in with 10 big blinds. It might still work, but you should tighten up a bit in early position, and the post-flop play needs to be radically adjusted. It's ok to make a pot-sized or 2x pot push from the big blind with TPNK or better agaisnt limpers, but awful to push for 10x the pot.

I think the safest way to clear bonuses by playing Hold'em at Absolute Poker without learning much is to play limit at full tables. If you play very tightly, never slow-play, don't let yourself get raised more than once with one pair, and only fold when you can be beaten by one card, you should win slightly at microlimits while clearing bonuses.

It is safer to play NL Omaha H/L $20 ($0.10 big blind) and fold every hand. For variety, push when you have AAxy. I believe you will clear about 3 times as much in bonuses as you pay in blinds.

[DavidC]

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So I have decided to let the wife clear some bonuses on Absolute while she's on maternity leave. She has never played poker in her life and isn't particularly numerate.

What strategy would be the safest (i.e. not to be rude, but the most idiot-proof) way for her to break-even at micro-limits?

I’m thinking No Limit is a lot easier than Limit so how’s this for a plan for NL $0.1 / $0.25?

- Buy-in for the minimum always at a table with at least 8 players
- Push AA-JJ and AK pre-flop from any position whatever the action.
- If she doubles up, quit & find another table.
- If the table drops below 8 players sit out until it fills up again

Therefore she’ll be playing less than 1 hand in 30 and will need to earn about $1.3 per hand played (assuming average of 9 players per table) to break-even.

For anyone who has played these limits, does this sound feasible? Will she get called enough to make $1.3 per hand for this range?

If not, can anyone suggest an alternate strategy she can follow that is basically just push / fold PF?

Thx in advance...

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Good luck! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

If you were to tell her to play poker, LHE would be a better idea, in my opinion, but I'm not sure how this will work out, given that she's not making any decisions.

[hansarnic]

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what a lucky woman your wife is, to have a husband trying to find an "idiot proof" way for her to scratch out a few extra pennies on her maternity leave.

if she wants to play poker, why not give her a small bankroll and actually spend some time trying to help her learn?

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Some comments:

1. Why the biting sarcasm? She's never played poker before in her life, try to remember what it was like when you first started. It's a tough game to master and given that we have a family & a f**king massive mortgage we can't really afford for her to blow cash trying to learn the game. Hence my need for the strategy in the early stages to be simple and pretty much guaranteed break-even. She can then get to learn by observing the game.

2. If $1k per month is 'a few extra pennies' then you're obviously a rich man, so well done. But there's no need to be a dick about it.

[teamdonkey]

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She's never played poker before in her life, try to remember what it was like when you first started.

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i remember it well, dropped $250 because i was a poor player and played too high of stakes at the beginning. these are both things you can help her with, and her losses while learning should be limited to a pretty small amount.

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If $1k per month is 'a few extra pennies' then you're obviously a rich man, so well done. But there's no need to be a dick about it.

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it's not pennies to me for sure, but how many hours of small stakes games will she have to play to hit 1k from just bonus clearing? that number seems very unrealistic to me.

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Why the biting sarcasm?

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because quite honestly your post comes off like your wife isn't a rational thinking person, but rather a monkey who can be trained to punch buttons for a small profit. my wife is a reasonably intelligent person, and if she wanted to spend some free time trying to make some extra income at poker, some dumbed down set of rules (push these 5 hands, fold everything else) is definately NOT how i would start her out. It's insulting to her to even think about it, IMO. Give your wife some credit as A) a human being with at least some intelligence, and B) not a robot who would happily grind out her maternity leave in such a mindless fashion for a small return.

[poboy]

I think you are either underestimating your wife(granted I don't know her but I'll assume at least average intelligence) or are overestimating how difficult it is to play poker(especially SSNL). I'm pretty sure you could explain an ABC type of poker to most anyone in an evening. The only reason poker is complicated for serious players is because we are trying to maximize our EV. This is simply not neccesary for bonus clearing and turning a small profit. As long as you can show her how to avoid the most common big mistakes(i.e taking top pair too far,playing too loose preflop,etc), there is no reason she can't achieve your goals and have some fun in the process. JMO

[crazygoose]

On a sidenote, I've played with this one guy who buys into the 50NL 10 dollars and pretty much raises and pushes AKs, AA, QQ, KK, JJ preflop or on the flop depending on the action. It was kind of funny, but I don;t know how profitable.

[boondockst]

I dont' know how i thought of this...but i just realized your answer:

Have her play 7Stud!! Every hand is raked (unless it's some kind of high limit game) and it's fairly easy to play.