Royal Hold'em strategys

[Mr. Peterson]

It's a pity they don't have NL or at least PL tables for Royal like the initial free play testing.

It plays much better PL and NL.

[timprov]

[ QUOTE ]
It's a pity they don't have NL or at least PL tables for Royal like the initial free play testing.

It plays much better PL and NL.

[/ QUOTE ]

I played a couple days of the NL version when they were testing. It's worse than Draw or 5 Stud in terms of the good players having way too much of an advantage. Way too easy to get all of somebody's money when they flop a straight.

[TheMainEvent]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It's a pity they don't have NL or at least PL tables for Royal like the initial free play testing.

It plays much better PL and NL.

[/ QUOTE ]

I played a couple days of the NL version when they were testing. It's worse than Draw or 5 Stud in terms of the good players having way too much of an advantage. Way too easy to get all of somebody's money when they flop a straight.

[/ QUOTE ]

I would think that suited cards gain some value in the NL version, since royal over quads or top full seems like the only way you would take a stack from anyone who isn't an idiot

Forget about playing any 2 suited cards just because. If you get a Royal when your in a hand for other reasons then consider it a bonus. The main give and take to flopping top 2 pair is you end up a hero or a zero. You make your boat and your probably good but if you don't then the fish kill you with their straights. When to be aggressive and when to be passive is key. Really paying attention to understand better when your straight might be good or at least a split pot. How big the pot is helps me decide when to call for the straight when my boat doesn't come. For the most part NL is crazy online as it is much less for Royal. For the most part any card below a Q isn't very good except with an ace which makes it ok but still a button or sb call. AK should be raised every so often to mix things up just like AA, KK or even QQ or AQ once in a while if your position is good. In Royal AA isn't as powerful as in the regular game. The flop is very key in this game. The game already has its regulars including myself but there are still newbies showing up. The game really gets boring so I have to play the regular game half the time.

Time for me to pop my "lurker" cherry and make my first post. Nice advice guys. As an slightly above average player, no expert at post-flop play are these reasonable starting hands:

AA, KK raise/re-raise all
AK raise late/re-raise depending on read, mix up a bit early
AQ limp late
QQ limp, cold call depending on read
AJ, KQ complete blind cheap with good implied odds

Am I missing any profitable situations or will this keep me out of trouble? Played about 350 hands at 5c/10c for a profit of 60bb so far.

That is pretty good IMO, just keep getting experience to go with it all.

[BradleyT]

IMO AJ and KQ suck in this game.

fyi, here are approximate winning percentages from a hacked version of my simulator:

A A 39.6%
K K 29.3%
A K 23.6%
Q Q 21.1%
A Q 20.4%
A J 17.7%
K Q 17.7%
A T 15.3%
J J 15.1%
K J 15.0%
K T 12.7%
Q J 12.7%
T T 11.0%
Q T 10.5%
J T 8.7%

I ignore suitedness here, since it only adds around 0.7% to the winning chance. This is for 6-way, no folds, ties prorated. As others have stated, anything with a T or J is pretty weak.

So only 15 starting hands. Each pair occurs 3.2% of the time, each non-pair hand occurs 8.4%.

I think you give away too much against good opponents if you only raise AA/KK. Anyone with a hud can see your PFraise sitting right at 6-7%. I've tried two preflop strategies, one is raising everything down to AQ, especially in later positions. The other is being mostly passive, maybe raising AA/KK/QQ in the CO or button when you can usually see the turn cheaply to catch your set. Both seem to work pretty well.

Your first job is to determine if there are players who think a straight is good hand. This changes everything, and if you can isolate them you should see the river with any low boat or straight.

Against better players, I'll see the turn with any set or two pair (except bottom two against raises), and TPTK if unraised. You'll know on the turn if you have outs to quads/boat. Almost never worth praying for the board straight to save you otherwise.

Lucrative situations:
1) Board has AATTQ, and you have AQ. The other A will often play back at you here.
2) Capped PF, you should always call with QQ. You may be against AA/AA/etc, and they may have no outs. But fold AK to a 3-bet, or a single raise from Mr. 6% PFR.
3) Implied odds often make it worth calling a flop bet if you have 4 to the flush. Odds are 14:N on the flop and 13:N on the turn, where N is the number of outs. Players often go to war on the turn, and 20+BB pots occur regularly.

Worst thing about this game is it may make regular 6-max seem boring.