Trying to help a fellow player - feedback please!

[sucka]

I'll get right to the point...

I have a good friend who has the potential to be a very skillful poker player. He has been playing the game for a couple years, and to the best of my knowledge has read HEPFAP and a few other S&M books. How well he's fully absorbed the content remains to be seen. I'd like to forward this post to him after I get some feedback from hopefully some of the heavyweights here (if he doesn't find it himself), so I would appreciate anyones candid comments.

In short, I think he has some real fundamental misunderstandings of how to play in certain games - particularly low limit party poker games. In a conversation we had earlier today I think I've somewhat brought him back from the dark side - but not entirely sure. I am hoping that some good feedback here will provide him with some information that he can use to continue to improve his game.

Just a bit of background:

He and I and another friend have recently started playing a little for fun online. We've all been playing awhile - a couple of us probably a bit more than him in the last year or so. With a 4 month old son, I don't get a chance to play much now - and when I do, it's mostly tournaments on Party which fortunately have been fairly lucrative for me.

Last night we all get on Party and get into the same game. Mind you, we are not colluding - we absolutely do not discuss the hand while someone is involved. We will comment on each others play and some of the antics that go on at the table but we absolutely do not discuss live hands or reveal hole cards.

We get into a .5/1 game that's pretty loose until we've played a couple of rounds and then it tightens up slightly but we are all still getting plenty of action. The following hand comes up which creates quite a bit of controversy and we continue to discuss it all night. Today, this particular hand was the root of our discussion - but we veered into other poker related topics as well.

I wish I had a hand history as I'm not 100% sure as to the how the action went - but basically our hero is in LP with 89o. 6 players limp and the player to our hero's right raises. Our hero cold-calls 2 and the rest of the table calls, of course. The raiser was our other friend who held KK. Not sure of the board and action (it doesn't matter anyway) but our hero ends up winning the pot. Obviously, we have quite a bit of discussion about cold-calling raises with marginal hands, etc...

In our conversation today, we discussed this hand and others and he readily agreed (after some emailing today with some math on how hosed he was and how he absolutely should not have been in that pot) that this was a very loose call and a long term -EV play. This particular session, he saw 40+% of the flops and attempted several bluffs against calling stations. Granted, this was his first time to play real money micro limits on Party - but he knew that the players were very loose and many were textbook calling stations. At our first table he lost his entire buy-in ($25) in less than an hour and a bit of his rebuy before we all ended up changing tables where he made a little of it back catching on those 'lucky' hands.

In our conversation his philosophy in playing the low limit games online was that he should be seeing a lot more flops (said in the 30% range on average) and getting himself in position to outplay his opponents post-flop. While fundamentally I can't disagree with this philosophy there are many other things that factor into this equation.

I think the crux of his problem was the he felt like he was getting good odds to cold call a bet here and that his implied odds were good because if he hits his hand all the calling stations will pay him off. While I certainly don't disagree that if he hits his hand some monkey will pay him off - that still is no reason to piss away money cold-calling with unsuited connectors hoping that you catch a straight draw. Of course, this biggest issue here is that if you continue to make bad calls like this you WILL NOT make your hand enough times and/or get paid off when you do to make this a +EV play.

He also mentioned that he doesn't think that it's correct to play 'textbook' poker in the low limit games because "Your missing out on a lot of money". Clearly, a very fundamental thinking error there. We had a pretty heated discussion on this. I made it very clear to him that in low limit games it is absolutely essential to play textbook poker. Often times you are simply playing how the math tells you to play. It can be as boring as watching paint dry but the plain and simple truth is - when you are playing at these lower limits you HAVE to make a hand to win. Your not going to be able to do much in the way of 'fancy play' and work your opponents out of the pot. You play it 'tight and right' and get money in with your good hands and let the calling stations pay you off when you hit hand. I told him to save his 'fancy play' for when he moves up to $20/40 and is playing against opponents that are actually capable of folding what is likely the best hand. For some reason that I don't understand - he had a difficult time agreeing with that philosophy and continues to think that he's losing money if he doesn't see more flops.

I also mentioned to him that it's easy to get busted up limping with crap. I used an example of coming in with J8s with a near family pot. The flop comes Jack high and you go crazy check raising and what not but can't shake one of the calling stations who tables AJo on the river to scoop. The problem with the low limits is that people often limp with hands that have you dominated and in many cases these players won't save you any money because they never let you know that you are probably beat. In the end, you limp with cheese and flop the worst case scenario for you and lose money on a hand you should have never been involved with in the first place.

Of course we discussed odds and what not and I tried to explain to him that when you enter a pot against a raise with hands that are all long term losers you will never get paid off enough on the ones that you win to compensate for all the weak limps and cold-calls you sacrificed trying to hit those in the first place.

My basic advice in these games was to play a solid game - just because it's LL doesn't mean that you do what all the other monkeys do and piss your money away with crap hands out of position prelfop and then try to bully them around later in the hand. Save your money and get money in the pot with good hands. Ram and jam when you have strong draws and in general just play a solid game. Sure, a lot of what you'll read in some of the 'books' isn't going to apply to some of these games. You should see a few more flops than you would in a tighter game for certain but good post flop play usually means folding top pair with a crap kicker when you bet it early get called in 4 places then someone raises.

Anyway, I hope this provides enough information so that some of you might comment and give some additional advice. I'm not trying to hammer on this guy as he is a very good friend of mine. I just want him to know that he's making some very fundamental errors here and know that with a little push in the right direction he can make a little money in these games.

I've reiterated to him several times a couple gems that I've read here over the years:

I know Mason and several others have said the following:

"You should be cold calling so infrequently that you can't even remember the last time that you did so".

And a Clarkmeister gem:

"Coldcalling raises with medium and small suited connectors is the fast track to the poorhouse. Yes, even with 3 others in the pot."

Thanks to all of you who actually made it through this post.

[Easy E]

I'll try to come back to this tomorrow.

However, one thing that jumped out: "I wish I had a hand history as I'm not 100% sure as to the how the action went - but basically our hero is in LP with 89o. 6 players limp and the player to our hero's right raises. Our hero cold-calls 2 and the rest of the table calls, of course"
and then you laid into him for what you saw as a hugely -EV play.

I'm not so sure about that. 89s would be preferred here, but the 6 limpers "and the rest of the table calls, of course" may make this a reasonable, if high variance, play.
If you would call 2 bets with 89o if 7 others were all already in, then cold-calling when you evidently expected the remaining 6 limpers to call isn't THAT much different IMO, especially if you expect many of them to play badly post-flop.

While I definately agree that tighter, more "textbook" play is the best way to go when starting out in low-limit no-foldem games, playing a hand that isn't as likely to be dominated directly (by someone else matching your cards with a better kicker) may not be as bad as playing J8 or J9 or higher, where AJ and others will be in.

Anyway, more to come later. Just wanted to kick this off.

[sucka]

Thanks Easy.

The focus of the post isn't neccesarily to nitpick that hand. It's one example that I thought would shed some light on the subject and allow you to attempt, albeit, with very limited knowledge to dissect this player based on that line of thinking.

As for the 89o hand.

When he actually calls - he's getting a mere 3.5 to 1 on this call. While not probable, all players may not call to give him the 7-1 he was thinking of - or even worse, a limp-reraise could show up possibly driving out a few players reducing any implied odds he may have had on this hand. In addition, these 2 players may get into a raising war with him stuck in the middle making it expensive for him to draw should he flop one. I just don't see enough positives to outweight the negatives here. IMHO, it's just pissing money away - but I'd be willing to hear any arguments debunking that.

The point is and I don't think anyone is going to disagree much on this - the 89o is a bad call - especially to cold call 2. 89s really isn't even much better, imho. With 89o you are wanting to flop the straight draw. By my calculations you can expect to see that ~9% of the time. No way I'm cold calling here...ever.

Anyway, I'd prefer that we not focus too much on the 89o hand. He recognizes that this is a very marginal call. I'd like to talk more about some of the other topics I discussed, particularly his 'monkey see monkey do' see more flops then try to outplay a bunch of calling stations in LL games theory.

[Ed Miller]

I kind of skimmed the post. But it does sound like your friend has an attitude that will get him in big trouble.

I'd guess that 80% of the profit in poker comes from the best 20% of your playable hands. That is, AA-99, the big suited cards, and AK probably account for 80% of your profit in any full (i.e. not shorthanded) limit holdem game. In a game full of loose-passive players, you could certainly play just those hands and make a very nice profit.

Adding some hands beyond that will increase your earn. But the more marignal the hand, the less that hand will give you even in the most ideal circumstances. Hands like 98o and J8s, when played in the absolutely perfect spot, might give you a hair of +EV (like a few hundreths of a bet). Playing these hands in the wrong spot will certainly be unprofitable, though. Playing 98o in the wrong spot once can lose you the money that playing it correctly ten times made you.

I'd guess that an expert player can boost his total winrate by 5-10% (at most) by adding "marginal" starting hands in the appropriate spots. A decent, winning player can cut his winrate by 50% or more by adding these same hands in the wrong spots. Calling two cold with 98o is, to be sure, very much the wrong spot.

In other words, your friend is looking in the wrong places to help himself beat holdem games. Adding marginal hands will never make the difference between winning and losing. He needs to concentrate on learning to play a small set of starting hands well after the flop.

[Bob T.]

He needs to concentrate on learning to play a small set of starting hands well after the flop.

Once you learn how to handle overpair, top pair, set, and nut flush draw, after the flop, then you are ready to try and work in some of the other situations.

[sucka]

This guy is actually not a bad player. I used a couple examples to indicate his line of thinking on a few things but overall he really does have some skills and can play a good game.

My focus on this post, as I mentioned previously, is to pass along some solid advice on how to play at the lower limit games. I just think that his line of thinking was a little skewed on this one and wanted to pass along some good information for him from some other solid players as he seemed to not agree with me on some of the issues I discussed previously.

I appreciate the good comments though.

[John Biggs]

At the extreme low limits, such as the $.50/$1 limit you guys were playing, "textbook poker" strategy must be modified heavily. In particular, hands that aim to build top pair good kicker, such as AK and AQ, shouldn't be raised with preflop. These sorts of one-pair hands seldom win against a horde of loose callers--it's Morton's Theorem to the max. You're better off limping big offsuit cards and playing them opportunistically--that is, only proceeding post-flop when you either hit a big flop or when the texture and your position allow you to put in a check-raise or raise. That way you can drop a few players you couldn't have if you had you raised preflop and they checked to you. Beyond that, quality drawing hands pick up a lot of value--as you say, you're playing odds poker, not position/knockout poker.

I certainly agree that 98o and hands like it should be routinely mucked at any limit up to $4/$8, except in the blinds. These sorts of hands don't have enough ways to win in a limit structure. For one bet with volume, I'd rather have suited trash like J8s than 98o.

[GuyOnTilt]

Limping in with AKo or AQo routinely is giving up some serious EV. First off, you invite multiway action, which is something you want to avoid with big offsuit cards. One of the biggest reason to raise with these hands is to drive players out of the pot and get it short-handed. It's the same reason I muck KJo after 4 limpers: I don't want a multiway pot with big offsuit cards. Secondly, your hand is much easier to play post-flop when you raise preflop. Your choices are a lot easier to make when your opponents are on their heels and you have control of the hand. Thirdly, making my opponents pay to see the flop when I have a superior hand is almost always going to be in my best interest.

I realize that at micro-limits, raises don't defer opponents from seeing the flop as much, but I still don't see how limping in from EP with AKo could be a better strategy than raising. You'd just be giving up too much NOT to raise IMO.

[John Biggs]

It's not a matter of "inviting" multiway action by limping AQ or AK--at a typical .50/$1 table, you're going to get multiway action regardless of whether you raise preflop or not.

If you've read the loose games section in HPFAP, the $.50/$1 games fit right into what they're talking about, only more so. I'd also suggest trolling the Web to look for discussion of Morton's Theorem, if you haven't checked it out yet.

[lil']

The times you raise and get paid of by inferior hands will more than make up for the times you miss and wisely get away from the hand as cheaply as possible.

If some yutz wants to call my A-Q with A-5 or Q-10 he's more than welcome to do so, but he's not going to get to do it cheaply. I want him putting money in when he is a big underdog.