Questions for you all, plus an introduction!

[craiga_uk]

Hello all twoplustwo'ers!

I'm new to this board, and poker discussion forums on the whole.
I've been lurking here for the past few weeks, reading and digesting some of the many interesting posts. There sure is a lot of knowledge and points of view here, which can only be a good thing.
I'm making this post to firstly say hi, and secondly to ask you all a few questions!
So you know my 'background', I've been playing small stakes Limit ($1/$2) and No Limit ($0.50/$1) Hold'Em on William Hill, plus I like to enter a few low buy in Tourneys and Satellites (usually with good results - finishing in the money, or just shy). I play with a very small bankroll at the moment (started with approx. £25 - was playing for fun). Now up to £80 and still playing for enjoyment and learning, but would like to make a return of approx £200 - £300 a month by playing 3 evenings a week, for approx 2 hours. That gives me a target of £12.50 per hour profit - which should easily be attainable by me (I hope).

What I'd like to know is a few things:

a) I'm using the demo of Poker Tracker at the moment, and being a bit of a stat lover I'm really enjoying it. I've used BisonBisons rankings for the AutoRate, and I was wondering exactly how these ratings should be used - I.E: What should I learn when playing against a LA-P for example.

b) On No Limit, I'm currently a rock (TP-P) - is this good/bad?!?!

c) On Limit, I'm currently a frowning green face (sLA-P) (I was happy at one point - sLA-A) is this good/bad?!?!

d) What are some good books to read? I've got the Hellmuth and Lee Jones (Winning Low Limit) books on my Amazon wishlist - any others that are good for my basic level of play?

e) Are there other useful features/stats I should be looking at on Poker Tracker?

Sorry for the questions above. I realise they are all quite 'wide open' and require large responses. I'm just doing my best to maximise my learning and the tools at my disposal.

Many thanks, and might see you online!

Craig

[zuluking]

Welcome Craig.

I'll answer a and c for ya...

A-Here's an example. Last night I was sitting to the right of a LA-P player, the pre-flop action was folded around to me in MP3, I raised with A9 suited to eliminate the blinds and get head-up with LA-P guy, who I knew would call. He had called every pre-flop raise for the last half-hour. It worked, and I dragged a decent pot as he called me to the river with middle pair.

C-Don't worry about your own "classification" on poker tracker until you have a few thousand hands under your belt. Besides, you're only two away from moneybags, the frown just says you're a bit loose pre-flop and not aggressive enough post-flop.

Hope this helps.

[theghost]

a)
LA-P just tells you a rough outline of that player's style:
-(L) They play too many hands
-(A) Agressive preflop (raises alot preflop)
-(P) Passive postflop (they generally just call, unless they have the nuts or something close)

b/c)
I think ideally you want to be TA-A for both NL and limit, but I'm not much of an NL player so I'm not sure.

borderline sLA-P/sLA-A means
-you're probably playing too many hands (though maybe not way too many for the limits you're at - .5/1 & 1/2)
-you're too passive post-flop

d)
Hellmuth sucks - bad advice
Jones is decent, a good/great 1st book (it was mine); Small Stakes Hold'em is excellent, you should either read that or Theory of Poker next.

I liked the NL starter book by Reuben and McEvoy.

Check out this thread and the books/software forum for more on this question.

e)
you should study PT and think about what the numbers mean (especially since you're into stats). Your understanding of them will improve with your understanding of the game.

This is a good post on PT and notes by MS Sunshine:
Player notes discussion

[steveclaz]

Hi Craig,

I'm no expert, but I'll try to answer until someone better comes along!

(All Pokertracker comments come with a huge standard "insufficient sample size" disclaimer - the demo only allows 1,000 hands IIRC?)

a) I'm sure you know the ratings mean behaviour preflop-postflop (e.g. LA-P means loose-aggressive preflop, passive postflop). In general, you're going to want a better hand to go against a T player, and bluff less against a L player. Against a LA-P player, don't fear preflop raises so much, and be sure to bet into him when you make a hand (I just read that back - state the obvious Steve! D'uh!)

b) I think I'd prefer to be TA-A - you might be more aggressive when you like your hand.

c) There are certainly worse rankings to be than sLA-P (and not just because it spells slap!). Again, maybe work on putting your opponents to the test postflop by showing aggression.

d) Really don't bother with anything Hellmuth has written. It's going to be no help at all. The Jones book is great as is the Ed Miller book. There are a million topics with book recommendations - start off with either of the Jones/Miller books and decide from there.

e) I like the Game Time feature - allowing you to see real time stats on your opponents as you play. It makes it a whole lot easier to see who is entering every pot, who is winning etc. Also, use the filters effectively to see where you are losing money, what hands are not working for you, and how you are playing from each position.

Hope that helped and is not the wild ramble I fear it might be! Again, I have to say any rankings/tendencies your stats might be showing now could be due to not enough hands being in your database - keep playing and racking up the stats (and upgrade to the full version of PT)

See you at the tables....good luck! (p.s. If I show up on your PT stats - don't mark me down on your fishlist!)

[dogmeat]

Welcome to the forum. Good luck with your poker! The best way to improve your game is to play, then post sample hands in the small stakes forum when you have questions. Many of those responding will give you excellent advice.

Books? Sklansky's Theeory of Poker is an excellent primer for overall play, but dry reading. I would save this until after reading WLLHE (which is a beginners book with flaws, but enough info to really help your game) - or read the old or new Super System that is coming out. Ed Miller's book on Small stakes is excellent, but again there are area's that are going to get you in trouble if you don't know the game pretty well already. If you are more advanced, then you can properly apply his concepts (at the correct time) and this book will be your best friend.

Phil Hellmuth's book is marginal. As a beginners book, I think it is much better than people give it credit for. The problem is that beginners learn a certain way and have a tough time changing. If you ONLY read Phil's book, you won't be able to make money past the $1/$2 game until you adapt and change your strategies to each new level - and this is probably too much to ask for a player with no other books read. Bob Ciaffone also has an excellent book on "Middle Limit HE" that is much like Miller's - good information with examples and tests.

As for poker tracker, take advantage of the replay function to see what happened on hands you have questions about. Quite often you will see where you went wrong, and I also use it to look at hands played by other players, i.e. what makes them winners? What did they do? Why did it work? If you can't learn from experience and example, you won't be a winner at poker in limits that will make you enough to live on.

Dogmeat [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]

[craiga_uk]

Thanks for all the advice and encouragement.
I'm glad I don't appear to be doing too badly - both in my bankroll (I'm in profit!) and my stats.
I'll make sure I don't read too much into those PokerTracker stats without having more hand history information available. I need to play some more, and get myself the full version.
It's nice to know that I'm not a fish already, or anything like that. I know I play a fairly tight game, just need to get a bit more agressive when i'm representing my hand.

The Hellmuth book is off the wishlist for now. I think I'll see if I can con the library into getting it in - I'd like to read it, but it doesn't sound like a keeper.
I'm going to look at getting the Jones and Miller books though.

Hopefully my next post can be an interesting hand from one of my games. It's great to learn, especially when there are so many people who know so much more than me!
(My only fear is posting up a hand history and getting ripped to shreds for my poor play!! I suppose that's how we learn though!)

Cheers again all!

Craig