Saturday, June 4, 2011

What cards to play before the flop

Okay we know who the bad people are now we just need to know what cards we wanna play against them.

First we'll develop a range of cards where we can make easy decisions so can just raise with our cards or check/fold.

Early position we want to play less cards because playing out of position really sucks because our opponents are able react to whatever we do. Playing early position we want to play good cards that can flop things like top pair top kicker or 3 of a kind and super profit.

Early position 1-2 we want our range to be something similar to this


Remember XXo = off suit XXs = suited

Yeah 7.7% of all hands is barely anything but whatever we don't like playing in early position if you wanna play more hands play them on the button or cut off. With this range we'll be able to flop 3 of a kinds, top pairs and if we don't flop anything we can just easily fold.


Middle position we can open a lot more cards something like


17% of hands we could open be careful of the suited aces on a Ace high flop there might we other aces with a higher kicker then yours.

With more cards in this range and position over early position we can safely open raise a lot more hands. The suited connectors like 87s or T9s are there so that we can make flushes and straights with them or semi-bluff people off their hands so that we don't have to make made hands to profit off them. The suited aces are so we can make ace high flushes which beat every other flush and they're great when we have over 150 Big blinds in our stack since bigger stacks with great hands = more money obviously.

Cut off we can open a bunch of hands




Now we have position on almost everyone but the button we we can open even more hands like suited 1 gappers and offsuit broadways like KJ QT JT just watch out if you flop top pair someone might have a better kicker then you and fold if the flop misses you and the flop is a crappy one to bluff in.

Button

Buttons awesome you want to play many many many hands on the button you'll get most of your money in poker on the button and its the perfect position to bluff people off their hands in.


Thats a lot of hands lol sadly you can't play 100% of hands on the button but whatever if you are and your still wondering why your losing money in poker your doing it wrong. Again like the cutoff and middle position watch out for kicker problems with your top pairs like Aces and if you know you can't bluff a guy off their hand then don't bother bluffing. The buttons a great position because everyone will act before you and it makes life a lot easier if your wondering "should I fold or raise or check???"


Blinds

Blinds fucking suck your paying to be in the crappiest position on the flop yay. We want to defend our blinds from steals with cards like pocket pairs to make 3 of a kinds and top pair top kickers like in early position. Most of the time you should just fold your blind because you can get into a lot of crappy spots on the flop being super out of position.

If everyone folds and its a small blind vs big blind scenario you can try to bluff them off their hands preflop if that  fails try the flop they'll miss 66% of the time anyways. Just be sure to know when to stop bluffing don't bother bluffing them out of top pair top kicker without anything to make your bluff look credible.


Just remember this isn't full proof theres probably and is a better opening range then this. You might wanna play less cards middle position, cut off, and button if you don't know what your doing because now that I think about it this range looks similar to a semi-Loose Aggressive range LOL. If you don't have the patience to fold every other card but the cards above then start getting patience. Poker can be profitable if we have the patience to wait, get a few good cards, and get paid off them as we're not good enough to play every card profitably like high stakes ballers. Also remember we'll get owned on the turn and river every now and then poker is a game of skill but there is short term variance which would come and kick us in the balls.

You will lose to stupid shit like AQ to AT on the river, KK to A3 on the river AA to 22 all-in preflop. Losing top pair top kicker on a Ace high board to a 22 who for some reason called your enormous bet and a 2 lands on the turn. Don't be mad if you lose just suck it up and keep playing if you tilt or rage thats when your money would start spewing away. If you can't suck it up go home and come back another time.

Who are the bad people part 2

Apart from limping in every hand theres still many different types of bad people but if wanna exploit them we wanna learn what type of bad player they are.

As the game goes we must observe how they're playing 

Do they play hands aggressively? Do they play them passively?
Do they play a billion hands or a select few?
Do they bluff?
Do they fold every flop unless they hit?

During preflop players usually end up in 2 categories 

The ones who play many hands = a loose player
Ones who play less but stronger hands = a tight player

Postflop 

Once the flop comes bad players are typically

Super nits: They probably only play the top 10 hands in holdem lol. If they don't fold to your preflop raise they always check/fold if the flop misses them and raises if the flop hits them you profit raising them on the flop because they'll fold a lot. If they reraise you just fold your beat. Steal their blinds as much as you can and fold if they reraise.

Nits: Almost the same as the supernits but they learned how to use google and looked up what hands to play in X position. They like folding so steal their blinds. These guys will always think you beat them unless they have a hand like a flush, 3 of a kind, 2 pair or straight and will tell you when your beat by reraising.

Weak tight: These guys are pussies that don't know what to do against aggression. So keep stealing their blinds, keep betting on the flop, they'll keep folding, and we profit. If he won't fold on the turn he probably has something so back off unlike the nits these guys are less likely to reraise.

Maniacs: These guys are morons they like bluffing and raising everything even if some of their bluffs make no sense. To take money from these guys we just tighten up our preflop range, flop comes and we have something like top pair with a good kicker or higher, we check, he bets, repeat to the turn then river, we flip up the cards, and the maniac just bluff owned himself easy money. If they actually have a hand for once suck it up, and don't rage tilt if you tilt they win.

Calling stations: They'll call with anything you'll see them a lot in facebook poker to beat them is similar to the maniac. We flop top pair, bet the flop, bet the turn, and bet the river. They'll call for some weird ass reason and we profit. These guys like chasing draws so experiment how high you can bet and with them still calling. If they ever raise your beat so fold. If the draw hits again suck it up it happens just wait till you get another chance to take their money.

Flush draw becoming a flush by the river (9 cards) = about 36%
Open ended Straight draw becoming a straight by the river (8 cards) = 32%
Gut shot straight draw (4 cards) 16%

Make bigger bets to maximize your profit when the draws miss and make them pay for draw chasing.

The good ones are usually these types of players

Tight Aggressive: They don't play many hands but when they do they play them aggressively and will make your life suck if your in a pot with them. You can try to steal their blinds but it's not as easy as it is with the nits. You typically wanna stay away from these guys but they can give you credit if you can bluff in the right places.

Loose Aggressive: These guys are annoying they can bluff really well and get away when they know they're beat. These guys are what weak tight players wish they were. They open so many hands that they get into really crappy spots on the flop but their ability to get value off all the crappy spots is how they make money. If you wanna beat these guys play less hands and start check raising when you hit the flop.

If your wondering how much should I raise? Raise 2/3rds the pot both for value and when your bluffing. You can experiment with your own bet sizing but if your ever stumped on how much to bet just bet 2/3rds

If your also wondering what stealing the blinds are its when you open raise anything from any position while the bad players that would fold are on the blinds thus stealing the blinds.

BTW people fold more on the internets rather then casinos so if you play tighter in casinos and have the patience too you'll profit.

Who are the bad people part 1

Hopefully you have some idea of playing poker if not go play facebook poker for an hour or 2 and you should have a general idea by now. Or just watch this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vPpAhwhM1M

Okay thats over with lets talk about who the bad people we're going to exploit are

If you ever played a typical poker game before and it the game goes like this

Blinds 1/2

Early position calls 2, Middle position calls 2, Middle position+1 calls 2, Middle position+2 calls 2, Cut off calls 2, Button calls, 2 Small blind calls 1, Big blind checks and Flop comes XXX

Everyone there is bad and we can probably exploit every one of them LOL and it happens a lot on facebook poker.
What they're doing is called limping and we don't want to limp in the pot like them. We want to raise all the hands we want to play before the flop.

Why are we raising?

  1. It makes our hand look strong
  2. The flop will miss everyone 66% of the time so we just bet again on the flop we can take it down if they miss or fold if they raise
  3. Limping looks like they want to see a flop for cheap and we wanna deny that
  4. Ez money if everyone folds
Now we know that limping is bad so what are we gonna do when we have a hand we wanna play? Yeah raise the hell out of it. 

How much? Internet is around 4x Big blind +1 Big blind for every limper so in the above example we would raise to about 26. Casinos standard raising size is about 6x Big blind and don't forget the +1 Big blind for every limper.

Thats part 1 part 2 would deal with Calling stations, maniacs and donks.

Btw if your doing this on facebook poker nobody ever folds so raising is a good way to get value off your good hands but have the balls to fold not bluff if the flop completely misses you.

Starting out

Since the US Department of Justice owned me I can't play internet poker anymore so if you don't live in America i'll teach you how to make money off crappy people online and if you live in America I'll teach you how to make money off stupid people in casinos and hopefully your friends. Then you can brag about how awesome you are in poker.

But first things first.

One i'm not here to turn you into the Poker King i'm just gonna teach you how to make money off stupid people online or in casinos.

Two if you get pissed off losing in poker a lot learn to suck it up or don't bother learning you'll lose money playing if your raging.

Finally if good people give you a hard time not my problem go actually learn the game from a book or something its summer we don't have much to do anyways.

If I say something like 6h7c heres what it would mean and you should already know A = ace K = king etc

h = Hearts s = Spades c = Clovers d = Diamonds o = offsuit s = suited


Okay lets start.