The biggest mistake that players here make

You are overlapping two different subjects of odds and betting strategy.

The article is designed to teach people odds of hands held.

Betting strategy on those hands is a lot deeper subject with many variables including your stack, position, read on opponents and whether it is tourney or ring.

The chart is to give new players and players still learning odds a fast way to determine if they should bet or fold a hand.

How much they bet depends on many more variables that can not be put in to any chart and comes from experience and lots of playing.

ADDED: I have addressed betting strategy for new players in my own and other articles.

SPG your post is not simple or easy to understand for new players.

Now what does that mean to a new player?

What are you counting? What is an out?

New players will have no idea what you are even talking about.

When you get done explaining that- your system is more complicated than knowing basic odds on common hands.

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You are recommending a range here even if you are not listing it out in the same format. You are saying to play any two suited or connected cards.

Well here we are back at the heart of my original post. I agree that it is fun to play lots of hands, gamble and try and hit. You will win more POTS by playing more hands. However, you will win more CHIPS by playing fewer, stronger hands.

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If someone doesn’t understand the term “out” they can do a search for it.

While at it, they could also search for “hotlinking.” aka “bandwidth theft.”

And they might as well look up “copyright law” too.

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I disagree and the reason is players that fold everything except top cards will get read and players will fold when you bet meaning you get diddly on pre-flop rakes and in pots unless you get heads on with a fish that over estimates their hand.

Your advice also goes against what is recommended for loose aggressive players in this article:

If your strategy works for you great but it is too specific to ranges and betting strategy for high stakes players and that is not the majority of players on Replay or a good general strategy IMO.

It is your OP but I think a more general strategy for players that is based on knowing hand odds and having a less predictable betting and hand range is overall a better strategy.

Thanks and win big!

I think that talking about actual ranges is extremely important, especially since most players on replay seem to have a pre flop raise % of 3 (PFR not counting limps, basically JJ+/AK) and limp/call % (VPIP of sorts) close to 50%. As @love2eattacos stated in his original post, they play too many hands and play them too passively.

I’m thinking about making a post about how to easily beat replay ring games (since I don’t fear giving away too much about my game), but let’s talk about ranges here for a second. If you have no idea how to play post flop and are a complete beginner, you should only play TT/AK (and by play I mean open/3bet pre flop) until you get more comfortable. Just limp small pairs and suited Ax and fold the rest, especially if another player opens. As you develop postflop skill (and understand position), you can expand that range dramatically. To crush replay rings you just need to open strong hands from early position (medium pocket pairs, strong Ax, strong suited broadways) and from MP or LP you open hands that give you full board coverage (suited connectors, suited Ax, all pocket pairs, all suited broadways). Then you bet strong draws and top pair+ and check back when you hand showdown value or total air. Some players have been successful playing almost any 2 cards aggressively and others have been successful playing loose- passive pre flop and getting aggressive when they flop a monster. But opening a balanced range (~25% PFR) that allows you to be the aggressor in position while still hitting all boards makes the game a lot easier and gives many different ways to win each pot.

Limps and flat calls should be rare, despite the fact that limp- calling is what most players here do most of the time. There is a place for limping and calling, especially given how easy it can be to see a cheap flop here. Hands that flop well like weak suited Broadways and small pocket pairs can be good to limp behind or flat, but doing so makes your range very face-up (obvious). Suited Ax have too much equity and blocker value to play passively and suited connectors don’t have enough pure equity to limp behind. These hands should be played aggressively as opens/3bets.

Garbage hands like 92s, Q6o, T4s, 86o, are easy to fold. There’s no need to call or get aggressive with these hands just because they are suited or connected or you think you’re getting bullied. Certain types of hands win big pots and realize their equity, and unless you have a massive skill edge there’s no reason to put money in the pot without the cards to back it up.

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Yes, it does. I would not recommend that a new player start out by playing a loose aggressive (LAG) style, especially on this site. There is too much knowledge needed of postflop play and when to apply aggression correctly in order to be successful. To be successful, LAG style depends on having opponents who will fold often when facing a bet, and that’s simply not true at low stakes here.

The style I am advocating is the tight-aggressive (TAG) style from this article. Yes, it’s straightforward, but it’s effective at any level. As you improve it can be adjusted to get looser and more aggressive as needed for specific opponents.

The overwhelming majority of people here are playing the loose passive style from this article, so we need to use a default strategy that will beat them:

I posted my results playing a straightforward TAG strategy at low stakes tables. I showed how it won thousands of big blinds over the course of a week. Clearly it works. It’s so simple to implement that I would recommend it for any new player. It’s a great basis for playing at higher levels too.

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I don’t mind seeing a a flop with small-ish connected cards if I can get in cheap from late position, at least if there are 3-4 players already in the pot. If you do manage to flop an open ender, you need to have enough people in the pot to have the right pot odds to continue.

I also think the whole “suited” thing is over-valued by a lot of players. Suited preflop, you will flush by the river about 7% of the time… it’s not a big consideration. And let’s face it, you shouldn’t be thrilled to flop a flush draw in a multi-way pot with a hand like 56s or whatever. Even if you make the flush, it’s hard to extract any value, and you will lose to better flushes a fair amount of the time.

Still, in early stages of a tournament, small connected cards can be worth playing.

Wasn’t your personal challenge to get into the top hundred and wasn’t it based on your and JoeDirks opinion that low stakes players can be beat with minimal effort?

Did you make it in to the top 100?

We could discuss your play style in great length as you know I observed you playing when you pushed 700 bets on 25/50 tables and then tried to bully the flop but got call checked and lost both times you tried it.

That was the inspiration for my Replay article on beating a Poker Bully.

So we will have to disagree and I welcome people to read through the discussion and article links and my own articles on Replay to understand play style, hand ranges and betting strategies for an over all strategy.

That is enough for me on this topic and hope to see you down on those low stakes tables again tacos!

The aim wasn’t to make it into the top 100, the aim was to look at the level of skill at the low stakes tables and compare with high stakes. I do still think that low stakes here can be beaten with minimal effort.

Yes. I finished #68.

This is the aggressive part of tight-aggressive. Get good cards, bet them strongly. Sometimes you will lose and that’s ok. In the long term you will win. You shouldn’t expect to win every hand. One hand won or lost doesn’t mean much. It matters what happens overall over the course of thousands of hands.

Post links to specific hands and I will be happy to talk about my thought process.

If you misread someone who is playing TAG as being a bully then you are going to lose a lot of chips. There’s a huge difference between those styles.

I keep posting my results and showing that what I am talking about works. Maybe you could post yours? How many BB does the leaderboard above show that you won that week? Post a screenshot.

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Consistency over time wins more than playing Poker Bully style:

profit%20loss

That was your personal challenge for yourself Tacos- not mine.

That is all I want to say on this topic and opinions are like elbows- everyone has one or two.

I didn’t even know there was a promotion with a low stakes ranking going on, but I stand by my original statement that beating low stakes is extremely easy. It’s like going to your local park basketball game and saying I can’t prove that those guys shouldn’t be in the NBA because I’ve never seen them play against NBA players. You can tell how good a player is (often very quickly, but clearly over 200+ hands) from their actions and the hands they show down. It’s not an opinion.

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The value of suited and connected cards isn’t that they make flushes and straights but rather that they provide equity with which to be aggressive. If, as many people here do, somebody plays draws passively then playing suited or connected cards can actually be a major leak in their game because they are calling too much and not getting paid enough when they hit.

The reason I want to play suited and connected cards is that I can bet the draws and hit all boards. For example AJo is a better starting hand than 65s, in terms of pure equity, but when the flop comes Q84 with 2 of your suit I would much rather be holding the 65s. You have no showdown value so your decision whether to check or bet is much more clear and you have a ton of outs against hands that call. Ax, broadways, and pocket pairs often end up with top pair or two pair, relatively weak showdown hands while suited connectors are much more disguised and can hit stronger draws. Plus they are easy to throw away when you miss because you can know when you are behind or have no good outs.

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I don’t think I have ever played or advocated playing poker bully style.

Thank you for sharing some results. I will assume that you did not post your leaderboard position because your results were not so good that week.

Looks like you had about a +37k week. I showed a +202k week playing at the same stakes. It seems clear to me from this which style wins more.

Luckily we can use evidence to sort out opinions from what actually works.

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May be entirely irrelevant, but here are my ring results. I don’t play very often, so I don’t have the neat dashboard chart to show, but here are the 5 most recent days:

Day 1, 90 minutes played, 168 hands
+6,441,275 chips
~107 big blinds

Day 2, 48 minutes, 91 hands
+3,271,662
~54 big blinds

Day 3, 39 minutes, 82 hands
+797,252
~13 big blinds

Day 4, 87 minutes, 276 hands
+15,618,874
~130 big blinds

Day 5, 40 minutes, 95 hands
+22,485,497
~187 big blinds

Big blinds are approximate because the results come from 20k/40k, 5k/100k, and 100k/200k. This was playing 1-3 tables at a time. The sample size is too small to actually mean anything.

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Nice going Joe, looks like you were winning at the highest stakes here by an average of about 69BB per 100 hands which is a very impressive rate.

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Excellent point. Maybe a thread on the pros and cons of suited connectors? IMO, many people play these hands without an idea of what they are trying to accomplish, other than trying to flop monsters. I also see people playing hands like 8/7s and then forgetting that their top pairs are rarely good in raised pots. There are tons of pros and cons to these hands and they are likely more of a leak to most players here than anything else. A huge mistake I’ve watched people make is playing them when stacks are too short to fully realize their equity with. The value of these hands diminish as SPR’s decrease but I don’t think many players adjust for that. Their relative strength varies with position as well.

Misplaying suited connectors, small pairs and suited Ax would probably all qualify as mistakes made here with high frequency. All 3 of these types of hands look pretty and can be fairly powerful if used correctly. If used incorrectly, they are massive leaks in most players’ games, here and anywhere else.

I’ll go back to the really clear data that shows the vast majority of any players profits come from premium hands (88+, AQo+, ATs+). Before anyone plays suited connectors because they see Kid Poker playing them (or for any of the mostly incorrect reasons stated here) I’d suggest they learn to play their premiums well. It cannot be said too frequently that profitable poker is mostly boring. Until people are playing a much higher level game vs better opponents, they could eliminate all non-Broadway suited connectors from their game and increase their winrates.

Added: Another mistake I see people making with these hands is overestimating their value in multiway pots when flush draws fill. 8/7s is nowhere near the nuts with 5 players in a pot and 4 getting to the river. Players bleed money by losing huge pots with these hands to better flushes and higher straights. The more I think about it, the more I come to believe that these hands are disasters in the making for most players.

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I think I agree with what you are saying, but don’t quite understand what this bit means. I don’t necessarily connect aggression with equity the way you do, I guess.

Unless you are talking about fold equity, the equity in this kind of hand comes from its ability to make straights and flushes, yes?

You guys know I am kinda slow, any additional info would be appreciated.

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Here’s my understanding of this concept. Big caveat: this applies when we are facing a strong, thinking opponent who does not have any particular weaknesses that we are aware of.

Against this kind of opponent, when we are figuring out which hands from our range we want to bet (or raise) on a particular flop, we will need a balanced mixture of both made hands and bluffs. The made hands to bet are usually somewhat obvious, but we need to pick which hands from our range will be the best to bluff with. We also need to build our betting range on the flop in a way so that we can continue to bet a balanced range on both the turn and the river regardless of the particular cards that may come. In other words, we need to ensure that we continue to have a mix of strong hands and bluffs in our range on any turn and river.

On the flop and turn, the best bluffing hands are those that currently do not have much showdown value (usually we will want to check our mid-strength made hands), but that still will have some equity against the hands that opponents will call us with. This lets us continue to bet on many different turns and rivers because we will always have the possibility of having a very strong hand. Suited connectors in particular are great for this because on most flops they are not going to give us a made hand but are often going to leave us with some sort of draw that can potentially turn into a very strong hand by the river.

Building this kind of balanced range is a complex topic and requires off-table study. If you are interested then I would recommend Ed Miller’s book Poker’s 1% which gives a good overview of this approach.

I get that, but here’s the part I don’t get…

The way I see it, the “equity” in these types of hands IS in their ability to make strong hands, mostly straights and flushes. So we can replace the word “equity” with the phrase “ability to make straights and flushes.”

So then we get, “The value of suited and connected cards isn’t that they make flushes and straights but rather that they provide the ability to make straights and flushes…”

I’m either reading it wrong or missing something, but I don’t get the point there.

I do understand the benefit of playing a balanced range. I get that this type of hand is often well disguised and can pay off big. I get that a table image which includes these hands will often pay off in many ways. I agree that many people play these hands poorly post-flop.

To me, what gives the ability to play an aggressive line profitably has nothing to do with the cards you happen to have, it’s more about what your opponents think you could have. The cards themselves are meaningless. I could have a baked potato and a Snickers bar, but if you think that flop might have hit my range, I can take a shot at the pot.

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