Honestly, I totally agree with you on how horrible it is that these bad players seem to be rewarded over and over again. This might be the problem for me ; I can’t even get over the 200-300k chip amount, but the thing is I don’t want to collect daily free chips during one year just to get one million… I prefer playing nevertheless.
But anyway, it’s horrible, the same occurs to me. I’m not a very lucky player, but I’ve gotten so many coolers on here, but of course, they help you out sometimes too, while handing their chips to you for free…
I also feel like my play style, thinking about every decision, bet sizes, trying to read their hand, is just not the way to go on this site. You have to be agressive, and just don’t give a … most of the time. On higher stakes, this might be totally different, and I think my play style would be perfect there… I still have to get there
All in all, I’ve come to this conclusion : I prefer losing against good players, than sometimes win/lose against bad players. Unfortunately, I feel like I’m losing more against these bad players than I am winning, so it’s even worse…
Question :
Of course; but we don’t seem agree on the definition of “garbage hand”. Let’s assume you’re right, and my range is too wide, and I have a tendency to play hands I shouldn’t. You’re the more experienced player, with way more chips won on this site than I can even imagine winning. So I think it’s reasonable to say that you know what you’re talking about, and that you’re probably right, and I’ve probably been playing wrong.
Ok, then why do I win playing like this for weeks at a time, and then have one day where no matter what I do or how many games I play, my win rate drops to near zero? Why do I rightly fold AJo whenever I get it, but I can watch orbit after orbit where A7 beats A3, and 65 wins, or King-rag wins because the rag card happened to flop a straight draw that landed, or any of the myriad of things I’ll see in the course of a day?
Are you saying absolutely never play “garbage” hands, ever? What does the concept of “balance” mean, then? What adjustments should I be making to my range, depending on the number of players left at the table, the size of the blinds relative to my stack, and the style of play at my table? Are certain garbage hands borderline acceptable? Is J7 as bad as AT? Is 43s worse than JTs? I would never argue that 43 is anything but garbage, JT can be fine if the flop comes up AKQ or 789, or TJT. Of course this doesn’t mean you should count on those hands happening, and it’s pretty unlikely that you’ll get a perfect flop for your hole cards, which is why it makes sense to have a tight range and only (or mainly, I’d say) play hands that can be played well even without hitting a flop.
On the other hand, I’ll play any two cards from the BB if no one opens, and I’ll open my range somewhat wider than my standard if the table is short-handed, or most of the table folds around to me in late position.
Ilovecat answer;
Albert Einstein is know for his great thought experiments, so I will use a thought experiment to hopefully make you understand why playing garbage hand in general is not good!
Lets say I move all in every time when i get 27 off suit preflop. ok the first time I do it, all my oppoenent folds and they assume I had AA, the second time i do it all my opponent folds, and they once again assume I had AA, I do this 5 or 6 more times and everyone folds. mhmm I am now plus EV big time with 27, on the 7th time I move all in preflop with 27, however this time my opponent has the AA and calls me instantly, but lady luck is on my side, I hit 77834, trip 777 and busting his AA. I use the same strategy with 27 5 times preflop and nobody calls, and then on the 13th time I move all in preflop and once again my opponent instantly calls with AA, and once again lady lucky bails me out i get trips 7’s and once again my oppoennt AA is cracked. On my 14th attempt my opponent caught on with my 2 7 all in strategy, and since I have been playing against good opponents, they have figured out my strategy and to my shock my opponent calls me with A10, but once again lady luck is on my side and i bust my opponent! I do this 3 more times, against various hand such as, 88, 10 10, or A5, but off course the lovely lady luck bails me out!
Ok, the above scenario is not some made up fantasy that never will happen, the above scenario is completely within the realm of probability and does happen! But if you ask any player whether or not move all in preflop every time when you have 27 is a good stretagy? I highly dealt anyone would agree! Or perhaps you figured something out that nobody in the community have been able to. Maybe you figured out lady luck love 2 7, and since thats her favorite hand, then anybody who plays 27 will win no matter what! Or perhaps maybe just maybe you should fold garbage hands in or out of position in tournaments.
corollary
remember the converse of the above said 27 strategy also holds true for AA! and with AA I have had lost 10 times in roll preflop all in!!!
I hope with the above thought experiment you can understand, yes in the short term you can do anything you like and lady luck will bail you out? But, this is a big but, what happens when she abandons you?
finally, do you really think 27 all in preflop every time is a good strategy? If it is then how come nobody from the worst player to the best had ever even tried said strategy? Perhaps maybe you got just fold that garbage hand in and out of position in a tournament!
question
Nothing wrong with having a little personality, or having a favorite hand that you always play, even though it goes against conventional wisdom.
answer:
phil ivey said, it is ok to make a crazy bet, a stupid fold or play a ceartain starting hand such as 27, once in a while. But however if you do it all of the time then you will lose!
Also remember doyle brunson play his 10 2 when the BB is relatively small and I have only seen him do that in tournament, in cash games he mocks 10 2 really fast!
I think you can win with any cards, it is all about playing a game against some other people and adapting your strategy to what is necessary. On each hand you need to make decisions based on position, stack sizes, playing styles of opponents, your own cards, and so on. Getting a starting hand like AA is nice, but it is just a guaranteed top pair on the flop with no overcards. Sometimes you want to push everyone off the pot preflop, other times you want to slow play it and see what happens. When you have AA and the flop comes A high and is checked around, you will probably still win a big pot and can pick off any bluffs.
My tournament strategy recently has been to play smallball poker, get into pots with hands that play well in multiway pots, get out of pots if the flop comes single suited or with two cards of a suit that I do not have, make relatively small bets and raises when I have good hands, and let the opponents hang themselves and each other as much as possible.
I was playing 100,000 buy-in tournament with this strategy a couple of days ago and was leading or in second place most of the first hour until I made a gross mistake and threw it all away through not concentrating.
On another tournament I was running well until I made a Ten high flush in diamonds with the Ace and Jack on the board and called an all-in from an opponent who had the Queen high flush,. (This is always the problem with playing suboptimal hands.) However this tournament also seemed to pay bonuses for eliminating opponents, so my actually loss was less than half the 100,00 buy-in.
Last night I came 4th in a tournament of 123 entrants with a low buy-in (5000 chips) for a net profit of 46,000 chips after more than 2 hours of play. I am not sure if I should regard this result as a success or a failure. Probably a failure, because on my last hand when in second place I lost concentration a bit during the 3rd hour of play and called a river all-in from a player who had been making massive bluffs and all-in flop bets with top pair no kicker all through the tournament with amazing luck. Anyway he had made a straight with his junk hand to beat my pocket Queens, and that was it for me.
This took me over 14 million chips for the first time and to an all time high in the rankings too, so that is an average monthly gain of more than 1.5 million chips over 9 months of playing on the site, exclusively in tournaments and sit-n-gos, with just a few hands occasionally in a ring game to pass a few minutes when there was no time for a tournament.
If the sit’n’gos are hard going, which they will be since you have to beat the house cut, the multitable tournaments may be more profitable as some tournaments have various kinds of bonuses and when you win the multiple relative to the buy in is much greater than in the sit’n’go. In a 9-seater sit’n’go, even if you finish third, you really only get your entry refunded. In a tournament like Ruthies Roundup which is 250,000 to enter, and has small fields, you could finish 3rd and still make a profit of 500,000 chips.
This is a strategy I employ at certain times as well. If you can give off the illusion of looking like another loose-passive limp bingo fish, you can trap some of the more aggressive players that show up. At certain tables, playing aggressively pre-flop will put a target on your back.
There’s a lot of good advice here, in particular the advice about range and position. A while back I put together a spreadsheet to examine my range… with 6 of the typical 13x13 boxes… in each position: Early, Mid, Late, Button, SB, BB. I assigned a color and a code to each hand in those 6 boxes, to guide me through the decision process. For example, the code looks something like “RRCF”, which means Raise if folded to, Raise if limped to, Call if raised, Fold if 3-bet.
Long story short, the colors start to grow outward in the later positions, with more "R"s and "C"s appearing. If you choose to do this for yourself, start by examining the fringes of each range box and the results you end up with on those hands.
It would be wise to self-examine what you are doing and try to improve what you can control. Focusing on what everyone else is doing (zombie poker in most cases) will only lead to frustration. There will always be bad beats and whatnot, but if you go in with a game plan the decisions will come naturally. Take some time to write down a game plan and memorize it. Recognize when the board is sour, your opponents are playing passive bingo and make the big lay down. Get to the point where you are second guessing yourself less and less and just calmly play your game against the villains at your table.
Something I forgot to mention, in regards to the range examination, is that sometimes I will play out hands by myself with a deck of cards. I’ll deal out 10 2-card hands face up and determine if I stay or not with all 10 (sans betting). Then I’ll deal a flop and determine which hands I’ll see a turn with, and so on. I find it to be a good way to play out a typical “storyline” for each hand and see where I could get into trouble. It might help you in your quest to form a game plan for each hand in your range.
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
I’m not questioning whether 72 is a garbage hand, or if AA is better than 72 most of the time. Obviously it is better to hold AA than 72. I have no doubt that 72 is garbage; it’s the worst starting hand possible. Your thought experiment doesn’t help me; I’m not doubting that garbage hands exist, or that you shouldn’t play them. I’m questioning what is a good working definition of “garbage”, and if there are exceptions to the “don’t play garbage” guideline, and if so what are they and how do you figure out where to draw the line.
I think it makes more sense to look at the question of what is a garbage hand a bit differently.
Consider AA. Aces are the top ranked card, and having a pair in the hole is awesome. If you add up all the possible 5-card poker hands, One Pair is the most common after High Card.
If you read this section of the wikipedia article on poker probability, we see that AA is already ahead of a lot of the possible 5-card hands.
AA is already beating 1,302,540 High Card combinations, and nearly all of the 1,098,240 Pair combinations (and only chopping the Pairs it can’t beat). There’s only 2,598,960 possible 5-card hands in Poker, which means AA is already ahead of most of them – and that’s before we consider the combinations that AA can improve to: pair the board, AA beats all Two Pair hands. A third Ace on the board beats all Trips hands. AA can fill a Broadway Straight or a Nut flush on certain boards, and of course it can fill a full house or quads, and all of them will be the highest hand possible on nearly every board where it hits those draws.
That’s why AA is so good.
Even 22 is beating the 1,302,540 High Card combinations, or about 49.5% of all hands.
Now, look at AKs. Statistically, hands starting with AKs will beat 66.5% of all possible 5-card hands. That’s considerably less than KK, which wins over 82% of possible hands.
And so on, on down to… ATs, which will beat 63% of possible hands. And you call this garbage.
Why? Well, presumably because in hands that an ABC player would open if they opened with ATs, they will be called mostly buy hands that do well against it. But this does presume the opening ranges of the opponents at the table are known to be that high/tight. If your table is players who don’t play anything less than AJ and JJ+, then AT is not doing well. QQ beats AT 67% of the time, and AJ+ dominates AT – AT will win against AJ+ when the board pairs the Ten and no Jack comes, which isn’t that many out of all possible boards. And AT beats JJ+ only when the Ace pairs, which isn’t that many out of the possible hands. On the other hand, if the players in your game are willing to call with hands like K9, and lower, then AT is certainly a bit more playable.
But 99- also beats ATs about 52-53% of the time. And you have to drop down all the way to AT vs 22 to find a hand where AT wins more than 50% of the time – about 51%.
So it isn’t that AT doesn’t win “only” 63% against ATC that makes it garbage, it’s that AT doesn’t win enough against hands that good players (who have the sense to fold AT and lower) are actually likely to play. So, I guess having examined an argument like that, it makes sense to not play AT.
But in games where you have lots of players who routinely play Any Ace, or Any Ace Suited, AT plays better. AT dominates A9- (while still being vulnerable to pairs and higher Aces). It provides the highest kicker on boards where Tens is the Top Pair or Top Trips, and on High Card vs High Card hands. So, in games with players who play a lot of weak Aces, AT becomes somewhat viable.
My theory is that this means that you need to do a practical assessment of the range of hands that is likely to be played in the game you are seated at, based on knowledge of the players at the table, and to some extent the current situation.
Range sizing theory (absent knowledge of the players, which is likely much of the time) will depend mainly on the number of filled seats at the table, and SBR (stack to blind ratio). On a 9-seat table, you’re paying 1.5BB per orbit, or 1.5 BB to see 9 hands. You can afford to be more choosy, because you’re not bleeding fast. And you need to be, because you potentially have 8 players to beat.
As players get eliminated, and as the blinds go up, you’ll need to expand the range in order to avoid bleeding to death. If you’re heads up and only playing when you hold QQ+/AKs, you’re going to give all your chips to your opponent folding the SB to them and folding every time they raise preflop when you aren’t holding your range cards. Heads-up, AT plays much better, and if the SBR is high enough, you may not have enough chips to survive waiting long enough until it’s statistically likely that you’ll see better cards dealt to you.
Of course, position matters as well. If you’re sitting in SB, and the entire table folds around to you, so it’s just you and the BB still deciding ahead of the flop, what do you do with AT? Do you muck it? I don’t. I don’t know what the BB might be holding, but I’m willing to bet more likely than not that they aren’t holding higher cards than an Ace and a Ten, so I reason I’m ahead of him, as I am 63% of the time, and so I’ll likely raise.
I might not raise, if for example it’s close to the bubble and I’m not willing to risk getting eliminated, but otherwise most of the time, I’m raising, and either I’ll steal the blinds, or I will get called and win or lose a bigger pot.
If I win 63% with AT against ATC, I don’t know what proportion of that 63% of wins I’ll be inducing to fold by opening against them.
The question, then, is: what’s the BB’s calling range for a bet the size of my opening, and how likely is that hand to beat AT.
If I know the answer to that, I can figure out whether it’s + or - EV to play AT into the BB from the SB with no other competition.
If I bet small enough, the BB may call a wide enough range for AT to be profitable. If I bet too big, the BB may call with a tighter range that makes AT unprofitable. Of course, counter-balancing this is that if I bet big enough, I might get a more wider range of folding hands, which is also good for stealing blinds. Although the offset of blinds stolen vs. raises lost tends to make it risky to try to steal by raising too much.
Or I might elect to just limp, and hope the opponent was dealt a weaker holding than AT, which they will be, as we know, 63% of the time. And if they do, they may hit a weaker hand than my AT hits, bet it, or bluff it, and I’ll win a bigger pot against them. Most times the BB doesn’t raise if they are checked to, so if they don’t have very good cards, most likely they will check and we’ll see a cheap flop that, where I’ll be ahead 63% of the time by the river.
Similar questions exist for playing AT in other positions, and with more or fewer hands folding or limping. This gets complicated quickly, obviously. But in a lot of those situations, probably you don’t want to play AT.
Is AT garbage or not? Short answer: It depends. Longer answer: More often than you might think, maybe, and more importantly, often in the situations where it matters – in Ace vs. Ace situations for a big pot, in games where you’re against a lot of players who won’t lay down Pair of Aces, high Kicker no matter what the board texture, for example. So, kinda. But situationally, it’s playable, and in certain instances it really should be played.
That’s how I look at it, when I have the time to think through it, anyway. At the table, I may misjudge the situations and overrate the playability of a hand like AT, and think it’s better than it really is.
well now i have to start laughing …in continuation with my post…on my BB i went all in with 3000 odd chips with KJ offsuit last 20 players… and insta call from a true idiot with 93 and he hits a 3 …and this is a 50k buy in game…its a sick joke now…
Well the most ridiculous thing to happen to me today is, I signed up for a game, the website refreshed and told me that the table was already full. I went and took a shower, came back, and had a notification saying that my table was ready. I went to look, I had bled out finishing 6th, earning 0 tournament points since I never sat down. It still counts against me on the leaderboard as one of my first 20 games played. So all because of a site glitch, I didn’t realize I was even signed up for a game. No I really have lost every way there is to lose. But hey, 6th place doing nothing but fold! I must be doing something right.
seen players sit with 30k to 40k chips on the final table and disappear…repeat offenders…they come back when 3/4 players left,they do this so often…so we dont have those chips into play,apart from his Sb and BB going out …theres got to be a system by which beyond a certain amount of hands the player should be booted out…Someone please dont tell me that the rule in poker is you dont have to play a hand till the end…im aware of that but these are play chips…monies are not involved…
yes i agee he played most of the tourney…they know how much time they were at the table and how much they can stay away…if the rule of 50% didnt apply they wont come back at all lollllllllllllllllllllllll
It’s number of hands seated, as a percentage of total number of hands. If you’re away/fold for a hand, it counts as not played. If you’re seated, and click fold manually each time, it counts as played. If you enter a hand, obviously it also counts as played.
pretty sure its just for T-pts …
If you avoid the lvl 3 auto boot,
you can blind out and still get paid.
Nothing says you have to ever play a hand,
and that was re-re-re-hash’d long ago.
Thats rough when a glitch, really does
effect a " first of x " LB negatively. Its one
thing to get ur entry back, its another to
have that tourny be wiped from your 1st of.
hello puggywug, you misunderstood the thought experiment. I used 27 not just because it is the worst hand, it is just an exaggerated example of what we top players call junk hand.
In the beginning of a turnament when everyone have 200bb or more, it is actually ok to play some junk card but this is only recommended for very good players and medium hands such as 78 suited or 78 off suit can be play, the aim here is to flop a straight and move your opponent all in as soon as possible, remember any 3 card to a flush or if the board paired, you are very vulnerable and probably beat! For the elite hand 22- AA and perhaps AK, those hand can be played however you like, but here you are really going for a full house, or in case of AK the nut straight.
Now you might ask what is the different between the three class of hand?
Lets just simply put it this way, any medium hand beats a garbage hand, and the top hand 22-AA beats all medium and garbage hand. So when you are raise or check raise with garbage, you are really hoping that your opponent does not know anything about poker and will call you garbage with his or her garbage. But when you are in a tournament with very good players, your opponent will never indulge you by messing around with garbage, they will probably just call you down with top range hands.
Here’s a game that mostly went well for me, finished 2nd.
AQo in middle position, I raise to 4BB, Button and SB call. Flop is 4KT, I have an inside draw to Broadway. I try to buy the pot on the flop, and get called by the Button, the SB mucks. I’m a little worried since I got a call, I might be about to lose a lot of chips here. Turn is a Jack, and I’ve filled my draw. I just check here. Button also checks. The river, a 6, and there’s no flush or full house possible on this board, so I know I have the nuts. I notice my opponent only has 540 chips left in front of him, and there’s a lot more in the middle than that, so I put in a bet for exactly 540 chips. He calls, showing AT, and is knocked out, and I pull in over 2500.
The very next hand, I’m dealt KK, and get another short stack all-in, this time preflop. They flip up 53s, and the board gives me Kings full of Tens, and gives him four spades, and the boot as he’s knocked out of the game, and now I’ve knocked out the first two players and have a nice big stack.
I don’t get into too many hands after this, a few here and there, not for big pots.
Much later, I get KK again,and again fill up, this time KKK22, and take a big pot away from one of the players, who pays me off at the river on a good-sized value bet. I flop trip kings, and feel safe, but only min bet because I am hoping my opponent won’t fold yet, and maybe I can get some more chips. The middle board cards were 342, which made me a little nervous that I could have my set of Kings ruined by someone playing A5, so I checked. I think checking here also served a purpose in that I got to appear weak, and disguised the strength of my hand. He didn’t bet, but if he had, I would have called of course, because I know I’m ahead of anything he could possibly have other than 56 and A5, both of which feel unlikely, although a player could have A5 here. But then the river gave me another 2, and I knew I had the nuts once again, unless I was set up playing against 22.
Wasn’t sure what my opponent had, or if he would call here, but I sized the bet just right and got him. Did he have the fourth King, I wonder? Or perhaps trip 2s, or even 2s full? He didn’t show, so there’s no knowing.
It’s nice enough to get KK twice in a game, but to hit full houses with it each time is icing on the cake.
Another great hand for me, I knock out my third player of the game, this time with AKo over AJs. I’m the BB, and with 3 limpers ahead I raise it from 165 to 700, and get one caller, the Button – perfect. We both pair our Aces on the flop, and I decide since I’m most likely in the lead, and acting first, I’ll try check-raising here. Button bets half pot, and I raise, he shoves all-in. I call, the turn and river end up being meaningless, and I knock him out, AA22K over AA22J.
The way the game finished out, I didn’t get much playable hands for after that last knockout, and by the time the #4 finisher was knocked out, another player had gotten most of the chips from the rest of the players, while I mostly stayed out of hands and preserved my stack, or tried to. But by the time we were heads up, it was about 2:1 in favor of the eventual winner.
I got into trouble on a hand where I had KQ, giving away most of my stack, when they raised to 3BB from the SB with 85o. I called, maybe I should have raised back, or jammed here. The flop was a dry 492, which missed both of us, but I lead out with a pot-size bet trying to take 1800 chips away, and they called with nothing. The turn was a Jack, and again I considered another bet, but thought better of it and decided to see what he would do, so I checked, he checked back, and then and river missed me, but gave him a pair of 8s on the river. I threw out another 1200 chips hoping he’d muck, but of course he didn’t.
I don’t know why in the heck he called the pot-sized bet at the flop, but probably he would have folded the Turn if I’d barreled again, and maybe I should have. I certainly shouldn’t have tried to bluff off the hand on the river, but it was my only chance at that point to win the hand. We checked to each other on the Turn, but then I led out with a bet on the river, and of course he called with his pair of 8s to take the hand away from me, getting more than half my stack in the process. So, I screwed up this hand pretty badly, and put myself in a desperate situation.
Then I was eliminated on the next hand, when I shoved KJo into Q8s, and the board gave my opponent TTQ on the flop, and filled to QQQTT by the river. Both hands I had better cards, and got beat because the big stack can comfortably call with a wider range when they have you covered, and he got lucky twice in a row.
Yes true that but its a done thing if you have played even 60% of the hands …you dont get to such a chip count unless youve played out most hands and bagged 2/3 monster pots…
on a different note are you considering playing the team event here?
im afraid of the timing as im on the other end of the spectrum …about 9.5 hours ahead of USA EST…
dont know if these tourneys will be played in my time zone…
i think it would be interesting as earlier i was playing on a site which involved teams- fatcat.com
and it was super fun…but you need a damn good temperment to play a team event…
you played fine. I think you finally understand how to play tournament effectively. Also iabout your KQ hand, try not to play a big pot with just top pair, against good player that is a loosing proposition. But off course if you have a read on your opponent such as he is a super calling station, then perhaps it is ok to
triple barrel for value!
Again that last one I posted is more typical of how my games go. I do think I know how to play, even if I may occasionally misplay a hand here and there, or open with cards that you consider “junk”.
I just can’t explain these downer days where I get beat every which way no matter what I do.
I’d never have started this thread if it weren’t for the frustration and fascination that comes out of losing 10+ SNG games in a row while you typically win chips in 1-in-3 overall. Maybe it’s like trying to understand why once in a great while we get terrible weather.
Back to pure ridiculosity, T8o shoves from the button out of the blue for no apparent reason, hits a 7-J straight to beat AQs (I folded ATo from the BB). AQs is a winner in 66% of hands it plays against any two random cards.
Again that last one I posted is more typical of how my games go. I do think I know how to play, even if I may occasionally misplay a hand here and there, or open with cards that you consider “junk”.