Emulating "good" players...
My poker education is never-ending. I learned early on that the 'way you want to play' is known as Tight-Agressive. As a newbie, that meant nothing to me, but sounded sort of cool.
Now, after many many thousands of hands of poker, i'm starting to appreciate why this is important. Obviously, quality pre-flop starting hands are an easy way for a new player to stop losing big quickly, but what comes after the flop is more important, and i've found that to be the hard part to understand.
Looking at a sklansky opening hands chart makes the first easy for anyone, if they care to memorize it. But, given i'm a poor small/micro stakes player, most of the people i play against arent worth folding KQ in early position to a preflop raiser in LP. It took a bit to learn to loosen up off of the pre-flop list to play today's small stakes games, but i'm getting there in picking my spots.
On my most recent week import of Stars hands, PokerTracker has finally re-rated me. At first when i started playing on Party Poker 0.5/1, PT had me rated a Calling Station, and i WAS one - hehe. I wouldn't raise pre-flop, wouldnt raise but i would BET post-flop, and would often times call down. This was working against me, and after a brief boost forward in BRoll, i lost it all in short progression. Enter SSH (email me if you dont know what that means), and my ptracker (on fresh data) said i'm a ROCK. What? I'm A ROCK? Yeppers, pre-flop raise was around 2%, Agression Factor was around 1.2, and VPIP was sub-18%. Today, i'm a T-A in ptracker (eagle icon). I think i'm finally starting to 'get' hold-em a bit. My thinking is coming more in line with 2+2 hand reviews, and my profits are growing.
Does Toast actually mean to say that he's a good player? No way, far from it. In my poker education, i'm a 2/10 right now with each step getting exponentially more difficult. I'm just starting to grok the whole deal, and thats pretty cool. What's also nice is that people around me who arent very good at the game think they are... and that's profitable.
Back to work...
Now, after many many thousands of hands of poker, i'm starting to appreciate why this is important. Obviously, quality pre-flop starting hands are an easy way for a new player to stop losing big quickly, but what comes after the flop is more important, and i've found that to be the hard part to understand.
Looking at a sklansky opening hands chart makes the first easy for anyone, if they care to memorize it. But, given i'm a poor small/micro stakes player, most of the people i play against arent worth folding KQ in early position to a preflop raiser in LP. It took a bit to learn to loosen up off of the pre-flop list to play today's small stakes games, but i'm getting there in picking my spots.
On my most recent week import of Stars hands, PokerTracker has finally re-rated me. At first when i started playing on Party Poker 0.5/1, PT had me rated a Calling Station, and i WAS one - hehe. I wouldn't raise pre-flop, wouldnt raise but i would BET post-flop, and would often times call down. This was working against me, and after a brief boost forward in BRoll, i lost it all in short progression. Enter SSH (email me if you dont know what that means), and my ptracker (on fresh data) said i'm a ROCK. What? I'm A ROCK? Yeppers, pre-flop raise was around 2%, Agression Factor was around 1.2, and VPIP was sub-18%. Today, i'm a T-A in ptracker (eagle icon). I think i'm finally starting to 'get' hold-em a bit. My thinking is coming more in line with 2+2 hand reviews, and my profits are growing.
Does Toast actually mean to say that he's a good player? No way, far from it. In my poker education, i'm a 2/10 right now with each step getting exponentially more difficult. I'm just starting to grok the whole deal, and thats pretty cool. What's also nice is that people around me who arent very good at the game think they are... and that's profitable.
Back to work...
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