Thetownend.com

No not the misses, I mean the card game.

So I am trying to milk what I can out of the free sign up thingamy's.

I am not that experienced at the game and even have to remind myself of what hand beats what although I do have a noodle or too and so I pick things up pretty quickly.

So to take advantage of the free casino sign-ups I have realised that the best strategy is not to lose, as opposed to trying to win. It might sound obvious but I am guessing that more than a few Tefer's know what I mean, after all if you STILL have a tenner in your pocket that came free then you are a tenner up.

Since I have developed such a strategy I have started doing much better and ended 50% up (albeit play money for practice) in a couple of hours tonight.

I only raise the stakes aggressively when I have strong hands such as runs, flushes, 3 of a kind or a pair of pictures. Anything less and I might just look to meet the opponents to see what happens and even consider folding if they are betting very aggressively themselves.

What I am trying to get at is, do any of you teffers have any tips. Bearing in mind that I am just trying to do the casino bagging thing.

Thanking you kindly.

From me, BR.

That plan will work ok if you're just bagging and playing on the starter tables, but if you get a bit more into it then people will soon pick up that you only play when you've got a strong hand. I personally like to throw in the odd bluff.

Which is exactly what I am learning to play poker for.

or at least for now anyway.

My advice is You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em,  Know when to walk away, know when to run. You never count your money, when you're sittin' at the table. There'll be time enough for countin', when the dealin's done.

I normally start slow, and only play good hands early doors, I'll bluff more with fewer players left. The oldest advice is  either raise or fold, particularly late on in tournaments. Also find what you are best at. I'm good at tournament play, but crap on cash games. Hence after several years i play tourneys only.

Best way to play is to learn how the other players at the table play, and play a strategy accordingly.  Only go up against an aggresive player when you have a top hand, otherwise get out of the way - but against tight passive players put in some big bets and unless they have a monster hand you can pick up a lot of easy pots with a mid-sized bet.

Like Samdy says - nice to mix it up a little bit as well, like limping in pre-flop when you're got pocket aces / kings / queens etc rather than raising it up - this will disguise your hand when you then bet on the later streets.

And very important - know when to fold.  Sometimes even when you think you may have the best hand - if someone puts in a huge bet that will commit too much of your bankroll then let it go, unless you're sure you have the nuts.

I'd recommend reading a few books as well - one I found really useful was Texas Hold 'Em: Play Online and Win by Paul Mandelson - bit basic in places but sets out some decent strategies.

Also have a look around pokertips.org - very good site for learning which poker sites are good to play on, what bonuses they give, as well as giving you a few more poker strategies.

Hope that helps!!  And good luck (unless you ever come up against me on a table somewhere!!).

7-2 offsuit is an amazing hand and should be played as often as possible. thats all you need to know.
I would really suggest buying a few books, you can learn a lot from them.

Haha, you bastard.

yep pretty much sums it up,

one thing i would say is the point about limping in with premium hands. You shuold only start doing things like this when you are confortable to do so...the limping with AA is the simple part its what you do after it is what you really need to perfect.

I'd leave this part out of your game untill you have established the basics of the game.

Paying to see the flop with a weak hand is more often than not suicide but you'll realise that yourself pretty quickly.

You need to change your game dependent on the number of players. A K8 unsuited is pretty weak with 10 players at the table but a lot stronger when there is only a few. Same with tournaments, often good to sit back and only get involved when you've got two high cards then pick off a few people making stupid bets - you'll play less hands but win a lot more.

Having said that I'm pretty shit at poker. I always get bored and start making stupid bets.

Playing tight but aggressively when you do get good hands is the best way to start off. The only real way to get any good is just to keep playing and keep reading as much as you can find, there is a ton of information for all stake levels on the 2+2 forums which is a good place to start. http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/ (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/)

If it's tournaments you are playing I really recommend the Harrington On Holdem Series of Books aswell.

Also, it's worth signing up to a new site through a rakeback site such as http://www.raketherake.com/ (http://www.raketherake.com/). You can get up to 40% rakeback on some poker sites which basically means whatever you pay in rake/tournament fees, 40% gets returned to you at the end of the month. (There's a list of all the sign up bonuses on there aswell)

Good luck!  :toocool:

Right.

There are clearly a number of cunts in these poker rooms. Some simply raise the stakes every time without fail, regardless of what hand they have and do so immediately when there turn comes up. They must just tick the option to raise even without knowing what hand they have.

They seem to have no strategy whatsoever and it fucks up the game because everybody else reacts by raising and so you end up with stupid pots on weak hands.

Is it the same as with real money rooms or are people more careful there?

You tend to see that a lot in tournaments, especially those you can buy back in to. I've seen people doing it on low stakes real money tables as well, trying to bully money out of you by out bidding even though they have jack shit. I doubt you'll see it much on higher stakes as they'd just get crucified.

Just keep playing your game and don't let their strategy affect you, you'll be cleaning them out pretty quickly as long as you don't lose your nerve when the stakes get high and you've got a decent hand.

Agree with all of this. It was 2+2 and harrington on hold'em that turned me into a winning player. Harrington on hold'em is very good for learning the basics - it teaches you a pretty tight strategy but that's the safest way to play if you're not that experienced. It will also help with low stakes cash too. Obviously it is about hold'em - not sure if that's what you're playing or not?

I actually use raketherake for rakeback too and they're very good.

Poker has got tougher over the years though and if you have no experience of real money it won't be that easy to make a profit even with bonuses. It takes a lot of play and reading forums or watching videos on sites like cardrunners or deucescracked before you'll make much money.


As for this, I'd say play money is roughly similar to the very lowest stakes of real money 1c/2c or 2c/5c for No Limit. The higher the stakes the better the players are in general but this isn't really a good thing - I'd much rather play only terrible players as they're the easiest to beat.

I wouldn't recommend limping hands like AA, KK, QQ, AK - as long as you're raising most of the hands you play and not limping a lot, it won't be obvious you have a very strong hand anyway, so it's more profitable to raise every time and build a big pot preflop when you'll be called by hands you are way ahead of.

I think that I could do well out of this.

Just played one hand (I folded early) where 4 people were raising each other because they had a flush, whilst there were 4 of the same suit face up on the board.

I hope to take advantage and profit from other peoples stupidity.

Yerrrr

I strayed from my own observations and started thinking "well, it's only $10 for a butchers"

I found myself back where I started pretty quickly.

It gets worse when the flop is half decent for you, so you put a bit more in then a bit more and before you know it you've put shit loads in and ended up with a pretty weak hand that will most likely loose. It's normally just a waste of chips which ends up costing you when you get a decent hand as you don't have so many to double up on.

Give some tournaments a go if you haven't already. A cheap way to play for money with the potential of winning big.

Not playing for money yet (at least not my own.)

Can't afford to gamble/lose.

I'll have a butchers at the play money tournaments for now though.

Am I right in thinking that raising high before the flop is well risky, even with AA?

No that's the sensible play. Under the gun (after the Big Blind) you can just call, but you're hoping for a raise. You don't want to keep idiots in the hand or you're asking to have them cracked. The thing is though, you will always get bad beats, it's just whether you deserved them or not and not raising and small raises with a strong hand pre-flop is often asking for chasers. (BWB will tell you right though.)

T'other night me and my sister were in the Casino and she raises mid position with aces, and gets a caller from around the button. Flop comes down T9X and she bets 2/3 pot and gets called. Turn comes down J. She pushes and gets a caller. He turns over K7 and catches he catches an 8 on the river. She played it right but he was a twat. Nothing you can do.

Edit: To clarify, pre flop with aces i was referring to, not preflop in general.

Maybe we should run a regular private tournament on one of the poker sites for TEF members.

Or was that done before? Or am I thinking of another forum?

Used to happen on thisis, using play money on pokerroom.com. That was under my previous username though! :)

I didn't say what I meant to say.

I am at a table and everybody is constantly raising each other before the flop, of course 1 or 2 might have had a top hand but why are 6 or 7 doing this?

I can have JJ, or similar, yet find myself folding because all the table are just constantly raising and I don't want to get involved in the raise-fest.

I didn't mean top say anybody had AA, rather that they just seem to be playing recklessly no matter how good the hand.

That's play money mate. You don't learn a massive amount about poker at demo level in my opinion because you get these situation where you can raise with aces, then get 2 more raises and be 5 way to the flop with everyone all in. Just doesn't happen that often for real money and if it does happen everyone has a monster, but it still shouldn't have happened imo...

You also used to get the rather pathetic situation of laps around the table on min-raises at no limit. Like yeah, that'll scare people out the hand. If you're gonna raise i've always followed Brunson's lead and that is make a raise that makes them fear for their chips.

JJ isn't as strong as you think it is at first, especially when playing on a 10 seat table. Chances are high that a few players will have an A, K, Q and hit a pair at some point. So it's quite possible you're being out bid by better hands.

I suspected as much.

I am awaiting confirmation of a small free bankroll to play with, until then I'm on the play money.

I am aware of casino bagging but at the moment I am cannot use UK bookies because of a wee problem with ID verification at the address that UK I have given. It is where I 'live', only not for quite a while. in the meantime I am stuck with US and Maltese bookies that I can't even be confident that I will be paid any winnings.

It's all about getting in the practice though for when I am able to play properly. I love a TEF tournament, only the time zone could be an obstacle.

I know.

But it seems a bit silly to me to not even see the flop on such a hand.

And I am not being outbid by a better hand.

The winner often has a lesser pair or two pairs that they won on the river.

Loose callers. There's nothing you can do about them. The bane of many a poker players life.

A few pointers.

Dont overplay hands such as JJ/ QJ/ KJ etc, worth seeing a flop with but you need to be prepared to cut your losses and lay them down.
You need to know when your beat and when to lay the cards down.
I was in a situation a while back (live money game) when i got dealt QQ i standard raised to which i got re-raised and then reraised again. At this point I knew someone was up, one of the 2 players left in the game with me had a monster hand, so after mutch deliberation i folder QQ pre flop other two players went all in and i read it right and one of those players did infact have AA. What happened after that i am still distraught about...the remaning 2 Q's come out in the flop which would have given me Quads. But at the time it was the right fold to make.
Its very hard to lay down such hands but sometimes you gotta do it,

If you're playing decent players it can be ok to reraise with a weak hand as a bluff against a player who is raising a lot and likely to fold to a reraise. For example, if it's folded round to the button or small blind and they raise - many players will raise a lot of hands there to steal the blinds and fold most of them to a reraise, so it's fine to reraise without having to have anything great.

In play money though all the players tend to want to see the flop and will hardly ever fold to reraises, so plays like that won't work and will just cost you chips, so if there are 6 or 7 players raising and reraising with weak hands they probably just don't have much idea what they're doing and are just playing crazily for fun. Like Barry says play money is quite different from real money. If you're taking it seriously then it's generally best to play your hands pretty straightforwardly, just betting when you have a strong hand and not bluffing much. It's the same with really low stakes real money.

With hands like JJ it really depends who you're playing. If all the other players are often raising and reraising a lot with much worse hands and going all in with really weak hands then I'd happily be all in with it before the flop (depending exactly how many big blinds I had) but against tighter players you'd only be called by better hands.

Cheers all

I have learned a lot from the play money guys, but you have taught me more in a way that is easy for me to understand, thanks for that.

I suspected that it was them being dicks and not myself, I'd love a semi-serious game (Not for money, but for winnage) with the TEF so that I could learn something.

I am definitely still not ready for real money yet because I still don't understand the "big blind" thing. Layman's terms would be appreciated.

Thank you kind folk.

Oh sorry. The big blind is the player who is forced to post a blind before the flop no matter what their cards are and in no limit it's also the minimum amount you are allowed to bet at any time. The amount of blinds you have is just the amount of times more than the big blind you have at the table. eg if it was a 25p/50p table the small blind is 25p, the big blind is 50p and if you had £30 at the table you would have 60 big blinds. If you had £60 you would have 120 big blinds. Generally the more blinds you have at the table the less often you should be all in during the hand. (although it depends on other things too).

Playing for money now, albeit very small money. At least the players seem to try to play properly.

Quite a learning curve. It is easy at first to overestimate how strong your cards may be innit? By that I mean in other card games pictures and 10's are power cards but in poker a King/Queen with a 7 in the hole, for example, is worth little.

Yeah, to start off you don't wanna play crap like Q7. Stick to pocket pairs, A10+, KQ+ at first is my advice

Eventually you can start raising in position to steal if you pick your spots correctly, in which case it really doesn't matter what cards you have but that's a bit far ahead...just keep playing and reading everything you can find and you'll do ok, there's always more to learn! Good luck

hows your poker game getting on BR?

I've put it put recently. I blew my bankroll my playing whilst drunk, DOH!

I started again on the free entry tournaments but I don't think there is much point because I am not up against people taking it seriously. One become's rather despondent when they have their pocket Kings constantly beaten by a pair of fooking 5's, for example.

I did tell myself that I'd put none of my own money into but I think that I am going to have to if I am to give it a proper go. Once I have a little more cash to flash then I'll pick it up again and try to play on tables where people at least try to play properly.

I'm certainly not giving up though.

How much you build up to? Which site do you play?

Can't remember what table level I was up to, still very low level though. I was playing mostly on party poker.

My main problem was/is tilting and making stupid moves even though I knew that it was a stupid move, this wasn't helped by playing when drunk. I S'pose that's an experience thing

get off party poker, its full of donks.
try full tilt

My rule of thumb is don't play an 8 - full stop unless you have pocket flush or 88 (even that is a risk on the flop)

The way I play is more or less a combination of what the rest are saying. You will find your own game and it will take time. Someone said to me before that the best time to play is Friday night. Make sure you are sober as those who play late are normally the ones who come in from the pub and  just throw their money around coz they are pissed up.

Maths also helps for percentages and "outs"

I play pokerstars but might give full tilt ago

Been at this again lately as work has been quiet.

I was going on a blinding run, albeit on play money. Always getting into the money and winning quite a few, this was going on for about 3-4 weeks. Things were going well enough for me to consider throwing some real money at it......

For the last few days though I seem to be really struggling. I don't know whether it's just a run of bad luck or if previously was a run of good luck.

Impossible to compare imo.

Anyone who thinks they bet the same way when the hard earned is down, as to how they bet in 'practice' is kidding themselves.

Forget to mention I'm still on play money

I'm still on this.

Breaking even on real money micro stakes. I must be doing something right (I'm not losing)

I would be doing much, much better if only I am more disciplined and make fewer stupid mistakes which is something that will doubtless comes with more experience. I genuinely feel as though it won't be long before I start to consistently turn a profit, albeit a very small profit.