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hi tikay
HI Tikay/Richard thanks for your commemnts i clearly need to improve my game and look forward to tikays kind offer
regards Spoony21 ( aka Kevin)
Comments
OK Kev (Mr Spoony21).
I gave you a hard time on the Show last night - not rude, but your play was not good, & so I promised you some help, & a free entry.
So, I'm going to organise Free Entry for you into next Monday's "Forum DTD", which is actually THREE Tournaments, priced at £2.20, £2,20, & £1.10.
I chose those three Tourneys because....
1) They are deep stack, so you can play "proper poker", & can afford to wait a while for playable hands, & situations.
2) The players in Forum DTD are as friendly and helpful as it gets, & I'm sure that many of them will try to help you. I think that Chris & Michael, who run Forum DTD, will make you welcome, too.
3) They are fun.
In return, I want you to take on board a few helpful hints as to basic No Limit Hold Em, see next Post.....
I hope a few of the other regulars will chip in with help & advice too, so that we can sort out those leaks in your game, which must be costing you a fortune.
More to follow.....
Some helpful hints, based on what I & others saw last night. I hope other regulars will help here, too. This is just Level One stuff, & does not apply to more experienced players.
1) You CANNOT play every hand. You were limping in, even calling raises after limping, with stuff like J-2 & K-5 offsuit. YOU CANNOT DO THIS. Ever. Look for made hands (pairs), suited connectors, or paint/paint. THROW EVERYTHING ELSE AWAY PRE-FLOP.
2) Try to limit yourself to playing, say, one hand every 2 orbits or so. (Unless you find a very big hand). In the Forum DTD on Monday you will have THREE Tourneys on the go at the same time, so you won't get bored. You need to tighten up a lot.
3) Try to ONLY enter a pot with a Raise - don't limp in, ever. If you get a caller(s), & you miss the flop but they bet into you, just fold. If they check to you, even if you miss the flop, bet.
4) Bet properly. It is no good betting 20p into a 3 quid pot, you will get called by anything, & if you have a decent hand, you want paying for it. So bet bigger.
5) Pre-Flop raises. If you have a made hand (a pair), suited connectors, or paint/paint, & the pot has not been opened, make your opening bet THREE Big Blinds. If you make it 2 Bigs, you WILL get multi callers, & you might struggle down the streets with some hands. At this stage, we really only want ONE caller, so raise properly.
I hope those things help, & if you follow those, & get a bit of luck (we ALL need luck in Tourneys) you should at least run deep in one of those three Forum DTD Tourneys. Your Target is to finish in the TOP HALF of the field in all three of them.
You might also consider joining one of the Teams, these are nothing to do with Sky Poker as such, but they are really helpful, your Team-mates will give you good advice, support you, & you just have a bunch of fun.
There are a whole load of good Teams, including Hit Squad, Team 51, TKP, TPT, & Leg-Ends. Go have a look at this Board for more details, HERE
Let me know next Tuesday how you get on in the Forum DTD on Monday please Kev, & good luck.
Above and beyond as always, what a Gent
Thank you, but enough with the "+" stuff, lets have some tips & advice for young Spoony!
I want to see him finish top half next Monday.
Hi Spoony, if you need any advice or help with your game add me in my profile as a friend, I will accept and give you as much help as i can.
Reet...
To add to Tikay's list:
6) Play more hands in position. The button is the best position at a poker table and the small blind is the worst. When you're on the button, after the flop you can observe the entire table's actions before you have to act. This makes it alot easier to know whether you're likely to have the best hand or whether your opponents are likely to be weak. So when you're on the button it's alot easier to bluff and also alot easier to get value from your good hands. Being out of position makes everything alot harder so try to only play very strong hands when Under The Gun. Don't think that you need to call raises with weak hands when you're in the blinds, just because you already have chips in the pot. The blinds are the toughest position to play from and playing weak hands in the weakest position is always going to be dangerous.
It's really difficult to give out good advice on how to play in just a few paragraphs. I'd suggest that any inexperienced player tries to read the Harrington on Hold'em books. They're the best way to get a grasp of the fundamentals of the game. Also post some hands on the Poker Clinic section of the forum as that will allow people to give you specific advice about mistakes you've made. That should help you to eradicate bad habits and reinforce good ones.
Just read Tikays post again. He set you a target of top half finish in all 3? Not making it easy are you Tikay? 90% of the field would be happy with that lol.
FLOPPA WHOPPA!
Thats why I sometimes play quite sensibly, perhaps you should play like fork!---lol
I Hope This thread helps You!!
Some Great advice been given & The DTD is a MUST ON MONDAYS!! SKY's BEST NITE!!! LOL!!
We all started somewhere, & I Never got better, pmsl!!
Suggestion, It may be above you're normalbuy-in at £5, maybe not, but quite a few of the prominent Team players also play in Our HitSquad Donk-a-Fun's that run weds & sundays 7.15pm, as well as the DTD's!!
If you would like to play & meet a few at tables, this is a personnal invite from ME, On going for any weds [Holdem] & sunday[which is Omaha, more complicated, but fun].....
The Weds. THS Holdem Donk-a-Fun XXXI is in lobby!!
All our Forum & DTD Friends welcome!!
Tonight, 22-8-12, 7.15pm, £5, pw 'truehitters' GL ALL!!
Normaly gets between 15-25 runners!!
GL anyhow mate, hope to see you around,
Dave Hitman Harvey
HitSquad Founder & Capo
The buttons that are provided on the bottom right of the screen. The raise button is your friend but should be used wisely. The call button is your worst enemy and should be avoided under virtually all circumstances. The fold button is your best friend and should be used a lot espscially in deeper structured tournaments.
Simply put, fold more than you raise and raise more than you call.
Never feel that you have to play hands because this is the surefire way to bleed chips away. For example in a deep stack tourny that starts at quarter past the hour, if you fold every hand preflop until the first break at 55 mins past then you will still have quite a nice and playable stack left.All this time you can gather information on opponents and their playing styles.Use the times when you fold wisely to gain this knowledge.
The Monday Forum DTD Tournies are................
7.15pm DTD1 Deepstack - 5000 Chips - 12min Blinds
7.45pm DTD2 Deepstack - 5000 Chips - 12min Blinds
8.30pm DTD3 NLH - 2500 Chips - 10min Blinds
The 2 deepstacks are a leisurely pace at 12min blinds, so you can afford to sit back and wait for a monster. I have final tabled in these a number of times by just playing 1 or 2 premium hands an hour in the first 2 hours and folding everything else.
If you want to run deep then we should only be getting into the pot with hands like AKs, QQ, KK, AA in the early stages of the deepstacks until we have learnt the basics, especially on a Monday night due to the amount of runners and Never Ever Limp into a pot with these hands.
If the blind levels are still low 25/50 - 75/100 for instance you don't want a multi-way pot so make your raise much bigger than normal something like 3-4x raise pre-flop in the early stages with these types of hands.
After the first 2 hours you can afford to widen your range a little with smaller pairs 88, 99, 1010, JJ for instance, but don't try to play them out of position.
The first 1-2 hours in the deepstacks are critical so by only playing premium hands and playing them strongly we should be able to build an above average stack for the later stages of the tourny.
DTD 3 is NLH with only a 2500 starting stack, so there is no room for fishing or set mining. If we are going to enter a pot we need to bet strongly with our premium hands. You will get called by players with any 2 cards pre-flop in this tourny so we need to make sure we have a made hand. Unfortunately the callers with "any 2" will sometimes get them through, but be assured they will never be winning with these hands in the long run.
I hope you are able to take in some of the basics from the posts in this thread, it can sometimes be a lot to take in so just try to remember the simple stuff and use it to the best of your ability.
Best of luck
Pokertrev (TPT Captain)
This is terrific, so many people taking time to help, & offer good advice.
Oddly, no sign of "spoony" though!
If anyone happens to see him on a Table, can you please let him know about this?
Ta.
I've only been playing just over a year so maybe i know where you're coming from. I'm an ex maths teacher so saw it as a game to try to improve at and was looking for the best way.
Here's what i did at the start. I'm retired so i had a bit of time,
1. Got Harrington book vol 1. It's dead readable even though the poker world thinks its a little out of date. Take no notice at this stage. The random generator idea can be ignored TBH.
2. Make a sheet of hds to enter with in certain positions. Your mind can 'go' when you get nervy.
3. Bet sizing can be 1/2 pot dry, 3/4 wet and pot monsoon! Stick to it as you won't play often enough for players to have reads.
3. Don't play cash...learn this aspect first...cash is different and will be costly.
4. Look upon your entry fee as an investment. Makes little notes on paper about particular hands that you want to look at later on the site.
5. write down your statistics at each break then you will see how often you play pots. Aim for 30% maximum.
6. Never limp into a pot.
7. Keep a paper/computer record of how you got on ...generally. Not just win/loss...initially that doesn't matter.(i had 6/7 losing months when i first sarted but was stil enjoying it).
8 Give yourself a goal/target. Eg get to first break, top half, get a bounty with 'correct' play not just lucky suck out.
9. Learn the extras as you go...pot odds, equity. You will have to study articles and other books though. Something called pokerstove will tell you whether your call was actually correct and so on but i've only been using it recently after i've played looking at my 'problem' hands. Probably better off putting them into the poker clinc and getting good advice. I promise you that in a year you will be offering advice to others about the errors they made playing. TBH its only an opinion and there are lots of factors in poker.
10. Enjoy the game for what it is. If its not your main financial income then look upon it as a hobby needing some cash spent on it. However only spend what you see as 'bunce' on it. If you do then you won't be playing with scared money.
There is a buzz when you win a hand. Catching on the river is cruel but there is elation for you. One day you will get a great result or even win and the die may be cast.
Why not join a team(i'm in Hitsquad) and play the DTD on a monday. Playing three is a little hairy at first but they are staggered a little. Its fun , there's camaraderie and some friendly banter. If you do well you've helped the team....not so well...so what? And there's team colours to earn in Hitsquad for a top ten position...another goal. Look in Team talk in the poker forum...no fee, just fun.
I hope these pointers help.
Its funny because i was dead lucky in poker. After 8 days of reading Harrington, i actually won my EVER first live tournament in a casino with a very basic strategy. It pushed me into learning more though....
PS Watch the sky progs and lesson progs and make notes....i've still got mine.
PPS Enjoyment is the key...if its not then don't do it. Money is NOT the reason to play. Play within your budget as it can become a problem otherwise. The book Mental Game of Poker by Jared Tendhler is a good one for its psychology ......cheers
PPP Sorry i got carried away..
1. I know it can be hard sometimes but avoid the temptation to slowplay big hands. For one, when you continuation bet a flop, it's probably the one bet you'll make that will tend to get the least respect as it's seen as something that's pretty standard to do at least 50%+ of the time (whether that's correct or not is another matter).
So...
A) it's less respected than bets on later rounds (so people will call with worse hands) and...