The biggest difference between how pros play poker when I watch them on TV and how people play online is that pros rarely limp in preflop. By consistently raising about 3 times the big blind when they play, they give as little info as possible on the strength of their hand. This seems logical. Online, however, even at $50 and $100 tourney tables, people limp in far more than they raise. Is this just bad play? I limp in a lot too, so I've been wondering about this.
You ever watch professional stunts people who jump off buildings for a living and after they perform the stunt they tell you not to try this at home? well some of that applies to poker.
what you see the pros do on TV is something they have mastered over years and years of play. they are brilliant poker players who know what they are doing at every level. The worst players online at the lower levels (like 50 and 100 sngs), are the ones that try to mimic the pros. They get themselves in big time trouble trying to play like phil ivey and gus hansen attemptin to bluff the unbluffable.
With that being said a good player tends to be a more aggressive player. But that doesnt mean that you MUST raise every hand you play. There are times in late position when 2 or 3 players have limped and you have a marginal hand and the blinds are relatively low compared to the size of your stack when it may be a good idea to just limp to see the flop.
I see so many players raise a ton at these levels and get trapped bluffing against calling stations who will risk their stack with nothing more than middle pair. You have to realize who you are playing and at most SNGs you are up against players you havent played against.
When a player like ivey and lederer make aggressive moves that is the product of hours of studying an opponent and setting that player up in a way that they are experts at.
back to your point, yes online players limp too much and you should be doing more raising and less limping (especially from early position, you rarely want to limp from early position).
I would recommend Dan Harringtons books on NL holdem. For the average player that isnt super aggressive this book is excellent.
what you see the pros do on TV is something they have mastered over years and years of play. they are brilliant poker players who know what they are doing at every level. The worst players online at the lower levels (like 50 and 100 sngs), are the ones that try to mimic the pros. They get themselves in big time trouble trying to play like phil ivey and gus hansen attemptin to bluff the unbluffable.
With that being said a good player tends to be a more aggressive player. But that doesnt mean that you MUST raise every hand you play. There are times in late position when 2 or 3 players have limped and you have a marginal hand and the blinds are relatively low compared to the size of your stack when it may be a good idea to just limp to see the flop.
I see so many players raise a ton at these levels and get trapped bluffing against calling stations who will risk their stack with nothing more than middle pair. You have to realize who you are playing and at most SNGs you are up against players you havent played against.
When a player like ivey and lederer make aggressive moves that is the product of hours of studying an opponent and setting that player up in a way that they are experts at.
back to your point, yes online players limp too much and you should be doing more raising and less limping (especially from early position, you rarely want to limp from early position).
I would recommend Dan Harringtons books on NL holdem. For the average player that isnt super aggressive this book is excellent.
appolo said:
I agree in principle that you shouldn't play hands you wouldn't raise with (or call a raise with if you limped in). However, for me this only applies to about 10-15% of the hands I'm dealt, and it seems that that's too low a percentage of hands to play (not many good players play less than about 20% of the hands they're dealt, as far as I know). So I guess I should lower my standards in terms of what hands are worth a raise.
The advantage of limping, therefore (to continue from my previous post), is that it allows me to play a more reasonable (though still quite small) percentage of hands. Also, if fewer people regularly limped in, it would make it much more difficult for me to do so, but it seems that nearly all players (up to a fairly high money level) limp in a lot, which was sort of my original point. It's almost like online players have an understanding about that, so that people can get involved in more hands and see more flops.
I don't agree. Most good players are in fewer than 20% of the hands outside the blinds.hoex said:
There's nothing wrong with limping if you are doing it for a purpose. Some hands play better multi-way, so you want to encourage other limpers. Depending on table texture you may also want to limp a powerhouse hand. Most people don't have any purpose in mind, though. They just think, "This is too good to fold but I'd rather wait until the flop to see how strong I am before raising." Those people bleed to death at the tables.
