Hand #1:



Full Tilt Poker Game #6816332608: Table Calanda (6 max) - $5/$10 - No Limit Hold'em - 23:51:00 ET - 2008/06/13
Seat 1: balugawhale ($1,228)
Seat 2: iamnakid ($175)
Seat 3: I Win Flips ($1,000)
Seat 4: CaneBrain888 ($449)
Seat 5: Dawn of War ($1,112)
Seat 6: skillet02 ($592)
iamnakid posts the small blind of $5
I Win Flips posts the big blind of $10
The button is in seat #1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to CaneBrain888 [Ac Tc]
CaneBrain888 calls $10
Dawn of War folds
skillet02 calls $10
balugawhale folds
iamnakid calls $5
I Win Flips checks
*** FLOP *** [Ah 5c Jh]
iamnakid checks
I Win Flips has 15 seconds left to act
I Win Flips checks
CaneBrain888 bets $24
skillet02 raises to $582, and is all in
iamnakid folds
I Win Flips adds $10
I Win Flips folds
CaneBrain888 has 15 seconds left to act
CaneBrain888 has requested TIME
CANE DOES WHAT???





Hand #2:



Full Tilt Poker Game #6816475686: Table Calanda (6 max) - $5/$10 - No Limit Hold'em - 0:03:18 ET - 2008/06/14
Seat 1: balugawhale ($1,295)
Seat 2: m_reed05 ($1,042)
Seat 3: I Win Flips ($1,032)
Seat 4: CaneBrain888 ($850)
Seat 5: Dawn of War ($936)
Seat 6: CauchysShorts54 ($1,000)
I Win Flips posts the small blind of $5
CaneBrain888 posts the big blind of $10
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to CaneBrain888 [5h 4h]
Dawn of War folds
CauchysShorts54 folds
balugawhale folds
m_reed05 folds
I Win Flips raises to $30
CaneBrain888 calls $20
*** FLOP *** [Kh 5s 4d]
I Win Flips bets $56
CANE DOES WHAT???


will post results later.....

I wouldn't play without a full stack. I also wouldn't ever open limp, ever.

First hand fold with no info, second hand raise.

I find I play better buying in for half. I know its considered a bad idea....but I gotta do what seems to work for me.

I dont know why people are so down on limping. it varies your game....and I see players I respect a lot do it ALL the time. I appreciate the advice but I just think that limping is good move to have in the arsenal.

result of hands below:

first hand:

I have played with guy before....I just didnt think he would do that with a big hand. I thought a long time and called. he showed A9 and I held.

second hand, I made a pot size raise, he insta shoved and I insta-called. he showed AA and I held.

First, convert your hands.

Second, you'll get more responses if you break them into two posts, but I'm not a stickler there.

Third, playing shorter than full is fine, but it will alter your strategy.

Fourth, try to wait a few days before including results.

In the first hand, open-limping here is a bad idea. It's bad because you're going to be exploited by those with position on you. It's bad because your hand becomes more transparent. It's bad because you don't have enough of a stack to do it correctly. On the flop, you should generally fold to the shove. Yes, his shove is wonk, but unless you've seen a regular pattern, it's not worth the risk.

In the second hand, pot it and call the all-in.

thanks for the advice. I would appreciate if you could clarify why open limping from UTG makes my hand transparent. I thought limping from that position would be confusing and vary my play well (UTG limp can mean AA, KK or AK.....or it can mean suited connectors....or whatever). I think I understand your other points.

where can I find a hand converter? (by the way, I find the format I use easier to follow than the converted hands. that's probably my weirdness though.)

I will make sure to wait a while before posting results in the future.

This has been done so many times before, but basically, balancing you ranges when your strategy involves open limping UTG loses you a tonne of EV because you're forced to play a lot of your range sub optimally PF.

Yes. Also, why does limping confuse your opponents but raising doesn't? Do you need AA-QQ utg to raise?
Why not raise and:

1. confuse your opponents
2. get more money in the pot
3.knock out some bs hands
4. get more information from some of your opponents by raising
5. possibly win the blinds which adds up to a LOT of money over the hundreds of thousands of hands you will play
6. play the hand hu, which will make it much easier to play.
7. Force your opponent to make tougher decisions preflop and post-flop.
Also, learn to play with a full buyin. Otherwise, you're just giving away money IMO.

I haven't looked at the hand results and I probably won't.

First hand, as played, easy fold.

Second hand, I'm getting it in.

People that often open-limp hands are mostly doing it with medium broadway cards...sometimes rag aces...and occasionally small pocket pairs. Basically, you're asking to be exploited by those in position on you. In a full ring game, you can sometimes justify it, but in 6-max games, it can't really be defended from a value standpoint.

If you limp with some monsters, are you limp-re-raising? Cause that makes the hands quite transparent. If you're doing that, you need to be limp-re-raising some other hands too...which isn't typically worth the risk.

As everyone said, limping in hand 1 is bad. Good players limp in full ring games, and will sometimes overlimp in 6m game or VERY occasionally limp a big hand with the intention of LRRing a player who they know will pop it a high % of the time. Aside from these things, there's really no reason to limp in a 6m game. Also, your limp is more transparent than anything like Cobalt said because of 1 reason: you think the hand is too good to fold but probably too strong to raise.

I don't like buying in short, and especially not that short. If you're gonna have an edge in a game, you want a full stack. If not, you should have a very defined shortstack strategy and these two hands here basically hint towards the idea that that's not the case.

Both hands are rather standard post flop plays. Hand 1 is a pretty fast fold. You will rarely run into an ace that you're dominating that just open shoves here, but you can run into flush draws, pair+FDs, J5 or A5 kind of often, so just muck the hand.

Hand 2 is a raise to $160 or whatever falls into line with your raise sizing and then you snap call a shove.

I haven't looked at results yet so I don't know how you chose to play these. I do want to comment that if you're asking what to do in these very simple standard situations, then you're probably not ready to be playing a 6m 5/10NL game online at this point in your poker career.

EDIT AFTER READING RESULTS: In hand 1, if you have a read that he won't do that with a big hand, why are you posting here? I mean, you didn't include the read, which is the whole reason for you to take the chosen action in the hand, so how are we supposed to provide you with the best advice? Yeah, in a vaccuum it's a fold, but if you have history and you know he doesn't show up with big hands there, then you're obviously going to call with AT.

sorry forgot to include my read in hand one....that made the first hand a tough decision which is why I needed advice. my bad. my thinking there was the only hand he could have ahead of me was A5. He is the kind of guy who would not limp in position with AK-AJ....and he would not shove with 55....and he would not limp with J5. My guess was A5, bluff, or semi-bluff with flush draw or something. A9 was a huge surprise to me.

second hand, the guy who lost the pot said I was a huge donkey so I wanted to post it for confirmation that I am not crazy.

I play a lot of 5/10 NL with a half buy-in. I do alright. I may take your advice and drop down....but I play mostly for fun not for money that I need. I want to get better though so I am going to post more in here.

Thanks for the help everyone.

Very important since I see you're posting hands of you playing 5/10 online as well as 5/10 live.

The skill level of 5/10 live is usually about the skill level of 2/4 online for the most part. I play 5/10NL live all of the time and do fine, but I think I would struggle to beat a 5/10 6m game for any reasonable amount of money.

Your call there pre is fine. You've got position, he didn't pop it much, and stacks are okay to speculate with the hand.

And, before you edited, I saw that you were taking a shot from your normal 2/4 stakes. That's fine...but know that when you buy in short, it affects the strategy with which you approach the game. Personally, I prefer the max buy-in and I understand why everyone's so adamant, but I've read enough to know that short can be profitable. I recommend that if you're going to continue employing the short buy though, you should be familiar with Malmuth's CP articles on the subject first.


So why do I do fine online and get killed live? =)

It's the other way around for me.

I play a lot of 5/10 live and do well. I think I read people well though my fundamentals need work.

I agree that 5/10 online is much tougher....I often only play 2/4 NL online. I take shots at 5/10 when I am in the mood....I think I will be doing that less now. Clearly I am overmatched.

Yeah, I feel more comfy at 2/4 NLHE online but I often take shots at 5/10 for kicks. I like the short buy-in for a few reasons....the biggest of which is that the other players seem to take you much much less seriously. I think I get a lot of loose calls from big stacks when I buy in for half. Since so many people on here think it is dumb though, I am going to read Malmuth's cardplayer articles like you suggested and re-evaluate.

And yeah I assumed the 2nd hand was standard but the guy got so angry that I wanted a double check. I also should have included a read on that hand (I am bad at this posting stuff). The guy in the 2nd hand had not raised me out of the SB for a good half hour. so I put him on something big preflop since he had folded to me in the BB a ton. I figured 54 suited was a good hand to speculate with against a supposed big hand.

I was mistaken on the author...the articles are by Ed Miller.

thanks. hopefully I can find some time at work today to slack off.....

Move down or you're going to bust.

You're wrong and unhelpful.

+1. I'm probably rare in that I was playing live quite a long time before I ever even downloaded any poker software and I think the first table I ever tried online was a $.50/$1 limit table and it played like 10/20 live. Needless to say I don't play online because beating a live game to me is a lot less work.