Originally posted by: Crazee
Originally posted by: evident
Originally posted by: KLin
Professional poker players fold 80% of their hands. You're probably playing too many hands.
Online, i play less than 12% of my hands (pokerstars stats)
And in real life i think i'm not playing enough hands esp cash games where i have draws...
Also, I feel that i'm much stronger in tournament games vs cash games. I usually play tourneys on pokerstars but in real life i do both
From what you are saying here, it sounds like you are playing very tight. If you are playing against decent players then they will only call your raises when they have very good hands or hands that could develop nicely if you let them in the pot for cheap (i.e. suited connectors). You need to loosen up a little and vary your betting a little more. Try increasing the amount of your raises pre flop.
Playing 12% of hands preflop (is that counting hands in the blinds?) is VERY tight, especially in low-limit online games (although note that you shouldn't mix stats between tourneys/ring games or limit/no-limit, since they'll skew your numbers all over the place). Since you're concerned about having lost $40 in a night and $500 in a few months, I'm guess you are playing something like $1/2 limit at most. You're playing way too tight for that level of game if you are folding almost 90% of hands preflop.
In a relatively loose ring game, you basically want to be the tightest player at the table -- but not by much, and you don't want to
look conspicuously tight. If you sit there waiting for kings and aces, everyone will know that you're playing super-tight and never give you any action when you do have a hand. And against loose players you can't steal enough to make up for it. In multiway pots you can profitably play a lot of draws -- especially if you have implied odds from people who will call down your flopped straight the whole way with as little as one pair.
If you are doing well in tournaments but not in loose cash games you may be playing too aggressively and trying to steal or bluff all the time. This works great in fast tournaments but will not work -- at all -- against loose ring game players who will call with anything, especially in limit games. If it's a no limit ring game you can sometimes bluff people out by moving all-in, but in a limit game you just can't bet enough. At higher limits, against players capable of making tough laydowns, you can sometimes pull this kind of thing off in a ring game. But it's just not going to work consistently at low limits.
It sounds like you need to read a book or two about pot odds, implied odds and reverse implied odds especially. You need to bet enough with your top pairs for someone with a straight or flush draw to be betting into a mistake even if he does catch his flush / straight occasionally. It's not about pushing players off their draws, it's about pushing players to make mistakes where in the long run you make money.
This is good advice too. If you have a hand, and there are draws out there, bet. Checking to calling stations is almost always a mistake if you have a real hand.
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