Going for Broke vs. Careful play

It's kind of funny how each and every game has a few of these players. I think you're right - they all seem to be at the same page in Super System, think any play but AA, KK, AK, QQ on the button is a "donk move" and almost always bust out playing something other than those hands out of position to boot..

Merlin333

The players at the table who always know with exactitude what play you should have made - you know who I mean - the ones who just folded and "knew" what hand you had (and is always wrong)
or the one who gives running "expert" commentary on the skill level of
everyone at the table COULDN"T POSSIBLY have this game so cold, figured
out

In my opinion, these players announce to the experienced players at the table.."I've read a dozen of the best poker books out there and I've been playing hardcore for 6 - 12 months now! "

When I see this guy at my table, he is an immediate target for me. Hopefully if we get involved in a hand together where I have position on him, I will get creative in my betting and try to confuse his hard-wired brain into frying a circuit and tilting off his chips to me. I will play back at him ultra-aggressively and try to knock him around if my stack allows.

I've lost count on how many table geniuses I've busted !

theOMEGAN wrote:

Math is easy when using when using a tool that only handicaps you....Get reliant on that and you miss your opportunity to change gears and find yourself railling. Sometimes gut feeling knows best.

Huh...??? What does this have to do with the thread ??

Math is easy when using when using a tool that only handicaps you....Get reliant on that and you miss your opportunity to change gears and find yourself railling. Sometimes gut feeling knows best.

I would fall in the 'careful play' category, but that is a product of many years of live play on limit tables. I just cannot seem to generate any serious interest in the 'go for broke' or 'bet the farm' strategies.

I'm not at all unhappy with my own results playing a conservative game. I'm only in 2 other forums, RB and CC. I'm at 70 in the Railbird FR standings this year, with 2 point finishes still not computed in the running totals. I'm somewhere decent (I think) on the CC FR leaderboard, but theirs is hard to navigate.

I've never made a deposit online, and seriously doubt that I ever will. My goal when I started almost 2 years ago was to see if I could make something, from absolutely nothing but time (which I have a lot of, being retired). I now have 2 small BR's on the 2 sites I play on 99% of the time. The first year I spent learning the vastly different world of online poker from what I knew of live play. This year has turned the goal into a profitable pursuit.

Conservative play isn't for everyone, just as 'go for broke' play isn't for me, but both can produce positive results. As long as a player is comfortable with their play, strategies and long term results, it doesn't really matter 'how' we get there, imo.

Well. Im at a place many poker players
probably are - I have a knowledge and command of the math, what various "books"
say about what to do when and some experience in applying this
"knowledge".

This is a place where with any acquired skill - I refer to as the "vast
wasteland" other known as the beginning. I have just come to the "end"
of a period where I've played a lot of games with differing methods and
styles against different skill levels and styles of opponents
in three other forums I'm a member of - Railbirds, Suited Pockets and
CardsChat. One of these forums' members have distinct views on other
forums play but I have found players ranging from excellent to novice
in all three. Many of the same players are in all and they each feature
players with well documented experience and success William Thorson
(Lollipop), Tom Mc Evoy, Tony (Tsunami) Guerra just to name a few. As
of today, I'm ranked in the freeroll section, 99th in RailBirds, 4th in
CardsChat and Suited Pockets keeps no running leaderboard as such but I
did manage to rank 15th in their RSOP tournament. I say all of this to
say - now comes the time to see if I am able to correctly evaluate what
I've learned, what I've experienced, what I've read and fashion it into
a winning way of playing poker?

I have found substantiation for my core belief that this game is entirely situational and those who say "always do this or always do that"
have missed the point. My other core beliefs are these - the math is
the easy part and the hard part is handling your own personality
tendencies, properly blending and applying the math and
table/opposition to arrive at the "correct" decision. For those who
think that correct means always, only playing AA, KK, AK, QQ (or QQ,AK)
on the button brings me to one of pokers few absolutes - they are wrong.

So now I'm at an (not the) end of experimentation. I became serious
about this game when I joined RailBirds in April of '07 and just like
my own forum, I'm a month behind my schedule - now I'll see if I came
to the right conclusions.

On the issue of "Going for Broke" or "Playing it safe" - by nature I'm
a go for broke personality type. For me this has resulted in early outs
or wins, "Playing it safe" has resulted in more middle finishes - there
is some middle ground.

I'm not really sure how I feel about that either.

One thing is for certain. The players at the table who always know with exactitude what play you should have made - you know who I mean - the ones who just folded and "knew" what hand you had (and is always wrong)
or the one who gives running "expert" commentary on the skill level of
everyone at the table COULDN"T POSSIBLY have this game so cold, figured
out - I'm not so sure anyone does. That's what makes this game so fun
and interesting and challenging.

The players who seem most likely to really have it figured out seem to
spend more time at the table raking other players chips, rather than talking
about it.....

Now the real fun begins...

Merlin333