I have been a long time lurker on this and other sites and finally decided to post here to perhaps help some other newbies along the way. I have found the tips here very helpful although not until i made the same mistakes myself and said to myself ahhhhhhhhhh that's what they were talking about.
Last february i took up playing play money at poker stars and within a couple of weeks had built a tidy stack of 500,000. i wanted to try the cash games but was too cheap (a very good thing indeed!!!).
Through this forum i found everest poker who run freeroll sng's every 10 minutes.The payouts are only a nickel to win but money is money right?
By good friday i had a bankroll of $15...dreams of wsop dancing in my head. I eneterd a $2 +40 rebuy tourney and finished 7th...payout was $77.
through may and june i built this up to over $200 plaing $5 sng's. And then the inevitable happened..that horrible thing called variance. The worst night i had AA cracked 3 times...lost with trips 6 times and had a boat sunk. It wasn't that i wasn't getting good hands..I was getting great hands but they were losers just the same. By the end of august i was down to the felt and back in the freerolls.
Fortunately I was smart enough to buy some books which taught me to really understand the game...HOH and Sklansky's and Carson's are the best.
It took more time to get through the lowest limits..at the beginning of Novemeber I had $8. But I knew i was playing well. I started to play LHE instead of the sng's and began to make real gains. In January i was at $200 again. On easter weekend i got to $1000. I started to play on VC poker too.
I'm still cheap and take free money where i can. But i don't go to higher limits just to clear the bonuses.
Over the year i have come to believe in certain truths about the game.
1. Bad beats happen..get over it fast
2. Full houses must be played cautiously..whether the sites are rigged or it's just bad luck I have lost more money on boats than any other hand
3. If you can't beat the donks at a $5 table you'll get smoked at a $50 table no matter how good you THINK you are.
4. If you're going bad at a table..GET OUT..you can lose your money at another table too.
5. You can't play bad cards pf and win consistantly. Period.
6. Bluffing works once or twice a session not once or twice an orbit. You have to pick your spots very carefully and know why you're bluffing. And a bluff is a one shot deal..don't keep firing away at a donk. You'll pay him far too much for being stupid.
7. Rushes happen..when they happen to you ride it and when you see it happening to someone else get out of the way.
8. Bad beats happen..get over it fast. I know i said it before but it's important.
9. Mid prs JJ-88 must be raised pf to isolate 1 player...then be cool..anything they call with will beat you if they hit.
10. Have fun and wish me luck on my quest for 10,000..my goal for the end of the year.

Good advice! This post said it all. know when to go and know when to stay.

#2 and #9 need to be taken out, they're just laughable.

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SB, i thought must be right..after all it says he's a poker pro. So I thought maybe i was just paranoid. Since his post I have had 12 full houses. I have won 7 of them and lost 5. The 7 wins were small to medium pots while the losses were big pots. My point in the original post remains true..be cautious.
As for the middle pairs it seems obvious this is the correct play. They are too good to simply wait to hit trips on the flop and give up when overcards hit. Yet they will lose most times in multi-way pots. So my advice remains the same despite the pro having a belly laugh...raise to isolate then be very careful.

Seany's not really a REAL poker pro. But he is good and sometimes has some really insightful things to say! (As if you haven't noticed)

I have to agree with Seany a little. If you are losing with a FH its because you have a low FH and someone else has the high. This is considered an amateur mistake. No discernible reason you should lose 5 out of 7 FH hands unless you are a donk.

As for the pocket pairs theory its to general. Is this full ring or 6 max? What position are you in? How many people in the hand so far? So many variables that it is hard to say you should ALWAYS raise with them.

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Lots of good rakeback options at http://www.raketherake.com/?refer=RTR25126

KRE8R probably has about seventy college funds in his NL5 roll.

Sometimes i've noticed that people read what they want to read and not what is written. I lost 5 out of 12 not 5 out of 7. 3 of the losses were to quads. Perhaps i am a donk but it seems a little tough to lay down a FH particularly when you have high.
I know i wasn't too clear about the prs but i meant to open a pot. Of course you'd play different when there is a raiser in front of you. Position isn't much of a factor when you are looking to open with a pr IMO.

My bad on the FH thing but I stick by the idea that it doesnt seem that easy to lose with a FH. Plus we consider you a bit stupid because you bring up the idea that the sites may be rigged and thats maybe why you have lost. In general if you push all your money in with a high FH you are getting the best of it the vast VAST majority of the time. I never worry about quads. If the other person has quads its a cooler. Tough luck. Anyway you still havent said anything about whether your pocket pairs strategy is for full ring or 6 max. Most people will play them completely different in FR or 6max.

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Lots of good rakeback options at http://www.raketherake.com/?refer=RTR25126

KRE8R probably has about seventy college funds in his NL5 roll.

Ok..I'm a bit confused here. I was laughed at by a supposed poker pro for advising to be careful with full houses. The gr8 kr8r agrees adding i have to be a donk to lose with a full house. Why maybe i wasn't careful enough says he.
Well duh. Wake up guy. Isn't that what i said in the original post.
As if that wasn't enough I'm being called stupid too by anal retentive navel gazers who only seem to lift their heads when they here the word rigged.
I'm beginning to wonder if the advice given on this site is worth the effort to lift my finger to click the button.
As for the prs mr kr8r sir..it doesn't matter what form of the game you are playing the advice is the same. Try something new for a change..it just might work.

1. Obv depends on what condition you have a full house whether you want to play cautiously or not. When the board is A 10 10 9 2, and you have AA or A10, caution is definately not needed, you should just think how can I get the most chips in the pot.

If the board is like A A A 9 5 and you have 22, and you are going broke, you have a problem.

2. Your advise on mid-pairs is too general, but in most cases you want to either isolate the feild like you said, or else play for set value.

3. I think you'll find the advice and insight on this forum very good, but insulting people because they disagree with you won't get you far.

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