Hi, ive been playing poker for around a month now. Im a uni student so ive been playing micro tables. I originally put £10 in william hill after playing STTs for free money and doing quiet well (frees nothign compared to money i know but just wanted practice).

So i jumped in with £1 + £0.20 STT tournaments and after 2 days i was about £7 up (£17). However this was AFTER i lost a couple of tournaments and decided to play a £0.15/£0.25 NL sidegame and managed to gain about £4 in a short amount of time.

After that initial gain from sidegames i decided to play a couple more, getting as high as £23, which i then lose most of it and currently sit at £12 (20% ROI) from my initial £10.

Overall, just on tournaments my ROI has been just 11% which is low i know. I want to continue playing the STTs until i have around £20 again and have another, more thoughtful shot at the £0.15/£0.25 NL games.

The strategy part...My startegy on STTs is tight/aggressive, i tend to only play pocket hands that have 85%+ ranking, and when i have that, i will raise or call a raise, depending on the hand, will play slightly looser when ITM. Is this the right way to approach STTs???

The main reason i play poker at the moment, is for practice, i believe playing micro limits is much better practice than playing for fake money. However, i wish to maintain a +ve bankroll, will STTs help cut my losses (although cut my winnings?) Was just looking for any advice which could help me,

How tight should i play in regard to beginning/middle/end of tournament.
My positives are that im not afraid to blind right down till i get that good deal, i have yet to lose a game due to blinding to low, however i need help controlling myself, when i get dealt something like AA KK QQ AK or even as low as JJ i cant help but stay in till the end, often win with this but usually lose big againt 3 of a kind or better hands.

One thing i would also like to learn is pot odds, i dont use that to my advantage yet, (or at all) any1 able to give some websites which help explain calculating pot odds and give an understanding for them, i have a basic idea how to use them, i believe if u have 10% chance of making ur hand then u should only play if the pot is 10x larger than what u pay to see the next card, correct me if im wrong...


In short, any basic advice for a beginning looking to make only very minor profits while he practices??? Sorry for long post, first time here, any help greatly appreciated

Originally Posted by Jamjoe

Hi, ive been playing poker for around a month now. Im a uni student so ive been playing micro tables. I originally put £10 in william hill after playing STTs for free money and doing quiet well (frees nothign compared to money i know but just wanted practice).

So i jumped in with £1 + £0.20 STT tournaments and after 2 days i was about £7 up (£17). However this was AFTER i lost a couple of tournaments and decided to play a £0.15/£0.25 NL sidegame and managed to gain about £4 in a short amount of time.

After that initial gain from sidegames i decided to play a couple more, getting as high as £23, which i then lose most of it and currently sit at £12 (20% ROI) from my initial £10.

Overall, just on tournaments my ROI has been just 11% which is low i know. I want to continue playing the STTs until i have around £20 again and have another, more thoughtful shot at the £0.15/£0.25 NL games.

The strategy part...My startegy on STTs is tight/aggressive, i tend to only play pocket hands that have 85%+ ranking, and when i have that, i will raise or call a raise, depending on the hand, will play slightly looser when ITM. Is this the right way to approach STTs???

The main reason i play poker at the moment, is for practice, i believe playing micro limits is much better practice than playing for fake money. However, i wish to maintain a +ve bankroll, will STTs help cut my losses (although cut my winnings?) Was just looking for any advice which could help me,

How tight should i play in regard to beginning/middle/end of tournament.
My positives are that im not afraid to blind right down till i get that good deal, i have yet to lose a game due to blinding to low, however i need help controlling myself, when i get dealt something like AA KK QQ AK or even as low as JJ i cant help but stay in till the end, often win with this but usually lose big againt 3 of a kind or better hands.

One thing i would also like to learn is pot odds, i dont use that to my advantage yet, (or at all) any1 able to give some websites which help explain calculating pot odds and give an understanding for them, i have a basic idea how to use them, i believe if u have 10% chance of making ur hand then u should only play if the pot is 10x larger than what u pay to see the next card, correct me if im wrong...


In short, any basic advice for a beginning looking to make only very minor profits while he practices??? Sorry for long post, first time here, any help greatly appreciated

First of all, welcome to PFO.
You put £10 into WilliamHill, never played there but do they offer STTs for lower than £1?I say this since playing the £1 + 20p only gives you enough buyins for 8 of these. If you were to find ones lower then I suggest playing them, your looking at about 20-30 buyins for any STT you play, so something around about 40p + 10p which would give you 20 buyins off of £10. Like I said I dont know how low their tournaments go.

First bit of advice - DONT go to those NL tables for a "quick profit" we all do it and have done it and learn the hard way, its quicker and easier to lose many buyins at that level, wait until youve built your bankroll up before trying out the cash games. Alternatively try out pokerstars or a site that offers micro micro NL (1c2c)

For general STT advice, it varies a lot depending on who you ask, the general idea is to play tight early and build a stack and tight image - this should help you steal pots in the later stages, but for more specific tips youll have to make a seperate thread, there is a lot totalk about there.. as there is with anything. Try doing a search, im sure theres something on PFO.

There is also a small article on pot odds, if you look on the PFO site, think its under the probability section or thereabouts (on the left hand side) if not then its under the articles section - they also have a great bankroll guide. Check it out.

Ok, thanks alot, ill put an extra £15 in to cover 20buy-ins then. Smallest STT william hill have is the £1+£0.20.

Also...Playing on 2 or 3 STTs at a time...good idea or bad idea for me at the moment? I only play around 4STTs a night at the moment, working during the day, but quitting for a months break soon so will have a chance to get lots of practice in

Like i said all i want from playing poker at the moment is to practice and hopefully be in the +ve from doing so. In my head i would like to build up bankroll from the practice, add a bit when i have spare from working etc, and build up to higher limits when i think im ready (not for a while yet).

I have no intentions of playing full time at all, though maybe in a years time i would like to be good enough for poker to be...kind of a sound and entertaining investment, and hopefully consistantly have a ROI that wouldnt be offered at any savings accounts with banks or anything like that

So i guess im happy with my 11% so far (£14.40 spent £16 won) on STTs, and if i can continue over the course of the 20 tournaments ill have covered for buyins that would be great, both for confidence, practice and that magical £2/£3 that i would have made hehe

Hello, fellow UK player here, there's quite a lot of us at PFO.

Best advice is to read a lot early on. The game has layers and the more you find out the more you realise you don't know. The nice part is that it rewards study and there's plenty of books and load of info on sites like this to help.

My advice would be to play one table at a time til you are really comfortable with your game. I've been playing for a few years now and have more SnGS than you can eat under my belt and I still only play one at a time. Nothing wrong with multitabling but it makes it harder to read the play.

Post some hand histories is the best way to get feedback here, hands where you are not sure if you did the right thing even if you won.

Good luck matey.

Ok so my plan is to place enough money to buy around 25 buying for tournaments. My "project" if u can call it that is to play hopefully 400 STTs while i wait a month for my next parttime job. With my current 11% ROI (which is my lowest point so far) I plan to make £48 from the 400tournaments.

My question regards pot odds...i use a poker calculator while i plan, which has helped me loads as i used to overrate my starting hands...

My question is, if ur starting hand is say, 40% ranking (far lower than i usually play with but will use as example) Does this mean that if u want to continue playing, ur bet should not be any more than 40% of the pot??? Then the flop comes and say, taking into consideration ur hand, the flop and number of players still in, ur hand drops to a 15% chance of winning for example, would u (as a rule of thumb i know this cannot be implemented all the time, depends on the other players, how good/bad tight/loose they usually play etc etc) but generally would u only see the turn if u could see if ur bet is less than 15% of the pot???

Heres an example, not a hand history just using hypothetical situation...

I get Kd 2d - Occording to my calculator thats a 74.6% hand rank.
5players call, 7-15 blinds, so pot is 75
With 5 other players my hand now apparantly has a 16% chance of winning pre-flop, so i call, 15 i bet is 16.6% of the total pot afterwards.

Q1) Do i base this bet using pot odds for my hand rank as its pre-flop or the %age chance of winning???

Flop comes 8d 5d 3s
I have now been given 35% chance of winning, with King high flush.
1 Player bets 30, 2 fold 1 calls,
Pot is 150, if i call it will be 16.6% of the total pot (again) i call, 3 players in the hand and pot is now 180

Q2) would that be right, would you be willing to bet up to 35% of total pot with this hand?? would u bet more if u were aggressive? how much more?

Turn is 7d (btw im just dealing these out on my bed, now actually giving myself a flush )

1 player bets 100, other folds.
Its possible he could have a straight flush or Ace flush, both beating my hand
I now have an 84% chance of winning, should i raise to 135? (approx 84% of pot after his bet, before mine)

Q3) what would be the action u take? personally before i knew about pot odds (assuming i kinda know about it now, this could all be wrong) i would just raise some figure that comes off the top ofmy head, maybe same amount as the pot or a bit more, but now with pot odds in mind i would prolly have raised the 84% of the pot.

Assume he calls, (although i know the hand and wouldnt if i was him) but say he does, the pot is now 650
River is Ad

His hand was infact 8c 9d (he was going for straight)

Did i use pot odds correctly in this case?? or near enough as before i would have prolly raised too much, especially if i was in a weaker position

is it...stripped down to real basics, if u have x% chance of winning u should bet less than or equal to x% of the pot to continue??? slightly more if ur aggressive??

Another question which has been bugging me, would u play a marginal hand say Q7o if pot odds were worth it??

I just want to make sure i am calling/raising the correct amounts with the hands i want as i feel this may be one of my weaknesses, any help would be great, is my example a rough idea of how to use pot odds?

welcome...

every1s posts are big but mine wont be.

sry