OK, I've found my massive ring game weakness. I promised myself a while ago that I would never go all in unless I had the nuts, because I realised that at low stakes there would always be someone who will call you down. Even if I was convinced I had the best hand, I would end up losing to someone who had been slowplaying or had been calling my bets with crap and then hitting their draw on the river, so I thought I'd just say no.

I tend to do quite well on ring games, and can double my stack reasonably quickly, only to lose a large proportion when I'm convinced someone is bluffing when they do actually have a good hand and I call their all-in bet only to lose. Recently someone kept going all-in preflop with shit cards, and I finally plucked up the bravery to call them down, only to have a split pot in the end :\

So, all-in moves in ring games: Discuss (40%).
When to do it, and when to call it? Differences in low stakes games and high stakes. Knowing when a player has the nuts or a good draw etc.

Originally Posted by Crundy

I promised myself a while ago that I would never go all in unless I had the nuts

Hey Mr. Hellmuth, welcome to the forums!

Is he the same?
I would go all-in in a tournament without the nuts, just not in a low stakes ring rame anymore.

Originally Posted by Crundy

I promised myself a while ago that I would never go all in unless I had the nuts

You're pretty much fucked then.

Originally Posted by KRE8R

You're pretty much fucked then.

Explain.

Well, I aim to please.
Note to self: Don't ask for advice on condescending forums.

You don't want to be calling people's all-ins without a very strong hand... you want to be the one going all-in and pushing people off their hands. Like Doyle Brunson says in Super System, you want to put your opponent on a decision for all the chips. You don't want to get into situations where you're the one making the tough decision.

Folding everything until you have the nuts and then hoping someone pushes is not good poker... it's called being a nit, and although you might break even that way, you won't make good money.

If you get sucked on, that's just poker... in a sense, you want to get sucked out on a lot, because it means that you're getting the money in with the best hand, and you'll be winning more when your hand holds up than you lose when some bottom pair donk rivers his two- or five-outer. However, if you're making bad reads and blundering into people's slowplays, that's something you have to learn to avoid. There are various signs that someone's slowplaying, and with experience you'll learn to avoid stacking off to the slowplays, while still being able to pick off bluffs and extract value from marginal hands.

Good words, thanks.

I've decided I'm crap at poker. I am the uberdonk. Check out this hand I played tonight where it was so bloody obvious what they had, yet I kept trying to bully them out of the hand and ended up giving them half my stack:

Hand #1463887764

Players:

#1: egmund ($4.83)
#2: Crundy ($4.93)
#3: Kukusichka2008 ($2.28)
#4: K0b0r ($5.11)
#5: Morngailw ($2.45)
#6: sportsbetting ($4.97)
#7: Ershm ($0.72)
#8: GODLIKE2 ($1.17)
#9: hoolifou27 ($1.01)

Preflop:

Ershm posts Small Blind ($0.01)
GODLIKE2 posts Big Blind ($0.02)

(Cards)
Crundy has CA CJ
hoolifou27 Calls $0.02
egmund Folds
Crundy Raises to $0.04
Kukusichka2008 Folds
K0b0r Folds
Morngailw Folds
sportsbetting Raises to $0.16
Ershm Folds
GODLIKE2 Folds
hoolifou27 Calls $0.14
Crundy Calls $0.12

Flop:

Cards: D6 HJ H3
hoolifou27 Checks
Crundy Bets $0.30
sportsbetting Raises to $0.80
hoolifou27 Folds
Crundy Calls $0.50

Turn:

Card: CK
Crundy Bets $0.60
sportsbetting Calls $0.60

River:

Cards: H10
Crundy Bets $1.31
sportsbetting Calls $1.31

Result:

sportsbetting shows DA HA

sportsbetting wins $5.64