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I would disagree with the blanket statement that folding 90% of the time is optimal, and can be discouraging to new players who are interested in learning poker

I would disagree with the blanket statement that folding 90% of the time is optimal, and can be discouraging to new players who are interested in learning poker. Good players generally play around 20% of their hands, but even that vastly changes based on how aggressive the player is. Also, there is much more to factor in than just the hand you are dealt. You might want to play a tighter range (play less percentage of hands) in early position (let's say first or second to act in a betting round), compared to being last to act (where you might want to play a higher percentage of your hands). This is because being last to act in each betting round extremely useful in poker (If you want to know why, there's a lots of great articles on the internet who could explain much better than I [1]). [1] - https://www.tightpoker.com/position.html https://www.tightpoker.com/position.html

btilly 8y ago
Not optimal in all situations. But if you're playing with a full table of weak/loose players, it is good to play even tighter than that. Only play a high pocket pair or AK, and play them aggressively. Your hope being to take people 1 vs 1 for all the money you can. You don't need to be any cleverer than that until people pay enough attention that they won't call you unless they think that they have you beat. Then you will have to go for a wider range and start to play a better strategy.
- shorsher 8y ago
  Right, totally agree with you. Very situational and dependent on the skill level of others, whether you need to play GTO or not, tournament vs cash, how deep you are in a tournament, how many BB you have left, etc.
- jdietrich 8y ago
  Even that is highly dependent on your post-flop skill. Marginal hands and drawing hands like small pairs and small suited connectors can be highly profitable on loose tables if you're confident in your reading ability. Playing like a nit is the easiest way to play profitably on a loose table and has dramatically lower variance, but widening your range and playing intelligently post-flop can often be substantially more profitable.
  - base698 8y ago
    I used to be profitable in the golden days being a nit and just letting the huge swaths of players pay me off. So many all-ins to bluff me off while holding top set, nut straight, or nut flush. Just recently got back playing and am trying to learn to play against real players. I'm down overall after about 50 hours of play, but not very much. Any advice?
    - shorsher 8y ago
      One book that I have really really enjoyed that is somewhat recent (2016) is The Grinders Manual [1]. It gives fantastic advice that is still relevant and is extremely readable. Covers a wide range of topics and came widely recommended to me. It’s helped my game a lot as I just started playing seriously about 5 months ago. It’s geared toward online cash playing, but I ignore most of the HUD stuff and can use all the concepts in my live games. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Grinders-Manual-Complete-Course-Online-ebook/dp/B01GBFF890 https://www.amazon.com/Grinders-Manual-Complete-Course-Onlin...
      - dbancajas 8y ago
        what's your VPIP and 3B%? and what stakes do you hangout usually?
    - jinfiesto 8y ago
      Poker is much harder now and it's hard to find tables that will happily pay off nitty play ad infinitum. I'd make a list of concepts you should learn about, but I think it'll be easier for me to make a list of books you should read: The Mathematics of Poker (Chen and Ankenman) Applications of No-Limit Poker (Janda) Expert Heads up No-Limit Hold 'em (Tipton, this one is nice as the author is a Computer Scientist and also has a course on building a solver.) Professional No Limit-Hold 'em (Flynn, Miller, Mehta) Finally, you should get a membership to something like Upswing or RIO to help synthesize the information into a useful framework for play. Also, you'll want access to something like PIO or Pokersnowie for analysis of your hands.
    - rjf72 8y ago

btilly 8y ago

Not optimal in all situations. But if you're playing with a full table of weak/loose players, it is good to play even tighter than that. Only play a high pocket pair or AK, and play them aggressively. Your hope being to take people 1 vs 1 for all the money you can. You don't need to be any cleverer than that until people pay enough attention that they won't call you unless they think that they have you beat. Then you will have to go for a wider range and start to play a better strategy.

shorsher 8y ago
Right, totally agree with you. Very situational and dependent on the skill level of others, whether you need to play GTO or not, tournament vs cash, how deep you are in a tournament, how many BB you have left, etc.
jdietrich 8y ago
Even that is highly dependent on your post-flop skill. Marginal hands and drawing hands like small pairs and small suited connectors can be highly profitable on loose tables if you're confident in your reading ability. Playing like a nit is the easiest way to play profitably on a loose table and has dramatically lower variance, but widening your range and playing intelligently post-flop can often be substantially more profitable.
- base698 8y ago
  I used to be profitable in the golden days being a nit and just letting the huge swaths of players pay me off. So many all-ins to bluff me off while holding top set, nut straight, or nut flush. Just recently got back playing and am trying to learn to play against real players. I'm down overall after about 50 hours of play, but not very much. Any advice?
  - shorsher 8y ago
    One book that I have really really enjoyed that is somewhat recent (2016) is The Grinders Manual [1]. It gives fantastic advice that is still relevant and is extremely readable. Covers a wide range of topics and came widely recommended to me. It’s helped my game a lot as I just started playing seriously about 5 months ago. It’s geared toward online cash playing, but I ignore most of the HUD stuff and can use all the concepts in my live games. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Grinders-Manual-Complete-Course-Online-ebook/dp/B01GBFF890 https://www.amazon.com/Grinders-Manual-Complete-Course-Onlin...
    - dbancajas 8y ago
      what's your VPIP and 3B%? and what stakes do you hangout usually?
  - jinfiesto 8y ago
    Poker is much harder now and it's hard to find tables that will happily pay off nitty play ad infinitum. I'd make a list of concepts you should learn about, but I think it'll be easier for me to make a list of books you should read: The Mathematics of Poker (Chen and Ankenman) Applications of No-Limit Poker (Janda) Expert Heads up No-Limit Hold 'em (Tipton, this one is nice as the author is a Computer Scientist and also has a course on building a solver.) Professional No Limit-Hold 'em (Flynn, Miller, Mehta) Finally, you should get a membership to something like Upswing or RIO to help synthesize the information into a useful framework for play. Also, you'll want access to something like PIO or Pokersnowie for analysis of your hands.
  - rjf72 8y ago