04-12-06, LearnTexasHoldem:

Percentage Of Playable Hands

Question: I have a question about how many hands you're "supposed" to play. A tight player will play about 20-25% of the hands they are dealt. When they say "play" I assume it means the hands that see the flop. Now my question is when you calculate that percent does that include the percent of times you saw the flop from the big blind position? I have been substracting the big blind from the total to get the percent of hands that I do play. I average around 30-40% with the big blind subtracted. Am I playing too many hands?

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I have been semi profitable but I think that if I were to tighten up a bit I might make more. Although I am playing limit holdem(nothing more than .25/.50) and can usually see the flop for really cheap. Am I playing incorrectly? My bankroll isn't high enough to play in the .25/.50 stakes(assuming you need about 300x the big bet) but I was going insane at the penny stakes(.10/.20). Sometimes I would clean house and others I would lose. I guess that's part of poker but at those stakes I found that everyone would see the river just because it was cheap.

Anyways, I've been playing .25/.50 for a couple of weeks now and I find that I will slaughter the oppenents for a couple $10 pots but then it seems to dwindle away. I have started to learn to quit while I am ahead. If I started with $20 and make $10 then I will quit for a while. I seem to lose the money I make slowly but most of the time it seems I have the odds to bet and I should win most of the time. Maybe I am not judging the hands correctly.

Any help would be appreciated, since I credit most of my knowledge to this site and others a like. I am looking into buying a book about low limit holdem.

Thanks in advance,

Mike

Answer:

I'm not sure if you should value the hand percentages so much:

- This can't be a measurement of correct play because you get hands in an inconsistent rate. It isn't really session by session. If you could look at an overall percentage, maybe that would help some, but even then, only to a certain extent.

- A starting hand is just that, a start. It is an incorrect assumption that playing a tight game, where you start with solid cards, will result in you winning. Most of the money in holdem goes in postflop, not preflop. Because of this, you may be only playing 10% of your hands, but playing them badly postflop and still lose. You need good hands and good postflop play.

Before I offer another way of looking at things, let me answer your specific questions:

Do you count the BB play in with your percentages? Yes. This becomes especially important as you play bigger games where most of the game is around attacking and protecting the blinds.

If you play 30-40% of the hands in full table limit holdem, without counting blind play, is that too many? Yeah. If you include the blind play, you would be nearing half way mark. Half of the hands you get in holdem aren't worth playing. If you would cut out some of the weaker ones, my guess is you would make more money. Much of what happens when you play weaker hands is you win some and lose some and it cuts into your overall profit. Even if the opponents are bad and the game is really loose, I would suggest tightening up a bit more than that.

Instead of looking at your preflop play in terms of percentages (how many cards you play), view it based on the texture of the game. See certain hands do better in some situations than others. What dictates how well a hand will do in various situations is the number of players seeing the flop. Let me give you an example or two. In a tight limit holdem game where there is a raise preflop and then just a caller or two, I wouldn't play many suited connectors -- especially calling other payer's raises with them.

The reason is that this hand doesn't do well in these games since it requires a big flop to win, and to make it worthwhile I have to get a bigger return on my initial investment. In a loose game, this hand does very well because you get 4+ players seeing every flop and they pay off too much postflop. In the tight game a hand like 88 or 99 will be a raiseable hand, but in the loose game you would be better off limping and hoping to hit a set. Again, the difference is in the amount of players seeing each flop.

This is why no limit holdem and limit holdem are different too. In limit holdem, small pocket pairs go way up in value because you'll usually be heads up and the opponent doesn't chase as much. So in tight games, where there is a raise or reraise preflop each time and just two or three-handed pots, you want hands that do well going to the river -- hands like Aces, pairs, basically high card strength. In loose games with lots of players seeing the flop, you don't play quite as aggressively with your hands like AT, 99, etc, but you include hands that do well against lots of opponents, like J9s, T8s, etc. These hands do well because you can hit a flush or straight.

The game is still around because it isn't an easy task to always "play the right gear." (Changing gears is a term used to describe the style of play you adapt; the one you hope will beat the game.) When I first sit down at a table, I am figuring out how I am going to play to beat it. Hands like AA, AK, KK, QQ, etc play themselves, it is the middle hands that I will be adjusting with. Will I be getting involved in pots with hands like 77 or A9s? Will I be playing hands like middle suited cards? How am I going to play my weak Aces, if at all? How aggressive or loose am I going to need to play? I start out playing a little tighter than need be and then loosen up to try to find that zone.

You want to play just loose enough to maximize your profit without slipping off the edge into loosey goosey play. And you constantly have to adjust. Let me give you an example yesterday when I way playing. I was in a shorthanded limit holdem game and I was up a good amount and I took a break. I was about to leave but then I decided to play a bit longer. All of a sudden I got my ass served to me over and over. I'm raising as before, making top pair, only to get raised on the turn and pay off a bigger kicker.

The dynamics of the table changed while I was away. After that happens a few times (losing to better starting hands), the brakes go on and I tighten up. So I tightened up my game some and did fine. I avoided some hands that were winning before. In your specific game you can use the same measure. If you notice that when you limp in with AT you keep losing to a bigger kicker, or your pair of Tens gets run down, then tighten up some. Try to view the game based on how many players are seeing each flop and use that as your starting hand guide. You can do this at a macro (overall strategy) and micro (individual hand) level. Say it is even a really tight game and you have 6 players in for a raise in front of you and you have 34s. I would call, for sure. The 34s will make money in the long run if you play it correctly postflop when you get that many callers.

So, that's a lot to think about... It may seem confusing and more of a struggle, but it is actually encouraging because holdem just isn't math. It's much more fluid and hence fun.

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