Thought long and hard about whether or not to reply to this, in the end, there are so many points that are just wrong.
I think its hard to exploit a game when people are only buying in for 40-50bbs. Makes it hard to play the tricky hands like small pairs and suited connectors etc vs them, especially if they are raising dark etc. And if you wait for good starting hands and tighten up your ranges, then this makes for higher variance. So i think its right that what paul has said.
Play a solid starting hand range and isolate, preflop raise may need to be inordinately large but figure out what size works best. From there, no need to get jiggy, just bet the max for value when you hit. When you"re good you extract the max and he pays you off, when he"s good he misses lots of value and you make correct folds =
you turn a nice profit.
I think its hard to exploit a game when people are only buying in for 40-50bbs. Makes it hard to play the tricky hands like small pairs and suited connectors etc vs them, especially if they are raising dark etc. And if you wait for good starting hands and tighten up your ranges, then this makes for higher variance. So i think its right that what paul has said.
Small pairs are gold in this game, you flop a set 1:8 and its highly likely you"ll stack someone. Folding small pairs is just wrong, as a general rule, 10/1 implied odds is enough in this game to profitably see a flop.
SC"s are more tricky and if you are not comfortable playing them or can"t turn a profit with them, folding is ok and keeps the tricky spots to a minimum. But it has to be said that in this type of game, played well and for the correct price, a semi decent player should easily profit with SC"s. The secret is to play them with a plan and not deviate from that. For example,
there"s a 3x raise in ep,
two call and you hold 7s8s,
there"s 10.5 bb"s in the pot its 3 to call and you will have position in the hand.
This is a nice spot to call, but with a plan to only continue with two pair+, strong draws and combo"s, but only! for the correct price.
The flop is 7h6sJc and the raiser leads for 10 bb"s.
It was not part of our plan to continue in this kind of spot,
fold!
"u will never hone your skills in these games" and if you have tilt issues and very bad bank roll management like me. Im best off leaving them alone.
i dont play at dtd often, but from what i have seen, i think most of the regs there couldnt beat the low stakes on stars and tilt.
You are totally correct, they couldn"t. I would estimate that the standard of player at even 25nl online could be 5-10 times higher than in this live £0.50. / £1 game.
But you seem to be confusing this point as a reason
not! to play in the game. That brings me nicely to my final point.
Frankly, you are better off sitting in the £1.00/£2.00 game with £100 (50BB"s) than you are buying in for the cap at £0.50/£1.00.
Paul.
When reasoning as to which game to play in, the "so as to hone your skills" criteria is not at all important, unless of course you can afford it, but even then?. What I mean is, obviously there is more scope to learn (AKA, "hone your skills") in tougher games and against better players but you are unlikely to profit in that game. The knowledge you gain is not much use if you"re busto.
To summarise......
- Play in games you can afford to play in
- Play in games you can beat
- Learn
- Manage your bankroll
- Move up levels
Within that framework, "hone your skills" looks after itself.
