In my post Tight is Right, I outlined an experiment to only play certain cards in certain positions over 1,000 hands of play-money hold 'em. To review, my playable hands were as follows:
From Early Position: AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AKs, AQs, TT, and AKo
From Middle Position: all of the above hands, plus AJs, KQs, 99, A10s and AQo
From Late Position: all of the above hands, plus KJs, 88, QJs, K10s, A9s, AJo
It was really difficult at first to discipline myself to only playing these cards. Everyone folds to me on the button and I'm holding KQ off-suit? I guess I gotta fold. I have four players calling a limp ahead of me and I get dealt 77? I guess I gotta fold. This exercise was a great way to discipline myself to making tough folds pre-flop. I even folded some of the hands my rules would have allowed me to play when another player showed significant strength. You re-raised my big raise? Okay, I can fold QJs here.
The results? After 1,000 hands I finished ahead by 893 bets. In my $50 play-money game that comes to $44,650. Yes that's play money. People play better when it's real money, so you can't expect the same results but it still illustrates the general principal that playing tight poker is the foundation you should build your game around.
Once you have disciplined yourself to play tight, then you can start adding other weapons to your arsenal. You will learn the best times to steal the blinds, when and how to defend your blinds, when to raise with a strong hand and when to check with a strong hand. You will learn who you can bluff and who you can't and you will learn when someone is likely to be bluffing you. But as you learn all of these things you must never forget that tight poker is the foundation your game is built upon. You will not do silly or reckless things. You will be able to wait for as long as it takes to set a perfect trap, or to make the effective bluff. You will have more patience than those you play against and that will make you a great poker player.
Wow. I'd say that's pretty significant. One question: How did you play the blinds, and how did your blind hands affect the reported total win?
ReplyDeleteMore scientific experiments, please.
Yeah, good question. If I was either blind, I allowed myself to play any of the hands in my experiment - that is AJo or better. My reasoning was that even though I would have to act out of position, I was getting a "discount" to call, since I my posted my blind already. Of course if I was looking at a very large call, I would often fold hands at the bottom of the "playable" list.
ReplyDeleteI ended up folding away 173.5 bets from the blinds, and I subtracted this number from my total wins. As I noted in my previous post (The Case Against Limping) 43 times while I was in the big blind I got to see the flop for free with cards I otherwise would have folded, and I ended up ahead 160 bets from this "free" hands - that almost makes up for everything else I folded in the blinds!