I have never played ring games, but today I had a few sessions playing ring games at the 500/1000 blind level with a starting stack of 125,000 chips.
These games are a bit like playing the first hand of a MTT over and over again. Everyone is well chipped, almost everyone limps in on every pot with anything.
It is really easy to win chips. Basically all you have to do is play the hands that have a good chance to make the nuts in a multiway pot, like suited Aces and the better suited connectors, plus premium hands and raise the pot preflop in the hands you play–anything J9s and higher should be OK, especially from position, and you can be sure that all the limpers who limped one BB will call a raise of 3 or 4BB, giving you a huge pot at the flop. At this point you can either fold if you have nothing, bet the pot if it looks like you have the lead on the pot, or semibluff if you have a good drawing hand to narrow the field.
There is hardly any bluffing, so if someone does raise you post flop they probably have the nuts or close.
As a bonus, when you do have the nuts, you will usually find someone with next best hand to call your all-in on the river and easy double ups are available.
So you can just start with 125000 chips, play until you double your stack, then step away from the table, bank your profit and then return. Since the blinds are frozen for ever, you are never in danger of losing a lot of chips.
Personally I find this too boring compared to tournaments, but for someone who is starting out and wants to accumulate chips, it looks like an easy way to go.
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Yeah i completely agree. For me it was the other way around, I started with playing ring games all the time and then discovered tournaments and absolutely love them. Tourneys are taken much more seriously then any rimg games and especially once the blinds get high it begins to fee a little l like real money poker. But it’s always been the case that playing tight in ring games will net you profit like 80% of the time simply because of how lose many people play.
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Yes, I played a ring game today, blinds 1000/2000 and I played for about an hour, starting out with a stack of 250,000 chips. I got the impression that the other players were just there to pass the time by limping, and there was not really any real competitive poker play. I just played my strong hands and good flops into the players who automatically called every bet down to the river. This is very boring and provides no mental stimulus, though I can see that if you were playing for real money it would be much more exciting.
Here is what it looked like after one hour.
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@MekonKing ,
Ring games have always seem’d boring to me.
Other than for a promo, Ring games have 1 goal, Increase chipstack.
Sure, some tables many of the same ppl play, well below thier means,
more to play socially… yet those tables seem creepy to me and I avoid
them. You’re there to take as many chips as you can, as fast as you can.
If you mess up you can rebuy, or you can always leave with profit.
I don’t think its as much of a challange as a SnG/MTT is. You are basically
maximizing profit on a per hand basis, and folding all your crap. When
blinds never increase you price to see each orbit is fixed @ 1.5bb.
Sassy.
Well, exactly, I agree on all points. The difference between stack size and blind size is much greater than in tournaments, other than right at the start. In the illustration above, I now have enough chips to pay the blinds for 300 circuits of the table. What I am looking for mostly is to limp hands that have a chance to make the nuts, like suited aces, or pocket pairs when there are multiple limpers, and then to win huge pots with the nuts against opponents who will call with two pairs against the nut flush. Monster hands preflop can put in large raises that will nearly always be called by inferior hands and then take down a large pot at the flop. A few bluffs from position can be added to the mix to increase profit margins and may be shown to encourage opponents to call your bets. What you do not want to do is shove all-in preflop to win the blinds as in tournaments. Just wait for monsters, then suck opponents in and let them think they stand a chance.
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Yep, you can build a nice bankroll by hunting the nuts against the many players at Replay who can’t fold top pair. To find more interesting ring game play here I would suggest moving up a few levels above 1k/2k. Certainly seems like you have mid stakes beaten.
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