Hi everyone what do you think is the best strategy to employ on this site - TAG, LAG, or small ball? (keep pots small unless you have a big hand)? Personally I don’t see the point of playing tight and only raising good hands if half the table is gonna call you down anyways (which happens often here or any play chip site).
This is not a very good question. Playing only one strategy on an entire website with thousands of players and a range of stakes and structures is not viable. You need to adjust to the game and the players and the situation. If you play only one style, as soon as your opponent figures out what you’re doing, you’re toast.
Try playing different styles and see what you can learn from the experience. Then mix it up. Observe what your opponent is doing, and match it with your experience playing that way. What beat you when you were playing that way? Do that.
Vast majority of people on this site call with any two cards preflop…
Opponent calling a shove with a gutshot draw on the turn and sucking out on the river 
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Glad to see that this is still useful. Poker is a funny old game. In a 20 minute span I can both win 104m with T9o and lose 40m with my 3 best starting hands (JJ and 2x AKs). Gotta remember that on Replay you can exploitatively fold the nut flush on every paired board and that a giant preflop raise means almost exclusively AA/KK…
OP: IMO the best strategy is LAG or TAG. The players who absolutely crush this site are generally LAGs because they can play any 2 hands and know exactly where they stand. And they are supernatural judges of when their opponent is overfolding (as opposed to the 98% of players here who are calling stations), so they can bluff successfully and get max value when they have it. But that only applies to the very best 20-50 players who have been here.
The other top 300 or so do it by going for pure value and playing ABC TAG (which mostly includes myself). You can make huge preflop raises with a tight range and still get paid when you have a monster. There’s really no reason to bluff when almost everyone calls too much or to make marginal players or open marginal hands. You can just ask yourself how you will make money in a given situation, and generally is the answer here is by having the best hand. Yes, there is room to make more advanced plays, but generally you make the most by having it and overfolding the second nuts when facing any aggression. Of course if a thinking opponent seems to be on to your strategy, you can mix it up versus them specifically.
On the other hand, if you just want entertainment, then go ahead and min-raise 80% of the time and just enjoy the chaos. When you flop huge you will get paid and when you get 3-bet it’s easy to fold.
You can not beat luck I always say. The best strategy for me is what I feel comfortable with and confident with. Waiting for a big hand is not working for me. If i would only play my aces then someone with a flush or straight gonna take that pot. I prefer showing everything at the end of a round. That means if i bet i usually have hit something. Or i add to the pot for a possible straight or flush. Getting a feel of whats called and what is not called is important to me. Also getting a feel for the bets people place. My strategy is trying to mix things up. Keep em guessing or semi-bluff with confidence. I bet high with a strong hand. Checking is cheap if you ask me. Cheap to get lucky. I dont want everyone in on the river. You never know who hits their luck. I played many years and very regular. I keep trying to improve and lately i even introduced some bluffing. Greed never works in my bets that usually goes horribly wrong. The only thing i can try is to read your bets. For me thats most of the fun to see i had it right. And yea ok i even call to see it sometimes too. I play really bad if my mood is bad. Play with joy and fun! For me that works as the best strategy!
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If you’re playing a TAG strategy - how much do you raise pre-flop to isolate (ie. 3x, 4x, 5x, blinds)? At some tables on this site they’ll call you down pre-flop no matter what, unless you go all-in. And how would you play A - K at a table like that (where everyone calls pre-flop no matter the raise size)?
The problem is when you have a big hand and make a big raise and half or more of the table still calls you (the more people in a hand, the less likely the monster pre-flop hand is gonna win).
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This is not a problem, its printing money. The more big pots you play with a superior range, then better you will do. You won’t win as many pots and you have to know when to release a strong preflop hand when the board is terrible for you. However, if you keep taking stronger hands to the flop and play those hands appropriately, you can’t help but win. The easiest money in poker comes from people who take undefendable ranges from all positions to flops. It just takes a few simple adjustments to exploit the heck out of them. You play hands that can make the nuts while they will continue to play anything they find remotely interesting.
As an example, I hear people complain that players will call preflop with any 2 suited cards. Great. They will whiff completely or make bad 1 pair hands most of the time. You are making money in both these cases and picking up a ton of small pots. Then, when you both make a flush, you will stack them with the effective nuts because they decided to play 9/3s while you are on ATs or KJs.
ADDED: Recognize when a “big hand” preflop is no longer a big hand postflop. Also, play more 4 or 6-max tables. Full ring (9 handed) poker isn’t where you want to be if you think you have a skill edge.
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Example: You have Kc Kh, player 2 has 2 s 3s, player 3 has Ah 5s, player 4 has 9d 8d, player 5 has Qh Jh, player 6 has 5h 4h
Player with KK has 26.51% chance of winning, player 2 with 2 3 has 16.19% chance of winning, player 3 with A 5 has 12.36% chance of winning, player 4 with 9 8 has 23.07% chance of winning, player 5 with Q J has 12.49% chance of winning, and player 6 with 5 4 has 7.55% chance of winning >> 26.51% chance is not “printing money”
“You are making money in both these cases and picking up a ton of small pots.”
Yeah, until they flop a set - then you get stacked.
We must have different definitions then. If you just want to look at it as all-in equity, you’d need 16.7% to break even and you have 26.5%. A 10% edge is huge. You couldn’t help but make money if you had this hand repeated all day every day. That’s printing to me.
Of course if you add in some postflop awareness, that 10% edge only increases. KcKs on 7h/8h/9d is not a monster hand 5 ways. Relative hand strengths change as more people enter the pot and the more dynamic the board is. Don’t stack off on wet boards with an overpair multiway. Be the one who gets the stack of the players who can’t tell absolute hand strength from relative hand strength.
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You might win less often when more people are in the pot, but the pots will be much larger when you do win. This more than makes up for your initial loss of equity, especially when you consider post-flop action. Many of those who want to see the flop won’t be there at showdown.
Just finished 5th in the American Hangover tournament using a LAG style - ooh lah lah!
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@1Warlock is correct. Because players call too much, just bet huge and make them pay for it. To answer your previous question, if I am opening an average of ~20% of hands, I would open to 3.5 BBs +1 for every limper in front of me. That would be a big size against good players (at least online, not live), but against players who call too much, it is great to have a range advantage, the initiative in the hand, a skill edge, and hopefully a position advantage as well. And that is at the elite stakes here on Replay. At lower stakes I would open a tighter range and open to something massive like 6 or 8 BBs just to punish people.
As Warlock says, you have a huge equity advantage, and then you have to evaluate postflop. A pair of kings doesn’t look great against 5 opponents, but if you have KK and bet 6BBs pre and get 5 callers, when you do flop a set you could easily triple up. And when your AKs hits the nut flush, you already have a massive pot to win. So, I do raise big to punish the limpers, but you do need to be wary with just an overpair against multiple opponents.
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Dude donk bets me on the flop with 2-7 and I punish him (I flopped a straight)
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I just won the 100K Community Freeroll - ooh lah lah!
I guess most of these comments are relevant to ring games. Personally I find ring games too boring for words, though I can see it would be a different manner if playing for real money.
I have played ring games a few times and won a few million chips, but, as said, it seems tiresome to me.
I play almost exclusively tournaments, and have gone from 0 to 250 million in a couple of years, so I would say that I am successful relative to most tournament players here.
I don’t think there is any one key to tournament success on RP, but here are a few tips.
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Observe everything that changes. If you are on a six-max tournament every time a player is “sitting out” that changes the dynamics and odds at the table, or if a player is moved to another table, or if the number of players goes from 5 to 4.
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Always observe the changing of the blinds and how that implicates your stack size relative to the blinds. If you are down to 10 BB or less, it is shove or fold.
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In the early rounds when the blinds are low, try to see cheap flops and shove good hands on the flop, as you will often be called by inferior hands and double up.
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When you have got a big stack, tighten up, but remember the others will eventually catch up with you by merging stacks, so you still have to win some pots. Often you can win pots by bluffing against medium stacks by raising from position preflop, as they will not dare to lead out with a missed flop against a big stack.
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Play mostly from the dealer position, but if the blinds are timid players, then a raise with nothing from the cutoff may knock out the dealer and leave you in the cat bird seat against the blinds in a raised pot.
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Sometimes when you raise with nothing you will hit a big flop that opponents cannot possibly expect you to have.
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Remember that opponents on RP never learn, so you can use the same tricks over and over again.
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When it comes to the final stages of a tournament your best chance is to have one of the biggest stacks, as it just becomes an all in slugfest. Do not play drawing hands when the blinds are sky high unless you already have half the chips in the tournament.
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Never get blinded out. When it is time to double or quit, you will sometimes lose, but when you win, you put yourself right back in the tournament. If doubling your stack would not put you among the leaders, then you need to act fast to correct the situation
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Always remember that poker is a game of deception. If you limp in with AK and the flop hits you, you will often stack opponents who think they have the best hand. For example, you are down to heads up against one opponent on the final table. Either you will win by defeating him by calling a shove, or you will have to do it by deception. Raising from SB with a hand like A A risks that he will fold preflop, so it is better to suck him in and let him think he has flopped top pair, or even second pair.
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In the early rounds of tournaments when the blinds are low, if there are a lot of limpers and you have a hand that you want to play, always raise the pot preflop to get leverage, because you can always fold post flop if you miss, and you really don’t want the blinds checking in with 2s and 3s in their hands.
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If you raise from position with nothing and are called by the BB, then when an Ace comes on the flop, if he checks to you, that nearly always means he does NOT have an Ace, so feel free to take the pot.
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You have to know when to hold em and know when to fold em.
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Calculate the pot odds on every hand so that you are not overpaying for draws.For example flush draw plus inside straight draw is 11 outs on each street, so about 1 in 4.
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Always ask yourself what an opponents bet or call means. You have top pair and you put in a pot sized bet on the flop and an opponent calls. Why is he calling? Is he a dolt who has second pair plus a gutshot, or is he on some kind of draw, or is he slow playing two pairs, or trips? You don’t always know for sure, but watch his behavior closely.
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From my point of view, if I flop a big hand I want to get opponents chips into the pot, but the sad fact is that many players on RP will shove the flop when they have a monster like trips, so you call their bets at your peril in the early rounds of tournaments. Later on small stacks may shove the stack with second pair in desperation.
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