Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Don't worry about how many pots you win

In limit poker games, one way to tell how well you are doing is by how many pots you drag. Of course, some pots are larger than others, but there is a maximum as to how large the pot could get based on the fixed betting structure (yeah, I know there is no cap for the number of reraises when heads up, but I'm ignoring that fact). However, in no limit games, you can still show a tidy profit and win very few hands. I once played a 3 hour session of $1/$2 where I only won one pot the whole session and still left the table a $150 winner. I managed to get it all in with top set against an over pair and won a huge pot--I really didn't have any other playable hands the whole time I was there. Of course, I didn't fold every single other hand--I either got raised out of pots or missed the flop completely.

In no limit games, you have to have lots of patience. Even if you haven't been mixing it up for a while, wait to hit a big hand and you can usually get paid off at the lower limits as your opponents are usually not observant of your conservative play.

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