Looking at typical players in no limit hold’em full ring games

by Carl The Dean Sampson on March 26, 2012

In this article then I would like to take a look at the typical players who frequent the full ring poker games from NL25 through to and including NL100. I want to discuss what the typical player actually does in this environment. First off then I think that there are very important differences between your average six max player and your average full ring game player. When you happen to go into a card room in a live casino then you may have a chronic shortage of options with regards to which poker games you can sit in.

However this isn’t the case in online poker and so on the large sites and networks then if you see players sitting in full ring then this is because they have chosen this form of poker over six max. This in my opinion indicates an awful lot about the mind-set and style of a poker player and also their attitude to risk as well. More tight player’s frequent full ring than in any other environment and this is especially the case when you see a full ring game player multi-tabling.

A player like that will be playing very tight ranges as the combination of playing full ring and playing so many tables will make it so. This is a player who is likely folding a very high percentage of their range and merely playing for rakeback, bonuses and getting value from the odd fish who just happens to make a mistake against them in a deep stack situation. So the average typical full ring game player is often not making big bluffs or even balancing their ranges and will often slip into pot control mode because they often fear getting all in or risking significant percentages of their stack with non-nut hands and powerhouses.

It is very useful to know this information going in and I see many new players at no limit ring games simply pay off the tight playing regs too often. Don’t get me wrong here, the tight game plan of a reg is hardly optimal poker but with rakeback, sign up bonuses and a good solid ABC game then it can do very well in certain poker environments.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson plays poker at www.pokerstars.co.uk

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Looking at your major weapons in an online poker game

by Carl The Dean Sampson on March 24, 2012

Essentially then you have four weapons at your disposal in a no limit hold’em poker game. You have your poker skill as your primary weapon, your chip stack, your position and your hand strength. Notice here that your poker hand is only part of your overall weaponry and so that needs to be remembered because one of the primary mistakes that you see players make on big sites like www.pokerstars.co.uk is that they over estimate their hand strength before the flop!

Let us look at an example here to show you what I mean. You get dealt A-A and you raise but you are under the gun. Clearly you have a good hand but you only have a good hand after two of seven cards that have to be dealt out. So you have only seen 2/7 of your total poker hand. If you are a novice player then you don’t hand the skill element as part of your weaponry. So two of the four possible weapons are missing straight away!

Clearly then you could have say A-A against 8-7s and your advantage may not be that big at all if your opponent is better than you and also has superior position. It is important to be able to properly assess your weapons and how effective they are within the game and the actual hand itself. This is why many novice poker players simply end up overplaying their hands in many situations simply because of pre-flop hand strength.

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Pretty easy way to make a living

March 24, 2012

If you are looking to turn online poker into a career then you need to drop the ego. I should know because I spent a lot of my time or should I say wasting my time playing at levels that are simply too tough for me or were too tough for me. This shouldn’t be [...]

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