Bad beat's O'Plenty
This was a quick 3 day trip with some other friends of mine. Played some 3-6 to start but quickly tired of the crappy players staying in till the river so moved over to NL for the first time. It was pretty intimidating knowing that at any time, you could be forced to fork over all your chips. I paid to see a few flops but never caught anything. About 20 minutes in, I had pocket queens and flopped a set on the flop. Of course, there had to be a damn straight draw and the turn brought another runner. Was already in for 20 and got put all in for my last 141 so I called hoping to pair the board. Dead card and the guy had the nut straight.
Over the course of 3 hours, i bought in 3 times for 200 each time I got wiped out on pretty good hands. I’m thinking that my main issue is not making large enough bets early on rather i usually call. Well, in total i lost 600 bucks for the trip as I did play some bj and craps and faired much better.
Planning on my next trip to be in September.
Bet sizing in NL is difficult - specially for a LHE player. It's also very table dependent. Nothing is worse than getting a big pocket pair early in a session - you bet 10 and either everyone folds or you get 8 callers.
Bet sizing after the flop is perhaps even trickier - specially if the hand is multi-way. I remember a hand from my last trip - early in the session. I get AA and raise to 15 and get 2 callers. Flop K94 I lead for 30 and both call. Turn 9 and SB wakes up with a big bet and I had to let it go. My flop bet would likely have been enough to push him off 2nd pair but when MP calls behind he felt he had odds to call.
Hey GR,
First, thanks for posting and welcome to NL. John is totally right. Bet sizing is a tough trick.
Not knowing anything else about the set of queens, I can definitely tell that youd underbet on two streets (pre-flop and the flop). Evidenced by the fact that you only had $20 into the pot when the turn card fell. Post some hands in the strat forum. You usually get pretty good feedback.
There wasn't a lot about the non-poker portions of your trip. I hope you had a good time.
it's kinda funny, most of the money i lost was at the poker tables while everytime i played craps, i was able to make up my loses. i ended up about 900 up for the trip, but again, it was from craps rather than poker. I'll have to admit that poker is not my strongest game and i didn't actually start playing until 2 years ago.
Now that i've played some NL cash games, I'm thinking that i will keep trying and hope that i learn how to bet better in a way that i keep some people in the pot and win some.
In low limit NL games, seldom does a player wake up with a big bet after just calling. Since the pot was small in comparison to the bet, it's probably not worth it to draw to the FH. That's a big adjustment from limit. You never put down that set on the turn. In NL, you frequently have to.
There's a plethora of pretty decent NL books out there now. I'd recommend you get one or more and study up. They're well worth it in the long run.