All hands created equal

Hopefully there are some out there who feel the same way I do about this subject. Say blinds are 15-30 game running about 10-15 mins. How would you play your hands that have been dealt to you. I feel that early on in order to get your chips up you should play as many hands as possible to at least see the flop for 30. I feel every hand is a potential hand as noone really knows what the flop turn or river is going to be. What are your opinions? Am I wrong or right?

A lot of players have that viewpoint chrisdaman...I play tight, especially in the beginning, there are too many crazies in the game at that time trying to become the tournament leader. No you don't even have a starting hand untill you see the flop...but that is true throughout the tournament.

Here is what I fell is wrong with that approach:
you limp in with 30, a player 3 to your left raises to 80, it gets back to you ...and you say well I already have 30 in, so you make it 80...now the player two to your left makes it 500....now when it comes back to you your going to throw 500 or 80 away, because you tried to limp in to see the flop.

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Some learn by reading…..Some learn by observation…….while others have too pee on the electric fence for themselves

I agree with what your saying. I am never clear enough as to what i am saying....I Hate Typing..lol What i mean is if all that is called are blinds is it really worth limping in with any hand?

If you know for sure that it will only cost you the blind, you could ease up on your starting requirements...however, I feel that the starting chips are too valuable and would rather wait for good starting hands and then if I hit, I can collect a decent pot from the loose players that are in the game at the time.

As I said, I play tight, especially in the beginning...and I might sit there for a while without getting in a hand, but then, the next thing you know...I am the table leader...and it always seems to work that way...prior to that, I just watch everyone trading chips, back and forth.

Remember, in hold'em...it only takes one good hand an hour....patience is your most important virtue.

Most of the times you are going to see 2 hands a round...1 if your BB and it hasn't been raised and 2 when your SB and you can get in with the discount, if it hasn't been raised.....so, now you will see the flop twice, with junk hands....that's why it is important to raise if you do have a good hand....to keep the blinds out and having them getting lucky on you.
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Some learn by reading…..Some learn by observation…….while others have too pee on the electric fence for themselves

No, it's not worth limping into every hand. Defiantly not. You will see so many more bad beats. Then you go to people and tell them stories of how you got a bad beat with 83.

They will say "Why were you in the hand anyway"

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LATA KIDD

I agree with you Homless...save your chips, when you can put them to good use!...you even need to be careful limping in from the small blind.

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Some learn by reading…..Some learn by observation…….while others have too pee on the electric fence for themselves

The more you limp in in early hands just to see the flop with your 8-2 junk the less money you have to double up with all the people who do that when you get a hand

In multi Tournmaents the blinds wont start hurting your starting chip stack for atleast 40minutes so play tight and put your chips in the pot at the right time.

This is actually a pretty complex issue and has as much to do with playing style as anything else.

I think the key is to separate hands that have decent potential to be good and hands that have little potential to be good. To me the key is as much how much will i make if I get lucky as how likely am I to get lucky. Hands like 22 will rarely win early in tourneys but occasionly will enable you to win very big.

The key to avoiding the sort of scenario Crapshoot rightly describes as bad is position. If you hold k8s under the gun - folding will normally be the right thing to do. If people have been passive preflop then calling would not be terrible but folding will normally be correct. however if you are on the button and 3 players have called then calling is better. You have to think 1) what are the chances of my hand being the best after the flop and 2) how much will my hand win if it is the best and 3) is it strong enough to call if I am raised. If you play trash you will often find yourself in a position where you and 1 other have a pair but they have a higher kicker so you have to fold or you will often lose. Reads on players before and after you should greatly affect what you play. If those after you are passive you can play hands that otherwise MUST be chucked and if the players before you are solid/ tight you must respect their bets and often find yourself folding hands like AJ, KQ etc.

Now in freerolls the position is slightly different because often there are so many people who will go all in on a middle pair that the implied odds justify a call if you dont mind sometimes losing all your chips when they either are lucky and for once have a hand or you miss-read them and they are sharks posing as tuna. Even in freerolls if you are patient you will very likely get 100% double throughs without taking risks if you wait for the right time you will not be chip leader any time in the first hour but how often do the early chip leaders even finish in the money?

I would argue other than the freeroll situation (and even then only if you dont mind frequent quick exits) it is actually the case that the stronger reads you have on the table the more hands you can play rather than early in tourney where reads are fairly superficial. If you have strong reads on players you will often know when to fold and when to bet (and when they will call and when they will fold) and this allows you to play more hands because your superior reads will allow you to play them better, for extra value. Sometimes you will meet a fish who you can get a measure of after 10 hands but normally it will take alot longer.

Also tight play will often get you to the same position in a less dramatic way. I often find aggressive players grafting for a profit on every hand - cleverly reading when to bluff, when to fold and when their hand is best. Once in a while they might misread and catch a bit of luck or get knocked out but often they are there 1 hour and 30 min later on the same table with Crapshoot or myself with only slightly more chips than us which we then sucker from them by choosing our moment (most of the time anyway lol).

You must beware of deminishing your chip stack as well. If you avoid all these hands you are more likely to last till you get premium hands or premium flops that would bring big profit. every 30 you call and lose both demishishes the number of hands you will have to get a premium hand in and also the amount of profit that an all in win could make. If you play a lot of hands you could find 1000 going slowly to 750 before doubling to 1500. A tighter style might have found your chips rising more constantly towards 1500 and if you did get some mug calling your straight you would have more chips to be doubled through.

Listen to Homless, Zaphor and scottishben...they are right!

Ben...that is a teriffic post...it could not have been stated better!

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Some learn by reading…..Some learn by observation…….while others have too pee on the electric fence for themselves