Where and what you play?

[PuckJunkieNY]

Dave,

Thanks for the detailed reply.
Which site in your observation seems to have the least amount fish?

Anyone else please feel free to add your opinions on this topic as well.

[ScanX]

What do you mean by "tweak your strategy a bit" to play at PartyPoker ?

[Dave B]

I thought the play at UB was better than the other two. If I was aggressive or tight, people would adjust and I had to either stay real tight or constantly change speeds. At party, people never learn.

Tweaking-learn who does what and why and know that it may not be good play. For example, countless time people cap the betting w/ AK offsuit then complain of a running into good cards when someone else has AA KK QQ. So I dont respect raises as much as I normally would. People w/ raise w/ top pair and a bad kicker-so I will hold onto A 9 longer than I normally would. In NL (tourneys only -I dont play NL ring games) everyone is ultra aggressive and will frequently go all in w/ nothing to steal pots. So every good hand I get I will ssssllllooooowwww play. Often checking to the river w/ a set, top 2 pair, str8 or flush. If I lose a 100TC pot I am not going to worry about it-it is the big pots that I want to wait for. I guess in general I just dont give 5-6 players at the table any respect whatsoever. The other 2-3 become obvious in the 1st 2 rounds of a tourney and are typically there at the end.

[BeerWench13]

I agree with Dave that you do have to "tweak" your play a bit at PP. I played live before I ever thought of playing online. You'd be amazed at the number of fish there are there. I've been outdrawn after preflop and raising every hand by a fish who stayed in with a 3-7 offsuit and was hoping for the flush....and got it! I had a set and had to lay them down because I knew after a few hands that he'd stay in with anything.

Something I recommend you watch for is a person who never folds. They're more than likely playing with the theory that all cards are equal until the flop. The ones who fold alot more than likely have a clue what a good starting hand is and won't stay in with rags. They're the ones to watch when you have the hand and they're still in and either checking/calling or raising. More than likely they have a very good hand.
I don't play tourneys on PP because I have no patience for some of the players that they attract. Like Dave said, they go all-in with 2-5 offsuit or something along that line to steal the pot. This is fine if you're a patient person, but you can really get blinded to death playing in those types of tourneys.
I play mostly NL ring play and as long as I have a nice book to read or can conquer the world on my other PC while I'm playing, I usually do fairly well. In ring play I look for a room with about 7-8 players with an extremely high pot average. This is the room with the most fish in it and if you get in and play patiently you can walk away with $100 or more in just a few good hands. Of course that depends on whether or not you get the cards, but that's poker.

[poker4pros.com]

Dave B you make a good point... I seem to notice less experience players on PP. (Especially on their low limit tables.) The lingerie bowl must have had something to do with it. UB is a great site as well.

[JimTheBullet]

I play on Paradise Poker. I have found that the software is the best of the ones I have tried. I would use PokerMillion as they are UK based and hence it is easier to transfer money in and out in pounds sterling but their software is too fiddly. The bet slider for no limit games is tiny and it is very hard to position it accurately for your bet, particularly if you play on a laptop (as I do) and have a touchpad as opposed to a mouse. The other downside to PokerMillion is that they don't do all ins on disconnections during tournments, as I have a crappy dial up connection which gets disconnected every hour or so on average I really need the protection of the all ins.

The other great reason in my mind to use Paradise is that the standard of play is better (providing you don't play the $5 buy ins too much). It might sound stupid but I can't stand playing against poor players. They don't fold when they should fold and I get frustrated too easily. I would much rather play against good solid opponents any day.

A quick story about the kind of play that annoys me and which you don't (in my experience) get as much on Paradise Poker (although this hand did happen on paradise). The other day I was in a $20 sit and go halfway through round 2 so we had played about 15 hands. I had seen one flop the whole game to that point and I took the pot down with KK in the hole (showed my hand as the other guy went all in to the rag flop so everybody saw what hand I played). I got dealt QQ and raised the blind to about 200tc from 20 (there were a lot of limpers so I had to bet it pretty strong to clear the decks). I only got one caller and the flop came rags with two suited cards. I bet and he raised me all in (he had a few more chips than me thanks to some remarkably lucky loose play). I called all in (he had been going all in virtually every hand so I had him on no better than the top pair or a flush draw) and he turned J6 suited (4 to a flush, top pair crap kicker) - the draw didn't come in but I was flabergasted that he could call a raise from somebody who had only played KK up to that point in the tourney with J6. Somebody else at the table made a comment along the lines of "what on earth were you doing?" - he said that he had put me on a draw. I was stunned, I don't normally make comments on other people's play during a game - just note it down for later use - but on that occassion I just couldn't stop myself. I just had to know how he thought that it was a smart play to call my pre flop raise with J6. I think his response was along the lines of "any suited hand is good" - classic.