3 9,9 A,10s K,Js Q,Js A,Q
J,10s
4 8,8 K,Ts Q,Ts J,9s T,9s 9,8s A,J K,Q
For this entire book we are going to assume that you‘re playing real money $25 buy in no limit hold‘em with 8-10 players at the table.
Big blind .50 cents Small Blind .25 cents.
These are the parameters I only recommend playing by the way until you master the —online“ game.
In real life I get so excited when I get a Category one hand! In PARP, I cringe when I get a category one hand except for J,J or A,Ks.
AA KK QQ.
Whenever you get one of those 3 hands, two other players will indefinitely have a pocket pair as well a large percentage of the time. And you‘ll know by the way unless you are first to act because the betting will start getting really big pre-flop. This scenario happens very often. I would say that 40% of the time that 1 of the 2 smaller pocket pairs will flop a set (Three of a kind.)
This means your AA KK or QQ are liabilities in PARP. Don‘t get me wrong I win with these —great“ starting hands but it‘s only about 20% of the time.Knowing this I will not call a raise, or place a bet more than $5 preflop with AA, KK, or QQ!!!!! If I bet $2 and it goes to $10 I am usually going to lay that hand down (fold). I almost always check these hands. After the flop, if I don‘t get a set I usually fold if there is a bet over $1.
I used to raise, call, reraise, check-raise, you name it with these hands only to be sickened at the outcome in PARP.Here is why this happens in PARP. You will come to a table and after playing for awhile with correct strategy you will usually win 3-4 hands and your money will be doubled-tripled on average. (You started with a $25 buy in meaning you have $50-$75 at the table.)
Once this happens, (Because of party poker‘s fairness policy), the website will literally COME AFTER YOU. You will start getting 3,4, or 5 Pocket pairs within just 10 hands. (Statistically impossible.) (This is just one of many things the website will throw at you.)
Your temptation and possibly greed will be so overwhelming you will be tempted to —go all in“ with your pocket Aces, Kings, etc. Watch out because you will see the worst bad beats in history. Here is one example of a bad beat that happens all the time.
EX: You flop AA and bet $5 you get raised to $25 by some other player. It‘s obvious he has a Pocket pair as well. Probably kings or queens. The flop comes and there are no face cards. If he has any money left he bets $10 and you call. 4th Street comes and you notice there are 3 spades on the board. You have A diamonds and A clubs. You don‘t know this but your opponent has Q hearts and Q SPADES. 5th st produces a 10 of spades and you lose to a flush with your opponent having the Q of spades.
This has happened to me countless times and it will make your stomach turn. You may work your ass off for an hour and a half and be up $80 in profit to have it all go away with one hand that you statistically were supposed to win.
Solution: Don‘t call AA KK OR QQ with more than a $5 preflop bet. If you don‘t flop the set and the bets are getting big RUN RUN RUN and FOLD!(This is provided that you are winning money on PARP. If you are down money or just getting started these hands on the flip side produce amazing wins. Once your winning consistently though, these hands will come back to haunt you.)
JJ
Pocket Jacks seem to win about half the time in real life and half the time in PARP. One actual congruence. Amazing. I won‘t call pocket jacks for more than $4 preflop. If I bet $2 and it gets raised to $10, I am probably going to lay down(fold) the hand unless I haven‘t won a hand that I have bet on in what seems like ages.
If you don‘t flop the set RUN.10,10 9,9 8,8 7,7 6,6
The best hands in PP. These hands pay off the best. There are pitfalls. I usually slow play or limp in with these hands but make sure the bet is close or up to $3 per player before the flop. I flop set after set with these hands, and they are the absolute hardest for your opponents to read!
Be careful and this is the reason for the slow play. But remember, you have to get something in the pot pre-flop for any hand to pay off.
Example:
You have pocket 6‘s pre flop and there is $12 in the pot. 3 others players are in with you. The flop comes 7s 6h Qs. This is a hand you probably will lose in PARP. Here‘s why. Either someone has a set of 7‘s, or someone is on a flush draw that will probably hit. If you can get away with 4th st for under $2, go for it. If a spade hits on 4th st be careful.
We will touch on bluffing and maniacs later in this book, but in my experience it‘s better to play tight and fold unless you have a great read on your opponent and it‘s obvious he doesn‘t have a flush and was never on a flush draw.
These are also great hands because they are almost impossible to read. When you flop a set with these hands nobody can put you on them especially if you slow play the flop. I will call up to $3 but usually $2 on hands like these.
Here is one great thing to know about PARP and pocket pairs. If you flop a set and there are 3 different suits for the 3 flopped cards and there is only 1 Connected string i.e. (4,5 6,7 8,9 J,Q etc. different suited of course) you are going to win the hand over 90%of the time. You could go all in but you might scare everyone away, so use tact. You definitely need to bet strong say $4-$7 to scare off the players with 2 suited cards in their hands.
The ACEI believe that any ACE, x (x- any card) in PARP is worth a $1 call preflop. I believe that any ACE, s (s-suited card) in PARP is worth up to a $3 call in preflop.
Playing hands like these will never be worth a big pot or raise by another player unless you flop 2 pair, or 4 of the same suit or a straight draw (straight draw with an ace is always inside so be ready to run if the betting gets big)
When you flop 4 of the same suit you have roughly a 1 in 3 chance of making your flush. It is practically worth chasing (semi-bluffing) that hand all the time. Do your best to keep the betting moderate until the flush hits. If the betting is reasonable I will usually stick a hand like that out to see if it hits providing there are at least 2 other players and the betting is reasonable. Another congruence of Real life poker and PARP is that you should never chase a hand unless you are getting good pot odds and you only need one card to hit and there are a lot of ways it can hit.
If your chasing a 7 and you have 2 of them it is NEVER worth chasing unless the table is checking or betting only 50 cents per card.
If your opponent doesn‘t punish you for chasing by betting several dollars or more, then take advantage of it. (providing you only need one card, not two)
If you need 2 cards to make a straight or 2 cards to make a flush after the flop RUN RUN RUN and fold unless it is being checked to you!!!!!!!!
Suited connectors 10,J 8,9 7,6 etc
Suited connectors rock and are by far the most fun hands to play in PARP because they can hit in so many ways. Besides flopping sets these are the second most profitable hands in PARP. I will call up to $4 with these hands pre-flop with suited connectors 8,9 or higher. I will call up to $2 in PARP for suited connectors 7,8 or lower. I.e. 4h, 5h.
It‘s either hit or miss. And you‘ll know. There are only three ways to hit after the flop. You either end up with an open-end straight draw, a 4 card flush draw, or two pair. (naturally you could flop a set, a full house, a straight, a flush, and bigger hands but we‘ll touch on those flops later.)
If you have 8s,9s and the flop is 10s, Jd, you are looking pretty good. To sum it up, it‘s quite simple if you need one card to make the str8 or one card to make the flush it‘s usually worth the ride.
Here are some examples where it‘s not worth the ride in PARP as these come up all the time.Example:
You have 9h,10h and the flop is 7s, 8s, Ad. Be very careful because flushes come out of nowhere in these type of scenarios. What will most likely happen is that someone has just flopped a pair of ACES, and they will start building the pot. Your straight draw is happy to call and so is the flush draw. (if someone has one) If you have been winning a lot you can expect PARP to throw a js or 6s on 4th or 5th street. You make your straight and some pud makes his flush. If the betting is reasonable stay in, but if it gets high get ready to run. You‘ll most likely be beat.
Never chase an inside straight draw unless it‘s so cheap (checked to you or .50 cents) that it‘s worthwhile and there is no flush draw out there as well. Example (6, 8, 9, 10) you need a 7 to hit Good luck be cause it rarely ever happens.
The Small Big Blind:I will CALL category 5-8 on the big blind and small blind providing I can do it for a dollar or less.
By the way a few hands that never seem to hit in PARP are K,J Q,T
A few hands that hit a lot are 3,4 4,7 and 3,5. I will call up to $1 on these hands all day long pre-flop. I would never go over $1 though. I play unsound hands like these 1 out of 30 hands,(unless I am in cycle) ((more on that later)) and these are the three hands I have chosen for those purposes. It helps prevent me from looking like I play too tight to the other players. When these hands win it is so fun to watch the uproar of people saying — I cant‘ believe you played a hand like that“
—LMAO“ I write back to them.
Bluffing: Bluffing is a great tool in no limit hold‘em but should be used with absolute discretion. There are so many call stations in PARP that it can be hard to bluff.(more so in no limit,) You can‘t physically read body language in PARP since your playing on the computer but I can tell you a few things. When someone pauses for 5-15 seconds in PARP and then does a huge raise or they go all in, or match your remaining chips via raise, they are 95% of the time NOT BLUFFING.
When I sense a player is bluffing a lot (usually easy to pick up in PARP because it is very rare to see someone win more than 3 out of 7 hands in a cycle, I will just wait until I have the nuts or an incredibly good hand, and I will pause for less than 3 seconds and then check. When they try to run me over with a big bet I smile to myself and raise or just call. After they fold with my raise or try to rersaise me I just laugh and take all of their money. They then disappear off the table.
Action: —You have to give action to get action“
I am not sure who said that, but it‘s very true. It‘s called no limit hold‘em for a reason. If you get a table that is betting 50 cents here and there, and there is a lot of checking, then that‘s your dream table. That is what you are looking for by the way on PARP. Those people don‘t belong on a no limit table. They belong on a .50/$1 table. It is your job and your responsibility to break the entire table. Here is how you do it.
You should have enough card theory by now ADJUSTED FOR PARP, So let‘s get to the meat of how to make the big money.When you find a table like that, and there are many of them out there… (I just look for the table that has at least 8 players and the smallest pot average ((which is listed under table categories by the way.))
What you do is wait for one of your good starting hands like a medium sized pocket pair or a nice suited connector like 10,J or even an A,xsuited hand. Then you bet $2. Most of the table will fold. Doesn‘t matter what happens win or lose. Get your next good hand and bet $2 before the flop again. Doesn‘t matter what happens. After about 4 or 5 hands that you bet on, which may be 20-30 actual deals (hopefully less) the table will start to get acclimated to YOUR STYLE.
Before you got there everyone was calling a $.50 big blind hoping to catch a great flop and then betting $1or $2 after the flop and then like 7 out of 8 players would fold. Loose passive is what it‘s called; the opposite of a winner on a NO LIMIT HOLDEM TABLE even in PARP.
After you start betting your $2-$3 (only on good hands of course) the players who were calling every $.50 bet will start to get bored and impatient because before you got there, they were calling every blind.
They will step it up a notch with you, but they are still playing the same crappy hands they were playing before but now with a $2 bet and a sense of having pot commitment.
What will happen then is you have to be patient for a really good flop and you just keep betting incrementally higher. Say $3 after the flop $4 4th st and $5 or more $5th st. I always like to mix it up so there‘s no one right way. I might just do $3 $3 $3 flop, 4th , river etc., or $2 $5 $4 etc. with a potential all in on the nuts.
People will start to fear you, they will start to get pissed at you and leave, only to be replaced by yet another person who shouldn‘t be playing no limit hold‘em. This strategy works so well that I can usually turn $100 into $400 within just a few hours. Just remember, even though you bet $2-$3 before the flop that if you don‘t like the flop get out of the hand.
Bankroll:Let‘s talk about bankroll. To play tight aggressive no limit poker, you need at least a $200 bankroll. I will often drop $50-$75 in the first hour or so that I play priming up the table. Then people get excited and start betting more and more. This is where you take advantage. Now instead of someone calling only a $1 raise they will be likely inclined to call $6 or $7 bets, and even all ins. Keep in mind only consider going all in when you have the nuts or damn close to it.
This type of —conditioning“ I like to call it will start to win you pots in excess of over $60 each. You are only looking to win 5-7 big pots in your 4-hour session. You can expect to lose 2-3 pots that you play all the way as well. That‘s why it is better to lose early as you are acclimating the table as the pots will be smaller.
By the way your 4-hour session should be played on at least 2 tables (not at the same time). Figure once your money on the table reaches around $200 it‘s time to leave. The reason is because after you reach around $200 most of the weak players will be long gone and you can expect PARP to throw you second best losing hands at you for up to an hour or so. You can‘t quit for an hour and come back, you must get through the crap PARP will throw at you.
My best session was turning $25 into over $1,200 in less than 2 hours on a no limit $100 table. The only reason that happened though is because only one player left why the others all stayed trying to win their money back. (A lot of luck that day.)
Remember once you win 3-5 hands you can expect up to an hour of getting second best hands while PARP works on evenly distributing your money —fairly“ back to the players. After playing for a long time you will begin to recognize the patterns of PARP.
I think of it like a slot machine. It has payouts and pay ins. PARP is so blatant about it that you will hit 4 of a kind say 4 10‘s on 4th st only to lose to a straight or royal flush. Happens all the time!!!
More bad beats to watch out for:4 of a kinds are so common on PARP it is sickening. I know these types of bad beats happen in real life, don‘t get me wrong. I have played thousands of hours in casinos all over the world and have seen many incredible bad beats. BUT I HAVE NEVER SEEN AS MANY BAD BEATS WITH THE FREQUENCY AS I HAVE ON PARP!!!!!!!!!!!
I play a lot of $100 no limit on PARP and the players are of a different caliber. Regardless, one night I dropped $600 in 30 minutes. Here‘s what happened. In 10 consecutive hands I had AA 4 times KK 2 times QQ 1 time and JJ one time, A,Ks and A,K. Every hand lost and 6 of those times it was to a lower pocket pair that flopped a set or caught a flush meaning 4 suited cards on the 5 card layout!
Talk about sickening. I was up $500 from a different table that took hours of work, and I lost it all in a twinkling of the eye with some of the best possible starting hands!!!!!!
The solution, which I finally found, was to only bet big when I had the nuts in PARP. And to mostly check category1 hands in PARP. I also do a lot of trapping. When I start out with the nuts I usually slow play to see where the table is going.
I want you to know that with these strategies you can win several hundred dollars playing $25 no limit hold‘em in PARP in just a 4-hour session. Some days you can easily drop a $100 or so. But if you apply the principles and take heed to the pitfalls of PARP, you can be up consistently every single week while playing online.
Here‘s my advice; start with play money. Go into a $25 no limit play money table. The blinds are smaller in play money by the way. (.10 and .25) Find a weak passive table. Check the pot averages to find it. Play aggressive. If you play categories 1-5 plus all pocket pairs, bet no less than $2 if you decide to bet on a hand. (check category 1 hands except J,J and A,Ks) If the flop sucks run, but occasionally call a .50 bet to throw people off your tracks. When you hit a good flop incrementally raise the stakes (a blessing of no limit). I would say that after you turn $100 into $500 on a single table (play money) at least 20 times!!! you are ready for the real thing. I would recommend getting your play money account up to at least $10,000 strictly from $25 play money buy-ins on No Limit Hold‘em. That means you buy in for $25 play money and maybe you lose it. Buy in for $25 more, and maybe you lose that. You‘ll know you have PARP figured out well when you lose no more than $100 ($25 at a time) and have your table money built up to $500 consistently.
I did a test the other day and it took less than 45 minutes per table. I started with $25 play money, and I was able to get up to $700 on the first table. $489
on the second table. (Everyone left one by one, it was funny.) and over $1,000
on the third table.
It‘s not quite that easy in real money because the weak players will usually leave sooner. That‘s why a good real money goal is to get up to $190 with a $100 budget per table. ($90 net profit per table) I say $190 because it usually takes me twice as much time to get from $25 to $200 as it does to get to $190
don‘t ask me why! (Another PARP pitfall?)
It is very important to mix up your bets. So when I give you a hand with a max call amount pre flop, you should check, bet, or raise to get as close to the max call amount with different increments as you can. That way the other players will have a very tough time getting a good read on your play style.
RECAP:JJMax pre-flop amount is $4. Again, toss up your play with these starting hands so people can‘t get a read on you. Aks or AKMax pre-flop amount is $3-$4. If you don‘t flop a pair a straight draw or a flush draw with the suited version get ready to run.
TT 99 88 77
TT 99 88 77
Max pre-flop amount is $3. If you miss the set get ready To run unless the betting remains small. If you do flop a set and you see 2 suited cards on the flop, proceed with great caution.
suited cards on the flop, proceed with great caution.
Max pre-flop amount is $2-$3. You really need to flop a set to make these hands killers. Same principles apply with the bigger pairs above. A,xsMax pre-flop amount if $3 preferably LESS. Flop 2 more Of the Same suit and you are in nut draw heaven.A2 A3 A4 A5
A10 AJ AQMax pre-flop amount is $2. If you don‘t flop two pair With the 2,3,4,or 5 or a straight draw, get ready to run if the betting starts to get big.
betting starts to get big.
Not a very worthwhile hand, however I will call these hands up to $1 when I am in the big or small blind in PARP. They rarely hit but, when they do, they are huge. They rarely hit but, when they do, they are huge. Max pre-flop amount is $3. If the hand hits you know What to do.What to do. Max pre-flop is $2. Besides the pocket pairs, I only play These hands with discretion. I always check these hands and if a bet happens early in the position or I am early in
position (pre-flop) I will usually lay the hand down. I almost always play these hands when I am in the big or Small blind.
What is a HIT?Leave luck to the other players. Luck is a good part of No Limit Hold‘em, but rely on it as little as possible. Leave luck for the weak players. Whether you want to play for fun or to make money, or both, do yourself a favor and be a strong player. That means folding hands a lot if they don‘t hit well. Here are the only types of hands you should consider playing out after the flop.
Largest Pair on board with a HIGH kicker.
Two Pair.
4 card straight draw.
4 card flush draw.
Small pair but with a flush or straight draw as well.
Straight
Flush
Full House
4 of a kind
Straight Flush or Royal Flush
(OTHER HANDS APPLY BUT ONLY IF YOUR ON A CYCLE) (discussed later)
Flop a straight and you only have a 50% chance of winning in PARP. If there are 3 different suits on the flop then bet strong. You will win 80% of the time.
Flopping the Flush:Flop a flush in PARP, and you will win 60% of the time. (90% if you have the ACE) If the board pairs you are probably going to lose to a full house in PARP 50% of the time.
Flopping the boat:Flop a boat in PARP and you will win 90% of the time.
These hands are easy to win money if you follow this strategy. If there was betting action before the flop, then you have pot commitment, and you can bet moderate bets all the way to the end. Say, $2 after flop $4 on 4th st , and if some sucker is still in go all in at the end if you still have the nuts.
If you don‘t build pots ( you need too, to be successful in no limit hold‘em), everyone will FOLD when you flop a full boat 90% of the time. Remember, —you have to give action to get action.“
When you get 4 of a kind (providing there is no straight or royal flush draw), this is PARP‘s way of saying we‘ve decided to screw your opponent. 90% of the time if the 4 of a kind comes out right, you will be able to get an all in bet called to pay you off. Usually, I would say 75% of the time the other players will be raising you. Although 4 of a kind is rare, they come up a lot on PARP.