by EscapePlan9 » Fri Sep 02, 2005 8:54 am
Stick with the "tight" starting hands in Small Stakes Hold'Em as long as the table is loose (more than 3 people seeing the flop on average). Raise when it says raise, call when it says call, fold when it says fold. Don't stray from the guidelines when you're starting out. This should bring your VP$IP down to around 15-20%.
With experience the pot odds will become easier to calculate. When the flop comes, quickly glance at how many other people are in the hand. That's how many small bets are in the pot in an unraised pot. (If it were raised once pre-flop, then just multiply the people in the hand times 2, since they all called 2 bets.) From there the calculations should be simple:
6 people in the hand. There's a bet and call before you. That makes it 6 bets (people in the hand) + 1 (the bet) + 1 (the call) = 8 bets. That means it costs you 1 bet to see a pot of 8, so you're getting 8:1 odds. When you call there's now 9 small bets in the pot.
To calculate the turn just divide the amount of small bets in half. That's how many big bets are in the pot. In this example, there would be 9 / 2 or 4.5, which you can round to 5 to simplify things. Now it goes bet-raise to you, making it 5 (initial pot) + 1 (the bet) +2 (the raise), making it 8 big bets in the pot, and 2 to call, giving you 4:1 odds.
Practice calculating the odds that way and it'll become easy.
As you may recall from reading SSHE, Sklansky and Miller heavily researched which hands have positive expected value from which positions. Anytime raising pre-flop has positive expected value, you should do it. That's why you raise AKs nearly every time from every position. Sure, the flop might not pair up your A or K, but sometimes you'll pick up backdoor straight and flush draws, and plus, sometimes your ace-high might be the best hand right then. AK is simply such a monster of a hand that you should raise it pre-flop.
Raising the suggested hands pre-flop will show a profit in the long run. Your winnings will increase by raising these hands pre-flop. You WANT more money in the pot with these strong hands.