Poker Tip Man Armen-"Under The Gun" with Pocket Rockets
Playing “Under The Gun,” is the worst position in poker. You are always at a disadvantage in this position, no matter what cards you are holding. You are first to act preflop so raising too much with pocket aces often scares your opponents and you don't get any action. Slow playing aces is a recipe for disaster. So, what do you do?
The best practice; playing under the gun with aces is to min-raise. This sends a message to your opponents. Normally, experienced player won't mess with you by reraising because they feel you are strong since you raised out of position. They will often fold or smooth call. I don't recommend playing big with pocket aces under the gun if you get more than two callers to your original min-raise. Pot control is necessary when playing only top pair, especially against three or more players. Inexperienced players will most likely test you with a reraise holding a mediocre hands like KJ or AJ. This is your opportunity to 4 bet and build the pot preflop. At the same time isolate the inexperienced player by getting everyone else to fold. Once you got the fish hooked, go ahead and chomp it down.
(Here is a short clip of a shark chomping away on a hooked fish.)
Link:(m.youtube.com/watch?v=T79VrXtWMrI)
Most inexperienced players limp-in with aces under the gun hopping for a raise. I don't recommend you do that. So always be cautious when you see someone limping-in under the gun and firing big on the flop. This should set an alarm for aces.
Having pocket aces under the gun can get you in trouble, so try to avoid playing big against more than two opponent. Be ready to fold if you get the hunch that they may have two-pair or better. Save your stack for a later opportunity to play big in late position with a strong hand like pocket aces.
Play Hard, Play Smart and Play in Position.
Here is the link to the edited pic above: https://www.google.com/search?q=gun&client=ms-android-verizon&prmd=nimv&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiNn8Cx643PAhWQpYMKHdgMBmAQ_AUICCgC&biw=360&bih=560#imgrc=SD0NlwXA7tevvM%3A
I am flagging this and your other post because its clear you know practically nothing about poker, and i suspect many of your articles are simply paraphrased from poker books.
Also, these posts are overvalued. I would be thrilled to have legitimate poker strategy posts here on steemit to support, but having posts like this upvoted takes a ton of credibility away from the platform with real poker players.
I would let this one stand if the advice given was not so absurd.
I wouldn't necessarily say it's bad advice. I play at Potawatomi in Milwaukee, I'm pretty well known there. I wouldn't say I'm a pro, but I consistently win. I wouldn't necessarily use this strategy, but it would be useful for a noob to reduce losses while learning to read the table and recognize how other players bet hands. @armen seems like a mid-level player that likes to slowly build his stack for small gains without taking risks. I personally spend more time in the weeds than a gardener, and I'm usually content to go for the check raise with aces, and fold them later if no one bites and the flop is ugly. Depends how tight the table is, but I don't sit down with less than 10x the max buy in on cash games, so I have no problem shoving and taking a chance on bad beat, under the gun or otherwise. I'll get it back later.
youll have to explain to me how that works.. oh nm I see what you're saying like for rebuys.
But You're right. It isnt necessarily bad advice. It isnt specific enough to be necessarily anything.
What is a really terrible way to play aces, short of open folding? How you play aces UTG, as daut explained (he slow ponied me) is dependent on a wide variety of factors., none of which OP discusses. In almost all cases, a utg minraise is pretty bad, but nothing is really really terrible. I could make an OK justification for an openshove. or a l/rr. It depends on stack, your image, how aggro the table is, etc etc.
Generally, you will find that there is no good strategic advice in poker that posits "You should play XXX hand in YYY position by doing ZZZ" because every poker game is different. There are a ton of different variables that come in to play,
NOw if you sit down and you write something like "I play in XXX game and i am usually 200bb deep and in this game, i find that the optimal UTG open with aces is XXX because YYY ZZZ" then thats great. Even if i dont necessarily agree with you that it is the optimal strategy, im all for the value of the post.
And if i do disagree, I can list a bunch of reasons, with a math analysis and actually have an intelligent dialough. Rather than you say "i minraise utg" and i give a bunch of reasons why thats non optimal and you say "But a famous scammer said to do it in 2006 and it works for me so i must be right"
Especially if youre coming from a live lowstakes NL cashgame perspective (and a quick check on bravo seems to indicate that powotami is a low stakes cardroom), that might very well be an OK strategy. Daut (who plays online HSNL i think) would get his ass handed to him in his particular game with that strategy.
Which is the problem. The problem isnt with the specific course of action itself (though there is almost no situation where I give a utg minraise better than a c+), its with the complete generality and vagueness of the analysis. Take any X where X is some theoretical way to play aces, throw in a few platitudes about playing position and not losing big pots, and you have a really terrible analysis that tells you nothing.
As to a flop checkraise, unless the competition is LOLbad, thats a pretty terrible strategy. The problem is you're almost never going to get action when you're good (at least not against decent players... if youre playing against a bunch of metal defectives crai all day). When you combine the early position open with the flop crai, you pretty much turn your hand face up. In a weak game, this is non optimal but you still might make a little money.
Like I said in my other comment, there is no right or wrong answer. It's all situational. These guys that sell online poker guides saying you can quit you job and become a pro overnight following their "foolproof poker method" are scammers. If the table is playing tight, a check raise wont work, sometimes a min raise gets everyone to fold unless they have big slick or KK, QQ, JJ, etc. Then again, if I'm at a table like that I ask for a move right away and fold most hands until I move. No point leaving money at a table I'm about to walk away from. If I'm playing with noobs I check raise them out of their rent money. Then again with noobs they might call with a 7-4 offsuit and hit the inside straight or quads or god knows what else. It's a chance you take. If I'm playing pros (and I've played against a few of them), I might pull the check raise once, but I know better than to run with it. A seasoned player will throw some money in the pot just to see how you play, especially at Potawotomi, the limits are too low to scare off a fishing expedition. The moral is, there are too many variables to say a specific play is right in any situation. The only SOLID advice for noobs is, play some hands with yourself, until you are good enough to calculate your outs on the fly. Watch the table, and instead of focusing on your hand, determine how many hands can beat you, do you have 1st nuts, second nuts, or are you chasing? A lot of pros will throw away 5s to a min raise pre-flop, I wont. If I think I can get heads up against an AJ offsuit from someone who is short stacked, I will shove knowing the odds are in my favor. My way isn't the right way, but I make good money, 50-60,000/yr playing a few nights a week
exactly.
also, you said "play with yourself"
Like I said in my other comment, there is no right or wrong answer. It's all situational. These guys that sell online poker guides saying you can quit you job and become a pro overnight following their "foolproof poker method" are scammers. If the table is playing tight, a check raise wont work, sometimes a min raise gets everyone to fold unless they have big slick or KK, QQ, JJ, etc. Then again, if I'm at a table like that I ask for a move right away and fold most hands until I move. No point leaving money at a table I'm about to walk away from. If I'm playing with noobs I check raise them out of their rent money. Then again with noobs they might call with a 7-4 offsuit and hit the inside straight or quads or god knows what else. It's a chance you take. If I'm playing pros (and I've played against a few of them), I might pull the check raise once, but I know better than to run with it. A seasoned player will throw some money in the pot just to see how you play, especially at Potawotomi, the limits are too low to scare off a fishing expedition. The moral is, there are too many variables to say a specific play is right in any situation. The only SOLID advice for noobs is, play some hands with yourself, until you are good enough to calculate your outs on the fly. Watch the table, and instead of focusing on your hand, determine how many hands can beat you, do you have 1st nuts, second nuts, or are you chasing? A lot of pros will throw away 5s to a min raise pre-flop, I wont. If I think I can get heads up against an AJ offsuit from someone who is short stacked, I will shove knowing the odds are in my favor. My way isn't the right way, but I make good money, 50-60,000/yr playing a few nights a week
Edit: There is ONE foolproof way to make money, but I can't do it anymore as I am a US player. Back when I could play online, (legally), I played speed poker. I would play four tables at a time, buying in for max. I would fold anything worse than QQ, except JJ which I would play out and fold if I dint like the flop. Otherwise I waited for QQ or better. Playing 450-500 hands an hour, I would get those hands about 10 times, and I did the same thing every time, check raise to any bet. If no one bet, I folded preflop and moved on. I would win about 3 out of 4 hands. When I won, I would cash out of that table, wait a few min, and buy back in for the original amount. I once bought in for a total of $40 and had about 2,300 two hours later.
Agree entirely about not being very good. The plagiarism angle is weak though. I saw the neck tell thing on a TV show once, it is all over the place and someone writing about isn't ripping it off, just writing about reasonably common knowledge.
thats fair enough.... As i said at the beginning, my main issue here was very very basic content being (in my mind) grossly overvalued. For example, the most recent, a repost of a 10 year old poker video.
fwiw i wanted this poster to get better (i check the poker tag pretty regularly and i saw him from his second post or so)...
that said, this got me on the scent of breakout poker and now im intrigued. SO maybe a little positive outcome
https://steemit.com/whales/@throw-away911/who-is-armen
So which is it? Is it bad advice or taken from a book? Books give bad advice so it must be taken from a book? Or books give good advice so it must be taken from a book?
It sounds like you are just shotgunning with accusations. I'm downvoting you and upvoting the post to discourage your behavior. I'll keep an eye on you now.
@sigmajin is right. This blog post is completely absurd. It reads as if it is written by a guy who played poker for a week, as do his other posts. Want me to make a proper poker strategy post this week to show you the difference between what a real professional poker player writes and someone who is definitely not a winning poker player does?
(reposted this from a different reply because the other is max nested and allowed for no discussion)
I didn't flag this post because I'm not certain it's copy pasted or anything like that and don't think it deserves a flag (I basically only flag for plagiarism or wrongful attacks), but I don't think it deserves upvotes. You are free to do with your upvotes as you please, but this is terrible poker advice and poorly written, so I would advise against promoting things like this.
Hi Ryan! Today I started reading your blog, I definitely started following you I am nothing more than a big poker enthusiast and I do agree what @armen is saying is pretty basic stuff and he is leaving out lots of factors, I hope you actually do a series of poker strategies posts you would have my vote for sure (though I do not have lots of power yet). Looking forward to it.
Ryan... i was on chat half way to asking you to come to this thread and decided fuck it i dont want to get anyone else involved.
Regardless the poker gods and I appriciate you coming in and sounding off (and I personally would love to see poker strat on here...)
Here are specific things I will point out about this post:
There is no mention of many important pieces of information: how many players at the table, how many BB most players have, cash game or tournament, what your range of hands is in this spot, what people will play against your UTG range, and what you do with other hands. These are things that you have to know before stating something like "minraise aces UTG".
If someone reraises you that is a 3bet. If you then reraise back that is a 4bet (he called it a 3bet). Not knowing this is a very strong indication he is not a professional poker player, and was not something he could have just messed up.
How do you do that when you minraise? You are asking for multiple people to call a small raise. The bb will almost always come along vs a minraise, and a few players at a 9 handed table will too. Minraising utg is asking for the pot to go 3-4 way.
Basically this post contained a very cursory overview of an extremely specific situation in poker and missed out on tons of important things to note, and actually gives wrong advice for a number of situations: generally you want to 3x UTG with your entire range in cash games, and aces is included in that.
I would like proof this person is a professional poker player, and I'm sure if I show this article to 10 professionals right now all 10 would say it's not worthy of even being in a Hold'em for Dummies book.
For the record, as someone who played professionally for many years and still writes strategy for a number of sites, I wholeheartedly support everything @daut44 & @sigmajin are saying. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news @steemed, but if you're partial to poker content I'd be happy to begin posting more of it here as well.
seriously?! wow. so many poker players on here! welcome :)
When I said min-raise UTG with aces it applies to poker in general weather its a cash game or a tournament. Not to a short game or the final 2 tables in a tournament. I understand there are many other factors, but the post refers to general terms when holding aces UTG. As far as a 3 bet, you are correct I ment to write 4 bet. (Thanks for pointing out, i will make the correction) I still firmly believe going 2x is the way to go...try it before you knock it as I've tried 3x and found that 2x is better with aces UTG. For some reason, with a 2x raise people almost always test you with a 3 bet; which is something you want. If you read the last part of the post, you can see that the point is to play agressive or big in late position not UTG, unless you can go head's up . You dont need to ask 10 pros you can just ask Chris Ferguson on how to play aces UTG. Thanks for your time and constructive criticism.
I don't mean to disparage your poker skill, and do hope you continue posting here, as this platform is in dire need of more poker content, but I don't think you should post technical advice blogs and don't think they should receive huge rewards as I think it's weak strategy. I've played millions of hands of poker, have been a professional player for 10 years, done coaching on both in game play and game theory approaches, and also made videos for training sites and I think spreading correct and sound information to new players is important.
But I would love to hear some poker stories from players of all levels, and you definitely have experience playing poker, so write up some fun stories and people will enjoy them. Followed you :)
I do not think this particular post was taken from a book, I downvoted it because of its terrible, ridiculously bad poker advice. I challenge you to find a single successful poker player who would tell you otherwise.
The previous two articles (the one about tells and the one about the rule of 2 and 4) were most likely taken from super system and Phil Gordon's book. I don't have either of those books handy, so I'm not sure if it was word for word or paraphrased. But regardless of the extent to which they were copied, i felt both posts were overvalued and I voted my conscience.
If you want to follow me and downvote me that's certainly your right. I can only speak and vote my conscience. I feel i expressed my reasons for the downvote as clearly and respectfully as possible. I could have simply downvoted and said nothing, but i didn't feel that was fair to the poster.
Except in obvious situations (like spam or identity theft) I rarely use my downvote this way. But in this situation, as an expert in the field, I felt like this was a clear downvote to me. Im sorry you don't agree.
Two more points -- then ill stfu
1 -- I realize that there is some controversy about some authors you recruited, and whether you ought to be voting for them or some such nonsense. This isnt that. In fact, if you look back through steemit chat, i was the guy in there arguing that it was silly to try to tell you who you could and couldnt vote for.
This is a professinal poker player downvoting bad poker content. And it is really really bad. If you don't believe me, go ask daut44, mihudee or any other poker player on the platform (disclaimer, i havent asked them what they think about these posts... im just assuming based on them knowing the game and what good poker content looks like)
2-- I appriciate you not killing my rep with your downvote. I realize you could have.
I didn't recruit this poster, but my understanding is that they are professional full time poker players. I also consulted another person who I know is a professional player and they said that the advice wasn't unreasonable. There is a lot of flag abuse that I feel is coming from jealous or from unnamed competitor projects and I'm starting to get tired of it. You might have been expressing an honest opinion at the wrong place and time. I recommend, on advice like this, if you think it's bad, post why it is bad and some examples maybe from professional tournaments where this advice was proven unsound.
The informaton provided in this post or any other post came from my thoughts and experiences. I didnt paraphrase other poker authors. As far as bad poker advice...im open for discussion. Please point out the bad advice and i'll be more than happy to elaborate. Poker players have different styles of play so strategies may differ.
See the two quotes above. I stand by my statement. ANd I am morally certain that if i was willing to spring for a copy of supersystem too, i would find the same thing about the neck tell... because the only time i have ever heard anyone talk about the throbbing neck tell thingy is "ridiculous things i read in supersystem" and similar conversations.
This guy is giving terrible advice probably taken from books written by bad poker players...
https://steemit.com/whales/@throw-away911/who-is-armen
Phil gordons little green book (p. 178):
this author:
That might not be C+P, but its an obvious paraphrase.
Thanks for posting but I never read that book. Like I said before, it's my experiance and thoughts. Of course you will see a parallel in thoughts as we are talking about the same thing. This only supports the fact that I'm giving good advice.
that seems to be really similar wording... idk looks like paraphrase to me... either that or the information is so general as to be worthless.... either way, i stand by my position
No not general or wothless
it seems like it would be fairly easy to win a poker debate when you ahev a whale or two flagging everyone who disagrees with you.... I will let readers be the judge. But you have two pros, one of whom is famous and well known, telling you everything you posted was horrible... Id think you would take the hint.
It's easy to lose when you keep harping and don't let up on the harassment. I'd suggest that you have made your point and it's time to move on.
We all have our opinions. I did post a video of a major pro that backs up my post that out ranks any semi-pro you are talking about. Also you did bring up a published pro talking about the same thing as me so...just drop all the negativity. If you dont agree with me doesn't mean i dont know what im talking about.
Well... it could be a coincidence. It's a fundamental concept that any poker player knows. This is a very common way of explaining it.
I'm less concerned about it being plagiarism than the extremely low quality.
EDIT: Although after looking a bit harder, I think it's not unreasonable to suspect plagiarism... But there seems to be some care taken to disguise it... Also probably a language issue that will make a lot of it hard to work out.
Can't tell you how many times I've lost with Aces or KK under the gun. I would almost rather have suited big slick. You gotta play to the table a little bit. Sometimes you get a tight table where a minimum bet under the gun makes everyone fold. That's fine, take the Ante's. I'd rather be at a loose table with a couple guys trying to buy the pot every time. In that situation I DO check the Aces and wait on one of them to bet, and even better the other one to call. Then I shove, and chances are either they both fold or I'm heads up with the better hand preflop and no second guessing myself because of a reraise. I'll take heads up with Aces preflop every time, and accept the bad beat if it comes.
Yea getting heads-up is ideal with pocket aces. Its hard to accomplish heads-up under the gun. Thanks for your thoughts and the upvote.
It depends on how you play. I tend to make most of my money on check raises, especially with players that aren't familiar with my style. Fold fold fold, maybe show a strong hand that would have been a small winner, shake my head and dwell on how I should have called...Then when I start the check raises, they say "Jesus, this guy plays tight, he must have the nuts". Sometimes I'll check raise with 7-2 offsuit, if I'm confident they'll fold and I feel like someone might call me next time. Show them the bluff, then make sure I actually have the nuts next time I raise. Now if I'm playing other regulars or a pro shows up, I'll try to get them on tilt with a few bluff shows, see if I can get them to overvalue hands and start throwing money around. It's all relative. No two tables are the same, no two players are the same, and no one strategy is "foolproof" every time.