Well I've looked at a few styles of play, and I've tested them out. The Phill Hellmuth tight agressive play and the Brunson agressive play. What I've found is you really have to combine the two and adjust depending on what kind of players you are against. Some tables you just can't bluff anyone off a pot, it doesn't take too many tries for it to fail and people see you fail at it before everyone is eager to call your bluff.
That is where you have to be aware of your table immage, what do the players think of me right now. One of the things that Brunson says is " I give action so I get action" this is very true. The tightest player in the world can sit and play nothing but the top cards, the problem comes from three things. #1 It takes alot of time to wait for those cards, and then sometimes the flop won't even help , you'll miss a pair or your JJ finds a flop of over cards. #2 If you are only playing those cards and only betting on them if people are aware they will cut off your action, ah the "rock" just pre flop raised $2 for the first time in 25 minutes, everyone folds. So next time you slow play it, which brings us to #3 You can still lose with premium cards. So you wait all night, now you got AA, you can't bet it too hard before the flop you did that 40 minutes ago and won 35 cents, so you slow play it ... ahh ... 6 people in the pot flop comes 5,6,8 with a flush draw .... eek ... I better go for it now raise $15 :( someone called on the flush and won it.
Brunson's stratagey is super agressive, in theory picking up alot of small pots cause people are scared of you, you use that pot money to gamble on big hands that have outs. Since your not always buying, not always gambling, sometimes you'll have the best hand, some times you'll get "lucky" sometimes people will think your loose and give you action, it all works out in the end... in theory. The hard thing is establishing this in the players minds. Some players it just won't work against, sometimes you have a bad string where 3 times your bluffs fail, and you run into the nutz when you think you have the better hand, then your immage is ruined, you have to play tight for a hour to get the money back off the action you'll get since you seem to suck, then another hour to get it threw your opponents minds that you are a dangerous man, with out going broke again.
Some where in the middle is where i'm trying to keep it. The one thing I am learning to do alot of though is play alot of pots and buy alot of pots. The two go hand and hand, also learning the difference between isolation hands and drawing hands. Hands you want people in and hands you want everyone out of. That blew my mind that i'd ever want more people in a pot as it takes away my chances to win, but believe it or not sometimes you do.
If i am in the big blind and i have Q,7 i've invested 25 cents in it, now someone raises it to $1.75, and the next two guys call. That's a pot of $5.50 and i have to put in $1.50 to have a shot at it. I'm willing to go with a Q,7 off suit at that pot. If no one else had called the raise and it was $2 pot and $1.50 for me to get in it heads up with Q,7 ... what's the point?
As this particular hand played out 2,6,7 rainbow comes up, i make a bet of $2 and have one caller, I believe he is the original raiser. Next card comes up Q, I think it is my bet and i bet $3, he comes back at me putting me all in for $30. I go for it and he has AQ, my Q,7 holds up and wins, he leaves the table in disgust.
Relative pre flop hand strenght is all based on , if nothing comes up, if nothing comes up AK has Ace high best kicker, AA is very strong cause it's a pair of aces with out any help etc. The thing is no one knows what is going to happen on a flop. If it's going to be all Spades, if QQ9 is going to come out etc etc, even the strongest hands can get beat by the flop. If i was playing like i used to , very tight then i would have folded that Q,7 off suit with out even thinking.
Give action .. get action. Now people see i call $2 raises with off suit rags? Now they either think i'm loose , stupid or very smart. Either way they dont' know what I play with and wether that flop of 4,9,J that came up gave me the nutz or not after they raised with AK suited and missed and now i'm betting out the pot. So they fold, or maybe they call, and maybe I have the jack etc etc .
Earlier i had a hand where i had J,4 off suit and the flop was 3 rag's with a clubs flush draw. Everyone checks then one guy bets $3 at the pot of $5 , I take it to be a weak bet and see how he will react to my reraise up to $5 , he calls it. Now it's my turn to bet as the next card isn't a club. I bet $5 and he calls it. River comes up no club, now my gut is saying you've put like $12 into this hand and if you bet him $5 and he has the nutz or any of these cards he may come back at you for $20 and you have nothing, you have jack high also known as jack shit lol , but yet the voice of good poker, the voice of how i win this hand says, Bet and if he missed his flush he will fold, i bet $5 and he folds the hand.
If he had come back at me? I would have lost ... if he called? I would have lost ... You have to be at peace with that, if that happens. If he happens then everyone see's I bet $5 at absolutely nothing, then I rebuy my chips and start to play like a rock, makin the same bet plays as I did when i was bluffing hopeing someone walks into my nutz. Rest assured I don't make plays like that very often the total bluff, but i felt weakness and I decided to pounce on it , god i love saying that.

6:15 pm How is it possible to play poker better on a Wensday after noon then it is to play on a friday night. Maybe it's playing against better players who don't chase as much? Or maybe it's bad luck? Or maybe i'm not thinkin right but I just lose 3 sit and goes, haven't done that since i started playing them. Everyone's hitting tripples against me, my pre flop raises aren't paying off, missing my flushes, my bluffs aren't working and the final kick in the nuts is that one time where you force yourself to let the hand go , my A,6 on a Q,6,Q flop, King comes up , there's a flush that i don't have a chance to have, i bet and get reraised, he must have a flush , he also reraised before the flush, so he may have a Q, both which beat my 6, so i fold before the river, river comes up Q, the guy wins with his flush when i would have had the full house.

6:18 pm Finally some luck, going in on A,4 the flop comes up A,K,8 with 2 hearts, I call as do 3 other players, when the 3rd heart hits I bet and everyone folds. Back to a little over even 815 chips

6:22 pm 3 Huge hands in a row, the first was A,4 again, again a back door flush hits but not for me, I play as if i hit it, everyone folds except one guy, my Ace beats his pocket 10's. Next hand has pocket JJ, flop is ,7,9,10 , next card comes up 8. I go all the way with a guy holding A,K . Next hand has J,8 suited clubs, flop comes 3 clubs, 9,10,8. 5 guys are in and all 5 guys go past the turn as , 7 h, and 5 d come out. One guy has pocket AA, another guy was chasing the possible flush. Another huge hand A,K off suit and K,Q,8 rainbow comes up. I win another hand.

6:26 pm 1945 in chips Party poker taughts me with AK suited and KQ suited, both of which i raise pre flop and hit nothing, not even one of the right suit.

k9 lookin fine , suited k,9 in the small blind lets me see a flop with high card 9 rainbow. I bet it out have one caller, bet out 100 chips, still one caller, 9 hits on the river giving me 3 of them. I bet they fold.

10/10, I raise it against the two blinds , big blind calls then folds to the next bet with JJ5 out 2370 in chips.

With that many chips I am almost gaurenteed the money if I decide to wait it out, the only flops i'll bother getting into are the top hands or checking into a blind. I won't risk going below 2000 chips. As can be seen by me folding a tempting A,9 off suit in late position. I really want to make the money in this one, not making the money would be devestating to my confidence.

6:40 pm Folding suited low connectors i'm not even going to watch the hands cause I know one of them will hit. I don't need the temption.

6:43 pm My friend Sue wishes me Luck ...

6:44 pm I shit you not ... delt AA, take a guy to the turn 2845 chips.

Chip counts

Total number of players : 4

Seat 4: masterdeb8er ( $1045 )

Seat 9: samuel11076 ( $1350 )

Seat 8: MiS77077 ( $2760 )

Seat 5: day2daley ( $2845 )

Trny:13959306 Level:5 Stakes (150/300)

6:53 I get delt pocket A,A I'm not in the blind so I decide to slow play it. I call 300 chips and get both players in, hand comes up J,9,8, all 3 players raise and reraise along the way betting it up and up. In the end believe it or not they had Pocket 88 and Pocket 99, BOTH hitting their sets to beat my aces. I come 3rd place and net $9.

Hi for those of you who don't know me I'm Daley, 25/m Canada. I play some online poker,I'm rather new to it. I've been playing for about 4 months. Originally I started by playing at $25 NL Holdem tables. I thought poker would be easy compared to Magic the Gathering a Collectible card game that I have played for over 10 years and I'm considered a pro player in.

Well I quickly learned there were many things to learn about he game if I wanted to play it for money and learn. I lost some money right off the bat, but kept going back to learn the game, I considered it a investment.

My big revelation is that the $25 NL tables are bad, I can't win consitently on them. What happens is you wait 45 minutes for a good hand, get delt KK, bet all in pre flop for $20 and A guy with AJ calls, gets a Ace and you lose. The swings are too big. In the end it would leave me
feeling depressed, it was also a large investment of time. Often times I'd lose 3 or 4 big hands
in a row, look back and realize I did nothing wrong, It was just a bad beat, but that doesn't
make the money come back.
I changed to Holdem sit and go tournaments. $5 or $10 or $20 , 10 players sit and play,800 chips each until they are eliminated one by one, then the top 3 players receive prizes,for a $10 tourny it's $50/$30/$20 prizes.
I started to play limit holdem and it was sooooo stress free compared to NL, you can make a mistake, take a bad beat and even get down to 100 chips and come back and win. Good over all play is what wins the tournament. I played 16 tournaments and won 13 times, coming 4th twice. Buy won I mean came in the money.

For anyone out there who plays online I suggest trying the sit and goes and give normal Holdem a try. Poker is a great game, it offers what my game of choice "magic" never has been able to offer me. That is the ability to play in tournaments easily on a level where I could potentially turn it into my living. I once played with the best in the world but had to travel to San Diego from my home in PEI , eastern Canada.

For the amount of money I spend on that trip $1200 I could go on Party poker and play my hearts content, BUCK NAKED , drinking Iced cappachino's and likely win more money. That's a huge bonus. The other bonus is that poker is so easy to learn many people play and consider it gambling , they just play every card, every hand and hope to win.

So for now Poker is my game of choice. Holdem $10 sit and goes. I found a sit online I had heard of , where you can do searches on players names and find their wins/losses from party poker sit and goes and over all hands etc. They also have a chart that tells you what win % = the ability of the player. I was excited to see that in the $10 sit and goes they have recorded I have a money win percent of 54%, anything above 40% is considered a pro poker player. So If I can keep makin the money, improving my game who knows what will happen.