when to fold, when to play.

[Claire]

I am playing a live tournament on wednesday with 4 players. We will be playing texas holdem. I am a beginner, the others have all be playing a resonable amount of time. One of the guys said to me that unless i have a jack/ten or higher then i should proberly fold. what are peoples opinions of this? any other advise for the night?

[scrawnybob]

hi Claire

looks like your going to be the newbee at a short table home game ?

basically with a short table of 4-6 players you will be putting in alot more blinds and need to play accordingly - people will try to steal and bluff more

that said if they are tight players then this gives you the opportunity to steal the blinds from the button

late postion is only really on the button - as the middle postion is also under the gun

it may well be that they know each others plays really well - so you need to pick up on this and possibly take advantage of your newbee status - they wont know your game

certainly small pocket pairs become more valuable in a short handed game

I would try to see as many flops cheaply as you possibly can as most of the hands will be much more marginal if only 4 players getting dealt out

this will mean most of the time everyone will be getting margin / junk hands - which you will have to play to some degree or another - just dont pay too much to draw on a hand

but dont think everyone will have the nuts all the time because they wont

hope thats a help

cheers scrawnybob