If so, what would your strategy be?

You can't use any notes, you can't get any read of any kind...

How on earth do you play this profitably?

Play your approximation of GTO and hope it's either closer than your opponents, or accidentally exploits there strategy.

What would you consider to be GTO here? That was exactly what I was asking.

Hold on, let me type up my whole GTO strategy real quick.

Give me a year or two though.

Really I ought to finish up my book first, though "How to play every possible hand of poker"

Thinking that you're book on Sarcasm will be better accepted though.

Clearly I was just asking for some basic ABC tips.

You can keep track of some of the larger stack sizes between hands.

You can get player pool reads on what certain actions mean in specific situations mean.

You can make assumptions based on stack sizes, bet sizes, limps etc

You need to do some research in these forums.

It is NOT clear that thats what you were asking. Asking what the GTO strategy looks like is a lot different than asking for basic tips, both of which you did.

Well, I can totally understand NOW why you guys are freaking out at me, but to be fair I had no idea what GTO meant and I'm still not completely sure. I thought that was the new " in " term for approach or strat or w/e.

None of the information on the site is going to be useful as there is no guide on how to beat zone poker which is pretty unique that I can find, unless of course I'm just blind, in which case I would love a link so that I can get my own answers. Even rush poker back in the day could use huds and after a long period of time you'd spot all the regs and you could reasonably make calls, but on bovada you're completely blind.

play extremely tight

Basically I think you should treat the entire player pool as a single player. Not sure there's that much else you can do. I would not be surprised if the player pool as a whole has reached some kind of steady state.

I'm a programmer so I know about how I'd do it, but I don't know how you'd do it otherwise. I assume HEM/PT have essentially no support at all.

Without knowing the behavior of the pool as a whole you'll basically just have to treat every player about how you would if they were unknown to you - with some adjustments. Against a named unknown you'd usually have to make a few extra calls in spots where it might be better to fold, to get a better read. Against what bovada sounds like, this probably wouldn't help.

Never played there, don't plan on it, so I can't tell you if it's profitable to play there. If people are in general worse than you, then probably, otherwise, well, probably not.

These guys are absolutely terrible, but it seems like the variance is insane. I climbed up 40$ at .02/.05 and proceeded to lose 60$ over the next week. All of which were just standard cold deck type situations.

The issue I'm running into is the amount of calling stations is absolutely gross, they're willing to call just about anything if they have a solid draw. I've seen these guys call a flop and turn pot sized bet only to run out on the river or just fold on the river. It's hard to protect a hand when they will not fold period, and on top of that it's completely ****ing pointless to cbet when you miss on wet boards. However, when you do hit, if they don't have a draw or at least two pair they're not going to pay you off.

I would think the site would be easy to profit from, play super tight, and just bet super hard when you hit, but it just seems like I only get money when they're drawing. Otherwise it's just cold decking each other.

To be honest it just sounds like you're complaining - that kind of thing belongs in BBV.

If they won't fold, don't bluff. Value bet much much larger. Get your money in good, easiest game ever. If they're willing to call a 2x pot bet on a draw, let them.

A lot of these Rush/ Zone poker games evolve into shoving pre-flop with 10's+. And you'll never know exactly what your opponents holdings will be. Staying tight, betting draws in position, and avoiding tilt seems to work on the .10/.25 level. But Bovada has a lot of wacky fish that will just stack off on any random hand everywhere.
So figure it out for yourself, but this thread really doesn't belong here.

It *could* belong here if he revised it to something like: "How do you play/adjust when every hand is against complete unknowns?"

Rusty's answer is probably the closest in treating the entire player pool as one, but even that can be sketchy given the players that are there.

I posted a thread kinda like this in BQ a week or so ago, yes it is beatable.

Just open up a few cash tables or a small mtt to keep some side action going, IP you can be aggressive and should be taking down most pots if you can double barrel boards that make sense to do it. Other than that, just freaking fold. You can go on some sick heaters with people calling you down with **** and shoving draws fairly deep stacked (happens all the time)..but just as easily you can take the other end of the stick right up the ass. 25nl zone is still a complete joke, i'm a little under rolled but I prefer to just play 100nl tightly and table select a little.


Edit- What I mean is, if you are just trying to build a roll from it. Just play super tight oop, and if you can, be hyper agressive IP. Nobody knows anything about your tendencies or previous plays, they either have to give you credit or give you dem monies.

Pretty much what this gentleman said: Play super tight, and make friends with the fold button. Also, I think TPTK is probably the weakest hand that you'll want to play post flop.

Check/call with STRONG draws that have many outs.

Also, in my personal experience, sets are less valuable in zone poker when playing against multiple opponents post-flop - watch out for made draws.

Zone poker is absolutely beatable, you'll just have to tighten up more than you may be accustomed to. GL.

I am finding zone extremely frustrating and difficult to play for a number of reasons. I have noticed opponents taking the strangest lines. Without a read it is hard to know how to size your bets and weather to trap or bet aggressively. Also more importantly without a read what is the lowest strength of hand we should be willing to stack off with in a 3 bet pot? After a healthy raise pre-flop and a hearty C-bet it is hard to get away from TPTK in the AK or AQ fashion, or overpairs of the KK, AA variety unless I am extremely deep stacked.

When we know that our oponent's will have no reads on us doesn't optimal strategy change? After all an optimal strategy is a defensive strategy while an exploitative strategy is offensive.

In optimal preflop play we should be 3 bet raising our premium hands and our hands with potential that are not strong enough to call with like K8s. But since we don't need to balance our stats because there is no meta game involved how can we figure out the optimal exploitative strategy for zone? I have started limp calling all my middling pocket pairs to try to set mine. Why would I worry about someone exploiting this when I will be zoomed to the next table. Screw initiative in the hand, I can always try to wrestle the pot away if it looks like he missed the board. Also I have noticed the turn check mini raise is a nice tool to have in the tool bag to steal a pot, its fairly cheap and it looks like you just hit a monster hand to a lot of the nits.

Thoughts? I would love to hear what kind of strategy some of the others players are using.

The other day I was on bovada 25NL Zone, I got up to 75 at one point, then this hand came up:

Hero is BB Pocket 2s

UTG ($72.00) raises to $.50, folds to small blind
SB ($20) raises to $1.25 BB (Hero calls with pocket 2s)
UTG raises to $2.85 SB calls BB calls

Flop: 2 8 10
SB checks, BB checks........ and then ...........

>>> UTG GOES ALL IN ($70) 280 blinds<<<<<
SB Folds
BB calls and takes a pot of $155 (620 blinds)

UTG shows K5 suited..

play loose and aggressive - no one will know if you are a bluffer or not

This is the thread I was hoping to find, but much of the discussion is non-purposely off topic. Someone playing .02/.05 that can't beat the game has not studied enough. They have serious flaws in their game that are causing them to not win. I would recommend to the OP that he challenge himself on the way he plays.

I am playing 0.10/0.25, with a frustrating win rate of an estimated 2-4 BB/100. I have played few thousand hands. These are my observations.

1) It is hard to stack someone. When I have stacked someone, they almost always are on a bluff or semi-bluff. So far my sets have not been able to beat AA. 3 years ago, when I played last, stacking someone was easier. It feels as though the game has gone from set mining the AA to Straight-Mining the set to stack off the set. It feels like there have been a lot more suited connectors played than I was used to.

2) The best information you can get, and it is not trivial, is the opponents stack size. Many are playing a short stack strategy. Steal from these players with min bets, and usually when they bet they got it. The other extreme is large stacks. Some of these players are playing hyper-aggressive and exploitative. They push others around unmercifully. (I think some of these players are winning at incredible rates.)

3) Three bet a lot. Squeeze a lot. 4 Bet bluff.

4) It seems as though there are a lot more opportunities to play a $100 stack against other $100 stacks, or a $70 stack against 2-3 other $70 stacks. This really affects what hands to play pre-flop.

5) I have tried a LAG and TAG strategies. Right now I am sticking with a tight strategy. I believe I will be a very good winner at that. Playing a really high variance super LAG affects my confidence. I think I will get around 6-8 BB/100. (I was at least that 3 years ago.)

6) It is quite an interesting theoretical game. So much of what I have learned in the past, play the player, is significantly reduced.

Someone post some opp raising ranges, IP calling ranges, and IP 3betting ranges for zone please..Zone is way different then regular poker.

You should be killing it at those stakes playing ABC without any reads. Play super tight oop. 3bet value hands. You can play top 15% hands and kill it. Use basic knowledge on stack size, bet sizing, etc.