I'm going to have to highly disagree.

Stuff like this is absolutely lost on players at the micros, and you never want to play more than two levels of thinking above your opponents.

they rake 5%+

You think people are going to spoonfeed you a foolproof strategy to crush these games?

1. If people did have a guaranteed strategy to crush these games, they're not giving it away for free on a public forum.

2. Poker involves so many variables and so many different situations that you can't just follow a few rules and expect to crush the games.

You can profit just playing these hands. Youre leaving money on the table, but if youre losing, play these to start.

variance has hit me, past 2 days ive seen people play AA, KK like its 22, they open limp to just flat pre playing really sneaky/trappy. I almost assume whoever raises can hold an A in their hand HOWEVER, I didn't think I would see people open limping AA,KK or calling 3x UTG raise with these hands

gonna play some more and see whats up. TPTK is something I am getting better dealing with, not staking off

Since Bovada attacts all the rec players, everyone has their own little style their uncle taught them or whatever they picked up from watching WSOP on mute at the bar. However there is one commonality between all fishes, and that is being a pure and simple calling station. As such, I think as long as you still have the initiative postflop you are in good shape. The moment someone raises, you probably need to have at least top pair to continue. I'm sure some of these players are throwing in mindless bluffs just for the thrill, but what you lose in folding marginal hands you will get back when you have TP+.

Also I'm not sure why you would even want to bother with zone, when you can sit at any ring game and get position on just as many fish whom you can have reads on throughout the match.

Im not sure why people assume that they need to know particular tendencies that a person has in order to beat them. If you play good solid poker and your opponents are spazzes like most the players on bovada, then youll win..

I hope you just mean in zone poker... because leaks aka tendencies exist in a massive % of the player pool...

Zone is different than normal cashgame, being too aggro will make you bleed money.

It's actually just one level above your oppenent.

If he's on level 2, and you mistakenly give him credit for being on level 3, you would mistakenly use level 4 thinking on him and you'd be levelling yourself.

Um I think were talking about different things. I don't totally understand your post but yeah I totally agree that most or all of the players in the pool will have major leaks in their games. Im just saying that we don't need to know specifically what these leaks are in order to make money off them. If we specifically knew their leaks, then yeah we could make the maximum, but just playing as close to optimally as we can will show a profit

Absolutely, you are correct, that was a typo on my part.

So what do you think will have a better hourly? 2 tables 50nl zone or 2 really good 50nl regular tables?

This. Take a very basic, very abc approach and you should do very well. I'm crushing zone 25NL currently by playing tighter than a nuns ass OOP and 3 and 4 betting value hands in position, not overplaying top pair and draws, and value towning great hands. I rarely bluff or bluff catch for large amounts since you don't have reads. Playing a tight, basic style is very profitable in zone, but you will have some insane negative variance based off the number of hands youre playing.

Since June 1st I've probably logged over 100k hands at 25NL zone and have averaged a 4.9bb/100. I feel I can get it higher.

This is what the forum was meant for

Play standard poker.

You'll notice if you play zone long enough that the entire pool as a whole goes through changes. It's not like people just play one way or another on average.

If nobody's three-betting people will start three-betting you. If everybody's trying to steal the blinds people will actually start defending more even though they don't have a specific read on you in particular.

Zone is difficult to play IMO, but I'm sure it's beatable if you play solidly somewhere in the middle.

Also, I recommend leaving the table and rejoining fairly often. I think there might be some tracking software out there that can track you up until you leave.

With zone you must be unafraid to steal blinds and contest hands. Most of the players are playing straightforward.

And this is exactly the problem with zone. About half are playing super aggressive/half super tight. It's difficult to just play standard poker since you are unallowed to play short stack. I find it difficult to play 50+ bb without any reads whatsoever.

I'm sure there is some theoretical GTO that could crush it but I simply don't know it.

It seems like the key to beating zone would be playing well.

No really, just play well.

Though something I have wondered about is whether or not it might make sense to ignore all 'balancing' issues. You don't really have to use just a handful of bet sizes over a bunch of different abstractions in zone, and you could probably ignore the general need to chop up some frequencies too. I think you might be able to get away with playing a more exploitive (and exploitable) style than in a pool where players know each other, odd as that sounds.

Get Pokers 1% Book for GTO strategy.

I played J9s in zone today and hit a straight flush

and made a couple of big river bluffs today too

I like to play suited one gappers they are well disguised and hit monsters

Thanks. Maybe I'll take a look at the book.

Just found this,as a whole I disagree with playing,as a 1-2 zone reg. I think Gto will not make you the most money.The games a 3-4 handed a lot tons of 3-4 betting and very little folding to three bets. I have taken almost all 4 bet bluffs out of my range and try to flat all hands that are 3 bet when I'm in postion. In the past couple of days I've seen cold flats of 3 bets with J2 off,3-4 suitedand 5-8 off. I think the key is to open your 3 bet range and think value at all times.Bet sizing tells are huge as well.

Like this

@op - YES the games are very beatable

This whole thread reminds me when Rush poker first came out and everyone was talking about "rush strategy". For the first few months there was no HUD and everyone thought we need to reinvent our strategy. Turns out the same good poker fundamentals that work on regular tables work on fast poker tables.

If you are really serious you can study player pool and make a few tweaks to add a little extra EV.

Here is some tough love - if you can't beat 25NL zone you aren't that good at poker. Hit the books guys and work on your game

this is literally my goal in life right now... beat 25NL zone. The grind is real.

lol i was beating 100z for like almost 10bb/100 over a pretty good sample
yes the games are really soft and you can make some very +ev post flop bluffs and stuff because ppl just end up timing out a bunch