Ok so if you are new or kinda new to to 2p2 this post is for you. These are some lessons that i have learned and applied at the table that have consistently made me 2-3 full 300 buy ins at the table. The vets on here will correct some things, but this is my attempt to help out and give back.

Lesson 1. Table/seat selection

I use to just sit at whatever table the floor suggested. Now i search for stack sizes and fish. More than looking for fish (which is most people at 1-2) I look for table with other TAG/LAG/2p2 readers/regs. Seriously look for the seat to the left of the old dude or the crazy gambler or even a weak passive table of middle age men who only watch poker on TV. You know who they are, get a seat there or move there. Stop trying to outplay the other few thinking players in your room. If you don't live near a casino with a lot of options and you play at a local card with with the same regs then at least pay attention to this next lesson.

Lesson 2. Position. Position. Positon.

Everyone knows position is important but then they see 78 suited and forget about being under the gun. Want to play TAG? fine, do it IP. Want to be a LAG? whatever, do it IP. Stop playing bloated pots OOP. Forget about the fact that you are getting 6-1 and fold K-6 soooted. Just fold it.

When you are in position whether its LAG or TAG pay attention to the AG. Be aggresive. You aren't playing out of position, you arent playing trash, and you selected the right table so when you get the right hand don't be timid which brings me to lesson 3.

Lesson 3. Bet sizing.

Man this was a BIG leak of mine. If you been reading here the goal is to play pots HU. Why? because its WAY easier to beat just 1 person. Especially when its a fish (lesson 1) and when you are in position (lesson 2). a 10 dollar raise at 1-2 probably isnt going to get you heads up. If people called the two with a 5 its just one more chip. Know your table and measure your raises accordingly. If 10 isnt working bump it up to 12 or 15. Whatever gets it to HU
or at least 3 way. Once you get it to these ideal conditions your bet sizing needs to continue on the flop. You Flop TPTK on a wet board, bet 3/4 to a pot size bet. Dont bet 20 dollars in a 40 dollar pot. You want to bet to get worse to call, better to fold, or deny odds to draws. Also bet sizing helps you narrow the hand ranges of your opponent. pots 40 and you bet 20, maybe they have a flush draw, maybe they have tpnk, maybe they have second pair. Betting more takes away more hands for you to worry about. TPTK on a dry board you can afford to bet less and get worse to call because you do not have to deny odds to draws. which brings me to lesson 4.

Lesson 4 Board texture/number of opponents

everyone knows you should C-bet. But how often and when. THis is something i struggled with. If I was the raiser i would usually just c-bet. 5 callers, who cares because my c-bet will trim a couple. K-Q-9 board and i have A-2, CBET! Not anymore. Go read about board texture but for a quick and dirty boards with two broadway cards or 3 cards to a straight on the flop are not ideal to c-bet (unless you hit). Also c-betting with two or fewer opponents is ideal 3 or more your chances of taking it down dwindle. Who cares of checking looks weak, or if you were the raiser. This is about money not ego. Which leads me to lesson 5.

Lesson 5. Leave your ego out of it.

This was a HUGE leak. How dare that guy 3 bet me! I'll show him, im going to snap him off with my 8-10ss oop... You are playing at a good table, IP, aggressively against 1 or two villains. Most of these people are fit or fold. When they decide to make a stand they prob have it. Unless you are getting the odds fold to there raise. If you have beating up on V's and then they decide to come over the top its probably bc they finally got a hand. Nothing pisses these guys off then you betting when they dont have it and then folding when they do. Forget that they are challenging you, for get that your cbet just got raised. Lay it down and move on. Trust me they will be seething you keep getting away from them as they wait to "trap" you.

That's it for now and as most people will tell you its pretty basic but most people dont put it in action. They get at the table, they start gambling and all the sudden you're calling raises with 7-9 sooted from the bb. You are fighting it out with other thinking players. You are betting small.

I have a bunch of other thoughts on how value betting thin has made me more money along with understanding my image and the habits of the layers around me. Adjusting my game to these factors has helped out tremendously. If you read the threads here and participate you will realize 2 things.

1. most poeple who play 1-2 at your local casino SUCK and
2. You prob suck too but can get better. I'm not there yet but im way better than i was before i started putting these lessons and more in action.

Sorry i didnt proof read its late and i kept getting interrupted.

Nice summary, and not too much for the new guys to digest.

First, very nice thread. Second, board texture is probably a big leak of mine - did you save some resources that helped you like a particular book or thread? Also, aside from board texture, I'm still struggling with putting villains on a correct range. This is probably a leak even more experienced players have though.

Just want to add - think "what is villains value betting range here?" this will make bluffcatching easier.

nice little post

Nice post.

Just wanted to note that typically we should find the seat to the right of the old dude (which I'm stereotyping as straightforward, tight, ABC). Old dude's will fold to our LP iso attempts / blind steals always (giving us position vs the fish in most hands) and will play postflop rather ABC, so we want these guys to our immediate left.

Great post man, we do need a reminder every now and then...
Point 3, listening to Bart Hanson made me realize one thing, u dont have to freak out because there is a draw out there, as long as u dont pay off when they hit...
People rarely bluff when the 3rd club hits, they r also scared of the flush...

Bet/folding is the name of the game...I bet/fold aloooot, and I think it's a great weapon to have in ur arsenal...

GL everybody, lets crush them fish

A lot of fish berate me for betting when a flush comes OTR and I clearly have the best hand (minus a flush given the way hand played out). They do their weaktight, "safe" poker talk about how its stupid to bet when a flush comes. Subconsciously they think we are capable of big bluffs randomly, then they c.call us with TPNK and bluffcatching ppair hands

I have a problem with these 3 and 4. Your post comes off like you are Mr. Know It All. Ill be the first to tell you're far from it.

3) Playing pots HU or 3 way is not ideal in FR cash games. Fish go to the casino to see flops not fold to your huge raises. You are advocating huge raises and that's not smart poker. The masses need to get used to multi way pots its llsnl.

4) Board texture you have the bases down but not 2+2 savvy. "Go read about board texture but for a quick and dirty boards with two broadway cards or 3 cards to a straight on the flop are not ideal to c-bet (unless you hit)".

The bolded is bad advice. Those are not good boards to double barrel. Which is far different from saying don't cbet these boards.

"Who cares of checking looks weak, or if you were the raiser. This is about money not ego."

It matters greatly if you are the pfr. Especially if your opponents range is weak and can be doubled off of their perceived range.

The problem I have with your post is its not for 2+2 beginners. Its general advice that's not good in my book. Its level 1/0 poker what ever you want to call it. Its based on playing your own 2 cards. The people here don't and shouldn't want to play like that. If I was you I would read micro cotw on double barreling. It will help your game tremendously on board texture. You left out ranging which is not 2+2 savvy for beginners. Poker stove could help out a lot of people. You learn how to weight ranges and how individual hands work against perceived ranges. Without this work your advice is just like any other guy who has read a poker book. Level 0 poker in my mind.

I'm sorry, ILCD, but you are wrong. C-betting air into more than 2 players with two broadway on the board is terribad. LLNL fish l/c weak broadway hands all the time and they never fold weak top pairs. This is why there is huge fat value, but the corollary is that there is almost always someone who caught one of those broadways in a multi-way pot, and they are not folding. Great if you have value, awful if you have air. Don't value cut yourself.

I wouldn't play poker if everytime I raised someone caught something. Or my winrate would be a $100/hr if I got value everytime I hit.

42.2569% of 5 card poker hands contain a pair. So on the flop, 42% of your opponents have a pair. This probability goes down when the flop contains nothing they were likely to call with pre-flop, and goes up when the flop smacks their PF calling range. On a board with 2 broadways, against 3 opponents, the chance that at least one of them has a pair approaches certainty.

If you are HU, not accounting for weighted ranges, you opponent has no pair 56.75% of the time, c-bet away.

Against 2 opponents, the chance neither has a pair is only 32%, against 3, 18% and against 4, 10%, etc. And remember, that's without weighting ranges. With 2 broadway out, the chances they all have air plummet.

Ok

I like this post, I think there's a lot of good stuff here to help people put themselves in good spots. On the subject of c-betting, there's a lot of good theory work outlined here:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/15...88/index3.html

Basically, it goes into quantifying how "wet" and "dry" flops are, which is one of the key elements of c-betting well (alongside image, position, number of opponents, etc.) Bart Hanson talks a lot about establishing a kind of "c-bet score" where you rank all the individual elements and lean more towards c-betting the higher the score ends up being, and I think the table in that link would be a great start to establishing something like that.

Yeah, i get that you cant fit a completmguide to poker into one post, but i like the effort and this information is probably super helpful to novices, which is its intent. Nice post.

1. i am far from a know it all. read my post on here. i post hands people crush me and i learn.

2. I def stated that boards with two broadways should NOT be bet. at least i thought i did

3. You do not HAVE to play multi way pots in llsnl. Just adjust your raises. Playing pots multi way repeatedly is a recipe for disaster. It basically comes to playing poker like bingo.

4. I talk about checking with bad board texture bc often times people are afraid of looking weak when they are the original raiser, so they bet bad boards. C-bet good boards, check the ones with bad board texture and watch your opponents get mad that you bet when they dont, and check when they do.

5. Maybe its 0 level. Honestly i was just trying to help, hence why i said for beginners. i doubt the high level thinkers need to read anything by me

Nice post. One thing I would add off the top of my head is tilt control. If you feel tilted for whatever reason just quit for the day or take a break until it's out of your system. No need to play your B or C game and make -EV decisions because you can't think clearly at the moment.

Thought I'd chime in

good post, I think those new to LLSNL trying to get better would easily increase their winrate if they follow your suggestions.

Hardest part is the discipline.

I consider Bet/folding more of an advanced play and I love it. It basically exploits a key weakness that the majority of LLSNL players have. They call too much and they rarely if ever turn their hands into a bluff. So even when that flush hits on the river, they will still call you with their TPWK. And if they raise, we can fold because majority of LLSNL just don't have it in them to bluff when strength is shown...

And Bart Hansen is da man

Discipline! Lord only knows I could use some. As for bet/folding... I've been abusing bet/folding like a five year old with a new toy, and what I've kind of found out is that while it's an awesome tool, we still have to pay attention to what it's doing to our opponent's ranges when they call various flops and turns.

Folding when we're raised is obvious enough, but it's easy to forget that when they call, we're chopping off the bottom part of their range (sometimes in proportion to our bet size), and if we keep doing that one street after another, or even switching to a c/c turn or river line, we need to be able to roll over a hand that's ahead of 51% of villain's range _having called our bets on previous streets_, not just his preflop or flop range.

If we can't do that, then we may be better off taking pot control lines like checking back the turn/blocking/etc. As much as it makes you look like a pussy to pot control, the value in it isn't as much that you lose less when you're behind, it's that you're able to take your hand up against a weaker range.

Heck, I haven't seen studies done on this but with pot control you may well be maximizing your EV by accident against certain villains; i.e. 80% equity when there's $300 in the pot vs. 20% equity when there's $1000 in the pot. Even if it doesn't turn out that way, if you're not bleeding dry every 51/49 you run into, I wouldn't feel too bad about it.

I think the biggest problem is that sometimes we don't "see" what our villains are showing us in hands we AREN'T involved in.

I'm amazed at how players don't pay attention to the actual facts and observations. They will range their villains in a way that is not consistent with reality. Players will often say, "You're bluffing" when V hasn't shown one bluff all day. Or similarly, players will try thin value bets against players that consistently only showdown strong hands.

For 95% of our villains, what we see is exactly what we get. When a villain doesn't value bet TPGK hands when IP but then bets river against you, you better not be calling with TPWK paying off this nit. When a villain hasn't raised in 3 hours and he open raises or 3-bets, you better be snap folding your AT-AK, KQ hands.

I find the above hilarious, how you'll have a super nit at the table who raises like once per 3 hours and players call him as if he is a normal player

I absolutely LOVE folding my AK to a nit's open raise or 3-bet. It gets my man meat hard and is a giant FU to that nitty Mcnitty motherf*****. He's waited 3 hours for that hand and i'm not going to be the one to pay him off. I used to show the nits my fold and get enjoyment at their anger for me folding because they waited all day to get paid off... Of course, I don't show the fold anymore, but it still gives me wood

sorry for the rambling aside...

Good post by the OP. Ignore ilcd.
Alot of 1/2 and 2/5 old regs don't know half the stuff in the op.

One thing I like to add, I prefer betting smallish to let the draws chase their 9 outters than betting them off their hand. My mindet is to charge them as much as they like to pay.

This is a really bad use of statistics. Technically, you're right - but in a flop game, where 3 cards are common, a lot of times the pair is on the board, which doesn't' really do anything for opponents.

The right number is about 30-35%. 30% for one out of any two non-paired card connecting with the board (e.g. the odds of AK flopping an A or K on the flop) and I'm arbitrarily giving another 0-5% for pocket pairs.

Which means the odds of 2 opponents not connecting on the flop is closer to 50%. (1-30%)^2 = 49% .... easily worth a 1/2-full pot bet if we believe opps will fold without connecting.

Incidentally, these odds substantially increase on a paired flop - I'd estimate the odds of connecting (pocket pair, pair with the single on the board, trips with the pair on the board) on a paired flop are 15-20%. Which means the odds that 2 opps don't connect are 64-75%.

As far as multi way pots, I agree. Unless you are incapable of folding tpgk or over pairs, it is much more profitable to get more callers with wider ranges. There is a sweet spot usually, and I think its getting 3 to 4 players into the hand.

Take a look at what someones range has to be if you are getting 1 caller...
thats 10% of hands full range....2 callers is 20 to 25%, 3 callers is 33-28 or so look at the extra hands they ahve to start adding....do you really want them folding Qxs when you have AQ,

Once you learn how to play multi way pots, they are easier to play not harder, yes you win them much less often. Your rarely get to bluff in them , you sometimes have to fold the best hand, even whey you strongly suspect you have the best hand . You often will be forced to give free cards to opponents on the turn.....and I cry about that all the way to the bank.....

The key I have found to deciding bet sizes is to look to your left, is the player 1 2 or 3 seats to your left a supper loose caller, then make bigger bets...that brings in the rest of the table (they want to play with him)...if not then go to smaller bets, but aim to get wider ranges in larger pots...



As far as two broadways, multi way I'm never betting them, but multi way I'm almost never C=betting without equity. Hu against a reg...and yes even 10 bets get me HU every now and then...These hands hit regulars ranges hard, but weakly. I double barrle them a lot against Regulars quite a lot, yes it not going to be an over card...but they have hit the flop with lots of bad draws and second pair type hands...low cards can be great...count the combos some time.

This was my first thought too, though some of those old bastards will get grumpy and stubborn at your "raising every pot" and give you fits with any ace type hands

I actually think for the most part OP's thread applies to low stakes live
It is in fact level 0/1 poker. And that can win at your local casino's 1/2 game