it bears absolutely no resemblance other than the rules are the same and its still played with money

btw I 100% agree that people have a misguided idea of the skill level at the micros these days. I can watch coaching videos for 100nl and 200nl from 2 or 3 years back and my jaw is on the floor seeing how juicy the tables are. On stars if there's one vaguely fishy player on a 25nl table there'll be a waitlist 10+ long. My point is just that it's ridiculous to say that the strategy has changed completely just because there are more skilled, knowledgeable and aggressive players. The rules of the game are still the same and there are still broadly definable player types with exploitable tendencies. And you still target the weaker players and avoid messing with the skilled players.

FWIW, I suck and 25nl at Stars is a joke.

Just because there are fewer fish, crushing the game is still possible by exploiting what IS there.

here's a few examples

--Getting AK in preflop for 100bbs at 50nl 4 years ago would've almost always been bad. There's an old MSNL thread where cts and a bunch of others posted about a hand where you open AK on the button and get 3bet from the BB. Everyone said it was a fold because of reverse implied odds.

--In most situations you would always fold one pair facing a check-raise. Baluga popularized the notion that you should always fold one pair to a turn check-raise. Both of those things are not even close to true today.

--You could be a winning player playing a 15/12 style at 6max. I think that would probably be impossible today at 25 and 50nl (not 100% sure). You wouldn't be getting in enough pots to compensate for blind lossrates. Back then it didn't matter because your edge in the pots you did play was so huge that you didn't have to get in marginal spots.


I'm sure there are others but I think these three are enough. I'd say that's a completely different strategy.

lol that's not what I said at all. I said nothing about splitsuit being qualified to coach for the games today (if you look at the previous page you'll see my photoshop of his 100k system, should be pretty clear that I'm definitely not bigging him up lol).

My only point was to get a bit of perspective about these so-called radical overhauls of poker strategy. You changed your comment from the game bearing zero resemblance to 5 years ago to then saying it's changed "a lot", citing increases in 4-bet bluffing. Whoopee doo lol

I agree it's changed a lot. But it's not a completely different game.

If we're talking FR, then getting AK in pre at 25nl is still pretty bad.

Same with your second point, turn c/r, by and large, at 25nl FR are usually ahead of one pair.

care to elaborate?

Apologies for my word choice there but it looked like you were implying Splitsuit is still qualified here:




Not talking about FR. I don't really play FR but it feels like those games lag behind 6max and HU games in terms of required strategy.

Can anybody inform me about the std hourly's for coaching for lets say nl50 and nl400?

Comments in red above. And nope, not even close to enough. You've cited one hand that is viewed more favourably than it used to be, the notion that people bluff raise the turn more (a massive exaggeration btw) and that players need to play more hands at 6-max. These do not constitute a completely different game lol

He gave bad examples, but in my experience, the game has changed a lot from what I read was the norm 4-5 years ago to now.

Not arguing with this at all. But as I said, the rules of the game are the same, the cards are still the same and you still have players who can be understood broadly as nits, shortstackers, TAGs, LAGs, loose-passives, weak-tights and aggromaniacs. Basic strategies against the weaker player types are not that different than they were 5 years ago and they won't be that different in 5 years' time. There just aren't as many of them as there used to be.

i think 25-50% hourly of what stakes the coach primarily plays is fair in today's wintry coaching climate. for example a 100nl grinder would charge 25-50 per hr, a 200nl coach 50-100 per hour, a 400 coach 100-200 per hour etc.

btw there is a coaching advice forum if you need more general questions answered

The fact that you should fold AK to a 3bet and now you shouldn't is not just about that specific hand. Do you see that a game in which AK was a fold to one 3bet would be a completely different game than today and would require different adjustments in regards to playing other hands as well?

Maybe you picked bad spots. The idea is also not simply that check-raises were and are still strong. A coach from four years ago could watch a player today and when faced with a check-raise his thought process would simply be "well, you got c/r, you gotta fold one pair." A good coach today would have a thought process in that situation that is much deeper.

Chill out with the condescension; it makes having a mature discussion with you really difficult.

Looked at your thread and I didn't see any stats. Just a few graphs. Sure playing 16/12 and winning on a soft site while table selecting is possible. Not my point. Point is that a coach from several years ago could tell a 21/17 player he's playing too many hands because 16/12 can win which is possibly true but terrible advice and the reason why it is terrible advice is because games today do require a different strategy in which your edge comes from different situations. Your edge 4 years ago was largely making hands vs. poor players. Today it could be stealing blinds, exploiting people's tendencies to fold to 3bets, exploiting their weak hand range on certain board textures, etc. Those things of course existed several years ago but the thought processes behind them are more complex than most thought.

The point I'm trying to make through these (possibly bad) examples is that a coach who just played 4 years ago would not be qualified because the game conditions are dramatically different. You're trying to make in into a semantics argument that the rules of poker have not changed so strategy at the micros has advanced but is not completely different, and I disagree with that point because poker thinking has evolved an incredible amount over that time and a former player would likely be lost.

Your lol is annoying. I was just trying to give some examples while playing poker myself. Maybe I should have thought about them more but I think my points are reasonable. If you don't understand how fundamentally different the games are and how the strategy required is also fundamentally different then it's likely you simply haven't kept up with the learning curve.

Apologies for the condescending tone in my posts, I agree it's childish. I get carried away sometimes

Like I said I obviously agree that the games have become tougher but I don't think I'm being even slightly controversial when I say people are hugely exaggerating this change. This reminds me of a post I made in the book review thread for BobboFitto's book when someone asked if it's still relevant today:

That image of online poker play, imo, would really constitute a complete change in strategy