yeah, stop being such a nit. That or play fullring.

It's probably because I'm used to FR. I usually raise TP type hands and only raise SC type hands and junky suited facecards if folded to me to the button or cut off. I've just been missing the flop a **** ton and the times I hit I hardly get value on my hands because people rarely call me or I just get one street of value. Then I bleed the money on failed cbets even if I'm selective about who I cbet and the board texture.

That's all because you're an absolute nit. Open up your range, people go crazy and play terribly versus people with looser ranges.

What's a good a VPIP/PFR for 6max? I'm currently reading Ryan Fee's 6max guide and following that starting hand range which has wider than what I have been playing but my stats still look tight.

I also still can not keep a profit, I'm positive at showdown, but I'm loosing so much money from folding that I'm ending up with breakeven or losing sessions. The common advice for microstakes is to play ABC, but if you play ABC at 6max you just end up bleeding money from raising and folding. It's hard to cbet because nearly everyone calls your raises, which I wouldn't mind if I didn't whiff the flop completely so often.

Anytime I do try to bluff it's in a situation where the board will give me future equity in the hand. For example,
Villain here raises very wide so I decide to flat from the button. He also cbets way too much and this is a dry board that anyone would continue on. So since I have a lot of backdoor draws that I can double barrel with equity I decide to raise assuming he probably missed this flop. Turn card is great for me and I get a fold.

888 Poker - $0.10 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

CO: 210.6 BB (VPIP: 35.33, PFR: 22.75, 3Bet Preflop: 12.86, Hands: 170)
Hero (BTN): 155.8 BB
SB: 100.2 BB (VPIP: 30.77, PFR: 7.69, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 40)
BB: 85.5 BB (VPIP: 48.65, PFR: 8.11, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 37)
UTG: 70 BB (VPIP: 25.34, PFR: 17.12, 3Bet Preflop: 5.41, Hands: 149)
MP: 74.3 BB (VPIP: 71.88, PFR: 21.88, 3Bet Preflop: 6.25, Hands: 33)

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB, UTG posts penalty blind 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.5 BB) Hero has Q T

UTG checks, fold, CO raises to 3.3 BB, Hero calls 3.3 BB, fold, fold, fold

Flop: (9.1 BB, 2 players) J 4 6
CO bets 6.8 BB, Hero raises to 24.6 BB, CO calls 17.8 BB

Turn: (58.3 BB, 2 players) A
CO checks, Hero bets 30.1 BB, fold

Hero wins 55.1 BB

Hopefully those reasons for running that line made sense. I would try this more but I don't get good opportunities due to board texture or the amount of people in the pot. And a lot of the time when I want to cbet I'm getting donked into while having 0 equity to make a move or villain will raise me all over the place. I feel like I'm getting floated a ton as well. I'm literally bleeding buy ins at the red line.

Hand looks well played. Flat pre is good vs wide opening range and a good spot to attack his cbet. Thought process looks solid.

About 6max stats, I'm playing about 28/23 in 5 max. I would keep being tight in early positions and try to open up alot in co/bu.

I'll say the opposite, line makes no sense at all. What exactly are you telling vil you have there?

I thought flop had flush draw. On this flop it makes less sense to have a raising range. On the other hand cbet monkeys at these stakes won't think about that and will just bet/fold when they don't have it. Hero doesn't have sdv and is raising with a hand that does not care if we make villains range stronger.

Well I had issue with that originally, I wasn't representing much on the flop. But a Frozen_Starlight said, villain is a cbet monkey so I think he missed here a lot and will fold to a raise. The reason why I chose to raise here was because I can gain equity on the turn and barrel cards that give me further equity on the river. I'm just not representing much as you said which I'm aware of, I just think I can make villain fold.

I'm having trouble adjusting to this game though. At .01/.02 everyone was very passive and it was easy to build a steady win rate from passive callers. At 5/10c I'm getting raised in ever spot and bleeding money from folding. It's a bunch of crazy LAGs that have a super wide range and I don't know how to adjust. I'm not even sure if most of these players are thinking about ranges or position at all, it seems like a lot of blind aggression or semi-bluffing.

I play tight from early on and raise a pretty wide range from the CO and Button, but when you miss often and everyone is either donking flops, calling or raising cbets it makes play difficult.

This is my button range from the 6max guide I'm reading

22+
A8o+
K9o
Q9o+ (offsuit 2 gapper)
J9o+(offsuit 1 gapper)
98o+
54s+
64s+
96s+
T6s+
K8s
A2s+

I don't know if I should try making people fold more by firing multiple barrels. Whenever I attempt this I usually just sink away money because I get called down by middle pair, even on a dicey river.

Think about what range they are likely to have. Think about what range you are likely to have. Proceed accordingly.

As an example, in the previous hand if you think vil is c-betting 100% and will fold the vast majority of hands to a raise then you can raise but it's got nothing to do with semi-bluffing good turn cards, it's because raising produces an immediate profit. It matters zilch what you raise the flop with (if vil plays as you say you can actually raise 100% of your hands and show a profit until they adjust). By raising then firing the turn you are ignoring that vil would likely call the flop raise with a reasonably strong hand. A reasonably strong hand may very well not fold the turn or river to further barrels.

Of course it matters what hands we are raising with. Just because raising is +EV does not mean we should do it with ATC. That's why so many villains at micros are cbeting an absurd amount because it shows an immediate profit. What if checking with some hands is more +ev?

So what happens when we raise? We make villains range alot stronger so we do it with hands that does well against that range and can put alot of pressure on villain. When he calls the raise he's going to be strong but it's not unreasonable to think we could make villain fold jx, qq, kk by the river. On this board we probably won't have a raising range vs anyone decent as we are repping very thin. If villain calls down with jx on a scary run out we take a note and never do it again.

Thanks for the advice, guys. I think the only thing that confuses me is I have trouble putting villains with a wide range on a specific hand when they like to float a lot with atc. Also, are opponents with fishy stats really thinking about my range or in terms of ranges at all?

Anyway I think why I'm struggling he is because at 2NL I could play a bunch of FR tables without having to put much thought into the hand as villains there play their cards pretty face up. At 10NL a lot of these people are more aggressive putting you in tough spots. At 2NL they rarely show aggression.

I'm just going to play 1-2 tables and focus on my reads and hand reading until I improve.

I also have a question about a hand;
It's not a tough spot, but on the turn I'm fairly confident that villains hand improved. I don't have many hands with him, but doesn't stick around long without anything. I think it is likely villain turned a straight or two pair.

So with this read does it make sense to x/c and x/f the river? Or if I'm confident should I just x/f the turn? Or do I have continue on the turn? I chose to x/c the turn to see what he would do on the river.

888 Poker - $0.10 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

CO: 155.6 BB (VPIP: 50.44, PFR: 9.82, 3Bet Preflop: 0.63, Hands: 1,392)
BTN: 45.7 BB (VPIP: 100.00, PFR: 50.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 2)
SB: 89.2 BB (VPIP: 41.32, PFR: 25.62, 3Bet Preflop: 8.33, Hands: 125)
BB: 65.9 BB (VPIP: 25.21, PFR: 14.65, 3Bet Preflop: 4.64, Hands: 1,074)
Hero (UTG): 98.5 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has A A

Hero raises to 3 BB, fold, BTN calls 3 BB, fold, fold

Flop: (7.5 BB, 2 players) 6 9 T
Hero bets 5.6 BB, BTN calls 5.6 BB

Turn: (18.7 BB, 2 players) K
Hero checks, BTN bets 9.3 BB, Hero calls 9.3 BB

River: (37.3 BB, 2 players) 8
Hero checks, BTN checks

BTN wins 35.3 BB

That turn check is awful. Villain has 45BB, just bet/bet/jam.

What about xr flop jam turn?

Q? How much rake do ppl pay at 25nl? I'm only averaging ~7bb/100 which seems really low. Didn't think i was that big of a nit??

Yes I would prefer x/r flop, jam turn. I think I was afraid if I checked the flop villain would check behind. I think my plan was to get it on the turn, but I felt pretty strongly the turn card improved his hand. Even if he is only 40bb, I can save myself some money by trying to keep the pot smaller at this point with what I feel may be the second best hand.

Right here's a question for you all. What do you do when you're sat in the blinds with a decent, but not super-premium hand (JJ, QQ, AK), and you're facing a raise from EP and a 3bet in front of you.

For instance, UTG raises, 3bet by the CO, you're sat in the BB with QQ. What's the play?

I don't like calling here, because your hand looks exactly like what it is - something you don't want to throw away preflop as it's nice and shiny, but we don't want to stack off with it either.

Up till now, what I've been doing is 4bet/folding AK, and 4bet/calling KK+. Folding everything else. Turning AK into a bluff has always seemed bad, but if the CO is 3betting for value he should never have worse than AK anyway, and it's the nut best hand to bluff with because of blockers.

Was thinking of a new strategy - flat all our continuance range. So that would be something like JJ+/AK. This stops UTG jamming against our capped range, and prevents CO from barreling us off too if it goes postflop, since he'll have to be concerned we're slowplaying the nuts.

But then we give UTG a great price to flat, so we end up seeing a 3 way pot OOP a lot of the time, which isn't great for our big pair.

How does everyone else play these spots?

Depends on reads/stats and the general strength of the field you play against (I often fold AK and JJ in this spot against nitregs or fish that have no bluffing range pre-flop), but I think the optimal line against semi-decent villains is to cold 4-bet with any hand you intend to play. The fold equity you get by repping aces should more than make up for the losses you incur when a villain actually wakes up with them.
Calling has lower variance, but I think it just loses money, as playing a face-up capped range OOP against 2 opponents just isn't +EV.
If you run some filters in HEM ("facing 2 raisers, action = call" or whatever) you should find that calling is not a good option with anything but aces, unless of course you are a master at hitting sets.

If we're cold 4betting some hands, we'll need some 4bet bluffs. If you fold AK preflop (I agree it cannot be played profitably as a call), wouldn't that be like the nut best hand to have in the 4bet bluff range instead?

I expect a standard reg to have some bluffs, but 3betting an UTG open should be QQ+/AK at the most with bluffs. Cold 4betting folds bluffs of course but we can't cold 4bet QQ and AK for value. So would KK+/AK (and fold AK to a shove) seem OK, if we all agree AK cannot be flatted here profitably?

AK is pretty much always the nut best bluffing hand because of the blockers and equity vs a calling range, but there are some spots where flatting is better than 3-bet/folding, or 4-bet/folding. If you thought cold-calling a 3-bet with AK would be slightly profitable, you could use weaker hands as 4b bluffing candidates, like AJs/ATs and A5s. If it doesn't seem profitable to flat AK (or QQ/JJ), then 4b/folding (or just folding) will probably be better. I think the fold equity is strong enough that you'll pick up 12bb often enough to more than make up for the 22bb you lose when you occasionally get shoved on.

is it possible to use an auto register software at ftp for sngs? its really annoying to register manually every time.

Calling with a capped range vs 2 uncapped range, which of one still has to act after you preflop is just going to crush your soul.

Calling 100% is just going to crush your soul due to being in the sandwich position.

Unless facing crazy dynamics I'm not cold 4betting JJ vs an EP open and a 3b. I'd probably fold JJ and AKo as a standard and cold 4b/c QQ and AKs.

I don't have a 4b range because it's a spot you can't get it in good with KK really. This also lets you flat wider.

It looks like you should either have no call range or no 4b range. Personally I prefer having no call range as I enjoy clicking raise. If it's impossible to get KK in good here then the exploitative play is to bluff a lot in this spot surely?

Nah. People can still call 4bets, but a 3b value range in these positions is going to be QQ+ AK at its widest, and no way QQ/AK are 5betting.

Help


CO: 76.84 BB (VPIP: 35.00, PFR: 12.50, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 42)
BTN: 54.66 BB (VPIP: 73.35, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 350)
Hero (SB): 458.47 BB
BB: 121.51 BB (VPIP: 28.68, PFR: 25.44, 3Bet Preflop: 8.40, Hands: 414)
UTG: 493.9 BB (VPIP: 25.80, PFR: 18.95, 3Bet Preflop: 8.38, Hands: 1,088)

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has A A

UTG raises to 3.5 BB, fold, BTN calls 3.5 BB, Hero raises to 16 BB, fold, UTG calls 12.5 BB, BTN calls 12.5 BB

Flop: (49 BB, 3 players) 3 K 6
Hero bets 24.5 BB, UTG calls 24.5 BB, fold

Turn: (98 BB, 2 players) 7
Hero checks, UTG bets 52 BB, Hero calls 52 BB

River: (202 BB, 2 players) Q
Hero checks, UTG bets 149 BB, fold