So, decided to do one of these. For those of you who don't know me, I'm DaGrunt, a 21-year-old grinder. I've been playing poker for a living for a few years, started at micros with a 50$ bankroll and have moved up to 2/4 around ½ years ago. I've never bustoed, played my first 100k hands breakeven and then started winning and ever since have had very good winrates at all limits I've played. I occasionally take shots up to 10/20 when there is a really soft spot but 90% of my action is at 2/4 nowadays. The last 95k hands I played at 1/2 I crushed the games for 13bb/100 and moved up after that. This is not a brag post (for that check http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/54...-hands-649228/) so I'm not going to post graphs but I do know how the games at SSNL play and what type of mistakes people at these limits make.
I stopped posting videos here since protecting information is becoming more and more important as NLHE is progressing. Giving information for free is a concious decicion, and I decided that publishing a free video and outing myself is going to be too much -ev. However, I'm going to do something else. I've learned a lot at 2+2 and have progressed from a mediocre microstakes ABC TAG reg to what I am today partly due to this site. Even if the poker world is a very selfish world I thought it's the right thing to give something back. So here you go, my pooh-bah post:
This is going to be random stuff about certain things that can help you to get to the next level. The key thing here is that it requires YOUR active practice, work and most of all, dedication. By just reading this you will not get better but you will know certain things to focus on if you indeed do want to get above SSNL some day. And I assume most of you do.
Besides some exceptions like sphanko, making serious money at 1/2 or below is not going to happen for most people. Getting a 10k month at 1/2 is pretty big but VERY standard at 2/4. Also, the level of playing gets much higher and the game gets much more interesting since you'll need to be thinking more, adapting more and being more deceptive if you want to beat the games with a proper winrate. But enough chit chat, let's get to the real deal. This information is not going to be anything groundbreaking for most decent players but let's hope someone gets a kick out of it.
Step 1: Realize how much you suck. Then realize how much everyone else sucks.
Assuming you're taking poker seriously, NL 200 is not hard to beat. NL 100 is certainly not hard to beat. The players there are not, for the most part, good. If they were, they would have moved up. That is the mere fact most of the time. Which also means that you are not as good at poker as you think you are, there are more things you should learn than you think and you make by far more mistakes than you think. There are huge amounts of information available that you either miss or misuse. Simply put,
wake the **** up.
Did you get depressed already? No worries. The good thing here is that, no matter how mediocre we are, most people are even worse. Just look at the average player level on a random NL 100 table. We have the 18/16 nit who plays super ABC and is about as transparent as it gets, the 26/24 spewtard who 3bets 15% and tries to outplay everyone, and the quiet 21/18 tag who plays solid and is a winner but doesn't really do anything extraordinary. And then there's the 40/15 fish who everyone is after and the reason the game is up. Doesn't sound too tough of a lineup, right?
Right now what you need to realize is that you could and should be able to have an edge on all of these players most of the time. Not just the 40/15 fish. Each one of these players has leaks you can exploit. Some leaks are more huge, some are less huge. But they exist. It's your job to find out what they are and how you can own their souls. Just beating the fish is not going to get you far. There are less fish every time you move up and the regs are better. You need to rise beyond that 12-tabling ABC fish-beating TAG if you want to be a better player, make more money and enjoy playing poker more.
How do you do that? Well, I'd start by realizing how many mistakes I still make (and how many mistakes my opponent make), how much more I have to work, and how much dedication it will take to get better. It's not easy. It takes raw work, which can be a bit tedious sometimes. And this takes me to my next point...
Step 2: Stop being so ****ing lazy!
Most poker players are lazy. It's in their nature. I mean, it's the reason we got into poker in the first place! Being lazy and wanting comfort is fine sometimes. But sometimes, it can seriously hinder our progress at something.
Now, I want you to cross your heart and answer thruthfully to these questions. Have you done the mathematical groundwork for stuff like 3-betting and 4betting preflop? Have you ever actually done ev calculations and fold equity calculations? Do you spend more than 15 minutes reviewing your sessions and particular hands there? How often do you go beyond opening HEM, looking at a few big pots, maybe pokerstoving something and then quitting? Are you really analyzing and evaluating your hands, your leaks and your game often enough and well enough? Are you really learning from your mistakes?
Most of you don't really do this. You watch a training vid or two, maybe fiddle around with PokerStove a bit and think that just by doing that and grinding it out it's enough. Well, it's not. If this is just a hobby for you and you want to gamble from time to time, fine. But those of you who play for a living, plan or doing it, or are otherwise taking poker seriously: start doing this ****. Seriously. Not doing your homework is bad for your progression. If you are making decicions without knowing the proper reasoning for them you are just pushing buttons. Essentially, what this means, is that almost every one of your decicions becomes guesswork.
And as for grinding... are you really grinding as much as you should? Instead of watching Battlestar Galactica, no matter how awesome it truly is, maybe you could put in another session today. The games are getting worse. Legalisation is getting tougher. Poker is not going to get any more profitable in the future. Why not take the most out of it instead of grinding half-assedly? And while you're at it, why not at least time to time concentrate on 4-tabling your A-game instead of mass-multitabling with autopilot on? I guarantee that you are going to be playing better and learning faster if you do this.
Step 3: Start using your brains and paying more attention.
The thing that astonishes me the most about a standard breakeven ssnl player is how unrefined and simple his/her thought process is. Assigning some vague range at some point of the hand and then just doing one decicion at a time, basically stabbing in the dark through every hand. Having no info on villains besides some funky numbers that the HUD shows them. And then on top of that, interpreting these numbers wrong. For example, someone who has a high fold to cbet usually has a low fold to turn cbet because his range on the turn is pretty strong. A normal TAGbot is just going to look at his stats, think "wow, his fold to turn cbet is 35%, I'm going to bet for super thin value" and get owned.
You need to have a good reason for every decicion you're doing. If you can't explain why the particular option you chose was best, you're doing it wrong. Doing something just because you're used to it doesn't justify the action. Actually, as soon as you notice you're doing something without really knowing why, you've discovered a leak.
For example, you open AQ on the CO. A solid aggro TAG flats on the BB. Flop comes 554 twotone. The TAG checks. Most of you bet here once and give up unless you hit your A/Q. This is fundamentally incorrect. There are no worse hands that calls your flop bet besides mayybe AJ/AT. Air and draws such as 76s or KJs are probably checkraising rather than calling and pairs are certainly not folding to one bet. So nothing worse calls and nothing better folds. You might also get raised off the best hand. Being in position, what have you achieved by betting? Unless you plan on barreling away and making villain fold a midpair on later streets, checking is a much superior option. This might be obvious to some of you but I still see elementary mistakes like this a lot even by decent regulars.
Another thing is taking reads and notes and in general gathering information about a certain villain or villains. How many of you actually have any useful information on the villains you play against besides their HUD stats? Any reads on betting patterns, betsizes, floating/barreling tendencies on certain board textures? No? Thought so.
Adjusting to table conditions and villains is something most of neglect badly. Just mashing buttons on 12 tables, playing with identical ranges and tendencies on each is a huge mistake. On one table your image might be super aggro and 3bet-jamming 99 against some random TAG is going to show a huge profit. On one table it might be huge spew. I cannot stress enough how important it is to look beyond the HUD numbers and see the elusive obvious if you want to success.
Step 4: Step out of that box.
A lot of SSNL players seem to have this set of rules they go by. It's unbelievable how tilting it is when someone asks me if a hand was played "standard". There is no such thing. Each hand and each villain is unique. Nothing is standard. As soon as you understand that you're much better off. Unless you are playing against a total unknown, or someone you barely have stats on and no reads on, you should be adjusting your decicions constantly even if something is going to be very unconventional.
To me it seems like there's this weird mindset that SSNL players have where doing anything even remotely inconvenient is considered spew and not even worth trying. I think this originates from our micro grinder times where we were learning how to play a winning TAG style and were learning these ground rules on how to be a winning player by beating bad players very effectively. But wouldn't it be cool to rise above that? Wouldn't it be interesting to open up your mind to new, extremely +ev ideas?
Don't get me wrong, playing straightforward and solid is not a bad thing. If you combine that with good handreading and perception skills it's certainly a winning combination. However, by playing too many tables and by playing ABC TAG you become a very easy target for players who pay more attention. Playing like a robot, and an especially predictable one might I say, can offer you a decent winrate but not much above SSNL. I had most of my roll stuck on VC Poker for a while after getting kicked off there for winning too much, so I deposited a few k on another site and played some 1/2 there. It felt almost unreal how easy it was to play against everyone. People were so predictable and straightforward it was almost the same as them flipping their hand face up. I'm not saying how you need to super deceptive against normal 1/2 or even 3/6 players, I'm just saying that taking your image, gameflow and different tendencies into account could and should affect your game.
For example, here's a hand played against three different villains in three very different ways. The scenario is the following: 100bb stacks, villain opens on the button for 3x bb, you flat on the BB with KJs. Flop comes K93r and he cbets for 2/3 pots. Our image is semi-laggy, aggro and good.
First off we have your standard 12-tabling ABC nittag who doesn't spew but doesn't read hands or use aggression very well either. He is going to cbet this flop with 100% of his range but is very likely going to shut down on the turn with air and isn't going to be valuebetting very thin. He isn't going to call a checkraise here without KQ+ and we can't really fold the flop so best plan of action is certainly check-calling one street and folding to a turn bet on a blank. On an ace turn we should probably call one more street since even a standard ABC TAG is going to second barrel that frequently but on any other card that doesn't improve us check-folding our TP is going to be the most +ev play since this villain is just super nitty and straightforward and paying him off here is going to be a pretty big mistake.
Now, let's play the hand against an aggressive LAG/TAG type of guy who we know to be a decent hand reader and capable of barreling off even with air when he realizes our hand range is weak. He is also capable of valuebetting thin. Besides that, villain doesn't make any super light calls or big floats or whatever. On the flop our best play again is going to be check-calling since villain is going to open wide on the button and cbetting most of his range on this board. Also, we know that villain knows our range is going to be pretty weak here overall so we have to expect him to fire multiple barrels a lot. We are going to be 3betting strong kings most of the time and can't really have 2pair on this board unless we flatted K9s preflop, and we know the villain knows this. So we either have a set, and sets are hard to make, or we have a weakish bluffcatcher that shouldn't be able to stand three streets of pressure. Villain knows we know he is going to cbet most of his range so he expects us to have a lot of 98s/midpair/A high type of hands that peels one and gives up on later streets.
Given this and villain's aggressive tendencies we know he's going to be firing a second barrel very frequently with hands like JT/QT, might be valuebetting a worse king or firing total air. On this scenario check-calling the turn is going to show a pretty big profit given what we know about villain and him having a ton of air on his range since all he did was opened on the button and cbet this dry king-high flop. Unless we improve the river play against this villain is going to get sticky since we know he knows our range has very few monsters and a lot of bluffcatchers but after we check-call twice our hand does look like Kx. In those spots I like to evaluate timing and betsizing and think of my image on this table and our history on previous pots. If he thinks I'm a station, I fold at some point of the hand, if I've been playing snug and nitty I call down. Against this particular villain I'd definetly lean towards calling a river bet as well for all the reasons mentioned earlier. It's not going to be nearly as profitable as calling the turn bet though. Of course this depends on how the board runs out as well, I'm more inclined to fold if some type of gutter or backdoor fd hits and more inclined to call if all the draws miss and/or some type of "scary" card like Ax hits on the river.
Another alternative is going to be leading the flop, calling a raise and calling the villain down since most people raise donkbets on boards like this way too frequently, but given villain's barreling tendencies I think check-calling him down is going to be the best play.
Thirdly we are playing against a hyperaggressive villain who reads hands well, bluffs and re-bluffs alot, calls down and floats too light but doesn't barrel with air that much. Now, check-calling him down doesn't seem as hot but we do have two very viable options. First is again leading the flop, calling a flop raise and given how villain isn't the barreling type, check-folding most turns if he bets. Another, more interesting and probably the most +ev option is check-raising the flop and calling if villain shoves. This seems really spewy in a vacuum but against this particular villain it's perfect. First of all, we know that he knows we aren't repping much of anything when we checkraise the flop so we are going to get floated and bluffraised a lot. Secondly, I expect most villains to be flatting their monsters on a flop this dry with position, so his jamming range is weighed heavily towards gutters like JT/QT and random air that spazzed. If our checkraise on the flop gets called we should be more worried but again our best play would be betting most turns and rivers for value since villain is the suspicious type and the range of hands we rep is very narrow. Or, since we know villain is floating the flop super light we could check the turn to make it look like we had random air that tried to bluff on the flop and then gave up, giving villain free hands to bluff with whatever he floated the flop with. If villain checks the turn we can then valuebet the river since his hand is weighed heavily towards bluffcatchers at this point. This is one of those spots where our perceived strength is going to be very polarized so against handreading villains who call down light it's a good idea to mix in some thin value hands.
Another line I kind of like against this type of villain is to check-call the flop and donklead the turn. Since we don't expect check-calling him down to be super profitable why not get value from hands that he's going to check back on the turn and induce bluffraises from whatever two cards he wants to be raising with.
So, shortly put, there are several ways of playing out a hand, not just the one taken out of TAG textbook. Your job is to find out what is the most +ev one. And the only way you're going to do that is by paying attention, taking notes and really focusing a lot on what you're doing and why. Good luck!
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