When I first started playing Bovada Zone I was excited because I was thinking it would be a population game where you play solely based on people's tendencies. I pulled out a notebook and recorded the tendencies of how often it was folded/called/raised from each position. I even got a little extreme and tried to decide what people do on each flop type. It was very cool at the time.

Even though I regularly play 100NL and win, I started with the lowest stakes .02/.05, because this may be a bit different. (Thank goodness I did too).

I mostly played very straight forward poker. Play only good hands, raise with premiums, c-bet good flops, etc. Long story short I ended up not doing so well. I noticed that people were way too tight. Often times I'd hit a hand and bet and it wouldn't get paid off. It was frustrating, because I was like how tight can you get. The game was ultra tight passive.

So then I had a crazy idea. I decided to play every single hand I was dealt. People were so tight I thought I could get away with it. Believe it or not it actually worked for awhile. Recording in my notebook what boards people would fold and from what position. I also put stack sizes into categories. Tiny Stack $0-$1, Short stack $1-$4, Middle Stack, $4-$9, Big Stack $9-$15, Monster stack is $15 and up. The results were kind of fascinating. I was playing every hand and was gathering information quickly.

When I was playing every hand. I would usually c-bet according to my notebook on whether it was folded or not in that particular scenario. If the turn card was scary I'd usually bet again. If a flush or a str8 completed on the river I'd usually shove and win. Almost too often. I was moving up so quickly in terms of money it was scary. The room was just filled with these ultra tight players. Some were probably only playing 77+ and AQ+. These players don't have any stones and won't call unless they have the nuts.

I moved up to $0.05/$0.10 and I was partially successful, but then I had to move back down. The frequencies were different there so my play every hand strategy didn't work as well there. When I moved back down. I started losing money very fast. I had bled tons of money and then I realized that the player pool changes.

I thought that there were so many people playing that the frequencies would stay the same. Suddenly people were 3-betting with all kinds of ****. My notebook became pretty much worthless and I felt very bummed because I thought I had found a way to destroy the game. Unfortunately the game never stays the same for very long. You can sit down at the tables, but you never know when there is some guy 3-betting every hand screwing up all the frequencies or if everyone is playing super tight. You can't know because it changes throughout the day.

I ended up trying a super tight strategy where I only played back if I hit a set. I would get a lot more hands per hour and see lots of premiums. I wasn't confident it was going to work, but I was curious. Long story short it did not work.

Then I started playing a reactionary game. That's where I play normal, but if I notice people are folding a lot I might open with 97s or whatever. If people aren't 3-betting a lot then I'll fold to 3-bets. If they are 3-betting too much I might 4-bet bluff and take it down on the flop. This worked well and I was winning for awhile. Eventually it became very late in the night and I noticed strange behavior.

Lots and lots of folding and when there were calls it was a multi-way pot with many players. There were very few heads up pots only multi-way and the hands were really weird. I remember getting it all-in with AA versus 4 people. The other hands were 88, AJ, and KJ. I should be happy, but I'm going to be honest it was a little strange. People folding everywhere and then suddenly these people want to get all-in with these garbage hands. I'm not one of those people to yell out "the game cheated me! Wahhhh!" everytime I lose, but this situation was a bit suspicious to me. There may have been some collusion here.

It is frustrating because I see all these people do crazy stuff in awhile like stacking off with A8 on a A63 board. But then another hand will come up where I have KQ in the BB and I call the CO's bet. The flop comes KQ5tt. I check, he bets then I raise, and then he shoves. You think because of the first hand that he could have a lot of crap, but then he shows 55 for a set. It is crazy, because it is a trend game. You may end up raising 44 in the HJ and get a call on the button. Flop comes Q84tt. You bet and get called. Turn is a 2. You bet again and get shoved on. Now you're thinking well ****. I can't fold a set here. You talk yourself into thinking they can have some wild flush draw bluff, but low and behold QQ. The tough thing is they could be a nut paddler or a crazy guy that will stack off with middle pair.

You may think you can average out the player tendencies, but what it really comes down to is the game trend at the time whatever that may be. Good luck trying to figure that out, because I apparently suck at it.

I regularly beat 100nl so this was a humbling experience for me. It is really depressing to get beat at some penny game after tens of thousands of hands. Thought I'd share my experience, because it has left me depressed.

tl;dr: tried to beat up bums, got beat up,

Yeah, it was good to get that out of my system. I'm already sort of feeling better.

Read the whole thing, still not suspicious of Zone.

How many hands did you play at NL5 with your ultra crazy style?

How many hands did you play at NL10 with your TAG style?

Did you record any of your sessions?

I'm not very good at Bovada zone but thats mainly because its a game I dont enjoy. To me normal Bovada tables being anonymous is different enough from the traditional form of online poker, it is very hard to play when you have to develop reads from start each time someone sits. Rush/Zoom poker worked because it was different enough from traditional online poker in the changing players every hand aspect. Couple these 2 aspects and you now have a very different (and for me difficult) form of poker to play. If your game has been curtailed around exploitable play, making reads and dynamics anonymous zone is not really for you. If you are a GTO expert, who doesnt care what his opponent's are doing since adjusting isn't really a feasible strategy, sounds like anonymous zone is your type of game.

Zone giveth and Zone taketh away!

I play Zone 1-2 regularly,when it runs and I think you probably need to work on your mechanics,10,000 hands is not very much TBH.

For a period of time in October last year I played over 1000 hands a day. I'd flip through a deck of cards 1 time then redo it with the other side. When I'd get to the end I'd put one card in the "special pile" When I'd get 10 cards there that was about 1000 hands, but some times I did a bit more. I'd usually try a strategy out for about a week. Sometimes I'd go back to other ones.

The play every hand strategy made my money swing the most. It is such a strong exploitation that the variance in it appeared low. But it depended on what time I was playing at, because suddenly calling stations and 3-bet bluffers would sit down and make life hell. Money would drop very quickly then. Over all I played a lot of hands, but the game is frustrating, because it feels like variance should be less due to the volume of hands you can get in.

I think there are a couple people that totally dominate the game, because there will be this one stack who is up like 800BBs and it is like, "Damn sir, must be good".

I didn't use any special software or anything like that to track my play and stuff. To be honest I actually tilted a bit. I think part of the reason was because I play 100nl and I expected it too be easier. Also, uber tightness tilts me so much. I like to play, but most people on Zone love to fold, fold, fold. It irks me. "Play a hand! Oh my gosh please!"

The $1 tournaments were great though. I ended up having a first place finish 30ish% of the time. Those were the bees knees and it was crazy good. The sample size for that wasn't the greatest, I think a couple hundred. Near the end of those tournaments you could push all-in a bunch and people would just hand you their chips. They were awful. I would have played higher, but I only deposited $50 on the site and was too lazy to deposit more lol.

probs coz ur already playing too high

especially from all the posts/threads ive seen u make

@Ivr

I've made over $6,500 playing Nolimit after many many hands. Most of it has been made at 100nl. If I post a hand, it is usually for the ones I need help with, not the ones that I already know I've played well... for the most part.

The rake is killing you down there

Did you ever stop to think about time zones and when American players are sleeping Japanese players are playing? So the information people have is limited online to their regions. Americans and Europeans have a wealth of information but in other places they do not have the information we have. So naturally play will change. You are absolutely right trends do happen but not because of a conspiracy theory it's just different people at different times of the day.

You dont have to call every time even with a set if it can be easily beaten. Call often enough to not get stolen and adjust up or down when u think so. A messy fishy game is beaten like that.

What is this "notebook" you're recording info with? Zone poker and recording stack sizes, board textures, f/c/r frequencies doesn't quite add up. Even recording everything manually on a computer doesn't sound right

The "notebook" was an actual notebook that was next to my computer. I'd have a certain page for BBs that call a raise. Then there would be all the flop types listed on the left hand side of the page. I'd look at the computer and see what kind of flop it was. I'd continuation bet and tally under Fold, Call, or Raise for that specific flop type. Over time I would see which flops worked the best. It was pretty much a waste of time though, because things happen as you'd expect. People fold on KKx boards more than T98tt boards. No surprise and there are very few spots that were auto profit scenarios. Not to mention, the time of day affected the frequencies.

There were a couple of cool things that I did find out though. I'm not going to say what they are though, because I might go back to compete again someday. I think the reason I was losing was a combination of bad luck and fancy play syndrome. In other words, a combination of bad luck and bad play.

Sorry - but if you lose on bovada 5NL you will lose on 100NL.
Probably you got lucky on 100NL (if you really win there) - but all your writing tells me you are not a good poker player

After much consideration it is actually the opposite. I got unlucky/played-bad at 5NL Bovada and just massacre 100NL. I got the rock in my socks brotha. The Pep in my step. I'm good at reading people and maybe I need the reads more too. I remember open shoving with AA and getting called by like Q8 and 76s. They were awful and I was over leveling and doing stupid things.

Screw game theory. It is crap. Boooo game theory. Go GTE. I just played in a tournament where I was opening a **** ton of hands and ended up winning where everyone else was folding and playing 2+2 correctness.

2+2 correctness is making everyone poor. Except me, muahahaha.

The best part of this thread is where you lose money and then immediately think that it must be collusion on an anonymous site at a zone table.

But... my ego... I can't. Noooooo.

Stopped reading here.

Youre an obvious troll btw. Stop wasting your energy.