Hey all!

Been out of poker for a while. Looking to get back in, and thinking of making HU NL hold'em cash my game.

A bit about me. I played on Stars for a while. I was a FR limit specialist for a year or so. Played decent, had an ok win rate. Then I moved to FR NL for about another year. Again, played decent and had a decent win rate, grinding the micros.

I FINALLY jumped to 6-max and it was a LOT more fun. Grew my roll and moved up a few levels.

But then suddenly the short stackers were everywhere (thanks, Ed Miller). I wanted to play speculative hands, but the short stacking shove monkeys just wanted to go all-in pre-flop every time they were dealt an ace. Suddenly NL cash games weren't fun any more.

That's when I made the move to PLO. PLO was a lot more interesting, and by extension a lot more fun. And it seemed like NO BODY at the tables had any clue how to play. I'd aggressive bet my "big pot" drawing hands, and bet to protect my made hands.

And I watched my bankroll evaporate as my chump opponents sucked out, river after river.

Then Black Friday hit, and other than the occasional trip to Vegas or Foxwoods I haven't been playing.

I'm thinking of redepositing on another (American friendly) site, making HU cash my new game for three reasons:

The reason 6-max was/is popular is that you can see more flops from position than you can at FR. Well, in HU I will have the Button fifty percent of the time, even better than 6-max.

The reason short stackers has an advantage over other players who bought in deep was that the deep stack layers were playing a range of hands that was correct for the implied odds they had against each other. The short stacker was playing a much narrower range of hands, and that gave him an equity advantage over the deep stackers. In HU if I buy in deep and my opponent buys in short then I don't have to worry about a third deep stack player set mining against me when I adjust my range for the short stacker.

Since we'll be seeing a lot of Flops, the player who plays better AFTER the Flop, when pots are bigger and mistakes are more costly, will have an advantage (although I'm honestly not sure if that statement ever actually applied to ME or not).

So I'm making this thread to try to farm resources before I make my deposit.

I've got the Tipton books, but I haven't started them yet. I'm basically rebuilding my game from the ground up, and I kinda think the Tipton books will be way over my head.

I've got the Moshman book on order from Amazon, although I have been advised to ignore it since "poker theory has advanced since that book was written."

And then I've got just about every NL hold'em & PLO book that was written since 2000, and a lot of the ones that were written before that. Not all of them, but nearly.

I've got a basic understanding of the concepts behind exploitative vs GTO play. I don't really aspire to, or think that I ever will be able to, play Game Theory Optimized poker. And I keep remembering my first lessons about poker, that bad players keep making the same, predictable, mistakes over & over, and therefore a style that takes advantage of those constantly repeated blunders is the style that gets the money.

Is that still a thing, or is everyone playing GTO poker, even at 50NL?

If you've read this far, thank you. Please feel free to leave resources that you have found helpful, books that I should read/reread, or what ever tips you might have about building a HU NL hold'em game from the ground up.

Thanks,

phy

Wow, crickets....

So when I get the Moshman book I'll probably start a blog thread to record my notes & comments as I read it.

You will need to approach learning from a number of different perspectives. Playing hands is the main way to get better, reviewing what your opponents are doing and how to exploit them is important. Use equilab to look at your ranges in different spots, and equities vs your opponents range. Runitonce also have plenty of up to date content that you can use to see how todays games play.
Poker has changed rapidly over the last few years and with the introduction of software such as piosolver, it is developing faster than ever. You haven't really mentioned your goals for poker, but if making it your main source of income is one, then I wouldn't advise playing HUNL. However if you want to play for fun, then it's still the most enjoyable form of NL hold'em available.

Yeah, more playing for fun rather than playing full time.

Is equilab the new Poker Stove? I hunted for Poker Stove recently and couldn't find a copy to download that wasn't riddled with malware.

I'll check runitonce. Thanks.

Yeah equilab is the new one. It's got some cool features like the equity trainer and the turn and river scenario analyzer.

I haven't read any hunl books but I'm a compulsive gamestarter and have had some mild success there.

One thing I think that has helped me lately is this:

When I have a close decision that I think is roughly neutral ev between the two best lines I have to choose from, I take the line that results in the hand being over quicker. This allows me to increase the number of hands I can get in per hour with a negligible effect on my bb/100.

Of course now that you all know this I'll have to mix in more draws into my checking range.