I just wrapped up a session of 25nl Zone poker on Ignition. For those of you not familiar with the site or game it's the equivalent of Zoom on Poker Stars. The only difference is there are no player names or HUDs, everyone is anonymous.

The player pool seems to vary depending on the time of day. Games are softer in the evenings and more reg heavy during the day. This session was by far the stiffest I've played in terms of the player pool. I would say over half of late position raises were 3bet by the blinds and every blind was raised by those in LP. Nearly every cbet was raised, floated or check-raised. On top of that the short stacks were ultra fishy.

What's sort of adjustments would you guys make in this environment? I ended up losing about 5.5 buy-ins. The first three were people drawing out, two flopped sets got all-in versus flushes and they hit, no big deal. One hand I had an overpair in a 3bet pot, money went in on the flop and both players had straights. One of the players was short stacked which put me in an odd spot that resulted in overplaying my pair. Could have played that one better. So half of the losses weren't anything to get too bent out of shape over.

Basically I couldn't get any traction in the game, kind of flop dead, suckouts blah blah blah. I just closed it down and will get back at it tomorrow. I'm not sure how to adjust in what I would describe as a really aggressive game where you're facing anonymous players. Tighten ranges, steal less, cbet less defend more. I don't know if straying from your strategy is a good decision but I feel like you probably have to make some adjustments to the field. Any thoughts?

Open a little tighter and fold less to 3-bets.

Essentially what he said and just be ubber positionally aware.

I thought u were talking about $25nl on Ignition.

Fold pre
Check flop
Over bet turn
It depends otr.
That's pretty good general advice imo

Would you also tighten your range on the BTN? I started to defend my blinds less too.


Not sure if you're being sarcastic in your first sentence.

As for the rest I've actually been playing this way, minus overbetting the turn, in most of my sessions lately and it's been working really well. Basically playing small ball pre and on the flop, judging on the turn yada yada. Today, not so much. Missed most flops, failed to pick up equity on the turn. Actually in the first 30 minutes I turned sets three times but never got paid. It was the flopped sets and getting outdrawn where it bit me. Like I said, no worries there.

It was a demoralizing session TBH. The one take away is I didn't tilt, laughed most of it off and probably made a wise choice to shut it down.

I was definitely being sarcastic. To call $25 Zone "aggressive" . Even at the bad times of day, is just isn't. Perhaps you had a session that was an anomaly but lol one session. It is great that you didn't tilt because those sessions where you don't win any big pots, and maybe worse don't play any, can be frustrating af. Keep your head up and don't over-adjust because of one session.

It's important not to over-adjust too. If villains are doing crazy things and getting way out of line then playing solidly will still be winning but perhaps not the most profitable. But typically you want to take out hands that are close to break even already or have least playability e.g. if you open a hand like A6o in the CO but know you can't readily defend it vs. BTN/blinds 3-betting then toss it. Same on the BTN, take some of your worst unsuited combos and muck them.

Lol, okay. But no typically it's not aggressive at all. Pretty easy to play a basic TAG strat and gobble up the chips. It might have been one of those mental things where you get sucked out on for full stacks right off the bat a few times, then misplay a hand for another and then all you can think is why can't I hit a flop? Every raise means they have the nuts...

The one take away was that I kept a level head and shut it off. I'm going to put that in my win column.

Sounds reasonable. I did start to tighten the reigns a bit around the BTN/blinds and made sure I wasn't opening too wide in early position.


I appreciate everyone offering some constructive feedback. Definitely helps the mental game.

This post is essentially how do I beat poker. Well its either easy or hard, hard to say, but you would do way better to post specific hands than say "How do I beat 25NL on ignition?" If someone can answer questions like that, I would go to high stakes, post a thread, and start beating the 2knl games tomorrow.

Or I'm simply asking should I deviate from my set strategy or not. I'm not looking for an epiphany.

Let me use a diagram...

<........|........> <--- I'm currently here. Should I go:
<.......|.........> <--- here or
<.........|.......> <--- here

Post the hands that cover the above three concepts. Two or three of the check raises that you felt were particularly bluffy/you got outplayed and the big pot that wasn't a suckout and you got it in bad. That will probably go farther than me blindly saying call check raises if they are bluffing, fold if they aren't, and don't get it in bad in big pots.

I wasn't asking for input on specific hands but I get what you're suggesting and how posting some spots would offer you the opportunity to give me better input.

Honestly my post served two purposes, vent a little here versus on the felt. And two I just wanted to know if a person should deviate from their gameplan, i.e. tighten ranges or maybe defend harder. I realize that wasn't clearly stated but others seemed to get where I was going.

I'll see if I can find the KK vs two flopped straight hands.

Were a couple of those flop raises in the blinds? I would target any hand like that as well, or a button vs bb hand where you got check raised.

And yeah sometimes in poker things don't go your way. You will invariably change your game when this happens as you likely lose confidence, but hey that makes you a better player in the long run likely and helps fix leaks. When winning you'll do the complete opposite, put 0 effort into your game because you are amazing, move up to where they respect your raises, and pull all kinds of sick thin valuebets and bluffs because quite frankly no matter what you do it just works.

Check_The_Nuts I found the KK hand that put me in a wonky spot.

UTG limps
UTG2 [me] raises to $1.35 with KK
BTN calls (short stacked)
blinds fold
UTG calls (has me covered)

FLOP: 9T8 $4.40

UTG checks
UTG2 [me] bets $2.95
BTN raises $5.33 all-in
UTG calls $5.33
UTG2 [me] calls $2.38

TURN: 9T89 $20.39

UTG checks
UTG2 [me] bets $17.12 all-in
UTG calls $17.12


UTG had QJo for the nut straight
BTN had 76o for the wheel on this board

What do you think? Reviewing the hand I felt like I overplayed it. At the time I figured there could easily be some pair + straight draws in UTG's range when he didn't reraise. I counterfeit some two pair combos as well. If a ten peeled off on the turn I probably don't make the same decision on the turn but it's probably not much different. He probably calls the flop bet/raise with a pair plus draw either way.

edit: I knew it...

Lol. Okay so on a dry board we're betting the flop but on a coordinated ones against multiple opponents we're checking overpairs? Do you check the flop if it comes Q58 or Q58 in this spot?

Betting 1 and betting 2 as we can get mad value from Qx/fds/sds/99-JJ.

This 89T flop is a check for a couple of reasons. The most obvious is that it hits the other players' ranges quite well for 2p/straight/combo draw. Another is we don't want to play a big pot on this flop because if we do, we're going to lose a bunch of the time. If button checks, it's not big loss because we didn't want to play a huge pot anyhow. The most underrated is that by checking to the button, we get to see what UTG does if button decides to bet. If button bets and UTG c/r's, we have an easy fold.

Yep, I overlooked the positioning. Usually I'm paying more attention to betting vs checking depending on how I'd like to see the action before it gets back to me. Pretty much all that went through my head was oh that's a gross board. Then the turn hit and I just shoveled it hoping he was still on a draw. Nope, just the nuts on the flop.