This was yesterday while 4 tabling 8 hours yesterday.



Write what you think THEN hit spoiler and post both comparisons.

Well it looks like you’re not folding enough. You’re probably going to show-down with too many mediocre holdings rather than either folding them preflop or folding to any raises post-flop.

2nl is a bit of a weird limit. It's real money but to a lot of people the sums are so small that the pain of losing a couple of cents is outweighed by their natural curiosity concerning the great questions of poker. Those would be: "Will my hand get there by the river?" and "What does that bastard have?"

So yeah, in general, people fold here way less than they do at higher levels. On the flip side they tend to be far less aggressive. The net result means that you actually have to make adjustments that would be sub-optimal at higher levels but I think work really well at this limit. Here are a few examples:

(Health warning-don't do this at higher limits or you'll get murdered by observant and aggressive players)

Small & Medium pocket pairs
From early and mid-position I would advocate limp-calling these and playing them purely for set potential. Post-flop if I don't hit a set I fold them. Playing them this way ensures that you pay the minimum price to speculate and lose the least amount when it doesn't happen. When they do hit though I'm betting as much as I can get away with as often as I can.

The reason why I think this is they best way to play these hands is that say we opened 77 from MP. We'll probably get 2 callers. If we don't hit our set there's a very good chance that a c-bet won't take it down against the loose-passive types that are rife at this limit. So now you've invested 6 or 7 BB's in the hand and we've got a very marginal hand. The fold equity just isn't there to make this a profitable play.

Suited Aces and Suited Connectors
I'd play these the same way except not from early position since these rarely flop made hands so it's nice to have some position post-flop. I'm more than happy to limp after other limpers with them though. Once again unless I flop some decent equity I fold them.

Opening more Lower Broadway
At higher limits hands like K10, QJ and A10 can cause you a world of pain after you end up going to showdown and getting out-kickered. At 2nl though their status gets elevated due to some opponents who will call multiple streets with top pair-awful kicker. Obviously this one is particularly opponent-specific so keep an eye on their stats to see how wide their ranges are.

3bet bluffing and blind-stealing
I would do way less of both of these due to lack of fold equity. Obviously if you're up against a nit this changes but against calling stations and aggro-donks you're burning money.

Premium Hands
Play them face-up. Big bets pre and post-flop


If you play in the above manner you should notice a few things.

1. Your red line will be a negative slope since you're not bluffing as much and you're folding a lot more after missing flops with your speculative hands
2. Your blue line will look like a stair-case which should hopefully be going upwards bringign your green line with it
3. Since you're entirely dependent on making hands to win it is possible to go for stretches when you're card dead where you're not winning but in the long-run this won't last and if you're disciplined you can easily ride it out.

I appreciate the feedback, slightly different play than I'm thinking but I'll try it.

I honestly lost two premium hands vs two ultra tight players 3 different times that I Shouldn't have and I played a lot more aggressive than I should have a few other times aswell, I know where I want wrong on some things but I'll try this on the things that I wasn't thinking about until I move up to 5NL.

What point do you stop playing this way?

I like this graph a little better. Was pretty neutral/down about 4$ until about hand 700, then the next 400 things turned up, premiums were paying ect. I think I need to play more tables as I can't get my red line to drop... at all... I'm only playing premiums/suited connectors and A suited (extended like you recommended)

Lost Aces all in on a 922 board to 99 vs a guy who limp, 63% vpip and called my 4x re-raise w/ 99, sick.

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Whenever it becomes sub-optimal. For example if you can thin the field to one opponent with a pre-flop raise and then they fold a lot to c-bets then going down that route with hands becomes more profitable than playing fit-or-fold as it gives you more opportunities to win (and you're going to be missing flops way more then you're going to be hitting them with speculative hands).

Getting the Red-line to drop shouldn't necessarily be a goal in and of itself. It's just that if it's going up while your blue and green are going down then it points to problems. Your second graph seems pretty healthy.

there can be more than 1 leak here, first and foremost make sure you are not getting valuetowned. There is no need to pay off people at 2nl who probably never bet the turn without a made hand or good draw. 90% of players are extremely passive beyond the flop cbet, the other 10% are doing some silly bluff, but do not make the mistake of paying off the 90% who sometimes have a big hand thinking its the 10% doing something random. You could fold to every single turn cbet without a strong hand (i.e., you are sure they value bet a few weaker hands) and beat 2nl. Also look at the size of their bets. Big bets usually indicate strong hands. If someone is playing 70/50/30 over 20+ hands with postflop aggression to match you can call with a much wider range postflop and print money, although it is trickier than playing against typical passive fish.

Thanks again brussels! I find that 80% of the time when I PFR 4x the entire table folds, lots of callstations after the flop but pre-flop nobody calls 4x.

pokerforumposter,

Thanks for the info man, yeah... I was paying off the 90% a little too much on that down graph, the 1/2 & 2/5 game here is pretty fish like 60% of the table, not used to most people having only premiums, easy folds down here at 2NL. You either have it or they have it or it gets folded. It's a weird spot to be playing. Just going to grind up the last 30$ and play 5NL, probably the same there but none the less.

On top of my above post, I would say that's my biggest leak. Well.. @ 2NL I have two leaks that I'm aware of at the moment.

1) Paying off NITS, racing their AA w/ KK/QQ knowing they have it type of stuff.

2) Over betting when I flop a made hand instead of value betting/building the pot for more showdown value.