Great post. You could have been describing me with a lot of that. I'm early 40's, BS in CS, work similar job, two teenage kids. Your section on manners describes me to a T at the table as does my aversion to deep stack against lag/tricky/maniacy players. The only difference is I play less often (once a month at best) and while I haven't tracked my win/loss (because when I win it goes to the wife, so no bankroll) I'm guessing I'm not quite as good as you are mainly because I don't make changing tables a priority like I should.

Keep up the good work.

True, it's a totally different (and much simpler) game, playing live at this level. But by no means let anything I said detract from what you are doing and what you've accomplished. It's awesome to read about and I think this should be a must read for low limit players.

Just know that, with your experience, when online comes back, you can make far more, if you wanted to learn that game.

amazing post, didnt 100% agree with all the strategy but i dont think the main intention of your post was to lay out a "how to play each hand" post. as a fellow live player, i know it can be hard to put in 1000 hours of play, and i imagine its much more difficult with so many obligations (i myself am a college student). confidence is key in poker and you should be both proud and confident in your results. congratulations!

I would urge all players (even rec players like ourselves) to accurately track our wins/losses. Our game memories, fluffy feelings of how we're doing overall, guessimates, etc. are highly unreliable and probably totally inaccurate. Truthfully, if I didn't track my results, I would have no clue how I'm doing overall; I probably wouldn't even be able to halfheartedly guess whether I was even winning vs losing $$$ over this stretch. Seriously.

I have no desire or intention to ever play a single on-line hand of poker. I sit in front of a computer screen all day at work, it's the absolute last thing I want to do when I go home. Plus I don't trust anything about on-line gambling (flame away if you wish, but basically every single bad the-world-is-coming-to-an-end thing that was ever predicted about on-line gambling has come to fruition). Plus I really enjoy the live experience (and my guess is I enjoy it a lot more than those coming from an on-line background due to not being fully aware of it's drawbacks, such as the extreme relative slowness, table personalities that we must put up with, etc.).

You post good.

I've thought about the see cheap flops and outplay on the flop strategy. Toyed with it but decided the stack sizes out here in California call for nitty play. 1/2 Max buy-in is 60 bucks with a 5 or 6 dollar rake depending on the casino. Most buy in for 40.

In fact I can't even remember the last time I limped a hand.

Ya, obviously your game plays totally different. You're only playing 30bbs deep and thus a shortstack strategy has to be employed (and I doubt there's much limping involved with a good shortstack strategy). Your game sounds really gross, tbh.

Yeah it's pretty gross. Raise/fold preflop, rarely get to a turn with money behind, and so many degenerates... So, so many degenerates. Not sure it qualifies as poker.

I appreciate the contribution towards the community for this thread. Although there's plenty I disagree with when it comes to your game theory. For instance you buy in for $300 but make $20+ raises. You're playing more like a 2/5 or even 5/10 game in this respect, which essentially makes you short stacked until you double up at least once. Therefore your range should be weighted towards shorter stacked EQ, such as broadways and top pair. In these situations when you hit, you should be looking to get it in ASAP. I.E. you raise TT and get 3 callers, you should be betting full pot or even more. You should frequently find yourself in allin situations, not check turns and calling river bets.

Suited connectors? Why bother. Unless everyone else is raising $10 and you can see a flop. I imagine most people are raising huge like you do, so you're never getting a good price to call unless you're all sitting super deep.

Once you do get deep I think you should be raising pretty wide from all positions. JTs utg? Raise it. 22? Raise it. A5s vs 2 limpers in MP? Raise it. Q9s OTB vs 5 limpers? Raise it. You pretty much always have implied odds with anything in these games, so play as many hands as possible.

I mean to be fair I categorize myself as a lag, but I think this is totally viable in almost any small stakes game. I've never really seen a "tight reg infested 1/2 game" in my life.

Great post, lets say you flop a set of AAs on a wet board bet pot get two calls and straight and flush draws get there on the turn. You have a psb left do you check fold? tks.

Outstanding!

I saw this post today at lunch and blocked the evening to review in detail. Finished first read just now and will go through again. I don't think I'll agree with everything, but certainly will adopt a lot of your ideas. The structure of your post is also great. Very readable.

Thanks!

Read the whole thing - nice post, thanks for sharing!

If there is one takeaway that I think people should have is that discipline is 98% of it at LLNL. As another poster said, what you described is relatively straightforward strategically, but works because others are less disciplined than you and because you are selecting to play against players who can't/won't adjust.

Good work, and congrats on building a good balance in your life between poker and other activities/priorities :-) .

Excellent post sir. But, I would like to point out that reads on your opponent or the occasional tell can make the difference in a live game to a winning or losing session. However, the read or the tell can be observed in hands your not even playing. Just some thoughts from a former online player that makes more live due to his ability to read people better live. But, I agree most of the time a bet or raise against an opponent is usually straightforward at these stakes.

Awesome thread man. Just awesome. Great job, and thanks for giving back!

Awesome post, awesomer poster. Keep crushing, buddy!

After my Semi transition from SSL to NL, I was happy to see a friendly face in this forum with GG.
Thanks for post GG as I'm still a bit noob-y in the NL world.

HOLY COW! TLR

This is a handful to read, will read bit by bit over the weekend and post my thoughts in a few days!

Read all. Nice. I am defo more aggressive than you, esp on the turn, but otherwise agree with most.
This is gold. The people who say "the way to beat a table is to play the opposite of the table style are way off, imo. There is so much value in playing a lot of hands against Vs who will stack off with TPNK. Also, it makes the game less boring and keeps our image non-threatening.

Congrats on Best-Of. Well deserved imo.

Very well written, sir.

I probably have a few mild disagreements with a few things in your style, but I think as an entire package they work well for you and your personality.

Great job. My 1,000 hour post won't be long...and will involve more swearing, boozing, and strippers.

actually just took the time to read entire OP(s). Good read, GG. Very sick winning that BBJP!

great post GG,

definitely can see Harington's influence on your game thru your strat talk, but that not all bad

one of the most important lessons to take from your post is how important it is to respect the game and maintain a solid head. you obviously have very good self control and probably play close to your A game at all times, which would benefit others an immeasurable amount.

your strat is not impossible to put into practice, but the difficult thing is too many of us get all fps on everyone's asses bc "hey, we're the best at the table, i can raise 68s ip over a bunch of limpers ever when most have less than 100bb stacks". a lot of ppl would benefit from your approach to the game.

It's not fps to raise 68s over limpers. OP admits that we should play a little looser since we know villains are also playing loose. The key is just refining our range so that it is still slightly ahead of our opponents. Personally I dont think he's taking it far enough. His range is tight enough to play vs anybody. Fish have a terrible understanding of relative hand strength, and while sure J4s is ahead of 68s, 68s will obviously play much better postflop so we can afford to raise it. At that point we can take the same postflop lines that OP does, which is namely pure value when we hit, because thats all we're looking to do. We simply want to get into more opportunities to hit by playing more hands. AJ/TT+ from EP is just a leak imo. I mean it works, but we can do better.

Obviously I didn't mean its never profitable to raise speculative hands in position over a string of limpers, I just meant that there are definitely situations where good players could benefit by passing on some marginal ev spots bc they are bored and are just raising for the sake of raising.

Even if you go by the age old saying that we are going to out play our opponents so well post that we can bloat the pot ip no matter what, your post flop skill still won't matter if a fish is l/c with 40bb and refusing to fold when you have a speculative hand. Add in the mix that there is a chance that two or more limpers might call with shortish stacks and raising speculative hands ip is definitely -ev.

Now if you have a plan and iso a particular fit or fold fish and plan to just take it down with a cbet that's one thing, but having a refined value range that is just slightly ahead of the fish won't matter if you create unnecessarily difficult situations bc your hand looks good so your just blindly raising.

Nice, and the 1000 hour sample is certainly good enough to take the time necessary to smell the roses. Very good job.

There is a multitude of college grads filling out apps (with no job in sight) right now wishing they could pick up 30/hour.

Great read. Took me a while to read all of it. There are several key lessons, but I'm not going to summarized them for the lazy.

I know there is some disdain for casual players at times even in this forum, but poker has always had outstanding winning players who had full time careers outside of poker. Bobby Baldwin, Lyle Berman and Jay Heimowitz all played winning nose bleed poker, but primarily made their money in business. You don't have devote all your waking time to poker to play winning poker.

It also points out that there isn't just one way to win at poker. This thread isn't about how to crush LLSNL. It is about how one person beats it. Congrats.