Four years and still having losing sessions (1/2 LLSNL) - Page 3 - Live Low-stakes No Limit Poker Forum

Thanks for linking that Steve. I remember reading that thread and couldn't stand the guy. The power of variance in this game is revealed in stories like that. That guy was terrible and went on for so long believing he was a stone cold crusher, possibly still does. Now he isn't playing as much after his "downswing".

On your point about him not having a clue about hand reading, it really is fascinating that someone could be using a resource like twoplustwo and be as oblivious as he was. There was one post about him winning a hand with the 9 high flush and discounting the ace high flush, with the king on the board. He then says the Qc and Tc flush make up only 2 hands that beat him. No concept of combos.

10-09-2015 , 01:55 PM

#52

KKingDavid

grinder

Join Date: Aug 2011 Posts: 591

Quote:

Originally Posted by adamjm

I've been playing regularly (1-2 times per week) for just over two years. It took me 1.5 years to become a winning player at 1/2 & 1/3. At least, I believe I'm a winning player - it could still be variance. (For what it's worth, I'm at 9.6 BB/hour over the last 250 hours, with a rake+jackpot of $6 or $7 total. You be the judge). I do know from reading this forum that I definitely still have much to learn.

Anyway, I was definitely in a similar situation to you. Here are my biggest lessons learned. I'm not by any means saying you are making the exact same mistakes but hopefully this is helpful to you or others in some manner. Not really in any particular order:

1. Don't read books beyond your skill level. I read books like Ed Miller's Playing the Player and Doug Hull's Poker Plays You Can Use, *way* to early. They are great great books but not only was I still learning the basics about poker, most of their material only applies at 1/2 when facing the very best 1/2 players. i should have waited at least 9 months in to read them so that I could recognize the situations where those tactics applied.

2. The books I do recommend reading are Harrington on Cash Vol 1 & 2, Steve Selbrade's Beat the Donks, and (some will scorn me for this) Annie Duke's Decide to Play Great Poker. The first two have solid fundamentals for beginners; the latter is worth it for the life advice and good betting lines for handling TPTK at low stakes poker.

3. Read the hand histories in this forum. Seeing all the hands where people ended up in horrible situations and the chorus of "fold pre" in response was very eye opening for me.

4. Hand selection is key. Unless you are in late position you should probably be folding about 85% of your hands. (one exception - in a game with massive limping and little to no evidence of hand reading skills, you can limp earlier with speculative hands like low PPs, suited connectors, and suited aces and get out cheaply when you miss the flop).

5. Position is key. In addition to the reasons that apply at all stakes, at 1/2 with so many players who check whenever they miss a flop, you can steal a whole bunch of pots when there's a bad flop and everyone checks around to you. In other words, steal when they show weakness.

6. Get used to folding a lot pre. It can be boring. I still have issues where I play a wider range than I should after being card dead. Lately I've been trying to get up and walk around the casino for 15 minutes when I start to feel I'm going to play that way.

7. Most 1/2 players "have it" when they raise, or when they make a big bet in absolute terms. Unless they have shown themselves to be atypically aggressive, fold your top pair when this happens. Don't pay off the donks. Assume the players are fit-or-fold on the flop until they show you otherwise.

8. There are basically three fundamental ways to make money at 1/2 that don't require fancy play or extraordinary skill. Which tactic you use depends on how the table is playing:

If everyone limps and then consistently folds to pre-flop raises, you can scoop up blinds with late position raises. I love doing this with Ace-rag. Don't forget to increase your raise size in some proportion to the number of limpers.

If everyone calls raises pre-flop and then check-folds on the flop, raise or call in late position and take the pot down with a bet when they all check around to you, showing weakness.

If everyone calls hands all the way to the river, wait for value hands and then bet bet bet. This requires extreme patience.

9. Three-bets pre-flop mean premium hands about 99% of the time.

10. Be aware of situations/board textures when you will only get called by a better hand. Check those hands down. You will be able to do this cheaply because you will be in position the majority of the time.

11. Don't play when in a really bad mood. I've found when I'm in an "ok" mood poker lifts my spirits, but if I'm really down in the dumps (In my case I've been dealing with a stressful job) it usually backfires. I then play badly, have a losing session, and leave the casino in a worse mood than I arrived.

12. Don't move up to 2/5. I tried this for a short while about 9 months in. I was severely outclassed, but unfortunately I ran good early and fooled myself.

13. The biggest mistake players make at 1/2 is calling too much. The second is not bluffing enough.

14. People tend to play the same situation the same way. For example, if you see someone overvalue TPTK even once, they will probably do that every time.

15. Play your big value, thin value, and bluff hands with the same betting lines. Except give up the bluffs on the turn or river if it's clear they are going to call you down.

16. 1/2 players will almost always call a flop bet with a flush draw or OESD. Make them pay with bad pot odds with bets > 75% of the pot.

17. Don't get too cocky the first time your bankroll starts going up consistently. I was doing really well about a year into my "career", ran my roll up a good amount, then got way to wide with starting hands and my bankroll went back to zero in a 3 month span before I built it up again. I think I convinced myself I could play crappy hands profitably because I could outplay most players post-flop. I was wrong.

18. Change seats to get position on the better players or players with bigger stacks.

19. When there is a true maniac raising > 50% of hands pre-flop (this is rare at 1/2), sit on his right. You can limp with anything, even Aces, watch him raise, watch the table react, and then make your decision.

20. When the nits raise pre, they have a premium. Fold unless you have one also.

It took a lot of time but I eventually reached a point where I can profile the table within a couple orbits, spot opponent mistakes immediately as they happen, and identify how I'm going to make money. At this point I'm almost always among the top 2-3 players at my table, IMHO, and quite often the best. And I know who to avoid in hands as well.

Good luck!

2. +1 on Annie Duke book. Concept of making your decisions easy / V's decisions difficult extremely useful.

3. +1 on "fold pre." Many of our most costly mistakes have their roots in NOT folding pre.

5. +1. It is funny how we think about how to use being last to act for advantage, yet still are dumb enough to complete the SB, or call small raises from SB or BB, or limp UTG with all sorts of speculative hands -- low PPs, SCs and gappers, suited Aces, etc. Perhaps more important than knowing how to leverage good position is discipline to just avoid OOP altogether without super premium hands.

7. +1.

11. +1. Most important things prior playing are sleep, diet, exercise, and a sense of stress/distractions. Make notes and you'll see a huge GG correlation between the quality of your decision and these non-poker factors.

17. There is an easy way to out play players at $1/2 post-flop. Don't try to out play them. Just let them make mistakes -- being OOP, loose/passive, call stations, etc. This is most of the player pool.

Lots of other good tips in this post.

11-02-2015 , 09:40 PM

#53

Stupidbanana

old hand

Join Date: Dec 2014 Posts: 1,535

Hey Guys and Gals,

I just want to say a big thank you to everyone (especially Adam for that fantastic post). I'm going to take some time off and rethink things. Maybe come back awhile later. In all honesty I think my biggest problem is patience and being card dead, then waking up with JJ and not going broke. I want to give a hand as an example of what I see at 1/2 NLHE. This was a hand from my last session (losing session).

Hero: ~200$ OTB
V1: ~80$ SB, playing short stacked all night, buying back in for minimums, plays super passive and almost never raises anything. Calls PF with some speculatives and folds OTF when he misses. Easy to beat player IMO.
V2: ~300$ UTG+2 Seems decent enough, older guy, been playing for years. Ended up losing a lot of money to him, he plays fit-or-fold post.

onto the hand:

Hero has Q

and it gets limped to me.. maybe four limpers including V2, tables been limping all night.

Raise to 11$
V1 SB quickly calls shaking
folds to V2 who looks at his cards and calls after limping in

Flop (~35$): Q

V1 checks
V2 bets 10$ ??
Hero raises to 30$
V1 calls (about 40$ behind)
V2 raises to 130$
Hero folds
V1 calls all-in after thinking a bit and is terrified looking

V2 shows

Spoiler:

V1 shows

Spoiler:

And this is why I think 1/2 is kind of a **** show.

11-02-2015 , 11:04 PM

#54

SycG

enthusiast

Join Date: Aug 2007 Posts: 88

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stupidbanana

V1 checks
V2 bets 10$ ??
Hero raises to 30$
V1 calls (about 40$ behind)
V2 raises to 130$
Hero folds
V1 calls all-in after thinking a bit and is terrified looking

V2 shows

Spoiler:

V1 shows

Spoiler:

And this is why I think 1/2 is kind of a **** show.

If you can't beat $1/$2 live you can't get into the higher stakes. I don't know if I like raising otf because while you have top pair you've got a weak kicker and there are draws. All in all you got away decently cheap. Their poor pre flop play will catch up with them and isn't your mistake. They let you off cheapish. V2 took a terrible line.

11-03-2015 , 02:09 AM

#55

MirrorMirror

centurion

Join Date: Dec 2014 Posts: 100

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stupidbanana

V1 checks
V2 bets 10$ ??
Hero raises to 30$
V1 calls (about 40$ behind)
V2 raises to 130$
Hero folds
V1 calls all-in after thinking a bit and is terrified looking

V2 shows

Spoiler:

V1 shows

Spoiler:

And this is why I think 1/2 is kind of a **** show.

And one hand I played yesterday -

3 limps to hero in SB who raises to 23$ with AKo.

2 callers. Hand goes badly, but anyway the winning villian called $23pf with K7.

1/2 is a total ****show. Be glad for it.

11-03-2015 , 02:44 AM

#56

Rmbxr9

Pooh-Bah

Join Date: Sep 2009 Posts: 4,819

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jam Session

Struggled at 1/2 for five years, busto infinite times. Finally snapped and moved up to 2/5. Made 6,500 in a week. The following month made 20,000, and a month later made 14,000. You’d be suprised to know that present day I do believe that 1/2 is beatable, and for a well-worth-while winrate.

Promise this is 90% to eradicate the fallacious “if you can’t beat 1/2, you can’t beat 2/5” crowd and 10% brag.

Should've just moved up from $1/2 to $25/50 and banked $65,000+$200,000+140,000

What happened after those first 6-8 weeks?

11-03-2015 , 03:53 AM

#57

paratrooper99

veteran

Join Date: Oct 2010 Posts: 2,051

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stupidbanana

Onto the questions...

1. 1/2 to me is a **** show. After 4 years I've decided I don't think it's beatable unless you play as a NIT and that to me isn't poker, and it's just simply too boring.

2. The SINGLE 2/5 session I played I did decently well.........

1. Really long and I didn't see a question there. Is 1/2 beatable? Yes. Good players are beating the rake and averaging $25 an hour.

2. Again, I dont see a question but I think you are asking that since 2/5 players are better, should you move up to 2/5 because they respect your raises?

No. Your sample size is too small.

It seems as if you are concentrating on your hands and VPIP too much. Live poker is about exploiting bad players and extracting value.

11-03-2015 , 02:57 PM

#58

Aves2

journeyman

Join Date: May 2012 Posts: 237

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stupidbanana

V1 checks
V2 bets 10$ ??
Hero raises to 30$
V1 calls (about 40$ behind)
V2 raises to 130$
Hero folds
V1 calls all-in after thinking a bit and is terrified looking

V2 shows

Spoiler:

V1 shows

Spoiler:

And this is why I think 1/2 is kind of a **** show.

This hand shows why you are losing. Fold preflop. On a hand that you should have lost $0, you end up losing $41.

11-03-2015 , 03:05 PM

#59

JackInDaCrak

Just Another Dopamine Pump

Join Date: Dec 2006 Posts: 9,148

yes, that Q9 hand is hot garbage. What the hell was your plan in this hand?

If your plan is "hit a huge hand and stack somebody" take it back to the drawing board. It needs to be something like "V1 will play fit/fold on the flop so I can move him off anything with one bullet, and V2 plays a range that's even bigger garbage than Q9o, so I can take him to value town with a pair of 9's or better"

Meanwhile you're running a bluff against two players that will limp/call/stack off with KK+. you should be paying attention. Or maybe they're watching you thinking that you're likely to spew preflop and barrell off, so they're adjusting by playing you passively and letting you hang yourself.

You're just lucky that both players wanted to spaz jam on the flop, since you're no doubt value owning yourself on the turn or river if either of them flat you.

11-03-2015 , 03:21 PM

#60

Stupidbanana

old hand

Join Date: Dec 2014 Posts: 1,535

Thanks for the heads up and the honesty. Yea I'm honestly not a decent player, I'm a thinker that likes strategy and poker has been fun so far but I really want to make it less depressing by reducing the frequency of these losing sessions.

11-03-2015 , 03:29 PM

#61

Garick

Oberbiergenießer

Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 26,522

I think this thread has run its course. OP, please feel free to post more questions and hands, but let's put them each in their own thread instead of turning this in to a Poker Goals and Challenges thread. If you want one of those, there's a whole forum for them.

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