Thank you for the thoughts, everyone. It seems like we can just x-r all of our sets + jam the turn here as an exploit if villains are never getting away from over pairs.

I think I'm gonna avoid bluffing in general besides c bets, and when we turn a great card for our range for a while.

It's my understanding that a rock is tight-passive. So I would call them nitTAGs instead of rocks. I agree that the nitTAGs seem to always make money. People just keep giving them action. Which means at 2/5 games with meh player's we still need to be more value heavy, I think? I only have like 20 hours of 2/5 under my belt though.

Re this hand: very few people are folding better here, but it's nice to get even overcards to fold. I'm down with the x/r but I'm only firing turns where I improve when I fire weak draws because V's turn range will be the real deal so if we get there I'll need more equity to make the 2nd barrel +EV.

I went through a downswing ~1 yr ago and getting back to basics is SUPER important for your mental game and BR. Below are two things I am constantly reminding myself when getting ready to grind LLSNL:

1. People don't bluff enough. Adjustment = Don't pay them off.
2. People call too much. Adjustment = Don't try to bluff them.

GL in 2020

*Grunch*

Fold preflop.
As played, fold flop OOP

I played for ~5 years/4000 hrs without more than 5 BB downswing. I'd read other posters who were in the midst of it and think "Really? How does this happen?"

Then it hit me. Ouch. A long 7 months spiral of up and down, including a big downswing like you. Break even over ~10 months of poker. During it I lamented my seemingly bad luck/etc. I saw nothing major wrong in my play.

When it finally broke, I could look back on it much more clearly than when I was in the midst of it. The simple problem was I was playing poorly. Playing poorly and just not realizing it. Fooling myself/justifying every move I made.

So suggestions for breaking your downswing:
Play differently until it breaks. I know the common thread of advice will be "play yourself through it", "it's just variance" etc. But right now your goal should be not to play long term winning poker. It should be to break this downswing. (I know this sounds stupid/I'll get alot of **** for it).
Cut back on your aggression. Don't play as many pots OOP. Don't play big pots without (big) made hands. Quit sessions early if you're ahead.

You need to get your confidence back. It's obvious to us not involved that this downswing is a major mental block for you at the moment and it's affecting your play, whether you realize it or not. Otherwise you wouldn't start out your posts with mention of your big downswing, right?

Play fundamental basic poker, booking up any wins early until the downswing breaks, then get back to "long term winning poker".

I'm very surprised to see these responses to saying fold pre, especially the first time around. IMO this hand is a clear open, and a standard (but not loving it) call to the small 3bet sizing. The fact some LLSNL posters who I have high respect for are advocating fold twice is shocking to me. I'm still always opening this, but the discussion about folding to the 3bet and the RIO of 98s is very interesting. Looks like this could be a leak in my game!

As far as the flop goes, I like just calling here. I also like just calling with my sets since those don't need a ton of protection. That being said, I'd probably raise my sets sometimes. I think we can balance it out by raising QJs with the backdoor flush draws and that should be enough. I like QJs as a raise because it blocks QQ and JJ combos that we don't want villain to continue with. Also having a BDFD gives us a little more equity while also discouraging villain to continue with AKs hands with a BDFD.

@ralphykid67 Thanks for the insight. I remember MikeStarr one time said that if everyone just folded every single time they were shown aggression post flop and we weren't nutted that we would have a much higher win rate. I think he's on to something.

@crsseyed I assume you mean 5 BI swing, not 5 BB. I really try to play the best I possibly can. I think I could do more folding and thin value betting, though. I think this break is much needed. I appreciate the advice.

@Colombo Agreed on the surprise about some of the better posters here arguing to fold pre twice, and generally everyone saying to fold to the 3 bet. I think I need to do more folding. I really like the idea about using QJs as a bluff because of blockers; I need to start thinking like that more often after I make my return!

Pre seems fine as the bottom of your 3x call range OOP. Post flop is a punt without more detail on villain’s range and tendencies. Just xc the flop and play a turn.

The RFI with 98s is close exploitative wise but folding to the 3bet (theory wise and especially exploitative wise vs the average live 2/5 3bet range) is a clear fold imo.

Theory wise, in a 500z rake structure 98s is like a ~5-10% open from LJ (depending on your raise sizing, and it is the bottom of your opening range along with the other mixes). In a live 2/5 rake structure (which is significantly higher than 500z) and opening to a 4x sizing (which should tighten our range compared to a smaller sizing) 98s is a pure fold.

Now, exploitatively, live 2/5 tends to be under 3bet and over called preflop; people who should be mainly 3betting or folding are mostly cold calling and sometimes with garbage ranges. This generally leads to us opening wider ranges profitably as we don't get punished by 3bets because they don't happen as often. Also, live 2/5 tends to have players who often make major postflop mistakes (especially in multiway pots) and that definitely adds further EV to our RFIs (assuming we exploitatively take advantage of that). However, specifically 98s doesn't actually play very well multiway; and we aren't even pushing an equity advantage vs the loose wise calling ranges. Additionally, we don't benefit from the minuscule "board coverage" aspects of 98s because exploitatively people aren't even factoring that in to their strategy; we don't have to have these types of hands in our range because our opponents aren't punishing us for not having them.

So overall I'm not sure which exploitative factors outweigh the others when it comes to opening specifically 98s; we would much rather extend our range to include all suited Ax, more suited Kx like K5s-K7s, all 54s, 65s, 67s, 78s, before we start including 98s. The exploitative RFI decision is close, and when a exploitative decision is close, I tend to go with the theory. I will say there are definitely table conditions where I would open this from the LJ and in an unraked live 2/5 game I'd pure open it.

A lot of words on the discussion of a single hand RFI hah

EDIT: for postflop decisions I was wrong. 98s is not a fine x/r at low frequency; it's a pure call. Also if we did x/r it on the flop, it's a pure check on the turn. So yea OP this is a pure punt; you played every single decision point incorrectly.

Well I appreciate you waking me up to this, because it appears I had a lot of leaky thinking.

I’m torn here.

If I flopped a set here I don’t think I would raise flop All the time.

I understand this board texture is way better for us. I wish the 4s was the 4h.

This does put over pairs in a tough spot but it seems like ur repping super thin here and if I had JJ+ that’s what I would consider if I was V.

Idk what the correct answer is but I can be swayed either way

Most have been said by some very good posts in this thread, but yeah i also want to hammer on the horse that less is more in LLSNL- and especially when going through rough stretches/downswings.

I went through a horrible downswing to start the year of 2019, wich was the closest i have been to actually give up on poker for a while. I was afraid i was gonna bust most of my roll. I was afraid the bad beats and suckouts would simply never end. It was soulcrushing. Some of the regs in the games flat out told me several times they had mad respect for my mental strength, that i managed to keep grinding without spewing at all when going through something like that.

And i said to one of my friends who is also a winning reg in my games that i believe one of the most important things that got me going was that i believed 110 percent that strong fundamentals-strong abc TAG poker is what was gonna get me through to the other side.Make things as easy as possible. Play strong ranges. Dont cheat on preflop hand selection. Stick to playing mostly in position, or ubertight when OOP. Use the main exploits that you know work like shyt in livepoker. Dont overcomplicate things with creative multistreet bluffs or GTO like balancing of all your lines. Stick to your guns and being able to live with the pain of losing while it is over is the main key in my experience.Many players is rushing their play in an attempt to end the pain as quickly as possible: well, guess what. You cant. It can take 1 week or it can take 3 months, and all you can do is to live with the pain and grind through it until its over.

Thank you for your insight

+1 to everything Jarretman said in this thread

How many hours have you played with this guy? Unless your games are way softer AND looser than average there is absolutely no way this guy is "crushing" (>10 BB/hr?)

He's leaving a significant amount of money on the table in an effort to increase his % of winning sessions. An analogy would be Doyle Brunson's style vs. Tom Dwan/Phil Ivey/Patrik Antonious' styles in HSP.

I know you are only referring to crushing 2/5, but another concern that I have with personally playing a nitty style is that I imagine it's much more difficult to become super good and progress as a player. I feel like the people that implement that style are going to just be stuck at 2/5 forever and have close to a 0% chance of ever crushing high stakes when they decide to move up unless their mindset and approach radically shifts.

I imagine it'd be very difficult to start implementing a multitude of more complex ideas and strategies against better players successfully overnight, which is why I think it's a good idea to start doing so at 1/2 and 2/5 even if they're not as applicable. This is hard to do when playing a super tight range of hands preflop.

Obviously if you have significant leaks, the tighter you play the less money you'll lose

Also, I don't think a big flop raise- shove turn line on this texture is the best way to play a set.. especially from an exploitative perspective.

Sure people are generally very sticky with their overpairs, but it'd be a disaster if players were folding them to us in spots like this, without us knowing, as they're drawing super thin here. AA is like 5% vs 88s here

People throw around words like always and never when describing population tendencies wayyy too much on this forum, and in general I guess.

Very well said.

I don't mind opening it, and I also don't mind calling the 3bet. If you arn't opening 9h8h than you're playing too tight.

I think the flop is a little loose but I don't mind it.

On turn 4s I give up and check. Going to only barrel hearts, 7,8,9,T,J

It appears our flop raise bluffs are meant to get the fold on the flop almost exclusively, and then give up on a lot of turns. At least I learned a lot from this hand.

Results: villain called with 8 7, rivered a spade and I died.