It's not necessarily abnormal, but you definitely aren't very good and thinking you are is detrimental to improving your game. Confidence is good, but it's also one of the main reasons there are so many terrible players.

I feel like your response is tongue and cheek yet serious. It's not true though. Some of the biggest winners in Los Angeles and Dallas are very loose players. I'd believe that is likely the case in the T/20+ Vegas games too but I don't have enough data to say for sure.

Great job, Dizzy. You're an inspiration.

Tyty

I can't claim to know about all the crushers, but I've heard from good sources that some of those legendary LAGs in those games are basically just spots in reg linesup but they make up a lot of the EV with some other intangible edges so they're not absolutely guzzling. Others have adapted to playing a lot tighter. Not to drop names since this is just hearsay but a few of the very well known LAGs on 2+2 fall under the former category.

Yeah all the really good regs are capable of turning it up and being super aggro in the right games to be aggro in, no doubt about THAT, but the majority of their play is going to be fairly reasonable.

Like, as long as we accept that opening A5s and other suited aces UTG isn't "super loose" you get me, I just mean their vpips will still fall under 30, and probably under 25, otherwise we might just have a different definition of LAG. Certainly "raising any 2 in this spot preflop" frequencies should be very close to 0 from good regs these days, whereas back in the day lags will just do whatever in some spots because people play so poorly against it.

Congratulations on your awesome results Dizzy, I wish I were as good a player as you my friend.

I'm sure that is the case. I certainly wouldn't advocate playing LAG in a lineup full of strong TAGs. If skill level is equal then playing a tighter range of hands is a tremendous advantage. My assertion is that there are many fishy lineups even in the higher stakes games...particularly in places like LA and Dallas where one can benefit from playing a wider range of hands.

A LAG should generally be under 30 VPIP even in 6max. If someone were to play the very wide range of every pair, every broadway and every suited holding (includes 83s, 72s, K2s, J5s, etc) from every position their VPIP would only be 38.5%. Of course in real life their VPIP would be lower than that because action will often dictate that they fold preflop and good players tend to remove weaker holdings from their ranges when out of position.

There are poker tables that exist at every level of live poker where multiple players are playing virtually any 2 cards. Playing a loose yet reasonable range can be very profitable in games like this.

As I stated in later posts, I know I have ALOT to do get better. I am confident I'm better than the averAge joe. After reading and and studying up, looking back on those sessions, quite a few of those bets I had probably could have been avoided if I had played them different or not at all due to my position. I just joined this forum because I have no one to discuss these things with to try and improve. And Before I'd get mad and say what s**t luck I had, but now realizing that it probably was how I played l. As well as the fact that you can play a hand perfectly, it just sometimes doesn't fall your way.

It's not hard to be better than an average low stakes player. The challenge is being so much better than the entire rest of the table (maybe less one person) so you can make a decent hourly after rake.

If you're only an above-average player you're losing money.

Long way to go.

TBH, based on my experience playing a lot of 2/5 and knowing a lot of 2/5 players, your study-list is what sets you way apart and your stated intangibles dont affect your win-rate as much as we'd like to think. you said you dont study much but i think relative to other regs, you do it more than you think. but i guess no one should ever think they study enough, you should always think you can do more.

i know good players who dont do any of the things you stated. they just watch poker on youtube for like 20 minutes/week and say with a straight face that they do a lot of studying. i just want to slap them and be like no you ****ing dont

thanks man!

yeah i think this is a fair assessment - even though i don't specifically sit down and devote time to studying i am thinking about poker a lot and try to squeeze in as much learning as i can with the time i have. i think i do enough to be very successful at the 2/5 level but still wish i could do more as i have my sights set on being successful in bigger games.

i will concede that the intangibles i mentioned (other than being properly rolled/not tilting) are definitely more relevant at T/T where there are days the game will not go if I can't get (the right) people to play, where at 2/5 there will always be games. however - these things still do go a long way even in a 1/2; 1/3; or 2/5 game and i am tired of seeing nit regs actively making games worse.

I would say that youre both right. You cant necessarily make the games better by being extra polite or showing your hand first and that kind of stuff...but you can definitely make the games worse by being a jackass, talking detailed strategy at the table, berating the fish and that kind of thing.

Yeah I mean it seems like we're not disagreeing or anything, but in my mind what you're suggesting isn't really laggy per se, it's just good adjusting poker. There are definitely a few players well known for "playing spots instead of playing hands" and vpipping hands they're not supposed to, and they can't do that profitably anymore.

30 vpip is fairly laggy, but like 20-25 isn't particularly weird, just someone who's expanding range a little. Of course the vpip is not the greatest gauge either since you expand a lot if someone starts limping, but say, someone who opens 22+ A2s+ 79s+ UTG would not in my mind be a LAG, even if those ranges aren't GTO. Those ranges are fairly playable in most average 5/10 live games, but yeah these ranges, even, are bordering on spewing on a table filled with good regs (but like the hands from that range that don't make money wouldn't be losing a lot of money, like, 22 is never gonna be AWFUL compared to 55, nor is 79s much worse than T9s, the way people opening A6o in the HJ and stuff is.

@ dizzy: very nice results. Congrats! You play $200nl online (and I assume you win or else you wouldn't bother playing) yet you rarely study? I thought that was pretty much unheard of at a level this high.

thanks man - and i mean ignition is pretty soft so i don't think it really counts haha. i go through phases where i take playing online more/less seriously but i mostly just use it as a training tool to get lots of volume in when i'm too tired/don't have time to make it to the casino.

i never really bothered with a hud or tracking system since ignition has anonymous tables and i don't really play that much, so unfortunately i don't know how many hands i've played or how well i am actually doing online other than how much $ i am up. i doubt i am that big of a winner.
(i'm also not even sure any huds work effectively on ignition zoom tables)

i've jumped around stakes a lot in the past but more recently have settled into playing 200nlz and have been doing ~well so we will see how it goes.

he doesnt barely study

hell yea mother****er, this is what you gotta do. this guy knows how to be successful at poker

I'll take the under on this, by a lot.

I don't think anyone can beat 5/10 for 14bb/hr for a large sample, barring extreme run good. The math for it simply does not add up, because most 5/10 line-ups have enough pros that there isn't enough money lost by the fish to make anyone win that much.

I've played with some of the people in your player pool, and I wasn't super impressed. I say your player pool, because I assume there aren't that many London regs who play high stakes, so if I see them in my games you probably know them. Some of them also BLATANTLY soft played each other in big games, which is not cool.


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Soft playing is (was?) a big problem in sfla games. (As are my STRONG suspicions of all out collusion in certain line ups)

Alot of people laugh when i say this, but it was one of the determining factors in me realizing I could not go pro.

Not surprising, in some markets it makes certain games or limits unplayable

Tons of regs share bankrolls, stake each other, or have money-back deals with each other. There's nothing you can do about that but it helps to know who's friends with whom.

What isn't acceptable is one reg flatting his friend with KK on the button because no one else entered the pot yet. These guys already 3 bet the fish a ton so GTFO with this blatant collusion ****.

but what if they want to do that because that’s how they want to play from a game perspective?

They clearly aren't, is my point.

If I raised from MP are any of them flatting KK from the button? **** no. That's where it becomes collusion.

yeah but “bruh i know my bro’s game so well and i’m gonna value his TP so badly and that sabr is a fish who calls with anything”

Collusion is a strong word for flatting your friend with KK. It's softplaying IMO, which isn't kosher, but not on the same level as cooperating in multiway pots against other players.

I think that soft playing can probably be exploited for +EV to some extent, if you know who’s soft playing who - so as above mentioned, soft playing ain’t exactly the same as collusion (but agreed it’s still bad, especially as stakes get bigger).