I wanted to comment on this hand as well. It seems to me that it was played poorly, both preflop and on the flop.

Preflop: A strange 3-bet sizing, almost 5x (I would have just folded, as you turn your hand into a bluff, and as I mentioned earlier, I don't like bluffing at micros). Then you call the 4-bet (should have been an easy fold as it's likely a monster hand 90% of the time).

On the flop, you call not according to the odds for your draw, once again turning your hand into a bluff.

And you got lucky on the turn)

OP, what do you have - an Elite cash game sub to GTOWizard?

Subbed, good luck OP.

Imo nobody should be playing in a way intended to beat less than 50-100nl. Usually the leaks will be the same but just more extreme. Even if you just try to play GTO you'll crush because people are making so many big EV mistakes.

Micro stakes players (fish too!) give you a ton of insanely profitable bluff spots, partly because they're too aggressive with their good hands, but also because they're so loose pre their ranges are undefendable. Plenty of spots all bluffs are very +EV in theory anyways. Preflop is a different story, fish are super stationy so don't 3b Q4s because solver said you should.

I think almost everyone should either use 33%, or pick 1 sizing per flop. The latter is very close to unexploitable but if you haven't studied more polarized lines you can make big mistakes after going big OTF. Range betting 33% isn't a bad idea because you'll probably mess up in the x back lines.

GL Matt!

Thank you all!

Yes- GTO Wizard Elite. Do I need it? Absolutely not! Do I nerd out and want to play with Node Locking, yes


Regarding my game, my goal is really to build the right baseline to move up quickly beyond. I realize that's probably slowing me down to beating the first stake.

The funniest winning strategy I've seen on GG 2NL is people min buying (50bb), folding everything that isn't AA/KK, and open shoving. Enough people still pay them off that they're from my best guess / available history only a little below break-even (probably get there with normal rakeback), then crushing it on the rakeback leaderboards.

I'm focusing on 1 size per flop for now, probably for quite a while even though the topic very much interests me.

A lot of ranges are somewhat reasonable on GG 2NL rush & cash because of the fast-fold feature (you can define hands that auto-fold from all positions).

100% just fold pre, I've gotten better at my ranges now too.

What I've learned pre:
- 3x IP, 4x oop, nice and simple, I was trying to memorize and making mistakes on solver sizes at different depths.
- Vs GTO ranges / computer, it's fine to call.
- Vs human, at these stakes, 3b/4b/5b are massively underbluffed and value heavy. Easy fold by default.

Post-flop:
- The math is pretty close (assuming 2NL player is going to be super sticky and give me my implied odds), but it does favor folding. This player helped validate this for me (small sample set), he snap-called both turn and river with KK, which is pretty close to the worst thing he should have here.
- While the math being close makes me feel less bad, it's also something that my practice counting combos can help me get perfect and find the fold next time.

Tiny sample set, off to a bumpy start on my new database, but pretty confident it's just some run bad (set over set, etc).



Overall feeling pretty good, lots of study to knock out still, but starting to get through my thoughts a lot quicker.

Feels like the worst I've ever run. Constant AK into AA, two big two pair over two pair pots, etc.

A few cases of flopping top set / top 2 and running into hands like 35 in 3bet pots for the straight. I also got an absurd amount of AA and KK, and only picked up blinds

Either way, this is poker, better I get used to it (and this is only 3k hands, I know downswings can go on way longer) while the money doesn't mean much. Feeling better about my decision making processes overall.

Back to running good, and playing better.

I unquestionably was running pretty bad for most of the first 6,000 hands here, but I still learned from a few areas where I could've played a bit better. Surfaced a bit of tilt and learned from it too (tldr- if frustrated, just quit for the day, come back the next day with a fresh mind).

Combined with rakeback I'm only about -$7 since I started this. Going to push for 20k hands then evaluate if I want to take a shot at 5NL again.

More importantly, study wise...

My poker-math is starting to feel great. I can quickly count combos and pot odds, mdf/alpha, geometric sizing, etc. I might still mix in some practice.

Here's what I'm working on next:

• Preflop Goals e.g. Test RFI ranges for each position in GTOWizard Range Builder daily and review positions with errors until I no longer have errors. -- I'm almost there for RFI, 3bet, 4bet and 5bet are next. Focusing only on 100bb to start.
• Off-the-table worksheets to quantify nut advantage and range advantage (flop for now), and correlate with size and frequency, along with daily goals (100 per day) and a goal to stop doing this and move onto the next item to study (95%+ accuracy of "general" sizing e.g. small/medium/large and frequency within 10%) -- This is a refined version of the spreadsheet I started on above.
• Clear plan forward, but next steps are open for adjustment as I identify other issues in my game.

Updates:

• I have pretty much perfect RFI ranges everywhere except BTN and SB... Probably some of the worst places for me to be inaccurate. I'm confident I'll improve these over the next few days and my study process is helping to perfect these. I thought I was doing much better than I am preflop, but happy to have the issues identified and a clear path to fix them.
• I'm getting confident at quickly counting combos, and quantifying "nut advantage". I'm still lacking a bit at deciding what I want to factor in as nuts (e.g. if I call nut advantage the advantage in the top 10% of hands, I'm not always great at figuring out what the top 10% are quickly, I think this part is going to be a bit more intuition-based, and building that intuition off the table).
• I've started turning my strategy into flow charts. It's far from perfect, but I think it'll force more consistency in my game and help me to re-evaluate decision points. I'll post a really simple example from this below (when to value bet). I'll try sharing more of these here once I think them through in more depth as I think it's a really easy place to spot flaws in my thought process. I want to break down some of the included concepts into their flow charts as well (e.g. deciding on sizing, deciding on and determining frequencies for low spr + high value hands, etc).

I'm at pretty much breakeven after rakeback since restarting my graph and majorly shifting my strategy and thought process (around $50 balance).

I'm going to push back my next evaluation of taking a shot at 5NL from 20,000 hands to 25,000 minimum. (At 14k hands now, feeling good, but I still have a lot I can do off the table without really having any reason to move up)

Look into Alpha and MDF to find out about proper river bluff ratios. GL on your journey!

Thank you! I understand both, but am still slowly getting to the point of tying everything together.

I have a few ideas on this very specific topic:
- vs weaker player / fish, I look at obvious bluffs, count combos, count value combos, and bluff catch based on that ratio instead.
- adjust to people never bluffing, over bluffing, etc with notes
- MDF as a default
- Alpha as a default for my own level of bluffing
- I'm slowly starting to recognize spots where weaker players aren't going to realize quite how wide they should call, or are going to overcall and adjusting.

I'm trying to distill this down to:
- Some hands should always bluff (assuming no specific adjustments), if I have one of these, I don't need to think further (this can define some or most of my bluffing range in many cases)
- Building a well-defined approach to how I value different factors in range building. I don't expect to make this perfect, but I want to get to a point where if I'm trying to find 30 combos of blockers for a particular spot, I come to substantially the same conclusion on different days/sessions. I also don't expect this to be in real-time, it's something I'm pushing down the list a bit but still very much near the top of my mind. If I can get a 75% correct approach to bluffing and get the rest of my fundamentals down pact and circle back, I'll be happy.

I expanded on my "when to bet" diagram a bit from above, it includes some of the basics on this-

I tried it before they introduced AI and nodelocking, etc. I'm playing nothing lower than 20NL currently so I'm probably going to sub to it again next month. I have GTO+, too. I know: It's nice to have regardless of if you really need it or not.

The GTOWizard feature that actually benefits me the most is actually in the starter version I think. I just love it all round though, happy to pay them any of their plan prices

The range builder is insanely useful for practicing preflop ranges. I'll try to use it post flop longer term, not to necessarily perfectly match solver hand selection, but to get close-enough and dial in the frequencies.

Their drills and hand history review are good, but the range builder forces me to visualize and definitely helps with hand reading on later streets.

I'm keeping a close eye on my redline... I'm over 3betting, which is okay given I'm getting under 4bet and overfolded to, and people seem to play 3b pots really badly at 2NL. Both trying to solidify my skills and selection in normal bluffing spots, and bought some MDA content that I'm applying... Overall, I expect to be slightly positive on redline at least at microstakes but aim to have my blueline take over.



Having good notes is also helping a ton, something I only really started doing about a week ago. I already end up with detailed notes on a specific mistake or two someone made in 10%+ of pots. Lots of really bad regs at 2nl with really obvious tendencies that I can run over So many of the bad players just show their cards too and give free info lol

Another 10,000 hands (25k total) and I'll take a 5NL shot assuming I'm winning.

Rakeback:
- Platinum: $8.82 - currently promo upgrade to Killer Whale until April 24, 50% rakeback (ish, +/- pvi)
- Deposit Bonus: $4 (20% extra rakeback up to a limit I can increase by depositing more beyond any amount I'll feasibly hit, goes away in 70ish days)
- Rush&Cash Leaderboards: $2.40
- GGCares / GGCheers: $0 ($11.66 ev in entries, will balance out over the long run)

Winnings: $1.59
Rakeback: $15.22
Total: $16.81
Total Hands: 15,327
Effective BB/100: 5.48

Feels good to be back to slightly winning pre-rakeback, but I know it's a tiny sample set Even just realizing I'm not -50bb/100 massively losing anymore like I probably was a month ago with 0 study occasionally playing live for fun is a huge win.

Interestingly, with GGCares/GGCheers EV included I'm > 100% RB, even once the deposit bonus goes away. Is this just PVI at work and normal for not being considered a winning player yet and in a high rakeback tier thanks to the current promo? Not sure if PokerTracker is factoring in the bad beat drop as well in rake which might make it an even higher rakeback %.

Update
I went straight down after hitting break even / in the green. Super small sample set.

-6bi over ~1500 hands, most of which came in the first 300 hands. Nothing that I felt was poorly played, just a bit of run bad. Been pretty card dead / picking up a lot of the bottom of my ranges for opening. This is poker

Mental Game
Here are a few issues I'm having:
- I start to consistently make mistakes around the hour mark (sometimes as bad/obvious as playing the wrong preflop range for the spot)
- I don't always immediately recognize tilt, but I am confident that even a short break resets my mind.
- I find myself saying "I want to make this a winning session" and pushing myself to play increasingly longer sessions.

Here's how I'm going to fix them:
- Goal: 45-minute session limit (for online), no limit on how many daily sessions
- Goal: Don't make mistakes where moments later I realize I made a mistake.
- Goal: Tag tough decisions where I'm not confident in my decision.
- Goal: Don't play if I'm not feeling at my peak This will not stay forever, but until I feel like my B game is winning too, I'm going to stick to study or days off when I'm tired or otherwise not feeling my best.
- Define success as fulfilling these goals, rather than "winning".

Study
- I found a gap in my knowledge of associating nut advantage with sizing. When I thought about "nut advantage", I was probably being a bit too restrictive. I've shifted my thought process to "who has more hands they'd want to stack off with" and am getting much better results.
- The past week or so has been incredibly helpful forcing myself to review more fundamental theory. Lots of things I was missing that I'm learning now. As a random example, I always understood different types of ranges, but reviewing that and when these ranges happened has helped me with visualizing ranges post-flop way better.
- 80% study 20% play for now, no fixed plan on when that gets closer to 60% study 40% play which is my mid term goal.

Post some hands. Specifically...

1. Hands where you called a river bet or raise.

2. Hands where you bluffed the river.

3. Hands where you checked back the river.


Try to include hands you won and lost for each.

Here's one that just happened where I called a river bet.

The hard part for me isn't the theoretically correct play (not that I know it well, but I can figure it out), but figuring out how far I should adapt to different bits of info. E.g. in this case, CO called my RFI; and my read into that is it's exponentially more likely to be a weak player than someone who has actually built a CO calling range at 2NL.

Should I read into this further that it's likely a passive-ish player, and I should fold more against aggression?

Removing the outcome because it isn't relevant and will hopefully get less bias opinions. I'll include both wins and losses in hands I post.

Thoughts...
Preflop: Standard, no meaningful info on villain other than he's calling in the CO, sample set on GG's HUD was < 10 hands so not really considering it at all.

In my mind, his range probably looks something like this:


Flop Action: Value Bet, seems pretty clear cut with an overpair. I want to get the bet in now rather than checking as I benefit a lot from protection (akqj turns).

Flop Betting Sizing: We both really shouldn't have much here on the board, I mix 44, he can have 22 & 44, I can have overpairs, he can't. I think my options are: Small bet at a high frequency (with most/all of my range, knowing he has a lot more trash in his range that has to fold out) OR large bet if I have a reason to deviate from that. I don't, small bet it is.

I expect to get called pretty wide by random overcards here.

Turn Bet: We should still have a nut advantage (not on the actual nuts, but on the top 5-10% of our ranges, or as I like to think of it now "the hands we'd want to stack off with"). Large size it is. Still an overpair, bet it is.

CO Raises

Turn Call: A8, K8, maybe Q8, 78, 89, possibly even the offsuit variants. Just quickly thinking through this, there are going to be more variants of "I have top pair, don't want overcard, I get money in now" type hands (when we consider the preflop CO call at 2nl) than 22/23/44/88/low freq overpair (yep, real consideration at 2nl). In my mind a lot of these are going to be calls by a weaker player on a low board like this. Is that a fair assessment?

River: I don't see a real reason to lead here.
River Call: Seems fine to me going on the same logic as the turn, I guess in theory he should be doing this with less hands on the river vs turn, but I'm not so confident in that.

The Hand
2NL 6max GGPoker (Rush & Cash)

d84a775e (BTN): 119 BB
af4d47c8 (SB): 106 BB
d11dcb4e (BB): 117.5 BB
Hero (UTG): 149 BB
85e022aa (MP): 93 BB
a2767751 (CO): 131 BB

af4d47c8 posts SB 0.5 BB, d11dcb4e posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has T T

Hero raises to 2.5 BB, fold, a2767751 calls 2.5 BB, fold, fold, fold

Flop: (6.5 BB, 2 players) 2 2 4
Hero bets 2.5 BB, a2767751 calls 2.5 BB

Turn: (11.5 BB, 2 players) 8
Hero bets 9 BB, a2767751 raises to 19 BB, Hero calls 10 BB

River: (49.5 BB, 2 players) 4
Hero checks, a2767751 bets 37.5 BB, Hero calls 37.5 BB

You really should not use any gtow strat with NL2 or put them anywhere near a gtow ranges. Players are so sheet you just bet for value when you have it and move up when you are rolled for the next stakes.

I don't think I've suggested someone limping CO at 2NL will be anywhere near GTOWizard ranges. This isn't GTOWizard ranges, it's just using GTOWizard's rangebuilder to paint what I'm thinking their range might look like, on average.

From reviewing this elsewhere, I tend to agree with the feedback I got that at 2NL lacking other reads, the turn is probably actually a good time to find a fold here. The raise here is going to be massively underbluffed at these stakes, and if there are 0 bluffs the "misguided value hands" don't justify calling.

Here's today's "Am I a calling station?" post

Important context, 400 hands on HUD, 80% 3bet. Otherwise I fold pre.

1. Maniac leaning preflop stats = possibly maniac postflop.
2. It was a near instant jam, I read into that as "doesn't make sense" and a flush would've probably at least thought about it a bit. I did expect to run into Ax/Qx with a spade fairly often, and figured I beat a bit of the Ax and all of the Qx so this is OK.
3. By default I expect a maniac leaning player to bet their value here, which incentivized me to bet. Typically (I'm thinking about this more as a 3b pot than 4b given the stats) I'd err towards value betting turn or river here on no spade runouts, not flop.


GG Poker - $0.02 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players

BTN: 101.5 BB
SB: 100 BB
BB: 172.5 BB
UTG: 106.5 BB
Hero (MP): 111.5 BB
CO: 100 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has A J

UTG raises to 3 BB, Hero raises to 9 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, UTG raises to 22 BB, Hero calls 13 BB

Flop: (45.5 BB, 2 players) A 6 Q
UTG checks, Hero bets 15.5 BB, UTG raises to 84.5 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 69 BB

Turn: (214.5 BB, 2 players) J

River: (214.5 BB, 2 players) 3

and a more normal hand with no real reads, but 2 questions...

Flop: I don't really know what I'm doing sizing wise in 3 way pots if I should adjust. I've kind of just decided that 33% is my default 3 way cbetting. Probably incorrect but I'm not really studied at all in multi way (it's quite rare even at 2nl with rush&cash when playing aggressively pre).

River: How do we feel about the check?

My thought process on the check:
1. There are enough flush combos to try to play for stacks / large sizing and accept not getting paid by other hands.
2. I assume I rarely get called by non flush hands for a large size.
3. Weak flushes may fold to a very large size.
4. All flushes will probably bet most of the time if checked to, even on the paired board.
5. I don't expect to always get paid by the X/R, but often enough.


GG Poker - $0.02 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players

BTN: 105.5 BB
SB: 232 BB
BB: 61 BB
Hero (UTG): 100 BB
MP: 148 BB
CO: 352 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has K K

Hero raises to 2.5 BB, MP calls 2.5 BB, fold, BTN calls 2.5 BB, fold, fold

Flop: (9 BB, 3 players) Q 3 K
Hero bets 3 BB, fold, BTN calls 3 BB

Turn: (15 BB, 2 players) 9
Hero bets 18 BB, BTN calls 18 BB

River: (51 BB, 2 players) 3
Hero checks, BTN bets 25.5 BB, Hero raises to 76.5 BB and is all-in

+ One last hand for today...

Got donked into with tptk. I don't think this was anything special, but trying to pick a variety of hands to find issues in my game that I might be overlooking.

GG Poker - $0.02 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players

BTN: 131 BB
SB: 171.5 BB
BB: 421 BB
UTG: 49.5 BB
Hero (MP): 118 BB
CO: 257 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has A K

fold, Hero raises to 2.5 BB, fold, BTN calls 2.5 BB, SB calls 2 BB, fold

Flop: (8.5 BB, 3 players) 4 K 2
SB bets 3 BB, Hero calls 3 BB, fold

Turn: (14.5 BB, 2 players) J
SB bets 5 BB, Hero calls 5 BB

River: (24.5 BB, 2 players) 2
SB checks, Hero checks


Alternate Ending
To make this more interesting, lets assume SB bets river. Would I be making a mistake by folding here?

Hand#1
Looks normal if the opponent went crazy.

Hand#2
Small bets on the multiway flop is a good approach.
There is a good fundamental article about multiway pots.

I prefer betting on the river. Micro opponents are characterized by their passivity and by checking we deprive them of the opportunity to make a mistake.
If our opponent has a strong hand that he's willing to pay, he'll raise on the river, but if he has a medium SDV hand that we can get a potential call from, he'll likely just check back.

Hand#3
Looks fine.
Fold vs bet on the river.