Hey guys, updating the thread. I've been pretty happy playing on 888 though with university my volume and study time has been lacking. Here's the graph for the last ~9k hands:


And here's the graph for 888 2NL:


The sample is still not that big, but I feel like I'm comfortably winning. The BR is at 95€ and I will probably take some shots at 5NL (2 buyins or so) when I reach 110€. The pool seems to be pretty much as soft as 2NL on 888 so if variance is on my side I can start to build a bigger roll and play exclusively on 5NL. For now though, I think I still have some more 2NL grinding to do

Thanks for reading everyone, I will be posting some more hands and will definetly be posting the 5NL shot when it happens

It looks great.
Good luck on nl5!

Thank you, gl to you too

So after grinding a bit more I took the 5NL shot and some bad things happened... lmao

I lost about 2 buyins and since I was being quite aggro with BRM I decided to go back down until I have 105€ again. I'm updating the thread to show some hands that I would like to get advice on. Also, I'm curious as to how you guys study spots. Do you have a "plan" or system? Or do you just load up gtowizard and look at some flops? I feel like I've been playing way more than studying and I would like to change that.

PokerStars, Hold'em No Limit - €0.02/€0.05 - 6 players
Hand delivered by Upswing Poker

UTG: €6.05 (121 bb)
MP: €6.20 (124 bb)
CO: €3.96 (79 bb)
BU (Hero): €5.00 (100 bb)
SB: €2.22 (44 bb)
BB: €5.19 (104 bb)

Pre-Flop: (€0.07) Hero is BTN with K♥ K♦
1 fold, MP raises to €0.15, CO calls €0.15, Hero 3-bets to €0.55, 2 players fold, MP calls €0.40, 1 fold

Flop: (€1.32) 4♥ J♠ Q♣ (2 players)
MP checks, Hero bets €0.60, MP calls €0.60

Turn: (€2.52) 8♠ (2 players)
MP checks, Hero bets €1.10, MP raises to €5.05 (all-in), Hero calls €2.75 (all-in)

River: (€10.22) 3♣ (2 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: €10.22 (Rake: €0.51)

Showdown:
MP shows T♦ 9♦ (a straight, Eight to Queen)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 21%, Flop: 24%, Turn: 100%, River: 100%)

BU (Hero) shows K♥ K♦ (a pair of Kings)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 79%, Flop: 76%, Turn: 0%, River: 0%)

MP wins €9.71

These raises are quite literally never a bluff right? Even still, would you fold here?





PokerStars, Hold'em No Limit - €0.02/€0.05 - 4 players
Hand delivered by Upswing Poker

UTG (Hero): €5.09 (102 bb)
BU: €4.42 (88 bb)
SB: €5.87 (117 bb)
BB: €5.41 (108 bb)

Pre-Flop: (€0.07) Hero is UTG with J♥ Q♠
Hero raises to €0.12, BTN calls €0.12, 2 players fold

Flop: (€0.31) 5♥ 2♠ T♣ (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets €0.10, Hero raises to €0.35, BTN calls €0.25

Turn: (€1.01) K♣ (2 players)
Hero bets €0.72, BTN calls €0.72

River: (€2.45) 6♦ (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets €0.10, UTG (Hero) folds

Total pot: €2.45 (Rake: €0.12)
BU wins €2.33

On this one Villain snap called both the flop raise and the turn barrel which really made me steer away from firing on the river. Would you play differently?

With all this said, I think it was mostly variance - my bluffs getting called a lot, not getting paid with my value hands and overall bad luck. I will grind it up and try again

Thanks for reading,
andremmsilva

H1: I don´t think we can ever fold an overpair to a turn jam at this spr, unless it was a 4 card straight or smth similar. But yeah, with the str8 on board it´s very close already. Population jams merged even at this texture, thus justifying the call imho.

H2: I´d rather x/c flop instead of x/r the fish. Fish overdefends in my experience after he puts money on board. If he was a reg, then your line becomes good I believe. Noteworthy that his river sizing was perfect to repolarize vs a polarized range that´s probably skewed heavily towards high equity semi-bluffs that bricked, if he wants to bluff himself some stuff that missed and don´t have much sdv like 98cc etc (or trash as he's a fish lol)

I tend to believe QJ has enough sdv vs fish, as played, that you can still win sometimes if it goes x/x OTR.

My gut feeling though, considering how the hand played and the player type, is that this is much more a min bet to induce than a bluff, or some weak value that beats you, and I´d fold even AJ here if I played it with this line sometimes. But as I said, I wouldn´t have x/r bluffs vs recreationals.

yeah what you said about x/r vs passive fish makes a lot of sense, thanks a lot

Hello guys,
I haven't been very active lately because of university. I've been playing on pokerstars zoom and I've managed to grind the BR back to 125€ and shot take 5NL. I'm having a good winrate (small sample) though I'm finding 5NL even nittier than 2NL.

I've been studying a bit on GTOBase. What I typically do is pick a spot like UTG vs BB c-bet, BB vs BTN XR etc... look at some aggregate reports, make some sort of excel with the frequencies and sometimes take notes on our range shape/combos used. Then, I'll generate 10 random flops, try to guess approximate frequencies and range shapes, and if I get most right, I'll move on to another spot. Is this a good study method? Should I be focusing on other things? I also use GTOBase as a preflop trainer which has helped me memorize the ranges.

Here's the graph for zoom 2NL:


5NL shots (tiny sample because i play 1 table + 2 2NL tables):


Anyway, now that my semester is almost over, I want to set some goals for myself:

• Study 1-2 spots per week
• Play about 5k hands per week on zoom (ideally more around 7k)
• Post some hands in study groups/forums
• Read "The Mental Game of Poker"

Thanks for reading,
andremmsilva

Also, if anyone's ever had some experience with small staking/coaching deals for microstakes players (or CFPs), I'd like to ask some questions as I've recieved an interesting offer but not sure.

Well everything will depend on the deal, so share the details. Also the value comes from the coaching. If you think it'll improve your game to put you in a spot to play at a higher level and increase your own ability to study once the deal is done, you're in a good spot to take the deal.

The deal is staking/coaching with a 50/50 profit split. The thing is, while I presume the coaching is very much worth it, they ask for at least 35k hands a month + study time. Even though I might be able to do even more on some months, I’m not sure that during university this will be possible. I’m not looking to be a full time poker pro, so this type of deal is maybe not what I’m looking for

You always need to compare the CFP deal with other options and understanding how much will that cost vs the rest