Hi Everyone!

I've been a 2+2 reader for a little bit, but I'm just getting around to finally making my first post! First, I want to give a little backstory about myself.

I started playing online poker about 1 year ago for fun/entertainment with some friends at microstakes. I was quickly hooked and was determined to journey through the low microstakes of 5NL and beyond. However, things weren't as easy as I suspected and I had been stuck at 5NL for some time now. The good news was now I had around a 100k+ hand sample size to analyze and find my leaks/weaknesses. I had been trying to learn/apply GTO to my game, but a little while ago I realized I was a little bit out of my depth and should try to focus on something a bit more important for microstakes: the population. It was this time that my friends and I learned about mass data analysis (MDA) and how we could use our hand samples to exploit population tendencies. The great part about this was I could start developing a strategy catered towards my player pool rather than solely relying on GTO.

With the help of my and my friend's hand samples, I think I have developed an MDA based strategy that will allow me to crush my way through the micros! I hope to document my journey here and share what is working/not working, etc. I hope to have great success and maybe even help some folks along the way! For now, I hope to reach 50NL within the next 6 months if possible. My current volume goal is around 25,000 hands per month (6,250 hands per week).


Guidelines for my journey are below and thanks for reading/following!

P.S. my requirements for 5NL to 10NL are a bit smaller due to me already having some initial success with my strategy at 5NL during initial testing

Guidelines:

Moving up:

5NL -> 10NL (15 buyins and/or +5evbb/100 at 20,000 hands)
10NL -> 25NL (40 buyins and/or +5evbb/100 at 40,000 hands)
25NL -> 50NL (40 buyins and/or +5evbb/100 at 50,000 hands)

Moving down:

Net loss of +10 buyins, move down and recoup

This will be a quite interesting thread, definitely in.
I'm also playing a MDA strat, from a team that I made part in past.
I know a bit about how mda strategies work and how they are built, don't you think 100k hands it's a bit too low volume of hands to be reliable?

anyways, all the luck for you

Hi and thanks for the reply! Great to know you play an MDA strat as well and maybe we can help each other out sometime haha. I am hoping to develop my MDA/GTO skills as this journey progresses, but I think I have a good foundation for the MDA strat and I hope to continue to build/refine it as my database grows.

100k hands is just the sample from my played volume, but I also have almost equivalent samples from my friends I mentioned in the previous post. Additionally, since we play on Ignition/Bovada, we can download the hand histories from the site directly 1 day after the hand is played with information about hole cards from all players. When aggregating the database in terms of fish/regs, this makes 1 hand possibly worth 2-3 hands (if that makes sense). However, my database is still too small to have good information on a lot of river lines. As such, my strategy is mainly flop and turn based with good aggression/fundamentals trying to be applied at the river. I have some intuition about population tendencies at river from my database, but not as statistically significant as my information on flop/turn.

Thanks for tuning in!

First session!

Hey everyone, just wanted to post my first session. Things went well, nothing too crazy, but I'm glad that my redline is looking good! Side note on my strategy: I still am trying to mainly be a blueline warrior extracting value from fish paying me off, but I also try my best to keep my redline as level as possible.

GLGL

+1 following a MDA/population tendencies gameplan. I would strongly suggest not using your own database when developing those strategies, and not extrapolating findings of a lower level to the higher ones (but you can, to some extrent, do the inverse).

The problem with own database is sample size. I can tell you a 20 million HH database is not enough for lower freq spots like turn/river in 3 bet pots SB vs EP etc, and definitely not enough if you want to go deeper in textural stuff, different player profiles etc, even for common formations. You just won´t get accurate results, and innacuracy can be dangerous when making exploitative adjusts. Nodelock a solver solution and you'll understand why.

And I doubt you will play 20M hands in your whole career. Maybe not even 10M

If I were you, I would either look for a CFP that thinks the same way as you do, then absorb their strategies and improve and move up while under the contract. Or I would invest heavily in all the skills, software, hardware, math/statistics, to run it by myself. 2nd option probably the more intelectually rewarding if you do it right, but with the bigger pitfalls if you don´t get it right. Not sure it would necessarily be the cheaper, in the end.

Hi and thanks for the follow! I can understand where you are coming from when you say not to use my database of a lower level while trying to move up to a higher level. It may be complete rubbish, but I am making the bold assumption that the microstakes population tendencies are somewhat uniform as far as microstakes fish/regs go. I think there will definitely be a change in the fish/reg ratio as I move up in stakes, but with proper table selection I am hopeful I can apply my strategy, developed from a slightly lower level, to a higher level.

I agree that my my database is small and I am being careful to not try to approach spots that I don't have a significant sample size on. I don't desire to create a strategy for specific spots such as SB vs, EP in 3bet pot, but rather how I would play in a 3bet pot OOP or IP vs. a fish or a reg. In essence, I intend to build a simplified strategy that is based off of MDA, but it won't be refined for spot vs. spot by any means. When I play a fish with +40% vpip, spot vs. spot with ranges go out the window in my mind and I doubt the fish is even thinking about my range very much.

I appreciate the suggestion for the CFP and I know it's coming from a spot of experience and expertise. In theory, everything you suggest from not using my database, to the small sample size, and to joining a CFP, I'm sure is going to be much more effective and time efficient for improving in the long run. However, as you also mentioned, my interest in the game comes from a curiosity standpoint (intellectually rewarding). I desire to figure out how to beat these microstakes games and want to try my approach from an MDA standpoint. I think it's generally well known that micros are pretty big rake traps, good players move up, etc. and with my full time job, bankroll isn't an issue for me. This is sort of like a passion project for me and I want to document it here and have people following along and giving positive input like yourself!

I'm sure I'll make mistakes and there will be lots of ups/downs, but hopefully I figure something out along the way. Maybe it won't be as efficient/effective as strategies from CFPs, but it'll be mine.

I think I can give you an idea about how my strat works and maybe this can help you to build your own, it's not much hard to learn, let's talk on discord, my username is #theicebergslim

GL

My experience was that regs (on avg) always improved a little bit every time I moved up, even if only slightly.

Make sure your mda finds that checking ranges are unprotected at every uNL limit, and attack that accordingly

Cheers

Sounds great! Just sent you a friend request!

Yea I'm sure regs will be better on average, but I'm hoping with aggressive table selection my strategy vs. fish will remain viable throughout the stakes. I have found that X ranges are generally unprotected and part of my strategy does try to exploit this.

Thanks again for the follow!

Mini Update:

Just wanted to check in with a mini update! Things have been going well and I think I will start doing weekly updates of my week's results + the total results so far. I think so far the strategy has been working well with my blueline and redline looking solid! I had a great session in which I won around 4 buyins

Week 1 Update:

Hi everyone! I wanted to post an official week 1 update! Well it's really only been about 6 days, but I won't have much time to play for these next couple of days so I decided to do a 1 week update now. Things have been going really smoothly and I'm really pleased mainly with how my redline has been doing. I've been running well in general and even about EV (which is mainly from winning a lot of flips).

I won about 10 buyins in only ~4000 hands which puts me close to my 15BI requirement to move up to 10NL. I know this winrate is unsustainable so even if I do make the 15 buyins, I want to play at least 10,000-15,000 hands at 5NL before moving up as well.

Another great session!

Hey all! Had another great session at 5NL. After not being able to play these past couple of days, I was able to put in a nice long session and ended up winning around 4 buyins! This pretty much puts me at my 15BI requirement to move up to 10NL, but I'm going to keep putting in more volume at 5NL like I said in my previous post. The reason for this is I don't want to get too ahead of myself and it will be nice to pad my bankroll a bit more before the move up.

While I am running good, I think the MDA strategy is working well to keep my redline level which will greatly help my winrate overall!

NL10 is going to play almost the same, unless you must avoid busting I'd go ahead and shoot it even if with 5 buy-ins

Honestly, I agree with you and have heard the same, but my hesitation is more due to my doubt of my skill rather than the skills of others at 5NL vs. 10NL. I just want to make sure that my strategy is working and I'm not just running really hot.

There's really no reason to stay at 5NL. This is the softest pool in the world, and 10nl isn't going to be noticeably tougher than 5nl. You're clearly a winner. You should be moving up aggressively, especially in the high rake micros. GL.

Thanks and now that 2 people have pretty much said the same thing, I'm strongly considering it. I've got a lot of time to play on this weekend, so I'll probably put in a long session at 5NL and if it goes well putting me at or above the 15BI mark I'll move up even if I'm not hitting the 10-15k hand mark. Thanks for the encouragement!

Make it 3 good luck!

Moving Up! 5NL -> 10NL (8,584 hands, 21.5bb/100, 18buyins won)

Well, I had the time to put in around a 6 hour session tonight at 5NL and it went well (another 4 buyins) putting me at 18 buyins in around 8500 hands!

While my winrate is an astouding 21.5 bb/100 (20.8 EVbb/100), the sample size is extremely small and using a poker variance calculator, my true winrate lies somewhere between 1.47 - 41.53 bb/100 at a 95% confidence interval. Obviously, this spread is too wide and I really can't be sure if I am 100% a winning player at this stake. However, with the suggestion/motivation of a few of you, I am deciding to move up to 10NL and see how things go.

I was debating between giving myself a cautious 5BI shot, but I think I will treat this as a standard move-up by my original rules and stay at 10NL unless I take a hit of 10BIs. I won't be moving up to 25NL until I win 40 buyins and/or +5EVbb/100 over 40,000 hands (per my original rules) unless, again things suddenly go surprisingly well like they did at 5NL.


Final 5NL Session



Total 5NL Results

Great 10NL Start!!!

I can't really be more pleased how the journey has started off these past couple of weeks! I played my first couple sessions at 10NL today and ended up around 5 buyins! I definitely am still running pretty hot, but I think the MDA strat is doing it's job at keeping my winrate up. I'll be sure to post the tough times too when they inevitably come, but I'm hoping those will be less frequent and more of breakeven stretches rather than big downswings.

I also plan to post hand reviews too, but honestly, right now things have been pretty trivial and I haven't been in many tough spots. I generally just overfold to river aggression from the fish population and when reviewing hands after Ignition gives hole card data, I am normally making the correct folds. It's never fun to fold top pair, but I've gotten quite used to letting it go by the river now.

Per the suggestion of others to move to 10NL quicker and the facts that micros are a higher rake environment, I am considering slightly reducing my requirements to move up in stakes. This is the new proposed move up requirements below, let me know what you guys think!

10NL -> 25NL (30 buyins and/or +5evbb/100 at 30,000 hands)
25NL -> 50NL (35 buyins and/or +5evbb/100 at 40,000 hands)

The jump from 10nl to 25nl and 200nl to 500nl are the toughest, due to it being 2.5x. Don’t get discouraged if you have to take a few mini shots before you stick the landing.

I’d caution against overfolding vs fish. They overbluff almost everywhere, due to their preflop ranges being so wide. Be sensitive to large bets from fish, however.

Remember, due to pot odds, if fish are overbluffing and we make an exploitative call, we still expect to lose the vast majority of the time and still make money.

I was going to post the same re fish. Hopefully you were talking about a specific fish spot, not all spots or even the average. You will not believe how much win rate you’re missing if you’re basing your play, vs the most profitable player type, on such wrong assumptions. I made the same mistake for a very long time btw.

Ignition and bodog are pretty soft all the way til 25nl. The bulk of the cfp guys start to appear at 50nl. Use BRM, move up with confidence and move down when the necessity comes, no attachments to any limit

Re downswings, 10 bb/100 crushers should see plenty of 10 bi downswings, 20 bi will happen frequently enough, and you should see your odd 30 bi ds once a year or so if you put professional volume. I wouldn’t expect downswings to be breakeven stretches just because you crush, this is as real as Santa and will set your mindset for a big mess when the inevitable rough patch comes.

Just trying to bring reality, dreaming is nice but the dream must still be based on real assumptions.

Still rooting for you, GLGL

Thanks and that makes sense about the stake jump size. As for the overfolding to fish aggression, I was talking about specific spots (i.e. villain XR-X-B, XC-XR-B, etc.). However, that is a good point about pot odds and making exploitative calls. As I've said in earlier posts, my sample+my friends' samples doesn't give much resolution for a lot of river spots, but from what we see hand by hand, I tend to lean towards exploitative folds in certain spots. I'm sure you both have far more experience than me so of course I will be taking these comments into account moving forward