Hello Everyone.

This is a first time, long time type of post. I've been a lurker of 2+2 for years but have never posted anything of substance. That changes today. I apologize in advanced if this is long-winded, I'm not even quite sure where I'm going with it yet.

Background:

I'm a 29 year old Embedded Software Engineer living in NY. I've been playing poker for as long as I can remember and in recent years have been playing live low-mid stakes NLH/PLO ($1/$2 - $5/$10) with a few MTTs sprinkled in there, including a WSOP trip. There are a couple of casinos within an hour of me and a couple of dream-like private games right in my city. I would say 90% of my volume has been put into the private games, mostly at $5/$5, as they are softer and bigger than anything the casinos have to offer and conveniently located just a few miles from my house. I was able to win a modest amount adopting a TAG strategy. But if you asked most of the regs in the games they would say I'm a rock compared to some of the maniacs that sit at the table.

It wasn't really until the past couple years that I started doing the bare minimum of tracking my results, and very occasionally would write down a hand history to run by some poker buddies. Here are my results from last year:





Although it's a small sample size, I would say pretty much all the years in recent memory would yield similar results if I had tracked them.

Enter Coronavirus. This stupid virus is going to be the end of live poker for me for the foreseeable future. My wife and I are expecting our first child in August and recently bought a new home. When the market tanked I decided to get most of my cash locked up before it was too late. Not only do I not want to bring anything home to the newborn or Mom, I no longer have the liquid bankroll to play these private games which generally play 200BB-600BB deep.

Present:

Online poker seemed like the obvious choice for the reasons listed above. Luckily I have some money tied up in bitcoin and was able to get up and running fairly quickly. Mind you, I had never played a day of online poker in my life. I've been pretty overwhelmed to say the least. It feels like I'm relearning poker or a whole new game altogether. I've already went through a few HUDs but ultimately landed on PT4, and am also considering a subscription to Upswing. Any other recommendations are appreciated. I have almost no clue what I'm doing.

With that said, I am not one for learning curves and decided to just jump into the thick of it. The past 2 weeks I've been 4 tabling $50 zoom (12.5K hands so far) and will continue to do so until I can move up in stakes or go busto. For all intents and purposes consider the bankroll to be 40BI. Results thus far:



I have not really decided on what my goals of this are, or if I have any at all. To some extent I just want to keep playing poker and this is about my only option. Another part of me wants to prove to myself that I'm truly a winner even over a statistically significant volume. Either way I'm going to grind and continue to improve my game and see where this takes me. Hopefully when NYS finally ends up legalizing online poker I have a leg up on the player pool here. Good luck on the felt!

TL;DR Live reg tries online poker for first time 4-tabling $50 zoom.

If you never played online before, you might be better off just 2-tabling Zoom, first of all.
Having some time to think through each hand surely beats higher volume, as long as you are "new" to the game.

Good luck

Thanks for the advice. Last night's session I went down to 2 tables and felt that my quality of play went up quite a bit. Having the extra time definitely helped in quite a few spots where I would have just snap checked/folded if 4-tabling. This may have been lending to my sharply downward red line.

One thing I was amazed about is the number of maniacs I've come across. Definitely was not expecting these types of hands online. Gives me confidence that no matter how bad I run/play on any given day I should be able to keep my head above water.

Yatahay Network - $0.50 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 309.44 BB
SB: 56.12 BB
Hero (BB): 151.32 BB
UTG: 129.62 BB
MP: 331.02 BB
CO: 25.82 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

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

fold, fold, fold, fold, SB calls 0.5 BB, Hero raises to 4 BB, SB calls 3 BB

Flop: (8 BB, 2 players) J A 5
SB bets 52.12 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 52.12 BB

Turn: (112.24 BB, 2 players) 6

River: (112.24 BB, 2 players) T

SB shows A T (Two Pair, Aces and Tens)
(Pre 29%, Flop 3%, Turn 0%)
Hero shows J J (Three of a Kind, Jacks)
(Pre 71%, Flop 97%, Turn 100%)
Hero wins 106.64 BB



Yatahay Network - $0.50 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

Hero (BTN): 182.32 BB
SB: 201.14 BB
BB: 80 BB
UTG: 101 BB
MP: 140.84 BB
CO: 120 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

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

fold, MP calls 1 BB, fold, Hero raises to 4.5 BB, fold, fold, MP raises to 140.84 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 136.34 BB

Flop: (283.18 BB, 2 players) 8 5 8

Turn: (283.18 BB, 2 players) 9

River: (283.18 BB, 2 players) 2

Hero shows A A (Two Pair, Aces and Eights)
(Pre 86%, Flop 96%, Turn 82%)
MP shows J K (Flush, Jack High)
(Pre 14%, Flop 4%, Turn 18%)
MP wins 277.18 BB



This one perhaps I'm the maniac station. His bet sizing just made no sense to me other than begging me to fold. Certainly not a standard play for me by any means but I marked it as strange, and it is.

Yatahay Network - $0.50 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 122.68 BB
SB: 245.76 BB
BB: 131.24 BB
UTG: 120 BB
MP: 120 BB
Hero (CO): 110.52 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

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

fold, fold, Hero raises to 2.5 BB, fold, fold, BB calls 1.5 BB

Flop: (5.5 BB, 2 players) 3 K 4
BB bets 10.2 BB, Hero calls 10.2 BB

Turn: (25.9 BB, 2 players) 9
BB bets 28.42 BB, Hero calls 28.42 BB

River: (82.74 BB, 2 players) 7
BB bets 69.44 BB, Hero calls 69.4 BB and is all-in

BB shows 2 A (High Card, Ace)
(Pre 60%, Flop 31%, Turn 16%)
Hero shows Q K (One Pair, Kings)
(Pre 40%, Flop 69%, Turn 84%)
Hero wins 215.54 BB

JJ and AA hands are funny free money, but the last hand is interesting.

Flop overbet usually means fish in my experience, or small chance of an exploiting winning player, who nearly always bluffs there. Agree with your read. Well played!
(but I don't play nlhe cash anymore - just 6+ - so take it with a grain of salt...)

It might be better, if you stick with one pre-flop sizing for open-raises.
4x and 4.5x are both bigger than usual, but if you prefer to raise more than 3x, you can surely stick with 4x for all your opens, which likely puts some regs slightly out of their comfort zone. But nevertheless, you should work on your 3-bet calling ranges, and your 4-bet ranges vs aggro regs, since only 4-betting AK and QQ+ is likely too tight, once you played more than a few hundred hands against the same regs. Against good agressive regs, it will help you to throw in a 4-bet bluff with hands like A5s (or KTs?) or so, every now and then. Suited hands with equity if you see a flop, but weak enough to fold vs 5bet shove.
Others readers who actually still play nlhe cash could surely give you more precise tips, regarding that.

IIRC, the red line is not as important as you might think. Most of your winnings will come from having the better hand at showdon, as long as you play at wild 50$ tables.
OFC you can improve it, but it doesn't have to be positive to have a great winrate at these stakes, I think (hope some NLHE grinders correct me, if I'm wrong).

I think you should post which stats you use on your HUD, to get help from other nlhe players ITT. For post-flop, c-bet, fold to c-bet, and how often someone raises OTF are important stats, I think.

Anyway, I'm not an expert, and there are few people left who give honest advice on here, but you surely have enough experience to know what counts for you.

The only thing that often differs a good online grinder from a good live grinder, imo, is being aware of blockers (to bluff) and backdoor draws. Those extra ~5% to hit backdoor flush (or ?% for runner runner str8), or blocker to nutflush or so, are often the tiny bit extra equity/chance to bluff that you need to continue playing your hand profitably, instead of folding, in spots with wide ranges, like btn vs bb.

I beg your pardon, if you knew all that before. Didn't want to insult your intelligence

Hope you grind a lot, as long as games are still so soft due to corona.
In Europe, games mostly went back to normal already (Sunday Million went from 3 Million back to 1 Million).

All the advice is greatly appreciated. I see now how it looks like I'm using larger bet sizes for stronger hands but that is not actually the case. Generally I am opening for 2.5BB but sometimes I switch this up between sessions and will use preset buttons (2.2, 2.8, 3, etc.), but whatever the amount I stick with that for the entirety of the session. I will however adjust my opens to account for limps in front of me as well as my position, and try my best to remain consistent on those regardless of my holdings. Sometimes here and there I will get a misclick on bumping it up and be +/- .5BB from where I intended.

Stats on the HUD are something I am totally lost on. Right now I am using the cash default (vpip,preflop raise,3-bet,c-bet,fold to c-bet) for PokerTracker 4, but find myself opening up the detailed report when facing tougher decisions. I'll probably start to keep note of what I'm looking at there and look to add those to the base HUD. I figured a slower approach here would be better as the whole HUD aspect is/was pretty overwhelming for a first timer.

Another thing with the stats is I feel that I am always being exploited by regs and better players. The amount of data everyone has on eachother is insane, and is totally foreign to me. I'm used to live whales that don't think beyond the 2 cards sitting in front of them. It's always in the back of my head that the online regs are seeing a way to take advantage of the way I play and sometimes I make really spewy plays based on that. They are likely adding those plays to their notes and those are actually what make me exploitable. I think I really need to get out of the meta head game and just play some damn poker, and not worry about trying to conform my stats to what I think my style is/should be.

It's been a roller coaster the past few days but I will keep grinding through the adversity.

I used to play just one zoom table, and three regular ones (PLO Zoom and 6+, though).
It should normally increase your winrate (but ofc lower volume) to have one or two regular tables. And you get a lot of hands vs the same (usually weaker) opponents at reg tables faster...
I love to spew one stack at 6+ within the first dozen hands to look bad, and use that image. And at NLHE, you can just play super aggro for a few rounds and actually profit, before other adjust to you, on regular tables. It's also more fun to play reg tables, imo.

I am really no expert on HUDs at all, but you shouldnt put too much value into turn or river stats, if you don't yet have a lot of hands with villains.

Anyway... you seem to do pretty well so far, for the stakes you play, with so few experience online. And you will definintely still improve a lot, pretty quickly, no matter which tables you play.
Wish you the best of luck!