Study.

Really living up to your name there bro.

It’s a good question, these callers often decrease the % we get a walk by a huge margin.

The good thing is, people who flat call wider than theory out of the blinds often have huge fundamental leaks in their game.

With that said I’d stick to a solid preflop game. Don’t nit up or anything. Antes mean we don’t have to recoup as much of the middle either.

What have you been trying against these guys? Personally I did nit up myself but I don’t think it was working.

Well like you i’m just trying different things, but tightened up a bit in earlier positions excluding more marginal offsuit type hands.
Doing a lot more check-raising vs IP players who stab a lot and a fair bit of range betting against those that are weak passive.

Later positions loosened up though, not nearly enough 3-betting going on which surprised me, just a major nit fest

Bit perplexed at the moment. How do you strike the balance between study and play?

I've got 42k hands so far at 25z and am beating it for 2.7bb/100. If you take away the first 5kish hands when I first started, when I was playing a losing strategy, I am at 4.13bb/100. Is this good enough?

If the pool never changed, and my strategy never changed, I could play like this and win some pretty good money for a hobby. But there's still so many spots I'm lost in.
Can I justify taking a shot at a higher level when there's spots that I KNOW I'm lost in? Does the fact that I print in one spot, justify that I don't know my edge in another spot? I guess it depends on my goal. My goal is to move up to 50z.

The EV of studying is not infinite either. Moving up a level will mean I have to do a lot of work again. 50 will not play the same as 25. There won't be antes. I won't have stats on anyone.

For me personally I believe I have to spend some time looking at MP-BN vs UG-CO 2bet spot preflop. If I can do that I am happy to spend the next 20k hands at a 90:10 ratio of play:study. Right now I am at 40:60 ratio of play:study. It's so ****ing slow. Especially when I know I can print already. But printing at this stake is meaningless. What I should do is use this time to prepare for 50z. The way to do that is to master play as MP-BN vs UG-CO 2bet preflop. Then i will have a game plan for virtually every 2bet/3bet situation preflop, and the flop spots following. Which I hope is enough for 50z.

Define good enough, what's good enough for you?
It's not like what you study now won't be applicable to when you move u.
40k hands isn't a fair assessment of your true win rate, and Rome wasn't built in a day!

These samples mean nothing. Poker slaps you in the face all the time even if you play perfectly both exploitatively and in theory.

You just gotta accept that you always have leaks and plug as many as you can along the way. Also acknowledge that villains have leaks at any stake. You might even makes less mistakes than the avg 50nl or 100nl reg?

As you get better and become comfortable in more spots you will quickly notice the mistakes the other regs are doing. Usually if they make mistakes in common spots they are making even more mistakes in more uncommon spots.

Start with common spots you suck at and get really comfortable and then take on a new spot. Doing so you will easily spot mistakes villains are doing.

I've studied more than I've played. And am now in a position where I can spot villains leaks in very many spots. Its now easy to put in a lot of volume because I wont face as many spots where I'm clueless.

Gl

That's the question though - what is good enough? What is the point where you shift your focus from mostly study to mostly grind? Is it when your results say you're doing good? How comfortable you are? I believe it should be an objective measure since no one is immune to bias. If I had to decide right now what that measure should be, I think once your results clearly show that you have a huge edge over the field, you can put a huge focus on grinding. Or you could do a big burst of hands after theorycrafting strategies to test them.

With that said I think I will try and temporarily shift to a more grind-heavy time investment for now. I have enough edges over the field to compensate for me being unsure about certain uncommon spots. I have looked into MP-BN vs UG-CO 2bet today and I have a baseline gameplan to aid me. I'll look at my results to guide me as to whether I need to study more or whatever.

Studying common spots is defo something I started with, that's good advice! And yeah there's so many leaks at 25z it's laughable. It just says how much I improved as a player, that I couldn't get a positive winrate at this stake before.

40k hands is plenty, especially if you know what results to look for and what outliers to disregard. You simply cannot ignore results because of the hope, or fear, that you are part of the 1% running super good/bad.

Based on what you said and having a 40k hand sample @ 4BB/100, seems like you're very confident that you're beating NL25 for a decent clip. Yes 40k sample is not big enough to show your true WR, but it gives you a good indication of where you stand relative to your pool. I think you should move up b/c that's where your true long-term EV lies. Don't wait until you have a massive sample of say 8BB/100+, this will severely hinder your long-term development and opportunity costs. Start off with 1 NL50 table and rest of tables at NL25 and see how you feel. No shame in moving down if you feel outclassed.

Agree with Ship about the fact that you'll always have leaks and plugging them along the way is best. The study:grind ratio will constantly shift depending on where you are in your journey & the amount is really dependent on the person. Good guideline is keep a baseline level (say keep at least a 90:10 grind:study ratio for example), and adjust that ratio accordingly based on how good the pools are, stakes you play, your WR, if there' s a major leak that's been bothering you, if you're shottaking and opponents are much tougher, etc ...

You will always have spots where you feel lost, especially as you move up as tougher regs will put in more difficult spots that you're not used. Everyone, including the guys at nosebleeds have leaks and spots where they feel lost, just that their educated guess
on how to play spots that they haven't encountered would be slightly better than the guy playing lower stakes based on their knowledge and previous experience.

What exactly do you mean by MP-BN vs UG-CO 2bet spots? Learning the PF ranges & how to adjust given ante structure/villian type/rake? Playing postflop vs IP callers?

Thanks for the advice man. I did sit down at 50z today to try my luck, 1300 hands and -2BI worse off for it. I started so well being 2BI up lol but oh well. I think it was the right call to take the shot. If my bankroll can hold I would like to gather 5k hands and then see where I'm at.

I made one big mistake that could've saved me a buy in. I thought a guy was bluffing because of his turn sizing, but it turns out I had that spot dead wrong lol.

Tiny sample, pretty sure I ran bad for the most part.

• My cbet F success has been 31.25% compared to 44.27% at 25z ante. I have a 48 hand sample here, I don't think this is runbad. I think this is a pool difference.
  
• The % of times I face a 3bet is 22.3% compared to 17.8% at 25z ante. I don't see a difference between 25z and 50z in 3bet % so I think I have just run bad here. Of course there may be some regs who don't respect my game but I'm not worried as I'll know who they are eventually.
  
• My WSD is 44.44% compared to 59.18% at 25z ante. Wild.
  
• My 3bet PF success is 58.97% compared to 46.00% at 25z ante. Nice? Can't see a significant difference between stakes in fold to preflop 3bet though.

Any time I have the opportunity to 3bet from BN-MP I get gunshy because of the lack of fold equity. Right now I'm just nitting up and playing 3bet or fold for simplicity, but it feels like I'm leaving a lot of money on the table. I could develop a flatting range? But then that opens up another dimension to study. At some point I know I'll have to suck it up and do a deep dive.

I have developed a flatting range for IP vs OOP (6max Zone) along with 3 bet range IP. I do change my frequencies. Flatting can be very profitable, lots of 2 pair or better vs overpair.

Just my opinion.

I think a flatting range otb is fine. Depending on my hand and position of the opener I will mix otb between raise/call/fold.

So let's say LJ opens and we have 22-44 otb and decent regs in the blinds I'll mix between raise/fold. If blonds are fish I'll mix between raise/call. 55-88 are basically always raise/call. 99+ pure raise. Hands like AQo/AJo I always pure raise. Weaker BWs like ATo/KQo I'll raise/fold. As position of the open raise gets closer we can raise a little wider and more often. And if blinds are fish then we can flat more frequently and if regs we want to raise or fold more.

Any time I have the opportunity to 3bet from BN-MP I get gunshy because of the lack of fold equity. Right now I'm just nitting up and playing 3bet or fold for simplicity, but it feels like I'm leaving a lot of money on the table. I could develop a flatting range? But then that opens up another dimension to study. At some point I know I'll have to suck it up and do a deep dive.[/QUOTE]

Playing 3B/fold is perfectly fine b/c of rake. Definitely want a flatting range on the BN in ante games and vs recs though.

Alright I've got 4k hands at 50z, down 4BI. A similar experience to my shot at 25z, shortly after I beat the pool, which has put me in a positive mindset.
2.5 of those BIs can be accounted for by (1) set over set in 3b pot (2) a misread on the pool that I'm never making again lol.

Still that leaves -1.5BI to be accountable for.

I've noticed the pool flats a LOT less and 3bets a bit more compared to 25z. Which is a bit of a spanner in the works, because I consider my 2bet pot play to be where I print. I am mainly playing 3bet/4bet pots snug with some fighting back in obvious spots.

I am going to play a lot of pots as 3bet/4bet pots now, and those pots are going to be hard to get samples and find exploits for. So for the next few weeks or whatever I'm gonna be in the lab prepping a defensive strat while I find out tendencies. It feels like I'm trying to learn poker all over again lol.

Feel free to message me if you have any general or specific questions TB.

Hey thanks man!


Monthly update:

1. Low volume
2. Slightly lower amount of overall hours put in.

Think I could do well with setting some goals every month/week. I said I wouldn't because it let me know what is possible to do in terms of putting hours in. But I think it serves a dual purpose as a motivator.

Work has been busy / stressful so I've just been taking evenings off. Also I've had pretty bad internet problems for the last week which is a deterrent to putting some volume in. Plus runbad demotivates.


Started putting volume at 50z around 9k hand mark, so slightly winning / breakeven. I've been trying to make sense of my showdowns and and probably running bad? Lots of my overpairs just running into the goods. Have also had fair share of run good to be able to have a slightly winning result.

90 hours this month of play/study. If I lose 15BI at 50z from now I'll move down and go more volume-heavy at 25z. Don't want to make a bad habit of hanging around longer than I should.


Also gonna set some sleep quality goals - switching off gaming activity an hour or so before bed. I think it really ****s with my sleep sometimes and I wake up at 5am for no reason.

Good luck all!!

Hi OP,


Interesting thread, i'm also playing in the same playerpool.
I don't use solvers atm, can you recommend 1?
I have no experience with solvers and to be honest i am not entirely convinced of their use on low stakes.

GL!

Hi OP, going to jump in and sub. Similar to you I'm London based and working full time, just playing poker for fun on the side. I started at 2nl and have worked up to 10nl so far, hopefully will catch up with you soon!

Final bb/100 at 25z?

GTO+ is a low-entry-barrier solver at $75.
If there's enough obvious leaks in a pool then you don't need a solver to win. But if the numbers are tight and the value is thin, you may need a solver to check whether that guy's 35% fold to cbet is exploitable or not.

eyy!! Always good to see fellow full time London grinders. Even if I only dabble in the live scene myself lol. Am following your thread, good luck with the transition to online! Rona has put a spanner in everyone's plans for sure eh.

3.53bb/100 43k hands.

Thanks for answering, i have no experience with solvers at all, but for example if you are doubting about a flop spot. It is possible to put it in the solver and see how to play it optimal if i understand correctly? Does it also learn you something about bet sizing?

Good on you for sticking with 50z.

Your volume is also good considering you're a young professional with a full-time job. Was wondering if you push most of the hours to the weekends or you play/study a couple hrs during weekdays also? Do you find it difficult to balance?

It teaches you how to play perfectly vs someone who knows your every move. Used in another way, it can teach you how to play vs someone when you know their every move.

Watch a few videos of someone using a solver and see if it's something you like. What you learn will be dependent on what you are capable of putting together.

The goal is 2h/day on weekdays and 5h/day on weekends and days off. It's super easy when I'm WFH and Rona has killed everyone's social life.



------
Quick update on 50z:

On top of my edges getting smaller, I've had a 7BI spanking total over these last 22k hands. Gonna have to get in the lab and really comb over the minutae. There's tilt in there as well lol, at the end of a session I will 3bet with a value hand and say to myself "okay if shorty jams I fold" then I call anyway. Or I have bottom set, say on the flop "I am not getting the whole stack in" then I get river raised on a dry board and call it off vs top set anyway.

Not done with the stake yet though.

Yo so I've had a huge drop in motivation. Work is draining, rungood not too good. So for the moment I'm trying to not put any pressure on myself and go back to why I love the game.

There's info online saying that intrinsic motivation is stronger and more consistent than external motivation. So these goals may be good in the short term. But if I re-frame this as me just enjoying poker, I may end up putting more hours in overall. While also enjoying it.

In any case I'm moving down to 25z while I try out some more theory oriented things. Really trying to understand the thinking behind why which suits are used, which lines are taken. In all spots, not just common ones.

Month ended like so:
-£138.29
Not much of a graph, 9k hands.

Blog-to-date


50z graph


160k hands since the start of this is not enough to really say anything about how well I am doing as a player.

At the moment I'm trying to get rakeback goals, but after that I'm going to focus a bit more on studying.

My solution to the dilemma of how much study to play ratio, is that you should play with a goal of improving something. You can't find out what you need to improve it out study, and you can't improve it until you play. The ratio of study : play will take care of itself.


Anyone here still play the pool? move up? down? lmk