are you stuck in 2010?

Something that almost never happens might happen, better donkbet.

Actually in tough games it will happen like every time imo

Imagine you OOP vs a tough villain who is on a flush draw, you check flop, he bets, you check turn again, he either overbets turn or makes it full pot, now what? you call again right? now it's river and he missed his draw, you checked to him, what he will do? check back and give up? you believe tough villains give up that easy? he will shove most likely

The problem with your approach is that you are basing your findings on a very very small sample of hands - line a session or even 5 singular hands.
Your approach of wanting to be creative and figuring it out is respectable, but you should do it with more logic.
Just because you got called twice or so doesnt mean it doesnt work.
Players on that level are also not exploiting you, they are playing on that limit because they are lacking the skill to move up -speakimg for regs-. that is totally ok because everybody needs to learn.
You also have a very wrong conception of variance in poker, that might be because you are very new to poker. That is also ok, just listen to people that have been there long.

A rule of thumb is to play 100k on each limit then asses and decide to move up or not. 100k because everything considerbly less doesnt tell you enough about your game or skill. There are many stats that you can look at and analyze after 50k hans, but you realize the kind of sample we are talking about here.

Basing how good you play for example with the red line in a single session doesnt tell you anything. Its so easy that villain always had a **** hand and needed to fold or always had the beste hand and raised.

By pursuing the redline so much you end up playing very poorly in spots just to win in the red line and you force yourself to be aggressive in spots that would be positive EV by just playing passively and turn them into maniac aggression, not good aggression.

The answer to your question above what to do if you face a big river bet is btw a very simple one.
Study.
Study and learn how to make good decisions in those spots like everybody had to.
They are part of the game.

You also have a wrong perception of "high variance plays".
There is no such thing as a high variance play in poker -there are maybe some very rare spots but they are not what you are currently faving-
In poker -especially cash-you are gonna be in a spot over 1000k hands lets say 1000x where you face a big riber bet. Your job is to play tp the nest of your abilities to be profitbale here with things such as bliff catching, pot odds etc. Its not about winning 700 times, its about winning 300 times but with pot odds turning a profit.
What you call high bariance plays are very important spots for your winrate to become better in them.
You consider high variance plays as win or lose a big pot in that one sitaution that specific time.
But thats wrong as explained above.

High variance plays in a session and knowing how to appraoch them will
give you bb/100 winrate.
The variance might be high in tvat situation because of the i flue ce of the whole session, but you dont play individual sessions, it doesnt matter how many infividual sessions you win or lose, its about the 100k hand sample and how positive or negative it is. Thats where variance comes into play, because having a 4bb/100 wi rate or 6bb/100 winrate nets you way way less downswings that last 20k hands over that 100k sample. So playing what you consider high variance situations well actually decreases variance a lot.
You might ask - but how do you know how to play them? - Study.
Its study. Poker is learning how to play the game based on logic.
At your point you should roughly aim for 40% study, 60% play.

I am sorry to say that and I dont mean any harm, I am here in good spirits, but by the hands you
post, you are the fish in the pool.
You are the fish because your plays are based on your short term results but not on logic.

For your donk betting, its the very simpliest answer I can give you.
Donk betting has its name from "doney" aka a fish because when soembody is donk betting it is a fish (or a very highly studied reg which you are not)

What you should do:

1) get preflop ranges, the, dont need to be perfect, but you need some. They are the fundamental opening and you are 100% of the time in a situation where ,ou need to know fold raise call or 3bet. They therefore have the highest impact on your winrate. They are also free for very basic ones

2) Watch free youtube materials or get a cheap beginner course for like 100€ or so that you can work on flr a moth or 2 until you finished it. You neey structure, thats the most important thing because you are playimg blind atm. Which is ok because you are a beginner, but if you want to progress you need structure. all courses also have preflop ranges anyhow.

3) Study 40% of your poker time off the table. Dont study while playing because you heard pros saying the study while playing.


4) Your game will start to become slowly but steadily consistent.

5) DONT play for volume, aka 3 or 4 fast tables. There is no way that you can focus on playing well, especially when you are starting to learn off the tables with real things


Everybody in here is giving different advice but the essence of it always the same. Get structure.
I dont wanma put you down in any way, I as everybody else here just wants to show you the way, because you think you are heading north where your destination is, but you are actually heading east, you just dont see it.

Good luck at the tables.
Will probably be the only post here in this blog.
Wishing you the best no matter how you approach it going forward.

Thanks for your time to write such a long text, i understand your concern isn't to put me down in any way, i will try my best to take your advice even tho i may not agree with many things you said like beginner part, blindly playing, volume etc

Volume is never enough to 100% assume something unless you have 1M+, as you say 100k, imo it's nothing, variance can be cruel even on 500k sample, it depends on your winrate, if you're zoom player with 0-2 winrate you might find yourself in big downswing even after 500k hands

My findings aren't based on like 1k hands or something, i constantly build volume, 4tabling zoom helps, i check stats with PT4 on daily basis, i know sample is small anyway but what can i do, i work with what i have

Your answer to my question what to do when i face big river bet is to study right? but even if you study well you might not make accurate decisions especially vs balanced players

That spot is variance dense because you never know villain has real hand or is he bluffing, all you have is your logic, why micros so easy to play? because they rarely put you in such tough spots

I'm thinking root causes what leads to end up in such spots and if there is possibility to you, yourself force not to be in such spots by donking for example

Top regs are great in this, they will force you to be in spots where they want you to be, also they are great to avoid spots where you want them to be, study as much as you want, you will be still factory edition, same like everyone, i mean no offense but if you have big enough ambition you need to think little out of window

You mentioned ranges, i lately checked optimal ranges many times on the internet, the free ones what i found, i build my ranges around it, i know im not drilling it yet very accurately but more or less im close to it, opening tight from early positions and little loose from late positions, my 3bet range is tight from SB/BB with larger sizings (10-12BB), IP little wide with small sizings(7-8BB), i dont think my structure has any major flaws but if you can send me your fundamental ranges, structure or anything fundamental please just PM me on the forum i will check it again, much appreciated.

you should really be more open to change ur perceptions so many people have said u cant work on things like this u do thing X and check from results if it caused thing Y - its not how it works

ur winrate is a sum of millions of things , if u were to just accept that learning an ABC gameplan which u are lacking would increase ur odds to be a long-term winner a lot before anything else it would really be amazing , like u keep disagreeing of the donk-betting even 3 or 4 people telling you its just terrible

your game is like u had just read the book "art of war" and then started playing poker with its wisdoms without like any technical work - "when in doubt just donk bet to show down ur hand and confuse ur enemy" this is how china fish play and its at best just bit annoying but at the end just silly and rains to the other players pocket in long run

like if u have a mid-pair in 3b pot and they bet big turn you just fold it.

Except it doesnt. Pot turn followed by overbet river from regs is quite rare. U can just check ur own tracker/db and confirm this.

Art of war, sun tzu style, confuse the enemy, i need tom dwan avatar next

It's better to get paid like 80BB in SRP more consistently than to get greedy and shove river right?

I know people have been harsh on you for the weird donk bets, so it's my turn...

With most respect to your volume, creativity, dedication and something I wish I was better at, defending my opinion.

I'm going to jump on, no donks for you train, not because I think its a bad strategy on some flops/turns/rivers... But logic behind your donks it is very flawed and tbh you achieve the opposite of what you wished for.

If I sawed one showdown where you donked on board that does not shift EQ favorites. I would make juicy note and would start raising you with any gutshot and better draws and follow up ORT. Also would wider my value range.

So to sum up these kinda donks is not putting anyone besides yourself in tough spots if your opponent is somewhat capable of adjusting.

I know this strategy is flawed, lately i was thinking the same, maybe i should go for more balanced strategy because good players will always exploit my flaws, any strategy thats not balanced will be a target

It was like a puzzle in my head, unbalanced lines had so much benefits, i could do something against the pool that was so easily exploitable it would boost my winrate drastically but as soon as pool started to exploit that, then my winrate would drop drastically

I wanted to just spam unbalanced lines that would print money but actually it wasn’t working because pool is not soulless dead object, its like live creature, constantly adapting and changing, players in the pool just won’t let you to take their money just like that

My puzzle was missing one element, its not whole pool who is exploiting me and adapting to my flawed strategy, maybe they’re like around 10% of players?

So if they make notes on me and start exploiting i need to exploit their exploits, otherwise my strategy would be destined to failure, if i add this one element to my strategy then puzzle is solved, i can run flawed lines against the pool but make notes on players who are exploiting my lines and change lines against them

So if i saw one showdown where you raise with a gutshot, next line you will face won’t be the same, next line will be totally different

Now I'm introducing another weird line, Blazar's IP min. raise special

Why the hell would i min. raise turn with 99 on a two overcard board? am i crazy?

Reasonings:

1. I don't want to call and let him keep the initiative to bluff bet on the river
2. I don't want to fold, i just want to see showdown
3. I want to charge him little extra if he's on a draw

Do it, just create those line with better logic. As delay cbet, probe...

your ability to not win the maximum in every pot

it’s going to wreck you as you move up

Our majority of winnings come from AA-KK and nutted hands anyway, if we check the stats, maybe they’re like 70%+ part of our total winnings?

I can categorize hand strengths by following:

#1 AA-KK and nutted hands
#2 Top pairs etc
#3 Mid pairs and lower

If i maximize profits from first category, if i 2 street value with second category instead of 3 and if i just try to see more cheap showdowns with the third category what do you think will it wreck me? Maybe to sacrifice last 2 category in exchange of less variance is the better way to move up?

Well actually i have bigger list of categories it includes air hands, draws etc but i shortened for you to explain my reasonings

Also i want to mention why zoom format is bad: KK-AA is wasted most of the times, either everyone folds pre or they don’t give you enough action postflop and to win pots with air hands becomes very crucial for redline otherwise it’s so hard to show positive winrate

Some revolutionary strategies in here. Learning a lot. My favorite is raising turns with 3rd pair.

Irony aside you haven't seen me raising turns with K high yet and donk jamming turns with fourth pair





The second hand i don't like much tbh even tho i have nut advantage and UTG raiser can call my jam only with pair of 66s, there is no other hand in his range that he can call with imo

He disrespected my ranges and i put him in a position to force him fold his set, overpair or whatever he was holding

Even tho this play works, it produces high variance... and i should eliminate those kind of jams because im aiming to have less variance dense lines in general

The khi i actually like it but u should have bet the river.

To further explain K high raise won’t be easy but ill try:

There are some nitty guys in zoom pool who would snap fold weak top pairs to a raise, they really exist but my intention here isn’t to make villain fold his top pair

I’m targeting second pairs or pocket pairs like 99 88 77 55 44 33 etc some airs too and draws but time to time some nitties can fold weak top pairs too

Not betting the river is about intuition in combination of willing to go for less variance lines and not holding a club in my hand to block his flush possibilities

forget about more variance less variance if you can crush with plays that cause huge overfold it causes you less variance because ur winrate skyrockets if those plays suck then you will get crushed but thats with exploit either you win or you lose but to avoiding making them because of variance is idiotism and builds up just really bad habit of skipping bluffs u think would be +ev because sometimes you get called.

trying to break down his range on turn stab : Ax hands (a lot) , air , low pairs (hard to tell how many of those didn't cbet) first notice is that he has zero two pairs in his range by very high likelihood because when in the spot he likely just puts the a6/a2 he still can have to a bigger size so if pay attention to his range its a range which can not really call you down on any rivers if you bomb them.

I will to explain what i mean by more variance or less variance and why i try to avoid it

Lately I'm thinking that intuition is very powerful weapon in poker, intuition comes from experience, by playing millions of hands brain itself recognizes patterns and previously experienced troubles, we may don't even realize but it's some phenomenon thats hard to explain

I will tell you about why i mentioned intuition a bit later now lets get back to that KH hand, should i've bombed the river? if yes with what sizing? 75% enough? or maybe overbet like 125-150% something?

That river bombings to be successful we need certain % of folds from villain, lets say if we bet 75% pot, we need villain to fold like 42% of time to breakeven? (i haven't done math but probably will be like that)

But i don't want to make breakeven plays because it comes with variance it may turn into consecutive losing plays in a row, i want to make sure if i bet villain folds at least 60%+ times

Here my intuition tells me that "don't bet" "he has a flush" but intuition is not enough, we need to add some logic in the mixture to get an accurate result, my hand has no clubs, i don't have blockers, also i get called by A pair in fair amount of times, mixing all these things in my head says that this play will be close to breakeven or maybe worse so i don't bet

NL10 intuition. Best of the best.

in that specific spot what makes is problematic is ur xR value range becomes total second nut type stuff on that river however both players have very flushes and as mentioned his range is by high likelihood towards weak tps 90% OTR ,,, people who play everything fast give always something away in this case it probably was that he contemplated betting turn for a while then you raised then he snaps off the raise when with the ace he would think a while more and if ur consistently correct with this type of pattern recognition based hand reading its good thing and i would neither go against my gut bluffing spots like a bot if i think its not making sense there but u must be careful to not make those decisions as emotional responses to fear of losing a pot when u bluff

and ur thinking of variance is flawed and takes u to bad direction

You can play nosebleeds tomorrow but it won't give you intuition, no offense, i said it just as an example

Intuition forms from volume of hands you played in your lifetime, brain doesn't recognizes you played nl10 or nosebleeds, it recognizes patterns etc

I agree timing tells are big especially in lower limits

It’s not only variance but in combination variance along with how much money we put in the pot

If we play for 20BB its ok but if we play for 100BB+ here when it hurts the most, thats why going allin pre with AK is so painful when we face consecutive bad runouts, equity close to 50% + sometimes chance to run into nutty hands

Same goes when we face river shoves, what do you think villain bluff shoves more than 50% of times? It’s highly likely he has a hand that beats us but we still call and when we lose we regret it, when we win we’re happy but in the end variance kills us

Spot itself to be in isn’t profitable, why micros so easy to play? Because we get into such spots rarely

was about to come to point of saying an extend you can tell that there might be bit more flush in range than usual but it is not anything else than secondary info.
i wouldnt raise the k8s unless i think i will just run over him in rivers because to me it seems what really makes it +ev if ever bcz otherwise it seems like just -ev xR vs range that picks ton of top pair on turn...

i will keep reading but not post anymore bcz its not worth it , you refuse to understand that variance is not something you wanna control with the playing style but with the stakes you play

whatever the stake you play you should aim at winning the max and not play style of "trying to control the variance"