bad link?

Climbing up the limits - right approach ?

Spoiler:

I'm pretty new to poker.

I have been playing for about 3 months only, mainly CG NL2 on FTP. I started searching and reading a lot around this forum, also watching some videos, reading other strategy/tactical stuff from other web pages, also started reading 2 books (one from BlackRain and one from Splitsuit) and first of all I wanna say I love both this forum and you guys ! It's kind of funny how this game, after all … still same old cards, seems to be a very different one as my (our) learning process progress further.

This all is making me loving the game even more and it's getting me excited (doesn't matter if reading about it, watching it on youtube or playing by my self). And this all also make me thinking about stuff I will have to understand, learn and bring to the tables in particular situations (and review this later in tracking software, think about it again and do more training both in mind and on tables) in FUTURE when I will start taking shots in higher levels (if ever).

POKER is really interesting game. Since I began my learning process more seriously I have some particular .. let's say "feeling" about this game and I wanna present these here to you. I just wanted to put some of my thoughts on "paper" here 1) to sort of "save" them more in my mind and 2) to discuss them and 3) correct them if wrong. There are a lot of very good and very experienced and clever guys around here. I got a lot of respect for all these players, who are trying to help us beginners here and I'm also very excited about their thinking and responses. So feel free to correct my thoughts, to add something and give me (us) your opinion.

Spoiler:

Let's start the show !

One major thing I feel I understand is .. I'm really on the very BEGINNING ! I'm still learning to play good preflop. What hands should I OPEN RAISE from what positions ? HOW MUCH to raise with which hands on which positions ? With what hands should I be STEALING with from late positions (CO and BTN) ? When it is good to LIMP BEHIND few limpers at these ultra micro limits (NL2 is very special level) ? How to properly VALUE bet against a passive fish with made hand ? When should we make a CBET, how big, against what players on what board textures ? With what hands against what opponents we should 3BET preflop ? When to RE-STEAL and how big this raise should we make to be profitable in the long run ? What should we FOLD against a steal ? When to call someone else's raise for SET MINING ?

It's already a lot for now, right ?! Maybe you heard so many times about these terms/strategies/tactics/components of the game so you think it's easy. Maybe for you .. maybe it is. But it's certainly not exactly EASY to me ! I made recently my first sweat session with a guy playing NL25 and believe me … it's not that easy as it seems to be on the first sight ! We gotta reread stuff, think it through again, bring it properly to the tables and try to master these .. because this is only beginning !

After this there are things like how to play DRAWS ? When to check raise and when to donk bet with the SET on the flop to make more profit ? How to play against SHORT STACKERS ? When to 4BET preflop ? Thinking in RANGES. Manipulating the size of the pot.

Now, we must understand few things (when we're starting out) about poker.

Spoiler:

1) This game is not chess ! This game we wanna play against the worst possible players we can find ! And I mean WORST ! We are looking for the FISH ! For maniacs ! For IQ zero guys ! For rich kids throwing us the money ! For guy with gambling problems ! For guys playing drunk on fridays and saturdays nights ! We are not here to play against thinking opponents as we are. We are not here to play against learning opponents as we are. We are not here to play against good players (as we would like to be and maybe one day we will become). More than anything .. we are not here to play against BEST players having so much EDGE on us. Remember >> fish on your right and nits/TAGS/regulars on your left ! Aggressive fish on your right is still ok. Aggressive fish or even good regulars playing LAG on your left is a very bad thing (find another table).

2) Always when you are holding some particular hand .. try to imagine/think what this hand will look like in your database when you will filter it thanks to your tracking program (PT, HEM) many years later in future. We are talking thousands and thousands and many more thousands samples of a play with THIS hand. Be it AA, KK, 55, 9Ts or 72o. It's not important if you will loose your stack with this hand this particular time you are holding it. IT'S VITAL TO PLAY IT OPTIMALLY ! Against what opponent we are standing here ? Which position are we on ? Flop ? Turn ? River ? Check, bet, raise or fold ? Optimal line ! That's what we are trying for ! The most +EV play with it is what we care about ! And these lines could be very very different (sometimes more sometimes less but still different) in different situations ! Of course you will loose with it time to time, but in the LUNG RUN you have to make the $$$ !

3) Different situations and different players playing against you >> makes us play same hands differently, because we wanna make most +EV play. This we saw already above in my second point. Let's talk more about OTHERS playing against US ! Imagine someone who will be folding all hands all the time. This is his style of play. This is his strategy. How should we play against him to be most +EV ? Raising with any two of course. They will fold all the time and you will take the blinds. Funny, right ? The point of this is to show us (you) there is (hopefully?) ALWAYS a most profitable +EV way to play against some particular style or let's say approach of play our opponents are using ! As we get higher and players got a lot of good arsenal in their play .. we have to ADJUST more and more and bring in another (and/or new) stuff to be still +EV. We wanna be one step ahead all the time = ADJUST !

4) Now we can feel (after my 3 points) like let's get into the action ! Let's kill them all ! right ? … take a deep breath … and slow down man Because this game is also about waiting. We are waiting for a special good spots to arise ! And we wanna get all we mentioned above in only in these spots ! We don't wanna get crazy as **** ! This needs a lot of discipline. Find it in your mind. You are tiger waiting in the bush for a good situation. For perfect ones and for good ones. Perfect ones = FAT VALUE. Good ones = THIN VALUE. Keep waiting, keep watching, keep thinking and in the right spots against the right guy … take HIM DOWN with no mercy. But do it still very calmly, thinking like Einstein during the hand and still being ready to go out (fold) during the hand if the spot changes suddenly it's nature and odds are against you ! Because .. sometimes a good spots changes into a bad one suddenly and we should be able to get away from the hand = DOING LESS MISTAKES than others.

5) Even if we will play some particular hand perfectly (top notch!) we can still loose the pot. This is why we need proper bank roll management + consider we're not making perfect decisions all the time so we need even higher roll for our limit ?

Climbing up the limits means more good players ?

Now .. when we start climbing up the limits .. there are more and more good/thinking/learning players same as we (hopefully) are. You can still find fish and should be looking for them. But this is where everybody starts sort of fighting for the fish ! And it also starts to be harder to steal from these good guys (sitting on your left). There are more and more things to take into account. I don't have any experience with this and again I wanna make you sure I'm just sharing here my thought process of the future of my story in this game .. but I think these comes into play from NL10 up ! Already in NL10 I expect people to be pretty good, but from NL25 up ? Much more better. What is the difference ? I think these guys are very good in ISOLATING fish, RE-STEALING, SQUEEZING, DOUBLE BARRELING, checking out HUDS, ADJUSTING their play etc. etc.

What to do ? What to do ? We gotta find the edge. Of course we wanna still play against a fish and we will do so. But we have to play these guys a bit also. And how to do that ?

My thoughts on this are:

1) We gotta be perfect in concepts we already mentioned above and apply them better than these guys.
2) If there is still someone obv better than us >> don't fight him !
3) We gotta add more arsenal. Creative lines ? Deception ? EP steals ? Limp raising line ? Check raising on the flop to a CBET as a bluff ? 3BETs from OOP when someone open raises in EP or MP as a bluff ? Back raising ? Balancing ? Big bets on the river as a bluff ? Raising turns as a bluff ? Re-raising with shoving on the river as a bluff ?

Another question - is there some end to this ? My thoughts - there is a end, point, where finding new approaches is not possible, especially when two very very good players find their selves fighting against each other (I'm not talking HU, but FR here). You simple can't figure out new +EV approaches as a reaction to already mastered +EV approaches at some point. But there are probably some new lines/approaches waiting to be discovered by the best of the best of the best thinking players.

Of course in general .. if somebody has some lines in their play he or she is doing most of the time .. there will be some +EV approach against them to some extent.

Maybe, as we climb again higher, to small stakes and even middle stakes … there are simple no new approaches/tactics/concepts which would give us a automatic +EV edge against some particular lines. Maybe the arsenal is definite, but now the play is more and more about our ability to sort of "read minds". What is he thinking ? What is he thinking I'm thinking ? What is he doing right now and why ? So actually the question is … what approach is he following right now against us ? If we can find out which one .. we will ofc. "simply" bring in a counter approach making our play +EV.

Spoiler:

Let's discuss this

Now, I am sorry for tl;dr post. I'm just getting more and more excited about this game and I wanted to get it out from my mind. I know I will probably find out pretty soon I wrote very stupid post here But that's good. Making a correction of my bad understanding of some points of this game on the very beginning before I will save them in my brain is what I want. It's always better to save it right away in my mind on the first time than trying to delete/rewrite it later.

Cheers and GL at that tables to all of us

no no, it's right one it's there now same as here, feel free to tell me I'm donk

imho epic post. you sum it pretty good. you will climb stakes fast i believe. lets see where this way leads
GL!

Hehe, thank you man ! I will try to take it mini step by mini step. Let's see how it goes. I would love to get to NL10 for example. Would be great. Anyway, main goal is clear: to maintain passion for this game and to have fun ! Period. GL to both of us

You should have warned me more, mate I posted my thoughts in Beginners Questions and everybody just crushed me for no reason. Today I think I saw some sort of dark side of this forum. But it's good to meet both good and the bad one. Everybody started trolling with me but as a paradox it was me who was accused from being poor (admin in PM). Some of the guys actually were trying to answer me, but they were missing the point. I was trying to explain more what I wanted to say actually, but it was closed very fast. I will learn from that mistake for the future .. I gotta say I shouldn't post it in other parts of the forum at the first place. I will stick to my own thread from now on Carry on !

wth?? why did they crushed you? well, there are some sections where are trolls only

That's what I really don't understand

Anyway, my BR 172.08$. I was up to about something like 176 or 175 last night, but after this I saw some badbeats. One of the hands I had s et on the semi-wet board (flop), check/called instead of check/raise. Turn was completing straight. I check/raised (stupidest play ever). So we went all in and he showed me higher set (hi had it thanks to to that turn).

Other times I had sets and guys with two pairs were able to hit higher fullhouse on the river - two times But I think they were playipng short stacks that time, so better than to be deep in those kinds of situations.

Also had I had one crazy hand. Had QQ, raise PF, semi-aggressive fish called. Board was JxK and I made CBET. He called. Turn was A. I don't remember if I made another bet. Anyway here comes funny part. River comes another J, but I (for some reason) "saw" T for the first sight. So I made pot sized bet and guy tanked for some time and folded. I realized it was J just after I made that bad and felt suddenly like "OMG IM ****" but it worked out

Also I won some money with higher straight against some calling station.

Anyway, after the session sort of break even.

I've read a part of the thread you're talking about. The point is, you had written a really, really long story with some questions here and there.

If I remember correctly, you posted it in beginners questions. Why don't you just write the questions you have? Instead of that, you introduced yourself and talked about every concept in poker, like when to value bet, stuff about fish, etc. There's no need for that stuff, keep that for your own thread. Nobody likes a very long story (which contained a lot of things not necessary for answering the questions) which they have to read to answer your questions. Just keep those things for this thread.

The next time you want to post something, just keep it simple. Just give only the necessary information (like when posting a hand, certain stats of villain and your thought process in a few sentences). When posting a question in beginners questions, try to really focus on the question itself, don't make a really long and unnecessary story around it. Also, don't post too many hands or questions in 1 post, people will give you better answers if you stick to 1 hand or a few questions in 1 post.

This community isn't mean at all. Sure, there are some forums here that only troll (BBV for example), but nobody trolls in the strategy forums. The people that do troll there will get banned. I hope this experience doesn't keep you from posting hands/questions on 2p2, some people here have a lot to offer.

Just remember, keep your threads simple, clear and not too long, yet with enough information.

not sure if this was mentioned itt before... but where are you studying med?

I'm going to complete high school in may (in sweden), and thinking of going to study medicine in the uk if all goes well (and if I have enough money)

glgl

Yea, I'm currently at the 5th year in Prague (Czech Republic), 2nd faculty of medicine, Charles University. Check out our web pages, we got pretty good faculty and studying in Prague is great. One of the best cities in EU for sure. Consider us also before going into UK. But keep in mind you will get very well paid job in UK more easily if styuding there from the very beginning. Feel free to PM me if you got some questions about med studies. But gotta say system of study in UK will be probably a bit different and I have only a little experiences with that (I'm "teaching" (more like helping out other teachers) 1st year guys from other countries at the anatomical department and they got system similar to UK/USA a bit).

thanks for good luck thing I wish you same with your choice of university.

I got your point. The thing is however I didn't have specific simple quetsions. I hade like 2 or 3 quetsions which had something to do with the long story I wrote. Another thing is I really didn't know people don't like long stories here especially in threads like beginners thread. The reason I posted that not only here but also in other threads was pretty simple - I wanted more people to read it and discuss it. But 1) it wasn't good idea because obv people don't like it that way around here 2) I was misunderstood all along the way. As I said already few times >> lesson learnt, no problem, lets go on. If I would know it's such a big deal to post long stories and some more inner thoughts with the aim to start a little bit more "wider" discussion around questions connected with that long story .. I wouldn't simply ever posted it there. I won't now, that's for sure But I feel people could just tell me that more accurately, like for example: "Man, you are new here so you probably don't know we don't like long posts with more than 1 simple question around here. Try to write posts like this one in your own PG&C threads instead, GL." Instead everybody 1) started answering quetsions I didn't ask 2) they started thinking I'm some kind of troll when I started trying to tell them these are not quetsions I wanted to ask and when I tried to explain more what my exact aim was 3) started making fun out of me. I didn't expect that, but that's fine. I'm not angry about anyone .. but these are the facts

Long story short, thanks for advices again - I will keep it simple out of this thread from now on

Yeah, I read the reactions and some were indeed pretty mean. They should've been more helpful.

As you said, lesson learned, let's move on. I'm kinda following this thread, so I hope to hear more from you

GL!

Villain was calling station with stats 80/20 over 10 hands. Maybe I should have raise more preflop considering he is CS, I have strong hand and cause I was OOP. Bet on the flop could be a bit stronger also I guess. Anyway, do you think turn and river were ok ? I was betting small to pot control since it's getting more and more wet and I was ready to fold to any raise.



Here I don't know why I again missed betting the river :/ Villain was again calling station 73/33 over 10 hands. How much would you bet on the river ?



Also I still got zero idea how to play draws. Is this a fold on the turn ? Villian was 54/21 over 24 hands. I think betting on the flop is generally good idea since it was checked to me. 1) we will grow pot up which is good for the turn/river if we will hit our flush 2) we can make others fold their air right away on the flop. But I have no idea if these thoughts are +EV at all :P Maybe these thoughts are not good against calling station such was this villain, who can't fold to Cbet.

Villian was 93/0 over 14 hands.

UPDATE

1) Made Poker Stars account. Should be linked through PokerStrategy but I don't know if that's working yet. I have plans to move there later however (to make first deposit), not for now.
2) Focusing still on 2 books only, still Blackrain's and Split's ones.
3) Bought new Ring Game 5$ Ticket.
4) I had very long and interesting session today. First ~800 hands I was running pretty bad. Seemed to me like some sort of minidownswing. I saw so many bad beats ... also played some particular hands bad. Not raising with my set on the flop, not valuebetting the river properly (checking instead) etc. I was down to ~165$ !

Anyway, I was able not to tilt at all and climb up back after loooong session (I mean for me a long one). After that I took few shots at NL5. Fish seems to be still fish, which is good. Just starting to feel regs, no idea how they play so far, but they seem to be good. And my ABC poker allowed me to go up with my roll. I waited 3 months to enjoy hand like this:


My roll was at the highest point so far (ah, felt so gooood) >> 186$. Anyway, after this, few hands came. Villian was something like 90/15 over ~70 hands.


Same villian (I think I was tilted a bit) here.


Again I tried not to tilt and I'm still playing. Still trying out NL5 aiming for fish BR atm 175.57$ (yeah I fought some back).

Back to 168.50$. I raised with AJ UTG limper from my BTN. Flopped top two. Was trying to get money in. Same as he actually. He had set Maybe I should be able to fold these .. but dunno. Will take a look on that hand later.

Down to 162.50$ :/

My AA got crushed several times. Also I went with KK against AA few times, people turning flushes over me all the time and me never completing them + made some bad plays. For example two limpers in front of me and I got AK on the BTN. Raise and the first limper is 3betting me (= limp re-raise). I had some stats on him showing me he is very aggressive and 3betting light PF. But indeed I didn't have that many hands on him. Anyway for some stupid reason I shove and he calls. Showed me AA Also it seems to me everybody is re-stealing my steals now all the time. Anyway still somehow I try not to tilt .. but maybe I am just thinking it while the "tilt" is saved somewhere behind my mind .. dunno.

Gotta work for school anyway, so I guess this is a good time to take a little break and to reread stuff (= more study of poker and hands than playing). We will see later. Wish me luck

it just happens sometimes, that they have a decent hands in resteal spots.. just keep folding, they start to fold too i thought that people realized how much i steal from them and start to resteal me more, but it was never true they have just good card run in these spots. and i doubt at nl2 or nl5 they can really adapt and if they do than i doubt they can adapt profitably

GL!

UPDATE

1) Did another sweat session ! Looking forward to doing another ones ! I feel I still got a LOT LOT to learn. Still on very beginning ! Too bad I don't have that much time as I would like to learn poker.
2) However dowswings continues. Was down (after todays sweat s) to ~155$. Bad beat after bad beat. Saw my sets and full houses and KK + AA AI PF getting beat. I won't tilt ! I won't be angry ! NEVER ! I will play still ABC as I know it so far. Even though I was up at 185$ one moment. I will fight it back step by step using brain
3) Still playing atm and made few good plays so far = up to 161$ now !
4) Posting my life time graph here and stats. Enjoy them. If you have comment, pls do so. Also keep in mind the fact I played very NITTY for about first ~45k hands. Only after this I started being more loose as getting on late positions and started to Cbet flops and started to steal blinds (even though I'm still learning to do these properly). Working on particular lines mini step by mini step really.

Eh, I'm down again. 154$. Villian was 60/22 over 51.



Here the villain was also calling station:



Another AA



And I really don't know why I didn't Cbet this flop :



Finally getting some set



Here I tried to play QQ.

Could you post a graph, from the start of this thread 'till now? That would be really interesting!

EDIT: just saw the graph a few posts above, my bad!

And this is my top notch flush

most hands are bad beats,but got some hands where is your fault really.Like in QQ hand,when he puts you all in for 3.11$ in 1.50$ pot is clear he got the nuts.Way you call with one pair??
AKs hand again dont like it at all.the turn is very wet and for sure i will not call the river that complets his flush draw,with a pair of KK.

Well actually it could be interesting to see just this year. Also we can take a look on last ~24k hands


So this is 2013 only:






And here we got last ~24k hands = this month. I like this graph




What do you guys think ?