I was under the impression that raising a hand like T9o in the CO would just be burning money. I didn't even think it was breakeven. It feels really counterintuitive to me to widen my CO opening range when the BTN will relentlessly 3bet me with a wide range of marginal holdings like KTs, 76s, A3s, KJo, 66, etc. Or do you have a wide 4betting range too, to counter that?

It's much easier to play a nitty style when you're 2-tabling zone poker online, seeing 500 hands per hour, than sitting on a full-ring live table and seeing 30 hands per hour. If I'm ever not sure whether to open a hand or not, I can just click the fast fold button and not think twice about it. But on a live table, I have to stop and say "this might be the only playable hand you get for the next hour".

Quick expression of interest: if I were to stream myself playing a session of 50nl zone on twitch, would anyone watch it?

Save to VOD and don't lie about your winrate, if you get positive WR 3.5bb/100 or higher, I'd watch you to f-king leech your value ch33rs

& by watch I mean watch you 0s till you finish (c**) ch33rs

Yes, would watch, make a poker blog on YouTube for your live sessions as well.

The comedic value should be high, so sure. As for playing tighter than 'standard ranges' you are right for once. I realized that tighter was better on zone right away, considering your playing in high rake environment and against call stations, so the standard ranges most players copy from 500z regs are just not applicable.

I would watch.

I would watch. When are you planning on streaming?

You've got nothing to lose by streaming. It's anonymous poker so no one is going to figure out your game.

Had a really sh*tty session of 50nlz today. 4 things kept happening:
1) None of my bluffs got through
2) None of my value bets got paid
3) I always seemed to run into a slightly better hand, like running QQ into KK on a Jxxxx board or running Tx into AT on a 9JQKx board.
4) I seemed to face an unusually high amount of 4betting preflop, especially when I had marginal hands like A6s or A9s. I folded to every 4bet except the one time I had AKo when I 5bet jammed and lost the flip against QQ. I don't know if people were just playing back at me or if they happened to just have it every time, but I think that I faced a 4bet about 50% of the time when I 3bet pre.

Pretty demotivating to win a bunch at 25nl and then give it all back at 50nl. I wish that variance would go my way at 50nl and go against me at 25nl, not the other way around.

I make no promises about my long-term win rate. I make no promises that I'll be playing in a +EV manner either. I'll just do my best and whatever happens happens.

No plans yet. It's just something I'm considering in the future.

Why are you 3 betting A6s and A9s?

Just bored?

You have this backwards. You should be playing quite nutty in live full ring. Whi cares if it's the only decent hand you've seen in an hour? I often go 3 hours without playing a hand. They still pay me off when I start getting cards. Patience young padawan. Live poker is as much about patience, discipline, and keeping a level head as it is about knowing poker theory. Probably more.

Let me do some math here. So if you make 5BB/100 and play 500 hands per hour, at 25NL that comes out to 6.25/hr. At 50NL that comes out to 12.50/hr. Even if you crush 50NL at 10BB/100 that's 25/hr. We're still in territory where you could make more playing live 1/3.

Have you really (I mean really, seriously) thought this over? The pros and cons of live vs online when you live a 10 minute walk from a super soft casino?

Maybe you end up beating online but unless you rapidly move up and/or expand your multitabling you'll probably go broke anyway. Unless you actually have someone else paying your expenses like Thai GF?

^ tbh i just think he has to learn the hard way

But yeah, the fact that you cant fold for just one hour straight OP shows that you have some issues. Impatience, impulsiveness, indication of gambling addiction/thrill, lack of self-control etc. if you dont sort that out, you’ll never succeed.

A6s was a 3bet in the BTN vs CO. Then the CO decided to 4bet me.

A9s was a 3bet in the BB vs BTN. Then the BTN decided to 4bet me.

I was honestly tempted to just 5bet jam both times, but I resisted.

In the short run, I can't afford the variance of live poker at all right now.

In the medium run, I'd agree that live is better than online for me. I'm going to win a lot more per hour at a 1/3 NL table than at 25nl online.

But in the long run, I think that online gives me more opportunities to make progress and become a better player. The online guys always crush live, not the other way around. And these skills will help me for when I eventually move up to 5/10+ where the live games start to play like small stakes online games.

Nah my girlfriend doesn't earn enough to support both of us. If anything, I pay for her more than she pays for me.

As we all know, I'm a recreational player. Two years ago whilst playing 50 nlz on Stars (I no longer play this format) I spent three months developing all my ranges. I correlated the ranges from The Grinders Manual and "Applications", plus some stuff on here and adjusted them. Then I made charts (38 pages) printed them, bought a laminator, laminated them and stuck them all in folder.

As in exercise in learning about balanced ranges it was worthwhile, but once done I hardly ever used them as I steered towards XPLO play (the online equivalent of Mike's point).

Oh, and btw, I blogged this task in my then PGC (won't link it because promoting myself in your blog is discourteous) but it's still there if you want evidence.

Here's my (long-winded) point. I'm a rec playing absurdly low volumes and I know you gotta have your ranges sorted if you are playing online fast poker.

Pretending you are a pro and asking for ranges is a new low.

And to whoever mentioned it, Axs is a totally standard light 3-bet against a weak opening range online.

Assuming you know what you are doing with the rest of your ranges ofc.

It's actually not as easy as you think.

Imagine you've been card dead, you haven't played a single hand in over 1 hour, people on the table are literally making comments like "he's just waiting for Aces", then finally, you're dealt a hand like A7s in early position. You're going to be tempted to open this, even knowing that it's barely a winning hand.

I give you hard time, so...

super standard, if you folded both times well played.

If what I read about Zone is true (and it would be the same on Stars) not very EV to 5bet bluff jam here because 4 bet ranges are mostly for value. That said, I'd be doing it if I had a sniff villain had a 4bet bluffing range.

Dude....you let that comment you into tilt playing A7? That's a standard comment designed to tilt you. If you're that thin skinned then the live tables will eat you alive. Just pop back with "not just aces, SUITED aces!" or some dumb **** like that.

It isn't fun to fold for an hour or so, but it isn't difficult. Folding pre is one of the easiest things to do once you learn some discipline.

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I completely disagree.

Part of being a pro is being committed to learning and improving, rather than just pretending you already know everything and then allowing the competition to get ahead of you.

I have a basic understanding of which hands to open from each position and which hands to 3bet and 4bet, but I'm still not 100% sure and there's still room for improvement. Why is it lolworthy for me to ask for help to improve my game?

Lots of pros don't know their preflop ranges perfectly either. It's not a requirement to know your ranges perfectly to become a live pro.

Can you pleeeease make an Andrew Neeme style live blog at crown casino. Holy **** that would be entertaining. Can someone make one? Get one of the 2/5 players to.

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Sure, then why does JDawg keep on studying and running sims on 25 BB spots?
Maybe you could give him an advice to stay to push-fold charts and it's all gonna be good?

I don't understand why you keep on giving statements about things you're absolutely clueless. It's like all those soccer fans who sit with a beer in front of their TV and give opinions on how the players should be playing. Then you finally meet Messi and tell him"Hey, yo, Messi, I think that you should've scored a goal in that 83th minute, that was bad from you. I watch soccer all day long and I know a lot about it, so take my advice and get better, pal."

Too much computer/editing work. Plus Crown are Nazis when it comes to filming or taking pictures inside the casino. They'd quickly pull you aside and warn you about their no photography rule. And the vlog just wouldn't be the same once you're no longer allowed to film inside.

The reason he's studying sims is because those sims exist in the first place. He wouldn't be able to study the solution to a game if the solution wasn't there.

Imagine if chess was solved: would grandmasters still study it? Of course they would. Just because a solution exists on computers, doesn't mean humans memorise it.

Do you really still not get it? At this point it doesn't matter what path nets you the most money "in the long run." You have months left, maybe half a year if you're lucky. You simply will not make it to the "long run" before your expenses exceed your income and you bust. I don't recall your exact monthly expenses except your food and entertainment costs were ridiculous. But let's suppose you make 10 dollars an hour (optimistic right now IMO). If your monthly expenses are 1500 dollars you need to play 150 hours a month. Note this won't actually grow your bankroll so in reality you need to play more like 200 hours a month. Furthermore you aren't getting 10 dollars an hour but some unknown expected value. To be safe you should play even more hours so the variance levels out faster. Good luck putting in that kind of volume.

The only reason your live play has been "high variance" is because you play an inappropriately aggressive and bad strategy, jump stakes frequently, and play drunk. And you can't sit there for an hour without deciding to 3 bet A7s or some nonsense. Who cares what the fish say? Ignore them, tell them yes you're waiting for Aces, you're just waiting for a friend to finish a tournament, you're waiting for 92s, or an endless number of other lies. Yeah I've sat there at 1/2 and had people call me "aces" because I got aces twice and made it to showdown, and more than once had the fish comment on me not playing a hand in X hours. Lots of nonsense. Whatever. I'm there to take their money. They can say what they like.

Here's the reality you're in.

In the short run, you need to start making significant income to cover your monthly expenses and grow your bankroll. You have little to no chance of making enough online to cover your expenses before you go broke. Your best case scenario online is you get stuck grinding obscenely long sessions to cover the monthly expenses. Your bankroll grows extremely slowly, and you either get stuck grinding 50NL forever or you at some point decide to jump stakes underrolled and lose most of your bankroll.

In the medium run, well...it doesn't matter because you'll never get there if you don't quickly start making income. No point dreaming about 5/T when you don't have the discipline to beat 1/3. You think it will be easier because it's more similar to online play? Gotta move up in stakes where they respect your raises, right? Give me a break man.

Beating 1/3 live is really simple. It's not easy because it requires patience and discipline but it is very simple, and if you actually wanted to and made the necessary adjustments you could quite easily be a big winner in this game.

I'm really not trying to be overly negative here. I just feel someone needs to slap you in the face and say "wake the f up" before there's nothing you can do about it.

And again as others have said countless times getting a part time job is probably the best solution. Then you can focus on live or online or whatever you want without the frequent worry of covering your nut. But I get it. Work sucks. However I think after a month or two of grinding 150+ hours a month you'll realize full time grinding is no picnic either.

------

I'll ask again, why on earth do you think 25BB cash games or SNGs are solved? THEY ARE NOT. Read this article on Upswing Poker

https://upswingpoker.com/gto-myths-g...onception/amp/

In my first session of live of just over 2 hours, I played like 4 hands.

Whenever I saw a marginal hand or relatively weak hand from EP, I immediately dumped it. I've always been a pretty patient person, and it probably helps that I've also played so many hands online already. I dont really feel the need to play hands that will get me into marginal/-EV/BE spots.

Even if i get tempted during my future sessions, im sure i'll have the self-restraint to just fold. Tbh, im not a big gambler and never have been. I actually hate gambling. And after I've played poker for so long, I hate it even more. I've played blackjack once once I turned 21. I exactly broke even after an hour. I dont think I would play another hand. It didnt feel fun to me, and knowing that long-term I'm -EV even with perfect basic strategy, made me want to play even less. The only way you can win at BJ is to count cards, but casinos are trained to learn who are counting cards and kick you out/ban you. Even with card counting, you only have a 51-53% MAX edge on the house, assuming you play completely perfect. Even when my friend kept going to casinos and kept asking me to play BJ, i flat out refused. It just isnt fun to me.

I've played slots for lol $3. That's it, just to try it for my 21rst. I didnt feel thrill at all, and basically I played knowing I was flushing it down but I just wanted to experience it. Even when I was young, I've never gambled during school/HS or those traditional Vietnamese gambling games either. that a lot of Viet people played. I never even wanted to try.

Even when I first played poker at 10NL/25NL, I was such a big nit and scared of losing money that I was playing something like 13/11 or 14/12, although as I've already mentioned i've tried all play styles from 13/11 to 28/24. I've always been a nit with money, except for like partying/eating out/family/friends. Mostly wrt to gambling.

So no, after playing my first session and my overall history with gambling, I don't think I'd have that big of a problem folding for an hour straight with people snickering, "he's waiting for aces." I hate losing money. I despise it.

Every time I lost in poker, I felt a little sad. When I went on downswings, I got really stressed out. Which is normal. but when I won money, whether it was 1 BI, 4 BI, 3BI, most of the times I literally felt nothing. I felt empty. I didn't get a "thrill" or any type of happiness (if I did it was very slight). I asked other people how they felt when they won money or if they felt happy when they won. I'd get responses like, "It felt amazing," or "Of course I was happy". Me? I felt empty, for the most part. Of course, I was happy and proud that I was so good at something at such a young age, and being able to destroy the stakes so quickly which is mostly unheard of past BF. But yeah, I guess I'm not normal and I don't really have that much gamble in me. When I play poker, most of the time I'm thinking about is how can I trick people into giving me their stacks, how to trick them into hero-calling, how to maximize EV, not donking off/spewing off my stacks with bluffs. Of course I do tilt from time-to-time but tbh my tilt control is probably better than 80-90%+ of players. Except for the one time I was rolled for 10NL and shotted 25NL from tilt 3-4 years ago, I never played higher than the game I was rolled for or tilt shotted. Did it ever cross my mind? Of ****ing course lol.

A7s isn't "barely a winning hand" from EP. It's -EV.

Who cares what people at the table are saying? When you get AA and open to 5-6x, you'll still get 8 donks calling. LOL. Hyperbole ofc, but they wont fold. That's how you win money at live. Be patient. And then when you keep getting trash hands, keep being patient. Get good hands, value bet. Don't bluff. Don't spew. ->>>>> print money.

Rinse and repeat

Also. Those 3-bets weren't that great.

A9s is a pretty standard defend vs a BTN open. It's too strong to be 3b bluffing. Save it for A2s-A5s, possibly A6s. Look at it this way. Most BTN players are opening any Ax. So when you 3b with A9s, they fold A2-A9o, and possibly weaker suited aces if they are nitty (I did that). So you are getting weaker hands to fold, but what better hand exactly are you folding? You're letting your opponent make less mistakes, and if the BTN 4-bets you that's really annoying too. You need some suited aces in your flat range. I'd recommend BB vs BTN like A2s-A5s, maybe A6s 50/50 doesnt really matter imo, AJs+ is a 3b. A10s and A6s are basically on the cusp of being good for flatting and good for 3b, so it's up to you but doesnt really matter, you could also mix.

A6s BTN vs CO is okay but I'd prefer to just 3b A4s/A5s and A10s+, but in your current state where you are trying to minimize variance, it seriously isn't okay.

Just 3-bet for value/merged & maybe some good bluff hands like A4s/A5s and 76s-109s, 75s-108s BB vs SB, and play good hands, especially on Zone and when you need to minimize variance. You're playing with fire and asking to get your roll destroyed playing 16% 3-bet.

I am frequently in this exact position. It's as easy as preferring to make correct decisions over gambling it up. Luckily most players in the casino think like you, as though folding cards for an hour is some kind of difficult task.

I've never had people get nasty about me nitting it up. I just joke along with them 'I'm waiting for suited aces' or 'Can't play AK here *folds BTN* it's just a drawing hand'.

Actually thinking about it, the comments have mostly dried up over the last few months or so even though I'm as tight as I ever was. Maybe the regs have decided there is just no point in trying to get me to loosen up.

Very good post. Your attitude towards gambling and poker is similar to my own. I get no thrill from winning a big pot. I prefer it intellectually to losing because I'm there to make money, but there is no endorphin rush like with gambling addicts. I just try calmly and logically to make the most +EV decisions.

I have no doubt you will kill live games. There may be an adjustment period to really get the flow of the game, procedural stuff, learning to read people, etc., but you have the right analytical mindset, patience, and discipline, plus years of online play. I doubt it takes you more than a few weeks to start beating LLSNL.