Cliffs at bottom...

I'll start by saying a little about my poker background. I've been playing online since my first semester in college. After playing some games with friends I bought Harrington on Hold'em and started to play play money and sell chips for real $. I played freerolls too. Without ever depositing I started playing real $ sngs, micro cash, and $1-$2 tournies. Played off and on, sometimes seriously and fantasizing about playing for a living, but never winning enough $/hr to do so. I played all sorts of games: stts as high as $20, 6-max nl as high as 100NL (breakeven over a few k hands), 50NL HU (winner), $10-$50 HUsngs (winner)... stuff like that. I binked a $5 mtt for $933 which was nice. All told I won about $6,500 online and used the money to pay for summer classes. Only played live once the day after I turned 21. I held a lot of big hands and won $430 at 1/2 nl.

Now I'm 25. I played off and on from 19-24 then didn't play poker for over a year. I didn't even know black friday happened, but when I decided to start playing online again I found there was nowhere legal to play in the state of KY except crappy Bovada.

I also now have bills to pay since I'm out of the house. I estimate my average expenses for the month to be $668 and my average income from my part-time job to be $664. My stepdad owns my vehicle, pays insurance, and still pays for my phone on our family plan. I only have 2 classes left to finish school (I already have my bachelor's in philosophy, but now I'm doing an accounting certificate program to go with it so I can get a decent job). My money is tighter than I'd like it to be. I have about 5k to my name. I was set on getting an internship for some more income so I can buy my own car and pay all of my own bills, but after looking around a bit online I hate the sound of everything I read. I also think it's silly to work for $12/hr when I hear about people playing live 1/2 nl and winning $20+/hr.

Thus, instead of getting a 2nd job I'm going to set aside 2k to take a shot at live 1/2. If I can just make the same amount I make working part-time I can save up and buy my own car and start paying my own bills.

It's kind of funny to think of this as a "challenge" since this is basically me trying to find a way to pay my bills. It may not be as interesting as someone hardcore grinding and moving up through the limits, but hey, this is real life **** taking a shot at going semi-pro you could say. I know I would have liked to read something like this when I was living at home grinding the micros fantasizing about being a professional poker player, so maybe some people out there would too. I may end up doing really well and start playing full-time or I may fall flat on my face...

So here is how this little challenge is gonna work:
-I'm taking a shot with 2k
-Playing live 1/2 nl
-Sit with $200, no topping off stack (tip dealer from chips in pocket)
-Stop-loss when stack hits $80 (not worth shortstacking with rake)
-Stop-win when stack hits $400 (Only if someone at the table covers. Don't want too much at risk with limited br)

2k is only 10bis so good luck me, though it shouldn't be so bad with the stop-loss and stop-win. I'm gonna try to play every weekday for a few hours before work (I work midnight-4am) and maybe longer on weekends. If I can just play 15 hrs/wk and make $10/hr that's good enough for me, though I think I'm capable of something more like the $20+ that other LLSNL players earn at 1/2. Playing a shallower stack will be a limiting factor for my earn, but I'll start playing deeper when my br allows (game is $300 max). Besides, it's not my hourly that I think will be my problem, it's enduring the swongs on a limited br. I hope this works out, I really don't want to get another job

Cliffs: OP was a consistent winner in micros before black friday, now has to pay bills and doesn't want to get a 2nd job so is taking a 2k shot at live 1/2 nl

Good Luck, I think that 10bi is fine as long as you stick to your stop-loss and stop-win. If you consistently won at micros over a large hand sample you shouldn't have much of a problem beating 1/2 live. Just know that live poker does play quite differently and don't expect to have much if any fold equity vs. a lot of players.

Thanks douggy. I've been trollin the LLSNL forum trying to get a feel for the types of players and situations I'm gonna face. I've really been working on employing range-based thinking and I think it's completely changing the way I make decisions

Hey man I wish ya the best of luck. That is pretty much my plan in a nutshell as well, cept I'm a little older than you.

Hopefully you post your progress here! Subscribed.

Yes sir, will do. I'm visiting family out of town over the weekend and I want to study some more in LLSNL before taking my first shot, so I plan on starting next weekend when the games are good

BOL. If your past success was that good, then you should be able to hold your own and possibly make a decent income.

I notice you're from Kentucky. Where you planning on playing?

I'm gonna play at Horseshoe Indiana

Range based thinking is an absolute must. That being said, it doesn't take much to be out thinking most of the players you will come up against at 1/2. A big problem I have playing live is that I find it difficult to stay focused and to concentrate on the way others are playing, especially after I have mucked. If you can get good at this you will have a huge edge.

I've decided for sure my first two sessions are going to be Friday and Saturday. Until then I'm going to start adjusting my sleep schedule to fit my new "work" schedule. For the next few days I'm going to study hands in LLSNL from 7pm to 11pm which is the time I'm going to be dedicating to playing poker before my part-time job starts at midnight. I've meditated off an on for about 3 years now, and I'm going to pick it back up for 30 minutes each morning as a measure for controlling stress and tilt. My next post should be the results of my first session

I definitely agree. The majority of hands people post in LLSNL start with "no reads on villain" or something very superficial. The rest start with some fancy play preflop, so if I can avoid those two mistakes then I can avoid 90% of the problems people run into

I like the challenge, its as interesting as any grind story out there since there all different. You seem to have a great approach to llsnl so it shouldn't be long until you get the hang of it, and it is true that many mistakes build on unnecessary pf moves against players without specific reads.

I also play in hammond, usually have lots of water on me, but only have few days left of my summer grind (not so good profit wise but good experience) before back to school.

I am pathetic. It's been two and a half months since I made this thread and I've only been to the casino a few times. Thank you fogod for the PM, it reminded me of how utterly pitiful my effort has been.

I ended up needing to get a fuel pump replaced on my truck before I could make it out to the casino which set me back over a month. Then almost as soon as I got it fixed my sleep schedule went to hell. I started sleeping all day and waking up for work at 11pm, which has continued until this day and further stalled my plan. I thought about starting a new thread when I finally start playing on a daily basis, but I'm not. I'm keeping this thread as a reminder of my failure thus far.

I'm am making this post as a commitment to the PG&C community to do whatever it takes to stay awake today. I slept from 8am to 11am after work and it is now 2:30pm. Typically I hit the wall around 6pm and sleep until time to get up for work at 11pm, but not today. I will not be in bed until 7:30am after work tomorrow. I will not get out of bed until 4pm. I will force myself to adjust.

IN ORDER TO BE SUCCESSFUL YOU HAVE TO WANT IT MORE THAN YOU WANT TO SLEEP

Hey I'm doing pretty much the same thing. I'm an online player who is looking to grind 1/2 live as well, but I'm not as good as you. I went to go play live for the first time last weekend and it really made me go wtf because the play was so much different from online.

It'd be great if you could post some thoughts regarding online vs live play and what kind of adjustments you had to make.

When will you be going to the casino?

Good luck RB!

One thing to think about - most LLSNL players, especially at the lowest limit available at the poker room, are not going to be truly cognizant of how many hands you are playing etc... You can tighten up a bit since you aren't super rolled and try to play a bit lower variance style and still be ok until your bankroll gets deeper. Note that lower variance often can be lower EV, but still profitable until you are more comfortable etc...

Not as good as me lol?! I know I'm better than 9/10 players who play 1/2nl but I see such huge room for improvement in my game. I think my biggest leak is that I can assign ranges and analyze hands fairly well when I'm writing out my thoughts as I have in LLSNL posts, but I haven't practiced doing it in my head enough so my thoughts aren't as clear at the table. I know I should always analyze hands in my head before writing or pulling up pokerstove, but it's so easy to forget. I'm going to practice this by analyzing hands entirely in my head after sessions when I'm at work or winding down after work.

As far as adjusting from online to live, there's a ton of info on that in LLSNL. I remember a best-of thread about it in one of the stickies. One thing I'll mention is that a couple of big factors that cause rec players to play live 1/2nl differently than how they play micros online are (1) They can't minimize the table and surf the internet, so they end up limping a lot more garbage out of boredom and (2) The amount of money at risk is much greater which leads to more straightforward play.

Obviously you have to observe how people are betting their hands so you know what sort of ranges they're going to show up with in different spots, but in a vacuum I would recommend that you only bet when you are ahead of their calling range and assume they don't bluff often enough to ever make a call when you aren't getting the proper pot odds against their value range. Basically, take bluffs out of your range and their range. You might wonder where our edge is coming from if I'm saying they don't bluff and we shouldn't bluff. It comes from (1) Us not paying them off in spots where they pay us off (2) Us value betting in spots where they don't and (3) Us sizing our bets for maximum value where they underbet.

I have class tomorrow and I'm going to hang out with my lady friend on Saturday, which leaves Friday and Sunday open as my first day on the felt as a semi-pro. I doubt my body will be adjusted by Friday, so probably Sunday. I would be concerned that my sleep will get screwed up Saturday, but she knows about my goal of fixing my sleep and starting to play poker so we're on the same page.

Yeah I'm stubborn when it comes to maximizing ev, but that said my view of how to play hands seems to be naturally distorted toward a more solid (euphemism) style than most of the regs in the LLSNL forum.

I've noticed what you said about LLSNL players not being cognizant of how many hands other players open for a raise with. It feels weird playing such an exploitable style by only opening value hands and doing so for a large amount, but the more exploitable their play is then the more exploitable the appropriate counter strategy will be.


I appreciate the support guys, I'm ready to do this!

Over the last week or so I've fought to establish the sleep schedule I want to keep so that I can play poker in the evenings. Working 3rd shift I've always struggled with keeping a sleep schedule but I've never been so determined and this time I think I've got it down. I'm ready to start playing daily as of today. Leaving for my first session in my first attempt to play professionally in about 20 minutes....here goes nothing

3.5 hours
$58 profit

I think the thing that I needed to improve on most that session was following the action every hand. The action is fast since people are on autopilot so it was tough for me to keep up. Too many times I would think for a second about a situation I was in or an imaginary situation then I'd look and a pot had already made it to the turn or river. I replayed hands in my head after showdown, but forgot to a decent number of times. Basically I need to be determined to improve my concentration. I also need to slow down mentally when I'm in a hand to get a clearer understanding of my opponents' ranges before making decisions. I felt rushed at times so I need to get over that.

One thing I'd like to do itt to work on my game is analyze 1 interesting hand and 1 uninteresting hand after each session. I've been reading Mersenneary's free HUSNG e-book because I want to get into husngs when online comes back in the U.S. He mentions that the importance of a mistake is equal to the ev lost times the frequency that that situation arises (a concept he first heard from Ed Miller). Thus, analyzing routine decisions can be much more important than analyzing esoteric spots despite the fact that the latter are much more interesting.

I'm tired right now so I'll post an analysis of 2 hands later today. I also want to work on a method for quickly assigning ranges pf based on estimating the bottom of a person's range for different hand groups. The last thing I want to reflect on is what type of hands I want to complete in the sb when there are limpers since I was unsure with a few hands today (J3o, 63o, and 32o). Just this one little session has given me a crapload to think about, which is great because that's a lot of potential for improvement. Now it's just a matter of putting in the thought work

Two theories -

1. At the lower limits, if you feel like you can outplay post flop your opponents you can complete with a much wider range. Note - this isn't how I play....

2. You are going to be OOP for the entire hand, so don't complete with hands that you don't want to play multi-way and OOP. J3o, 63o, 32o - IMHO just setting money on fire. Sometimes I think it is better to try and find a reason NOT to play the hand, in lieu of a reason to play the hand.

MONDAY

Session:
2.5 hours
-$144

Totals:
6 hours
-$86

I thought I was the best player at the table today. I made a few small mistakes but for the most part I'm okay with how I bet my hands. I'm not okay with my level of focus though. I'm still losing concentration often and missing the action. Also when hands get shown down I don't have the presence of mind to think all the way through how people played their hands. Before I get out of my truck to walk into the casino tomorrow I'm going to take a minute to reflect on the fact that I'm determined to focus on the action, replay hands in my head, and reflect on my opponents general tendencies in terms of common actions like raising pf, 3-betting, and c-betting.

I've decided that I want to post some reflections on strategy after each session to ensure that I'm improving as a player. I'll compile these reflections in between sessions and post them with my next session update. I understand that improvement in poker occurs in small increments; nonetheless my goal for each reflection is to focus on the topic that will improve my game the most for next session, whether it be strategy against the player pool in general (as in the reflections below) or strategy against (a) specific player(s) in a specific hand. My discussion of each topic will be incomplete and the opinions within subject to change, so repeating a topic is likely.


REFLECTIONS FROM FRIDAY'S SESSION

Completing in the sb
When there are multiple limpers I think our decision to complete in the sb should be based on the general tendencies of the players in the pot. So the question is: what are the general tendencies of players in 1/2nl in limped pots and how do we profit by exploiting those tendencies?

I agree that trying to outplay people in 1/2 by running bluffs is generally not a good idea. People tend to overplay hands first by limping with hands that are too weak, then by calling raises with hands that are too weak, then by calling postflop bets with hands that are too weak. Thus, the primary exploits we should employ are betting and raising for value. In terms of completing in the sb this means we should only play value hands, meaning hands that have the potential to connect and get paid by worse.

So the next question is which hands have enough value to complete? There are really 3 elements of a hand that give it value: how high the cards are, how connected they are, and if they are suited. The fact that we're going to be oop against the field for three more streets immediately lowers the value of all 3 dramatically.

Ultimately the profitability of playing the hand boils down to our roi. We need to put in $1 to continue and if we average a return of $1 or more then it's a good investment. In 1/2nl I think rake and tips are worth factoring in. Rake where I play is 10% of the pot with a $5 cap, and I usually tip $1 if there's at least a little money in there. That means in a $40 pot $5 gets dropped. If it's a multiway limped pot that goes heads-up to the turn then you might have put $15 of the $40 in the pot for a profit of $25. Then $5 gets dropped in rake and tips which is 20% of your profit. That's a pretty big number and can turn marginally profitable hands into losing hands. Perhaps that alone should be enough reason to fold complete trash hands that are unconnected, offsuit, and of limited high card value. The same goes for any hand in any position. Rake and tips tend to favor a slightly tighter style, which makes me feel better about my tag style (note: my style is a natural outgrowth of where I see ev, not something I do for it's own sake).

Here are a couple more factors I think we should consider:
1. People are going to tend to give up on low card flops since they tend to play high cards and will give us credit on low boards since we're in the blinds. This is working against us when we have a hand like 63o
2. People tend to play passively so we will be able to realize more of our pf equity when we get free cards to improve or are able to reach showdown and win with 1 pair when it gets checked down

Say there are 3 limpers, one in ep, one in mp, one in lp, and we are in the sb. I think this is a pretty good completing range (with better hands getting raised):

77-22,ATs-A2s,KJs-K2s,Q2s+,J2s+,T2s+,92s+,84s+,73s+,62s+,52s+,42s+,A To-A2o,KJo-K5o,Q6o+,J7o+,T6o+,96o+,86o+,75o+,65o,54o

The fewer limpers there are the more high cards go up in value and the more suitedness and connectedness go down in value due to decreasing implied odds, the decreasing average strength of a winning hand, and the decreasing chance of being dominated.


Exploiting the Player Pool

Next I want to discuss some common mistakes people make in 1/2nl and how to exploit them.

1. They limp too many hands. Exploit this by raising for value when entering a pot. Either they have to fold and lose $2 you wouldn't have lost with the same hand (positive reciprocity) or they have to call and play a pot with an inferior holding. How likely a player is to limp/fold vs limp/call shouldn't influence our raising requirements since we should raise both frequent limp/folders and limp/callers with a wider range. Against the former we pick up more pots uncontested and against the latter we can play a wider range profitably postflop since their calling range is going to be weaker. Thus the only factor we should consider when iso'ing is how often a person limps, not how likely they are to "defend" their limp.

2. They only open for a raise or 3-bet with a very tight range. Exploit this by only continuing with a tight range. Against many players AJ should be folded for a single raise and AQ should be folded against a 3-bet, for example.

3. A standard open is particularly large. This is true not only for our opponents, but for us as well. Think about this: in tough full ring cash games online a typical open raise is somewhere between 2x and 3x. This is partly a function of the fact that the games are 100bbs deep so a smaller open offers the same implied odds as a larger open with deeper stacks, but even in deepstack cash games on tv players are often opening for 3x-4.5x when there are huge antes in the pot. In a 6 handed 200/400 100 ante game the starting pot is 1200 which is the equivalent of 400/800 blinds with no ante and players open for 1500-2000 which is the equivalent of 2x-2.5x in a no-ante game. Compare those numbers to the standard open of roughly 5x in 1/2nl live. So how do we exploit it? Perhaps there isn't much to exploit here since we are already calling with a tight range in opened pots and opening strictly value hands--the large open size simply increases the size of the mistake a player makes by entering a pot with the worst hand, which is usually going to be our opponents. One other thing to consider regarding raise size is that 5x at 1/2 is approximately the size of a standard open in a tough 2/4 game (2.5x). That means when we are selecting starting hands we should think of our stack size in terms of $4bbs instead of $2bbs since implied odds are reduced by the larger open. If we have a $200 stack then we have 50bbs in terms of the larger open and should tend to open with hands that flop well 50bbs deep. Luckily this increases the value of big cards and big pairs that are a bigger part of our range and lowers the value of dominated and speculative hands with which our opponents love to see flops. The downside is that we don't get as good of implied odds with our speculative hands like small pps and scs.

4. They don't bluff enough/only bet for value. I'm not saying the player pool never bluffs. Bluffs certainly happen, and a few will probably be shown every session. But 2 things: (1) These bluffs mostly come from the same 1-2 players at the table so if we can identify them then we can adjust to them specifically and (2) Even though the average 1/2 player gets frisky once in a while with a bluff, they're not doing it enough to justify calling. For example, if a player is bluffing 1/10 times and they don't give off some blatant live tell the 1 time they are bluffing then there is no way to tell which time they are bluffing. We can guess and call 1 time in 10, but our guess is still going to be wrong 9/10 times and we would have been better off folding. Thus the most profitable strategy is to fold every single time we can only beat a bluff. Often our decision comes down to only being able to beat a bluff and we will be getting somewhere between 2:1 and maybe 5:1 to call. But if our opponent is only bluffing 10% of the time we can't even call getting 5:1. So in order to call we need to be able to beat a decent part of our opponent's value range, though not quite as much as we would have to be beating if they didn't bluff at all.

5. They don't understand the value of position. This one I don't think we have to deliberately exploit since we are already choosing our spots based on position.

6. They call often and only raise nut-rank hands. What I mean by nut-rank hands are hands of the highest rank possible on a given board. If the board shows a 3-flush they will only raise a flush, if it is paired also they will only raise a full house (or lol quads), if it has neither of these they will only raise 2 pair+ and will only raise big with a set or straight. What this means is that we can get away with naming our own price with a bet. We can bet small with marginal hands to get value from weaker hands and we will only be raised by very strong hands. The fact that Phil Hellmuth uses a lot of these blocker-type bets is perhaps one of the reasons that he is known as being very good at exploiting weak players.


Estimating Limping Ranges Preflop

As I said in my last post I need to work on quickly processing opponents' ranges preflop, particularly when there are a bunch of limpers. In order to do this I think it'll be useful to break starting hands up into categories so that I can estimate how each opponent plays each category of hand. I want to use as few categories as possible without including hands that are significantly different in a single category. (I did this once then deleted what I wrote because I realized I was over complicating things)

In order of likelihood based on combinatorics and player pool tendencies:

1. Offsuit high card(s)
2. Suited high card(s)
3. Suited low cards
4. Offsuit low cards
5. Pairs

By high card(s) I mean at least 1 card that is a jack or higher. To summarize I think this is an average limping range for the live 1/2nl player pool:

77-22, A9s-A2s, KJs-K5s, Q6s+, J6s+, T6s+, 96s+, 85s+, 75s+, 64s+, 54s, ATo-A3o, K7o+, Q8o+, J8o+, T8o+, 98o, 87o

This happens to be about 38% of hands. The thing I really want to take from my reflection in this section is that I can quickly estimate limping ranges by thinking about the top and bottom of each opponents' range in each of the 5 categories above. I will keep a working model of each opponent's limping range that I'll adjust based on their limping frequency and hands that they showdown after limping. That will allow me to tweak my iso'ing range toward stronger hands against infrequent limpers and weaker hands against frequent limpers.

TUESDAY

Session:
1 hour
-$201

Totals:
7 hours
-$287

I'll post the hand I busted on today. I don't feel like writing out a description of the opponent or recent dynamics; they don't really matter anyway.

8 handed
Hero dealt AA ($185)

UTG Call $2
UTG+1 Call $2
HERO raises to $15
MP2 Fold
CO Call $15
BTN Fold
SB Fold
BB Call $15
UTG Fold
UTG +1 Call $15

4 players to the flop
Pot $58 ($63-$5 rake)

Flop 995

BB Checks
UTG+1 Checks
HERO Bets $40 ($130 behind)
CO Folds
BB Raises to $90 (Covers)
UTG+1 Folds
HERO Raises to $170 all-in
BB Calls

Pot $398

Board: 9d5d9h

HERO 43.29% { AhAs }
BB 56.71% { QQ-JJ, 99, 55, KdKh, TdTh, A9s, K9s, Q9s, J9s, T9s, 96s+ }

He showed up with 96. I turned up the aces as soon as he called my all-in and he waited to show until the river so I thought I was good. I didn't improve. I think he said "sorry" or something and I said "Nah, that's okay" and as I walked away I heard another guy at the table say "slowroll me..."

Lol.

Sorry, Rusty. Welcome to the harsh realities of the fishtank.

Keep grinding.