Hi all, I must be the king of failed PG&C threads lol. I'm a 6max player, who has a mental block in beating anything past NL5. Time to try and change that. So in 2018, my goal is to grow my game and start advancing through the micros. I would like to at least be playing at NL50 by the end of the year. I work a lot, but still hope to get some decent hours in.

I will probably try to be very aggressive in my shot-taking, as I want to move up (and get more experience) quicker. To that extent, I've been thinking about adding a bit more money to the bankroll every couple weeks at the start, just to be able to move up even faster. Don't know if I will or not yet though. I'm starting with about $100 on Stars.

So why will this year be any different than the past? Well, I have no idea if it will! I just want to have fun, work on my game, and see where things go. My first order of business is to come up with a basic strategy, which is balanced and not very exploitable. I've done a lot of work on that so far in the last month, and while still very simplistic, it's coming along. Time to test what I've done so far, as I have the itch to get back to playing.

The goal is to finish that basic strategy, and then continuously refine and improve it. Other study time will be spent analyzing my database, and trying to find ways to deviate from the basic strategy to exploit the population tendencies. My plan right now is to spend one hour each day studying/working on my game, and then the rest of the time playing.

Just spent 1 or 2 hours playing NL2 to get back into things, and will also probably play the next session there. After that, might jump right to NL5. Thinking I might post graphs weekly, but will try to post hands more often. Oh, and created a new PT4 database, as my old one was getting slow.

Standard blind vs blind spot I think?




This guy tanked forever on the river, but ended up calling.




Ugly lol





Maybe I can find a fold on the flop. I ended up calling, but wasn't thrilled about it either way..

I tentatively came up with an agro BRM plan designed to get me to NL25 fairly quickly. May involve a lot of jumping around stakes, but that's ok. Once at NL25, I would like to build a bigger cushion there before finally taking shots at NL50 (and beyond).

I will take shots at NL5 at $55, and move down to NL2 at $40.
I will take shots at NL10 at $95, and move down to NL5 at $55.
I will take shots at NL25 at $170, and move down to NL10 at $95.
Not sure yet when to take shots at NL50.

If I end a session taking a shot and I've dipped down below the amount needed for the shot (for example, I took a shot at NL10, but ended the session at $80), I will start the next session at the lower stake to rebuild that shot. So, in that example, I would start the next session at NL5, and go back to NL10 when the BR hits $95 again.

Only leaving myself 20 BIs at NL20 and 3BIs at NL5, there is a chance I could lose this bankroll. If that's the case, I don't have any problem depositing more money (probably another $40 for 20 BIs at NL2). So no worries there. Since my bankroll was above $95, I played a bit of NL10 today. Here are some hands:


Nice little hand. Didn't bet the flop because I haven't worked out my postflop lines in this spot enough yet.






I'm thinking I should have just folded the turn? Would probably have a lot better to continue with.




Anyone play this differently?





My biggest hand

GL bro

Idk about opening 65o from the CO for 4x (or for any sizing for that matter)
Q8s is also a loose 2bet from the B.B. vs two limpers.

How are you coming up with your basic hard-to-exploit strategy? I’ve made attempts at this with alright results using solvers.

Thanks ToiletBowler, I basically use math with flopzilla and equilab. Nothing fancy. Curious what you're using. For each betting/raising range, I figure out how much I need to call if they shove to prevent them from shoving any two cards, and what hands would be profitable if they only get it in with better. I then build my range around that. Every step of the way, I try and prevent them from being able to bluff with any two cards (looking at the hand as a whole from the start, not based on any one action). As well as making sure I'm trying to win the pot enough so that they can't exploit me by over-folding.

As for opening 4bb with 65o.. I use 4bb sizing, because it makes it a ton easier to design my postflop lines. Plus, it's better at denying equity for my opponents preflop. As for 65o.. obviously I use the strongest hands for the value part of my range. But after that, I like to fill out my range with hands that can make the most nut hands by the river. So I like using connected hands rather than hands like A8o, which make pairs/2pair/trips that are more often dominated. If this approach doesn't work, I'll find out soon enough.

I haven't worked on my iso ranges yet, so you may be right. I just currently use my open ranges, minus one position for each limper. So if I'm on the button and there are two limpers in front, then I'll open with my MP opening range. Just a makeshift solution until I'm able to work on that aspect.

I use Cardrunners EV. Not sure how other solvers differ but I’m fine with this atm.

I get your point about playability > high card value but 65o is way too loose IMO, check out some up to date preflop charts going around at the moment and see how other regs rank starting hands preflop to get some further insight on it. Snowie even has a free preflop advisor (which I play tighter than).

4bb open is fine preflop, ofc you have to adjust ranges for bigger sizing though but if you can do it well it’ll be really good since few people have experience facing a 4bb open.

I'll have to check out CREV.

I'm aware of various preflop charts. By the way, my CO open range is still only about 25% of hands. I just chose slightly different hands to "bluff" with. I'm not saying I'm right, but it seems to give me a nice balance postflop with the rest of my range. I'm not worried about playability, as much as just having good bluffing hands postflop that have better potential to improve to a strong hand. Even bluffing with one pair (with 65o) is better, I think, because the opponent likely won't have blockers to your 2pair/trips outs.

Again, that's just my view right now. Once I have a sizable sample to look at in my database, I can see how those hands are doing. I'd be interested to know though why you think 65o is a bad hand to open with. I'm always open to reworking my ranges if I can see I'm doing something clearly wrong.

The only way I really adjust for the bigger 4bb open is by having more nut-potential hands (like the lower connectors). And then cbetting larger, and slightly less often with a stronger range.

Sounds like a great challenge; similar to one I recently started (although my challenge thread is under another name on another forum site). Best of luck!

I like the initial aggressive BRM but just make sure you have a solid BRM plan in place for once you reach 25NL as your initial plan seems a bit too risky for 25NL 6 max. I'd say maybe raise the move up line to 10NL just a bit to give more of a cushion. I initially tried more conservative BRM to get out of 2 NL (and had success in past doing it from 10 to 20nl) but took advice of others and am using a 20 + 4 bi rule to move from 2NL to 5NL and probably to 10NL. So I moved to 5NL after I had 20 bi at my current level (2NL) + 4 for the next level (5NL) and at $60 moved up. I'll likely move up to 10NL when I hit $140ish (20bi at 5NL + 4bi at 10NL) then shift back to a 20 buy in min for next level with a 17 buy in at current level to drop back down. I'm also doing full ring so I expect for you 6 max will be swingier.

No shame in failed challenges we've all had em.

Hand 4 btw is a good example of what seems like a newer tendency in poker moves to aggressive raise draws but often at 2NL and probably 5 and 10NL the flop bets here are indicative that our TPGK are no good as villian likely hits something weird like a crappy 2 pair or a set mine. So even if we subscribe to the thought process that there are indeed better players at the micros than years ago that are capable of taking "bet draws hard" lines, we should assume most raises against us at 2NL mean our TPGK are no good.

IMO you're undervaluing the value of a slightly higher pair.

If you're truly opening 65o from CO and have 25% RFI then you must be folding hands like A9o, KTo, K7s, Q8s, 97s, which are all more profitable opens than 65o. If your response is that you need sample size for your "view" to change, and remain ignorant to other reputable sources of information you've been pointed towards, then you'll have to work awful hard to not make this another failed PGC.

JeeeroyLenkins: Thanks, I assume by risk, you mean the risk of dropping down more than one limit after a failed shot? And you're talking about the fourth hand in the first post, right (the Q8s hand)? Are you suggesting folding the flop? It's funny, I was worried about the caller more than the bettor.

ToiletBowler: Sorry, that's not what I meant at all. I hope you don't misunderstand me, I'm appreciative of any advice you provide. I just wasn't sure what your reasoning was, except that other sources don't include it in their ranges. I don't want to change something without knowing why, otherwise I'm just going from one unknown to another.

Now I know where you're coming from. It's not necessarily that 65o is bad (although it could be), but rather that there may be better hands I'm omitting, whose one pair values outweigh the benefits that a hand like 65o provide. Unless I'm still not understanding you, but I think that sums up your stance?

So yeah, you're right in that I am valuing the semi-bluffing opportunities of the smaller connectors more than the higher pair value of those other hands I omitted. If the pair value of those hands is enough to make them better to include, I'm gonna have to tweak those ranges. The way I was doing it was looking at every hand's preflop equity vs AA, and filling out the bottom of my open-raising range with those hands.

You're almost bang on with the hands I omitted! I don't have any of those hands, except 97s. So I will look at those ranges again and see how much I can improve them, however, I want to finish a few postflop areas first. In particular, I want to finish coming up with basic balanced lines/ranges for being the caller in both single-raised pots, and 3bet pots. I think those are the most beneficial areas to work on first.

There’s definitely a lot of noise on these forums in terms of advice that needs to be filtered out so I get what you’re saying.

My reasoning for hand ranking is like so:

http://www.suntzupoker.com/playing-s...onnectors.aspx

You can skip most of this article and just go down to the table where they tell you the probabilities of flopping straight draws, flush draws. You’ll see the chance of flopping a straight draw is almost equal to flopping a straight draw. So if you’re looking for nutted potential then Q8s is equal to 65o except sometimes it makes top pair.

The % in that article isn’t entirely accurate (https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/3...ctors-1696480/) but more than close enough for 95% of cases.

Thanks for the link, will take a look at that later. Not sure what you mean by the quote above though lol.

Feeling good at the NL10z tables, confident that I can beat this limit. Had a pretty "blah" day today, with mostly a lot of folding and very few exciting hands. Here are the more eventful ones.



Let's start with a cooler for stacks.





I really didn't know what to do here. I ended up calling down, cause I've seen a lot of weird nonsense with the min 3bets.




I had a lot of board runouts like this today it seemed.






Thanks for the bluffs.





Bluffing away.

Bad day today, some bad luck, some spew. Will move down and play NL5 tomorrow. Here are the worst hands from today.



I don't think you ever check this back on the turn, right?






I think this turn call is spew.





Less certain about this one, but probably spew again.






I think this one is played ok, but someone correct me if I'm wrong.






Cooler

I mean more in terms of taking such a big shot early on at 25NL, esp if it's 6 max Zone. It looks like you'd be trying a shot at 25NL with just around 8BIs. But yes also in terms of waiting to drop down as it'll be a grind back up. Then again I guess it's all relative if you can tolerate taking these risks. Just hopefully stick to a more conservative BRM when you do get higher up; I don't think I'd want to take shots at 50NL with any less than 20BI for that level and then move down if I dropped to 16-17 bi for that level. Overall if you're fine with re-depositing another $50 or so if you bust and trying again, I'd say take the risks early but then lock down a more conservative BRM as you get higher up.

Yes the Q8s esp in a multi-way pot. We're behind most of the time when faced with bets on these flops either from being kicker dominated or being set mined. I would have dumped the hand facing resistance on the flop here.

That's exactly my thoughts. I think I mentioned this when I stated my BRM plan, but once I reach NL25, I plan to stay there and grind up a lot more BIs before taking NL50 shots.

But yeah, seems like you understand my thought process. Why spend time now grinding away at NL2/NL5, and possibly prolong the process of moving up? If my shots succeed early, then I'll never have to spend that much time grinding away at the lowest limits. If the shots fail, then I will. But it's not like it would take any longer. The only risk is the increased risk of losing my roll. But I'm ok taking that risk, because I can redeposit.

As for the Q8s hand, I agree. However, if the second guy didn't call, I think there I have to call the flop bet because he only had that one pot-sized bet left. Do you agree there?

KK vs AK not a cooler; why not GII pre for 40bb

Ironically, I was thinking about this post in light of my own recently rebooted challenge and you're absolutely right here with the shot taking approach. A big realization for me today was that the rake is so absurdly high capped at most sites available to me (and literally the same cap amount from 1c/2c all the way to $1/$2) that combined with the low risk of $40-$50 deposits and on top of the fishy 2NL play there's no reason to not take big risks early on. Most players can replace a small roll of $40 to $50 no problem but replacing a 10K roll is much harder. So I too will be taking risks early and then clamping down to a more reasonable BRM for rest of challenge. In fact I'm going to run it even higher risk early on based on this.

But I do have to disagree with calling the flop bet regardless of whether it was one or two opponents. There's lots of hands that call pre flop that dominate us here and we're just burning money I think by calling TPWK. And yet I still do it myself because we think "eh it's just a call maybe they have JJ"

ToiletBowler, yeah, nothing wrong with shoving pre for 40bb. In fact, might be better. I was just following the ranges I had designed around 100bb stacks.

JeeeroyLenkins, that's the spirit haha. Do you have a link to your challenge so I can keep tabs on it?

Ok, so time for my weekly update. Will post graphs below, but first some thoughts. Started out doing fine at NL10. Then, had a bad session where I lost 4BIs, including at least a couple BIs lost to spew. Moved down to NL5, lost a few BIs there. And finally down to NL2. I also spewed there a bit, but winning there at least.

When doing a quick analysis of my database over this small sample, I'm actually a bit surprised where my profit and losses are coming from. I'm not surprised that my biggest WR is coming from pots where I 3bet. However, I'm showing a decent profit when calling open-raises and showing a loss when I'm the open-raiser. I was especially not expecting the latter. I was a bit unsure how much I would profit as the preflop caller, since I'm calling with wider ranges than I'm used to.. especially in the big blind.

So I will need to keep an eye on my open-raising ranges. I may need to redevelop the ranges to make them stronger, and/or add more aggression into my lines. I haven't worked on developing my postflop lines as much in this spot cause I knew I might need to tweak those ranges a bit.

Anyway, BR at $34.11. Spent most of the time 1-tabling, but started adding 2 tables near the end. Time to refocus, rebuild the roll and take those agro shots again.

NL10:


NL5:


NL2:


All:


Luck Bell Curve:

Today's session went well, getting the confidence back in my game. Still had a bit of spew, but improved from the last couple sessions. Hope to keep that up and get back to NL5 soon. Some hands from today:



Let's start with the worst hand of the day. Think it's played ok until the river, but I think I should have folded. The thought was in my mind while playing the hand, but ignored that thought and called. But then again, since he's slightly short-stacked, maybe a call is ok?







Triple barreling





Dem fish are spewing today





Another fun hand





Guess he put me on a flush draw

Thinking more about this, I think we would have to call if it was only the original raiser that we had to call. I don't think you can raise preflop and then fold the flop when you hit top pair. If there's a time to fold, it would be preflop, not the flop. Just my thoughts, as it was bugging me lol.

NL2 is going well. Haven't done much in the way of (off-table) range work, other than thinking about what to work on next and how to go about it. I wanted to just get more playing in first so I could have a better idea where I might be leaking more. Will most likely work on single-raised pots as preflop aggressor, where I choose not to cbet the flop. Anyway, some hands from today:



Was very profitable with aces right near the start of the session. First, this hand.





And then, this hand shortly after.






If I'd known I was up against a set lol..





He didn't need to donk the turn, I still would've given him my stack





Biggest pot won without aces today

Horrible day today; lost over 4BIs at NL2z. Before playing, spent some time doing range work. Then played a couple hours and almost nothing went right. Don't think I played bad. Might have spewed a few small bets when fish did their tiny bet thing to sucker money out of me. But just felt like the cards didn't go my way today.



Think it's just a cooler. Can't be worried about them having a flush all the time.





Another cooler I believe





Unfortunate to run into a bigger FD






Just how things have been going today lol





Finally, something going right!

After playing today, definitely know the results last session were due to bad luck. 4 BIs up today, which negates the losses last session. About 5BIs more until I get back to NL5. Was involved in so many big pots today, hard to choose just five hands to post.



Interesting river play lol





A bit of spew here, as I don't think I should be calling this down all the way. Not sure whether I should fold on the turn or river though.





Thank you





More spew; don't know what I'm doing calling the turn shove.





...hook, line, and sinker

Weekly update time. Didn't get much volume in this week. Spent the last few days playing Blossom Tales on the Switch. If any of you have a Switch and don't have that game, I recommend it. Very charming game, and fairly inexpensive. Anyway, back to poker lol.

Will look to get in a lot more volume this week, and hopefully back taking shots at NL10. Again, not much time playing this week, but felt good for the most part when I did play (all at NL2).

NL2 (this week):


All Stakes (from the start):


Luck Bell Curve (from the start):

Fairly dry session tonight, not much going on except for lots of folding. A few big pots, and that's about it.




Donating to the fish





Meh





Does this guy know how to play poker lol?






This hand near the end of the session at least gave me one bright spot for the day.

Time for another weekly update. I think I've probably been posting too many hands, so I think I might just post a few hands when I do the weekly updates, and not daily like I was doing earlier.

Started the week continuing to play Zoom. I had a 10k hand sample to analyze, so I started looking a bit for ways to exploit the population. Found a few spots in which I could change my strategy in an exploitative manner. Then switched to regular tables for a bit to end the week. Reason being that I could play more tables (as a result of using a simpler strategy), and have (or should have) a higher winrate. This would make it quicker to build up the bankroll to take more shots. I would still like Zoom to be my main game though as I move up.

However, ran really bad at the reg tables. Was about 3BI under all-in EV, and the luck bell curve showed I had really bad luck with hitting sets, straights, and flushes. So all in all, not a great week.

I have a slightly different plan for this week. Going to take some time to work on my ranges again. I'm happy (for now) with my 3bet ranges, and cold-calling ranges, as I think those were doing alright. Especially with 3bets, I was doing much better than anticipated.

My biggest leak I think was with my open-raising ranges. I think I need to abandon my strategy of including more weaker speculative hands with bigger raise sizes, and use more of the stronger hands instead, with smaller raise sizes. Postflop, I'm thinking about switching to smaller cbet sizes for flop and turn. Before, I was using close to pot sized cbets for all 3 streets, but with a narrower range. Also, did poorly when calling 3bets. That's partly due to the fact I haven't worked on those ranges postflop. I also think using a smaller open-raise sizing will help, as I can probably 4bet a little wider (with a smaller size), and call 3bets less often.

NL2z (this week):


NL2 (this week):


All Stakes (from the start):


Luck Bell Curve (from the start):

Just a small update on things. Almost one month into the new year, and I'm not happy with my progression, or lack thereof. My main concern is in the lack of hours I've put in so far. I work 6 days a week, but I've still spent too much of my spare time with other things like TV or videogames. If I want to get serious about achieving (or surpassing) my goal of reaching NL50z by the end of the year, I need to cut out any "unproductive" activities and spend all these hours on poker, either playing or studying. My work hours are down to around 45 hours a week now, so will see if I can get 40 hours of poker in. I hope to start having a lot more progress to show here soon.

As I mentioned last update, spending some time redoing my RFI ranges (including postflop play), as that is one area that needs improvement. I've focused less on trying to figure out GTO play, and more on just using some "GTO-inspired ideas" to build my strategy. I've used stronger hands in my preflop RFI ranges, as opposed to half my ranges being low/mid connectors like before. I've also changed from using large raise sizes to much smaller sizes (preflop and postflop).

Preflop, using 2bb sizes from all positions. Postflop, using 25% pot as a default size for my entire cbetting range (for all 3 streets). Would like to hear any thoughts on this, as it seems like it actually might work a lot better, especially at the lower stakes. My main concern was that I might not get as much value with my strong hands. However, I'm also not losing as much with my semibluffs/weaker hands. And if they have anything that would pay me off, they're probably likely to raise anyway, and the value will still be there. But my mid/weak-strength hands will be better protected by this. Anyway, just something I'll be trying out once I finish building the ranges, unless I hear any advice that changes my mind.

Another change to my strategy is in eliminating calling, except when the opponent is shoving. So basically, just folding and raising (when facing a bet or raise). The smaller bet sizes help a bit with this. It's most likely not GTO to do this, but I'm basically doing this for a couple reasons. Firstly, to simplify my strategy (which I can later expand on). Secondly, I can see it working well at these stakes (in my head anyway lol).

These changes are just being made to my RFI ranges right now, but depending how they work, I might incorporate these changes/ideas into my entire strategy. And then build off of that.

And finally, once I'm done working on the RFI ranges, I'll most likely deposit another $100-150 on Stars so that I can jump right back into NL10z and give myself 10-15 BIs to play around with and try to push things forward. I wouldn't mind losing that if it comes to it. But I think it would be worth it to get some more experience in at NL10z, and to get more of an idea how well my strategy works there.

And, that extra $100-150 will be fairly meaningless in the long run anyway, if I'm able to play NL25/NL50/or higher in the coming months. And I'm more determined now to try and reach those stakes.