A long time ago I was beating nl 200. I have tried coming back a few times and haven't been able to beat even nl 2. The hardest part in poker is learning from your mistakes because you can't easily tell if it was variance or bad play. It's also hard to control your emotions. Most decisions are based on emotions, but in poker one has to find another way to choose.

I do some online mindless work, but maybe due to covid there hasn't been enough to pay the bills. Now for like 2 months I have also been teaching chess for a few euros. I saw the news that an Estonian grandmaster won a poker tournament and got interested in this scam again. Maybe it's still possible to win money. I do wonder though why aren't bots winning everything online? I thought sites love bots due to how much rake they produce.

I am also wondering if it's possible to become a crypto trader. I have tried a few different technical indicators in BTC charts and none of them could beat just buying and hodling. Maybe if the coin is going to the moon trading doesn't really work. Selling becomes too risky. Altcoins seem to follow BTC. What's left?

My plan is to just show myself I can win at micro stakes no matter how small. Yesterday I played some nl 4 in Unibet and my bankroll went from 52 euros to 86 euros. Obviously luck wanted to give me beginner gains. If I get to 100 euros, I will take one shot at nl 10.

Bankroll at 104 euros even though I played badly. Time to take a shot at nl 10. I think soon I will try pokerstars zoom. If I can beat that, I'll feel like God. It's like the end boss for me.

GL

Bankroll at 103 euros. My 10 euro shot went down to 2 euros, then up to 35, and then finished at 15 when the table died. Some crazy all-in guy beat everyone. I think I will avoid nl 10 until my bankroll is at 200 euros. It's too swingy for me at the moment. It's annoyingly hard to share hands from unibet. Today I will try pokerstars zoom and also download the trial version of pokertracker.

Thx, jaykay47

GL getting use to pokertracker will spike your game up. But take the time to review yout hand dont just get it to feel like yout doing the work. GL GL

It will take me a while to get used to zoom tables. It's very hectic, I am getting 3-bet all the time. It makes sense to study more than play at this stage. I don't even completely remember my preflop open ranges. I have been learning gto moves from a site that has already solved most things, though probably not to a super accurate level. 39 dollars a month is expensive, but I think worth it. Learning gto is a very slow process. I have to understand what's going on and mentally test myself if I actually remember things. There's basically no time think in zoom tables, so I really have to do the preparation beforehand.

I deposit 70 dollars to pokerstars and now my bankroll is at 76 dollars. Pokertracker missed some hands because I didn't click something on the pokerstars settings, so it misleadingly shows I am up 11 dollars. It's a shame hud isn't available for trial version. I am not sure if I will play poker today, as I feel so tired.

PokerStars - $0.05 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 124.6 BB
Hero (SB): 127.2 BB
BB: 102.4 BB
UTG: 281.4 BB
MP: 104 BB
CO: 394.6 BB

Hero posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has 8 J

fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 2.4 BB, BB calls 1.4 BB

Flop: (4.8 BB, 2 players) 3 9 K
Hero bets 3 BB, BB calls 3 BB

Turn: (10.8 BB, 2 players) 6
Hero bets 9 BB, BB calls 9 BB

River: (28.8 BB, 2 players) 6
Hero bets 25 BB, BB calls 25 BB

Hero shows 8 J (Flush, King High)
(Pre 33%, Flop 38%, Turn 20%)
BB mucks K 8 (Two Pair, Kings and Sixes)
(Pre 67%, Flop 62%, Turn 80%)
Hero wins 75.6 BB

It seems I should bet 3bb from sb. On the flop I should bet small most of the time and only check around 35%. BB has so many trash hands and has no KK or 99. We want him to fold his trash and some Ax hands for a very cheap price. Turn and river are fine from me. He should fold most of the time K8 without a club.

Thx, SkullKid. I will try not let any dust fall on my pokertracker.

On pokerstars I have 2569 hands, 13.51 bb/100, All-in adj 0.00 bb/100. It's good to be lucky. Now I aim to play at least 1000 hands a day. I just downloaded anki with the plans to remember preflop ranges. It's seems like a very difficult to thing to achieve. How will I ever remember all the individual percentages? I should first find some kind of a simplistic system and then later get more accurate.

PokerStars - $0.05 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 156 BB
Hero (SB): 116.8 BB
BB: 181.2 BB
UTG: 51.8 BB
MP: 105.8 BB
CO: 100 BB

Hero posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has A A

fold, fold, fold, BTN raises to 2.4 BB, Hero raises to 11 BB, fold, BTN calls 8.6 BB

Flop: (23 BB, 2 players) 7 6 2
Hero bets 7.2 BB, BTN calls 7.2 BB

Turn: (37.4 BB, 2 players) 3
Hero bets 25 BB, BTN calls 25 BB

River: (87.4 BB, 2 players) K
Hero bets 73.6 BB and is all-in, BTN calls 73.6 BB

Hero shows A A (One Pair, Aces)
(Pre 88%, Flop 61%, Turn 80%)
BTN shows A 8 (Flush, Ace High)
(Pre 12%, Flop 39%, Turn 20%)
BTN wins 224.8 BB

On the flop villain has more sets, two pair and top pairs. Range betting isn't recommended. My AA isn't blocking any of his flush draws, so it makes sense to bet more. Half pot would be good. On the turn I don't have any straights, but BTN should have some. He might also have 33 set now. Aces aren't scared of any higher cards, so check is the way to go. The flush gets there on the river, so probably I should just check fold AA without spades.

This scam is still working IMO. I'd recommend PLO though, lots of fun players around at least in PLO100, so certainly on lower stakes, too. It also might be helpful to play a different game as then you have less unlearning to do. I'm serious, your biggest problem right now is the "knowledge" (=bad habits) from 2010.

I discovered hand2note offers a free version with hud, so I am using that instead of pokertracker. Weirdly I get different bb/100 results. It could be those extra 4 hands poker tracker has. Hand2note says: 4541 PS hands, net won 14.31 usd, 6,3 bb/100, -0.4 EV bb/100.
I found a 4 year old piosolver email that had a link to the free version. Nice, except I only have 16 gb ram in my laptop, and laptop is all I have. Maybe I can update to 32gb, but I am worried I will just break something.
I don't know if I should continue memorizing gtowizard's preflop ranges. They are in the progress of updating their ranges. It's often showing to 4-bet all-in with AKo, but I fear it makes villains jobs so much easier. And maybe it already won't be shoving if the stacks are 110 bb. It's just not practical to copy that approach. Overall I am finding poker engines to be much harder to learn from than chess engines. The upside is there's more money to be made. In a few years it will be even easier to learn, but also the field will be even tougher and full of rtas. Should I find a really simple way to make money or should I open different amounts preflop with complex frequencies and overbet flops, turn, rivers and bet 10%, 20%...? Probably the right answer is somewhere in the middle.

The thing is I never really knew anything back then. The field was so easy, I could just do whatever and still make money. And with my bad memory, I really haven't retained any old knowledge baggage. Of course there still exists a possibility some slivers of unconscious threads of insanity are licking my brains from the inside out, until it bleeds the few dollars I have on me. All I can do is click the next button.
Two or three years back a friend taught me omaha. Somehow it still didn't work. The improvement in poker has been very mystical. Now with gto websites out it's easier to go step by step. I first want to become a texas holdem winner, and then I will look at omaha or tournaments. Right now my bankroll can't even handle the variance omaha has.

Good points. Back then the game was like "I has good hand thus I bet/raise".

Omaha is great once you get the hang of it, but I'm sure there is still lots of value in NLHE, especially in MTTs. I would recommend you to try MTTs once you feel confident in your game.

Oh btw I was the best man at a certain Grandmaster's wedding...

I have never really worked with solvers, though from what I know there isn't a solver for my main game, PLO8. I am a winning player in PLO up to 100 at least, without ever consulting a solver. Now things might be a bit different in NLHE, but I don't think you need to study with a solver.

Understanding general theoretical concepts is another thing. In chess, you should understand for example king safety, pawn structure, material correlation to come up with some kind of assessment of what is going on. In poker, you should understand for example who has the range advantage, who has more nuttish hands and how to construct ranges correctly at the given SPR. So I'd say some kind of theoretical backbone is mandatory, but it's not necessarily easy to learn by using a solver.

If you are into videos, check out Phil Galfond Poker Philosophy on YouTube. Those videos are old but good. FindingEquilibrium is an excellent, modern channel.

Solvers do not work for weak players, weak fields. For a solver's solution to work, your opponent has to be a good player.

Against weaker players, weaker fields exploitive play is the best approach.

Pre-black Friday, I was a weak cash player but did well enough in tournaments. Now I am able to beat PLO 10 and NL 20. When my bankroll allows it, I will move up. I haven't had the tournament results, I'm used but there are fewer tournaments than there were 10 years ago so I may just be running bad and just need to play more.

Depends a bit on the exact definition of "work". It works in a way, since your baseline strategy is far superior compared to your opponents and that punishes some of their mistakes (for example, playing weak holdings pre, continuing to too many flops, folding on too many turns, irrational river play and so on). If you want to punish all their mistakes, you should diverge from solver's play.

Hello, sir! Good luck! Solvers do absolutely work at micros, but I think you can gain more EV by exploiting your opponents rather than trying to play optimally.

This is incorrect. Node locks based on population tendencies can find how to exploit weaker players

I should have wrote GTO solvers. Never heard of node locks until now.

I'm not saying understanding the GTO approach/solutions is not helpful, just it's not the the optimal strategy against weak opponents.

6040 hands, 39.58 usd net won, 13.11 bb/100, 3.54 EV bb/100
I want to take one shot at nl10 when I have 15 buy-ins. I already feel somewhat comfortable with my play, that I am going to spend less time watching other people play and instead do the work myself. I hope I can already make 1 dollar an hour playing 3 tables of nl5 zoom. It's mainly hope as 6000 hands doesn't tell anything. If everything goes well then two weeks later with three hours of poker a day, I should be able to scratch nl10.

I have decided to resume my preflop memorization on anki using gtowizard's ranges. It helps to have a clear range even if it's not perfect. I will give myself a passing score if I remember the most important hands. For now I will ignore limping in sb vs bb spots. I would have to use an rng tool to limp 1-10% of the time. I will think about it again if I get to higher stakes.
Every time I finish a session I will review the biggest hands. Sometimes I sit out if I want to find the answer immediately.



It seems I should almost always check turn with my hand. AQcc has showdown value. I have many different straight and flush draws that I can bet. I should have more 8x in my range than co. The clear favorite is to overbet with those hands.

Will you study gto when a solver comes for your game? Solver helps me understand what's going on. My own brain has failed in helping me for many years already.

I actually just before found findingequilibrium myself. Phil Hellmuth's all-in was actually an extremely precise play! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MG8d-cYazI

It seems there's no need to subscribe to poker training sites. Youtube is full of helpful videos. Maybe it's worth it for a nl 200+ player, but I am far away from that level.

I also like KakiTee https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6D...iSxwpag/videos
and jarretman's zoom videos https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgr...7GbeSGJBPdzlRQ

MTTs have lots of different stack sizes and different payouts to consider. The field is weaker, but to become truly great it takes more effort than in cash games.
I was already suspicious of you when you mentioned 2010.

Thx. I don't have the experience yet to really exploit my opponents. I have started folding a bit more to big bets and raises. It seems most just have it when that happens.

good luck mate!

For me the thing is: your brain is all you've got, so better to try to make most of it. That being said yes I would be very interested in seeing solver solutions for PLO8, but that doesn't necessarily mean that I would try to play that strategy. Main reason for that is that trying to play a GTO-strategy is very different from actually playing a GTO-strategy. Playing half-GTO is not really a thing. Unlike in chess, where I would be very happy to execute 50% of the top engine moves and 50% make moves that I feel more comfortable with. Come to think of it, maybe poker is more about strategy than chess is?

2nd best video on the internet. Best one is obviously Eric Hansen's one tap two tap.
Agreed 100%

Yes, also the variance is insane, but so is the way people play. Shorter stack play is also a bit less complicated and people make huge mistakes. These experiences are from PLO/PLO8 MTTs, buy-in range say 30-100.

7727 hands, -5.9 usd net won, -1.5 bb/100, -5.7 EV bb/100

I lost nine buy-ins in just two hours. I don't know whether my bad play or bad luck was the main reason. The positive side is I didn't tilt. Back in the day in my great anger I used to just go all-in preflop with any two cards. Clearly I am not ready for pro grinding yet. I have to take breaks after losses even if I don't feel any tilt. So now the rule is I will sit out if I lose 80 bb in one hand and review that. In my great optimism I hope I can still make 1 dollar an hour. The goal to tickle NL 10 has jumped to one month.

I watched some high stakes omaha play on twitch and that made me try it myself. https://www.twitch.tv/suhepx

115 hands, 6.54 usd net won, 113.7 bb/100, 113.7 EV bb/100

I am guessing players open 3.5 bb because in omaha the hand strengths are very close to each other, so you have to use some force to kick people out. I have noticed in texas if you bet small on the flop with a good hand, then solvers like to bet bigger on the turn or river, sometimes with an overbet. This isn't possible in omaha, so I am assuming you have to bet more balanced on every street. I still did see suhepx often betting half pot and 1/3 pot on the flop, probably for the same reasons as in Texas. He who has the range advantage can do whatever he wants. And again I am assuming if you open from utg and BB calls, flop comes AKx, utg will have a lot more AA and KK than BB.



Half pot on the flop is more common than my 20%. More nuts, more power. On the turn with the blocker to a flush draw, betting big becomes more likely. With this exact KQ combo overbetting 111% is slightly more likely than my choice of half pot. I don't understand why. Wizard never bets the river with KQ. KJ is betting around half the time and QJ more than that. Having a spade in most cases decreases the chance of bluffing. I guess we just don't have any value hands to bluff KQ too.





The flop looked so connected that I checked. It's all an illusion. There's no straight. Half potting is the favorite choice. If KK doesn't have a club, then you can even overbet.





I am sometimes confused as to when with a range advantage I should bet small and when bigger on the flop. I think it depends a lot what your hand is. The stronger it is the more you can bet. If it's the absolute nuts, then you can slowplay and bet small to defend your weaker range. AA mostly goes with half potting. It's checking 19% of the time. TT-KK are checking less, around 10% of the time. It makes sense as they are scared of overcards. On the turn I should overbet 111%. Clearly the solver wants to correct the mistake I made on the flop. Something really strange happens with flush draw blockers. AA is checking less with a heart. KK is checking more with a heart. QQ isn't checking at all with a heart. JJ is checking more with a heart. Clearly 300 iq stuff. River can't be avoided.





On the flop my hand should be betting 1/4 pot twice as likely than 73% pot. I wonder if in position we are more likely to bet small. Reraising AK is pretty terrible even though solver does it 6.5% of the time. One shouldn't look at rare frequency plays to justify mistakes. If I had used an rng tool and based on that reraised, my move would be ok. I have a very vague recollection of doing lots of reraising on the flop in my nl 200 days. Maybe I actually I still have some bugs in my brain that have been just laying dormant waiting for the right time to strike. When the villain raises my bet, the equity completely flips. AK is nothing special anymore. Also all my weaker kickers in my range need protection. What's interesting is that no pair is folding to his raise. My play on the turn is again horrible. 1/3 pot is much better to see what's up. If he then went all-in, AKdd would be calling most of the time.





Gtowizard doesn't have gto for omaha, so I'm on my own here. Probably preflop is too loose. It's too disconnected and 33 set might just lead me to losing money. I am okay with my turn and river play. I am blocking a straight, even though it's probably quite rare for co to have 34.

I am not sure if I believe that. Following 50% gto seems to me like winning a lot of money. What kind of mistakes could he be making?

Thx buddy