Thanks! I think some higher power doesn't want me moving up though. Last one, maybe I could have gotten away without stacking off, but...

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PokerStars - $0.10 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: $3.83 (VPIP: 25.00, PFR: 15.91, 3Bet Preflop: 12.50, Hands: 44)
SB: $10.82 (VPIP: 25.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 4)
BB: $8.66 (VPIP: 15.17, PFR: 10.41, 3Bet Preflop: 4.52, Hands: 574)
Hero (UTG): $10.00
MP: $18.31 (VPIP: 9.09, PFR: 9.09, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 11)
CO: $9.07 (VPIP: 14.29, PFR: 7.14, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 17)

SB posts SB $0.05, BB posts BB $0.10

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.15) Hero has A A

Hero raises to $0.25, fold, CO raises to $0.90, fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to $2.00, CO calls $1.10

Flop: ($4.15, 2 players) 7 2 2
Hero bets $1.31, CO calls $1.31

Turn: ($6.77, 2 players) 9
Hero bets $2.14, CO raises to $5.76 and is all-in, Hero calls $3.62

River: ($18.29, 2 players) 5



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PokerStars - $0.10 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: $10.00 (VPIP: 27.27, PFR: 18.18, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 11)
SB: $15.61 (VPIP: 22.46, PFR: 15.43, 3Bet Preflop: 5.47, Hands: 757)
BB: $10.00 (VPIP: 18.82, PFR: 15.76, 3Bet Preflop: 11.63, Hands: 431)
UTG: $4.50 (VPIP: 30.61, PFR: 12.24, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 50)
MP: $22.78 (VPIP: 25.26, PFR: 14.74, 3Bet Preflop: 8.02, Hands: 386)
Hero (CO): $10.00

SB posts SB $0.05, BB posts BB $0.10

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.15) Hero has 7 6

fold, fold, Hero raises to $0.25, fold, SB raises to $1.00, fold, Hero calls $0.75

Flop: ($2.10, 2 players) 9 8 T
SB checks, Hero bets $1.11, SB raises to $2.85, Hero raises to $9.00 and is all-in, SB calls $6.15

Turn: ($20.10, 2 players) 5

River: ($20.10, 2 players) 8



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PokerStars - $0.10 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: $10.00 (VPIP: 15.77, PFR: 11.67, 3Bet Preflop: 6.60, Hands: 247)
SB: $12.55 (VPIP: 20.31, PFR: 13.41, 3Bet Preflop: 2.91, Hands: 531)
Hero (BB): $10.10
UTG: $10.45 (VPIP: 30.77, PFR: 20.51, 3Bet Preflop: 7.14, Hands: 42)
MP: $28.69 (VPIP: 24.00, PFR: 16.00, 3Bet Preflop: 8.33, Hands: 26)
CO: $17.27 (VPIP: 13.19, PFR: 7.69, 3Bet Preflop: 8.57, Hands: 94)

SB posts SB $0.05, Hero posts BB $0.10

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.15) Hero has 8 T

fold, fold, fold, fold, SB raises to $0.25, Hero calls $0.15

Flop: ($0.50, 2 players) 4 Q J
SB bets $0.36, Hero calls $0.36

Turn: ($1.22, 2 players) 9
SB checks, Hero bets $1.35, SB calls $1.35

River: ($3.92, 2 players) J
SB checks, Hero bets $2.06, SB raises to $8.03, Hero calls $5.97

How can you play confortable only with 15 bis? Especially in Zoom where the variance is bigger. And nl25 with 9 bis?
It's difficult to win with this bankroll management even if you are the best poker player in the universe.

You should move to nl5 with 500$ 100 bis or 50bis if you want to be more '' agressive '' like you said.

... and your's last hands prove my point.

Go back to nl2 and slowly learn and grow.

gl

fyp

What hands exactly do think a nitty looking reg (pfr 13, 3b 2.91 on 531 hands) is check raising the river with on a paired board? All you beat is spazzes and bluffs, is there any indication this villain is doing either at the required frequency?

It's not 9 BIs at nl25. It's 40 BIs (5 at nl25, 10 at nl5, and 25 at nl2). It is, however, playing with >10% of my BR on the table. And you're right in that it's hard to play comfortable. The thing is that I want to move up quicker, because I know I'm gonna have to start cashing out again soon. But maybe very aggressive BRM isn't the answer. I started tilting after those hands and lost a couple more BIs. So BR dropped to $110 or so, and I just moved down to nl5 at that point.

He's not exactly a nit though; more of a weak-tight fish. And yeah, that doesn't change the fact that he's probably showing up with a strong hand. But I think strong in this case could include Jx, or even AA or KK. I could easily see him raising with AJ/KJ, cause he thinks he has the best hand. And with my half-pot river bet, maybe he thinks his overpair is also the strongest hands and maybe he overplays those. I don't know, I'm not necessarily saying calling is the best play. But I think he could be raising with worse. Anyway, my thinking was that he would be betting sets/2pair on the turn, and so he shouldn't have full houses in his range on the river. Obviously I was wrong lol.

You are making the map fit the picture. You need to be far more critical of your post flop play, stop being so outcome orientated and stop whining about variation. You have been playing for nearly a decade and still you pay far more credence to fiddling with pre-flop ranges rather than learning to play decent poker.

If villain is a fish, what is that based on and why is not posted in your original hand. How are we supposed to know that? His stats don't tell us that, they simply say he is tight and therefore playing a strong range. Besides, since when did weak tight players spazz raise or bluff rivers? And why would a fishy player check the turn with AA/KK? As I say, you're not hand reading or analysing, you're just self-justifying and therefore compromising any chance of learning anything from the hand.

You know what river raises are...the nuts.

Who said that...every decent NLHE player ever.

You are supposed to know all this stuff after years playing online.

PS

Well one reason could be that after 500 hands he has you pegged far better that you have him.

I'm not saying I disagree with you, I'm saying the "nuts" to a weaker player might include things like trips, or overpairs (if they're weak enough). I'm pretty sure I've seen weaker players raise with those.

And I'm not saying he's a whale or anything. But a "reg" wouldn't have stats like 20/13. It would be a weaker player (in my opinion). I don't know if a 20/13 player would raise anything less than a full house there. I'm just saying that I think a weaker player might.

But yeah, you're probably right that I should just fold without knowing for certain that he would raise lighter. But might just be better to bet bigger on the turn and jam the river, because he's probably calling with worse. Maybe.

Nah, I doubt that lol

H2: aren´t you defending too many combos here if you use 76s, esp when you open 2.5 bbs and villain reraises to 10bbs? There is the absurd 10nl rake also. Flop seems ok I think.

This is probably the worst advice that regularly gets posted but doesn't get called out on.

BRM is very important if you want to move up and play higher but this BRM is about as bad as you can get. Worse than busting $100 rolls playing too high bad imo.

If you are not playing for a living you do not have a bankroll. You have cash you want to play poker with.

Your aim is to move up you should be shot taking "extremely aggressively" (this isn't actually aggressive as there is very little risk to your roll). After you have wet your feet and got the basics down 5BI move up rules are pretty optimal imo as long as you are good at moving back down. If you have $50 play 10nl, move down when you lose 2-3BI and play 5nl, if you lose 2-3 BI there play 2nl until you can move back up with 5BI. Repeat this for pretty much every stake, you will definitely move up higher than you are a winner but that's fine as you will lose and learn.

As long as you are always willing to move down as required that's all that matters anything else absolutely sucks. And the reality is if you bust your $250 roll because you wouldn't move down from 25nl and that's an issue to you then you don't have the time to spend worrying about making pennies playing micros poker.

Hand 1 - lots of indicators villain is fishy so I think your flop c-bet should just be bigger and you shove the vast majority of turn cards. It's an exploitative measure but one you really should be making. Your line against a fish on this board is odd as you're putting yourself in a spot where you basically can't fold and have very few outs and lots of villains calling range got there or was already beating you.

Hand 2 - I dunno what optimal lines look like but this is obviously completely fine. In these games folding to the 3-bet is probably pretty good too.

Hand 3 - I really do not understand your turn sizing and I don't think you do either. River should be a pretty comfortable fold at this stake, not enough bluffing (and villain doesn't look the type) and what value hands do you actually beat?

On H3, Idk his reasoning for overbetting turn but I can see merit (betting more than he did) if he was trying to get value from the part of villain´s range that is never folding, but planning to shutdown on scary rivers like a paired board, or the 3rd spade (either bc he´d be beaten, or bc the action would be killed anyway). Obv the plan does not involve continuing with the strong aggression on this exact runout.

There are merits in overbetting but all of those apply better to a bigger sizing. It's a spot where villain has overbet because he has seen others do it/talk about it without really understanding why it's done. Same for his flop sizing in hand 1.

FazendeiroBH, about defending 76s, I picked an amount of hands/combos to defend a "proper" amount. So no, I'm not overdefending. However, I am eliminating a lot of suited connectors from my ranges in favour of other hands. I'm trying to use a mix of hands with the highest equity on the flop, and a smaller, proportionate number of hands with the highest equity at showdown for my bluffing hands (against a decently estimated range for the villain). Suited connectors don't seem to do as well as many other hands for either. And yes, I am using the term bluff because I believe the term still has meaning. Just in case anyone is thinking about bringing that up lol. Just for reference, JTs is my lowest suited connector in EP; 98s for MP/CO, and 65s for the BU. Not sure how that compares to Snowie (for example), but I'd be curious to find out if anyone knows.

Now to respond to the comments about those hands:

Hand 1: There's absolutely no need to bet bigger to price out draws or to protect my hand, even on the wettest flops. That was accomplished by them putting in 22bb preflop. Betting smaller (in theory) allows me to bet more hands. But as an exploitive line, if betting bigger gets more money in the pot more often, then maybe that's better. Although, I think villains are more likely to get sucked in with the small bets, or more likely to play back at the small bets. But I'm open to the idea of betting bigger just to simplify things.

Hand 3: I absolutely did not overbet because "I have seen others do it/talk about it". I overbet to get him to put more money in the pot, and to make it easier to shove non-threatening rivers (although I should have overbet larger for that). Simple as that. If they are going to call a "normal" bet, they are probably calling a larger bet as well on this board.

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I've been tilting hard the last several days, so I'm just gonna take a break for a couple days. Do some more off-the-table work, and then play some nl2 upon my return, as my BR is now around $80, and I want to get some confidence back. My confidence has taken a hit now with all the run-bad I've been having.

The bad luck I've been having with all-in EV lately, and with the luck bell curve is indisputable. The evidence is there in plain sight that I've been running really unlucky. But it's hard to quantify how much the luck bell curve run-bad has affected my win-rate. And although it seems like I'm also experiencing bad luck in other ways, like constantly running my great hands into the nuts in big pots (without having it go the other way as often), I don't know how much is bad luck, and how much is over-playing them. And starting to wonder if I'm playing my marginal hands correctly.

I actually started overbet c-betting every flop at the end of my session earlier today before I headed to work, because I found opponents were folding too much and I was printing money with my bluffs. Actually, might experiment more with that, because why not? Just don't know if I can expect the same fold frequency at nl2. But opponents were also overfolding to overbet cbets on the turn and river as well (although sample sizes for those were a lot smaller). So that might also be something to look into.

Thanks for the feedback in my new thread - appreciated

Couple of comments then I'll wait up for your next batch.

Nobody is disputing it. What we say is it is part of the game and it is the same for everyone. Talking (posting) about it is a waste of time, energy and emotion. Analyzing it is equally pointless. Have confidence in your game and spend all your off felt time studying HH, credible training resources, and a possibly work with a solver (not one you've built )

You are using the term "fish" incorrectly and that will get you into big trouble. Plenty of players with sub-optimal preflop stats can play decently post flop, typically North Americans often play this way. Any primer will detail hud stats for fish, whales, aggrotards etc and I absolutely guarantee none of them will have 20/13/2 as a fish or anything like. Describing poor regs as "fish" is what dick swingers do on here, don't be one of them. Also you cannot change the villain type in your hand-reading process mid hand (without a damn good reason). Weak tight players rarely spazz and never bluff, so what you are really saying is...

Well he's weak tight but also post flop poor so he'll make huge mistakes on the river

Seriously, you get all that from 20/13/2 on a 500 hand sample (with no notes declared)!

Finally (phew) why not get in the habit of posting some HH with the action stopped at a hero decision point (it is a piece of piss to edit the HH to do this) Plenty of people giving you feedback, so you do this you will get genuine unbiased untainted feedback.

Onwards...

Thanks for your feedback as well! About to head to sleep, so will respond to anything else tomorrow.

I only brought that up to lead into the next point.. that the other areas in which I think I'm running bad are less obvious, and I'm not sure if my winrate is being affected from running badly there as well, or if I'm not running as bad as I think I am.

Fair enough. I just meant that someone who is playing 20/13 probably doesn't have a great grasp on theory, and there's a good chance they might also overvalue hands on the river. Maybe I shouldn't have used the term 'fish', but I think the point has some validity. I'm not saying calling the raise was great. Maybe they're too passive to raise hands like trips there. My point was that by overbetting the turn, and half-potting the river, they might view me as not that strong, and raise their hands like trips thinking they might get more value out of a top-pair type hand from me. Maybe I'm overthinking again lol.

Easy enough to do. I actually wasn't posting those hands for feedback lol. I was just posting them to show the types of hands that have been happening lately.

based on this hand alone (samplesize), he has a greater grasp on theory than you have.

very questionable to assume he has any Jx with this flop betsizing, and calling an overbet on the turn, and would be extremely fishy to check/raise the river with an overpair like you said.

SB played this hand excellent, you played the hand good until the river call, which was burning money.

This was a really good advice. About "fish", "recs" or whatever, it really pays to look at their overall stats, not only vpip, pfr and 3b I think. It should make sense. Someone with a high vpip, that calls and limps a lot, with a high fold % on the flop makes sense. Someone playing 60/50 pf folding close to 0% vs 3bets and also close to 0% vs flop cbets or flop raises and very aggressive postflop doesn´t make much sense. How aggro they are postflop, their wtsd, w$sd and wwsf stats (need big samples) etc.

Btw, I make tons of spew vs these players, lots of them are very tricky. They are not donks, most of them seem very smart actually. They just seem to have more interesting things to do with their lives than studying poker theory, and play only for fun

I think it's good that you put in lots of off the table work but i think you are spinning your wheels while at micro stakes.

You will literally have the highest winrate at microstakes playing ABC super exploitable poker, honestly all the way up to like 100NL.

I know its tempting to try to solve this game and always play perfectly but just get in these streets and play.

That's me to a T

+1 (coupled with a rock solid mental game of course)

honestly i dont like child molestor because they're weirdo and clearly not want them in groups because we evolved in tribes and if there's a weirdo in the tribe we're genetically programmed to dislike them? they're bad for group health.

so no i dont really empathize w/ them i dont empathize with anybody because its a different thing but if someone likes weirdo stuff then i usually dont like them and could give a less what happens to them.

I completely agree, especially if you are living in a western european country like the UK or France etc. The main goal should be to make money, not grind out pennies with 5nl zoom nits with strong ranges that are not prepared to get it in unless they have the absolute nuts.

totally this.

This is very incisive; its exactly why under-educated, undemocratic nations in Eastern Europe and the Middle East are full of homophobes and racist bigots.

Trust in evolution, it will sort it out (but not in my lifetime lol).

this was posted in the wrong thread. it was late and was tired it was meant to be posted in the charlie carrell thread on nvg.

I enjoy trying to "solve" the game lol, so I'll always be looking to find some time to work on my game further. Plus, ABC poker is not always obvious. Sure, the big calls/bets/raises/folds are (usually) obvious. But what ABC poker is for the smaller spots isn't obvious. Working on my game provides clarity for more situations. Anyway, still taking a break to refocus mentally. Will probably get back to playing tomorrow. In the meantime, still working on my game.

So I was reading MMSS's thread, and he was talking about using aggressive BRM to move up to nl50 (or possibly higher). To get out of the micros rake-trap as quickly as possible. And he got me thinking more, and I came up with the following idea:

Start with $50 at nl2 (25 BIs).
Move to nl5 at $55 (move back to nl2 at <$50)
Move to nl10 at $60 (move back to nl2 at <$50)
Move to nl16 at $66 (move back to nl2 at <$50)
Move to nl25 at $75 (move back to nl2 at <$50)
Move to nl50 at $100 (move back to nl2 at <$50)
Move to nl100 at $150 (move back to nl2 at <$50)
Move to nl200 at $250 (move back to nl2 at <$50)
Stop at $450
At this point, move back to nl50 and take an 8 BI shot (start the whole process again when BR <$50)

So, in order for me to gain an 8 BI shot at nl50, I'd need to win a combined 8.66 BIs from nl2 to nl200. Basically, about 1 BI at each level on average.

This is a method that is probably sure to fail several times until I get that 8 BI nl50 shot. But it definitely seems like the quickest approach out of the micros. And if I get lucky, I could make it out very fast.

I think I'm gonna give this a try and see how it goes. If anything, should provide more entertainment for you guys lol. Got nothing to lose either, except time.

Only thing is, I'm gonna make sure I have a more solid preflop/postflop strategy down first, before I start this. I'll be tailoring my strategy to be simpler, but more likely to succeed. I'll be raising bigger preflop (to 5bb in EP, for example), and playing a 2-street game (cbetting large on flop and turn to get stacks in on the turn). So my raising/betting ranges will be a lot tighter, and should result in a less variance-filled approach, as opponents won't have good prices to call as much as they're used to. And if they do call too much, then even better. Them calling with bad odds will cause my winrate to sky-rocket, and should result in bigger upswings. And better chances to sun-run for 8.7 BIs. Once I go back down to nl50 and take my 8 BI shot, I can re-evaluate and go back to a more normal strategy, or continue with that if it seems like it's working better against the population.

Anyway, that's it for now. Interested to hear more thoughts on this idea, whether it seems stupid, smart, interesting, entertaining, or whatever lol. At this point, with how things went with that recent stretch, I could use a decent dose of fun! And things are going slightly better at work. I'm starting to get a bit more hours again. Still not enough long-term, but enough for the moment.