Hi, I'm a fish. What I know about poker strategy and theory could be written on a biscuit. Twice. This blog is a result of my inability to tolerate being a losing or break even player coupled with too much free time.

According to Holdem Manager I've played 17,875 hands of poker. I enjoy the game immensely, despite my handicap of having no idea what I'm doing and why. I play 2nl on Pokerstars.

Yesterday, I bought the book "Crushing the Microstakes" by Nathan Williams. This is the first step to improving my game. The title of this blog is borrowed from a passage in his book.

Mostly this blog will be a collection of my best and worst hands at 2nl, and my attempt to analyize them, as well as some basic discussion on poker strategy as I attempt to understand it and put it into practice. Learn with me or laugh at me, either way, thankyou and welcome.

This is my biggest losing hand of yesterday..

Poker Stars $0.01/$0.02 No Limit Hold'em - 9 players
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

UTG: $2.94
UTG+1: $3.43
Hero (UTG+2): $2.07
MP1: $0.74
MP2: $2.00
CO: $1.92
BTN: $1.09
SB: $1.98
BB: $2.33

Pre Flop: ($0.03) Hero is UTG+2 with K K
1 fold, UTG+1 raises to $0.06, Hero raises to $0.18, 3 folds, BTN calls $0.18, 2 folds, UTG+1 calls $0.12

Flop: ($0.57) 6 2 8 (3 players)
UTG+1 checks, Hero bets $0.44, BTN raises to $0.91 all in, UTG+1 folds, Hero calls $0.47

Turn: ($2.39) T (2 players - 1 is all in)

River: ($2.39) J (2 players - 1 is all in)

So where did I go wrong? Well I already know that villan has stats of 55/17 over 29 hands, so his range is very wide. He has position on me in this hand, so when he calls my preflop raise I already feel uncomfortable. By calling my raise I imagine he would have a pocket pair, some broadway, or suited connectors.

The flop comes and I have top pair. I think to cbet about 3/4 of the pot and this is where it all goes wrong for me. Instead of calling or folding, he raises. This is usually a huge red flag for me and I broke my own rule..

If somebody reraises you and you don't have a set, fold.

Im not sure why I did this, false confidence from looking at his stats and not respecting his raise I guess. I played horribly and deserved to lose this hand.

Good Luck! You didn't do anything wrong on the flop by the way. He has plenty of draws here or even over pairs, so you got it in fine. Also he isn't even full stacked to start this hand, so no big deal.

Conversely, here is my biggest winning hand from yesterday

Poker Stars $0.01/$0.02 No Limit Hold'em - 9 players
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

BB: $3.75
UTG: $1.34
UTG+1: $3.23
UTG+2: $1.12
MP1: $3.57
Hero (MP2): $2.00
CO: $1.62
BTN: $4.61
SB: $0.79

Pre Flop: ($0.03) Hero is MP2 with Q A
UTG calls $0.02, UTG+1 calls $0.02, 2 folds, Hero raises to $0.10, 4 folds, UTG calls $0.08, UTG+1 calls $0.08

Flop: ($0.33) 6 6 7 (3 players)
UTG checks, UTG+1 checks, Hero bets $0.20, UTG calls $0.20, UTG+1 folds

Turn: ($0.73) 3 (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $0.50

I raise with QAo in late position, 3x bb with 1 additional bb for each limper. Villain is 56/5 from 16 hands which is not quite enough for an accurate analysis.

I missed the flop but obviously so did villain, as its checked to me. I cbet which to my surprise is called.

The turn comes and my strategy is just to check-fold as I'm only holding A high. When its checked to me again all I can think is that villain has missed again, otherwise he would lead out betting. Despite not holding anything myself, I'm at a loss at what to do at this point. I'm pretty sure however villain has nothing so I throw out a 4bet.

I realise in these couple of examples that you're probably cringing at my way of thinking, right? Well don't worry I cringe plenty of times myself.

Thanks Gerbera, appreciate the input. I didn't even consider that he is short stacked.

I would bet the turn as well in your last hand. AQ has good equity against a lot of limp calling hands here from a fish. Good bet, however you could make it smaller, like $0.40 cents. As an exploitative adjustment you could bet smaller on the turn since he probably has nothing and will fold anyway. If he calls both flop and turn probably check back the river on a brick card.

You really don't want to let anyone in poker have an easy time getting their marginal hands to showdown, so bet more when you have equity. That's an important skill you will learn. If you let them easily get hands to showdown they can call your preflop raises more often with a wider range of hands, since they can easily get to showdown.

Equity is an unknown term to me. Equity is the % chance I have to win the hand based on the cards I am holding and my opponents range. Is that right?

So in the AQ hand above, villain is 56/6 from 16 hands. If I plug this into pokerstove (preflop);
Hero - 63%
Villain - 37%

Do I have the meaning of equity right? I want to make sure I understand this before I go into the rest of your post.

Feels good mang

Poker Stars $0.01/$0.02 No Limit Hold'em - 8 players
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

CO: $1.45
BTN: $2.26
SB: $0.59
BB: $0.96
UTG: $1.53
UTG+1: $1.94
MP1: $1.61
Hero (MP2): $2.50

Pre Flop: ($0.03) Hero is MP2 with Q Q
UTG raises to $0.04, 2 folds, Hero raises to $0.12, 4 folds, UTG calls $0.08

Flop: ($0.27) A J Q (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $0.14, UTG calls $0.14

Turn: ($0.55) T (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $0.30, UTG calls $0.30

River: ($1.15) T (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $1, UTG calls $0.97 all in

Final Pot: $3.09
UTG shows 2 A (two pair, Aces and Tens)
Hero shows Q Q (a full house, Queens full of Tens)
Hero wins $2.98
(Rake: $0.11)