Hi guys thought I would come in here for some BR advice.

Dunna was kind enough to review my beginner 2NL stats and apart from a few things to work on, all looks good to move up to 4NL as my BR is now $300. (I like being over rolled)

Well, I play one tourny a week as a reward for all my grinding and I happenned to bink it for $1300 last night so now my roll is $1600.

So my question is should I go to 4NL as planned or should I skip that and go to 6NL or 10NL seeings as I can now afford to learn at the higher stakes?

Thank you to those of you who have taken the time to watch and review the video I posted.

I'm just off to work so will go through all your responses tonight.

Really appreciate it tho and hoping it's just what I need.

If anyone else wants a look please feel free. I'll leave it up on youtube for a little while

Well, my foray into 10NL was short lived.
I don't think I played bad, some of the regs bullied me with 3 & 4 bets but there were still loads of donks.
Sat last night on tables with 65/20, 40/0 type players 3 or 4 a table yet ended up down, although that was mostly to 3 hands
AKo < QQ AIPF. Seriously, I read that getting AK in pre flop at micros is rarely a mistake but the worse I seem to come up against is AK.
K4s blind steal < KJo with K4 on flop, J on turn
And this hand.
Villain a total donk called down frequently with 2nd & 3rd pair.
Figured my equity was decent but wonder if I have any fold equity vs. him that I need to make it a profitable move.

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

Hero (CO): $10.81
BTN: $5.31 (VPIP: 64.66, PFR: 9.02, 3Bet Preflop: 6.56, Hands: 133)
SB: $3.20 (VPIP: 65.45, PFR: 21.82, 3Bet Preflop: 10.00, Hands: 57)
BB: $14.13 (VPIP: 19.27, PFR: 16.51, 3Bet Preflop: 2.56, Hands: 110)

SB posts SB $0.05, BB posts BB $0.10

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.15) Hero has A 9

Hero raises to $0.30, BTN calls $0.30, SB calls $0.25, fold

Flop: ($1.00, 3 players) K Q T
SB checks, Hero bets $0.70, BTN raises to $3.10, fold, Hero raises to $10.30, BTN calls $1.91

Turn: ($11.02, 2 players) 9

River: ($11.02, 2 players) Q



[IMG]http://s9.************/6dfoe9b1r/10_NL_i_Poker.png[/IMG]

13:56: Is there any reason you decided to pot the AKs in MP? I've noticed that you've mostly being opening 3x with the majority of the hands. I'd just open 3x with AKs, or always open to pot. Differing opening sizes usually get noticed and taken as strong hands.

As played, I do like checking our overcards down vs. a fish. There won't be much value in betting, so WP for that hand.

15:15: A7o on T73r is something I'd be more inclined to check back. Again, our hand has some showdown value and we're only going to get called by hands that beat us (except for maybe 87s or something). I think checking down and delay cbetting it is ideal. I would be cbetting it if there were flush draws there though.

As played I don't like folding the turn. X/C/Donk is never going to be Tx in my opinion. He could easily be doing this with 87dd with the turned flush draw or 98dd with the turned flush draw. Given such good odds I'd be calling and calling any non diamond/non J or 6 river and expect to turn up with the best hand fairly frequently.

16:18 and 16:58: ATo in MP is an open. It's way too nitty to just fold that preflop with no action ahead.

17:40: 98s UTG is strong enough to open in the majority of games. It's the lowest part of our range, but you can still open it profitably. Alternatively if the games are pretty loose I'd elect to fold it and instead open hands like ATo or QJo.


I'm gonna stop the video at the 20 minute mark. I'll summarize what I've noticed though.


1) You're relying too heavily on stats.

You seem to check your stats fairly frequently, which I think is a leak. The frequency of which something happens isn't important, by why that action happens in certain spots. The only really stat/s I find useful (with a large sample size) are VPIP, as it gives you a range your opponent sticks to (mostly) in certain positions.

You're not adjusting enough.

You seem to be playing the same amount of hands on each of the tables you play, which is a huge mistake. If you're playing with a fish to your right then you can raise very loose from UTG when they're in the blinds, as they'll have position on you anyway. At the same time when there's very tight players at the table you can raise wider as you're more likely to take down the pot preflop.

You're playing too tight, both positionally and relatively.

Again, you should be raising the button habitually. At the same time you should be isolating a lot looser. As long as you're not spewy postflop there's absolutely no reason why you can't play a lot looser profitably.

Myself personally, I play about 30% of hands. Seems to do alright for uNL too. You'll get yourself into a lot of marginal spots playing this amount of hands but you will improve your postflop play due to these marginal spots exponentially.


Over all I can see where there's room to improve. I just think you're not being aggressive enough in general. You're surrendering bb's both preflop or postflop. You're just being too run over in general, which is going to come to bite you in the ass in the later limits.

Getting it in preflop with AK IS a mistake, unless you're given a reason to believe otherwise (a reason being people getting it in with AQ, AJ, or just shoving ATC).

The only time when getting it in with AK is alright is when you've got reads on your opponents for getting it in super light preflop, or when you're playing the higher stakes where BvB battles make AKo a +EV hand to be shipping.

If anyone tells you that getting it in with AK is rarely a mistake at the micros then I can tell you that they're wrong. You at least need some reads first before it becomes profitable.

At best, against the average range or QQ+, AKs, AKo, you've only got about 40% equity preflop. Even if we add JJ to that range we haven't improved much.

At best you're only ever going be flipping a coin, and losing over a certain amount of hands. Thus I don't think it's +EV to be 4bet or 5bet shoving with it.

@Westoz - One step at a time, move to NL4, get comfortable there and then move to NL10.

@Dunna - Leave it up for one more day at least, my IDM is malfunctioning and havent been able to see it because of that.

@Stude - Easy to see you were getting bullied the way that red line goes (or is that how it normally looks for you ?) Also, try to play a full table, 5 is pretty much the same but 4 or less changes a lot of stuff.
As played, A9s is fine.

Thanks asriva.
I don't like playing short handed but occasionally people sit out for a few hands which is what happened here.

My redline does go down, that's a little steep but it's a short sample.
For 4 & 5NL there are stretches where it plummets and stretches where it flatlines.
It never goes up for very long

Its not the results per se, its the lack of faith in my own ability thats doing my head in. You know how it goes, "sheesh another losing session, do I just know nothing about the poker?"

Playing a lower stake than the one you normally play on while down swinging is the best way to cope. You lose less, you have a bigger edge and you bounce back faster.

I'm getting brutalised by the board for the month so I've dropped to NL5. Works much better.

Oh, I must stress, ^^ this is *only* in zoom. In regular poker, no problems.

I could be wrong but I think I see a solution here.

Ah, yeah I definitely know those feels.
I find it difficult, but just focusing on making the right choices helps.

+1 to what Stude said. Zoom sucks donkey balls.

Re Dunna's video:

In general, your PF open ranges from all positions are tighter than I think you’re good enough to use, I’d open them up a bit. I’ve stopped commenting on individual spots about that around 15 mins in. It also looks like you have small sizing tells based on whether you round to the nearest BB or not.

0:09 TL I open 64s from the CO as a standard – I’m not sure if you’d rather have J8o still or if it’s just you warming up? Would only really change this if there were aggro 3bettors/shortstacks left to act.

0:43 BL IMO 54o is also an open from the BTN.

0:57 BR I’d fold 22 even to a tiny cbet on J85r. Especially against this guy who can probably have plenty of 3x etc in his PF range, every turn card but 2 are bad for us, and you’re also going to struggle to check it down and end up ahead even when checked to on the turn. I don’t like raising this board either, basically with any hand. The final reason why you should fold the hand – and this one probably matters less against this guy – you don’t need to defend it. Basically every other hand in your range is better than this one in this spot.

1:15 BL I don’t agree with OlyBrah, this hand is a clear cbet here (AdJh on Ks8h4h). If villain had 77, he probably folds that, along with all worse hands. We also avoid capping our range with a hand that probably can’t even call a turn lead on non-heart turns, plus we can barrel effectively on hearts, some broadways etc. Turn and river are fine, including sizing.

1:59 TR Lead the river in the limped pot (K6o on JT893r), villain never has a straight after checking the flop and turn and can’t call with worse, plus you only need a fold like 35% of the time anyway to BE. Never bluff fish isn’t true, only bluff them when they obviously have absolutely nothing.

2:03 note Based on the AJ hand you hit TP on the river and got called by Kx after checking back the turn, I don’t like making a note about this, and certainly not in this way, as it makes villain’s line seem much worse than it is. Calling the river in his spot seems fine to me as you probably bet your entire range when checked to (and if you don’t, you should).

3:03 TR When someone open limps, mark them as a fish and/or take a note. Given how specific your tags are, I wouldn’t be marking someone as a ‘TAG’ after 5 hands, or a passive reg after 82 (still don’t understand this TAG, AF means basically nothing over that sample).

5:18 BL I disagree with the others here, folding 99 on 7643r is fine given his sizing (especially considering how he probably sizes bets proportionally to his hand strength).
5:50 BR I’d be opening Q7o in the SB against someone I thought was a fish in the BB (FWIW that guy’s actually a competent Zoom reg, not a fish). Bottom of my range though.

6:05 TL 82s is an open on the BTN IMO. I’d also be taking a few notes on the previous hand on that table (reg flats A3s 3w from BB, c/r AK3tt, barrels off on blank runout and runs into other reg’s AK).

9:00 BL CO flats KK against an MP open here, then raises T55tt facing an overbet, take a note.

10:01 BR J9s is probably an open UTG with a fish in the BB.

10:39 BL Don’t like your DB here. I know villain hasn’t been folding to cbets, but will he fold to double barrels? You could also well pick a hand with more equity. Furthermore, the answer against a fish isn’t to barrel more, it’s to value bet wider.

11:53 BL Horrible runout but I’m really glad you bet all three streets for value. Need to get that thin value against fish.

12:10 BL Your 3bet here is much too small. You’re less than 3x’ing a small open OOP. I’d be adding about 2bb onto your size.

12:52 BR You have AK facing a SB v BTN resteal and you don’t 4b/GII 100bb deep? This is pretty bad when you have 25 hands on villain IMO.

13:24 TL Open 53s in the CO.

14:21 TL Not mandatory but this (KTs in BB against an aggro reg’s BTN v CO 3bet) would be a nice spot to cold 4bet light.

15:08 BR We can vbet our AK hi on the river here, think ¼ pot?

15:30 TL No need to cbet A7 on T73r HU IP against a fish. Easier to get value on later streets. I don’t understand why you fold to a 1/3 pot donk on the turn, especially considering some draws just developed.

16:16 BL The guy you marked as a fish, also note that he’s incapable of thin value.

16:24 TL I presume open-folding ATo in MP is a misclick? Wait, it can’t be, you do it again later. I’d be opening this hand UTG as standard.

21:55 BR You’re 3betting as a bluff against a fish. Probably not terrible but I’d prefer a merged range here.

24:50 BR IMO squeeze to isolate SB >>>> flat and play a 3w pot OOP to the PFR with KQo.

26:19 TL You have pot behind, shove the turn rather than gaybetting. His c-range on this flop is strong.

29:25 TR Wouldn’t cbet so big, it’s a large pot anyway and you turn your range faceup to the reg, who has a nice stack size to shove with (and you’d probably have to sigh-call a shove).

30:51 BR Bigger on the turn so you don’t have to overbet the river so big to shove. SHOVE THE RIVER. You’re only betting 2x pot and most of his range is trips with a good kicker, which you beat. He would call a similar range. TT can’t call there.

33:08 TL Bet this flop, and in general whenever someone open-limps the SB then checks to you on the flop. They never have anything and you don’t need to balance because they’re all terrible.

34:14 BL Squeezing is definitely an option here with 88 given that the caller is a short-stacked fish who we’re happy to get it in with, or shove 90% of flops if he flats.

36:05 BR Once we xb the flop with TPNK, we should never be folding, we have the top of our range.

Zoom rules guys.

No margin to build a dynamic and mess around with regs and fishes.

The varience + reg pool is certainly nice

There is after a while, plus you have some knowledge of a much bigger portion of the player pool.

No its not a mistake unless its against a complete nit. Incoming wall of text.

Villain opens to 3bb in the CO you 3bet to 9bb OTB, villain 4bets to 22bb and you ship to 100bb. Villain calls it off with QQ+,AK, to which you have ~40% equity. Your risking 91bb to win 32.5bb(including blinds).
So the EV if villain only 4bets QQ+,AK and calls it off is
EV = (pot+bet)*Eq - bet*(1-Eq)
= (91+32.5)*.4 - 91*.6
= 49.4-54.6 = -5.2bb
So in the worse case scenario we lose 5bb by getting in AK, but hold on what happens before that?
We 3bet him, and if he is only playing QQ+,AK that means he is doing a lot of folding. So lets give him an opening range of 20% and a continuance range of 2.6%. So that means he is folding a whopping 87% of the time.
The EV of our 3bet is assuming we lose when 4bet is
EV = 4.5*.87-9*.13
= 3.9 - 1.1 = 2.8bb every time we 3bet.

So we only get 4bet roughly 1 in 8 times. So we make 2.8bb 7 times(19.6bb) and loose 5bb 1 time for a total EV of 3bet 5bet AK vs this villain of
EV = (19.6-5)/8 =1.8bb

So even against a nitty opponent who only 4bets QQ+Ak we still make money. Against someone who has a somewhat more balanced strategy of 4bet bluffing we make even more money with AK.

When we actually 3bet/5bet vs someone who has a 4bet bluff range we will see that our Ev shoots up. We will give villain a 4betting range of 3.2% which to equates to him bluffing 23% of the time which seems pretty reasonable.

So our new Ev when we 5bet is
EV = pot*FE +(1-FE)[(pot+bet)*eq -bet*(1-eq)]
= 32.5*.23 +.77(-5.2)
= 3.4bb
Which is a pretty nice result, considering this isn't even taking in to account the profit we make by him folding to 3bets.

What about when the rolls are reversed when we 4bet.
We open to 3, he 3bets us to 9 and we 4bet to 22, he ships. So we have to call 78 into a 123.5 pot(including blinds) which works out to be
78/(78+123.5) = 38.7%
We have 40% equity so we profit by calling.
What about villain when he 3bets? Surely he is not 3betting only QQ+,AK? Since we don't 4bet get it in with AK vs nits he is going to have a much wider 3bet range here which will fold when we 4bet which makes us money.

So as you can see we don't need any reads at all to 3b/5b or 4b/GII when playing 6max. All we need to know is that our villain isn't a complete nit. We DO NOT need to know that villain will get it in with AQ.

To reiterate.
-When villain has a tight 4betting range we make a profit from him folding so much to 3bets
-When villain has a tight shipping range we make money from him folding to 4bets.

Now that's just proving that getting in AK is profitable vs all but the most nitty guys(id consider anyone with VPIP < ~17/16 someone id not be happy getting it in against). The strategy you would use vs someone that opens 20% and only 4bets QQ+AK is completely different. I wouldn't 4bet AK cause it is more profitable to flat it and 4bet bluff him a lot, but that besides the point for this proof

H1: I like the river bet. He has a fair few 9x in his range that can call. Not many Kx in his range either.
H2: looks fine to me.
H3: I think KK without a diamond is a call too. He doesn't have a boat (99% of the time and when you haven't got the Kd he has plenty of semibluffing combos. Tough one though.
H4: LOL
H6: Yeah happy to get it in. You fold out a lot of equity too that you don't want seeing turns.
H9: Yeah Vb all day vs this fish

@ TDA about notes on dunnas vid.
We had a lot of the same thoughts. The only thing I would disagree about is opening the bottom of the range OTB and CO. If he is struggling at 25nl there is no need to opens 82s OTB or 64s in CO unless they are all nits left to act.

my notes for dunnas vid.

Thinking about the AK hand at 11.42 id probably bet turn and XF river.

Gamma, about the A7s hand, are you really folding the river? What are you calling with?

I'm only calling the 2 pairs OTR(A4 and KQ). Against a reg who i know is somewhat decent I'd be caling all day but I don't think an unknown is betting anything less than AT here and is rarely bluffing.

Ugh. All of yesterday's winnings gone today. 1k hands, -4BI and 2BI under EV (4BI under EV for the month, breaking even). Had AA 5 times, won a grand total of $1 (4bb). Had KK twice, lost 50bb (get a 4bet flatted OOP, Axx flop, check flop and turn, guy gaybets the river and shows A3o when I call, KK<88 AIPF for 25bb). And of course there's standard stuff like this where whoever loses has been unlucky:

PokerStars - $0.25 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: $28.40 (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: -, Hands: 1)
SB: $13.10 (VPIP: 24.64, PFR: 23.19, 3Bet Preflop: 4.55, Hands: 71)
BB: $25.00 (VPIP: 23.60, PFR: 19.10, 3Bet Preflop: 8.00, Hands: 91)
UTG: $35.21 (VPIP: 20.45, PFR: 11.36, 3Bet Preflop: 4.55, Hands: 44)
Hero (MP): $36.25
CO: $25.00 (VPIP: 22.22, PFR: 22.22, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 9)

SB posts SB $0.10, BB posts BB $0.25

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.35) Hero has Q J

fold, Hero raises to $0.75, fold, BTN calls $0.75, fold, fold

Flop: ($1.85, 2 players) 5 8 9
Hero bets $1.16, BTN raises to $2.50, Hero raises to $6.50, BTN raises to $27.65 and is all-in, Hero calls $21.15

Turn: ($57.15, 2 players) 8

River: ($57.15, 2 players) 3
Players agreed to run it twice.

Turn #2: ($57.15, 2 players) 8

River #2: ($57.15, 2 players) 8



Someone linecheck this? Villain is a very aggressive reg.

PokerStars - $0.25 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: $27.75 (VPIP: 17.65, PFR: 11.76, 3Bet Preflop: 7.41, Hands: 121)
SB: $26.71 (VPIP: 40.00, PFR: 33.33, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 15)
Hero (BB): $25.00
UTG: $44.63 (VPIP: 19.70, PFR: 15.91, 3Bet Preflop: 6.25, Hands: 270)
MP: $25.00 (VPIP: 16.54, PFR: 15.79, 3Bet Preflop: 2.33, Hands: 134)
CO: $59.98 (VPIP: 24.30, PFR: 20.35, 3Bet Preflop: 9.72, Hands: 705)

SB posts SB $0.10, Hero posts BB $0.25

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.35) Hero has A Q

fold, fold, CO raises to $0.50, fold, SB calls $0.40, Hero raises to $2.50, CO calls $2.00, fold

Flop: ($5.50, 2 players) 3 T Q
Hero bets $2.88, CO raises to $6.50, Hero calls $3.62

Turn: ($18.50, 2 players) 6
Hero checks, CO bets $50.98 and is all-in, Hero calls $16.00 and is all-in

River: ($50.50, 2 players) 5




Then just a bunch of coolers (QQ<KK 50bb AIPF, flopped top set<flopped flush for 50bb, etc etc), and everyone folding when I had a hand.

This is a reggy look guy lol

Poker Stars $25.00 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players
Hero (BTN): $125.95
SB: $25.00 - VPIP: 22, PFR: 14, 3B: 5, AF: 1.7, Hands: 3059
BB: $15.00 - VPIP: 16, PFR: 12, 3B: 10, AF: 1.6, Hands: 58
UTG: $28.73 - VPIP: 19, PFR: 15, 3B: 6, AF: 2.3, Hands: 131
MP: $43.02 - VPIP: 21, PFR: 19, 3B: 13, AF: 5.5, Hands: 190
CO: $27.28 - VPIP: 20, PFR: 13, 3B: 3, AF: 1.7, Hands: 1128

Pre Flop: ($0.35) Hero is BTN with 9 Q
1 fold, MP raises to $0.75, 1 fold, Hero raises to $2.10, 2 folds, MP calls $1.35

Flop: ($4.55) 4 9 9 (2 players)
MP checks, Hero bets $2.50, MP raises to $7.50, Hero calls $5

Turn: ($19.55) 2 (2 players)
MP bets $33.42, Hero calls $33.42

River: ($86.39) J (2 players)

Final Pot: $86.39
Hero shows 9 Q
MP shows J J
MP wins $84.39
(Rake: $2.00)