Beginner here, almost done punting off my "bankroll" of $50 at 2NL over ~20k hands. While i'm not really strapped for money and i can afford to put several hundred/month into my hobbies, i live in a shithole of a country and this money is not pocket change to me.

I'm thinking about buying a subscription for a training site instead of depositing more money into my account and punting it off again (i could theoretically do both of course, but id rather not buy a subscription that im not gonna use "full time" for the lack of better words). Specifically, im thinking about GTO wizard as i like their trainer. Not sure if its worth it, here are some pros and cons that ive thought of:
+i can "play" any number of hands and review them immediately, don't need to wait until the end of the session when i'm tired and the hand is not as fresh

+can get a baseline of playing against good logical gto opponents, dont need to get into the weeds of exploiting/being exploited yet

+can get as much time to think during the hand as i need. This is huge for me - whenever i watch or read someone review hands (like crush live poker) it makes perfect sense to me, but during the actual play i often get to the end of the hand and realize that i had zero thoughts in my head the entire time because of time pressure. I think playing practice hands would be a good opportunity to build good habits by forcing myself to think about ranges, odds, lines for next streets etc

-im not sure im good enough to get use of gto play without someone explaining to me why. While i watched a lot of videos and read a lot of forums (including 2p2, thanks everyone for advice), i dont know if i could make the right conclusions from just playing. While my primary interest was the trainer to play practice hands, maybe i should look into getting something more basic like a basic course

-my regular opponents play nowhere near gto. While i think that learning good fundamentals is better in the long run, not playing against real opponents deprives me of the chance to improve my adaptation/exploitation skills

TLDR noob not sure if using a gto trainer is good at my level. Any advice?

focus on hand reading and value betting. I wouldn't even look at GTO stuff if you can't currently beat 2NL.

Hey, thanks. Didnt expect to get an answer lol

I tried to be more value oriented and play some kind of a fit-or-fold strategy, but pretty much all it did is make me slowly bleed chips by missing flops and then not get paid when i hit. I feel like my opponents are definitely adapting if they see that i have been too tight for a while. I might be biased as a losing player, but i feel like people at 2nl are better than what higher stakes players give them credit for (as absolutely every losing noob ever thought about the level theyre at haha). Side note - ive never had anything take so much effort to still be worse than everyone else.

Still, my "strategy" clearly isnt working. I will try my best to implement what you advise. Thanks again.

They aren't. I haven't played seriously since I started working for HM1 in 2009 (and was/am a bit of a NIT) so I decided to see if I still knew how to play earlier this year. This is a small ring-fenced player pool, so it might be a bit harder on the bigger ROW sites where you don't see the same players at every table each day.

I know. As i was typing it, i realised that i've seen this sentiment at lower levels in other areas (videogames, sports, work) many times before - people who are bad (as i am at poker) don't realise how many flaws their bad peers have that are obvious to higher level people. Still, while i understand that, im trying to be a thinking player and failing miserably, and "from inside" it probably feels harder than it is

Depends what you consider fit-or-fold, if you are just betting when your hand hits the flop IP then that's a losing strategy. I recommend from the ground up by Pete clarke on RIO which explains flop betting strategies quite well. However, most of the time I just simplify to one bet size on flop for 2nl.

Thanks for the recommendation. I feel like there is a bigger fundamental problem in my game than flop bet sizing, but i have no idea how and where to look for it. I guess im going to deposit another 50 and try to play one table very slow and thoughtfully and take frequent breaks to analyze hands. I feel like i have all the info i need from the free content, but for some reason unable to put it to good use.

On another thought, i will try run it once instead of keeping bashing my head on the wall and see from there. Maybe it will help. Thanks again.

FWIW That 23k hand sample I played/posted was mostly max 1 and 2 tabling (due to player pool size), and was generally shorter sessions in the 1 - 2 or 3 hour max range (due to my ADHD).

If you aren't using a tracker I would recommend giving the free trials of the popular trackers a go so you can review your hands and post the ones you have questions about on the forums for feedback. I think DriveHUD2 or Hand2Note has a Free version for micro-stakes without many/any limitations like our HM3/PT4 'Free' licenses have.

What do you mean by fit-or-fold? I mean you aren't c-betting when you don't hit or what? that's more what I mean. Yes the from the ground up course is $50 I think, it's pretty good, although I think it doesn't explain things as well as a beginner should have them explained so you'll need to use some intuition to figure out what will and work best for your specific game. It loosely explains some GTO concepts so it's good to build from but I think it could focus more on recognizing player types and range analysis which IMO are the two skills you should focus on early.

What i did (and it wasnt very good):
- tighten up my opening ranges even more
- not cbetting when the board is good for my range, only when its good for my hand
- not 3 barreling stuff like a missed flush draw
- not floating with backdoors or overcards
- folding to multi street aggression unless i had the effective nuts

Basically, i was trying to exploit the common sentiment that you dont need to bluff or balance in lower stakes and you can just nut peddle and be ok. For me, it didnt work too well.

I'm only beating micros under 10nl so I can't advise too much.
Even though it's microstakes you can't play too straightforwardly, every situation requires some thought to get the most ev from it.
A lot of preflop decisions depend on format, fast or standard cash, and the rake on site.
I think the biggest leak other players make at micros is leaning too much on absolute strength rather than understanding the board/ranges and because of this you can fold more in situations that seem close because you'll get the EV back here. Anyway, there are endless tips. If you have hand histories you can zip and send about 500 to me in PM if you want and ill give you better feedback.

Leagues better than me haha

Yeah, a lot of micros advice out there boils down to "dont limp, play tight preflop, bet for value, 2nl is so simple". Not so simple for me (i might be stupid though)

Really, you would look through 500 hands for some loser online? Im gonna take you up on that offer. Thanks, appreciate it

Turns out, i havent unlocked the pm privileges yet (i mostly read stuff not logged in and never posted). I will hit you up when i do haha

yes no problem you'll get it soon I think.. post some hands in online low stakes while you wait. Also I wont review every hand individually but just by skimming can see mistakes quickly.

The problem with these platitudes is that other than "don't limp", which is pretty straightforward, they really can't help you that much overall; "play tight preflop", but how tight? In what positions? Compared to what range? "Bet for value", sure, but you have to understand what exactly is proper value given a certain board/range/etc...
Long story short, beating NL2 is pretty easy overall compared to other limits, but it still requires some degree of knowledge.

The first thing you should do is invest a few bucks in buying a book called "Theory of Poker" by David Sklansky. Read it, read it again, and then read it again after playing.

It is one of the most valuable information sources about poker ever produced.

Don't read it for specific advice, read it for a very high level of poker theory. Please recognize that poker hands can be very different and require different skills, but his book with help you with fundamentally understanding poker.

There are many here who will call me old school and think reading such a book is outdated. What they absolutely fail to realize is that most of the concepts in the book are essentially the foundation of GTO poker.

Reading (and re-reading) and really understanding that book will help you understand both GTO and exploitative play. It is a cheap one time cost that will help improve your game (as long as you do not get hung up in the outdated terminology).

It is cheap and no commitment.

P.S. I am in no way affiliated with Sklansky. In my few interactions with him I have found him to be an absolute genius, but a bit of a pretentious dick. I have no reason to recommend the book other than it is good.

Yeah. Im not saying this is not a bad advice, its just that "not limping" and "not playing K6o UTG" is not enough to beat micros, contrary to what a lot of people say (or maybe it is and im just dumb). I dont really see a lot of people limping and playing complete junk, and when i do, i take their money, but i still am a massively losing player. I feel like everyone who is interested in poker enough to go to a forum and register and ask questions has already seen that advice a hundred times.

Funnily enough, i did (finished reading it recently). While i got some good insights from it, most of the concepts i already knew at some level. I feel like i dont really have a problem with GTO concepts (and i might be horribly wrong, as i am a massively losing player at the lowest stakes), but rather applying them in practice. Any advice on learning to do that? What helped me the most so far was playing one table and forcing myself to think with no distractions about the hands, even when im not in them.

Where are you located and what site(s) are you currently playing on OP?

Just getting a database software and starting to utilize it while getting some experience is a good start. You can also look into getting the essential subscription from Runitonce ($25/mo). I'd also recommend posting hands in the micro forums and participating in the discussion of hands.

Im in Russia and i only play on ACR, 2nl 6max regular tables. I tried to get RIO after multiple people here advised it, but my card is not good enough for them (i guess i live in an evil country) and they dont accept crypto.

What do you mean by database software? If thats stuff like hand trackers, i got hand2note 4. How would you advise to use that to improve as a beginner? In theory, i have a vague understanding of how i would go through my stats looking for leaks, but is that something i should focus on as a new/bad player?

I already posted a bit in the micro strategy forum, but i dont really have many interesting hands, and i dont want to flood it with trivial questions.

You could see if someone would pay for it on your account? If they are only just not accepting payment methods you can just VPN and play on an account someone else paid for on it... like swap your crypto for someone to buy for it on your account.

Yes, use h2n and look at basic stats.

Trivial questions are precisely the ones you should be asking.

Could you please elaborate on the stats point? Should i look for, say, spots im losing money in, for example "called 3b oop", or something else? Because if its the former, its probably most (if not all) of the spots right now haha.

With trivial questions, i dont know both how trivial is not too trivial to ask instead of googling, and even if its trivial i dont really know what to ask that doesnt boil down to "please teach me how to play poker guys".

For stats, you could do something as simple as looking at what your RFI is by position and seeing if it comes into line with stats from a preflop solve (gtowiz free ranges is fine).

The more trivial the better really. People fall into the trap of only ever reviewing hands they lose and often only "big pots". You'll learn a lot more and do better if you just review things as they come up. It can be as simple as you're in the BB and you're facing a c-bet from the BTN in a SRP and wanting to know how to continue properly. Answering that question and implementing it well will serve you much better than hero-folding some 2nd nuts hand in a big pot.