Hey Raze great thread man very inspirational to hear of some one grinding their way up like you did! Just a great read all in all with every one's stories and input.

I don't know if you still follow this at all since I see your last post is in Oct.
if you do I just wanted to know:

During your climb in stakes, at which level did you feel you could loosen up, make some plays and not play as much "ABC poker?"

I ask that because I find it pretty frustrating at these stakes to not be able to make a play here and there because a lot of people will call with middle pair or worse.

I was going to tell my story, but now I'm just going to reflect on the insignificance of my poker "career".

On the same note, I just found out yesterday that a guy I used to hang out with in college has cashed in the main event and made more money playing poker than I could ever hope to.

I'm happy for him but at the same time knowing that sort of deflates any poker ambitions of my own and makes them seem sad.

nice read ,ty OP .

$5/10NL: Go with the flow

After taking a huge chunk of 2009 completely off poker, I've been pressing hard these past few weeks to get hands in. I notice every single time I take more than a week off poker, things have changed when I come back. Online poker is a young business sector, and there is always something new or different that requires attention, assuming you want to stay on top of things and press all your edges. The last time I took 2 weeks off, I came back and did my usual sitting at 2 heads-up tables... except instead of 3 other regs waiting for action, there were about 25! My site had uncapped the number of heads-up tables, and only now, months later, can I see just how much money I lost by NOT immediately scouting out new sites and tables to play. I estimate I get about 20% of the soft action I used to get there 9 months ago. I can blame the site, and even Email their support in protest, but the most important thing I should have done was to take that opportunity to do some research, and possibly find a new fish pond. Well...better late than never!

I now regular four sites in search of good tables at the $5/10 level and up. For you guys that play micros and small stakes, this extreme table selection isn't quite as important as site (high rakeback/bonuses) selection, but remember the goal in business.. and we should all treat this poker stuff like business... is to keep that rate of income moving upwards. Use every tool and method to achieve this. I'll leave the rant there for now, but I'd like to explore some more unconventional methods of increasing your winrate another time. I'm always up for questions and comments as well. I'll finish this post with some HH's from recent sessions:

Against a loose-aggressive regular, against whom my main note reads "Loves to **** around on rivers, especially check-raise bluffs":

$5/$10 No Limit Holdem
5 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG ($3,754.26)
CO ($1,102)
Hero (BTN) ($1,551)
SB ($908)
BB ($1,359)

Pre-Flop: ($15, 5 players) Hero is BTN Q J
1 fold, CO raises to $30, Hero raises to $105, 2 folds, CO calls $75

Flop: J 4 3 ($225, 2 players)
CO checks, Hero bets $136, CO calls $136

Turn: 3 ($497, 2 players)
CO checks, Hero checks

River: 9 ($497, 2 players)
CO checks, Hero bets $100, CO goes all-in $861, Hero calls $761

Final Pot: $2,219
CO shows
9 9
Hero shows
Q J

CO wins $2,215 (net +$1,113)

Hero lost $1,102

I am convinced CO will make this same river move with TT, 88, 77, possibly 66-55 if he takes those to a flop, and possibly AK/AQ if he peels a flop with those. I feel my only mistake here was betting just $100 on the river. I wanted to induce a check-raise bluff on the end, but I think the $100 into $497 bet was a little TOO obvious. I should have sized my bet to appear like a credible bluff like $300 or $275. I DO in fact throw out small bluffs like that, but almost always against fish who don't think past their own two cards.


Here's a series of hands from today. They centre around one player, and I want to illustrate how far you can go in exploiting a player's mistakes. I literally closed my other tables after viewing hand #1 here, because I wanted to watch and learn as much about this fish as possible in order to trap him with the right hand:


#1
Grabbed by Holdem Manager
NL Holdem $10(BB) Replayer
SB ($227)
BB ($340)
UTG ($1,144)
Hero ($1,000)
CO ($964)
BTN ($1,000)

Dealt to Hero 4 8

UTG calls $10, fold, fold, fold, SB raises to $80, fold, UTG calls $70

FLOP ($170) 7 Q 6

SB bets $147 (AI), UTG calls $147

TURN ($464) 7 Q 6 2

RIVER ($464) 7 Q 6 2 T

SB shows K A
(Pre 68%, Flop 22.5%, Turn 13.6%)

UTG shows J 6
(Pre 32%, Flop 77.5%, Turn 86.4%)

UTG wins $461


#2
Grabbed by Holdem Manager
NL Holdem $10(BB) Replayer
SB ($1,000)
BB ($412)
UTG ($377)
UTG+1 ($918)
Hero ($1,338)
BTN ($1,192)

Dealt to Hero J 2

UTG raises to $20, UTG+1 calls $20, fold, fold, fold, BB raises to $412 (AI), fold, UTG+1 calls $392

FLOP ($849) 5 7 8

TURN ($849) 5 7 8 6

RIVER ($849) 5 7 8 6 A

BB shows J A
(Pre 64%, Flop 79.2%, Turn 22.7%)

UTG+1 shows 9 K
(Pre 36%, Flop 20.8%, Turn 77.3%)

UTG+1 wins $846

#3
Grabbed by Holdem Manager
NL Holdem $10(BB) Replayer
SB ($1,250)
Hero ($1,248)
UTG ($1,299)
UTG+1 ($1,074)
CO ($200)
BTN ($1,977)

Dealt to Hero 5 Q

UTG raises to $35, fold, CO raises to $200 (AI), fold, SB calls $195, fold, fold

FLOP ($445) 5 6 T

TURN ($445) 5 6 T K

RIVER ($445) 5 6 T K K

CO shows A A
(Pre 90%, Flop 97.1%, Turn 88.6%)

SB shows K 2
(Pre 10%, Flop 2.9%, Turn 11.4%)

SB wins $442


The payoff:

Grabbed by Holdem Manager
NL Holdem $10(BB) Replayer
SB ($2,713)
Hero ($1,228)
UTG ($1,000)
UTG+1 ($1,054)
CO ($387)
BTN ($1,962)

Dealt to Hero A A

fold, fold, fold, fold, SB calls $5, Hero raises to $246, SB calls $236

FLOP ($492) 9 2 4

SB checks, Hero bets $289, SB calls $289

TURN ($1,070) 9 2 4 8

SB bets $2,178 (AI), Hero calls $693 (AI)

RIVER ($2,456) 9 2 4 8 J

SB shows 7 7
(Pre 19%, Flop 7.6%, Turn 4.5%)

Hero shows A A
(Pre 81%, Flop 92.4%, Turn 95.5%)

Hero wins $2,453

Thanks man.

As soon as I got the basic mechanics of the game down and was winning small but steadily, my main issue became figuring out the right balance of 2+2 approved, standard ABC strategy with my own reads and tactics. I found the more I went out on my own, I hit a lot of roadblocks in terms of strategies that didn't work, but in the end, I took my game to levels I never imagined. So to answer your question, I started to really branch out and try non-standard stuff around $0.5/1NL, and by $2/4NL I was all over alternative lines like overbetting for value, making tiny bluffs, block bets, etc. If you think something might work but you've never seen it in action, don't be afraid to try it.

Just to re-emphasize - I'm a huge proponent of self-testing new strategies and nuances as well....developing the imagination and having a very large playbook is a HUGE part of successful poker.

The first step always though is to have optimal fundamentals underlying this - without a proper base, you'll just be a goofy player. Having the extra moves in your playbook AND knowing when to properly apply them is a huge part of being a successful winner at midstakes+.

Great thread. I started treating poker more seriously just a week ago after joking around for 2 years on 10NL @ Everest. Now I try to play each day 1k hands and study much. This thread is very inspiring!

I may not have a story to share, but I think this clip applies very well, especially to poker.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woOu_4l3lio&eurl=

sweeeeet ****ing video

Sweeeeet thread Raze. Lets bump it a bit
What im interested in is... Which posters u really like and would recommend for us to search?
Obv uNL and SSNL sticky's, wells etc... But which posters ud say, have "something else"?
My favs so far are Pokey, Balugawhale, Boywonder
and absulute #1# " Fees " and his incredible 4k post.

Wtf where do these fish come from who sit at 5/10 $ NL???? I could beat this game with these kind of players its not rocket science

limon is good.... his posts can sometimes be a bit crazy to read.. but they are usually solid posts.

bump. asking the real questions here. raze where is your avatar from? have enjoyed viewing this and catching up.

This is a very old thread and OP hasn't posted on 2+2 since 2014. /lock