^steaks?

@panda

Seems wp.

Just replied "PM me for coaching" sarcastically for folding KK pre to some guy in another thread in BQ and he was actually serious about it. Damn didn't work too well there.

Yeah I lol'd when I saw that xD

Thoughts of this line vs an Agrro'y Reg?

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

BTN: $10.06
Hero (SB): $10.81
BB: $12.73 (VPIP: 34.78, PFR: 31.39, 3Bet Preflop: 8.00, Hands: 144)
UTG: $10.15 (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: -, Hands: 1)
MP: $4.22 (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: -, Hands: 1)
CO: $50.28

Hero posts SB $0.05, BB posts BB $0.10

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

fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to $0.30, BB calls $0.20

Flop: ($0.60, 2 players) Q T 6
Hero bets $0.41, BB calls $0.41

Turn: ($1.42, 2 players) 2
Hero checks, BB bets $0.90, Hero raises to $2.80, BB calls $1.90

River: ($7.02, 2 players) 9
Hero bets $7.30 and is all-in

Pretty good day. Was up half a buy in on the cash tables and came 41st in a $3.30 free roll tourney for around $16. Nice albeit slight boost to the bankroll. Just got 1 hand to post

H1) Just wondering about the sizings and the raise on the turn here?

PokerStars - $0.05 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

UTG: $4.25 (VPIP: 30.43, PFR: 26.09, 3Bet Preflop: 10.00, Hands: 23)
Hero (CO): $5.43
BTN: $2.00 (VPIP: 19.57, PFR: 15.22, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 50)
SB: $3.80 (VPIP: 100.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 1)
BB: $5.00 (VPIP: 13.33, PFR: 6.67, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 15)

SB posts SB $0.02, BB posts BB $0.05

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.07) Hero has K K

fold, Hero raises to $0.15, fold, SB calls $0.13, BB calls $0.10

Flop: ($0.45, 3 players) 5 T 8
SB bets $0.05, BB raises to $0.25, Hero raises to $0.75, SB calls $0.70, BB calls $0.50

Turn: ($2.70, 3 players) Q
SB bets $0.85, fold, Hero raises to $1.85, fold

Sizing is fine, raising turn is okay, could see a call here as well.
Any reads on the villains?

Thoughts on this hand as well?

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

BTN: $18.85 (VPIP: 19.50, PFR: 13.84, 3Bet Preflop: 3.70, Hands: 162)
SB: $39.11 (VPIP: 33.33, PFR: 20.29, 3Bet Preflop: 3.85, Hands: 75)
Hero (BB): $20.59
UTG: $14.17 (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: -, Hands: 2)
MP: $9.55 (VPIP: 20.00, PFR: 14.29, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 35)
CO: $12.73 (VPIP: 33.33, PFR: 33.33, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 9)

SB posts SB $0.05, Hero posts BB $0.10

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.15) Hero has 4 4

UTG raises to $0.20, fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero calls $0.10

Flop: ($0.45, 2 players) 4 8 3
Hero checks, UTG bets $0.30, Hero raises to $1.10, UTG calls $0.80

Turn: ($2.65, 2 players) 7
Hero bets $1.82, UTG calls $1.82

River: ($6.29, 2 players) J
Hero checks, UTG bets $3.40, Hero raises to $11.10

Trying to inject a little more aggression in my play but not sure if im picking the right spots.

@crayon, why c/r turn? river is a card I don't like to see in this spot, not shoving here ever. x/c b/c or b/f are all better options IMO, given that villain is pretty aggro it'll probably be x/c
Regarded to first post

Second hand: Why check river? do you have a solid read that V is going to bet here? I mean I like the c/s but I think that you're going to get checked backed at enough, that betting looks more +EV

@ Crayon

H1 - I'm more of a bet bet bet guy with AA and with such a polarizing bet I feel we are only getting called with worse on the river? (2 pair, KJ etc)
H2 - Looks good as played but I personally wouldn't check the river.

no need to get fancy viva.
H1: bet/bet/bet
H2: don't mind a donk on the flop but as played you should definitely bet river. How much extra value do you think you get from bluffs(which he shouldn't have that many of) or worse that bet/calls?

1st session back to cash:


Felt quite nice i played real tight, like 15/11.

My thoughts in the 2 hands:

H1: It's BvB and i personally feel when playing or its me just overthinking/levelling in my head that reg's seem to get quite aggro BvB. I just tried repping the standard cbet into c/f turn which most regs tend to do in NL10. Looking back idk if i get more value from c/c river then donking the river.

Most of the time i do b/b/b but like i said i'm just trying to mix some of my lines up to maximise value but not sure if this is accomplished in H1.

H2: I did think about donking flop but opted to go for the c/r route to get more money in the pot. If i donk i end up with a pot of about $1.10/$1.20 this way i ended up with a pot of $2.65 with a strong hand so i can get alot more value on the turn.

I check river to basically rep a missed flush draw which i think my line seems pretty full of. I think i could have probably raised smaller to expect more calls but i definitely think he is calling this with his QQ-AA and sometimes TT. I don't see what other hands he can have besides missed FD's himself when he gets to the river.

@VLC
H1: vbet all streets
H2: bet river

thinking of getting a RIO essential membership ($10/mth). Are there any other alternatives these days like DC or CR that caters to the micros?

I had a 6mth DC membership from last Jan and there was definitely enough on there to keep me going.

Most of the concept stuff and how to think about the game applies across levels anyway

Depends what you're looking for. If you want just micro stuff and to hone the basics then Gripsed is free and does all that

It's quite unfortunate, but there seems to be a serious gap in what's available between videos of people explaining the absolute basics and people commentating on 1kNL and stuff. Currently I have a sub at Leggo (through my backer), wouldn't really recommend it, nearly all the videos are live commentaries and those vary heavily between 25NL players making videos aimed at 5NL players and higher stakes players (one of them's North Squad at 2p2, Apotheosis at Stars, another's David Yan/OMGClayDol/MissOracle) mass-multitabling (i.e. 6 tables of Zoom) without enough time to explain individual plays so it's really just a 'watch me play' thing. There's a couple of decent videos from aejones but that's the only real middle ground.

I think as always, it depends.

If we think about what skills are required to prosper up to 25nl Stars for example, well that's just good ole fashioned ABC. Plenty of stuff out there for that, and for free. An example is YaDaDamean's PGC. He's beaten 100nl over a very large sample playing very standard ABC stats.

Past that, then that's where a lot of the sub sites are aimed at anyway.

Imo there is very little I have found that explains clearly how to go about leakfinding and examining your own game, which I think would be VERY useful thru microstakes. Sure we can all run filters on HEM, but we have no experience to draw on for extrapolating that data to reality.

imo at unl one of the best ways to cover up leaks is to get a sweat session from a group of people who plays that stake or slightly higher. There's only so much stickys and videos can cover but then you're building up from scratch so there would be tons of other problems which aren't mentioned, which was probably why I was stuck at 5nl for a year.

I think I'm prob gonna get those not too expensive $10/month subscriptions with comprehensive help (wherever it may be) at stakes around 25nl. Videos are one of my favourite ways to learn just cause most concept threads are tl;dr for me

I think one thing I could actually do is become a more ABC player, and begin playing a bit tighter and less tricky.

It's going to seem odd, but I learnt things about light 3-betting prior to learning (or at least mastering) things about showdown strength, facing a raise with two pair type hands, and when you can bet for value. I learnt to run before I could walk, and I've now found myself tripping over my leaks.

What do you guys define as ABC playing these days though? There used to be the notion of making a TP type hand and betting three streets for value, but more and more people are folding their weak top pair hands. Has ABC poker changed in the last 5 years, or has my perception of it changed?

ABC poker is a ****ing stupid term that means nothing. It was just an insult thrown around years ago to say people were playing really basic poker, funnily enough at a time when even the "good" players were awful.

There is no amazing secret to getting good at poker. You all play too much and don't study enough. I mean going through a hand history when you're playing microstakes should take you a long time. Posting 5 hands in a thread like this and being like x/f turn? Isn't a level of analysis that is ever going to make you good at poker.

The hands posted ITT tend to be ones which warrant less analytical detail IMO. Certainly I post the more interesting ones in uNL and sometimes I include them in a post, but most of the time hands posted here aren't so much asking for advice as saying 'this hand was interesting and if you have feedback it'd be nice to hear it'. I know you advocate a ridiculous play:study ratio (wasn't it 1:4 or something?) but IMO beyond the absolute basics play is far more important because it's all very well knowing concepts, but you need to be able to apply them correctly. Let's face it, it normally takes 20 minutes tops to read all the relevant material on a small concept, but might take a lot longer than that to be able to appropriately apply it in your game.

Edit: 'ABC' just refers to what is 'standard' at a limit, it's a pretty dead term but ABC at 2NL is far removed from ABC at 2kNL.

I thought ABC was the reference to the most basic of play0styles that would allow you to at least break even. If it was what was standard for a limit such as 10nl, ABC players would be calling 4bets with AQs and defending to 3bets super wide from out of position, which doesn't seem ideal at all.

One thing I've been finding difficulty is the ability to lose smaller pots. I'm far from solid with such a huge leak. It's easy to say something like "I have a set, I'll just GII and if he has a better hand it's a cooler", or something along the lines of "I have a strong hand so I'll bet for value", but it seems as though my value bets with AT on Axx/x/x only get called by better unless I'm up against an absolute fish, and my flop and turn calls with QJ on Jxx/x results in myself getting value-owned by someone. Learning to fold a TP hand in a spot where I'm likely beat is something I seriously need to work on.

Hell, just learning to fold on the river is something I really need to learn on. It's quite an experience finding out so many leaks in your game. It's the one time you can feel happy about knowing what you need to do, while feeling sad about realising the mistakes you've made. #yolo

Standard as in you'd post it here and everyone would reply 'std'.

Ah, I get ya now. I was going to say, standard at 10nl seems to be calling 4bets with AQs and 3betting QTs vs. a UTG open.

3betting QTs vs an UTG open is often fine.

When the person is opening 10% UTG I wouldn't say it is.

That post wasn't really aimed at you tbh. Posting hands in here is fine but too many people think that it's enough when it really isn't. Even posting hands in unl isn't enough. You need to be doing the range work yourself, it's the only way you get comfortable with it.

If you look at all the biggest winners at any limit I bet they study a lot more than the rest of the regs at that limit. No one has like a sick natural edge, any edges people may have naturally are completley overcome by putting work in, I mean smarter poeple are going to find it easier and have better rewards on their time input but you know what I mean.

And it depends what you mean by a small concept but reading and taking in a concept may take 20 minutes but applying it to your game is going to take much longer and maybe you're at a point you can do certain range work on the fly but for most people they can't because they haven't done the work in the first place.

Also you'd be amazed how many leaks fix themselves the more theoretical concepts you learn. Also concentrating on trying to fix non obvious leaks is likely a massive waste of time when you (plural) are going to have really major obvious leaks. Just it's harder to accept that because no one likes to think they are really bad.

That would be a good for you. You've been a spewmonkey based on what you have posted the last couple of months.

Getting your basic ranges down and be a lot less creative is good when learning the basic and working your way through the micros.

MMSS is basically right here. It's very hard to improve through play alone. You are going to continue making the same mistakes if you aren't looking to improve and better your theoretical game. Learning by trial and error is terrible in poker (though 1:4 may be taking a bit far). But people simply aren't studying enough (or properly).

Posting hands is nice but if the level of advice you get isn't good then it wont do you much. I haven't posted much in µNL ever, but I have never been impressed with what you got there. And that isn't trying to insult the µNL posters, but basically you have people at the same level, making the same mistakes, advising each other. What you can get from that isn't fantastic. I'
m sure there are some decent posters, but you have to look far to find the golden nuggets.

No, it really isn't. This is one of those spots where people simply aren't constructing there ranges properly. In vacuum QTs may be +EV vs UTG. It most likely is. But if you include QTs in your 3-betting there, there are so many other better 3-bet bluff hands you can include. And you can't include them all, so you shouldn't include suboptimal 3-bet bluffs.

Generally, I would advice you to know exactly what hands you are 3-betting vs various opens. Just sit down and construct those ranges. Then you never have to second guess yourself when playing if you know what hands are 3-bet for value, for bluff and which hands you can include when widening your range. I'm certain doing this would improve the game for most people in this thread.