Good to see your stats are getting better and you read WCGRider's series. You seem to have the right attitude for learning the game and you'll probably be ready for NL10+ pretty quickly.
Just some advice on that 88 hand: next time fold to the 3 bet directly unless you've seen that opponent 3bet you a lot. Medium pocket pairs are probably the hardest hands to play correctly, if you're not confident then you're better off just set mining with them, or checking them down for showdown value as cheaply as you can. I think playing 77-JJ as if it were 22 is a very small mistake which won't stop you from beating NL10 and lower, whereas playing those hands like QQ is a huge spew. I don't know who said that but there's this quote that says "There's 3 ways to play pocket jacks. All are bad."

I m also curious to know how many tables you play. In one post you talk about playing 6 tables, I don't know if that's what you do but it's probably a big mistake if you are because you need to have a very good autopilot mode already to do it profitably. I'm not saying 1 table because that's too boring and leads to FPS but I think 2-3 tabling is the best as a beginner in the cash games, because you'll see about 150-200 hands per hour while having time to plan your hands.

For example, on that 88 hand, if you're 6 tabling then you barely have time to think: Wow, a medium pocket pair. Time to raise. Oh, he 3bet me. But I still have a strong hand, I call. No way I'm letting go of my 8s on a 9 high flop... Dammit...

Whereas if you were 2 tabling you'd be able to formulate your thought like this: Ok, pocket eights, these are definitely worth raising but what do I do afterwards. Most of the time I'll have second/third pair on the flop, what happens if he calls my Cbet, am I firing a second barrel? On what cards? Oh, he 3 bet me. Has he 3 bet me before? What's his 3 bet %. 2%? Time to fold /11%? His range is really polarized here and it's weighted towards semibluffs like suited aces and connectors. A shove is going to be profitable here IMO because he'll only call with AK and QQ+.

The reasons why i called (and am inclined in general to call the 3bet in that spot) are:

1- I'm in position
2- I failed to mention it originally, but I'm pretty sure I was on the button so i could make an argument he'd 3 bet me with a less than premium hand.
3- i've observed that at 5nl, players routinely 3bet with AK and some folks even AQ, AJ, and smaller PPs.

In position I'm not gonna 4bet him, cuz so many people will shove pre-flop and race with AK (not to mention he could also have a big PP). I liked the flop, he could've been cbetting air, and with only one overcard (a 9 which he probably wasn't 3 betting with pre-flop - unless it was 99 - LOL) there's a good chance i had the best hand and raised him to get the info.

My donkiness comes into play cuz I got the info and didn't muck it when he shoved.

To lend credence to your suggestion i fold to the 3bet pre-flop, i only had 150ish hands against him, but he seemed kind of nitty. i played him a few times before, and his stats were something like 10/8....so when he shoved, i should have ran for my life.

I'm also gonna look into some of the stickies about set mining. Not familiar with the term other than the obvious, you're playing your small to medium PPs to flop a set, but other than that, what's the pre-flop strategy?

You might have got me confused with someone else, I've never even attempted to play 6 tables....right now I play 2 with the intention of moving up to 4. Right now i'm trying to work on my hand reading skills and I like to sit back when i'm not in a hand and try to pick up on villains' tendencies so i'm in no rush to multitable beyond my means.

I'm not exactly a noob and i'm completey comfortable playing PPs after the flop, so that's not an issue at this point. Basically other than the donkey call at the end which was just ridiculous, i'm not unhappy with how i played it.

I just gotta get better at not donking off chips when I'm beat. I'm not real sticky in pots for the most part, but sometimes I get into this mindset where I have a hard time believing that villain isn't running a bluff on me. And usually when I make that call against my better judgment i'm wrong. So go figure?

Thanks a ton for the reply. i could take this post in 10 different directions, but for now i'm gonna look into the Ryan Fees guide, finish reading the 'why you suck al uNL' threads, and I'm sure I'll be back with more questions.

BTW where you guys back in the day when i was wasting my time on the rec/gambling/poker forum? Wish i knew about 2+2 back then.

TAGfish are players who have decent preflop standards but have issues postflop. Sometimes it's because they are masstabling and have overextended themselves; for others it's just inexperience. One thing I see a lot (and this is reflected in the uNL forums) is betting/raising when only a better hand will call. This happens a lot with c-bets, so look for players with really high c-bet %. Bloating pots out of position is another calling card of the TAGfish, so they get to the later streets with a big pot and a mediocre hand and don't know what to do. Basically they are players who know enough to start with good hands and not to chase post-flop, but they can't read hands/boards really well so they can't get past level 1 thinking.

Actually, I do have a follow up question, I took your advice and added the CBET-FLOP % stat to the HUD.

What's considered a high CBET % on the flop, where I'd be inclined to just play position and raise him? Is this too general a question? Since statistically you're gonna hit air 2 out of every 3 times you see a flop with unpaired hole cards, would a CBET % of say, 50% he high enough to think about raising?

I'm pretty good at picking up on the weak players post flop. For example I see a guy raise pre-flop, (I fold) board comes down 2-7-Q he'll check all 3 streets and turn over JJ. Even when last to act, i see people that routinely won't bet the flop (or turn, even) with a PP and only 1 over card. I have a friend like this, he won't bet into any pot any time an Ace flops. (unless he's got KK or QQ, in which case he gets real sticky, but that's another story....)

Then there's the guys that won't CBET with AK when they whiff. I'm pretty good and picking up on these players, they always check when they miss, so naturally i'm betting.

The guy that CBETs the flop, for me, is harder to get a read on, cuz obviously sometimes they actually have something when they bet. What are some of the things you look for (besides the Cbet % stat) when playing the flop (assuming you have position on the raiser)?

The reason for this (even though those players might not realize it) is that the majority of players have ridiculously exploitable continuation ranges against 3bets. (Including me, but I'm working on it ) Most players fold to 3bets unless they have a hand they're comfortable 4betting, and a lot of the rest won't fold anything to a 3bet.

Generally, 60% cbet is considered "optimal," where basically you're cbetting as a bluff half the time and for value the other half, so villains have to guess whether to fold or call, but if you're considering raising a cbet as a bluff, it's all down to specifics of the board texture. As a super-glaring example, say some uber-nit (6/5.5 preflop VPIP/PFR) raises from utg and you call on the button. His range is likely to be JJ+/AK, and (assuming he's a thinking player) he's probably going to put you on a suited connector or middle/low pair, some sort of drawing hand. If the flop comes KT2 rainbow, it's a spectacularly bad idea to raise his cbet, because you're repping TT/22 only when you do that. On the other hand, a board like 875 with a flush draw is pretty terrifying to AA, so it's a good idea to raise.

If you are color coding your HUD display, I would recommend using 80% as a threshold for c-bet %. Like most stats, c-bet % takes a while to converge, so when you only have a few hundred hands on someone, it is only really useful in the extremes. Say for example someone raises preflop 17 times in a 100 hand sample and sees a flop 12 of those times. 6 c-bets gives him a 50% c-bet and 9 gives him a 75%. Even though a 75% c-bet is on the high side and suggests that Villain is c-betting with air a lot, it could be that he is got calls with his premium hands and folds when he raised his weaker hands preflop.

As for observing specific behavior, if you notice him c-betting oop, or into multi-way pots, or on drawy boards, and then see him showdown air, then you know he has a hard time holding back from c-bets, since those are situations where you really ought to think twice before firing that c-bet. Obviously, if you see him c-bet and then fold to a raise a few times, that is a good sign as well.

Being in position is not going to help you that much here as you’re still going to have a very marginal hand without initiative. Of course it gives you the possibility to float but you are drawing to 2 outs. I much prefer floating with good draws than weak made hands, because there’s a chance I’ll make a better hand even if my opponent fires a second barrel. Here, unless you hit your set on the turn, which is only going to happen, you’re going to have to fold to a second barrel. And if he checks to you, you have a showdown value hand which you should probably check back. Moreover, many of those none premium hands you’re talking about are still splitting against you preflop so I’m not sure that saying: “I’ll call my 88 because he could have AJ” is a good idea.

There’s a thread about why that’s bad, look it up.

Against a 10/8 you should have ran for your life on the 3bet. The fact that he could have AK doesn’t justify a call, you’re way behind his range.


This is probably the main leak of most people at uNL. It’s how LAGs like me make profit. You take a few stabs at unraised pots from the BB with gutshots, show them down for 15bb when you don’t hit, and all of a sudden people are calling their stacks off with second pair no kicker. Overadjusting is probably worse than not adjusting, because you’re being put completely off your game doing things you know are stupid. Just fold, stop worrying about the bluffs that villain could be running, most of the time he isn’t. Adjust only to bad LAGs (look for those with abnormally high stats, people who play 30-25/27-22 or so are just TAGs who have opened their games a lot and are dangerous, whereas the ones who play 60/40 can be exploited more) when you’ve seen them spew, and if you’re not sure whether they are or not let one of the fish call them down first to check.

I count quite a few mistakes in that 88 hand. First, unless you are deep or you are just facing a minibet, you can't call the 3-bet with 88. Assuming that you raised to 3xBB and the 3-bet was to 10BB, here is how things are likely to play out.

88% of the time you miss your set and will have to fold to a c-bet. With the pot already at 20BB on the flop, you don't have much room to maneuver with floating, and raising the flop as a bluff is going to be expensive. So it is basically hit your set or get involved in a big pot with a mediocre hand, which just increases the chances of making a big mistake (i.e. what actually happened)

When you do hit your set, sometimes Villain will have an overpair or top pair and you guys will get it in on the flop. Remember though, that Villain has a 12% chance of making a bigger set with the other 4 cards. This possibility cuts significantly into your profit, since you will get stacked when this happens. When Villain has a hand like AK, the majority of the time he is going to miss the flop. Maybe you win a c-bet from him; maybe he just gives up. So you have not made nearly enough to justify calling the c-bet in those situations. When Villain has a hand like TT-QQ, there is a decent chance that one of the other 2 cards on the flop is going to be an overcard to his pair, and he will either c-bet and give up or just c/f. Again, you are not making enough here to justify calling for the set. In short, the amount you stand to win when you hit a set just can't make up for all the losses you take when you miss.

On the flop, your raise just isolates you against the hands that have you beat. No one is folding an overpair in a 3-bet pot, and most people are not going to call your bet with unpaired overcards or with anything you beat. You are basically playing to end the hand right there. This makes some sense in that you avoid having to make a tough decision on the turn when an overcard falls and collect a decent sized pot, but it is another example of bloating the pot with a hand that doesn't justify it. Just cut your losses and fold.

If you can't fold over pair, two pair or set on the flop You should quit poker.
newbies.