Hey guys.

I recently started playing poker and I was crushing nl2 zoom quite easily, grinding my starting roll from 50 to a 110 in a week. (nothing here, i know) I've been taking shots at nl5 zoom ,but I'm getting rekt there. here's why

The raising. It's so ridiculously loose, people reraise with nothing, go all in with Ax, checkraise your cbet, double barrel, etc. How do I overcome these issues?

Secondly, whole bunch of limpers that will call no matter what I raise. Lots of calling stations with gutshots who got lucky. I know I should be more profitable on this in the long run with my top pair vs drawing hands, but if I cant push them out of the pot early without going -ev it's becoming a problem with multiple people in each pot

also, theres just no blind stealing. Everyone calls or raises.

I just don't understand why it seems so different when I'm crushing 2nl zooms.

(note i have a seperate roll for 5nl at normal tables, which is going okay, but I suck at multitabling so it's slow, very slow profit and yes, I am working on that)

if everyone calls pre, play tighter, raise bigger with your good hands. Check/fold when you miss a flop and bet bet bet with your good hands untill you get raised. If your bet gets raised TPTK is 99% of the time no good at 5nl. Fold more rivers when draws hit, stop calling with stupid **** preflop, you should only be calling with pairs @5nl with the intention of setmining, otherwise fold or 3bet. glhf.

-Won't I be bleeding blinds too much with all the raising and 3betting going on if I play an even tighter range?

-Low sets play awful at 5nl in my opinion, and often pay too high of a price for them. Only play mid-high pairs from late.

- My postflop play is currently horrible, I'm working on that.

yes you will be bleeding from the blinds. This is normal. If you suck at postflop why would you handicap yourself even more by playing mediocre hands out of position. The whole idea is to make up for the bleeding from blinds by valuebetting the stations when you have a hand.

And why do low sets play awful? Unless you're getting super unlucky with set over set situations it's still going to win you money over the long run when you hit a set and get 3 streets of value from someone calling down with middle pair.

I suggest looking into these when you have the time: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...xBtKCHEPB3lBg-

I'll try not to worry about the blind bleeding. As for low sets, usually I get raised preflop in a pot with 2-3 people, cbet on the flop unless it's a draw, and get beaten with 2 pair, top pair or a lucky river straight. I may have a too small sample to confirm this, or maybe I'm simply putting in too much money in the pot, but small sets do not seem profitable for me.

The things you are complaining about are not actual problems at 5NL Zoom and are not why you are losing. You're losing because the field is much tougher than 2NL, the players are simply better and they are probably beating you.

The two things you are asking how to beat are:

- Crazy aggression. Beat by making a hand and calling down or betting if they don't.
- Calling station. Beat by making a hand and betting into them, re-evaluate if raised.

These are very easy adjustments though and fixing that won't have you beating 5NL Zoom, you need to get better at poker.

Thing is I used to play reasonable, rolled and all, at 25 nl years back, but the field seems to have changed and I'm completely out of it. I know most percentages, but have some trouble calculating odds and outs on the spot. (weakness ofc, trying to improve again

I'll probably try a few more nights on 5 to see how it goes with the tips gotten here while keeping my calm and handrange. I feel like I'm playing too lose and I'm being punished for it, so I'll try to stay a bit more TAG. (played 6max lag a long while back, but that was when you had so much fish at 25nl it was easier than 5 nl is now)

Anyway thanks for the help. Well see how it goes.

While most, if not all, that has been diagnosed already ITT is probably applicable, let's just back up a little

What are you defining as "crushing quite easily"? How many hands? What was your win rate? The bigger your win rate, the smaller the sample size, and the more likely you just ran hot.

E.g. a $60 profit = 3,000 big blinds. For the sake of putting a number on it, let's just say you ran at 15bb/100 — that's 20k hands, and at 4 tables, that's 20-25 hours, a reasonable but not excessive amount in a week. But it's not exactly a volume to make your win rate definitely accurate. More volume means lower winrate and less crushing, and higher win rate means lower volume, and more uncertainty about the accuracy of your win rate.

In a post linked recently, someone else goes through the numbers in more detail here about how a touch of good luck in a few hands can make a massive difference, how "narrowly winning", or even "losing", can suddenly leap to "crushing" because of variance, because you get the run of the cards.


If you're struggling so much at a level, then maybe first make sure you're truly beating the level below it. A week's play might not be enough. While there's nothing wrong with moving up levels aggressively when you're winning, remember that if it all goes wrong then there's nothing wrong with moving back down again to make sure you're actually as profitable as you think you are. Trying again at 2NL and making it $150 profit in, say, 50k hands, or $300 in 100k, would be the same win rate as considered above, but far more likely to be accurate. If your win rate dropped significantly in a larger sample than it gives you more things to look at to improve the basics of your game.

Are you saying that you think 5nl players are worse than 2nl players? My experience is that there is much less spew at 5NL, but maybe you played it at a particular time (over the weekend) when the field was different to normal. Last time I looked at 5NLz, it was full of nits and semi-decent LAGtags, not multiway limpers or open-shoving maniacs.

5/10nl is full of good players who just don't have the disposable income to play higher. From my experience there's very little difference between 5 and 10. The gap between 2nl and 5nl is huge.

It seems like you just expected to beat 5nl having ran hot/ played alright at 2nl. Don't sweat it, not INSTANTLY beating 5nl isn't a terrible thing meaning you suck, it's actually very normal.

Thing is there are alot of shortstackers on 2nl and a lot more regs/rocks on 5nl. If i pick up a few 70cent shortstacks every hour on each table it adds up nicely overnight.

As for hands, I have about 22k hands on 2nl making about 6bb/hour, so that's quite alright. I should move up. however, it just doesn't go well. Maybe I'll keep building my bankroll a bit first or stay at the normal tables for a while.

Either way thanks for all the feedback.

You'll improve so much faster at 5nl. An average ape could beat 2nl for a few BB over a decent sample

5NL is laughably soft, but still much tougher than 2NL. Zoom is also much tougher than reg tables. You're probably running slightly poorly and playing very poorly.

Don't play zoom unless you enjoy smashing your head into the wall.

I moved back to regular tables. So at the moment I play zoom 2nl and normal 5 nl. They require a slightly different approach, but I feel both relaxed when playing them, so that's a good thing. I also believe I can both beat them reasonably well, although I don't have the hands to back this up. I'll try this combo for a month and see how it goes.

Don't restrict yourself. 'I'll try this combo for a month', just play zoom when you want and reg tables when you want. I enjoy mixing the two but I don't play them both at the same time. I think your idea about playing zoom 2nl and reg 5 is good though, you've noticed it's tougher at 5nlz and are putting in volume at a stake you're confident you can beat/improve at, Gj.