Saw this on another forum and wanted to share as I think it's mostly spot on. Was reading around for thoughts on the difficulty of reading hand ranges in 2NL when villains are calling pre with an insanely unpredictable range. This post brought me back down to earth:

So let me paraphrase so I can commit it to memory:

1) Value bet, value bet, value bet.
2) 2 pair or better - GET IT IN unless given a solid reason not to (see (3)).
3) Raises are serious. Stop and think about what you are doing.
4) ALWAYS make them pay to realise their draws.
5) POSITION FFS. STOP calling OOP. Start punishing when you have position.
6) Cbet. Go on. You know you want to.
7) Pay attention to effective stack size. Adjust accordingly.
8) Bluff when you have equity, blockers etc and not when you don't.

Very good, solid advice for beating 2nl.

Whether it will get you up to 100nl is somewhat debatable.

Yeah I left that part in just to see what others said but that was my reaction too. The post was from back in 2010 so I guess the landscape was different back then, or maybe he was exaggerating for effect.

I think "see you in 10NL" might be a more accurate statement in 2017.

Your 8-point list is good for the lowest stakes on any site. The stake level where the straightforward/ABC "kill the fish" style stops working so well is hard to say, as it depends a lot on the site and format.

There is a difference between bluff and semi-bluff. And as it usually is a villain dependent strat,,,, bluffing no equity is usually better. You don't want to get raised off a hand with equity. (Can you tell I've been playing more limit poker lately?)

Actually, a ton of the time you'll want to bluff your hands with some equity that can't stand up to a bet from villain (for example, weak gutters) because they at least have some playability later. Also lol you can't get raised off your equity in fl.

It's a little facile.

I don't think writing short succinct points is supposed to negate the need to understand the background. Knowing WHY you are applying these points is clearly important and vital if you want to improve your game but having a kind of "cheat sheet" of preferred playing style is helpful to maintain focus on what is important.

What you really want to be doing is carefully studying your opponents, recognizing that individuals are unique and everyone plays poker differently, discovering precisely how the people at your table are playing and then using these discoveries to make better decisions against them. Let's not pretend that the totality of the population of a particular limit is some monolithic whole and that there is one ideal way of playing against them all.

just gonna weigh in here on the "bluff with no equity vs bluff with equity" mini debate;
if you are going to bluff some of the time but not all of the time you should usually select hands that are better not worse for your bluffs
You'll see this concept applied when players construct 3 bet ranges, especially in position; "This hand is almost good enough to call for value so I will use it as a 3 bet bluff"
or when players are barreling as PFR in HU pots they will tend to "barrel their equity".

When I play live NLH ($1-$2, $1-$3 or $2-$5, mostly $1-$3 since moving near Cleveland) I don't barrel nearly the number of turns that I would generally barrel online and I don't make many light 3 bets. But the following is a hand I played recently at Jacks (formerly The Horseshoe) with my inner monologue for effect
live $1-$3 game, mine is the effective stack of $320
"Wow, no limpers? I bet that young kid with the sun glasses who's been talking strategy at the table is going to raise from the CO.
CO; opens to $9
HERO(Button) "My hand is prob not quite strong enough to call with but it's close, I think villain will fold a lot of hands to a 3 bet and my hand will c-bet and barrel well against his calling range, I should raise" Raises to $30 w/ As2s
Action folds to Villain in CO who thinks for a while and flats the $18 additional dollars.
"****"
Flop:8d6c3s
Villain checks
"It looks like he prob missed that flop but I may have to dub this to get him off his pocket pairs, I think I'll chose a small sizing to leave him with weaker hands I can take him off on future streets (thinking he will fold his total air and raise his big hands to such a small bet)"
Hero: bets $25
Villain: calls $25
Turn: Ks
"His range looks like a bunch of A highs and small pairs, the K is not only bad for his range but it's good for mine and it improves my equity."
Hero: Bets $70
Villain snap folds.


I think this was the right play and even though we get raised some of the time, we can still call sometimes and we can always 3 bet if we want. Having equity is not always a reason to not want to get raised and it is very often not a good reason to not bet.

I think almost the exact opposite is true in NLH. Gutshots and other draws that contain blockers but have low/no showdown value tend to be better bluffing candidates than total airballs. Giving up and saving money is usually a better choice with the air. Equity (including equity from backdoor draws) is why we play 76s in preference to 72o.