I'm sitting around break even with rakeback right now after 5k hands. I hear people making 5-10bb/100 (playing 10NL) and I would love to be in that group.

Seems like if I play tight and don't get involved in large pots I will scrape 2-3 bucks playing 10NL in a session of 2 tables. The second I start pushing my pairs preflop or on the flop Im getting felted and then struggle to grind that money back (hence my breakeveness). However, I feel WAY too nitty if I'm folding too big raises all the time in fear of losing money with one pair or whatever.

Just a general question. How often are you playing for stacks? Is your goal in a hand to play for stacks every time, even if you flop one pair or a drawy hand?

You dont always want to be getting you stack in on 1pair - unless of course you know the villian will get it in with worse. You may well be overvaluing hands. ie PF you want to get it all in with AA but if you raise and get called and Flop comes TJQ monotone, do you want to get it in?not likely. you put ur villian on ranges, evaluate their play and put them on a range of hands, if your hand is ahead of that range you want to get it in or extract maximum value from the hand.

Alot of your winrate will come from Stealing Blinds and c-betting flops etc. If you are breakeven when getting it in you may be getting it in too light, also 5k isnt a big sample. this could just be variance.

Review your hands when you went AI - where you ahead when you got in it, could you of played it better, should you of folded.

You said you get impatient when you only win 2-3 bucks per session with two tables. That's actually a respectable win rate, assuming your sessions are a reasonable length.

I used to have a pretty big leak that was about calling large bets on the turn or the river with good, but not strong hands like TPTK or even top two when a draw could have hit. That ate into my win rate quite a lot for a while. I had to reevaluate my definition of a big hand. TPTK is a very good hand on most flops, but it is no longer a good hand on most turns if the pot starts to grow. It is possible you have a similar leak.

I agree with crazyfool about reviewing your sessions for the times you get all in. It is tough at these stakes because some fish will stack off pretty light, which makes it tempting to call those big bets. In general however, you need to be careful about calling big bets without a big hand.

How often are you calling off your stack vs leading the action and making the big pots yourself?

If you're just calling with one pair and hoping its good, that's a recipe for disaster in any big bet game.

Thanks for the inputs. I rarely stack off and think I play nitty. Im only pushing preflop with AA KK and calling all ins with made flushes and trips.

I guess what I mean is I rarely double up in my sessions. When I sit at a table and see someone with 2 buyins or more I am amazed. I rarely end up 1 full buy on a table, which brings me to my original question.

IF I post some stats can someone quickly analyze them, which stats? (I understand I have a small sample)

5k hands aint that much. play atleast 50k

I'm currently running at around 10bb/100 at 10nl on FTP (excluding rakeback) and play five tables. I only really try to play for stacks when I have a made hand vs someone who I believe has a worse hand. For example, anytime I make trips, flushes, straights, 2pair I will try and get it in most of the time (depends on opponent/board texture). Feel free to post your stats and I'll take a look at them.

Let me know if you see anything funk or maybe something to optimally work on. Thanks!

This.

5K just isn't that many hands to analyze (or second-guess yourself about).

You said you're getting all in pf on AA and KK and calling all-ins with trips and made flushes, I'd say if you've lost money overall in those situations then it's either variance or you have seriously pissed God off and you should quit poker and watch out for lightning.

this may not be what you want, but i play for stacks every possible chance i get AS LONG AS it's under my terms.

i mean if he's going to call me down, im going to get my stack in with top pair. if i've disguised my hand, i'm going to try and get it in. draws-- sometimes, i try to get it in. generally speaking, its when i feel i can win, as marginal as it may be sometimes. if you're new, keep it simple and do it when you know you can win.

and then there are the times when i have a good hand and he's pushing it in. sometimes i feel i'll win, sometimes i feel i'll lose. sometimes, you just have to call...

While everyone's advice about being careful in marginal situations is very important, never forget that poker is MEANT to be high variance, and you're not playing anywhere close to optimally if you always fold 1 pair hands or even ace high. Just try to figure out when your opponent is betting/calling for value or as a draw, and what sort of hands they could have, etc.

In the words of Ray Fees, b/f is always better than c/c by default. (Emphasis on "by default", of course)

Should you bet AQ on AJx two flush? Logically the only hand you beat at this point is AT, maybe A9, or a combo draw. That's where position comes in. OOP you NEED to bet/fold this, maybe bet/call or check/call if you know the player plays draws aggerssively. Check/raise is so spewy here and you're not way ahead of hands that you -do- beat anyway, so maybe in another scenario you actually do have to play for stacks with one pair.

I'm never afraid to play for stacks. I have leaks, but that isn't my leak. My leak is putting players on too narrow a range preflop leading to bad reads, leading to playing for stacks at the wrong time.

The illusion of pot commitment is a dangerous one. You're getting 2-1 on the river, but if you're beat, you're beat. Is he really value betting a weakerhand/bluffing more than 33% of the time? I'm a bit of a calling station in that regard.

Anyway, aside from huge leaks in big pots, which... admittingly I do have since you sort of have to 3bet light, a player's skill comes mostly from the medium sized pots, becuase sometimes big hands just play themselves. I got stacked for 150bbs just last night with trips vs fullhouse. On the river I know I was beat when he check shoved me-- he can't be doing that with a missed flush draw, but can I fold trips with jack kicker when I already have more than half my stack in?

At first glance, it looks like you are limping and calling way too often preflop, escpecially in the Small Blind. You are playing 21% of hands but are only raising 8% of your hands preflop. These numbers should be much closer together, something like 21% and 17% and you should only be limping very occasionally. You can find a good guide to Preflop 6-max play in Fees' 6-max guide.

On how much you have won so far, as has already been said, 5k hands is still a very small sample in poker terms so I wouldn't worry about that yet, just concentrate on trying to learn the gamefor now. After each session, take some time to review all of your big pots and ask questions in the micro stakes 6-max NL forum if there are any hands you are unsure on. Start thinking about your winrate when you have played something like 50k hands.

Appreciate the advice fellas. I think I have such a strong desire to win every pot that I lose sight of the big picture that poker is a game with variance. I need to realize I can't win every pot.

fredreck, I think I do limp WAY too much. I think I will work on opening an unraised pot more and maybe doing more continuation bets, hopefully using position also in these pots.

I have a winrate of 7.7PTBB/100 at 10NL over almost 20k hands ( not that 20K is very much or anything) and I have a simple rule of thumb that I use. I will only get my whole stack involved with 1 pair if I am the one who is putting it in the middle (as valuebets) and not the other person raising me up to get it in. I've only valuetowned myself against a slowplayed set once - all the other times people called down with worse pairs. When an average player (not a spewtard) raises my TP/overpair valuebet, I will usually fold pending good pot odds. These players don't bluff raise very much at 10NL. When they raise, they usually have 1 pair beat bad. Also, if you are deep (160bb+) you shouldn't get your whole stack in the middle with one pair under most conditions (unless the villain is really bad).