Hello I have been trying to get past 5nl . I know i have had a small sample size but despite putting in some study - I keep losing I don't know whether invest into an expensive gto solver to help me study more but i have just been using some pen and paper work to study, thinking about ranges - what percentage of their range is likely to call and determining pot odds and fold equity.

A large portion of my losses have been from me bluff raising with blockers oop the last 3 times i had a blocker to nut straight against a preflop raiser - they had the nut straight. Also I realise that i am losing a good amount of 3 bet pots when i 3bet from sb with pairs like the ranges i have been looking at tend to do so - any tips on how to play these would be great (do i. just give up the pot if i dont hit a set or have an overpair?). I have been playing using a basic strat of balancing premium hands and good draws into my betting/cxr ranges, mixing marginal hands and trash cards into checking range - also I look at my range and how it relates to flop texture when determining where my hand stand and have hands like top pair med kicker into checking/calling ranges.

I keep losing and at a very fast pace - i would like to hope its just variance but since i have been playing seriously only just about since last week i don't know whether i am just a losing nl5 trash player. Most of my spews are from hero calling i will see if i can find some hand examples but generally have valid reasons and i even used rng for those hero calls (by looking at how often i should call to not be exploited) ... I think i should probably stop doing that but i don't know if my sample size is large enough to really determine whether what i am doing is losing at nl5.

Honestly I was playing poker for fun usually with friends for around a year and already knew stuff about preflop ranges etc. Recently I have been working really hard but i keep losing and while playing was fun while i was learning all these new concepts and implementing them . Now its been a grind. Especially bad when I am down -30 pound and -15 due to rake. Heres a graph on ggpoker.

Also I think I am gonna stop going all in with AK in nl5 ...

A man learns best when he get burned, OP!

Yea I have definitely been more focused on improving my poker game. I think of every buyin lost as one less kfc burger I would buy.

My advice is to study preflop more, and focus on developing/studying a strong cbetting strategy.

And imo don’t randomize hero calls at NL5. Keep in mind MDF only applies when you arrive to the river with the “correct” range. If you are arriving too weak, defending at MDF is going to incinerate your money.

Thanks for the tips , i also realised after going through this thread that i posted in the wrong place I reckon my thread is not going to be as interesting as the other people here lol.

But things finally starting to turn around for me after being down almost 10 buyins now i am only down 5

Anyways if possible , mods could move this thread to where its appropriate.

Here's a recent hand i played - am i spewing? Should I fold pre , I don't have access to good preflop 4bet and 5bet charts - but according to the one i found i call so i did.

Anyways heres the hand.

I tried not using randomisers , i just actively reduced the amount of hero calls i have been doing in nl5 and that seems to print e.v...

But heres one where it just made sense in my head.
https://gg.gl/7xf4i



My nl5 thought process after calling pre.

Massive bet on flop by the sb - made no sense to me and generally speaking the pool of players tend to bet ridiculous when bluffing, I thought it was unlikely he had trip 10 10s and other sets , and only overpairs could potentialy bet for value and even then there's almost nothing calling this large sizing except really good draws, or hands that have you beat e.g sets. If he had bet third pot and half pot on the flop and turn i would have folded turn. But this large sizing made me feel like generally i have to call just simply because of mdf and protecting the top of my range. I also still had some equity cause he was unlikely to ever have the nuts on this flop. So even against an overpair I had 5 outs. I reckoned i would be able to get him all in with so much commited to the pot so I was okay with calling the flop. But felt like i should have folded the turn. Although in all cases the turn bet made no sense at all - it completes the straights, 10 9s hands get there and lot of . Generally speaking when a line makes no sense at all I call - which was working pretty well till then.

Looking back i realised that there simply aren't enough bluffs on the flop and on the turn. Non-overpair bluff hands will generally give up on the turn especially with it completing a straight and preflop caller here is more likely to have qjs etc.

Maybe I should only be calling with a diamonds on the turn.

Use your natural intuition as well. If you start discarding that you will not enjoy poker. You're not a gto bot and never will be
People at 5n play so far from anything close to a balanced strategy that you are doing a disservice to yourself by trying to play one yourself and it will become very frustrating

Alright, I'll move it to Beginners and General Questions.

Stopped reading after “bluff blockers, gto solver” etc etc.

I donÂ’t mean that offensively. YouÂ’re thinking way too many levels over 5nl meta.

Obviously knowing the proper GT0 is never bad and will only help.

However, this is 5nl where they wonÂ’t fold a single card straight on a 4 card straight flush board.

YouÂ’ll plug the hand into a solver and it wonÂ’t have a solution except fold for their hand pre-flop.



Situations that will make you profitable at 5nl will be something like this:

Hero: AQ

Pot: $0.88

Board: J 9 T 7 K no flush

Hero: bets $2

Villain: shoves for $6

Hero: call

Villain shows QJ



That kind of situation will happen so much, you might even float a street to hit a gutter that will nut you and allow for ridiculous implied odds.

Started doing this in 1/2 and 2/5 live games long ago. And it still works today.


Definitely get a solver and study. But you likely wonÂ’t make big profit in micro stakes with GTO.

IÂ’m sitting on a very low current sample of 10k hands at 5nl with a 32 bb/100 and 31 EV bb/100.

And every time IÂ’ve gotten bored and started playing GTO or anywhere close, IÂ’ve started to trend down. And had to revert back to playing tight and doing stupid **** that IÂ’d never do in anything larger than a 2/5 live game.

Also, don’t worry too much at being exploitable.

Just don’t get into too many hands with anyone that seems capable of exploiting you.

Your targets should be rec players playing 40% or more hands. They aren’t going to be too capable of exploiting you.

Start marking players after 10 or so hands.

After 20 or so, if no one there is playing 40% or more, find another table.

If you’re doing zoom style, I’d switch to 6max regular. Zoom is a different meta and will have more regs who will play better.

Situations that will get you broke at 5nl:


Hero: AcKd

Board: 7c 8d 2c 5d 5c

Villain bets

Hero raise

Villain raise

Hero shoves (hero has Ac blocker for nut flush. As well as paired board. Making it very hard for a call without being full up)

Villain insta calls and shows Tc6c

Hero kicks dog and runs the hand in 17 solvers and it says villain should fold 110 out of 100 times.