If I'm reading that right, what you're trying to do is develop a population tendency strategy for 50-100NL and apply that to 2NL. I also get the impression that you think maximizing your WR at 2NL would hinder your long term success.

An alternate way to look at this is that you aren't making "2NL adjustments", but playing an optimal strategy against a certain villain type. That is something you have to do regardless of what stakes you are playing, and requires constant strategic adjustments as you play against different players.

Speaking long term, what happens if you run into someone at 100NL that has the same tendencies as a 2NL player? Your EV against that opponent might be 5bb/100 when playing a stock strategy at 100NL, but it could be 35bb/100 if you learned how to fully exploit the sh*t out of them, which is what should've been practiced at 2NL

tl;dr - don't undermine optimal adjustments just because it's 2NL. Recognizing when to play a 2NL strategy and a GTO strategy is a skill that's imperative for success

You however shouldn't make these adjustments until you know what specific player you are playing against, otherwise you are making incorrect 2nl adjustments without a proper read.

Acknowledging we are playing at 2NL already implies certain tendencies. We miss out on some good spots if we wait for a certain # of hands before playing a certain way. At 2NL, I would assume everyone is ******ed before I start giving them credit, not the other way around.

I think 5nl and 10nl on American sites have more decent people than you are giving them credit for. Not saying that they are awesome, but they aren't bad enough not to notice a huge betting tell like that.

Well yeah. I wouldn't suggest the same things I mentioned earlier itt for those stakes (without reads)

I'm not claiming to be doing anything right. I could be completely wrong about everything.

My plan wasn't to take NL100 strat. My plan was to start with GT based principles and use them ASAP, hence starting with Applications of NLHE. The chart is clearly wrong, and I knew that I couldn't 3 bet and open those ranges in NL2. Did you notice one hand where I played those? I made adjustments, and a couple of people pointed out I didn't adjust far enough. I trust you more than me, so message received. Adjust more. Maybe I arrive at a more standard place, and I wasted time reading the advanced stuff. If it screws me up, it will show up in my next hands and I'll have to try something else.

I do think that maximizing my 2NL WR will hurt my long term growth. Passing up difficult decisions, staying out of spots I can't yet handle, and all the other good advice to beginners is contrary to my goal. I want to move up. I don't care if I lose my entire balance (though I hope I'm incapable of that ). I'm happier to make mistakes for $2 per crack than $25. Hence, playing 2NL instead of $25. I don't want to do anything to improve my WR here that isn't fundamentally good poker or is targeted to "you don't have to know that to beat these games". I assume I'll hurt my WR significantly by getting into spots that confuse me, playing badly, and losing tons of equity.


I've read a couple books and played 300 hands (you got to watch some of the first 10 or 20 in that set). Would most people be further along at that point? I'm someone who has played professional stakes online in another game. I assume I have tons of stuff to unlearn before the learning even starts. Again, the plan is to make those horrible mistakes early.

So why post in the BQ forum? Honestly, I think that most beginners should see the smallest stakes just like I'm saying I'm trying to. The difference between 0.30 an hour and 0.65 an hour is meaningless to most people. The only purpose these stakes serve is to stop being horrible. Right now I'm bad, and I'd like to stop being that way. As soon as I do, I want to learn the next set of things (or forget the things I shouldn't have learned) and move up. Don't add more tables. Don't learn to grind better. Get better at poker and move up. It is possible I could fail horribly, but at least let's hope it is in a fun way.

My goal isn't to move up to NL10 or NL25 and grind $12/hour or whatever is possible. The end goal is to be good.

I'm running at 14/10/3.37 over 13k hands at 2NL, which I imagine is really nit-TAG but I'm folding so much more than you are in your hand examples.

Post or pre?

Probably both but definitely pre. If I have some time I'll write a post on some of my thoughts on specific hands you played.

Thanks for posting the video though, it's interesting.

Step one to stopping the bleeding is often playing tighter. It makes post flop easier. It could be that it would help me to do so. Interested to know which hands I played that you pass.

Natural inclinations will be to play too many hands, to try to vbet too often, and show down too much, I suspect.

Here are a few of thoughts on what I would do in some of the hands. I enjoyed watching it, I kinda used it as a chance to think about my own thought processes. If anyone amazingly finds time to read my post I'd appreciate any comments. I'm not saying what I'm suggesting is correct, it's just what I'd do.

One caveat to add is that I don't use a HUD so I just ignored any of the stats I saw and I just thought about my own standard lines. I also might be a nit at 2nl, but meh. The hands are in order of how you see them in the video anybody who might read this tl;dr post.

55 - Call on the BTN, for the reasons described in the video. Call the 3bet shove is terrible because you don't have the implied odds - as described in the video.

JTo - Fold, though maybe it's nitty. If it were JTs I might isolate the limper if he's particularly terrible or limp behind if the blinds are passive and really suck and I want to let them in multi-way.

A8s - Call pre. Isolating OOP is going to be tricky and Ax makes up a large part of any 2NL fish's range. We're likely getting called, playing a multi-way pot with a hand that could be dominated. I'd take the great odds pre, call and hope for that flush draw. Flop is one of those 'click auto fold and look at a different table' flops.

T8o - No problem here. Bottom of your range as said in the video. This will become read-dependent on the BB. If he's terrible and/or folds a lot, keep stealing. .

A2s - No problem with raising or checking behind pre. Marginal flop but I probably prefer betting flop and checking down thereafter to get to showdown. Bet 0.04 on the flop, check back turn if called (and be done with the hand).

AA - 3x pre, snap-call flop and lol at short stack villain.

KK - Bet, checking is terrible for reasons stated in the video.

ATs - Fold. I'm not cold-calling 6bbs pre with ATs. It's so likely we're dominated. Large raise sizes pre at 2NL are usually what they look like; strong hands. That's from my experience anyway.

A2s - Fold. I'm sensing a pattern here with these small Ax hands, I'm just not a fan of reverse implied odds. If we cold-call here, we risk being squeezed and we can't reasonably call a 3 bet. I'm much more likely to want to be in a multi-way pot with something like 78s than an Ax hand.

KK - Shove. Isolate. Feel unlucky if we see AA but expect to see AJs+, 99+ and some spazzier stuff so much of the time. Laugh at how terrible villain is.

44 - Call pre. Love these spots. We have great implied odds since we're probably being called behind by at least 1 of the blinds. Flop a set, stack fish. Set-mining should be a huge part of your win-rate, I know it's a huge part of mine.

89s - Call pre. Our hand flops great multi-way. Isolating isn't terrible at all but I'm not sure we're getting HU since the villains all seem like calling stations on this table so why juice the pot?

AQ - Difficult for me to comment on since I don't use a HUD. This would be really villain-dependent. I might 4bet, call or fold depending on the player. AQ pre is a bit of a leak in my own game to be honest.

KTs - Call pre, check flop and the turn decision is one I'm unsure of. I don't like turning our hand into a bluff but I think we can definitely be called by worse so I think leading out is OK.

88 - Call 3bet pre because it's small. Check-fold all the way. Betting the river is far too thin.

AJ - Isolate pre. Raise villain donk-bet on the flop and get it in.

TT - Snap-call turn. I play the hand exactly the same. I'm not folding top set. Villain has too many possible spazzy combos that he's overplaying. I'm guessing an overpair but who knows? You can't give villains that much credit at 2NL, they have a far bigger spazz-factor than any other limit.

Q3 - Raise flop, nice flop-raise sizing. I bet about half-pot and fold to a raise. Sure, flush draws are part of villain's range but so too are loads of Qx combos, 55, 77, 88, 99, TT, JJ that we beat. As played, I agree with your "sad-face fold".

TT - Eurgh. I guess I make the decision based on my read of UTG. Fold is fine as you described the UTG as passive. TT is also probably a leak in my own game. I don't know if I play it too passively or too aggressively sometimes.

K6s - I don't have a lot of experience playing 4-way or less but I guess opening from the CO with K6s might be standard? Check-fold all the way. I'm probably switching table! (Though I know you don't have this option).

99 and KK - Same as above, almost zero experience playing HU cash.

44 - Call. Fold flop.

At 2NL, villain's biggest leaks' by far are that they call too much. We beat them because we exploit them by having their range crushed pre. We outflop them and we bet for value.

E.g, we raise AQ and they call with A4s. We take their money on a A-high board. Repeat.

My current experience is that my value bets aren't getting called much. I'm not getting people calling me down light. Either the advice that the don't care about bet size and they will call isn't working in these games, or I'm unlucky in a small sample. I'm never close to getting stacks one pair vs one pair.

If I went with what I've seen, I'd bluff 2 streets 100% and lol slowplay any big hand. Again, 500 hands can convince you of strange things. Going to play a couple thousand more hands and see. What you guys describe as typical opponents aren't what I'm seeing. Also, there was zero difference between 2nl and 5nl.

Short term plan is to listen to what you guys are saying, improve by eliminating huge mistakes, get in a couple thousand hands, and reevaluate.

Meaningless sample.

Work on your thought processes during hands, as you are doing by posting the video.

I personally believe this statement is incorrect. The way to maximise your 2NL winrate is precisely by playing in as many marginal spots as you can and playing them better than your opponent. Playing LAGTAG / LAG and solid post flop will make you far more than playing like a set mining nit. Maximise your winrate and move up ASAP once you know you can crush the level.

Kind of. I mean today, if I wanted to maximize my 2NL WR, I'd avoid spots I can't handle. I'll tend to screw them up. If I want to be a better player 6 months from now or a year from now, I should play in as many tough spots as is reasonable because I'll have more experience in them. I think we're in agreement, the long term goal is to be good. Thus, nitting it up now and avoiding trouble hands doesn't meet my goals. It will cost me buyins today because I'll wind up with TPNK against narrow ranges or whatever else the punishment is for being a clueless lag is. Later having the experience to back it up, LAGTAG probably is maximizing profit -- you just expect that clueless me is going to blast off a few stacks because I'm there post flop, it is clear what to do next, and I randomly pick the wrong button.

I think I need a little while to crush, but thanks for the vote of confidence. Any hand you hated more than the rest?

It takes time, I would be concentrating on NLHE basics rather than worrying about GT for the next month or two (oddly enough coming from a LHE background you will likely pick up the advanced concepts faster than the basic NLHE fundamentals). e.g. It took me forever to realise that AJ wasn't an auto triple barrel on an Axxxx board because that's standard in LHE.

It is going to take as long as it takes, sadly. I hope no one reading this thinks that I believe I'm 3 months away from small or mid stakes. I'm actually aware that the learning curve in 2014 is a bit different than 2004 (when I crushed NL SNGs despite having no idea of NL, like 20+2's 30+3's). Still, it is fun to learn new things. Basics, here I come.

I think it's a great thing that your doing , documenting it here, and I look forward to following your journey.

Good luck, I'll stick my 2c in where I can

I think you'll learn quite quicky. I've never played cash games above 2NL before so I could be wrong but I would think that they get a lot tougher. I don't know how much correlation there is between a successful 2NL style and a successful 10NL+ style.

You don't have to worry about balance or being exploitable at all at 2NL. Just don't play passively and value bet well.

Doug, thanks for posting this. It's very nice to see hands dual narrated with someone experienced. You also have a low-key attitude about your game, which makes the video very watchable. Keep it up. Sub'ed for future videos.

Once I think I'm good, I'm planning on being unbearable. Thanks fir the kind words.

You gonna make more of these?

I'm thinking every other week with a different guest. I need enough time to learn new stuff, so every week is too often. It could also be that monthly is better, so if vid 2 is too close in mistakes to 1, I'll do that. If anyone else wants to do videos, I have the ware. To sound decent, I'd recommend a 30 or 40 dollar Plantroics headset. The DC guys use $200 German ones, but Boomer recommended the one I'm using as cheaper and nearly as good.

You should consider what I'm doing for self review. Pick a stretch of time, look at every big hand or pot. Looking at all of the ones you're not sure about is good. Pick the worst 10 out of every 500 hands you play - that's where you improve.

Nice work...I can be a guest if you like...it would be like the 'blind leading the blind' but might be funny...anyway...nice vid looking forward to the next.. :-)