this will be counter-intuitive to what many posters will say - so some will argue back, even without PokerStars experience, but w/e...

I have 10 years experience playing on Stars, all as a microstakes recreational.

5nl is harder than 10nl and always has been (on Stars!!)

This is because of the geographic playing pools and their respective bankrolls.

5nl is full of Eastern European nit reg grinders who live in countries where 500 bucks is a months pay.

10 nl is fully of splashy recs (like me ) who come from regions where 500 bucks is a night out.

Over large samples I've beaten 2nl, 10nl and b/e at 25nl and 50nl.

I've never beaten 5nl.

Save up a decent roll and skip it.

Better still, find a better site to play on.

Disclaimer for accuracy and integrity. I have not played on Stars for 18 months (there are much better, easier sites to play on). Also a lot of my time (not all of it) was on Zoom, but I think it applies equally to reg speed.

That was very interesting insight and I have never thought about it.

...I'll give you a little more...

Being a rec I also mixed in a fair amount on micro buy in single table tourney $1.5, $3, reg spd.

I played at totally random times; totally random days.

Pretty much every single STT there were the same 3 or 4 accounts...literally ever present. These guys were like mass multitabling 24/7.

Could be bots (Stars, probably not), could be grind houses playing the same accounts round the clock, or just hard-ass grinders, churning away.

w/e, with the awful rake, non-exisitent rake back, and huge proportion of wannabee grinding nit regs, Stars microstakes, gotta be the nut low worst environment for trying to grind a bankroll from nothing.

Find out where the fish (apps maybe idk?) and play there.

TBC, I'm not a Stars hater at all...I played there a very long time. Eventually it just got boring, pointless and also incredibly annoying trying work out all the endless "bonus" (AKA rakeback lol) features.

Here's my tiny sample from the last month.
I don't feel like 5NL is any different from 2NL so far.
I see the same spew, mistakes and dumb ****.
This is PokerStars.

Hand 1: I usually fold super low pockets UTG (2's to 4's maybe even 5's). UTG is a difficult spot positionally. Getting 3bet is a very hard spot with them, and most of the time there's lots of overcards on the boards.

Hand 2: I would just call I think. I'm not quite sure. I wouldn't personally 4bet but perhaps its good?

Hand 3: 4 bet. Depending on pot odds, probably calling his 5bet jam as well . Against QQ and lower (and AK) its +EV, and AA/KK its -EV I guess.

I Keep getting the worst of it. The only good news is that I have reached silver and now have 40% challenge

You should get some coaching or join a training site, preferably both.
It's highly unlikely you "keep getting the worst of it" you're probably just making too many mistakes.

Join a site like Runitonce if you can afford the sub, but if not there is some pretty decent content on YouTube for free.

Post hands that you are unsure of here, and your stats in the analysis threads, and also join a study group.

You have to constantly work on your game in order to improve, but please get out of the mindset of having terrible luck being the reason of lack of progression.

I know that I make mistakes. Yesterday I was just frustrated, because of another losing session . I thought about joining training site or study group, but for now I have decided to play and post some hands here. I just to improve on myself [with little help from this forum ofcourse], since it is just the second step of my journey. Once I reach 10nl I will join study group and will commit myself solely on playing and studying.

Why wait until you reach 10nl? Commit yourself now. You get out what you put in.

Dont focus on results or variance over small samples.. Focus on making the correct decisions and the money will follow.

Getting coaching and training earlier is better, it stops you from developing bad habits that are hard to un-learn later.

I agree entirely, but coaching will be expensive and can OP sustain that whilst grinding on a 5NL roll?

It's not hard to beat levels 2NL - 10NL with some studying, so I'd suggest OP grinds up and seeks coaching after 50NL.. I reached 50NL and have to admit I didn't apply myself study wise as much as I'd hoped. I didn't play for 3 years and moved over to 6max, and grinded up $10 to like $900. I'm in the process of coming back to the game, and will deposit to play 50NL, but will study a ton and get coaching to move up and hopefully pad my income from my day job.

OP - get a sub at Runitonce and watch as much as you can.. I enjoy watching the videos and pausing at spots and make a mental note of how I'd play, then watch how the coach plays and listen to his thought process, likewise with hand history reviews.

hand 1 definitely check turn, but as payed barreling river is probably the an ok/breakeven play, depending on further reads. you would need to bet large though, not like 1/2 pot.


hand 2: 4 bet decision depends also on opponent WTSD %,. If that is high, you should gear 4bets more towards value hands. If its low, then deceptive hands like this are perfect to 4bet. also depends on his fold to 4bet of course.

hand 3: as I wrote above, this is a perfect hand to 4bet (for value) vs looser opponents, and imo lean toward calling for the more nittier ones - providing the benefit of retaining the chance to outplay postflop. Given the stats I know of the opponent, I would probably raise here.

There are many other aspects of postflop playstyles to consider when making preflop decisions, but at this level It doesn't need to get too deep

I would like to know if my sizing OTF was ok or it was too big?

Preflop is way too big. Flop is maybe slightly too big.

Your 4bet pre is slightly too big. A typical 4bet IP wants to bet 2x - 2.2x the 3bet.
So in this case you'd want to 4bet to 0.90 - 0.99.
OOP we go slightly bigger to 2.5x iirc.
This might be different for different 3bet and 4bet strategies though.

Bet sizing is a difficult thing, it changes a lot with different strategies.
For example if we would range bet this flop, we would want to go with a very small size like 25% pot (typical in a 4bet pot)

But if we're not range betting, we could bet bigger with part of our range and smaller with another part and just check yet another part.
Not really sure if this is a good flop to do this in a 4bet pot, but it looks close.

kings hand seems fine. i wouldn't worry too much about the specific sizing, you have only about a pot bet left, as long as you're not minbetting, if he wants to play he'll get it in with you regardless of the size

Don't have much info on the opp. Is this a standart call here?

Yeah in theory you are gonna need to call here. With that said, turn and river x/rs at micros can be super nutted from some villains so with reads I wouldn't hate finding some bet/folds. But calling off is fine.

If you have a small to medium sample on opponent, you want to make your decision primarily based on the AF stat, since that will help you determine whether this opponent is likely to raise vs call when holding something like Ax.

This seems extremely close and it probably doesn't matter much if you call or fold OTR.

you mean ott?

Here is another hands from today:
MP is 61/13 over 30 hands. Although it is a small sample size I think that he is weak loose passive, because I have seen him couple of times making loose calls all the way to the river and once I saw him making triple barrel with some gutshot [he caught the river for 4th pair and made pot sized bet on a very wet board]


Do you agree with the shove? My logic is that, since he is weak and with broken stack, he will call with alot worse and also if I make regular sized 4 bet we are pot commited so ... Another reason for the shove is that I don't have to play the hands oop. What do you say

there's a bit of an issue here in that you are confusing his looseness when he is calling with looseness when raising. if he was 60/45 then sure, get it in, but he isn't - he's raised 4/30 times in your sample. perfectly possible for someone to be a bit loosey goosey when calling, but if they do raise they have the goods. it's only 30 hands, but it seems like you are trying to justify your shove which ran into a bigger pair

i have no idea what you mean by "with broken stack" either

I got this term from one of the users in this forum and it means that he started the hand with less than 100 bb or something like that. I am not trying to justify my play. The reason that I posted it here is because I think I messed up and I wanted to hear your opinion. I am just letting you know what my thought process was during the hand.

Yes, turn, obviously.

I'd guess 4bet shoving JJ 70bb eff is +EV.
I'd probably play it the same.

30 hands on this villain doesn't give you much info, except that they're very likely horrible