My advice is to run lot of sweat sessions. Maybe someone can find the leak in your game that is causing you to lose. Once u get this plugged up u seem to have the work ethic to win so u should be ok

Just keep working on your game man. Don't give up nothing comes easy, No pain No gain.
Keep reviewing hands in HEM. Join some poker groups you can find these on the DC forums. Get a subscrip to DC and watch some Micro stakes videos. You'll be a baller in no time. Keep at it.

Grunching


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I have similar problems finding local people to talk about my play with.

Something I did, and need to do again, was record a 20-25 minute session of my play. I only showed 2 tables, even though I usually play four. Then I posted a link to the video for comments in the uNL area. I got a lot of helpful advice. And people discussed various things and it helped me think about my game a lot. If you can, record sound so you can talk about your thought process during each hand.

It might help people spot things you would not think to question before. I had just moved up to 25nl and was having trouble getting the hang of it. Without even realizing it, I had tightened up my late position play... way too much. Anyway, a video of your play might give really good returns in helping your game.

I think it is very possible that you are focusing TOO much on the simple math and forgetting to put villains on a range of hands. If you are multitabling I mean you don't really have much time to make a decision and if the entire time during a hand you are trying to figure out precise odds you are going to end up neglecting villains betting patterns and just forget to put them on a range. I would say try to focus more on ranging villains by their play style, betting lines etc and just quickly estimate/ballpark the odds. if you do the math away from the table it gets a lot easier to quickly estimae in game. Basically what I'm saying is that if you are in a hand and for 15 seconds you are trying to figure out that you are getting 2.653:1 on a call, but you have no idea what kind of range villain has, you are doing it wrong. The math is pretty much useless without ranges, since you need to figure out your pot equity vs villains range to see if the odds are good or not.

not too long ago, i was BARELY a winner at nl2 and a huge loser at nl5-nl10

I am now beating 25nl rush for a solid win rate, and I plan on moving up to nl50-100 by the end of the year.

It can be tough when you're used to crushing the bums in your local 1-2 games, and you have put lots of work into your game. I know I did.

Take the advice everyone gave you.

Work harder. Analyze your hands.

Typical mistakes at your levels - Overplaying TPTK, Bet sizing, Bluffing, poor value bets, poor pot control, poor hand reading.

To me, now, the micros are laughably easy. It's hard to imagine I was a huge loser at one point at them. I worked insanely hard. Stayed up all night till 5 am reading and studying and watching. My friend, who is now playing NL100 while I am still at nl10 and nl25 learned faster than me. Everyone's path is different.

Just listen to the advice everyone gave you.

I should note that I have done much much much better in rush than standard ring games. But I don't know if that will necc. be the same for you.
I've found it easier to exploit in many ways.

If I lose 30+bi's at 5nl I WILL have to reevaluate though.

havent u already lost over 80 BIs? you said in the op u were down -14bb/100 over 60k

i wouldn't worry too much i lost over $200 over a long period of time playing nl5.

Its laughably easy now.

I worked my ass off, like you wouldn't believe.

Whatever you end up doing, please don't take this guys advice.

Ya, I understand some big englishes, but I was like wat? I must be dumber that i thunk.

innocouslous, maybe it's old english

huh?


So you played 20-30 days so far? When did you read the 10 books and watch all those videos? Before that?


My advice would be:
- if you cant beat 5NL, move down to 2NL (seriously)
- play less tables, optimal 2, maximum 4 until you have a winrate >0bb/100
- play short sessions, maximum 2h
- review every session, post hands, discuss hands in the forums
- tighten up (it will show instant profit and is good for the motivation)
- do everything CMAR said in his post

Try to be more humble. Dont underestimate your opponents at 2/5NL. Some of those villains are other 2+2ers

Just because you read a few books doesnt mean that you will automatically profit. Everyone can read those books. It'll take time to really "understand" the concepts and when to apply them.

Play the game because you enjoy it. For no other reason!

Even Chris Ferguson uses atleast some instinct, you need to think less about the mechanics of the game in a way that forces you to view the game as a linear experience with predetermined parameters. Poker is a game of infinite variations and most importantly you must learn to adapt, I was very much like you and what really turned my game around was not just getting people on ranges but really trying to get in the heads of every player at the table and figure out a way to bust each one of them. When you sit at a table don't try and play fancy, play like 99% of successful pros, play ABC poker until you get to know the tendencies of the players.

Do not try fancy plays, do not try to make big bluffs, do not play crappy hands out of position and never make hero calls (etc. etc). until you understand how the other people at the table play. Remember that only 5% of players are winners so even though you think 45cc is a decent hand it really is -EV until you know how every one of the other players behind you approach the game. Seriously, tighten way up and just watch what the other people at the table do, it's really easy to see how the others play right away and based on that you make adjustments to bust them. Don't overthink things so much, a weak draw OOP is crappy no matter how weak the player is behind you. People want an easy way to win at every table, but there isn't one and that's why poker is so hard.

Robo is right. Just play hardcore ABC poker until you are completely comfortable with the basics. Once you are in a spot where you can always be level headed and thinking about what is going on then you can start taking single steps ahead. Does your heart beat faster when you get aces? You probably aren't totally comfortable yet. When you get monster hands on the flop do you forget to keep thinking about what your opponent has and only play your cards against the board? You probably aren't totally comfortable yet. Try to become very desensitized to your hole cards. Have the same reaction when you look at 72o as you do when you look at 2 red aces. This will allow you to have the confidence and balls to make light 3 bets, and make button raises when it folds to you regardless of what you're holding, and it will also allow you to think with so much clarity while you're in a hand. Remember, big hands don't always lead to big pots, and big pots don't always require big hands. But when dealing with either of the 2 you need to be thinking very clear. Tame your heart beat! Stick to the ABC for now. And if it takes 9 months for you to get out of that stage so be it. Fundamentals are fundamentals. No one can master them, they always require practice and more practice.

set aside some money you can afford to lose and just play how you envision good creative players play. put yourself in interesting spots and stimulate your brain with what lines might have worked and why. your abc nit style isn't working for some reason so you need to start rethinking your strategy. do this all 1 tabling. you shouldn't be playing more than 1 anyway until you are winning and know why you're winning.

just experiment different ways of playing, focus on everything your opponents do, and figure out what hands lead to profitable situations against different types of players. pay attention to stack sizes, implied odds, bet sizing (mainly the least amount of money you need to bluff and best way to build pots so you can get stacks in if you have a good hand or make a good hand), and how your opponents are playing. this is microstakes so don't be afraid of losing money doing this if you can make it work it's just an investment and if you can't at least you tried and got let off relatively cheap.

I think he needs to get less creative to be honest. Less fancy plays and less implied odds. Don't bluff at microstakes, it's -EV, trust me. Semi-bluffing in position or semi-bluff/c/r is also ok with extremely strong draws but asides from that do not bother thinking about bluff sizing because you should not be bluffing at all. So maybe you have Ahigh and you think the button is bluffing the river with a busted flush draw, doesn't matter, just fold. You are not Tom Dwan or Phil Ivey; fold weak hands, bet strong draws in position, protect made hands OOP on dangerous boards and practice value-betting. That should be your game right now, with an occasional c-bet thrown in for practice when you think it will work, fyi, c-bets work less frequently than we'd hope for so only do it when you really think it will work. Do not think about:

-bluffing with air
-light 3-betting from the blinds
-hero calls
-double/triple barreling
-soul reads
-trapping/slowplaying
-any other fancy plays

once you have the 4 core ideas I mentioned down pat you can begin to incorporate other aspects, but those 4 aspects should be 90% of every players arsenal when starting out and the other 10% should be table analysis.

You sound fairly determined and that's a great start. If you can follow the instructions laid out in the link below - you will almost certainly turn things around at uNL.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/78...clinic-564111/

this

60k hands is nothing. I play that many in a month. Experience is the key. Books, and video, and math, and studying your hand histories, and all that stuff are good, but playing, a lot, is what makes a great player.

Ask a winning poker friend to look over some of your hands, and drop the number of tables until you've proven you can win.

Also, **** looking at huds. You probably arent experienced enough yet to properly apply the stats. Just disable the hud all together, drop to 2-3 tables so you can actually follow the action, hell even 1 table if you have to, and focus on owning players. You dont need a HUD to realize that the fish who limps Q8o utg should get the **** value raised out of him by like 80% of your hands. Or that the maniac raising ATC should be setmined and sent packing.

it's not necc. bad advice i know multiple people who could not beat the micros but did moderatly well at 25nl+

Is it possible that those who tried, and failed, didn't talk about it much?

I'm looking over my most losing hands is from this massive leak I see.

Light 4-Betting.
AKs
AQs

I saw some to advanced concepts in some videos and I think I didn't assimilate them probably.

Wow, just looked at them all and in 1 2k hand session I lost $10 4-Betting AKs preflop.

Seems that I did know what I was doing but this isn't 200nl. I heard that in the higher levels it is better to combine the fold equity and all that. I'm going to completely erase that play from my tool kit till later stakes.

Thanks for all the tips everyone, this thread is really getting some response and I appreciate.

Jesus....all the 4-Bet hands are where I've lost all my wins from sessions. Dear god...
==========================

Now that I have found a leak, how do I remind myself not to keep doing the mistake?

4-Betting, I should notice it more!

Yeah these are the kind of spots I get in trouble with often.

Just yesterday I had 2 tables each with 2 players with 3bet 15%. 5 times I
4bet & got it in PF/OTF & lost 4 times - 3BI down quick as you like. Obv I was being 3bet light, but its high variance getting it in here.

yeah 4-betting is a huge mistake unless you are playing against a known maniac who will play ATC and at this point you definitely are not good enough to be thinking metagame/range balancing. So anyways, AK is fairly easy to play preflop, raise your standard 3-4x BB and just call any 3-bets unless a complete nit shoves. If you are light 4-betting you are playing way way too loose, which is what I figured (as I used to do the same thing). Poker is a game of minor adjustments to your game over time and to apply advanced concepts when you don't understand the basics, it's like.... skiing, you don't learn how to do a backflip when you don't know how to do a snowplow because you'll just end up killing yourself. Just like poker, don't bother 4-betting anything but AA or KK until you know how to analyze players and read ranges more effectively. Light 4-betting is something you do against regs for very slight edges over a long amount of time. Tighten up, a lot, play your hands in a more standard fashion and make minor adjustments to the game when you can analyze players more effectively.

Your main goal now is to make good decisions and see if you can be a winner. Once you have figured out how to win you can start to try new things, but again, you have hardly learned to strap on your skis and you're trying aerials. quit multi-tabling, quit 4-betting non top 2 hands, quit playing so loose.