The way I like to think about it is this (and this is villain dependent, HEAVILY). Before you decide whether or not to fold or reraise (or set-mine in the case of 99 or worse), ask yourself "If I call, will I be forced to check-fold/fold to a c-bet on the flop if I miss? If I reraise, can I steal the pot if he has JJ or less, or AQ+?" Sometimes, you can get the nittiest of players to lay down QQ on a safe flop because "Obviously you have KK or AA; why else would you reraise me?"

*Disclaimer: I'm not saying this is the correct way, but for the sake of discussion-

3-betting AQ is entirely read dependent and position dependent as well. I don't like 3-betting AQ (or even cold-calling) mainly because that's a hand you can be totally dominated with....it's even worse when I'm out of position (Note to self: Follow your own advice ya ****in' donk).

Mind you if you have Captain Donk-A-Thon sitting to your right, raising every single pot, then yeah, 3-bet his ass to value town.

Same thing with TT. It depends on the player.

What happens when you 3-bet with TT, get called, and under-cards fall on the flop. Yeah, there are only 4-hands that beat you, but you can run into them more often than not.


Instead of thinking whether or not you should be 3-betting with TT and AQ etc... wait a couple of hands to get some reads. Pay attention to the hands which they raised that went to showdown...then decide whether or not you're 3-betting often enough or too little.

1) If you have a pocket pair, wouldn't you want the limper to have the largest stack possible so that you will have bigger implied odds to make a set? Or, do you recommend that when the limper has a deep stack, you should raise preflop with a small pocket pair to build the pot, which will enable you to get more money in post flop without having to make oversized bets?

2) What about playing suited Aces, e.g. A2s? Raise or fold?

Excellent post dude, keep it up - helping me a lot.

I know your question was directed at OP, but again, for discussion's sake:


Playing Ace-X suited as almost as bad as playing any 2 suited cards (with the obvious exception that, you'll have the nuts if you hit).

I only like the play this hand a couple of ways:

(1) I can see the flop cheap in multi-way pots

(2) Against a loose-passive table I raise pre-flop. If an Ace hits, I c-bet and if I get called, it's how good I think my kicker is. If I hit the draw, I play aggressively and try to take the pot. If I make my hand, value bet, value bet, value bet.

3) Against the right villain, I really like using this trick (it works a lot at the micros, except at the micros I haven't run into this villain a lot). I raise it up with Ace-x suited. I hit my four-flush draw on the flop. I bet. He calls. I make my flush on the turn. I check ("Oh no, a flush, I'm afraid now") If our villain's brave/dumb enough, he'll take a big stab at the pot (usually an overbet). I'll purposely go into my time bank before calling. If a blank comes, I usually check again to try to induce another bluff.


I don't recommend number 3 very often. It's only worked for me a few times. You need to be up against the idiot who's runnin 70/14/8 or something ridiculous, but when you're OOP against them it might work out.

Most of the time though I probably make more money just value betting.

I think it's amusing that in this thread we have seen both these claims made:

1) Nobody ever folds at uNL
2) People ALWAYS fold when I raise at uNL

Both of these claims are exaggerations. To the guy who said that people always fold when he raises: I find it incredible that your conclusion from this is that you should not raise. The conclusion should be that you should raise more often - MUCH more often. In fact, as long as people keep this always-folding behaviour up, I would raise every hand. DUCY?

By the way, the discussion about beating uNL games with a strategy designed to see a lot of flops in position is a bit academic. While it may well be possible to destroy uNL games with such a strategy (not having played them, I wouldn't know), this is only relevant if one's aim is to learn to crush microstakes for the maximum BB/100. That shouldn't be anyone's aim. Your aim should be to develop a game that solidly wins but, more importantly, allows you to move up in stakes. In any case, assuming you are capable of multitabling, a strategy which wins the maximum BB/100 may not be the best one. For instance, playing 20 VPIP and beating the game for 10BB/100 is just as good (in terms of $/hr) as playing 40 VPIP and beating it for 15BB/100 assuming that playing 20 VPIP allows you to play 50% more tables.

1) No because you want a decent sized pot when you hit so the villain feels like it is worth fighting you for victory.

2) suited acces are up there with suited connectors, if there are several limpers and there are a couple crazy short stacks you can limp.. but otherwise jack that **** up (should be almost always)

More accurately, you are trying to maximise two things, implied odds and actual money won. If you have implied odds of 10 to 1 on your $2 that you put in preflop, that is more valuable than having 10 to 1 on your $0.50 preflop. Of course, having 40 to 1 on $0.50 would be just as good, but in practice implied odds are limited by how many value bets you can reasonably get in. For instance, if you have $1,000,000 each and are playing $0.05/$0.10 NL, you aren't really getting 10 million to one implied odds on a limp, because your implied odds are limited by potential pot size, not by stacks.

What about play from the small blind WCGRider. In limped pots are you calling here with a wide range? Are you raising with an even wider range? What kind of ranges are they? I really feel my SB is a huge leak. I call connectors 1 gap suited connectors any hand with a face card in. Its hard to not call 5c when theres 45c in the flop preflop? Like to hear your views on that. Thanks.

Being out of position in a multiway pot with a speculative hand is about as bad as it gets. With fantastic pot odds, you can complete in the small blind and hope for the miraculous perfect flop, but other than that, you can't expect good conditions to draw nor the ability to extract value when you hit.

You're not making a large mistake to fold all but the very best hands in the blinds. If I'm playing from the blinds, I like to play fast to try to take the pot down early. The very best players can play profitably out of position, but most of us are better off waiting a hand or two for the button. Letting their blinds get stolen is not a major leak for most beginners.

just fold everything you wouldnt play utg from the sb. Go from there as you get better.

I agree. I think looking at the SB as a cheaper way to see a flop because it's only 1/2 bet in a limped pot is not a good way to play it. Yes, if you have multiple limpers AND a hand that plays well in a family pot OOP, then by all means complete, but folding marginal hands in the SB should be the first choice.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that you should look for a reason to fold in the SB. If you have one or think you have one, fold! If you really can't find one, ok, play your hand, but remember you're OOP. If you're hand is good enough to play from the SB, it should probably be good enough to raise from the SB, so raise or fold most of the time, with a heavy lean towards folding.

Please feel free to call me out if this thinking is flawed.

If you have a small pocket pair, how does just calling achieve that when there is a limper with a smallish stack behind?

Also:

1) In 'uNL', what does the 'u' stand for?

2) What does 'ldo' mean?

Question for OP. I have 30k hands from when I started playing 1/2c NL 6max on stars to 50nl 6max on Full Tilt and Stars my stats are as follows

V$PIP = 21.01
ATT. To steal blinds = 27.93
Won $ WSF% = 38.10 (This seems quite low)
Went to SD% = 27.14
Won $ at SD% = 54.56
PF raise % = 14.93
Total AF = 2.34

Are these stats ok to have for 6max? If anyone else has the answer please comment.

That would be me making the cockroach claim. Someone previously said:" The players scattering effect generally means they were willing to see a flop with almost anything (typical), and missed (also typical). You weren't going to make much on the hand anyway, so take the profit and smile." which sound reasonable so I'll give it a try.

I still believe what I am observing was correct; I may have been reacting to it in a sub-optimal manner. I have also noticed that if I don't raise until the turn or even the river, folks continue to put money in the pot and I win more.
Again, my perception. So I have to evaluate the two approaches. - MIke

The the lower case Greek Mu is used in electronics when you want to express micro units as in "microamps". The lower case Mu is a "u" with a tail off to the left. No everyone has Greek fonts installed so a 'u' is used in its place. - Mike

I didn't say I was check folding all flops that miss me either. 3betting AJ would be turning it into a bluff because I never expect to be called by worse.

I'd rather 3bet 65s.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showt...p?t=2055197237

Value betting the nuts isn't thin, in fact it's exactly the opposite of thin. Value betting 2nd pair is thin.

I meant betting small on the river for a little more value when I'm pretty sure I have the best hand or the nuts. In other words, trying to figure out what Villain will call when I'm sure I'm ahead in the hand, and I usually seem to get it wrong. Sorry I wasn't more clear...

7stud, ldo is a forum thing. It means "Like Duh, Obviously."

My $.02 probably only what it's worth anyway. LOL

Start a new database
Play the next 2000 hands with following PF strat: Raise or Fold.
Analyze new db.

2000 hands is nothing....but it "can" show a trend. microPoker is SOOOOOOOOOOOOO easy when you use the Fold button PF often.

This advice has been helping me a lot. It was sweet when I just ran up 2 buyins on one table and then called off my whole stack to a donk limp-reraise all in with my kings versus his aces. unl is so frustrating. but this stuff definatley helps

EDIT: the whole table just limped to me in the BB, with q6. i check. flop q66. Thank you everyone for the money.

Textbook case of the BB seeing a flop for free and winning. I would have folded that hand so fast to any raise, but thank god for micro stakers liking to limp.

I agree with your comments but i think there more directed at tournament hold em, but in cash games calling preflop is a necessity in alot of situations of trying to slow play or crack a huge hand.

At micros, slowplaying is suicide in 90% of situations. And you lose value by slowplaying. Remember, you only get 3 streets in which to get your opponent's stack.

Every post by OP is gold. I'm printing it out now. The hands that you should call with PF other than the ones OP posted about in rules 1 and 2 are so few and far between that you shouldn't even think about it. The ones that you could make arguments for would be extremely read dependant and even then I would chalk it up to FPS 98% of the time.

i have a question.

i cbet a lot (potsize). but in the last time i get checkraised big (even all in) a lot. even if i cbet the very first time at the table.

how do i handle these situations with high an high card ace / middle pair / top pair?
in general i get no reads on opponents at NL10.