I would love opinions on this, from both the experts here and the new players just starting out.

I have been playing for almost one year now, but still consider myself a beginner. For that reason I am still playing at NLH. 01/02 level. I have a positive BB/100 rate and have been pleased enough with my progress to date.

However, I have noticed that in almost every session, there is always at least one player, were the HUD stats suggest they are a fish (High VPIP and low or often 0% RPF) who is doing very well. I have always put this down as their lucky day.

Since the stakes are low, I decided to play a few session, in their style to better understand the game from their point of view. By that I mean, ignoring position and limping in a lot, trying to see a cheap flop before deciding if I should actually bet properly or not. To my surprise, my BB/100 rate is rising further and quite fast.

Is it viable that the advice in this forum as a general rule does not apply at this level of stakes, where there is almost always someone, ready to call to showdown and almost every hand is won by the best hand. Its Poker Bingo really.

I think the strategies users recommend here, go straight over the head of most of these players. They call their draw when the odds are against them, so what is the point of betting 75% of the pot to try to keep the odds out of favour for them. They call to showdown with bottom pairs, no matter how high the bet, occasionally getting three of a kind on the river.

If I open with a large raise in an early position, they will still call it with 6, 3 unsuited. The flop might suit them. Bluffing them is impossible.

The strategy that seems to work here is try and see as many flops as possible with 1BB and then with only two cards to come, bet small when in with a chance and draw them all in when I have the nuts.

It is doing wonders for my bank roll. My personal HUD stats look horrible, but maybe that can even work in my favour when a good player sits down and assumes I will play as a fish.

Opinions?

suckers keep on coming back for more due to variance. THis is what makes poker beautiful. Bad players will in fact win and sometimes, they are able to delude themselves into believing they actually know what they are doing

source - Me. I ackshually know what I am doing

That's correct, and it's the reason why poker is profitable for the good players.

Thanks Guys. I understand what you are saying, and have been of the same opinion myself. My point here though is the stats I am currently getting are suggesting otherwise. I have been simulating their style for about 10 days only. But so far I have won every day.

There are two possible explanations for your increase in win rate:

1. The player pool at 2NL is exploitable. Nobody ever said GTO strategy is the most profitable way to play against such opponents. For example, you should bet larger than GTO when they are drawing, not to get them to fold (if they’d fold to larger bets you wouldn’t want to bet larger), but rather precisely because they will call without proper odds. Such calls are -EV; who do you suppose gets the money that they’re losing when they make bad calls?

2. You are benefiting from variance. You are just on a heater and your win rate will eventually decline if you keep on playing like the fish.

Ten days is hardly a large sample size. I don’t think you can rule out option 2 at this point.

Mathematically, if the game is left to chance, in a six ring game we should win one in six.

By playing only one game in six, We will miss the flop at least 50% of the time. Therefore we are likely to win around one game in 12. (remember we are playing with variance, not skill) Twelve games will cost 3BB. (ignoring the betting on further streets and everybody checks to showdown) So basically when we win we need to win more than 3BB for it to be profitable.

If we play every hand, the same 12 games will cost 12BB. But we are then making a decision based on just two more cards to come. Yes, we need to win 4 times more to make a profit, but we get to choose from 12 hands, not two. That is 6 times the choice of hands to play.

Again we will miss the flop 50% of the time. Remember we will also pick up flops we would normally have missed because we would have folded pre flop. ie when you would have folded 6,3 unsuited and the board flops three sixes.

My point is the fish style of play creates a 100% chance to make the decision with only two remaining cards, rather than selecting two hands from twelve to play with 5 cards remaining, they can choose 4 hands from 12 with only two cards to come ... with a lot more information available.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting the Fish will beat a top player. What I am suggesting is at this low level of stakes, is perhaps the correct strategy something totally different from the strategies were more money is involved and players actually know what they are doing.

Thanks for that. The sample size I agree is small, that's why I opted for discussion rather than continuing.

Who, out of the other 5 players, is winning the other hands?

congrats. I have won over a million playing my way over a pretty large and meaningful sample. I love it when a goofball who is playing a ton of hands gets hit with the deck - cuz I will get his $. Maybe not today but it will happen.

I have seen morans get hit with the deck for months (in a live setting). They think they are the chosen one. Over time they regress towards the mean and eventually bust out as you will with this new "technique"

Well, that is already a false assumption. You're playing cash games so as many as all 6 could be losing and as many as 5 could be winning.

Anyways, you're essentially incorrect and I would advise against limping.

First massive fish can run hot on a session and absolutely clean up. This happens often. Second you can play badly and still beat 2NL for a decent clip long term, source: I am bad at poker but always beat 2NL when I played. I could probably beat it playing something like 25/10/3, that doesn't mean anyone should play like that though.

Since the game at this level seems to depend much more on variance, everyone basically has an equal chance. Therefore the players who are having a lucky day are winning the games.

What?

Not even close. In the long run, players that sometimes win by getting lucky lose everything.

But the long run is a very long time. Remember, poker is counter-intuitive. You can play perfectly and still lose for several sessions, but in the long run, you will win.

In the long run, winning or losing is based on making correct decisions, even though who wins and loses each hand is controlled by the random order of cards in the deck.

You can control the former, you can't control the latter. Stop looking at tiny samples (a hand or a session) as whether or not you're playing well. Evaluate your decision making.

"Poker is a game of choice, not a game of chance." - Tommy Angelo