Hey everyone,

I am new to this forum, so I hope I picked the right spot to ask my questions
And please excuse my english, I am sure I will produce some weird hickups in my text.

So, I just started poker again, and I registered with Poker Stars and found their ZOOM tables. I played Poker about 5-8 years ago quie a bit, but was never really making money, but neither loosing too much - all at mikro leves, up to 0.5/1€

I am only playing mikro mikro stakes right now, because - well I can't afford to loose hunderds of dollars right now

I read a few books about poker, Harrington on Cash Game 1,2 and the Online 6max, Super System, Sklansky Theory On Poker, Greenstein Ace on the river and a few I can't remember.

So, where is my problem?

I am not sure how I am supposed to play the Mirko Zoom tables. On the one hand, there are players that will 4bet with 10/3s preflop, on the other hand there are ppl who play extremly carefull and only call and raise if they have the best hand. as the ppl are mixed every round, I can't really say who is who until its too late.

I may have overbet a few low pocket pairs in semi bluffs, but the amount of times my pocket kings lost against pocket aces is astonishing. Today I git beaten by a few bad beats, where I was way ahead before the river (5% outs for them), but git beaten anyway. This happens, but it nearly broke me today. Went back to the books, but did not find much help

I think Harrington got the Mikro Stakes slightly wrong, at least what I encountered.

The Calling Stations seem to have been mostly extinguished, I may have seen only a handfull of those, and they only stick around with made hands like middle/top pair or draws to flush/straights. Overly agrresive "maniacs" are also very rare, but whats correct is, that most ppl are extremly hard to bluff off even a middle pair. Got paid out by a few hidden straights and flushes, but got beaten by trips over my trips even more times.

Most of the players are ultra tight, and as the Zoom tables are pretty quick to play, it seems that most ppl are just waiting for the big hands.

Aspects like pot control, bet sizing showdown value or even implied odds for the draws are not existent, so, how do you play these tables? The 3bets are also quite etxrem, a 15ct raise gets 3bet with 70ct or more most of the times.

Open up, splash into the pots with a raise or call and look if you hit a monster? More than 2 or 3 ppl in one hand is extremly rare, so the implied odds are quite bad for that, or are they?

Or tighten up to the etxreme and only play really strong hands, with maybe a suited connector in position? I had some success basicly giving up my hands on the flop if I did not hit a very good hand and just wait till someone pays me off on my Overpair/trips/straights, but it feels like I fold to cbets too often this way.

yesterday and today I burned through nearly all of my bankroll, most of the time thinking sth like "wtf, how could he play K3s under the gun against a 4bet pre flop?"
I have problems adapting to this play, and I am definitly two barreling and cbet to much I think...

Really confused by this meta, so any tips or guide would be great

Thanks a lot

Firstly don't play too many tables, try one tabling and take your time looking up opening range charts, looking at the HUD stats of players ahead of you, analysing what hands are on a draw etc. Learn to fold and learn when not to cbet. Tighten up especially out of position. Don't bluff multiway. If you do bluff be prepared to commit to the bluff properly. Accept the variance and accept the donkeys will win, if you get your money in as an 80% favourite you will lose 20% of the time so turn on run it twice. Play lots of hands and look back at big pots while you are playing (easy with 1 table) to see if it was a cooler or spew.

This is particularly true at 5NL zoom, which is full of nits. Until you have better reads/stats on the player pool, you have to play very tight yourself. Don't do much speculating and don't pay off someone that bombs the river. #TheyAlwaysHaveIt.
You can get away with some bluffs against the regnits, because they will usually think you're just like them and wouldn't bluff the river, but it can be a tough game to crush unless you run well in cooler situations (set over set, for example).
2NLzoom is quite different, however. That's still somewhat of a circus, so it's fairly easy to rebuild your bankroll by playing fairly ABC at that limit.

Im going to do a goals thread where Im playing lots of 10NL snap which is the same as zoom only on a different site, I've been having some good success since I closed some of my bigger leaks, have a look at that thread and post some hands to it, ask questions etc,

hope that I can be of help,.

What arty said is true, single most important thing to learn Id say is to bet/fold hands that are in your value range.

and YES if the river bet is over 70% of the pot its ALWAYS THE NUTS, NEAR NUTS, or just what ever he needs to beat what you have, the lower the bet size the wider the ranges become but not wide enough to making calling River bets +EV for you at the moment.