Hey everyone. Just some questions, but a little background first: been playing poker as rec since 2003. I had a pretty good understanding of odds and player tendencies playing live back then until I stopped playing in 2012. Now I've been back at it, except online for the first time ever. I started playing online this march.

after 20k hands I'm down $10, and basically break-even all the way since getting out of 5NL until arriving at $10 down like I am today, where at 5NL I was 15bb/100 until I built my bankroll up to play 10NL. Haven't been able to break out of 10NL and have been playing 10NL for probably 12000 out of the 20k hands. I just play 6max cash.

Questions:

1. advice at 10NL seems to be ABC or TAG poker, yet I commonly see the most successful people at each table being something more like 30/28 vpip/pfr with a 2.8 or 3.0 AF or even higher like 35/30, always betting 3/4th pot on every street, no matter what they have, and it seems to work. Somehow they always have it, or are able to get people to fold when they don't.

I am 24/18 after 20k hands. does anyone have advice for 10NL in 2020? google and stuff like the Grinder's Manual which I've read, gives lots of TAG or ABC recommendations but like I said, every time I play that way or see others in tables play that way, we are commonly the short stack or maybe just $1 up or down for 100 plus hands.

2. I don't understand how loose players from question 1 seem to be winning so much when there is hardly ever fold equity in the games I'm playing in. Bluffing seems like a path to disaster, but somehow obviously works for them. Playing tighter with proper bet sizing just gives people the impression that you aren't betting until you get something (they aren't wrong, TAG seems like a face-up way to play the game), so then they finally do fold when you are hoping to build the pot -- feels like damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.

3. I see lots of training materials talk about putting people on ranges/staying balanced in your range. I feel like I mix in stuff time to time like QJs and small suited connectors (98s, 65s) into the same type of openings or post-flop c-bets like my higher range cards, but 90% of the time I come against the 35/30 or even guys like 42/6 that call me down each and every time and (especially the 42/6 guys) will come out ahead in the end with something ridiculous like two pair on their hole cards of J3o. How the heck do you put a guy that plays J3o on any sort of range? Conversely, I don't think people are considering me on any range either, and if they are, its probably a small one since I'm only playing 24% of hands on average, give or take 4 percentage points +- given how card dead or not I am.

Meanwhile I lost half my stack trying to value bet them hard with my AKs on an A 3 9 rainbow flop, thinking he is 42/6, he should be missing flops more times than not and I should be well ahead here. Well he calls me down all the way to showdown and like I said, he has J3o and wins. This sounds like small sample size/bad luck, but it happens constantly session in, session out. It seems advice is to value bet thick when you connect well on the flop like that, hence the TAG style... well I do that, bet pot or slightly higher each street I feel I'm ahead, get called down anyway and like I said they don't give up until showdown and frequently have 2 pair. Help?

thanks for reading and any advice given.

edit: bonus question I just thought of: should you primarily be winning with big hands (top two pair, three of a kind, or higher), or a mixture of those hands as well as bluffs? It feels like I only get wins when I have the nuts. The bluffing never pays off as I just get called down whether I have a decent hand or not. Then I have to spend a half hour or hour getting back what I lost from the bluff.

1) Advice to beginners is usually to prevent them from losing massively by being spewtards, hence the general advice to be tight. It may not make as much money as you can by playing more hands, but it sure as hell won't lose you as much if you don't know what you're doing (which, as a beginner, you don't)
2) Are they actually playing loose in a loose game?
3) If I see someone play J3o I put him on a range of "any two cards"

1. makes sense. probably why I hover around $10 down, $10 up, but don't seem to get much farther.

2. yes, for the most part. I'm usually the only guy under 25 VPIP, maybe sometimes there is one other guy that is going super nit at 12/10 type stats or TAG stats like mine.

3. Alright that's fair enough. but how is that supposed to help making decisions when he goes all-in on the river for half your stack? These types don't seem to care, they will just reload their $10 again... meanwhile if I'm wrong, because he could have any 2 cards, there goes half my stack and I DO care because I'm trying to make some money here and make my way up stakes. Yes, I can just reload too (have 30 BI before I start the next level) but that just doesn't seem like a smart strategy. And statistically, I've been wrong about half the time when I do call them. Which, again, contributes to my breakeven not-going-anywhere overall stats and bb/100 rate.

your post indicates that you're currently thinking at a fairly basic level. Breaking even at 10NL sounds about right. Post some hands and your thought processes on them and we can discuss

You've only played 12k hands - that's nothing.

I built up a roll (again....siiiiggh) on Stars a while back. These are my stats from 10NL.

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Think I'm a slightly bigger winner than 12bb but could be wrong. I was playing with a pretty bad attitude for some of it because was pissed off to even be grinding 10NL..but thats another story.

10NL is a lot tougher than it was when I started playing. Back then all you had to was wait for a maniac or station to donate. That still happens obviously, but less often than you'd hope @ $10 tables, & the regs are better. The plus side is that if you can beat 10NL you can be competitive at 25 & 50NL; the jump isnt as big as it used to be say 5yrs ago IMO.

One key is to outmanoeuvre opponents in single raised pots. If you start trying to "outplay" these guys in 3bet pots (esp. when they're the aggressor) it will end badly because they'll usually have a strong hand & wont fold it. That's a generalisation but fairly accurate.

An advantage to playing loose is also that you get paid off more - especially by the fish, who you should be targeting extremely aggressively, whatever stakes ur playing.

But again, its only 12k hands

which part is basic exactly? I think the "mental leak" awareness might help. There is obviously something I'm missing.

There are two players that play for $10 on Ignition: those that plays cards-up (and therefore those that I win money from) and those that don't care that it is $10, and you'll think your top two pair is good and they come out of nowhere with 3 of a kind with their VPIP of 47 to take a quarter of your stack because you think you are value betting someone that calls you down no matter what (hence where I lose the money aforementioned).

I've reviewed all of my biggest losing hands and saw it was 90% with JJ,QQ,KK,AA, AKs,AQs, all waiting patiently to get such hands against these don't-care-I'll-just-call players with enormous VPIPs. No straight draw chases, no flush chases, etc. against these players -- I learned to stop doing that dance with them after too many bites to my stack... Equity calculators put me at between 80 - 94% on the flop or turn. They either get their 3 of a kind or the straight or flush they were chasing despite my 2:1 odds I'm giving them to call on each street...

The other alternative I guess would be playing more hands against them since, I guess, perhaps they are assuming I'm only going to be playing "great" hands against them, so they know if there isn't an A,Q,K,J or something that threatens with a pocket pair, they have a good chance at winning the pot?

Do people just fold against these types of whales unless they have 3 of a kind or better? That only happens at such rare frequencies it seems you would just always lose to these types of players. Might as well just fit-or-fold on the flop I guess. That is what I've started to do the last 2k hands honestly because I'm conditioned to just fold if I don't have an enormous hand on the flop against such players.

I can go through and post my hands but I basically just described every single one of them to you already. the other half are hands I win cause someone finally folded, or it was a against check-fold-to-your-cbet-cause-i-didn't-connect-with-flop players. Sprinkle in some all-ins with AA or KK that happen pre-flop too.

TL;DR: The main question I have is... if you can't bluff because people will almost always call you down, but you don't get good hands enough of the time (I get maybe 26% of my opening range at any position in a 200 hands on one table, on a good day) because such hands are rare, what are you supposed to do at these levels? It seems like an infinite loop of futility

thank you for the advice. Well, 3bet pots are rare in my experience at 10NL on ignition . the average for a table I'm in after 100 or 200 hands is usually around 3 for the whole table. I'd make a rough estimate that 80% of the time, its someone with JJ+,AKs,AQs. So I've learned to just bail if someone 3-bets either myself or the other PFR and I don't have AKs, AA, or KK. You'd think this was a leak, but I go through my hand history and see that I was correct to fold as I was beat on almost every 3-bet pre-flop -- and badly (think I had AJs or 88 and they had KK or AA, stuff like that)

I 3 bet at about 8%, but it loses its purpose because there is always one or two whales that just call despite a 5x 3-bet that I make, and now I'm in a 3-way pot which greatly reduces anything but KK,AA. and even those hands are diluted in such situations.

I'm starting to think maybe playing looser against the whales is actually a good idea, just because I think they must be having better odds to hit with whatever two cards they are holding, then I am with the 20% or less hands that I'm saving if I see myself going to be heads up or in a 3-way pot with them. But maybe you are right, maybe it's just a poor sample size after all and eventually I'll get paid off by their incessant calling despite my calculated equity of 80 - 95% on the flop and/or turn.

sorry dude to say that / but with VPIP/PFR 34/22 you are probably on a massive heater and not near to 12bb/100

the 'basic level' is also the answer to the question. There are pretty much no games in which there aren't spots you can profitably bluff. If you don't have 'enough' hands to valuebet, either it's a spot you're supposed to lose money, or you're not using the right bet size.