No ability to game select, be moved to new random table every single hand, takes a long time to have reads/stats on opponents and less opportunity to take advantage on that reads. The only good reason I can think of is if the hourly between the two is roughly the same (zoom has lower bb/100, but volume will compensate), so zoom makes more sense because of no game selection hassle.

What do you guys think?

I hate having to sort out regular tables with a passion.

Volume ldo

strategy wise and fish/reg tendencies, is there a difference?

Big difference. Zoom is nit city. Why would you play something like J9o from MP out of boredom when you can just fold and wait for PP's, Broadways or good SC's.

Zoom is harder to beat, but volume makes up for lack of edge. In the end there's no difference in profitability, just play what you like more.

So obv, in regular tables where we can game select, the majority of our overall profits comes from value betting against station fish. Is this still the case in zoom? I mean are there still huge whales in zoom that we can value bet relentlessly and not just nits and bad regs?

I find it difficult to manage more than four tables. Zoom requires fewer tables to achieve the same volume. I also like that I'm practicing a more pure form of poker instead of exploitation-based.

^ this hit the nail on the head. zoom makes you a better player. having trouble at your target stakes? have leaks? go play 10 or 20k hands of zoom. you will accelerate your pace of identifying opportunities for improving your game. you only get better by playing tougher games and learning from it. when you combine this, plus reduced risk by not having to go up in stakes to find tougher games, plus volume, volume, volume. you will improve faster, identify edges faster and more accurately, and this will translate into your win rate in non zoom games.

as far as whales and where your money comes from... your money definitely comes from a different place. it comes from being able to identify many (very thin) different edges against a general read of the population in those stakes. a lot of people think zoom means exploitative poker goes out the window. this isn't entirely true. zoom just means you have to start thinking about exploiting the entire population you're up against by identifying tiny but widespread leaks throughout the whole of the population.

here's a good video that explains this a little better. i don't know if his conclusions on population reads still apply to the player pool he is focusing on as this video is 3 yrs old, but his thinking is definitely in the right direction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvPWLWkEZVg

the other thing is, at least at the micros, yes the edges are thinner, but not so that you can't pull a slightly better hourly expectation on the right sites, if your game is sharp enough, because of the increased volume of play.

Regular tables might well offer a higher winrate in bb/100, but they often die as soon as the fish goes busto, and it's such a PITA opening/closing new tables all the time. Other people might like how table dynamics keep changing, but I hate having to keep adapting to the various comings and goings.
I find it so much easier to 'get in the zone' when I'm focused on Zoom.

While I can partially agree on the training effect (you can just get a vs. AI GTO simulator...500hands/h on a single table no problem.), exploiting population tendencies works even better in regular games.

And you don't have to play like 20k hands of Zoom to "feel it out", you just plug your 200k hands of regular games into a piece of software, press a button and tada, all the populations' leaks on a silver platter.


IMO especially micro Zoom is just not worth playing. Less edge, more rake. The only reason to play is laziness because you don't have to scout for tables.

yeah zoom will tighten up your gto game. I think a blend of gto and exploitation skills are needed but in general zoom for gto and normal cash games for exploitation

thanks for all the feedback guys

so zoom for convenience bc of no table selection hassle and for improvement bc of volume, but regular tables for $$$

Not even necessarily for $$$'s, if you can play twice the hands in a given time period at zoom but only make 60% of the bb/100 you were, which makes more?

obv zoom...so the expected zoom wr for a winning player is around 50-60% of his regular table wr?

I'm pulling figures out of the air to make a point

i see

but even if our zoom wr is half of that of our regular wr but at 2x more volume which roughly equates our hourly, then zoom will be better to free ourselves from table selection hassle and we can only focus on playing, which obv makes us improve faster.

i think i'm going to try to play zoom for a decent sample size (100k hands maybe) and see if it really has roughly the same hourly with regular tables, and if it is, then I'm going to switch to zoom

Actually I played a couple of thousand hands of 2NL Snap on 888 today just to test things out. I hated Zoom but I've ever played rock bottom stakes in this format.

Soooo...I'd like to eat some of my words here because I was quite surprised about how the session went.


First of all, opening ranges are tighter - which is no surprise, so no JTo from UTG. However 3betting ranges are all over the place and preflop calling ranges are all over the place.


In addition, while people at least seem to have figured out opening ranges, they still play absolutely horrible postflop.

I would not "recommend" 2NL fast fold poker, but it's not as nitty and hard as 10NL+and there is some $$$ to be made. Nutmining is definitely not working, tho. You have to have balanced ranges and a couple of bluffs, otherwise your redline will kill your results.


Overall I have to say I will probably play some SNAP in the future. It will never be my main format but for testing new ranges or practising GTO stuff, it's perfect. And it has an effect on my 6max game as well. Especially on problems with entitlement tilt and variance.

It's pretty easy to see the big picture when you play 4 tables of fast fold/1k hands per hour, so it's not as frustrating to fold AQo in the SB after I've been card dead for 30 min

well, that's good to know

i def going to test zoom in the future esp when the Seat Me feature on PS (which removes the ability to game select) becomes implemented on .com, but not now while I can still practice table/seat selection

Sooner or later you'll need a room that allows you to table select. Poker is a game of relative skill in the very first place (even before it is a game of information).

So it's much more important to find people who are playing worse than you than finding another 0.3 BB in that certain postflop spot.

the only reason why I am considering zoom when the Seat Me feature becomes implemented is that switching to different low-traffic sites that allows table selection like 888 or party will force me to grind during peak hours (Eastern Europe and Russia time zone) and I'm from SE Asia (5-6 hours ahead of EU/Ru t.z.) so that means I have to play late night to early morning here (which is -lifeEV), unlike on PS where there are always good games going on and plenty of tables running (at least at low and micro stakes) anytime of the day.

anyway, i'll deal with it when that time comes, but for now I'm going to focus on grinding regular cash game tables bc it's the more +EV choice

edit: what do you mean by than finding another 0.3 BB in that certain postflop spot?

Well, you know, you can optimize your game in a lot of different ways.

Online grinders are primarily looking to find miniscule leaks that are so far down the decision tree that it's almost impossible to exploit them. Like "this guy overfolds to x/r bluffs on the turn when board is dry" or "this guy is bluffing too much on completed flushes".

When you have a HUD and a large enough database, you can filter for population tendencies, create a HUD around them and exploit those.

At the same time you need to plug leaks of your own, sometimes they are so small like not playing KQo from UTG is making a difference of a fraction of a BB/100.


On the other hand, you could optimize for table selection, meaning instead of working on your actual game you find ways to play against more fish. I feel this is primarily what a good live player needs to do. You know, getting into good home games being able to see if a table is hot or not in the casinos.

I mean, if you look at those Vegas live grinder youtube channels, I feel that most of the guys are barely good enough to beat 50nl but their social skills are so good and their network so big that they always find an easy game.

all makes sense

thanks