I'm super bored because I literally have nothing to do but sit around and wait for a Bodog wire to go through until I can play again.

So in the meantime, I'll answer any questions you ask about beating games on the Merge network or just winning at poker in general. I've taken about 150k out of 2/4-10/20 over the past 15 months (I doubt more than 20 guys on the site cashed off a larger amount and most of those were bumhunters) so I'm likely qualified to answer most questions.

BTW I recommend against playing 5/10 there because of their shady wire transfer practices and customer support ignoring their highest VIP level players.

Whats your SB and BB defending range vs a BTN open on 6 max

Depends on the button's raise 1st in percentage. If the button is Nanonoko I defend a ton of hands because he opens something like 80%. Against a lot of the guys on Merge who open <45% it's quite tight.

I 3bet more from the SB than the BB so if by defend you mean call, I don't do a ton of flatting the SB unless the BB is super tight and won't squeeze me out of the hand.

There's no specific answer to give here though because the question is too vague.

This seems weird can you elaborate? I usually 3bet lighter from BB since theres not one more person to act.

What I mean is, lets say a regish tag opens from btn, lets say he opens 65% or so (don't really know what realistic numbers are). What hands would you flat.

When you're in the SB you don't close the action, so if you flat you open yourself up to allowing the BB to squeeze you out of the pot. This is not to say I never flat there, just that I'm less apt to do it when the BB is squeeze happy.

When I'm in the BB I know I close the action and am guaranteed to see a flop and not be placing dead money into the pot.

Against 65% BTN open, 65% includes hands like ...86o, Q5o, K2o, T2s so I'd 3bet hands that have weaker values like 57s, T8s, and I'd flat the majority of my hands that play well for top pair value, like KJ QJ AT. If the guy starts flatting all my 3bets though, I'd stop flatting all hands except small - medium pairs and would shift to 3bet hands that have good top pair value like KJ QJ AT.

Spewy Fish limps (61/31 ish) UTG reg iso on c/o, your on btn what is your flatting range, in sb? in bb?

Question isn't clear. Fish limps, then a reg iso's from what position? What position are we in?

He's on the c/o we are

1) OTB
2) SB
3) BB

Depends how bad the fish is. If the fish is leaking like >15BB/100 I would flat my entire range in every spot because it's more important for me to keep him in as he is making way too many mistakes. If the fish is a little tighter or not that bad I'd 3bet against the reg much more often from the SB and BB but still would have a very very wide flatting range on the button.

Reason I flat the button wider is because our relative position forces the reg to play more honest with his c-bets and not bluff as much because not only does he have to worry about the fish peeling him light, he has to worry that we can be trapping or potentially also have a hand that won't be folding to a c-bet. So because he will be playing more honest, we can take down more pots when they are checked to us on the flop and we bet like 2/3rds pot.

Post a graph and reports tab for WR plz, thx.

Most of you guys are crazy to pass this up imo. How often does a 5/10 reg pop in here and say he'll answer any question you ask?

.

Edit: How long are you answering questions for? I appreciate you doing this btw

How important do you really think balance is? How many hands against someone do you think it takes to make balance matter? Do you use any default note form for taking notes on opponents and if so what is it?

Until I have something else to do. Maybe I'll pop back in tomorrow if I have time and there are questions that were asked that I don't get to today.

Hi! thank you for this opportunity!

4 question:

1. what is the most important learningtool/skill during a transition from smallstakes(nl100) to midstakes? what should I do to beat them? analyze more? establish A-game mind state more frequently. building non standard creative line?..etc

2. Why are top pros(Ivey, Durrrr..etc).are so good? what they do differently?

3. how do you handle a 3bet from a total unknown player ip, oop?

4. Slowhabit said once that the most important street is the river. what is your opinion about this? how can I learn to be a genius at the river?

I struggled with this one for a really long time. Against very strong opponents balance is essential. Very strong opponents I would define as the toughest 5/10 players, the guys that beat 5/10 consistently and often play higher. There are a few mid stakes guys that balance is also important against but I really think you can get by beating 2-4 and 3-6 without having much of a balanced strategy. It took me like 3 years to move up to 5-10 because I always played a completely exploitative game against players who it did not work against. Once I started to balance I eased my way into 5-10 without much trouble.

This one is tougher to answer because there is no actual number of hands I'm looking for. Basically if I'm looking to use an exploitative strategy, it's because I am sitting in a game with a bunch of weak players, or more specifically I happened to notice a player making a play I know to be suspect (sorta like I see that he doesn't know what he's doing---for example if he raises my c-bet on A84r or something like that).

In other words, against guys I knew to be quite good even if I don't know their game all that well, I'll lean towards balancing. If I'm sitting in a 1-2 or 2-4 game I wouldn't think about balancing much at all.

LOL I don't take notes as often as I should, I'm sort of lazy, but if I'm playing well and paying lots of attention even to pots I'm not involved in I use stuff like this:

flat 3b co/sb raised cbet 876fd. It looks a lot like that. Though I think there are other more general types of notes that you can make that are also quite helpful. Stuff like "doesn't like to let go of top pair" or "can't fold river if I shove after all draws miss". Then there's other stuff I'd sometimes write that has to do with what lines I should take against the guy in the future for value and for a bluff. It might read "take b/c/b for value vs this guy".

You have to be able to follow game flow and act accordingly. I coach a bunch of guys who try to move up to 2-4 and their most common mistake is having an over-reliance on their HUD for decisions where their action should be predicated on the game flow. I have a series coming out on cardrunners in the next couple weeks where we talk about these concepts in depth.

Differently from who?

Most of the time I'll fold unless it's like the very first hand that I play, in which case I think most often I'm getting bluffed by somebody who is "trying to establish an aggressive dynamic" too early. OOP obviously I fold much more frequently than IP, but more often than not I let the cards I'm holding dictate my action. So if I have KQ that means call, if I have J9 that means fold.
Blanket statements like this usually lead to people attempting to seek out bad advice. Yes it's true the river is the most important street because that is generally where the most money goes into the pot, but thinking like this won't help you one bit. Each street is important. If you make a mistake on an earlier street, it is what is going to lead you to make mistakes on later streets.

For example if you make a mistake preflop, it may put you in a situation where you are on the river and you end up making a big mistake that you never would have made had you not made the error preflop of putting yourself in that situation.

I think you're great.

lol thanks

hey marshall, what do you think it takes to beat ssnl(100-200) and move up? Like what steps should someone take?

from the 99.99% of the players. I mean not their current skill but the buildup of their career , their whole pokerimprovement from year to year.

Most guys that struggle to beat 100nl (and sometimes guys struggling at 200nl) don't think about poker correctly. It's usually an inability to assess ranges and evaluate how their opponents will react to them with different parts of their range. Some guys are okay at doing this and some guys are completely forgetting to do it altogether.

Another thing that a lot of guys at these stakes do is they watch a HSNL video and regurgitate advice that top players have given thinking that it will be good in their SSNL games which is almost always not the case. Some of the general advice is good but a lot of it slows people down.

Things I'd recommend you do:

--Find a study group where you can discuss hands with other people.
Discussing hands with other people is the number one thing that allowed me to get where I'm at.
--As you are playing, whenever a spot comes up that you aren't sure of what to do or think you might have made a mistake, mark the hand in HEM and attempt to review these yourself. If you still can't figure it out on your own, post each of these on the forum or find a coach and have that person go over those spots with you.
--Dedicate a certain amount of time to playing and studying the game.
--

villain is 16/9/6agg/60cbet over 100 hands

how do you play this?

Pacific $100.00 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

MP: $106.00
CO: $107.55
BTN: $100.00
SB: $114.49
Hero (BB): $100.00
UTG: $158.98

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is BB with Q K
2 folds, CO raises to $3, 1 fold, SB calls $2.50, Hero calls $2

Flop: ($9.00) 7 3 Q (3 players)
SB checks, Hero checks, CO bets $6.00, SB folds, Hero calls $6

Turn: ($21.00) K (2 players)
Hero checks, CO checks

River: ($21.00) 4 (2 players)
Hero bets $18.50, CO raises to $56, Hero?

The best answer I can give is, everything. Think of things that you do better than your opponents, maybe you are better than many of them at playing 3bet pots, or you might be better at following the game flow, or you might be better at hand reading. Those top guys are just better than everyone at all those things.

I can really only speculate the difference between those guys and guys that play 25/50 regularly because I've never played with them. The 25/50 guys are just so much faster than me at adapting a game plan to counter my strategy and they execute it better than I do. They also just come to the correct conclusion and click the correct button more quickly than I am able to. What I mean by that is, there isn't much difference between my ability to analyze a hand after the fact and a 25/50 regs ability to analyze a hand after the fact, but in game they come to that correct conclusion more often and more quickly than I do.

I'd guess that the difference between the 25/50 guys and the nosebleed guys is mostly psychology. For example, the tougher the opponents you play against, the less important it becomes what exactly you are repping, and the more important it is whether they think you would bluff or value bet in that certain spot.