In your opinion at what point is playing poker for a living better then working?

Meh, for me it was when I could make significantly more from poker than I could from a regular job. That was in the glory days of online poker though. To me a job was just a job. Poker was a job that had some better perks as far as working hours, vacation, wages, etc.--aj

Im a career man and I basically choose that over poker because playing poker professionally almost drove me insane. I need to be more mentally stimulated and I found playing poker all day really boring. Not to mention that I am well paid, which helps.

I think that if I were to be able to play 400nl well enough to pay the bills by playing like 10 hours a week, I would love to play poker and run a small business out of my bedroom. That would be awesome. But you'd definitely need that balance, and you need to interact with ppl.


I ended playing poker professionally by chance almost and without the necesarry skill tbh. You need two things

A large enough roll ... if you can't handle a few losing months, then you're going to go totally insane due to pressure and frustration.

You need to play big enough stakes, so you can meet your monthly nut in at most a couple of weeks enabling your roll to grow, since it is very hard to move up once your roll is your life.

And you need to be able to do very repetitive work for hours on end every day and balance that with every day life, so the grind doesn't devour you and spit you out broken

If you are in the blinds, how do you treat min-raises? If you were going to complete from the SB, do you call anyway? I'm playing pretty tight from the blinds but sort of get lost when there is an annoying min-raiser before me.

I normally would look at who does it and what their stack is and other factors. If I am planning on completing and can be pretty sure that the BB isnt gonna squeeze and the hand does well in the type of pot its gonna be, ill call, also based on stack sizes and reads.

Play tight. Always remember that you can't avoid being OOP from the blinds, thats the most important thing. Most people who minraise suck, so bear in mind that if you 3bet they'll probably call, and you'll be OOP in a 3bet pot against a drooler. Not cool (unless you have AA).

I am starting to get significant history on some of the other regulars at my level. Do you ever deconstruct other regulars games as part of your session review? If so what are you looking for?

Any opinions on upgrading from PT2 to either PT3 or Hold'em Manager?

I generally dont bother because most people play a simple game. Come to think of it, I've never actually done this, just because history doesnt play that big a part at lower levels. I can see it becoming important as you move up tho.

I still have PT2 :O


I had PT2. Then I bought HEM when it came out and like it alot. It's far superior to a PT2/PA combo. afaik, pt3 and hem are similar. I just got HEM first and have no use for PT3 now. And I don't deconstruct.--aj

same as AJ

What percent of your flop c/r are bluffs?

What percent of your turn c/r are bluffs?

What percent of your river c/r are bluffs?

If the only form of online poker available was (FL) Razz donkaments...would you play them seriously?

This is really tough to say in a vacuum, but I would definitely say if you looked at my ratios of bluffs:real hands when I c/r, there'd be more flop bluffs and less river bluffs just because the pot is so small on the flop that there is room to make small bluffs, especially because everyone knows to cbet. I'd say probably 85% of my turn c/rs are for value, 90% of my river c/rs are for value, and like 50% of my flop c/rs are for value.

I'd look for a real job if the only form of poker was razz MTTs.


In general, turn bluffs are way -EV in uNL. I would say less than 10% of my turn plays are bluffs.

why exactly did the chicken cross the road?

a lineup of percentages assigned to the possible reasons behind that bold move would be appreciated. and a professional graph would help tremendously. gogo chicken, imo


Dunno - why did you get infractions ? - some things are better left unanswered !

nvm

poty

You defend Kqs/Ajs in the sb/bb against a 22/18 BTN opener

Flop comes 962r

How often do you c/r that flop/How does your c/r frequency change if you have a bdfd on the flop?

This is very dependent on history with the villain of course, but I'd say against a competent 22/18 I don't really c/r all that often without history of c/ring T9 or hands of equal strength. We're generally not calling preflop for set value because of his loose opening range and he probably knows this so when we c/r it's gonna look bluffy.

If we have a BDFD we can float and then c/rai if we turn another of our suit, because if we were to call pre for set value, that's how we'd likely play it if we flopped a set. But like I said, we don't really wanna go too crazy without him knowing that we can either stack off light there, or that we call to setmine in the blinds. If he doesn't know either of those things, then he's probably gonna see our c/r as a bluff.

tbh I think you are only leaving a very small amount of money on the table by folding both these hands, if any at all... position is just so huge against good players, you're gonna be hard pressed to make money in this spot long term given how thoroughly they are going to pone you IP.

First off, I'm 3betting preflop more than I call preflop against that type of villain. I would also fold it sometimes. Entirely dependent on the flow of the game; but, I would def 3b more than call. And then what I do on the flop is flow dependent as well if I had just called. Sometimes I lead into him. Sometimes I c/f. Sometimes I c/r. In that situation, for me it's probably c/f >>>> lead > c/r.--aj

cool thanks <3

I've been beating 25NL for over 50k hands @ 5bb/100 (6max) now but I still feel like I have leaks in my game and at times doubt my skills. In so many threads I hear about players going to that 'next level' or taking that 'next step' to improve their game.

What would you suggest a 25NL player like myself do? I have a CR subscription and I regularly read old well posts and read as much as I can on these forums. At the moment I don't have the money to pay for a coach but I really feel like I'm at a wall right now and I'm not getting any further.


Sounds like you're doing just fine ... when your roll is big enough try moving up and facing the new challenges that appear

Yup, sounds like could take some shots moving up if you have the proper roll. Poker smarts are pretty subtle. You might not feel like you are making progress; but, you're picking up little things here and there without being cognizant of them.

Also, when thinking of moving to a new level. You don't have to say, 'Now I am an NL50 player.' Think of yourself as able to play a range of levels, NL25-NL50. Don't be afraid to move back and forth between those levels at first until you build up some confidence at NL50.--aj

I hope this is not to standard. I play NL50 for 50k hands now, starting to take shots at nl100.

My biggest problem at this time is knoing when to double barrel.
My cbets alone are making profit, but I need to double more because I feel like i cant only do it with a hand and people on NL50 call flop with too much.

Is it better to double barrel tag or stations? Tags wont continue with as much on the turn, but fish have air more often on the turn.

Better to have a dry / wet board? I double a lot on wet boards when the turn blanks, but it is harder to have a very good hand on a dry board.

What other conditions do you have to double barrel? I noticed from my play that my most important condition is that I just decide I want to do it. This is probably bad.

Dont overthink. Even if you never double barrel you can still make tons of money at 100nl. Just think about his calling range flop and turn - and if you have a marginal hand like 88 on K7T just cf the turn and move on. Position is power.

It is hard to say, all depends on opponents, but note that vs fish that tend to call too much, if you start to bluff, you usually will have to follow thru on the river too, since they love to peel a lot. Most prefer to just valuebet stations intead and not try to bluff them

hey guys thanks for this kickass thread so we can all hopefully leave you behind and make new friends in SSNL. anyway heres my question:

when I raise AKo UTG and someone in LP calls and we see a flop of Q57ss is it better to just give up on the small pot and check/fold since we're OOP with nothing? If I was in position instead I would check behind and maybe delay cbet if checked to me on the turn but that wet flop kinda rocks his cold-calling range and I dont wanna bloat the pot with air. Is that too weak?


That board despite the obvious flush draw is very likely to miss villian due to the low cards. It kinda depends on villian and how he usually reacts, if he is very tricky then a fold can be contemplated, but I'm inclined to just fire a cbet here (2/3-3/4 pot)

its close between cbet and cf and i like both. absolutely no shame in cf. as you move up its better to bet these kind of boards because hopefully you will be rasing more UTG which means you will be able to bet a wide range on this board ie. SD's and FD's. but for now cf is totally fine


Meh, I'm looking for a reason to not CB there. So that would have to come from the flow of the game or read on villain. I'll CB that vs an unknown 100%.--aj

tks for doing this...

What do you do when facing a min-raise 3bet and holding something a bit marginal /speculative?

in position, call. OOP, raise or fold, usually fold.

e.g Hero opens ATo/JTo/A7s UTG+1 gets mnr 3bet by a (usually)fishy player?

fold

What happened to Skeme ?

damn son, who knows.
ooh another question. Just cuz recently I've been lost here and others prob interested too:

I open AK UTG and get 3bet by a niity TAG(165-18 vpip on BTN) with like 4% 3bet.
What it do?

either 4bet and go with it or call and checkraise Axx or Kxx and stack off, folding dry boards. I wouldnt fold pre.

Blah. I can't seem to fold to min3b's. Common sense says I have odds and proper pokah is supposed to win the day. Eventually I'll get my due against those min3bettors; but, there's usually alot of c/f'ing on the flop vs them. sigh. Skeme still posts on 2p2. He's got a different name. Phresh or something like that iirc. And I'm usually 4betting vs a TAG with those kind of numbers. I absolutely positively do NOT like to call a 3b with AK and rarely do it. Against supreme nits, like 12/10 and less, I've folded AK twice to 3bs in the last few weeks fwiw. --aj

How important is the commitment threshold in 25/50NL? If I bet/fold the turn with TPTK against an opponent I don't expect to be getting out of line often, having put in a third of my stack, am I making a mistake? Or does his straightforward play make it ok? What % of initial effective stack do you think I should be making a commitment decision? Put another way: I open from LP, get called by the BB, if I get my cbet c/raised and I have TPTK should I be making a decision for my stack now or is reevaluating the turn ok? I have in mind an opponent who may raise the flop with TPNK/underpair/2nd pair type hands to find out "where he's at", along with the occasional air, as well as sets/big draws.

You ask one of the more interesting and difficult questions here. Tbh I can't give you an answer, but will attemp anyway. It all depends on how you perceive villian, if you are sure that he will do so most of the time with a draw, then taking one of and then shoving over his continuation turn bet on a blank river is good. Off course there is the chance that he is bluffing and that you'll lay down the best hand on a scary turn card etc.

The more information you have, the better will you're actions be, but when in the blind, then relying on the such mechanisms as the commitment treshold is really valueable.

The thing I struggle with more than anything else is the psychological aspect of the game. I can play for a month straight and be confident in my ability, deal with suckouts, getting bluffed, flamed, annoying donkey plays and ultimately come out a decent winner. The problem is I'll have one session where everything possible goes wrong in a short space of time and I just can't pull myself away from the table.

I rarely react angrily to these things but I slowly get to a stage where my opening becomes looser and I start trying to make these ridiculous bluffs thinking I'm CTS or something. This has had a huge dent in my winrate, I know how illogical it is yet once every few weeks it still happens.

I also still find myself glued to the pokertracker screen while I play - when it's a nice green for the day I lose my motivation to play, get distracted and cease playing optimally. When it's red I probably play better but it gets pretty disastrous when I'm down 3 buyins as I start to chase. Even when I'm not looking at PT I'm subconsciously adding up the stacks I've won/lost.

These are obviously a personal issues but have any of these things affected you? how do you get away from a results-orientated mindset? surely if I can't handle the mental side at uNL I'll never be able to deal with moving up?

This seems to have become somewhat of a ramble but any insight into your psychological games would be greatly appreciated.

It mostly just sounds like you're thinking wayyyy too much about results. There's really no reason to get frustrated and start LAGging it up when you lose a buyin or two. If you stop looking at PT during and after sessions (I look after each session but I know people that don't look for a few days at a time and I admire that), and if you stop thinking about "well I'm probably down 2 buyins" before you make any decision on a hand, your game will improve. Try to think of each hand as the first hand of your session. Nothing's happened prior to that (obv the history with villain has happened tho), and there's nothing to persuade you from doing anything other than the current situation.


Same answers as to spurious post apply. I'm guessing it an existential issue, you have tied a part of your selfesteem to poker and so went running good, your worth and ballaness is comfirmed, but when running bad, your struggle to exist/survive/prove yourself of whatever you might call it. There is no easy fix imo

What's the worst downswing you've ever had while (objectively) playing your A-game?

What's the longest period of time (maybe # of hands is more appropriate) in which you continuously have played your A-game?

Do you ever play your A-game ???? But I think not playing my C-game and so not playing too shabby I've dropped around 15BI's

But variance can be cruel, there is a recent graph in BBV showing a run of 70BI below all-in expectation

Ive gone 15k-20k hands downswing on my A-game, and months and months and months downswing off my A-game. I am currently in my longest A-game streak because I'm totally focussed and very disciplined, its been a couple months now. You gotta be disciplined and honest with yourself, you must learn to kick yourself in the ass and get real.

I know Thac addressed some of this in his well, but what situations are you looking for when you decide to either bet/fold, check/call, or bet/call on the river with a made hand, and what are the most important things to look for when deciding which line to take? This seems to be the spot where I make the biggest mistakes.

This is just such a general question, I mean you could write a whole book just on this topic. Bet folding means theres a big part of his range which will call a bet but if he raises, you're toast. Check call means that hes not strong enough to call a bet or he might raise so you cant bet yourself, but his betting range is behind yours enough for you to call. Bet call is when you crush both his calling and raising range.

Its really up to you to decide when to do each one, because you have to assign the ranges. Figure out what you want to happen and why, then act appropriately.

What made you decide to play cash games rather than sit'n'gos (MTTs are pretty different, obviously)? Or do you play a mix? Is it a matter of temperament, personal preference, style of play, or do you just think profits are more easily had at cash games? Should we expect swings to be much bigger in one than in the other?

Thanks for this thread.

This one is easy, so I'll take it before some of the above posts. Sngs are a simpler game than cash, some talk of them actually being solved. Push/Fold strategy is very well mapped and therefore many sng players moved to cash around 2006

The biggest reason for me is that cashgames you can leave anytime, while once you start up a set of sngs you are forced to sit there for the next 30-50 minutes. Also problematic when the internet dies on you.

Are you serious? I HATE sit n gos. IMO they are totally mindless, and the variance is pretty sick. They are good for MTT training, thats about it. I make a ton more money at cash.

what happened to passaman? i took a break from poker and 2+2 about 6 months ago, but when i came back he wasn't here.

what will we do for spiritual guidance without him? who do we turn to?

Awesome thread, thank you


What are your thoughts on playing only a couple of tables, staying at the same level for a long time so that concepts and your game can really be worked on, compared with multitabling, moving up quickly and being able to beat the game your in because of experience gained from shear volume of hands.



Also do you think that a lot of advice in the threads and in literature is overated for uNL because of the level of play making it irrelavent, i.e What concepts do you think are of little use in uNL that are vital at higher levels.


Hope that all makes sense.


In order to improve you are going to have to sit down and do some work with stove/razor and the works .... this is my biggest leak, being lazy and mainly the reason I'm playing minbet these days. Handanalysis is more vital, but since ranges are better defined, it is easier. Anyways it is a balance, mainly because uNL can be very boring, you can easily make a nice profit on full auto, which tbh isn't perhaps that bad, but at some point stopping up and taking the time to think about hands.

Many recommend playing two tables or so and really calling ranges out loud, maybe record yourself while you do this and watch it. Perhaps do some PT/HEM reviewing.

But then again, there are players who have combined massive multitabling with learning and managed just fine, so all is fair I guess?

Litterature is usually not very good as it doesn't really deal with the whole ranges/handreading thing, PLN was on the right track tho only starting out, I haven't read HOC tho. Concepts are just concepts, but many are missapplied, like the small hand small pot one (dont go broke with tptk). If you have tptk and villian is just calling you don't, then it is usually a good spot to go broke vs many types of villians etc.

IMO image and history is almost useless at uNL because nobody is paying enough attention and the player pools are so big that you dont run into the same players too often. People are like "oh we need to balance this cr with the nuts, so I'll cr with air next time" its like... uh no, he's a drooler and isnt going to notice anyway.

Bankroll grows faster than skill. I dont think you should stay down forever, but I think theres such a thing as moving up too fast. AJ once said that you should always think of yourself as playing a range of limits. So instead of "im at nl50", say "im at 25nl to 100nl". When you feel good, play 100, and when you want to try some stuff, play 25.

Hey guys, cheers for another awesome thread, much appreciated.

Let's say you're dealt AKo in the blinds and 3bet a MP open raise (for argument's sake from $2->$7). MP is an unknown and you have no history or reads.

What % of the time do you cbet a Jx9x4x flop (OOP)? Does that % change with a truly ragged flop (2x4x5x)? Does it change if you're IP?

Thanks.

Vs Unknowns I tend to bet, it's not expensive and a good way of getting reads on them

It's a pretty huge topic you are asking about. We talked a little bit about it in a CB thread I started a month ago or so. Basically in 3b pots my thoughts are that you make money in 2 spots:

1. They fold to your 3b preflop.
2. You flop a monster.

That's where all the money is and you make huge profits in those two scenarios. It's in the third scenario, they call your 3b and you flop nothing, where caution is in order; because here it's where you can lose a little or lose a lot. CB and give up, imo, is a money pit in 3b pots, imo imo.

The less you 3b, the more you should CB. The more (lighter) you 3b the less you should CB. And when you do CB with air, a second barrel push on the turn should happen a good percentage of the time from Hero.--aj

Could you guys address a little bit on the topic of raising flop donk leads. A lot of bad players make a donk bet both in 25NL and 50NL and I have experimented with it and I think it has been profitable. But I still get myself in spots where I get 3bet on the flop, though not often since not many players at 25NL and 50NL lead out with strong hands such as a set or top two.

What kind of players do we want to raise a donk bet? What kind of flops and can we do it against a short stack?

Most bad players are obessed with trapping and slowplaying big hands so when they lead it is usually to "find out where there are" or they figured no one had anything, so they could take the pot. I raise them often. I only wont against a sold reg or a shortie where I have litte equity (something like T9 on a AQish board, where if I hit I cant be middle pair)

It is just a common read on players and some players donk hard, but most have installed a tendency to be afraid of betting with a good hand prefering villian to bet for them scared he will fold, if you bet. So good hands have a tendency to check to a pfr and then either c/r or just call and ??


So when you are donked into, it looks like villian wants you to fold, tho some players will use reverse psychology and donk with good hands hoping for that autoraise

I autraise anything less than pot. Also I look at timing. When bad players snap-donk a pot for a PSB, they got it.

To all mods: do u agree that micro player starting in nl10 or nl25 will never achieve mid stakes if he can't grind hard?

This is not a well thread. So I am deleting the first question. A micro player starting in 10nl or 25nl can go to midstakes if he is a capable player. Grinding hard is not necessarly a requirement.

Grinding lets you see a lot of hands and installs in you a sense of how villians usually act, but I'm not sure you need to 'grind hard' whatever that means. You need to work hard away and on the tables tho

YES. 100%. He will never get there.

What advice would you give to a winning micro LIMIT player thinking about trying out some NL action?


Chances are, that you are a calling station .. you might want to reconsider it. Buttom pair is not the nuts

I never played limit so idk. There is a 2p2 forum, limit--->NL that you might be helpful under the limit banner on the left.

Try to not make big calls at first, because that's the main things that limit converts do because they're used to getting like 8:1 on the river. Making bigger folds and I assume being more aggressive (I was never really a limit player) is crucial since you have more fold equity in NL.

Could you give one or two examples of FPS and explain why these kinds of plays are bad?

Anything that can be deemed as non-standard that is used solely for the purpose of "metagame" or other things like that. A less extreme version of FPS is flatting aces preflop against a regular. It's not horrible, but it's not standard and it'll get you in a lot of tricky spots postflop. It will just get you into spots that are unnecessary, thus it's a "fancy" play.

You know, ABC poker is to just raise, bet, bet, bet your good hands, anything that isn't ABC is a fancy play. Like trapping, limping with aces, going for a checkraise on the turn with your made hand instead of just betting it etc.

All this might miss out value if done incorrectly ....

Then there is the creative bluffs, these might spew


FPS is using the above too much, thus killing your winrate.

Raising the turn. Dont do it, he's not double barreling enough for it to be profitable.

Do you like calling or 3betting with SC's in LP.

For example, 100BB stacks, UTG player who's stats are 19/12/2.5. Hero is on Button with 8c9c. UTG makes standard 4xBB raise and it folds to you in Button.

Do we just call here or 3bet and why? (assuming the blinds are folding either way).

What about the same situation, but the Villain is in LP instead?

Depends. And it depends. There's no one way to do anything preflop. You should be able to call, fold or 3b in whatever the situation dictates. And I'm not just talking about the guys numbers when it comes to situations. How is the flow of the game going? Who else is there? What has Hero been doing lately? What has villain been doing lately? Generally...I'd prefer to call, because he's raising from UTG. Generally.--aj

Fold/raise/call ... all three are possible ... it depends mostly on how villian plays postflop (or preflop after you put that 3bet in) ... you're going to try and make him fold postflop on favorable board textures since just calling for pair/draw value is too little, so if you have a player that goes nuts pf, but playes fit/fold post a call is good