Moving Up Through uNL in 2010
01-05-2010
, 08:38 AM
Online poker is evolving. What might have been true in 2006 at 200NL could be obsolete in 2010. The games are getting tougher because the average person is much more knowledgeable about the game. This means that uNL games are evolving as well.
So that's the title of the thread: "Moving Up Through uNL in 2010". This is where I plan to write about and discuss some of the bigger issues that I see with these games today from a few perspectives:
1. Reading and discussing tons of posts from the uNL forums
2. Sweating other regulars who play these stakes
3. Playing these stakes myself
I feel that all three of these categories are critical for developing a good macro view of the uNL landscape and each of them provides a unique insight into it. To elaborate:
1. Reading the HH's that are posted on the forums shows what thinking players think are tough spots for them. It also shows how thinking players think about the game at the different levels.
2. While a HH's is usually a frozen moment in time, a sweat session gives an insight into how a player handles the little things. Subtle leaks are exposed and situations which never get posted to the forums happen again and again. As a side note, if you've never done a sweat session with another person playing around the same limits as you (or higher), these are some of the best things you can do to grow as a player.
3. Should seem self-explanatory: It's easy to play Monday morning quarterback. I plan on playing the limits from 5NL to wherever I end up this December.
As I mentioned, this thread will contain general articles I plan to write about strategy and theory at the micros. I hope that the discussion that comes out of these will help you grow as a player. There is a caveat of course: Don't take everything written at face value - you have to think for yourself, and if you disagree with something, voice your disagreements. Debate is healthy and constructive.
I think that is enough to get going. As the king from Alice in Wonderland said, "Let's begin at the beginning, continue until the end, and then stop."
I'll start my next post with a discussion of using your HUD to develop a basic read on a player.
From Verneer's blog entry on why he's doing this:
What does it take to beat the micros and move up in stakes? I often hear players say such blanket statements as “play tight and value bet – that’s all you need to do to beat the micro donks”. A lot of people that talk about how easy it is to beat the micros haven’t played there in a while and they don’t have a good grasp about the changing nature of the games. There is more to beating the micros and moving beyond them than just that.
One of my good friends who used to crush 2/4 and 3/6 two-and-a-half years ago (has it been that long? Wow … ) just recently came back to poker. He started playing 10NL and 25NL just to get some rust out and remarked how much tougher and more competent both the donks and the regs are at the micros. There are so many more resources out there for those that want to improve.
Yet people still play really badly. As a frequent poster in the 2+2 and CardRunners micro stakes forums, I notice so many of the same mistakes on the forums – both in terms of HH’s played and advice given. As I play hands myself I notice leaks here and there in my own game – both in subtle analysis and overall play.
In the fall of 2009, I talked quite a bit with Taylor, and we both thought it would be cool to develop the ultimate resource for micro stakes players – a collection of videos, articles, and personal advice that takes a player from $100 to a five-figure bankroll. The best way to do it is to take the long-term approach, and I think that I’m in a unique position to do that.
For one, I love writing about poker and teaching. I have gotten countless e-mails and comments from people whose games I’ve helped and this makes me happy. As I mentioned above – I want to develop the ultimate resource for someone who wants to deposit $100 and run it up the right way – moving up within your bankroll and with limited risk of ruin. I know that this is much less sexy than taking the $100 and buying in for 50 BB’s at a 200PLO table and then going on a insane heater, but oh well. The teacher in me also love developing learning materials and resources. I have two advanced degrees in education and it is still my love, even if teaching in a secondary or post-secondary setting isn’t for me right now.
Secondly, I have an amazing poker support network comprised of winning players at all limits with who I talk poker with daily. They are a mixture of 25NL players all the way through 25/50 players and higher. I think that my years of working for CardRunners have given me access to unbelievable poker minds and this is something I can bring back to the micro and low stakes community. I plan to write about a lot of these discussions as they relate to not only playing at the micros but beyond.
Finally, I am sure a lot of people will say that I’m burning so much financial EV by trying to build a bankroll from $100 this year. This is true, but so what? My wife and I live a very frugal lifestyle and this gives us tons of freedom to do pretty much what we want. If we had $1,000,000, I don’t feel like our lifestyle wouldn’t be much different (we might eat out more … maybe). Thus, we are in a position to do what we love. For me, taking on this project is much more satisfying than grinding the low and mid-stakes all year. At the end of the year, I will have something much more concrete to show for it than just money.
This is already in the tl;dr category, but I don’t think I could have made it any shorter without explaining my motivation. I will discuss my overall plan and structure later in a follow-up post.
Oh ... and a picture of my bankroll as of 1/1/2010:
So that's the title of the thread: "Moving Up Through uNL in 2010". This is where I plan to write about and discuss some of the bigger issues that I see with these games today from a few perspectives:
1. Reading and discussing tons of posts from the uNL forums
2. Sweating other regulars who play these stakes
3. Playing these stakes myself
I feel that all three of these categories are critical for developing a good macro view of the uNL landscape and each of them provides a unique insight into it. To elaborate:
1. Reading the HH's that are posted on the forums shows what thinking players think are tough spots for them. It also shows how thinking players think about the game at the different levels.
2. While a HH's is usually a frozen moment in time, a sweat session gives an insight into how a player handles the little things. Subtle leaks are exposed and situations which never get posted to the forums happen again and again. As a side note, if you've never done a sweat session with another person playing around the same limits as you (or higher), these are some of the best things you can do to grow as a player.
3. Should seem self-explanatory: It's easy to play Monday morning quarterback. I plan on playing the limits from 5NL to wherever I end up this December.
As I mentioned, this thread will contain general articles I plan to write about strategy and theory at the micros. I hope that the discussion that comes out of these will help you grow as a player. There is a caveat of course: Don't take everything written at face value - you have to think for yourself, and if you disagree with something, voice your disagreements. Debate is healthy and constructive.
I think that is enough to get going. As the king from Alice in Wonderland said, "Let's begin at the beginning, continue until the end, and then stop."
I'll start my next post with a discussion of using your HUD to develop a basic read on a player.
From Verneer's blog entry on why he's doing this:
What does it take to beat the micros and move up in stakes? I often hear players say such blanket statements as “play tight and value bet – that’s all you need to do to beat the micro donks”. A lot of people that talk about how easy it is to beat the micros haven’t played there in a while and they don’t have a good grasp about the changing nature of the games. There is more to beating the micros and moving beyond them than just that.
One of my good friends who used to crush 2/4 and 3/6 two-and-a-half years ago (has it been that long? Wow … ) just recently came back to poker. He started playing 10NL and 25NL just to get some rust out and remarked how much tougher and more competent both the donks and the regs are at the micros. There are so many more resources out there for those that want to improve.
Yet people still play really badly. As a frequent poster in the 2+2 and CardRunners micro stakes forums, I notice so many of the same mistakes on the forums – both in terms of HH’s played and advice given. As I play hands myself I notice leaks here and there in my own game – both in subtle analysis and overall play.
In the fall of 2009, I talked quite a bit with Taylor, and we both thought it would be cool to develop the ultimate resource for micro stakes players – a collection of videos, articles, and personal advice that takes a player from $100 to a five-figure bankroll. The best way to do it is to take the long-term approach, and I think that I’m in a unique position to do that.
For one, I love writing about poker and teaching. I have gotten countless e-mails and comments from people whose games I’ve helped and this makes me happy. As I mentioned above – I want to develop the ultimate resource for someone who wants to deposit $100 and run it up the right way – moving up within your bankroll and with limited risk of ruin. I know that this is much less sexy than taking the $100 and buying in for 50 BB’s at a 200PLO table and then going on a insane heater, but oh well. The teacher in me also love developing learning materials and resources. I have two advanced degrees in education and it is still my love, even if teaching in a secondary or post-secondary setting isn’t for me right now.
Secondly, I have an amazing poker support network comprised of winning players at all limits with who I talk poker with daily. They are a mixture of 25NL players all the way through 25/50 players and higher. I think that my years of working for CardRunners have given me access to unbelievable poker minds and this is something I can bring back to the micro and low stakes community. I plan to write about a lot of these discussions as they relate to not only playing at the micros but beyond.
Finally, I am sure a lot of people will say that I’m burning so much financial EV by trying to build a bankroll from $100 this year. This is true, but so what? My wife and I live a very frugal lifestyle and this gives us tons of freedom to do pretty much what we want. If we had $1,000,000, I don’t feel like our lifestyle wouldn’t be much different (we might eat out more … maybe). Thus, we are in a position to do what we love. For me, taking on this project is much more satisfying than grinding the low and mid-stakes all year. At the end of the year, I will have something much more concrete to show for it than just money.
This is already in the tl;dr category, but I don’t think I could have made it any shorter without explaining my motivation. I will discuss my overall plan and structure later in a follow-up post.
Oh ... and a picture of my bankroll as of 1/1/2010:
Last edited by udbrky; 02-02-2010 at 04:59 PM.
Reason: inserting background info and index courtesy of ice_wolf
01-05-2010
, 10:27 AM
Your HUD and Reads
We often use our HUD to gain some insight into our opponents. We use that information to develop an idea of their ranges. With the player pool at the micros so large, your HUD is like your recon team - giving you early glimpses of an unknown opponent. But what exactly does it tell you?
Let's examine a player with a made of screen name "PkrPlayer" by adding more and more to what we know about him and observe how this information converges. Let's also make some generalizations at each stage. The stages will grow exponentially.
After Two Orbits:
So after two orbits, the PkrPlayer has only played one hand. We can guess that he's not one-tabling because most one-tabling players at the micros don't like folding 11 out of 12 times. Could this guy possibly be one of the multi-tabling nits? We'll need more info.
After 25 Hands:
Hmmm ... all signs seem to point to a multi-tabling nit at this point. He is folding a lot. 25 hands is still a small sample, so let's see what happens in the next 25.
After 50 Hands:
Still no change ... let's give him the light-blue tag for "nit". After 50 hands, we've yet to see PkrPlayer go to showdown.
After 100 Hands:
Given that his VPIP and PFR are fairly close and that he's 3-bet a few times, we can infer that he's at least has a general idea about opening ranges. We shouldn't expect this player to open K2o UTG or do much limping. When he enters pots, he is probably going to be doing so aggressively.
After 250 Hands:
Now these numbers seem to be more of the standard TAG player. He is still going into pots aggressively by open raising and 3-betting his fair share. Doesn't seem to be getting out of line. We've observed him play three hands to the river and two of them went to showdown.
In Hand 1, he opened QQ BvB and bet/3-bet a J84r board vs. a 45BB stack who min-raised him on that board. He then shoved the turn and won the stack.
In Hand 2, he flatted a reg's UTG raise from MP with AQo. On a flop of 5
4
8
he checked back when checked to. He checked the turn when the T
came and then checked the river when the 5 came and won the pot.
So he seems to play straight-forward so far. Nothing that jumps out.
After 500 Hands:
It seems like this guy is going to be 3-betting more than just QQ+, AK (which comprises of 2.6% of hands). We get our first indication of this when the following hand occurs:
Hand 3: UTG is playing very loosely (51/31/6 over 130 hands) and is the mark at the table ATM. He is sitting on 200 BB's. He opens and PkrPlayer 3-bets him standard. He has UTG covered. CO, a regular with 100 BB's, flats. UTG flats as well.
The flop comes 5 2 K and gets checked through. The turn is the 7 and UTG checks again. Now PkrPlayer bets about 70% and BTN shoves. PkrPlayer call and flips over 6 8 for a monster draw while CO flips over a slow-played A A. All draws miss as the 7 hits the river and CO wins the pot.
This hand tells us a lot about PkrPlayer. First of all, he is not afraid to isolate the fish in position with marginal holdings. Secondly, he doesn't fire blindly postflop with weak draws multi-way. Lastly, he plays his equity for what it's worth.
After 1,000 Hands:
He is definitely a player that mixes up it up both preflop and postflop. Competent and aggressive.
We observe the following Hand: TAG opens on the button with effective 100 BB stacks. PkrPlayer calls from the BB and c/c a 33J flop. The turn which brings the A goes check/check. The river, the 8 also check through. PkrPlayer has 99 and BTN shows down TJ.
Hand 5: We also see him flat A6 BvB vs. a regular who opens for 4x. PkrPlayer checks back the 99A flop, checks again when the 9 turns, and calls a river bet on the 2 to chop it vs. A2.
So after about a 1000 hands we seem to have a player who is aggressive but not spewey post-flop. He mixes up his play and is definitely thinking about ranges. He c-bets most of the time and barrels often. He definitely 3-bets light, but seems to do it in position and wtih a polarized range.
Let's hit "Fast Forward":
After 2,500 Hands:
After 5,000 Hands:
After 10,000 Hands:
After 25,000 Hands:
What does this show us? It simply shows that our HUD doesn't tell us all that much about a player even after 100 hands. What it DOES show us is if someone is completely out of line. In this case, PkrPlayer is far from a nit, but in fact a competent multi-tabling sLAG.
It also shows how crucial showdown histories are for us to get a sense of how the player plays and how critical those are to playing vs. this player in the long run.
For the purposes of our discussions, we are going to not make too many assumptions about a player's preflop range until we have a few hundred hands on them or postflop tendencies until we see multiple showdowns from them.
Final Thoughts:
I'm going to leave close this with a hand I played at 5NL vs. a player whom I had playing 14/13/1 over 100 hands at the time:
Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $0.05 BB (6 handed) - Full-Tilt Hand Converter from HandHistoryConverter.com
SB ($4.64)
BB ($6.56)
UTG ($5.21)
MP ($7.82)
CO ($5.97)
Hero (Button) ($5.30)
Preflop: Hero is Button with Q, Q
2 folds, CO bets $0.17, Hero raises to $0.58, 2 folds, CO raises to $1.30, Hero raises to $5.30 (All-In), CO calls $4
Flop: ($10.67) 3, K, 4 (2 players, 1 all-in)
Turn: ($10.67) 8 (2 players, 1 all-in)
River: ($10.67) 3 (2 players, 1 all-in)
Total pot: $10.67 | Rake: $0.71
Results:
Hero had Q, Q (two pair, Queens and threes).
CO had A, Q (one pair, threes).
Outcome: Hero won $9.96
Moral: 14/11's don't always 4-bet KK+ nor are they truly 14/11's after just 100 hands ...
We often use our HUD to gain some insight into our opponents. We use that information to develop an idea of their ranges. With the player pool at the micros so large, your HUD is like your recon team - giving you early glimpses of an unknown opponent. But what exactly does it tell you?
Let's examine a player with a made of screen name "PkrPlayer" by adding more and more to what we know about him and observe how this information converges. Let's also make some generalizations at each stage. The stages will grow exponentially.
After Two Orbits:
So after two orbits, the PkrPlayer has only played one hand. We can guess that he's not one-tabling because most one-tabling players at the micros don't like folding 11 out of 12 times. Could this guy possibly be one of the multi-tabling nits? We'll need more info.
After 25 Hands:
Hmmm ... all signs seem to point to a multi-tabling nit at this point. He is folding a lot. 25 hands is still a small sample, so let's see what happens in the next 25.
After 50 Hands:
Still no change ... let's give him the light-blue tag for "nit". After 50 hands, we've yet to see PkrPlayer go to showdown.
After 100 Hands:
Given that his VPIP and PFR are fairly close and that he's 3-bet a few times, we can infer that he's at least has a general idea about opening ranges. We shouldn't expect this player to open K2o UTG or do much limping. When he enters pots, he is probably going to be doing so aggressively.
After 250 Hands:
Now these numbers seem to be more of the standard TAG player. He is still going into pots aggressively by open raising and 3-betting his fair share. Doesn't seem to be getting out of line. We've observed him play three hands to the river and two of them went to showdown.
In Hand 1, he opened QQ BvB and bet/3-bet a J84r board vs. a 45BB stack who min-raised him on that board. He then shoved the turn and won the stack.
In Hand 2, he flatted a reg's UTG raise from MP with AQo. On a flop of 5
48 he checked back when checked to. He checked the turn when the T came and then checked the river when the 5 came and won the pot.So he seems to play straight-forward so far. Nothing that jumps out.
After 500 Hands:
It seems like this guy is going to be 3-betting more than just QQ+, AK (which comprises of 2.6% of hands). We get our first indication of this when the following hand occurs:
Hand 3: UTG is playing very loosely (51/31/6 over 130 hands) and is the mark at the table ATM. He is sitting on 200 BB's. He opens and PkrPlayer 3-bets him standard. He has UTG covered. CO, a regular with 100 BB's, flats. UTG flats as well.
The flop comes 5
2 K and gets checked through. The turn is the 7 and UTG checks again. Now PkrPlayer bets about 70% and BTN shoves. PkrPlayer call and flips over 6 8 for a monster draw while CO flips over a slow-played A A. All draws miss as the 7 hits the river and CO wins the pot.This hand tells us a lot about PkrPlayer. First of all, he is not afraid to isolate the fish in position with marginal holdings. Secondly, he doesn't fire blindly postflop with weak draws multi-way. Lastly, he plays his equity for what it's worth.
After 1,000 Hands:
He is definitely a player that mixes up it up both preflop and postflop. Competent and aggressive.
We observe the following Hand: TAG opens on the button with effective 100 BB stacks. PkrPlayer calls from the BB and c/c a 3
3J flop. The turn which brings the A goes check/check. The river, the 8 also check through. PkrPlayer has 99 and BTN shows down TJ.Hand 5: We also see him flat A
6 BvB vs. a regular who opens for 4x. PkrPlayer checks back the 99A flop, checks again when the 9 turns, and calls a river bet on the 2 to chop it vs. A2.So after about a 1000 hands we seem to have a player who is aggressive but not spewey post-flop. He mixes up his play and is definitely thinking about ranges. He c-bets most of the time and barrels often. He definitely 3-bets light, but seems to do it in position and wtih a polarized range.
Let's hit "Fast Forward":
After 2,500 Hands:
After 5,000 Hands:
After 10,000 Hands:
After 25,000 Hands:
What does this show us? It simply shows that our HUD doesn't tell us all that much about a player even after 100 hands. What it DOES show us is if someone is completely out of line. In this case, PkrPlayer is far from a nit, but in fact a competent multi-tabling sLAG.
It also shows how crucial showdown histories are for us to get a sense of how the player plays and how critical those are to playing vs. this player in the long run.
For the purposes of our discussions, we are going to not make too many assumptions about a player's preflop range until we have a few hundred hands on them or postflop tendencies until we see multiple showdowns from them.
Final Thoughts:
I'm going to leave close this with a hand I played at 5NL vs. a player whom I had playing 14/13/1 over 100 hands at the time:
Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $0.05 BB (6 handed) - Full-Tilt Hand Converter from HandHistoryConverter.com
SB ($4.64)
BB ($6.56)
UTG ($5.21)
MP ($7.82)
CO ($5.97)
Hero (Button) ($5.30)
Preflop: Hero is Button with Q
, Q2 folds, CO bets $0.17, Hero raises to $0.58, 2 folds, CO raises to $1.30, Hero raises to $5.30 (All-In), CO calls $4
Flop: ($10.67) 3
, K, 4 (2 players, 1 all-in)Turn: ($10.67) 8
(2 players, 1 all-in)River: ($10.67) 3
(2 players, 1 all-in)Total pot: $10.67 | Rake: $0.71
Results:
Hero had Q
, Q (two pair, Queens and threes).CO had A
, Q (one pair, threes).Outcome: Hero won $9.96
Moral: 14/11's don't always 4-bet KK+ nor are they truly 14/11's after just 100 hands ...
01-05-2010
, 11:23 AM
01-05-2010
, 04:34 PM
Quote:
Huds are mainly useful for quickly identifying the loose passives, aggrotards and all other fish varieties imo. A stat of 45/12 or 80/20 or 30/0 and such after 15 hands will be pretty much spot on indicative of what kind of player this is. This guy is no tag. It becomes more tricky when you start trying to nail down regs with few hands. I ran probably about as cold as I ever have last night over 300 hands on each table and was like 17/14 average and only 3b about 4%. I am nowhere near that nitty. I was also not meshing well with flops so I looked a bit weak post flop at times.
If you have a few thousand hands on a reg and look at him positionally (example below) in your HEM, you can learn an insane amount about their ranges and thus develop a good counter-strategy vs. this type of player.
Example:
What do these numbers tell you about this player's ranges?
01-05-2010
, 04:47 PM
01-05-2010
, 04:47 PM
Quote:
A lot of good points here. After 3-4 orbits we can discern the 80/65 player from the 40/0 player from someone who seems like he has a preflop style which might be alright. That said, HUDs become really useful vs. regulars once you have 1,000+ hands on them - especially if you use positional stats on your HUD:
If you have a few thousand hands on a reg and look at him positionally (example below) in your HEM, you can learn an insane amount about their ranges and thus develop a good counter-strategy vs. this type of player.
Example:
What do these numbers tell you about this player's ranges?
If you have a few thousand hands on a reg and look at him positionally (example below) in your HEM, you can learn an insane amount about their ranges and thus develop a good counter-strategy vs. this type of player.
Example:
What do these numbers tell you about this player's ranges?
That hes positionally aware. Likes to put pressure on when in position with a wider range. Oop his range is stronger and more aggressive.
Well thats what i took from it.
