Alright,

many of you guys might not know me since I mainly post in SSNL. However I learned a ton at 2+2 and after 1,000 posts feel the urge to give something back.

I'm currently a 100NL regular that spent most of last year playing a huge variance and basically breakeven game. I've tried many different styles ranging from nitty to LAG but it just wouldn't "klick" for me.

Today I'm a cashgame coach and video instructor for a small coaching site that focusses on teaching micro and smallstakes grinders.

I wouldn't be there had I not made a major change to how I view the game.

I was struggling and focussed hard on studying the game, however I took the wrong approach.

Some guy in a training video suggested an ultra loose and aggro style, swearing that that's the way to beat uNL and SSNL. So I tried that.

Guess what? I sucked.

Why did I suck? Because I tried imitating someones style, basically I tried imitating HIS STATS!!!

**** that! Stats don't mean ****! All that matters is your understanding of the game.

Now it is really not too hard to play a 32/28 (or whatever) preflop game. Just play 32% of your hands and raise 28%

If you don't know which hands to play in what situations however you'll get crushed or at least end up as a breakeven rakeback grinder who's gonna be facing HUGE MASSIVE SWINGS. In a way you crush yourself.

What's really funny is that today I mostly play around 29/25 during the week and 36/30 (sometimes looser) during the weekends. But for the first time ever this change in my preflop game didn't come through me "aiming" for certain stats, but rather through thinking about ways how to exploit my opponents.

In your average uNL and SSNL games you will face 2 player types IN GENERAL:

Fish and Regs.

Now of course these two types can be broken down into innumerable subcategories (there's the aggrotard fish and the loose passive calling station fish, and theres the good LAG/TAG reg and the breakeven grinder and the nit and the...... etc)

1. Fish

You guys should have a mathematical edge over the fish if you frequent these forums and put some effort into improving your game. Still you could do better vs them (we'll get to that later).

2. Regs

Many of the regs you are facing should not pose a huge threat to you, because what they're mainly doing is playing a set range of hands from each position and they won't adjust to changing table conditions (a huge whale joins/leaves the table, a player gets short, an aggro reg joins to their right etc).

They'll keep playing their set range of hands. No matter ****ing what!

The above mainly applies to nits and breakeven TAGs. But guess what?

MOST OF THE REGS YOU'RE FACING FALL INTO ONE OF THESE TWO CATEGORIES!!! (in fact, I set the o/u of ppl of these two categories reading this post at 80%)


Now in a 6max game you pretty much allways have fish AND regs at the table so it's time for us to find a way to beat all of them at the same time.

Money in poker primarily comes from the fish. Now guess who's more likely to win that money? Obviously it's the person that plays the most pots vs said fish. That means you need to be isolating and by that you also take advantage of the regs at the table because they will just let you do that unless they happen to have a hand that fits into their set range of hands.

If you want to play tons of pots vs fish you'll have to embrace the fact that you'll be in there with a weaker range than you're used to. But if you pay close attention and gain some experience you'll more often than not manage to have position and most importantly you just play better than them. That more than makes up for the weaker range you're holding.

You need to be isolating these limpers!!!

Do that with anything REMOTELY playable.

You need to be 3bet isolating these aggrotards!!!

Do that with anything REMOTELY playable.

You need to open your goddamn BUTTON!!!

Do that with ANY TWO CARDS if there's TAGs in the blinds and do that with anything REMOTELY playable when there's fish in the blinds. vs TAGs you'll show an immediate profit just because they fold often enough and vs fish you'll play them in position which in and off itself is gonna be profitable.

By doing that you'll increase your chances of busting the fish before someone else does by a lot. Sure you'll get into trouble with your weaker range at first but you'll gain the nessecary postflop experience way faster than anyone else since you'll be faced with way more marginal spots than them and get accustomed to them quickly.

Try it out!

Stop playing a gazzillion tables just to make more rakeback.

Focus on every situation and take advantage of them.

Always know who's acting after you. Are there fish in the blinds and between you and the BTN only tight regs? Open looser! Are there loose players between you and the BTN and tight players in the blinds? Open tighter.

Screw aiming for stats. Even if you guys take my advice your stats will differ from mine and they will differ between you guys. There is not THE preflop style that is set in stone to be THE most profitable. All you have to do is focussing on situations, exploiting ALL of your opponents and your stats will take care of themselves.

Improve Your Game And Your Stats Will Follow!

That's it from me for now.

Good luck at the tables,

Sugar Nut

1st, great post

nice work

Much respect.

Standard

and a good read.

hehe its funny a few weeks ago I tried this out and it worked out pretty well, I basically opened any decent hand once one of the fish to my right was limping, and most regs didnt do anything about it.

Great post!

I used to fear regs, now I embrace them. They're so easy to play against and they're everywhere. I love getting at a table with a few mass multi-tabling regs in my blinds. They usually never budge or change tables, but new regs rarely fill in so fish come and go and I have position on them most of the time.

I've also recently started isolating fish a lot more and it's working well. I've still got a lot of postflop (and PF) game to work on but you don't improve if you avoid it!

You like tapping the glass, huh?

Nice post, sir.

ttmft

Very nice post.

I especially like how you highlight the importance of developing one's own game rather than trying to copy someone else.

Nice post, congrats on 1k.
Puts words to the style I'm trying to learn - I try to determine how to make money from every player at the table and play according, feels like I'm on the right track.
cheers.

Heh, I knew your name was familiar from somewhere. Then I read your post and realized where I recognized you from. Excellent post!

GOOD POST OP just need bit more info

can you elaborate on this point

what hands would you be 3bet isoing like SC?
what do we do on flop?
just play poker right like if they call cbets to often just cbet less often? or just cbet good boards?

i think i get in trouble with marginal hands in 3bet pots because i end up cbetting getting called seeing a K peel on turn and im like DOUBLE BARRELLLL and he calls and i get sad

tips and tricks?

Bookmarkerd, going to read it later. Looks good sugar, thnx for sharing.

I kept these things pretty vague on purpose. In my post I strongly discourage playing set ranges. "Remotely Playable" is a rather flexible term and for every situation it might be a different range.

Things to consider are:

Is villain opening a ton but folding to a lot of 3bets?

Is villain opening a ton and calling a lot of 3bets?

When he calls, will he be fit/fold or is he a non believer?

It's all about developing reads on your opponents and start thinking a bit more creatively about every situation and how it might differ from the socalled "standard".

One thing is for sure though:

If there's an aggrotard at the table and you wait for AA like everyone else at the table, you don't have a better chance to bust him than your opponents. It'll just become a race of who's gonna be dealt AA first (exaggerated example of course but you get what I mean)

NH

Good post. A person shouldn't play a style. They should simply play a game that adjusts accordingly to the conditions at the table.

thanks for this.

This is gold....A+...should be stickied etc etc.

Abuse position!

fmp

reading now

thx for the effort

edit:
read and liked, though not much news for me

basicly this is what i concluded about my game a few weeks ago.
started playing 4 tables and trying to be as aggressive as possible, pushing the expoitation to the max (ie isolating the right kind of fish with Q8o if there's tight players behind)

hasn't been easy at all but i have definitly learned a lot and improved my game bit by bit

Nh, sir.

Lack of paragraphs made it TL;DR for me. Might try to read cuz apparently it could be +EV, but I hate poker AORN.

ur a mod

u have my permission to reformat it if you like (if you don't change the content obv)

Something that has been frustrating me ever since I wised up to isolating fish.

He'll hit his bottom two pair on the river when I made top pair on the flop but I think...

"That's cool, don't get [censored], you played it ok, had him beat with all value bets till the river when he got lucky, you know he's a fish, just sit back, have a bit of patience and stack him in a bit."

Only to see him either get ripped apart by the rest of the table, or insta-felted by a reg and then [censored] off leaving my chips scattered around the table.

NH sir, I will endevour to put you advice to good use and try harder to feast on the fish before the rest of the table have their fill.

Oh and if it's tl;dr

cliffnotes:

Improve Your Game And Your Stats Will Follow!