Hi,

of course i'm looking to improve myself and i decided the best way to improve my game at the moment would be to first work on my preflop game, because it influences strongly in what type of (new) spots i get in postflop. At NL10, my 3b percentage is about 4% and my Fto3b about 78%. First i wonder if those are OK stats on NL10.

Second, i want to start with the optimal 3bet/4bet/5bet strategies from http://en.donkr.com/Articles/optimal...x---part-1-329.

From previous studying i'm understanding the whole value 3betting and light 3betting principle but i feel like i should learn more about it, like the math and balancing. But like i said i'm a NL10 player and i'm not playing NL10 because i'm Phil Ivey. I'm beating it good, but not sure if i beat NL25. With that in mind i wonder: is the whole game theory 3 / 4 / 5betting a good way to start learning more, or would anybody advice me to study other material first about preflop play?

The article is good. Your 3b stat is low but acceptable, your fold to 3b is realy high. Preflop dif between nl10 and nl25 is not so big.
My comment applies to Stars, when you play at an easier site overfold to 3b can be still OK.

4% 3 bet is way too low and Fto3bet is way too high. The donkr articles are great but learn the concepts and don't try to apply what it says perfectly because you will get destroyed when people flat your 4 bets, etc. Just use it as a guide and adjust it for your games.

I'd be careful taking advice from an article that is over four years old.
At just a quick glance, I noticed this:


Candidate list for 3-bet bluffing:
- Ace high: A9s-A6s ATo-A8o (52 combos)
- King high: K9s-K6s, KJo-K9o (52 combos)
- Queen high: Q9s-Q6s, QJo-Q9o (52 combos)

If you don't approve of this list, feel free to make your own. The specific hands are irrelevant, what matters is that we use hands with the right properties, namely hands that aren't quite strong enough to flat.


Sounds like four year old advice tbh. Many of those hands make awful 3bet bluffs, especially stuff like Q9o and A8o. Both those hands work pretty well as a flat against steals however.

The game has moved on. People flat 3bets a lot more liberally these days, float wider and include slowplays at a higher frequency, partly because they realize they can't just play a fit or fold game (and also because 2x'ing has become much more common, thus allowing a more flexible spr).
Also, the preflop "blocker effect" has become pretty negligable the last two years imo. In my games, at least, the average reg has roughly 40% flat 3bet and 30% flat 4bet in position.

Unless it isn't obvious already, what I'm getting at is that you want hands with postflop playability, and also hands that can connect with boards outside of the range an opponent will typically put you on.

I realize this is the microstakes forums, but it could be useful to know what you will be up against if you move up. Learning something that's not going to work in the future can be pretty detrimental.
Hand selection for your 3bet and 4bet bluffs is a pretty crucial part of the game these days imo.

I didn't read the entire article, could be some solid stuff in there, but I would read it with sceptisism.

Thx, great feedback. As the other guys noticed, i'm too tight preflop and i want to work on that. Do you have any good reads, especially for 2015 and with an eye on like NL25? Only the 'post hands and analyze' stuff isn't enough for me, i need more solid base to start from and analyze from there.

This is the wrong approach. The correct approach would be "I don't make enough money playing poker, and I want to make more".

Ultimately, those two questions could lead to the same answer, however it's important to distinguish between them. 3betting 4% and folding 78% could in practice be a very profitable strategy (just ask any nit back in 2005 making $20k/month).

As it turns out, in todays game it's not. You're almost certainly leaving money on the table by being exploited by other regs and not playing enough hands vs fish (the two are intertwined fwiw).
So you need to open up your game a bit, but to make it work it has to be a gradual process. If you suddenly start 3betting 8% and flatting 25% more hands, you will constantly find yourself outside your comfort zone and make very expensive mistakes.

Best general advice I can give is to cut down on tables (to a maximum of four), and keep asking questions to yourself before you many any decision by inspecting your hud and looking for weaknesses in your opponents.

Why am I 3betting here? Why am I folding here? Why am I opening this hand. Etc, etc.

People who think it's "cool" to play loose are usually losing players. The ones who play loose because they're good enough to do so, are not. You should never aim for any particular playing style; It should always be tailored for any individual table. Whatever preflop stats you end up with by playing your most profitable poker is largely irrelevant.

Should point out here that your 3 bet IP range should be very dependent both on the original raiser and the players to act behind. You don't want to be 3 betting an EP raiser with a hand like AQ when there's a whale in the small blind who wants to play.

Especially at NL10 and other micro limits, it actually pays to see more flops if you can reasonably hope that a fish will come along and see that flop with you.

Conversely, you should be mindful of aggressive players in the blinds who take any opportunity to squeeze. Often it's better to 3-bet a little lighter in those situations so you won't have to deal with aggro regs squeezing you all the time.

This mostly applies to zoom though, since you'll be in different positions in every hand. If you are playing regular tables then you should be bumhunting whales so you don't even have to worry about a 3b/4b/5b range against other regs, since your aim on regular tables should just be to play against the fish as much as possible, however you can accomplish it.

No one read that article! Now I can understand what poker was like back in the day.
As of pre flop advice find out the difference between polar and linear 3 betting which strategy . Simple google search will do the trick. I can't stress how much The more you post and take people's advice. How it can improve your game. Stick at it and learn 1 part at a time.

Thx guys. I am playing regular tables indeed, most of them 6-max. And yes i'm kind of bumhunting because i only play tables with at least 2 weak players (or 1 huge whale). It's just that beside posting and analyzing i would like to study some more theory on the whole preflop game.

Cutting down tables is defenitely a way to go. I tried it before and i felt like it improved my game more than when i was 10+ tabling. This 'Why am I 3betting here? Why am I folding here? Why am I opening this hand. Etc, etc.' is something i do a lot more than before, so it's good to see you're pointing this out. Since you seem to be a player who is good informed about poker these days, do you have any specific recommendations about theory?