this is pure gold. one of the best on 2p2.

Thanks for the guide very useful

great guide! too bad i just moved out of 25NL all of this is true though so new players use this to your advantage

I have this same problem and it is frustrating to miss, cbet, and most likely have to give up on the turn if you miss again. Would it make sense to check a missed flop to try and control the pot size a little more? I understand the concept (as well as I can at my level) of cbetting and pot control, but as the OP stated, a majority of the opponents don't understand these concepts anyway - so maybe not cbetting or giving up pot control is ok, because the opponents don't realize the advantage they have just gained. Does this line of thinking make sense? Check a missed flop, let the opponent bet, and decide if it is worth it to continue at that point?



Dittos on the great post...where do I send my $10?

This is such a huge question that I can't do it justice but I'll try to steer you in the right direction.

C-Bet if you think they will fold a hand that beats you
check raise if you think they'll bet\fold
value bet if you think you're ahead

if they call proceed cautiously on the turn. If they're showing down ****ty hands (ie 2nd or 3rd pair, or gutshot straight draws) then you don't wanna 2nd barrel. If they're only showing down good hands, you can double barrel (although if they call a check raise you have to be very wary)


Play in position. It's so hard to C-Bet out of position against an unknown.

i wouldn't worry too much about pot control at this level.

The key to the c-bet OOP is how well it hit the range you are repping.

If you are playing the starting hands suggested then ask yourself "is the vil going to believe I have what this bet says I have?" If not, then check.

Also for marginal hands, I do like to check and sometimes delay the c-bet till turn for pot control. Example here might be 99 on a T73 board.

Also if you notice you are just getting abused by people IP on your c-bets, make note of the people and either resort to check raise on made hands on flop, or check raise made hands on turn.

I still question how many people are going to be able to really exploit you if you keep your c-bet frequency in the normal range (60-70%), if you get out of line and start c-betting everything (90%+) then I would expect people to start noticing this at 10nl and 25nl for sure.

Thanks for the tread OP. This has helped me play a lot, it should be required reading for anyone attempting to build a roll from NL2.

Great post......


Just moved from 6max to 10/25NL/PL FR and the one note I seem to be using the most is:

"Thinks AK is the nuts unimproved"

I'm hoping to add some things I've learned by playing 10nl and 25nl full ring. A lot of the info on here teaches you to play a weak tight game which is profitable at the lowest of the stakes but I've noticed at 25nl, you really do have to start playing poker. There's basically nits and fish at 25nl. You trade coolers with the nits and hope to make some money from the fish. You can't survive on showdown winnings any longer. You actually have to start putting your regs on ranges and taking them off their hands when you don't think they've hit.

Due to the nature of poker, you're coolered constantly each session. You basically hope to cooler enough people back so you can keep your head above water. You have to get money from somewhere else and personally I don't see taking money from fish to be good enough. You now need to start learning to play against regs.

Just some thoughts.

Yeah the guide is designed to get you from not beating 2NL/5NL to posting a profit. It is a very weak tight game, but that's your foundation. By the time you hit 25NL you will have to start building on that foundation and begin to learn some 'real' poker. At that point there is no 'guide' that can be given. You just have to use 2p2, read books, watch videos, and just absorb the knowledge, but this will give you that foundation to build on.

will read later

Quick question would you use the same guide lines with starting hands for 6 max games as with full ring games .great read thanks for the info .

I don't think so, 6-max is slightly different beast than FR. A lot of concepts in this guide are applicable, but starting hand selection is probably the biggest difference between the two (in terms of applications of this guide). I'd recommend asking around or searching the Micro Stakes NL (i.e 6 max) forum for some general info on starting hand selection and take it from there.

Very useful, thanks sircuddle!

there are some 6max starting hand suggestion guides floating around 2+2.
as Sircuddles mentioned, 2 differenct games.

Just finished another read of this, and thanks so much. After a two month downswing I decided to go back through some of the basics and this thread is one of the best. 800 hands $25+ at nl10 (lost $15 on KK vs AA preflop and even riverd a K - flop was 234-, turn 5 and donked another $7 off on a river bluff the very next hand - tilt) so this helped me get back on track.

Thanks Sir.

Awesome post, very helpful. Will print it out and re-read to stay on track.

Played a session tonight NL25, but for me it's still impossible to win, this has happend in two straight sessions.
I found a reaaaal donkey, just smashing the pots beeing a maniac.
but Stars have a permanent doomswitch on me. In this case I knew I was infront 100% of the time......

Now my NL 25 graph is just beeing more uglybugly.
:

PokerStars, $0.10/0.25 Hold'em Cash Games, 4 Players
Hand Converter by Pokerhand.org

Board:
brutti (BB): $32.80
Xant777 (CO): $33.35
patof55 (Button): $22.90
Fed Chair (SB): $30.10

Dealt to brutti A T

Pre-flop:
(2 folds), Fed Chair raises to $.75, brutti calls $.50

Flop: ($1.60) 5 J T (2 Players)
Fed Chair bets $1.75, brutti calls $1.75

Turn: ($5.10) T (2 Players)
Fed Chair bets $27.60 and is all-in, brutti calls $27.60

River: ($60.30) J (2 Players)

Results:
Fed Chair Showed K J
brutti Mucks A T
Fed Chair wins $58.20

Looks like you shouldnt be in that hand, imo

Was shorthanded, people was leaving the table for some reason....

A-10 shorthanded 4-5 persons isnt that horrible.

True
that sucks he hit his 2 outer, I hate when board pairs like that

Well seems like I run really bad, last time I tried to play some cashgame this happend against biggest donkfish I found back then:

PokerStars, $0.10/0.25 Hold'em Cash Games, 7 Players
Hand Converter by Pokerhand.org

Board:
brutti (SB): $34.45
kXe_m (BB): $47.95
Thekakou (UTG): $5
pzerotm (UTG+1): $10.95
meDiOCREiAM (MP1): $17.65
MK-14-07-59 (CO): $19.60
danni7678 (Button): $6.20

Dealt to brutti A J

Pre-flop:
(2 folds), meDiOCREiAM raises to $.75, MK-14-07-59 calls $.75, (1 folds), brutti calls $.65, (1 folds)

Flop: ($2.50) 7 A 7 (3 Players)
brutti bets $.50, (1 folds), MK-14-07-59 raises to $2.25, brutti calls $1.75

Turn: ($7) A (2 Players)
brutti checks, MK-14-07-59 bets $8, brutti raises to $16.25, MK-14-07-59 raises to $16.60 and is all-in, brutti calls $.35

River: ($40.20) 7 (2 Players)

Results:
brutti Showed A J
MK-14-07-59 Showed 7 2
MK-14-07-59 wins $38.25

-

Wondering how I can win at cashgames?

In both this situations Im over 95% favorit to win, Im wondering how it can happen twice in a row when Im all in on turn. This sucks so much when i've played so low volume and really, hating PokerStars now.

If you are concerned by hands like these, where you are a 95% favourite, you are simply not playing with proper bankroll management. Move down in limits so you will have enough buyins to turn these favorable situations in to low variance profit.

The OP has a couple paragraphs written on this subject titled under

"BANKROLL: MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOU THINK"

Yes Iam playing with VERY NITTY and strict bankrollmanagement.

128 buy-ins should be more than enough.

Thing is I don't play massive volume, so when this happens like in a blink of an eye its frustrating. You dont get the opportunity all the time to get it all in there in dominant spots.

Last: I just getting abit fed up seeing the donks getting rewarded time after time by playing just horrible poker and then some other semidonk stack them off in a marginalhand.

Thanks sir for this outstanding guide.