What was an eye opener for you?
(an eye opener to me is something that happens and instantly makes you a better player)

To me it was finding out it's about winning stacks, not pots

I didn´t ever have one.
There were helpfull things but they had to happen couple times to sink and start to work.

Whoa, I guess I must correct myself here.
So I made that thread about a hand when I tried to steal with QJ or so in CO but the BTN called, and a queen flopped, I was out of position and they didn´t fold to my flop bet.
There was a long discussion, I was pointing out my reasoning how that problem possibly couldn´t be solved (probably best hand now, but worst hand like always if they agree to make the pot any larger), and asked for the flaw in my reasoning. Finaly someone said "your flaw is that you don´t utterly understand how terrible it is to be out of position". This instantly helped me a lot.

Right, stuff like that !

Two things that I can recall...

1. Figuring out what a mistake it is to break a hand into two parts: Preflop and Post flop. The breakthrough was understanding that what I do preflop sets me up for what I can and can't do with a hand post flop.

2. Aggression with position.

You mean, if you bet, you can make the pot bigger then you would have when you just limped in? stuff like that?

3betting out of position constantly every time I have half a hand probably isn't that good

My biggest breakthrough was learning how to 9 table. I thought I could never play more than 4. I realized that a little overlap of the tables is NOT a terrible thing, and I can tile them in a 3 by 3 grid with at least 25% of each window still showing almost at all times.

Probably the most recent....

- Learning the difference between what people will call with and what they will raise with.
- The importance of knowing not only if you are on monkey tilt but when you are passive tilt (nothing seems to work so I will just sit here and wait) or even when you are simply on your B game and thats not good enough.
- How awesome table and seat selection is.

I still don't get this one

without a doubt, for me it was




j/k

bottomset's $100 vid on DC especially with regard to the things he was saying about exploiting limpers.

Well I could write an essay on it and I probably will next month.

Cliff notes until then
- have tight/passive players to your left (esp in the blinds)
- have loose passive players on your right
- Exception can be made if there is a really really bad player on the table.

I dont think there is any reason why you cant get 12+ tables like this up to and including NL100.

Example you have a 16/14 in the blinds.... screw it just leave.

Sit at tables with good VPIP (I look for 25%+), no more than 3 shortstackers, sit to the left of big stacks, regs, and donks, and to the right of nits. Easy.

Yep
i get this one

and this one to

But what i don't get: Does this mean i just have to move from the table if i notice my table is wrong for me?

I came on here made a post about why I suck and how to improve. King spew sent me a starting hand chart and repeated like 45 times about folding OOP and folding to aggression.

The next day I started over at PS at NL2. I had been losing at NL10 at about -16BB/100. Just by reading his message and asking a few questions, a lightbulb flashed... what I had been doing wasn't tight aggressive at all! Even though I thought it was!!! I was playing like a loose idiot!!!!! Beat NL2 and NL5 for almost 20BB/100 for 25k hands, and am up to NL25 and winning a little bit.

Biggest difference was that I stopped playing anything but premium hands oop... I finally actually saw the difference position makes... that it's not about whether you get raised off the hand PREFLOP... it's about how hard it is to make money OOP AFTER the flop.

EXACTLY!!!!!!

Just leave, there are loads of tables and most of them are soft.
Find the softest spots and profit.

Okay
and how long do i give a table?
am i gone after 5 minutes? 10?

Just leave and dont look back. Find a new table and if its good - stay, if not then leave that one too.

So you constantly switching between tables?

Lol, another eye opener, i NEVER switch tables

To give you an idea of how important seat and game selection I just had a lenghty conversation with a really good NL200 player who is well grounded in theory and maths.

We were discussing 3-bet, 4-bet and 5-bet optimal bluffing strategy and getting quite in depth even into game theory maths.

Want to know what we concluded? Against a decent opponent who plays back even if you are just as good or even slightly better..... move tables.


Sorry for the slight derail/hijack.

My eye opener is that AA and KK are not the be all end all of starting hands and have to be played very carefully when playing a TAG style or it will be the death of your bankroll. They truly do win small pots and lose big pots if not played correctly.

1)Learining about situations were I have bad inverse implied odds

2) Hands that are easily dominated. The AT, AJ, AQ, KQ types.

3) Vbetting is the most important post flop play (after establishing position and aggression preflop)

I could list a ton of things that were really eye openers, but the two really important ones that come to mind are -

1) A hand is one long series of events, not 4 separate and unrelated betting stages.

2) Everyone gets the same situations in the long run. Everyone will get AA vs KK and win an easy stack, everyone will flop a set vs overpair, and everyone will get TPTK vs 2 pair eventually. What makes the difference between winners and losers is that winners learn to extract when they have the best hand, how to win when they don't, how to lay down when they can't, and how to not lose money in the long stretches of being card dead. Graphically speaking, they maximize when their graph is running up, and minimize when it's running down. Pretty basic, but when this really became clear to me, I really felt like I had a good grasp of what I was trying to accomplish in the game, and my confidence that I could beat it shot up drastically. I went from "I hope I run good/flop awesome enough times this month" to "I'm beating this level for sure this month, if I just play enough hands."

1.) that when a nit raises or reraises u...u better not put another dollar in with a light hand

Did you ever take a look in your PT DB? Sure you can't stack off with them but playing them overcautiously is far worse than playing them too agressive...