I'm playing 5NL and feel like I am doing well, not crushing but I certainly feel more competent then the player pool. I'm on a 10 BI down swing over the last couple thousand hands which sadly has brought my overall win rate down to -4 bb/100. I'm starting to question whether I am actually playing well or not, but I am not really a strong enough player to evaluate and say for sure.

Can anyone give me some tips on how to evaluate my situation? I do review hands but for the most part can't find any glaring mistakes.

It's possible you're getting naturally exploited by the pool. Otherwise, if you're playing well you should definitely be winning at 5nl.

I guess "playing well" is relative. I can't beat 100nl for sure, but I would certainly think I'm winning against players that don't know an opening range.

I have my preflop ranges down and a decent understanding of bet sizings and frequencies. I also think I am picking good bluffs for x/r and over bets. Not sure if this is enough to beat 5nl or if I need to learn more about specific flop textures before I should be playing these stakes.

You need to win not only against other players but also against rake

There are some forums around here for study groups and coaching, maybe check those out

Thanks, I'll look into that. Do you think a coach is really necessary just to beat 5nl?

No I don’t.




Do I think it helps? Absolutely.

Are all coaches the same? No.

I'm sure it would help. I'm not really trying to be a pro or anything. I just don't like losing lol.

What's your overall graph like? Zoom out. (EDIT: oh right -4bb. In that case don't be afraid to move down. Good BR management is best to practice at less painful stakes)

In reality 2k hands is barely a session. 10BI is barely a downswing. It should barely register in the scheme of things.

10bi downswings are very common even for winning players. I'd recommend posting a combination of hands you think you played well and hands you're unsure of. As swerbs said, trying to network with other players so you can gain additional feedback from other people is also very useful.

Poker is a lot like life in many ways. One of those is that it can have very long feedback loops. In other words you can do all of the correct things but get bad short term results.

Don't worry. A few thousand hands is a trivial sample. To give you an example play around with this poker variance calculator. If you set the win-rate to 0bb/100, the variance to 85BB/100 and look at a 5k sample you can see the range of results that a break-even player can have:



-4bb/100 = -200BB over a 5k hand sample, which is squarely inside the 70% confidence interval.

In other words if your true win-rate was 0BB/100 a run like this would be completely normal over a 5k hand stretch. I wouldn't even be unlikely for a 2-3bb/100 winner.

You can calculate this yourself using the data in your poker tracking software but at -4BB/100 that likely means that you are in fact beating the 5nl pool but losing to the rake (Simply add the total rake that you have paid to your total losses and if your losses become profits then it means that you are beating the pool). I'm not sure if that kind of news is encouraging or demoralising but I think it is good to know the truth.

Keep playing. Keep posting. Keep learning. Keep questioning. Don't play when tilted. At 5nl listen to your gut when it tells you to fold.

Here's the graph. I could move back down to 2NL but it's not really about the money. I feel like I am crushing the game but my stats say otherwise.

As others have mentioned, small sample so could just be noise. Looks like you're running above EV so it could be poor play or just running into coolers.

Based on RL, it looks like you are probably being too passive. You don't need a rocketship RL, but I'd at least try to get it breakeven or slightly losing.

Try looking at/posting hands where you

1. Bet flop, checked turn.

2. Bet flop, bet turn, checked river.

3. Bet turn, checked river (especially in limped pots when you're in the SB/BB)

It may not be "necessary" but everyone learns differently and at different speeds, and coaching can greatly expedite that process.

If improving at poker is something you are invested in, and you can afford coaching as part of your poker budget, I wouldn't write it off.

Yea red line is bad. I was told on another thread not to worry too much about red line at the micros because Vs at this don't like to fold and a value heavy strategy is best.

I have been looking at river spots to bluff raise, or other spots to improve red line but most of the Vs I play against are whales

Are you one of those guys that puts milk in his bowl before his cereal?


Value heavy is a good strat. Villains do overfold, you just have to know where to look. River bluff raises are probably not the best place to be looking for improvement in your game.

@newguyhere has some good points, look at the pots you pile money in then give up. Folding goes to redline, check downs go to blue. At the end of the day, if you think you need a BE or winning redline just stop folding and it will stop tanking. But just so you know, you absolutely do not need a BE or winning redline to crush. Mine is around -6 to -8 (I'm maintaining a double digit winrate for over 100k hands now), and almost every winning reg with a large sample I have in my DB are winning with redlines around -8.

Bluffing fish isn't where the bulk of your WR comes from, but don't get that confused with thinking you should never try to bluff them. Taking B-X-B and X-B-B lines against them can be really profitable.

Agree with Swerbs not to worry too much about bluff raising, but there are some spots where it's going to be +EV.

One example is when they either probe or donk small (B50 or less) OTT. Raising and then betting river if they check works really well.

I don't even need to go as big as I did OTR. Using B66-B75 is just as effective.

Here are my oversimplified thoughts regarding red line:

Red lines worse than around -8 to -10bb I consider basically always having leaks

Red lines somewhere in the -5 to -8 range likely have marginal leaks

Red lines slightly negative (~0 to -5) are going to be from players not overfolding and applying reasonable aggression

Positive red lines are indicative of over aggression/underfolding and if combined with positive overall win rate indicative of a strategy that is exploiting the population.

It's also possible for red lines to be more negative in weaker pools specifically where there are more multiway pots. Player pool/strategy will have an effect on this, so the above is just a simplified way of thinking about it. If you always folded your 0EV bluff catchers your frequencies will be messed up and you will be exploitable, but in a vacuum your green line shouldn't move and your blue line would go up and red line down. There are a ton of spots in poker where calling or betting is ~0EV, so choosing those actions at lower or higher frequencies can greatly influence your red/blue lines without really affecting your green one.