Thanks a lot for doing this man, already a great thread!

Don't know if these questions suits u, but I'll try

Do u have any tips about looking through PT/HM for leaks, both in ur own game but also in villains game. What kind of filters/stats/lines do u look for in these softwares, if u are familiar with using them to leakfind that is.

Also, any recommendations about note-taking on villains, what kind of generalized notes would u typically make? Whenever I try to take notes on people I end up writing down the specific hand, board and action, and I just feel like I should be taking much better notes that is easily readable and understandable. Would love to see some examples, once again if u are into this kind of topic.

Simply the fact that the preflop raises has initiative and can put the opponents on the defensive with a continuation bet. It's actually the fact that the other opponents check to you.


I actually was grouping all made hands into the first tier, but you're right. Equity is not the word I'm looking for, but rather "what actually will happen in the hand". In other words, how we can leverage our equity, and how often we will realize our actual equity. Often times with draws we steal equity (getting the opponent to fold his equity), often times with weak made hands we get our equity stolen (our opponent bets us off our hand). That's the difference between theoretical and real, and it's the only thing that matters.

As to your specific question, that's a different topic and it's a combination of your play style and your opponent's. How often are you flatting there preflop, how often is he betting the flop, turn, etc. Some obvious answers in there, but some less obvious ones are if he fires the turn a lot I might flat the flop with the plan of raising a decent amount on the turn.


First I should mention to fear the draws of your opponents less. We don't want him to fold his gutshots. Even though it's theoretically correct for him to call a pot sized bet if he has 35% equity, again, can he realize all that equity? What is he going to do on the river if he makes 2 pr, or trips? Put in money incorrectly perhaps.

The answer to this question depends on your range and the specific dynamic between you and your opponent. As a default, I like raising on this board because I don't think we're going to see a lot of folds from his betting range, I agree. Since this is in a vacuum I vote pump it up.

Here's the beauty of balance. Show up with AK sometimes, flat KJ sometimes, raise TJ sometimes. The wider our perceived range is, the most difficult it is to play against. Because I can sit there and say that Empty can't have x, y, z because of the preflop + flop action. However, I become miserable if I think you can actually have all of those things enough of the time to make me have to take them into consideration as well.

Your first two questions were addressed from my point above. Let me know if you don't think that's the case and I'll try to clarify.

I think people don't play draws aggressively enough when facing bets, in both heads up and multiway pots. As a rule of thumb, if your default is to give a regular credit for x when they do y, that's an opportunity to do y with both x and z.


It's not that they adjust correctly; it's more than they wind up adjusting just as a reaction to our strategy. If you raise and I start 3betting you all day because I think you open wide and fold too often to 3bets, you're going to notice eventually and you don't need to conclude anything other than "wow Greg is pounding on me every time I open" to accidentally stop opening so wide while folding to 3bets too much.


I've been away from the community for a while but I recently started playing once a month in games in NYC because I kind of got the itch. I'm pretty sure NYC poker is done though and I have no desire to travel to play.

Not affiliated with any training sites but obviously support Leggo.

Absolutely terrific thread Greg! Thank you all your enthusiasm and effort. This is easily THE best uNL AMA thread, most likely the best Micro Stakes PL/NL thread of 2013! Finally some solid discussion and content.

About me: I've heard of almost all the concepts discussed itt so far, but by no means am I am well-versed at them or at a level where I can consciously apply them regularly to my game.

Some Questions:

1) Is it a huge leak at midstakes (400NL+) to never have a 3-bet calling range OOP and never have a 4-bet calling range IP 100bb deep against solid opponents?

2) Why do I make impulsive decisions / mouse clicks that I regret the split second after I make them? Spewy calls, spewy shoves, spewy folds, etc. Spewy checks even! In other words, why can't I play my A-game every session or every hand? Also, I think I'm at a point where I know a lot more theoretically than I can naturally put into practice, thus the rare times when I am consciously playing my A-game, I can crush my games very easily. However, I find that 80% of my sessions are played with my B-game where half the concepts I understand go out the window and I end up making immediately regrettable (before the cards are even flipped over) plays fairly frequently.

3) How do I know that I'm leveling myself (level 3 vs a level 1 fish) or exhibiting fancy play syndrome? Versus actually leveling/reading my opponent well? It's hard to differentiate between the two because sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't due to variance.

4) Related to question 3, sometimes I feel like I'm overadjusting, overreacting or switching gears too fast. For example, I have position on a loose player who opens 40% from CO. I notice this and I successfully 3-bet bluffed his CO opens from the button each time in the past 3 orbits. Now it seems like this player is tightening up but it's only been a dozen hands since I last 3-bet him so I can't be sure this is the case. So should I "proactively" switch gears and make sure I have a premium hand before making my next 3-bet against him? Or should my default play still be to 3-bet his opens light until further evidence?

5) Very general question: how do I get better at postflop, i.e. bet sizing, putting villain on a range, estimating my showdown value, fold equity, coming up with the best play, etc. I find that I'm still very inexperienced with the math and intuition of how likely hands hit a flop ...


Thanks again Greg!

I'm impressed with the answers, they seem very educated. I'm still reading the thread, but I already have a question. If it is still not asked, here it goes:

What is the best way to exploit fish? Lately I tend to just play my usual range from usual positions, and in the end the fish usually gets stacked by somebody else and then he leaves. Is there a way to exploit fish faster? Have you got any advice on how to do so? And do you have any advice on postflop tactics vs fish?

1)What are things you do to help avoid tilting? Or advice that you would give to help others from tilting?

2) What ratio would you recommend for studying to grinding?

Things I struggle with:

Tilting/Discipline
Bet Sizing (Post flop)
Pot odds to call profitably

If you are playing an opponent hu readless, what are the first 3 things (beyond general vpip/3b stats) that you would try to figure out about their play in order to find the most profitable way to exploit them?
Thank you.

small thing that i'm struggling with a lot since i'm playing zoom, i'm not too sure if you can give me/us a general advice but i figured i have nothing to lose so i'll ask it anyway:

how would you react to a fish/recreational player that we don't really have any info on yet (happens quite often in Zoom at uNL) when he donks out or bets really small and we still have equity but since its a non made hand, it's quite vulnerable.

Example: Flop comes 862 two tone and we have A9o in position, he donks out like 40% of the pot or smaller, would you call or raise or just give up your hand and wait to have a better read on him before really trying to exploit his weakness/leaks?

call wide and abuse them on the turn when they check if they donk small again they have weak hands there trying to get to cheap showdown or draws there trying to hit cheap.

Hi Greg -

Thank you for taking the time to answer questions. I have just transitioned to 6max and your answers have really helped me to think differently about my game.

I do have a strategy question that I hope you will have time to elaborate on.

I was generally wondering how to play things like middle pair or pairs that become middle pairs on the turn or the river.

Essentially, here are the scenarios

We raise 99 in MP and get flatted in position on the button from a standard TAG. Board comes out K62r or K62 or T63 or JT2 (rainbow and two tone). How should we proceed here on the flop?

vs. Typical TAG
vs. Aggro Player
vs. Passive Fish

Moreover, how do we proceed on the turn vs. these three types of opponents when...
A. Jack, Queen, or Ace hits
B. Meaningless low card hits
C. Board Pairs - Top, Middle, or Bottom

In position, I generally try to pot control unless I feel that we can get value from fish. However, I always seem to have trouble when the OOP player bets out. I tend to fold only because I can't think of many hands that would just bet out without top pair (or do people really float OOP)

However, OOP, I have so much trouble when facing these situations versus anyone. There are a couple boards with 99 like T76ss where I am comfortable with double barreling for value. Other times, I will double barrel on good bluff cards. Otherwise, I usually just give up. I am either slightly ahead or way behind in my opinion.

One more situation.

I have 99 again. Board comes out friendly 832ss. We c-bet for value against most opponents, then a J,Q,K,A comes out. Do we continue to barrel for value or bluff - against TAG, Aggro, Loose passive? Do we c/c and then c/f river?? Which one of those cards are the worst? I assume the Ace is the worst considering many people float with Ace high. But how about the rest of broadways?

Sorry for making my question a bit confusing. You have pretty much answered my other issues perfectly and I can't wait to use it in improving my game. However, these situations OOP just kill me and I get frustrated, especially against chronic floaters or aggressive players.

Thanks in advance. I am a fellow New Yorker and love that you are taking the time to help us micro guys out!

I have a theory that in micros we should be going for "fat value". This means not trying to push every conceivable edge. The reason is because our opponents will make such huge mistakes and plays that make no sense. This is where our value comes. In higher stakes u have to be squeezing and applying max pressure, but at micros ppl have no clue what they or you are doing.

Is this correct. Basically I am familiar with a lot of concepts, but I don't fully apply them bc my opponents don't make me. U can play exploitable if no one exploits you correct? I just think ppl get stuck in micros trying to do a lot of advanced plays vs villains who can't hand read and are on level 1.

Is my thinking correct? N thanks for doing this man. I just found it

Another question. Do u feel us micro stakers are stuck bc we try to stick poker in a box? A lot of ppl ask generic questions " if I have x UTG and my opponent is xx/xx/x what should I do?"

But isn't every hand different? Especially fish who go by "feelings" and not logic?

I feel to beat poker u have to think for yourself. Just like wen we all had a starting hand chart... It used to b our bible, but then we add to it. I just think ppl want easy answers, and are all in the math, but to me poker is a ppl game. And u gotta figure out how to manipulate situations and people, not just I have "x" he plays like "Y",so I should always "do Z".

Sorry for my rambling but I have these random poker thoughts

I made a bunch of posts on this topic with regards to double barreling in general, so check those and then keep asking if you didn't get your answers.

The largest difference between 3bet pots and single raised pots are just that they occur less often. So, ranges are tighter and therefore stronger. And, being that the SPR is much greater (fewer relative chips behind), it becomes more profitable to slowplay if your opponent will barrel often because you get a lot more chips.

Board texture-wise, your perceived range will include less non-premiums, so you'll be able to represent 68ss less often than you would AK. Which means you should be bluffing less often on boards that don't hit your perceived range.

It's important to note that when I mention ranges, perceived ranged is really what counts from our opponent's perspective. We are just adjusting off what our opponents think about us.
It only get expensive in the sense of $ amount. It's not any more expensive from a risk:reward standpoint.

I personally think that it would be a good idea to incorporate raises and floats more often in 3bet pots and get comfortable with hanging around without a great hand.

First, I think a lot of players start minraising to take advantage of something they see their opponents doing (eg. folding too much preflop, or 3betting too much preflop), and what actually winds up happening is that their opponent adjusts. It's a critical mistake to let your opponent correct your first. In those scenarios, I would gradually begin to raise more or less respectively instead of making a major modification to my gameplan that my opponent will instantly pick up on.

Whether or not I minraise comes down to whether or not my opponent hates minraising. That changes throughout a match. If I get up a few buy-ins, I might start minraising thinking that it would infuriate my opponent. I always had good results with that.

If players started doing that to me, I would start calling more. You're getting really good odds preflop, and it's okay to fold to flop pretty often in that scenario. However, I would make sure to add in a good amount of very strong hands that I can call preflop with just to increase the strength of my flop range. I want to be able to show up with AK, AA (and play them passively if needed). We still want to 3bet our premiums, and if our opponent is looking to start a preflop war then we simply increase the range that we are willing to get it in preflop with.

Making the next paragraph into a separate post because it's more general good stuff

Good general post for everyone to read here guys:

Balancing it and showing it off, doing something nasty and hiding it

Often times when we balance we are doing something that is in a vacuum -EV compared to our other options, but it's done overall to protect our range.

Let's say that we flat with AA preflop when an opponent raises heads up. The board comes 68K2T. Let's assume on the river we think that raising is ever so slightly better than calling. In this scenario, we might still just call because we want our opponent to see our hand. If the EV of our decision is close, choose the option that distorts the future perception of your range. By calling with AA, our opponent now says "oh wow he can just flat with AA preflop". Whereas, check/raising the river gets us the pot without showing our hand, and we have given up the opportunity to show our opponent that we mix up our play.

In the opposite scenario, we want to protect something tricky that we do. Let's say that we raise preflop and our opponent 3bets. We flat his 3bet with AA. The flop comes 798ss and he bets. We choose to call, and the turn comes Ts. He checks, we check behind (we don't have a spade). The river comes 2o, he checks. In this scenario, we think that we likely have the best hand, and there aren't many times that he will call with worse against our bet. However, we also have a read that says he is almost never trapping here. We might choose to just bet out on the river because, even though it's close to neutral EV, and even though it increases variance, when he folds he doesn't see that we slowplayed AA preflop. We would rather hide that fact from our opponent, so we execute a not-amazingly-profitable bet to increase the likelihood of our opponent not seeing our tricky play.

I have no idea what uNL/SSNL players do poorly in the blinds. In other posts I tried to outline generic things players do poorly in the blinds, but more importantly, what types of things you should be thinking about when you are in the blinds yourself.

Regarding your example and numbers, I have no idea unfortunately.

Truthfully analyzing statistics at the granular level is not something that I focused a lot on. Sorry I can't be more helpful.

Okay, I can help here . I think it's perfectly fine to start off writing down notes about a hand. You would ideally want to use that hand to make conclusions or assumptions about the player. Many players can't make draw those conclusions on the fly, so their notes wind up looking like an ugly hand history.

For players in that category, what I would do is save the hand (I know HM/PT allow you to do this). Then go over every saved hand after your sessions (or, ideally not right after, but in between that session and your next one). Now you have an unlimited time to sit down, analyze the hand, and draw some larger conclusions. Then make the note on the player and you're good to go. Over time, you drawing those conclusions will come more naturally and you'll be able to make them in-game. I just wouldn't add to my already heavy load and force myself to do it during a session if I felt rushed.

Make sure to date your notes. This was very helpful to me.

Awesome read so far with satisfying answers, ty!

How do I best recognize my range in specific situations? For me it's hard to identify what hands I potentially could have in any given spot. Do I need to sit down, think and manually construct ranges for various situations or do I estimate or calculate it at the spot, perhaps it comes naturally I don't know. Sorry if question sucks np if you skip if so. (or if it was asked/answered, I will get to it if so, in time

Any tips on staying focused etc. while playing?

Thanks.

Thanks!
Absolutely. Going to be very, very easy to construct a range to 3bet you with if you don't flat it (I'll used a polarized range and it will be bluff heavy because there's a guaranteed 4bet when I don't take it down preflop and that's just more dead money in the pot).

Not having a 4betting flatting range in position is also a large mistake. Basically, if you think your opponent will 4bet as a bluff, you are similarly letting them off the hook by not making them play postflop.
I wrote a bit about relaxing before facing a decision here: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...8&postcount=15

I think that asks a lot of questions that you should consider. Additionally, sounds like you should focus more on everything that happens before you sit down at the table. Are you relaxed? Focused? Tired? Excited to play?

Last, I would cut the number of tables that you play in half for a while. Are you able to address some of these problems that way? Maybe you're destined to play fewer tables if you can do something at x but can't at 2x. Keep in mind, if you spew away a few buy-ins a sessions, there are no amount of tables you can play that will make up that difference.

Good point. What you're really asking about is sample size. Sometimes, we have to go outside of our own sample size and look at hands that opponent plays against someone else.

With that said, if it's something you really struggle with, take one to the face before you adjust. You're likely leaving more money on the table by not playing straightforward.

Not necessarily your next opportunity, but I would personally tell myself to dial it down there. If I get dealt AJ or something maybe that's actually a good time to try to get it in preflop.

I would not assume that my low level opponents are adjusting before they showed me. In your position, I would do something in between what your two options outlined. Like I said, turn down the trash for a little bit, but consider that getting another 3bet through might have very profitable implications for you because the 4th or 6th time was actually the guy's tipping point and now he's tilted.

Math converges with intuition through experience. So it's really just a matter of getting out there. In your position, I would listen to the thought process of a bunch of skilled players about how they dissect hand ranges. That will be much more beneficial than running through a bunch of hands from your sessions. But do the review afterwards.

Use math and propokertools-esque software to construct ranges and folding equity.

Re-read my answers from the thread and make sure you focus in on everything that I've discussed about why we play in an exploitative manner, and what that means. And also what sort of strategies we take in order to figure out our opponent's weaknesses.

Regarding advice, there's a hand that I saw on here years ago that was an ah-ha moment for me. Let me try to re-create it because it really shattered some of the preconceived "rules" of NL for me. BTN is a fish:

Hero is BB with A4 100/200 NL HU, 20k stacks

BTN calls, hero checks.

Flop ($400): 238dd. Hero c/c

Turn ($1200): 2385dd. Hero checks, villain $1000, Hero $6800, villain calls.

River ($14800): 2385Kddd. Hero $12600 (AI), Villain calls.

Hero wins with straight vs AA

The turn raise size is obviously what you should key in on here. I'm not actually going to break it down because it's important to go through everything yourself. But this is a great example of some of the seemingly wild, yet correct, adjustments you would make against a fish to extract money and hammer their specific weaknesses.

Thank you for the response and all the advice you've given in this thread! I have a lot of reading to do.

1) Pretty extensively wrote on this so please check the thread.

2) I don't have a ratio. A great place to start is to mark literally every hand you weren't sure what to do during a session, and get a definitive answer to that hand before you play again. No reason not to do this, but I'm sure almost no one does this. Which is actually pretty mind boggling, you are actively being shown where you lack complete knowledge, it's a good opportunity to close those gaps.

Thanks for the topics!

Who are they/how many tables are they on/what's their history.

How often they are folding on the flop (then turn, then river) vs. my bets.

How often they are betting on those streets.

Raise and bomb the **** out of the rest of the hand. Seriously.

In this specific example I might call the flop because our equity is really obvious (A, 9, 7), but if I did it would be with the intention of betting or raising almost every turn (non-A/9), and doing the same on the river.

There are so many hands a weak player can do this with, I want to see them call me down with 8T before I even think about adjusting.

With the exception of JT2, we can default to betting every flop and every turn (except maybe not always an ace turn vs. a TAG). Now, we won't always bet out there, but I do want to make the point that literally all of those scenarios are fine to double barrel with against all of those opponents (maybe not the JT2).



Your check behind indicates weakness. You can't always indicate weakness and then fold because weaker opponents will always assume that indicating weakness = being weak.

So, bet out with those hands more often. If it feels like you're betting too often now, then start betting less often with them, but make sure you increase the % you check behind with nothing. Keep your range balanced in those instances that come up often (eg a cbet opportunity against an unknown).

You're right about the ace being the theoretical worst card, but we also have the most aces in our range compared to any other card (although our opponent has a higher frequency).

I think I answered the rest of these questions in my post, but definitely keep asking if you want more clarification.

Thanks for the compliment!

You're saying two different things.

Your first paragraph: You are saying we don't need to go for every edge. This is almost always false (except in previously mentioned special scenarios like when we are deep with a fish and can't reload to that stack depth).

Your second paragraph: You are saying that people try to play too balanced, too advanced, etc. etc. Which I agree with. Most of the time we should be playing straightforward. It is important to consider balance in common scenarios against regulars, but pretty much play exploitably when you can get away with it because that is how we take advantage of our opponents' mistakes.

It is quite helpful to start from scratch with a point of reference. If I don't know anything about poker, then yes a starting hand chart will help me tremendously. Similarly, you can't factor 100 elements in your first hand analysis. You have to start somewhere. So you start with the broadest facts (xx/xx/xx preflop), and then once you get comfortable with that you can add in other more advanced elements (in the last 20 minutes this has happened...), etc etc.