So I noticed in the last few threads I replied to, that I'm consistently giving different advise or even taking an opposite approach compared to other posters here, some of whom I actually respect and who I think are pretty great players.

I don't think I myself am a great or even good player.
I have been playing poker a long time and I've studied the basics a lot.
I'm also crushing 2NL over a significant sample.

I've beaten 2NLz over 15k hands for 6bb/100 last year.
I've beaten 2NL over 5k hands for 28bb/100 in the beginning of this year.
Currently my sample at 2NLz is only 2.6k hands, which I realize is almost nothing, but again I'm crushing for 22bb/100.

Let's just say I consider myself to be at least a decent and well studied player capable of crushing the lowest stakes online.
So how is it I disagree with 90% of the stuff that is posted here?

I do try to limit myself to replying to micro stakes hands, but even there I notice the exact same trend.

Like I said, I fully realize I'm not a great or even good player, I never managed to push myself beyond the basics.
But I'm clearly crushing the micro stakes.
How come everything I post here is completely different from what others are posting?

I say I'd fold a spot, everyone else replies it's an easy call.
I post a hand where I called an obvious bluff, everyone replies it's an easy fold.
...

22.6k hands isn't a significant sample.

I'd say 20k hands is a reliable sample, not to know your true win rate, but at least to know if you're a winning player or not.
Even 5k hands at 28bb/100 is fairly reliable to show someone is a winning player. Obviously I'm running good, but the chance to drop to below 0 from this seems very small.

Also completely beside the point of this thread so please stay on topic.
If you'd like to discuss what constitutes as a significant sample, feel free to start your own thread.

because you're not studying with a solver and you're using exploitative heuristics that might work at 1 cent 2 cent to come up with answers. the margin for error when playing against the worst people is much higher than as you play against better and better people. that's not to say nl50 players are poker super heroes or anything but as you move up you're going to run into more and more people who have either played longer or are much more serious about the game and have ostensibly won more money. anyone decent isn't going to grind 2nl. its like if you go to a casino and you play 1/2 and come up with a strategy of opening to 10x and always folding the river vs big bets - it might be a great strategy in your game but its not going to be applicable anywhere else if people are actually trying to win.

also, maybe over stepping, but why do you think you're a well studied player? what have you studied? and for someone that doesn't consider themselves a good or great player you used the word crush to describe your results 3 times in like 200 words lol

id also like to second that 20k hands isnt a significant sample

Some people are giving you advice based on facing an opponent that is somewhat balanced. Others might be giving you advice based on how they think 2nl players are playing. It can be very different answers. I play 2nl right now myself and I have noticed that players who play at a higher level/higher stakes may comment about ranges and how to play a hand at their level. At 2nl people are not balanced at all and are bluffing much less, this changes the strategy and the ranges we would give them. Some are giving answers based on solvers and how both players ranges are while others may give answers based on how they think your hand is doing vs a typical player in that pools line of play

25k hands is not much at all.

I think solvers are nice and I study with them myself but to win at the lowest stakes the basics and knowing player pool tendancies works well.

I do study with a solver.
I don't think most, if any, of the solver stuff applies to the micro stakes though.

I've been studying poker for over 10 years on and off and then very actively for the last 3 years, so the list of what I've studied is quite long.

I've played way more than 20k hands, these are just the only cash hands I have a record of over the last 3 years.
I played around 80k cash hands 3 years ago, I was probably a slightly losing player back then.
I played around 120k tournaments hands in the last 2 years.

It is true that most of the contradicting advise I've given is aimed specifically at the micros, but it's in micro hand reviews, so that seems like the best advise not?
A bad call at 2NL doesn't magically become a good call because it would be a good call vs a strong 50NL reg.

That actually makes a lot of sense.

It's completely on topic.

You asked why people don't agree with you.
You said you've crushed your stakes for a significant sample.

Perhaps one of the reasons people don't agree with you is because you don't understand the definition of a significant sample.

whats the point of posting asking for feedback and not taking the feedback lol?

everyone (really just me and newguy) is stepping on eggshells to avoid telling you the reason is your answers are likely incorrect and you're not that good at poker yet and you're trying to disqualify the diplomatically worded reasons we're giving you lol. you've played 2nl for a month or something in your sample. that's great and we're all here to get better but the first step to getting better is realizing you need to improve. you've won like 100$ at poker in this sample, posting about results as some sort of justification of why you think you're right is ridiculous. solvers are always relevant. figure out what you're supposed to do and then see where your opponents are deviating from the solve and either resolve with nodelocks or think about what the counter is.

this might come off overly harsh in tone and it's not meant to be

Yeodan you seem like a great guy.

However to suggest that 20k hands is a significant sample is ridiculous. You've been posting here long enough to know that, and the fact that you dont raises some questions.

So you're basically trying to say everyone else in this forum is much better at poker than me and giving better answers?
Though we've seen 0 hands from them and I'm fairly confident most of them have not been actively studying poker for the last 3 years, let alone 10 years?

It's possible, but it seems very unlikely to me.

I'm asking for feedback yes, that doesn't mean I'll blindly accept whatever you say

Are you familiar with Primedope?
I've used it extensively and I believe I have a better understanding of variance than most poker players.
You say 25k isn't a significant sample, I say it is when your win rate or loss rate is high enough.

Would you tell a player who's lost 10bb/100 over 25k hands that his sample is not significant enough to point towards a high likelihood that he's a losing player?
So why wouldn't 25k hands at +10bb/100 point to a high likelihood of being a winning player? It's not definitive proof, but it sure as hell isn't nothing.

You guys are being a bit harsh.

The truth is that every person here works with a set of subconscious biases and heuristics that are moulded by the pool they play in. The heuristics at 2NL differ drastically compared to 50NL, and both pools are filled with nonsense opinions.

I’m not sure how you’ve been actively studying poker the last decade and are playing 2nl. No disrespect, play whatever works for you. But when you brag about how studied you are for ten years yet are playing the smallest stakes possible, it’s a bit contradictory.

Easy, I want to play live poker, not online poker.
I only use online poker to study and improve.

the alternative is you're much better than everyone else while grinding the lowest possible stakes on the internet over a recent small sample after losing / breaking even by your own admission before that.

im really not trying to come off like a dick but you asked for feedback and when you're given it you're trying to explain why it's not valid or why we are wrong. i don't know anything about you, i have no idea if youre linus trolling on a forum account, the worst player in the world, or something in the middle. the few posts i've seen from you don't reference solvers or math and you're grinding very low stakes. if you're asking why every time you post the majority disagree with you, the most obvious conclusion to me is the market isn't wrong, you are. instead of writing out paragraphs about how we're incorrect, just accept what we wrote and move on. it's very possible everyone who wrote in this thread is giving you entirely inapplicable advice about your situation. but even if that's true why is your ego that invested in convincing us that we're wrong? i have no idea about your situation personally, i don't really care about you. you're an anonymous person on a forum that i also post on who happened to have a thread posted at the very top when i signed in. i've responded 3 times now about where i think you could improve your outlook on poker / your approach to the game and each time you've written a missive about why you disagree. you don't need to be this dedicated to explaining to me that you know more than everyone else. poker is an extremely merit based hierarchy at least at the lower stakes. if you were as good as you're set on convincing us that you were, you'd move up.

this is likely my last post in this thread and i do hope you do well

Not sure what productive thing you expect to come from this thread. If you want to prove people wrong (which seems to be the reason you posted), move up and up and up and keep proving to others that their advice is wrong because nobody's going to be swayed by what a $2nl player thinks.

Fixed to be closer to reality.

I just wanted to discuss the actual question I asked in the thread.

You guys made it about me not having a significant sample or not being a proven winner for some reason.
Luckily I still had all the hand histories of the last 3-4 years on my computer, it took a while to import them into PT4.

My last 40k hands at 2NL, these are from 11/2019 up until now.


Is 40k hands a significant sample?
Probability of running at or above observed win rate (8.00 BB/100) over 40000 hands with a true win rate of 0.00 BB/100: 1.8858%

Or how about just the last year?
Probability of running at or above observed win rate (20.00 BB/100) over 8650 hands with a true win rate of 0.00 BB/100: 1.7268%

prolly a few different things

Sometimes you will be used to playing a different pool from other people, so plays that strike you as obvious might strike other people as not so obvious and viceversa.

Sometimes you will be wrong, and other people will be right.

Sometimes you will be right, and other people will be wrong.

I don't doubt a reg that cares the least about poker can beat 2nl and you seem to at least care enough about it, even if graphs are not perfectly reliable, can be faked etc.

What is almost necessarily true though, is that most of the time a guy who has played 1 million hands disagrees with you, he's probably right, since right now your brain hasn't gotten used yet to things like making a play that loses most of the time but it's the highest EV play.

Really not sure what you’re looking for in terms of an answer, but winning over 48k hands over 3-4 years at nl2 is not really something that proves you’re smarter than lots of players on here.
There are about a dozen answers why you’re giving different answers than other people on hands. I guarantee sometimes you’re wrong and sometimes you’re right. Sometimes the posters will be wrong and sometimes they will be right. Sometimes you will all be wrong.

What are you wanting to hear right now? I don’t understand the desired end point of this thread. It doesn’t take a sound strategy to beat 2nl.

And I have won at 4-5 bb over 50k hand stretches and lost 4-5 bb over 50k hand stretches. They don’t both prove I’m a winning or losing player within 2% accuracy. There’s just no way.

Seems anero mostly covered what I said within minutes of me. Wp.

As for sample size, it is much too small to read into. A 10bb/100 crusher can break even over 40,000 hands and a breakeven player can run hot over the course of 40,000 hands. Your sample is trending towards the idea that you are doing some things well. Keep up the good work. Keep grinding and examine it again when you hit 100,000 hands. I will say, they 5NL and 10NL games are going to be quite similar, so moving up would be a good thing (if life roll and/or bankroll will support such option).

As for your advice varying from what others are saying. Guess what, the guys giving the right answers had to start somewhere too so they were in your shoes once also.

If you are running GTO sims, I would run the same sim but with "reality" ranges and compare the two side by side. Run the same parameters (stack depth, bet sizing, etc.). Just see how much they vary. Some will be similar and some won't be.

Another good exercise to do when working on your own and studying hands is to make an argument for each post flop decision. In other words, you just flopped a Q high flush with QTs on a J74 mono board as the preflop raiser. The pot is multiway and you are sandwiched in between the BB and an IP caller. BB checks. You have two options. Bet or Check. List out the reasons for betting then list out the reasons for checking. In the above example it might be I am going to bet because of a) Multiway and the combination of their ranges is dangerous and we need protection b) we get value from sets and they have at least 6, if not 9 combos of sets c) we get protection vs their A/K off suit hands/sets by not letting them have free cards d) we get instant value now from all of their worse flushes. Then do the same thing for checking. Will they bet IP when we check? If so, do we x/c or x/r? How do we play on 4 flush turns or board pairing turns?

List out your arguments for the different options and present them to the forum and you will get some really good advice here.

Stick with it and don't get discouraged, you are obviously trending in the right direction.

Poker is hard and different people can reasonably reach different conclusions, and it's pretty much impossible to prove anybody wrong when someone can just pull the "well in my player pool..." card.

1. You cherry picked these stretches out of a larger sample.
2. There's a huge difference between 5BB and 8BB which you're comparing to. Probability of loss for an 8BB/100 wr, 100BB/100 SD over 50k hands is 3.7%, for 5BB/100 it's 13.2%
3. These types of calculations model future results given known wr, they don't actually prove your win-rate given your results.

When you post and ppl don't agree with your post, it's actually much better then if everyone agrees.
Either you get to learn something new which super +ev, or you get better understanding of specific spot.

If you post something and everyone agrees, it feels nice but that doesn't make you better player at all.

Take this thread for example:
https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/6...trips-1799241/

5 people before me (including OP) think this is a call
while for me this is a snap fold

I then even asked why they think we can't fold, but no one bothered to reply.
(ignoring browni who backed me up near the end)
funnily enough the same person who raged at me here in my own thread just dismissed me there without providing any arguments

totally agree on that! (lol)
but people here just seem to get angry when you disagree with them

this thread is the perfect example
a few ppl bashing on my sample size
a few more think I'm just here to brag about my win rate
one got outright angry with me for some unknown reason
...