If your only goal was to beat NL2, without caring for ever moving up, what would you study?

What do you know already?

Assuming you know absolutely nothing. I would learn your opening ranges from all positions and 3 betting ranges. You really don't need to know 4 or 5 betting ranges.

After that I would find a video on classifying hands (strong, middle, bluff, air) and the ideas on how to play them postflop.

Realistically if you are in position and the preflop raiser you can bet all flops for 1/3, and then check turns unless you have top pair of better. All your money is made from betting large with strong hands.

Lastly, i doubt it's necessary to beat 2 nl but I would look at the strategy for playing the flop out of position from the big blind.

For me I read the grinders manual and watched 2nl videos on yt. There is a good one by easty, he explains the stars 2nl zoom pool well.. not too long video but you can learn a lot from it.

What opening ranges do you suggest?

I’ve done a lot of videos talking about how to play micro and low stake games.

You basically play very aggressive in certain lines and very value heavy in other lines.

If you have no ambition to move up beyond the micros then I suggest you don’t really study anything and just learn where to do things without any thought like you’re playing a video game.

Personally I think poker has nuance and that’s what makes it fun- stay away from ‘beginner’ guides they won’t help you at all and are a scam usually.

To beat 2nl you only really need time and effort to fix your mistakes. Most of my mistakes at the micros have been obvious, after-the-fact stoopid calls or longshot bluffs.

So a tracker is a probably a must. Mark hands. Go over hands. I imagine there's enough free content out there to fix all the most obvious leaks, but where to start is a difficult question as per tdammon ^^^ it entirely depends on what you know already.

Poker knowledge is like a giant jigsaw where you gradually fill in all the obvious pieces first (will always beat 2nl) and then gradually add finer and finer detail. But it's all essentially scattered and all over the place. So start will fundamentals. Things you can't answer. If you don't understand things like pot odds or MDF yet, at least on a conceptual level, start there. That's really the entire engine of poker. And ask questions etc. 2+2 is the goat for free coaching.

Ughh I started by watching this guy, maybe my player pool is small in Italy, but you are destined to never move up if you play like he advises. You are just ingraining so many bad habits.

Preflop

Insane premise but obviously fish play. 80% of your win rate at a minimum comes from this.

Coaches will advise differently because of incentivizes.

Yeah how you play against recreationals and in soft environments is important. There’s a lot of lines you can take which can drastically boost winrate - be it for value or with pure air.

Recreationals have skewed ranges in different lines one way or the other so the exploits that you can take against them can be extreme. This is how stables for example Poker Detox make a lot of their profits.

I'm on the same boat. Here's my take.

I don't think that going from a player that has never beaten any cash game to a player that consistently beats a stake is easy. And it's certainly not a given, it's not like if you are decent at poker you will automatically win NL2. Even if you are above average, there's still rake, you need to beat NL2 for a big margin.
Peter Thiel wrote a book called "Zero to One" the whole premise being that going from zero to something is the hardest step.

90 to 95% of players are losers and this is true for NL2 as well.

It's not even about poker theory really, it's about your ability to control tilt, to bankroll manage, to put in the hours, to have a reasonable expectation of what variance is and what results will be. To be able to learn and fix your mistakes, to communicate with other good players. To have an ego in line, an accurate self evaluation, to be comfortable being breakeven or even losing at NL2. A lot of players can't fathom the thought of being a losing player in NL2, they'll fall into the common traps of riggies or "moving up so they respect your raises".

In general my expectation of beating NL2 has gone from, "I'll win with AK vs A4o with top pair" to "I'll make some EV by a villain calling 3bets too wide with AT while I only call with AQ.", there's a lot of stacks being traded, and the money is made on those 1 in 1000 scenarios where we fold that range difference that they are not folding (or viceversa.)

On that note, the viceversa for me has been key. I used to go into games thinking that money was made with being tight. That ABC poker is all I needed, just buy in for 100BB or 200BB and wait for the Kings and Aces. But it isn't the 2000s anymore. There's just as many spots where the pool is too tight as is it is too loose. Playing equilibrium is useful in this sense. But not necessarily forever, at least until one understands what the population (or individual player) biases are.

Yes, there's going to be holy grail maniacs that shove all in with second pair, but you can't depend on them, and you certainly can play expecting them. That's how you stack off with TPTK and become the fish. Absolute maniacs are going to exploit themselves, they are a gift, like the fish buffet or a lucky chest.

Also for better or for worse, we may have tasted the forbidden knowledge of GTO and LAG play, it's very hard to let go of slightly plus EV spots to reduce variance and even beat rake. But I'm converging on a much tighter LAG style, instead of ending up with twice the amount of bluffs as value, basically having twice the amount of value instead of bluffs. This has significantly narrowed my range, especially in early positions. Giving up on their marginal EV is like another rake paid in order to reduce variance and simplify the game tree a little bit. Just simple stuff like restricting light raises to suited connectors, and letting go of j5s in the button, even if it is GTO approved.

There's probably a lot of NL2 players that have deep knowledge about the game, but lose because of leaks, it's a very common error to go depth first in learning, especially self learning which is the vast majority of poker players.

Anyways that's my unedited rant about NL2. If I beat it for 5bb/100 post rake, man that would be crushing it.

Nope.

Mental game, especially getting used with the idea that it's correct to call in a spot where you're losing very often if the pot odds are appropriate.

Fish play in general, anything backed up by actual data.

Preflop and flop play, simplify as much as you can where it is possible to do so, learn how to play defense.

I think this framework is enough to beat even 10nl, and the technical part is easy. Mental game is tough and you may never learn tho.

Depending on the reasons why you don't want to move up from 2nl, they might be the exact reasons why you will likely not succeed even at 2nl. Keep that in mind.

Also interested in this topic. I beat NL2 more than a decade ago but got stuck at NL5. Then life happened and I stopped playing at all. Now I'm slowly getting back into this card game but want to prove myself that I can still beat NL2 again.

FWIW I used BR72's content to move up - it did help me back then. 10 years later I am unsure if his strategy still works as everyone who put a bit of effort in studying the game has heard of him. But there are still a lot of maniacs and fish up to these days from what I'm seeing at the tables.

So I'm curious about newer/better sources on how to beat micros. Which videos or content creators would be good to watch, read, etc?

search poker hands, or polker hands, on youtube to hear doug polk, a world class player, explain the fundamentals for dealing with weak opponents.

i had one of my bigger breakthroughs watching these videos. i started to notice the patterns of his advice and was easilly able to then apply them to my own game.

I don't think the meta has changed much at this level in ten years tbh. Watching just about anyone who can beat the stake will yield usable info.

The game is the game, but at 2nl try this:

- no calling vs opens (besides BB obv), 3b only
- cbet 33% as IP as the PFR on most boards that aren't terrifying
- never bluff over 25bb
- overfold vs large bets or sustained aggression
- overfold on boards where they can have lots of better hands

Most 2nl players would move from breakeven to winner if they just learnt how to fold properly, there's so much free EV being thrown around by maniacs

What are some of the bad habits?

Always 3 bet linear
Only 4bet for value pre
Overfold to 3bets
Never double barell
Never bluff for 1/3 pot on river

I totally agree with your first three, but not sure about the last two.

Double barelling can be very profitable IMO as long as it's a spot where villain has a weak range which is common in many spots where they are calling too wide preflop. Especially if you start your bluff on the turn and barrel on the river, because lots of players at low stakes will tend to overcall any weak draw hand and then fold on the river when they miss.

Same for bluffing 1/3 pot on the river, it can be very profitable. If you have 8 high, you only need them to fold ~21% of them time assuming 5% rake to make a profitable small bet bluff. Depending on the runout and action, a 1/3 pot can be very profitable.

Yeah sorry I was replying to the guy above my past asking what I believe are some bad habits that some micro stakes coach instill.

Verses the nits those are general good rules, but there are regs that will see through such a simple strategy.

And like I said those rules will serve you less and less as you move up.

Oh sorry, I completely misunderstood then, my bad!

What you're saying makes a lot of sense.

Interesting question...

If we never care about moving up, I'd choose a different stake. I mean, what's the point of a million+ hands at NL2 when we're making only few bucks per day? That's a big opportunity cost of time that could be spent elsewhere.

We never really get better either because the player pool is so weak. All that's needed is a fundamentally sound, exploitative game and understanding of how to attack capped ranges, while not punting stacks from tilting over someone cracking our AA with 42o.

I'm mostly a live player but isn't the rake at NL2 insane too?

I guess I'd have to ask why anyone would ever want to play NL2 and never move up.