My results of grinding 2NL 5NL 10NL 25NL 50NL 100NL

Bro you cant take yourself as a serious poker player if you dont know or arent willing to learn basic things like SB range vs button open. that should be one of the first things you figure out if youre trying to become a good player as its a very frequent spot. These micro zoom pools on gg are quite soft with plenty of fish and nit/bad regs and definately very beatable anyone saying the rake is too high to win in these games is just a badreg not willing to improve their game more aswell as learn pool exploits because theres lots of them theres a reason all these guys are playing micros its because they all have big holes in their strategies. Judging by this thread and some of the hand histories if you care about not losing money you shouldnt be playing higher than 10nl until you get some of these basic mistakes fixed and have put in the volume to be comfortable executing solid strategies and exploits. An easy first step is simplifying to 3bet or fold from the sb with the only exception if theres a fish involved or in the bb you can mix in some flats. I was winning money overall from the sb in these pools using that strategy and throwing in flats with high implied odds hands like low pocket pairs vs fish.

You should always be super critical of your own play and be looking for any ways to improve your game / fix leaks. Acting or thinking like youre playing great and barely making mistakes is a great way to never end up improving and moving up the stakes and is something the vast majority of people are guilty of at some points in their poker careers.

Nowadays as solvers become popular everyone started to study and memorize already proven preflop ranges and everything whats proven to be good, as we call it basic stuff nowadays, many not so talanted players can play mid stakes profitable because they memorized and stick to strategies that are available for study but very few know what is really behind those basic stuff and why is that important to do that

I understand core causes why calling from SB can be burning money because i came to this conclusion not from study but through thousand of hands played myself, burning money and working in PT4 to check stats and see whats wrong etc realizing everything myself, what i do now as i see in my graphs my range shows profit from SB calls as soon as it starts to decline im in check to change something, i just dont want to stick to already given preflop ranges and basic stuff what everyone studies, i want to develop my own strategy but sure most of the time i end up coming to do exactly same what was suggested before but at least i came to that conclusion by myself and i know why

This cant be real.

Hes saying he will continue to flat from the sb w jto because his 7 session 120 sample has him in teh green.

Fwiw i flat from the sb occasionally under specific conditions (not jto tho), but default strat is always 3bet/fold.

u are exactly the reason why i don't want to coach anyone poker

those things u check there like oh it profits to do this thing or that thing are just solely purely based on variance

multiple people telling u how to play the sb and u don't believe it

actually im going to change that and not call from SB anymore and see what happens

Should have just left him to carry on doing it lol xx

Every poker players dream is to make it to the highest stakes, i have that dream too, i just don’t want to end up being micro or mid stakes grinder as a life choice in the future, i want to aim higher, only very few does get there

With my philosophy people will tell you this and that, they will give you advices, they will be mean to you but in the end it’s you and the poker alone in the dark room, no one will help you to get there, no one will save you from dark and depressing times, it’s up to you, will you give up or keep carrying

Hello darkness my old friend, variance hits again...

Let me tell you a story

Today i was feeling great because in my head i solved every puzzle, i knew exactly what to do... just play solid, go for dead money, no variance crap.

I played first 1k hands, took a little break, my winrate was showing 22BB, wow finally my gameplan is on point... i resumed the session and right after i got dealt AA

UTG open raises, i 3bet, he 4bets, i call (just to trap him)

He bets almost full pot on flop, i tank a little bit (to show weakness) and call, as turn brings third heart: he goes allin, i snap call, he has only 1 out and 1 out only, he says "Run it once" and hits it

After that hand i got little tilted but still in control, trying to forget it and just focus on the game

Soon after cash drops on the table, i got dealt AK people usually go crazy to fight for that cash drop, i know there will be big action, and i have a plan...

I limp, there is a raise, two calls and someone goes allin (as i expected, everything goes according to my plan) i snap call and villain says "Run it once" he makes quad 6s

After that hand I'm clearly tilting, first thing i saw i got dealt AKo, saw a raise from UTG and MP 3bets...

I snap shoved with my AKo not even checking villains 3bet%, if i knew he had 2% i swear to god i would fold that AK but it was too late, we ran twice, no A.

At this point my tilting got it's peak, i got dealt AJo on BB, UTG open raises, i call, flop brings A, i check-call, donk turn, he raises...

At this point I know he has better ace, I'm almost sure he has AK or AQ, my thinking process was: i don't want to fold, i'm tilting, i just want to win, he thinks I'm on a draw but what if i shove? maybe he will think i flopped a set or something...

Yes i shove..

Villain tanked almost 60sec, probably he was regretting a raise because no one wants to play for whole stack with just one pair... i know his feelings, he's regretting everything and he wants to fold but he can't.. he called before timeout

After this i closed all sessions, doubted my life again and here I am posting... checked my balance and surprisingly i was not far from where i started today, this shows that even tho i got hit hard my gameplan was working wonders.

Now angrier and hungrier than ever here i promise myself to beat every stake in my way until i reach the highest, nothing will stop me, i won’t give up, i believe in myself, my motivation is through the roof, my ambition is so big like im even ashamed to express it

Meanwhile I’m also thinking realistically, if i aim to move up stakes as fast as i can that means i may fail many times, i may need to move down many times and income may not be guaranteed, i will prolly need to play live poker part time, just because i need consistent and stable income for life expenses, live poker has highest winrate and lowest variance maybe i will play online poker daytime 5-6hr for my ego and dreams but i go to live poker at the evening to play for like another 4-5hr as a job, i think this idea sounds nice

quickly seeing those hands are mostly coolers but if read it right u turn the AJ to bluff which seems like a disaster

he bets big on flop so he says strong range, he bets small on turn so he says **** range , does this make sense - no , does this mean u should go raise merge hands - no , does this mean when he does this and raises over ur raise u should like turn the top pair to bluff like def . no

call the turn and call the river if its medium bet fold if its huge bet

You misread the action OTT, Hero donked 25% and raised all-in vs 5x raise

ok yeah its same thing anyway turning to bluff for like zero reason , donking for no reason.

u try really hard to outplay when u make money if u stop doing it and play every hand just normal

reason u want to bluff in theory is u have value hands that want to play that way . U are defending ur range by just stationing down x amount of stuff in that spot nothing u can change of that , AJ is just middle hand and you went now crazy with it

I agree, just solid play, no risky moves, avoid variance spots is the way to go

About donking its just part of my strategy, i often donk like this with value hands and also with nutty hands in combination, the reason is that with value hands i block opponents turn big bet which can lead him bluffing the river too which will put me in hard spot, also by donking i charge some extra if villain is on a draw, by checking i dont want him to check back for free, he can pay with mid pair too, i dont like call-call line, also i like to donk turn with flopped sets on wet board like to induce raise

think it like this if he has better range its his turn he bets / does whatever

remove that donk bet from ur game fully

if u got the nuts then raise him

this has little to do with variance or risk but just making plays that are -EV ur play makes no sense

like this nl50 hand :

as if he wouldnt be betting the nuts on flop

]

playing right ranges and using logic = profit

u think right now that making tricks that are decepting everyone gives u an edge but it does exact the opposite

when he checks the turn his range on river is air or middlepairs or weaker ace u can bet big on river for value!

I really appreciate your advises bro, i applied to remove calling from SB, instead 3betting or folding now, at one glance seems i make more profit but haven't checked numbers yet.

I had to donk here too, i mean i hate these kind of hands especially when i start the session, btw river bet maybe 75% would be better to avoid getting bluffed, 50% seems like weak

Even tho I'm testing my strategy on lower limit now, good thing is my redline kind of fixed, i like that, idk if it keeps like that when i move up higher

Strange thing is, i basically do same thing all the time but redline sometimes stops to keep moving up, probably its depended on pools, softer pool is redline moves up faster, tougher pool is redline starts to decline

btw you said you wanted to play 1k hands NL10 on stars, have you played?

Another donk line, BTN range is weak here considering his 3bet% was too high, only thing i was afraid of was maybe KT

Instead of shoving x4-x5 pot (like i did before) maybe it will have same effect to bet x3 pot like this?

to see from stats if some strategy is better than other one u need a massive sample of hands stop trying to figure it out from there if some winrate improved on some position after u changed something.

Kjo is losing call to 3bet co vs but u should get those right and study the ranges from somewhere

then you should learn real ABC - strategies for every spot , like whose got better range in K36T and why? the 3-bettor bcz he got all the AK , AA , KK etc. which u dont have so making a bet there as donk bet vs that range is not good (again) ... you try to play ur own strategies saying "I had to donk-bet" yes you had to donk bet because its in ur mind to do something strange all time

it is normal when begin with poker but really watch videos where people play (assumably winning playes) like run-it once nl50 content u can pick like year 2018 or something it does not matter preferably before they talk about randomizing anything because it will just confuse u massively then pay attention who is having better range and who is just defending his range ? whenever ur just defending ur range all these called 3bet or defended bb just STOP donking on turn! Stop making raise & 3bet all - in plays ur burning money.

pick what i wrote on this one and really read it with thought every day make it ur mantra to not donk bet!

If 3bettor has 2% 3bets i may even fold AK/QQ to his 3bet but when i see it's too loose like 18% KJo becomes very profitable call (imo)

this is also like something which needs a significant amount of hands to really be accurate anywhere near

like sometimes have 5k hands on some guy and his 3bet from bb seems to be very high and 3bet from button seems to be quite low and overall 3bet is normal and its just variance

if you have few hundred hands sample or something best indicator is just vpip/pfr to tell how tight someone is

someone to be so loose that kjo becomes a call would mean likely something such as him 3betting hands the kjo just crushes - meaning he 3bets JTo or QJo or QTo and if that would really be the case u could like even 4b that hand but i never encounter this kind of extreme case that i would deviate so much to be really playing Kjo as anything else but fold unless its some extreme whale

Mostly I'm folding KJo and i can't count how many times i folded even AQ vs tight 3bettors, i'm not the guy to ask to fold to 3bets because i have probably one of the highest folds vs 3bets than others but we're playing the player right? in this case villain had 33% VPIP and ridiculously high 3bet%

I know calling is least profitable action in general, even some top players i believe have negative stats as 3bet callers but as long as i added some postflop bluffs to my arsenal, where i can take down the pot even if i don't make the hand, i believe i can show some profit even with calling like this

I can consider playing like 4bet or fold in this case too but when i 4bet well than like almost everytime i'm playing for my whole stack, either i have to barrel 2 streets or villain ends up bluffing the river, well everytime i play big pots with mediocre hands it causes little chaos and variance, not so calm gameplay, the direction i take sometimes i may prefer to call just to keep pots small even tho i know my range is better, this is because to avoid chaos and high variance

in sim of gtowiz nl50 rake but 3bets 13% vs co.

when i put nl50 gg rake there appears to be a calling range that comes quite wide. I think the only reason explaining this is GG charges a pre-flop rake, lol. So whenever you 3-bet there someone folds your paying rake!

anyway for some reason you refuse to understand that those postflop plays are massive blunders and you should stop making them.

we can debate for the KJo but its not like by default a good call and if you deviate hugely preflop then we are like in full unknown territory in which it is to us not neccesary to even ever be and most likely which just adds into ur postflop blunders as you mentioned you then want to compensate the KJ by doing some strange bluffs postflop.

U refuse to believe that mechanic ABC approach where u dont try to do anything but play very ABC leads to ultimate best results.

13% 3-bet button vs co is something 90% of players dont have , they have like 9% .

so if someone has way above what it in some sim which suggest u to just fold the KJo then you can get that hand to be basically break-even call or whatever

if someone is then like a total insane whale he will still like deny ur equity no matter what so i still might just fold it to a 3-bet

Villain had 2% 3bet, 95% of times i 4bet with QQ here but here honestly i just wanted to fold it pre but with the hope maybe he has AK or i flop a set i cold called his 3bet

Flop he bets big, i'm still hoping he has AK and slows down turn or i may even turn a set but after his turn shove its clear that villain has KK or AA (maybe JJ) so i folded QQ

I think i saved a lot in this hand

2% 3bet over what sample?