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

I don't agree that reg battling is going to outperform table selection with players that have massive loss rates.

I do agree you can exploit everyone, regs do have plenty of leaks.

Higher stakes also = more money. Do not need insane volume to have a nice hourly. I know a guy putting in one million hands a year, making $20k. I can also look up a high stakes reg who puts in 150k hands and banks $100k... Not sure where the argument fits to slam volume, unless your goal is to play as many hands/hr as possible.

Interesting thoughts, and you're 100% right in your own shoes since I'm guessing you're the best player in your pool. I don't think it's reasonable to say, "just be so much better you can win in high rake reg battles"

Nowadays you can play against a perfect opponent (solver) in whatever spots you want at your own pace with instant feedback.

If you're really thinking critically and paying attention then playing fish could end up being the most useful.

As for playing micros regs, I'm really not sure. I've definitely picked up some bad habits that a really good player would wreck. I guess it really depends what your goals are.

From Pat Howard

This has some good logic in it, more fish = less regs but theoretically fishes lose fast and replaced by regs, so very often need to change tables

This has some logic too, if we think like as we move up stakes recreational players are less and less we need to learn how to exploit bad regs and actually good money can be made from them

But… when you play really high volume of hands table selection becomes very hard, what i noticed is that if i play 6 tables i can spot when fish goes busto and replace that table with new one but as i start to play 9+ tables it becomes a bit messy and hard to table select

Lately i was reading old LinusLove topics here, what i found was that at the beginning he was trying to play as many tables as possible to put up high volume but as time passed and he became better at poker he was reducing tables and now if you see his volume is low but still makes millions

It’s really hard to choose a path, go for insane volumes or for few quality tables, maybe for some players who stick to micro/low stakes are more profitable to put high volume and they make stable income idk really

Crushed and destroyed

I don't play FR but I will give my 2 cents anyway.

H1, I am really starting to wonder if KK is good in this action sequence and this deep... I still have to survive a runout...

H2, Obv raising but idk about shoving 200bbs. BB has quads and the better FHs. I guess you get called by worse pocket pairs but do they for that price?

H3, whatevs but what is he realistically raising flop with vs your large sizing and vs both your ranges?

Yeah lately i was wondering about the same, KK seems big money trap in FR 200BB tables considering everyone playing so tight and nitty, i was even considering to fold KK here but checked 4bettors stats on statname, he had 4bet% higher than 3.0 so usually if player has 2.0 or less it's AA or KK, thats why i shoved and was right he had AK but the other guy had AA so whatever actually i get too many KKs vs AA lately and very few AA vs KK if any at all, so might be my bad luck

Second hand yeah probably small raise or even call here would be better, safe poker is more stable but i guess those other hands tilted me so i wanted to make him call with another smaller pair to get paid more (greedy), yeah also it's micro stakes so might get called too who knows

Third one was fish obviously, idk if my play was right to shove there but if i just called there or raised small idk if i would get paid more

This isn't a good mindset imo. There's decent data available to show that people aren't typically just willy nilly clicking buttons (although some obv do). There is method to madness even if it's a terrible method. Would be better if you had info confirming that this villain would spew or call very wide kind of thing that you were basing the assumption on (maybe you do/did).

I think it's pretty standard fold. I get that he's gonna have AK sometimes (but we block it this time), but there are also 2 more players interested in this pot (not including the limper). I'm just not believing 2 people have AK or worse. Even if they did, we are potentially vs multiple ranges postflop and even a hand as maybe strong as this pre becomes pretty marginal to navigate post.

It's funny how online poker progressed through the years, even on micro stakes we need to play extremally carefully and accurate, even with the best hands little mistake can cost us huge loses, it's crazy, i mean imagine live poker where people see less hands, someone sipping a whiskey, they are out of patience, every premium hand they see they are ready to play it aggressively, not in a million galaxy they would ever consider folding KKs preflop, two different worlds, same as like zoom poker and regular tables, yeah hard life but the ones who adjust to reality will be the winner, going to change my mind set

QQ is silly, small raise def better, and flatting probably better than shoving

KK how about flatting?

22 is standard, shoving is best option

True, best play with QQ would be small raise and fold to a reraise, in the long run will get more calls with worse hands

Flatting with KK and shove flop maybe good option to get calls from QQ/JJ but as pot was going to multiway direction flatting there it was clear i would get more callers and i went for safer option to just shove

longterm it's safer to go for the higher EV option, not the safer option ;-)

btw it's very hard to not beat NL10, look at these players 😃 5 way allin 1000BB+ pot but i was a bit unlucky

Despite that hand seems like my bad run is over, had godlike run, got dealt AA vs KK many times in a row (last time i was complaining that i had so many KKs vs AA but lately variance turned around its so strange, now im getting AAs vs KKs)

I should always play with more responsibility while playing deep stacked if i want to be consistent imo most important for consistency while playing with deep stacked is to not lose whole 200BB stack but that seems not easy sometimes, look at this, i felt weakness and bluffed my stack off it went wrong, opponent tanked till few seconds left on his timebank but he made a call

He slowrolled you mate. He did not tank call lol.

Looks more like nit-roll.

Hero isn't 1.75x shoving worse for value right? Very tough decision if not, flop call is very strong facing this size with 4 players left to act.

There is no way he slowrolled there, single raised multiway pot (not 3bet) on that board facing that kind of river shove his low set becomes pure bluff catcher

Believe me good reg would find a fold but he couldn’t lay down a set and im the probably one of not many who is bluffing there with nothing most of the times if we consider how nitty are NL10 regs he will be making losing call at those stakes almost always

NL10 regs never bluff at that spot and thats the difference bad regs who make such calls will never grind out to NL25 and regs who grind and make decent 10BB+ winrates are those who make such big exploitative folds, since we know it’s always big +ev fold at those stakes ofc if he had no read on my tendencies

I'm wondering was there any way to get away from this? it's pity to lose 250BB just like this, maybe i should have check-called river to protect from sets to lose less but that would be very nitty, my thought process was to bet small on the river to induce bluffs from missed flush draws etc it's very tricky to play deep stacked

GG Poker - $0.10 Ante $0.05 NL - Holdem - 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

UTG: 217 BB
UTG+1: 204.7 BB
MP: 160.4 BB
MP+1: 200 BB
MP+2: 67 BB
CO: 220.5 BB
BTN: 270.1 BB
SB: 172 BB
Hero (BB): 256.1 BB

9 players post ante of 0.5 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 6 BB) Hero has Q♦ A♥

fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, BTN raises to 3 BB, SB calls 2.5 BB, Hero raises to 18 BB, BTN calls 15 BB, fold

Flop: (43.5 BB, 2 players) A♠ Q♠ 9♦
Hero bets 28 BB, BTN calls 28 BB

Turn: (99.5 BB, 2 players) 2♥
Hero bets 44 BB, BTN calls 44 BB

River: (187.5 BB, 2 players) 7♣
Hero bets 62 BB, BTN raises to 179.6 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 103.6 BB and is all-in

BTN shows 9♠ 9♥ (Three of a Kind, Nines)
(Pre 55%, Flop 83%, Turn 91%)
Hero shows Q♦ A♥ (Two Pair, Aces and Queens)
(Pre 45%, Flop 17%, Turn 9%)
BTN wins 502.9 BB

Crushing souls at NL10

Instead of moving up to NL25 now you know what i will do? will withdraw 200$ and move down to NL5 and grind back to NL10 just to practice over and over to gain maximum confidence, not caring much about moving up atm just working on my game consistency

My 2k$ crypto investment sits at 5.5k$ now (it peaked 6.5k$ some days ago but now experiencing downfall) waiting another bull run hopefully to happen soon so instantly will use that money for bankroll to play live cash and will mix up with online play too

Total money withdrawn since 18 January 2024: 2,040$

*evil laugh* NL5

Here villain reraised my flop raise, I had no info about this player so gave up the pot but after that what happened you don't wanna know 😃

After some hands later he opens with big raise again, i 3bet him with large sizing, i already know whats going on in his mind "i bullied him few hands earlier so he must be mad now he wants to make play on me" so he calls, he donks flop and i do exactly the same what i did last time: min-raise, now his ego comes into play, he reraises me again (thinks he is Phil Ivey something) but after my shove he lost his brain, his ego and his pants too, so he called with 9 high

I believe live 1/3 players are worse than this, thats why i want to mix up my online play with live play too

I found 4 inner demons, they appear at different times, if i want to be successful and consistent with my game i need to defeat them

1. Pot Demon
This Demon appears when i invest money into the pot, more money I invest stronger it becomes, it doesn’t want to leave the pot even when i feel I’m beat, it always tricks me into calling big value bets or tries to make me pull a big bluff, that demon is greedy

2. Tilt Demon
This demon appears when i lose money during the session, it wants to get all the money back as fast as possible which leads to lose more money obviously

3. Preflop Demon
This Demon appears when i face preflop aggression, it likes to gamble or find any reason that justifies the gamble

4. Variance Demon
This Demon appears when i face unlucky run, bad beats or coolers, it makes me think over and over how unfair it was which leads to wake up another Tilt Demon

Now i know my enemy and what triggers them, i called them demons, this way easier to fight

Hi and thanks for the good post. I read your whole story so far and it's been a fun sounding journey. you got a new follower! Your game seems to be going well, but I'll throw in one piece of advice on how to improve your game. I noticed that your red line is badly in the red. Try to improve the red line.

Hello, even tho right now I'm grinding NL5 NL10 i can say that im most confident with my game, it's a lot more consistent and stable, my game is at it's peak, only thing that holds me back is my poker demons but i found my way of fighting them i think soon ill move up with lightening speed

This ring is made from French coin (pure silver) i paid master to do it, i was watching myself how it was made from the start to the end it took like 5 hours of work but ring of Mordor was made 😃 I'm not a fan of accessories usually i don't wear any but this one is so special, it will have it's purpose, every time my poker demon appears this ring will remind me, i will wear it every time i play poker, i can't defeat poker demons forever but i will control them every time they appear, they're my enemy and they will be close

What you think about your red line in the graph ? (Non showdown winnings)
What it tells your game ?

Even tho my red line is bad atm im happy with my game as it became more stable and consistent, the main core build is done now i can work on red line slowly

I know 2 regs they crush NL25, one has skyrocketing red line and second has the opposite but they both still crush the game, imo balanced redline is best close to breakeven but it's highly dependent on games we're playing

Imagine two scenarios: in one table is too lose, they call down every street with trash hands here most profitable will be to not go for redline and go to more showdowns with value hands, if table is full of nitty regs and they never call, you never get value and when they call they always have the goods than here to not go for redline would be criminal activity, here we can totally up the aggression

So, table dynamic is most important but since now im playing 9 tables of micro stakes it's very hard to adjust to each table here general strategy is applied to every table so i go for option 1