A clueless noob reaches 1000 hours of live 1/3 NL
A Clueless NL Noob Reaches 1000 Hours of Live 1/3 NL
Hi, I’m gobbledygeek! I’ve just reached 1000 hours of live 1/3 NL!
Who This Post Is For:
This post is for fellow clueless NL noobs! Maybe you’ve never played poker before and are wondering what’s possible at this live low stakes NL game and how to go about winning at it. Or perhaps you’ve played the Limit version of the game (which I did initially) and are looking to turn to the dark side. This post will be fairly results oriented and more-or-less (a) state my statistics over my first 1000 hours of live 1/3 NL and then (b) do it’s best to describe my general approach to this game.
Even in my podunk town we have underground games, so you should never be w/o poker 😉
I'm fairly risk adverse (big surprise, I know), but I've heard more than enough stories to be extremely wary of any home game that is non shits'n'giggles steaks.
GcluelesshomegamenoobG
I'm fairly risk adverse (big surprise, I know), but I've heard more than enough stories to be extremely wary of any home game that is non shits'n'giggles steaks.
GcluelesshomegamenoobG
LOL. I am a 56-year-old woman, and I play all the time -- even in NYC when I used to travel there a lot.
Around here it's mainly 1/2 NLHE and 1/2/5 PLO. I have never not felt safe. The bigger games are really big/crazy, plus too far of a drive for me.
I'm fairly risk adverse (big surprise, I know), but I've heard more than enough stories to be extremely wary of any home game that is non shits'n'giggles steaks.
GcluelesshomegamenoobG
hard agree with this
even if the host is wealthy or someone you trust implicitly - everyone runs into financial or moral crises from time to time and they only need to have enough pressure once before they do the math and/or do the mental gymnastics ("they will lose anyway so i'll make sure i get that stack" or "they are better than the rest and leeching off this game so this is redistributing it")
and then they realize if they just set one cold deck per night how much money that'll add up to - even if the host isn't playing, they can still recruit an ally who'll share the coolered deck winnings
would not play above 1-2 unless it was run or vouched by people i knew well
would take some crazy circumstances to play above 2-5 even amongst a group of wealthy friends
Yeah, mostly I would be wary of cheating at anything other than cheezeburgers. But I know of a handful of stories regarding safety (including one told to me by a rec reg just like me about a decade ago where he was tied up at gunpoint - he was shaken to the core as he recounted the story).
GcluelessriskversusrewardnoobG
i would have thought as a goalie that was kind of your kink and you would play underground games more often
Actually put my goalie gear on consignment last week. Will hopefully eventually return to out play, but unlikely in 2025.
Gbutkeepingthegimpoutfit,ldoG
pretty sure a used gimp outfit is worth more than a new one
RcluelessgoalienoobR
Never been cleaned, I could get gobs for it!
Ghaven'tshotgobssincethevasectomy(multithreadjoke,let'sgo!)G
Table selection is definitely a *big* part of things.
GcluelesslowhangingfruitharvestingnoobG
IMO seat selection is far more important. Too many people spend too much time walking around ‘scouting’ (LOL) other games without even knowing what to look for, and game conditions can change abruptly. But the right seat change can show a profit immediately.
My guess is the original question was more in tune with the above response, but I'll answer it honestly anyways.
I appreciate the sincere answer. I'm happy the conversation's going down this path even if I was open to trolling if it went differently 😃
I wonder what your thoughts are on forum discussion given people's different motivations and skill levels here. Do you think people benefit from analyzing spots in a way that could be helpful in a lot of games against a lot of players, or do you think that's "overthinking it"?
You seem to kind of do your own thing and not worry about whether other people are posting "correctly" or whatever. If that's the case I guess I'm curious what your individual motivation for posting is, especially at the clip you post at. Is it for other people's benefit or just to help you do some mental reps away from the table and get your thoughts down on paper?
IMO seat selection is far more important. Too many people spend too much time walking around ‘scouting’ (LOL) other games without even knowing what to look for, and game conditions can change abruptly. But the right seat change can show a profit immediately.
#1 reason for me changing seats is Mississippi straddle nonsense. There is SUCH a lack of parity in being someone to a habitual straddler's left and having to act first preflop every hand vs being to their right and acting last every hand.
Which is the best case for not having a Mississippi straddle, even if it is great for action.
#1 reason for me changing seats is Mississippi straddle nonsense. There is SUCH a lack of parity in being someone to a habitual straddler's left and having to act first preflop every hand vs being to their right and acting last every hand.
Agree with this depending on the rest of the table and straddler 😉
I appreciate the sincere answer. I'm happy the conversation's going down this path even if I was open to trolling if it went differently 😃
I wonder what your thoughts are on forum discussion given people's different motivations and skill levels here. Do you think people benefit from analyzing spots in a way that could be helpful in a lot of games against a lot of players, or do you think that's "overthinking it"?
You seem to kind of do your own thing and not worry about whether other people are p
I think I have three main reasons for posting:
1) It is a mental break from work. I've never posted a single post in this forum away from my work desk. I'm 30 years at my job this month. If I had my nose to the grindstone every single second while at work, I wouldn't have made it this long. I need the occasional goof off time, and posting here satisfies that.
2) Getting the mental reps in is is very helpful to me. I only play once/twice a week and I need that muscle memory built up in-between sessions.
3) I don't think there is one "correct" way (whatever that means) to do almost anything, especially when you factor in that everyone is different with regards to what they are good at / what they ain't / their skillz set / etc. We're not building an atomic bomb here. People can find ~reasonable success for themselves kinda doing their own thing, and I think it is important to encourage that / offer alternatives / call out hardliners.
GbutmostlyjustkillingtimeG
Kinda doing your own precious thing is not really where the money is coming from, though. Sklansky has a line in one of his books to the effect that if your opponents are fundamentally unsound, any mathematically reasonable strategy will profit. That's what the lowest game in the room is, and yours is 'any mathematically reasonable strategy,' without so far as I can see a whole lot else to recommend it beyond than that is presumably not all that taxing to play your A game all the time let alone for 8 hours a week. I think your winrate is probably mostly driven by the things you have in common with other 10bb+ winners in terms of game conditions and running well, I guess best example being fluxboy with basically the same graph hit and running 50bbs.
while i would rather wear gg's gimpsuit than play like gg does
i think what people are failing to understand is gg has found a game where his opponents do not adjust and exploit his very transparent play style - which is the main issue of being an uber nit, is that it makes you very exploitable, people can very reliably hand read him and profitably overfold to him and if they really want to start putting their thinking caps on can probably figure out where gg himself will overfold once he's already put chips into the pot and then bluff him in those spots
but they don't
so because of that, his system works
i think at a table full of pros or even posters in this thread, he'd definitely be losing over a large enough sample - but of course i would assume if that were the field he was playing in, then he'd adapt and exploit his image until he no longer had that image and was just another player on the snug side of things - either that or quit playing as i doubt he'd continue to play such a transparent and exploitable play style against non mouth breathers
Kinda doing your own precious thing is not really where the money is coming from, though. Sklansky has a line in one of his books to the effect that if your opponents are fundamentally unsound, any mathematically reasonable strategy will profit. That's what the lowest game in the room is, and yours is 'any mathematically reasonable strategy,' without so far as I can see a whole lot else to recommend it beyond than that is presumably not all that taxing to play your A game all the time let alone
As I've stated many times, my lowest game in the room is also the highest game in the room 99% of the time. It's a double edged sword, one where I'm obviously playing with the worst players in the pool... but I'm also playing with (or attempting to avoid as best I can) the best in the pool too. Obviously the game I play in is a good one; it has to be otherwise it would be extremely difficult for me to beat at it's current $9+$1+$1+$1 tax. But I've always been very aware of where my money comes from, and anyone who thinks their profit comes from the top 10% of players in the room is delusional (IMO).
Do you think a large part of my fairly consistent giraffe over 6200 hours is running well? I mean, no one here has lol'ed at ~1000 hour sample sizes more than me... but there comes a point where I think the results are ~somewhat reflective (and ballpark at least) of what the method accomplishes as the hours and years add up.
*But*... I don't have access to anyone else's giraffes in my pool. Maybe some are crushing it for far more than I am (or even what I think is possible, and kudos to them if they are). A huge part of poker is delusion. Mostly we think of this belonging to long time losers who convince themselves they are winners but are just running bad / getting unlucky / I don't count that drunk punt cuz I was just goofing around / etc. But winning players can also be delusional. I know I'm definitely not the best in my pool (and I'd only be a big fish in a small pond at best anyways) and I could name 5 guys off the top of my head who I'd be extremely interested in their giraffe. But at the same I'd also have a hard time believing that my rather modest giraffe isn't also a top 10 in my room (at least during daytime / early evening conditions). But, I could be delusional.
GcluelessdelusionalnoobG
i think what people are failing to understand is gg has found a game where his opponents do not adjust and exploit his very transparent play style - which is the main issue of being an uber nit, is that it makes you very exploitable, people can very reliably hand read him and profitably overfold to him and if they really want to start putting their thinking caps on can probably figure out where gg himself will overfold once he's already put chips into the pot and then bluff him in those spots
I think the exploitable vs unexploitable framework fails us sometimes.
AFAICT, GG’s style is tailored to AVOID difficult spots rather than to play super exploitatively in them. He’s not massively overfolding single pair or underbluffing air in high SPR, multiway pots; he’s intentionally constructing his strategy such that it’s rarely a big mistake to not bluff or to fold single pair in the spots where he’s tempted to do so.
From what I can tell, he’s MORE intentional about his comprehensive strategy than the typical TINO.
Similarly for his preflop strat. I honestly think open limping a tight linear range (and l/rring hands like AQs) is less exploitable than a lot of the standard linear 5xing strats floating around (especially when they start VPIPing small pairs or ISOing a linear range for 2x pot+). I think most people making critiques of GG's style that might be valid in a vacuum don't have an appreciation of how absolutely bananas the standard TINO strat is, and so how many ways it can be improved upon.
As for "nittiness", almost no one’s leak is that they aren’t VPIPing enough where a) they're entering the pot cold and b) there's no reasonable expectation of scooping the blinds. I think folding 85s 100% of the time you're dealt it in a typical 1/3NL game isn't so much an exploitable/unexploitable thing as it is how rare +EV spots arise to play 85s (folding to you OTB or someone raising 3x or less with 30%+ of hands) . I think this is a little akin to how someone can be a winner in MTTs (especially turbos) without being an expert in 100bb+ poker. It's just not a considerable enough source of EV in the given game that anyone who's not super studied in those spots is playing far below optimal.
Not sure how much of this runs counter to anything you said, just thought I'd add my perspective.
TINO?
Spoiler
![](https://s3.amazonaws.com/twoplustwo-actually-definitely-helping-stud/userimages/Zltm17t.png)
but yeah, that's why i was hesitant to outright say what you could do to exploit him, but i do know for a matter of fact that i can always put him on an extremely narrow range and feel confident that if i sat down at his game for an hour (and i didn't know it was him nor he knew it was me) then i could probably construct a pretty good strat to either just avoid playing vs him or exploiting him when i did
again, when you can put your opponent on a very narrow range then you have a massive advantage imo
reliably hand reading someone into a range is probably where overwhelming majority of my ev comes, you sometimes get caught with your pants down when you think of them as a nit and didn't realize they had K4s in their bag but for the most part that's the best skill to master in live poker imo and guys like gg make that significantly easier to do imo
While only morans should be losing lots of money to me (step 1: play with morans, ldo), overall it is hard to win money off me when I mostly have a shortstack, position and a better hand than you (those are hard to overcome even if you can see my cards).
GcluelessNLnoobG