Road from NL10 to NL50

On flush completing rivers, blocking the nut flush is not great for bluff catching. A lot of your opponents bluffs are going to come from the nut flush blocker, so when you hold it you block a large portion of potential bluffs and don't block that much value at all. A hand that contains a diamond but unlocks the Ax would actually make a better bluff catcher in these spots.
Of course it depends a lot on how the hand played out, it's just a gebral heuristic for bluff catching when the flush completes. People often have it backwards, they think blocking the nut flush is good, well no not really, you block bluffs and don't block much value.

Yea I think that makes a lot of sense. Why does solver still prefer having the blocker though?

I don’t really know the exact spot you’re looking at, so it’s hard to be specific. But it could just be that in that situation the solver cares more about blocking value than unblocking bluffs.

This is a great video, thanks for sharing!

It seems like this video is focusing on bluff catching when potentially there is a busted flush draw.

I guess in my situation though, having the nut flush blocker is like a neutral thing. I both block villian's AKo bluffs and villians Axs value. I do think theres more value combos than AKo combos. But yea this is all theoretical. I should fold 100% against reg taking this line.

Yea it is pretty case dependent.

I was looking at BTN vs BB triple barrell all in scenario when flush completes. The AJo is always fold, but having A of flush is actually hugely detrimental to EV. In this case many of the BTN's bluff comes from A with flush blocker. So you are absolutely right. Thanks for this knowledge!

You are muchly welcome, although yes very case dependent.
Also it's worth remembering that the machines create these solutions by playing perfectly against themselves until they reach an equilibrium, people at 10nl or 25nl will not be playing perfectly obviously.
Often when looking at bluff catching spots on the river the machine assumes that range is constructed in a balanced way, the opponents we face in reality will be massively unbalanced.
For example the solver may choose to bluff complete air on the river in some spots, hands that don't interfere the folding range, I don't think you see that often at the micros. If you have the ability to nodelock on yours it can be interesting to play around with what you think the perceived bluffing range is of your opponents in spots and not just what the machine chooses to bluff, it can change the answer drastically at times.

I can't afford to pay for a subscription atm, I've been travelling a few months now so I'm trying to grind up a roll.
But yeah I'm just saying don't assume what the solver says can be directly applied to every situation. It's useful and you can take some good stuff away from it, but also try to consider if that's actually how your opponents play and play around with the frequencies and hand selections.
Also whether you think your opponent is likey to over bluff or under bluff in a spot. The exploit in some situations is to take a solution that heavily mixes and fold pure or call pure. All it takes is for your opponent to sway one way or the other just a little, say 1% to move the answer to a pure fold or pure call.
Perhaps I'm rambling! Haha. But I guess I think often you can simplify. The solver will often mix calls and folds with certain hands, pure call others, per fold some. When in reality if you think your opponent is under bluffing a spot it just becomes a pure fold, you fold every bluff catcher. Or if it's a spot and player who's likey to over bluff you can call every bluff catcher, that's the exploit. People aren't machines, it's impossible to play like them and they won't even be trying at these stakes.
95% of the people I encounter atm at 25nl have absolutely no clue what they're doing.

But yeah play around with the hand selections or bluffing frequencies in the nodelocking feature, it's surprising how drastically things change just from slight adjustments in frequencies.

Yea what you said makes perfect sense. I've seen 2cardconfidence doing nodelocking and small deviations can change the entire strategy like rangebetting in some cases or extreme overcall/overfold.

And yes, human play extremely different from solvers, and blindly following solver is definitely bad.

That AA hand, will definitely fold next time 😀

Pretty great day 😀)

Played two short sessions, one in the afternoon one in the night. The afternoon one was so good, being hella agressive. The night one I wasn't doing as much overbluffing, and the WWSF was only 48%. For the entire day combined, the WWSF is 49%, which is on the lower end for sure.

I wanted to grind leaderboard today, but I just can't get any substiantial rakeback since in the morning I have stuff to do. I don't think a LB grind will happen in a while... :(

The GG update changed the rakeback system, and Ive done some calculation and my flat rakeback is at 6.5% (due to PVI, calculated to be ~ 0.25which I don't understand because I'm not even profiting that much bro) despite as the crab GG claims there will be around 30% rakeback. So pretty much rakeback is 0 except for being lucky in GGflip and LB. It's quite sad that I won't have time to grind LB.

BR: 1021

We are so close to shot taking at NL25.

in response to your last post about the GG rake back, why GG again? Are you not able to play on other sites? Stars for example has a very clear rake back structure, you know exactly what you're going to earn and it's paid directly in cash once you unlock it. There's no ambiguity with how it works. they also have one of, if not the lowest rake structures out there, and in my opinion the games are super soft. Even at 100nl and 200nl I have observed games and seen a lot of the same player styles. I just don't get the attraction of GG. it will never be somewhere I choose to grind.
here's a picture of their rake structure, it's very clear. Even the lowest level is outperforming what people actually receive from GG, and there's no ambiguity. Now I'm at 25nl i'm unlocking them quicker and about to move to Silver, i just like to know exactly where i stand. with this structure you can calculate based on volume and stakes how much you're going to earn in rake back, on GG it's not clear at all.

GG rakeback before the update is not horrible. GG's rake for micro is also one of the better ones. But after the update the rakeback got a lot worse so i am trying to look for better options.

I can't play stars from Massachusetts which is where I live in :(

well that sucks. Can you play on acr? I don't know what the games are like on ACR at the moment, but i used to grind on there and you could earn decent bonuses! you seem to put in a lot of volume so I'm sure you could hit them. if i remember correctly if i managed around 30k hands a week at 50nl, that would usually be enough to hit a $500 dollar bonus, and they were higher levels also. No idea if the leader boards are as good now as they used to be, I haven't played on there for a long time. The games used to be very soft though and good bonuses. this was during covid times.

Heard bad stuff about ACR lol

I think microstakes at GG is definitely doable. Once I hit nl50 I will definitely consider switching website because GG rnc rake doesn't decrease as you move up the stake. It's still around 7bb/100

Day 21:

Again, a decent day! Didn't put in too much volume because I need my rest of the day to do work from school.
Really happy with today: Had a couple 3bp all in shove bluff based on opponent's snap call OTF+OTT stuff like that. I previously pretty much never had any river all in bluffs. Glad to execute that today, which also shows on WWSF and and redline.

Week 3 Summary:

Definitely the best week I've ever had for a looooongggg time (never felt comfortable in NL10 like this week).

In terms of goals
[x] 25k/15k hands. (15k of which comes from day 1 of the week lol)
- [x] WWSF 51%/51% (yay)
[x] Study >2h/2h (mainly exploit stuff. didn't do GTO this week)
[x] Read ~2h/2h (Didn't time, but I think I hit it haha)

Goals for Week 4:
[] I won't set a goal for volume because I will be shot taking at nl25. If I bust, then 10k will be the goal (school starts, no time)
[] Study 2h
[] Read 1h

BR: 1055!! SHOT TAKING AT NL25 TMR!!! (If have time)

In what universe is GG RNC rake 7 bb/100 with a VPIP higher than 20? That's the amount of rake I pay at a site with 3.33 % rake and 5 bb cap, no preflop rake. GG RNC is 5%, 8 bb cap, and raked preflop once there is a 3bet. I'm almost 100% certain it won't be 7 bb/100 at GG even net after getting whatever the fuck they call rb, BBJ, and promo EV back. Make it 9 plus and we are closer. Some trackers don't calculate it right or present the information in a misleading way. If you wanna get the actual numbers, just do a grind day, compare your account balances before and after, and then compare them to what the pokercraft thingy says about your results. If you have PT4, there is also a downloadable custom stat on their site that gives the actual number in bb/100 right away.

Edit: I see you use H2N and it says what the rake has been in bb's. With a VPIP of 28 that number is 100% BS, or a number that has been constructed in a way that has little or nothing to do with how much higher your winrate would've been if the games were not raked.

Oh are you being for real? I genuinely thought the rake is as displayed as H2N.

Yea I will pay attention next time. Thanks for the information!

Yeah no bamboozle. Primedope rake calculator says the same, and I believe they show the average net rake after average rb. Feel free to confirm that yourself manually if you want to.

Day 22:

No poker today, no time :(

Tomorrow morning will shot take for like an hour or so.

Day 23:

Just played a bit in the morning. Was up 1BI because of rec, but had a bad read on rec's sizing and lost quite a bit.

Didn't feel too stressed about the 2.5x betting size that I was used to, which surprised me. I think knowing that I have 2BI for me to play around and that busting it's totally fine gives me a sense of security.

Was still over tight regarding thin value bets/raises and 3bet (only 6% lol, what a nit!) I've seen more reggy stats across the tables, which means my 3bet should get closer to equilibrium as well.

Tomorrow morning I'll see if I can shot take a bit more. As school starts, I've been having trouble finding time to play. And afternoon/night at my time is just not a good time to play because most recs play during my morning.

BR: 1068

Day 24:
Whap. Shot taking meant to be hard no?

Lost 2 BI to bullets I couldn't possibly dodge. Did run very good with flips and at NL10 (I got tilted and I played nl10 and i ran so good), so not losing too much. Tomorrow maybe try again 😀 Not busted yet haha

BR: 1050

In hindsight, maybe I can fold TT bvb. Yea super nitty but I think it's a losing call if villian doesn't have AQo and A5s in jam range and have all the AA and KK in jam range. Yea, definitely a losing call in fact.

That runner runner trip just is setting me up for death bruh

Yea to be fair 2nd hand river maybe just call. Can't really find anything that I beat that would take this line really. AAw/ heart is the only combo that I can imagine taking this line. And I have to discount this possibility as well because people fast play AA preflop too much.

Perhaps even folding river is most exploitative hahah. But come on now how am I not shoving runner runner trip bro :((((

One quick comment about your TT hand bvb. Calling is fine, you're thinking about it in terms of hand v range instead of range v range. If you assume they never five bet jam as a bluff and only have TT plus and AK, then TT by itself is losing, but when you look at your whole continuing range against that range it comes out exactly break even, so it is not exploitable.
On top of that, people will sometimes trap with aces and kings, so those hands are not always at full frequency anyway, which makes calling even more reasonable. If you start folding TT, your range only gains around two percent equity, if you assume the range you suggested, but their range overall gains equity from your fold if they do incorporate bluffs. You are assuming nobody is ever jamming hands like AQ or A5s at 25nl, and that just is not true. There are definitely players who five bet jam bluffs. Also on top of that random spazes with other pairs or random hands. It's best not to over think it. Calling TT+ AK is not exploitable.
That is why in spots like this you need to be careful not to deviate too far, because you can easily be the one who gets exploited. It's a snap and move on, you should be 4 betting with the intention to snap if they jam, if you lose you lose. But you can't make big assumptions. You see too much random stuff at the micros.

I can't see the full pre flop action for some reason, but I'm assuming normal 3 bet and 4 bet sizes, given they're 100b deep it's a snap v jam. I'm not over thinking these spots.
I think it's a mistake to make big assumptions about peoples play or what their range may look like without very hard evidence. And how are you going to get that? In this case it's impossible for him to know what this players range looks like, why over think. I see soooo much random stuff at 25nl. It's incredible, this isn't a spot to over think and think you're exploiting someone by over folding, when in reality you don't know enough about this player. Even if they are a super nit and you call the jam with TT+ AK it's a flip. There's more to be lost by making big assumptions and deviations without hard evidence than there is the extra 2% equity you think you may gain if you happen to be correct and think it's a super nit jamming range.