At 10NL to 50NL I keep hearing two opposite takes
play close to GTO and mix lines
or just go full exploit because population underbluffs and overcalls
What’s your practical approach at micros
Do you still mix bet sizes and check ranges on flop and turn or do you keep it simple and exploit hard
Any concrete examples where mixing mattered for you at micros
Hi,
This hand is from a local live 2/5 game, 6 handed. The villain is a regular, but he’s not very good, and I’ve seen some EXTREMELY questionable plays from him in the recent past. We are approximately 600bb deep (no buy in cap, and this is the highest stakes game in my city). For the sake of simplicity I will continue using BB when describing bets, because it was in a different currency (when translated, the game is basically 2.2/4.4€ blinds)
Villain opens UTG to 4bb, cutoff calls, hero 3bets in the small blind to 26bb with As5s, villain 4bets to 80bb, hero calls. I know I should definitely be folding here against 90% of the pool, especially out of position, but this guy is, in my eyes, just very bad, and my read on him is that he overbluffs postflop, so I decided to call, since we are playing extremely deep, and I can potentially get stacks in.
Flop comes 2s6s7d. Hero cchecks, villain bets 64bb. Hero calls. I decided I wasn’t really going to do any raising in this spot, since I don’t think we actually accomplish anything by doing so in a 4bet pot, even against a villain like him, because he is decently likely to call his 2overpair holding anyway (unless we shove, which isn’t really an option this deep)
Turn comes 8h. Goes check check.
River comes 9d. Hero shoves for approx 128% of the pot. I believe that, when playing against such unpredictable players, he is honestly decently likely to never fold an overpair here, if he checks it on the turn, ATLEAST some of the time, and this guy knows I am capable of bluffing, as I have done so in various spots we have played l. I also assumed that he doesn’t have that many 10s, since it is unlikely this guy will find a 4bet with something like 109 suited, and if he does, then there’s no getting away from it against this guy anyway, so all things considered I decided to shove and hope he puts me on spades or some airball and calls me.
Let me know what you think.
Hi all,
I’m an okay, relatively new cash player.
I’m in a city where only tournaments are allowed, and I entered a satellite and won, so now I have until Friday to prepare for the tournament.
I’m reading Modern Poker Theory’s tournament section (which I admittedly skipped every time I read it beforehand whoops) and I’m having trouble understanding why MP has a preflop calling range after a single raise.
I get that in cash games, you want your range to be decisively stronger than the person who raised before you, and you don’t want to have a capped range and risk having to fold versus an IP 3-bet, so you 3-bet or fold usually.
Why wouldn’t this apply in MTTs? What am I missing?
$ 5,50 target stack tourney at GG poker.
Target stack is 14 BB and around 12 players left and 6-7 tickets left. When player achieves target stack and wins ticket, all surplus chips are redistributed to other players at the table.
5 handed table. Hero (12 bb) in CO with Ad Kh.
Hero raises to 2 bb, button (9 bb) 3-bets to 8,5 bb, hero jamms and button calls.
Winning the pot (blinds +antes) would give me the ticket and original idea was just to steal the blinds but ended up shoving. Afterwards it felt a dump move. The surplus chips from later all inns would probably got me the ticket .
Any insights on the late game with 80-90 % target stack?
Hello guys. Ive been playing poker but for years but havent given it much time to purchase a HUD. Now I purchased Drivehud2 for a year.
I have given much of my time into studying this game and I would like your advice on whether I should move to 5nl Pokerstars given my stats. I know that obviously my hands sample is low. But I was wondering what should I expect of my actual bb/100 and ev bb/100 to be long term. Also any general advice on my leaks would be greatly appreciated. Also Im curious about the thin or thick line between playing exploitative and gto in the microstakes given a lot of players don't study the game but they are fewer than nl2. Also poker in general seems to be evolving fast and the average player is getting tougher.
Why does betting 150% pot on the turn in a heads up pot could accomplish more than betting 75% on the turn and river? Wouldn't betting that large isolate your range against a nutted range that would be behind the hands that over bet? In the scenario that I included it is a dry and an ace high board so I don't really imagine anything below Ax to call a massive turn over bet.
If it were a wet two tone board by the turn would a turn over bet be used here? How would do you decide if a turn is worth over betting?
What are the differences and contrasts between over betting turn compared to betting 75% on both streets?
I got it from this example:
You’re playing a standard $1/$2 cash game with $200 stacks.
The action folds to you on the Button. You hold AQ and raise to $6.
A solid player flats in the Big Blind.
The flop comes As5d3h. Big Blind checks and calls a small c-bet of around 33% pot.
The turn is the 9c.
Your opponent checks to you. You have a clear value betting hand.
What’s your bet size?
Scroll past the countdown once you’ve locked in your answer.
The correct answer is D. The best play is to bet very big, around 150% pot.
Your hand is really strong right now, with less than 10% of hands in Big Blind’s range that are ahead of you. Betting 75% pot is a decent option, but very often you’re going to find yourself in a close spot between value betting and checking back on the river, especially against a solid player.
While betting like that extracts value from more hands, but it doesn’t maximize the amount chips it extracts from your opponent and also gives him more of a chance to hit a two-pair or trips on the river, as he’s not drawing dead with his weaker pairs.
By overbetting, you are making his bluff-catchers pay a way bigger price to hit their lucky two-pair or trip outs and make it very easy on yourself to check back on the river. By overbetting on the turn, you are essentially getting all your value in one street rather than two, with the added benefit of clarity.
People are very straightforward against these bet sizes, so getting raised will mean that you are clearly behind. This means that you’ll not end up making a dubious call against a raise, one that you’d otherwise regret later, after having bet 75% pot.
This is a very cool spot. Hope you learned something from it!
1-2 100 at local casino I’m UTG with ace-ten off I limp in to see what happens, player to my left raises to $15 gets 2 callers I decide to see a flop.
Flop comes 4-8-10 two spades I lead out for $25 get raised immediately by pre-flop raiser to $75. Next two guys fold, I fold frustrated that I even was in the hand.
I’m going to guess my second mistake was leading out and not checking, but what are your guys thought process?
I was on the other end of the table- so really not sure if I believe it, but the two other folders state they had jacks and queens (allegedly even showed the other players before folding)
Of course I put the raiser on an overpair, but really AK suited in spades could probably make the same play right?
Thanks a bunch
I just lost to a 35o preflop shove with AA at a $15 buy-in MTT. We were both running quite hot with 80+bb, both in top 5 position. He hit a straight. Why do people do this?
I have been playing poker for about a year now and I currently have a win rate of .3bb/h over a 270 hour sample size in live 1/3.
Although, in this first year of poker my bankroll had always been 1000bb or smaller. My bankroll would range from just 100bb-1100bb during my spurts of playing. Almost every session that I had played over that sample I had been playing with at least 10 percent of my total roll at the least and most sessions had ranged from 50 percent to my whole roll being on the table. I would usually just reload with my paycheque from my job if I had busted that roll or eventually tilt of my small roll after I would lose half my roll my sports betting the rest.
I would say over the past year I have gotten considerably better at poker through study, grinding out online reps (25nl,50nl), reviewing past hands, and just having more experience playing. But now I plan on taking the live 1/3 more seriously and I want to achieve a high win rate that would rival my current job of 25 dollars per hour.
Although since my roll had always been so small I would sometime worry when in big pots about the amount of money I would be losing rather than mainly focusing on the long term winning play.
Would just taking some time off live and just setting some money aside to the point where I have a cushion to work with be better for the mental part of the game and keep my decisions at the poker table to think about finding more ev rather than choosing the nittier approach and just protecting my roll.
If you would say that saving money to have a decent roll would be the smarter move then how much would I need to save? My 1/3 game is 500 cap 8+2 rake structure. I buy in for 300 usually although I tend to play better when I buy in for the max or even 400.
I know we should not focus on individual hands, but I’m just wondering if there could be a better way to look at this.
The above solution is for a 3 bet pot preflop.
Flop action is OOP bets 30% and IP raises 2.5x.
My gut feel is this is something about blockers, i.e. having AcKc reduces the chance of our opponent holding AcQc and KcQc.
Been slogging around the apps a bit and on ClubGG there are a handful of min VPIP games, specifically I've been playing the PLO6, which has a 50% VPIP.
How in the world does one beat these games, especially with the super-thin margins between starting hands and enormous variance?
You can't sit and wait for triple-suited rundowns, aces and kings don't dominate. Best strategy I've been able to find is to choose to straddle. That way I can get VPIP in without having to continue to call raise after raise before the flop with mediocre hands.
Any other advice? The games themselves ARE juicy, but man the variance is REAL.
1/2/3 NLHE 8 handed
Hero in LJ, KhQd
Villain in +1 opens to 15
Hero 3b to 45
Villain calls
Flop comes Kd, 10d, 8s
Villain checks, hero bets 50, villain calls
Turn is 6d, check check
River is As, villain bets 100, hero folds
It was my last orbit before racking which honestly may have influenced my decision
Felt a bit nitty in the moment. Thoughts?
I’m building a poker hand review tool and want honest feedback from microstakes/online players.
The idea is simple: enter position, hole cards, opponent types, and action, then get a plain-English review of the spot.
Example hand:
Hero: CO
Hand: A♦2♦
Opponents: Nit, Passive, Unknown
Preflop action: two players already involved
The tool says: RAISE, but with caution.
Reason: suited ace has blocker value and nut-flush potential, but the hand becomes fragile if facing heavy resistance.
Would you agree with this review, or is this too loose?
1/2/3 NLHE 8 handed
Hero in LJ, KhQd
Villain in +1 opens to 15
Hero 3b to 45
Villain calls
Flop comes Kd, 10d, 8s
Villain checks, hero bets 50, villain calls
Turn is 6d, check check
River is As, villain bets 100, hero folds
It was my last orbit before racking which honestly may have influenced my decision
Still felt a bit nitty to fold, especially since I think I block a lot. Thoughts?
3 day live tournament with 5 day 1 flights. Standard flight is 40 min blinds throughout (13 levels day 1) but they have shoehorned in a turbo flight right before day 2 which has the 13 levels as 15mins each. I’m unfortunately only available for the turbo. What adjustments would you make?
I’m pretty new to poker theory and online poker. I’ve played casually before, but I’ve been taking it more seriously this year and I want to start getting into online poker. I’m planning to start small, learn as I go, and see how I play before moving up.
One thing I’m struggling with is understanding the BB (big blind) concept and how it’s used in strategy discussions. I’m used to seeing pot sizes in dollar amounts, not things like “35.6 BB,” so it’s a bit confusing at the moment.
Also, what are some good online poker sites/apps for US players that are beginner-friendly? I’m mainly looking for something safe, legit, and easy to start on while I learn.
Any recommendations for learning resources, videos, or sites would be really appreciated.
For context I’m a recreational player mainly playing 2NL to improve. I’m actively studying and trying to get a good volume of games in, while also starting to slowly build a bankroll. I’ve just played home games before, and they arnt easy ones by any stretch (table is lots of very solid guys). Admittedly I would say I’m a fairly decent player, up about 200 BB over 20 hours of play last month.
Starting out online was a little tough; I felt it more difficult to get value from my opponents and I was blundering a lot of spots, retroactively justifying mistakes by just rationalizing spots (saying things like I know this is a bad call but for 50 cents I can afford to). The lack of live reads was also hard to adjust to.
This lead to me losing like 1000 BB worth of money (so like 20 dollars), and I knew continuing to play like this would be a bad move. I started actively focusing on spots, player types, and other solid strategies while learning from better players.
Since then, I’ve been playing a 3B or fold strategy from every position except BB or Button, and have tightened up significantly (though not insanely due to the player pool I have encountered, though this is obviously dependent on V). I understand why this strategy works at the micros. What I don’t understand is the following:
Typically, on the flop when it favors my range I just click it to .33x pot, and villain normally calls. It is irrelevant what 2 cards I hold are, whether I miss, hit, have or don’t have a draw, if it favors my range, I bet. On the turn, when it either bricks out, gives me a draw, or else wise, I’m betting .75x pot at a frequency of about 90 percent (excluding times when it causes me to miss horribly or obviously helps my opponent) and the villain folds nearly every time. And, on the river, I typically follow up with an over bet of 1.25 pot (so long as the river isn’t a card that, again, obviously benefits villain) and, again, no matter what I have from a missed draw, second pair, or the nuts, villain folds 50 percent of time, pays the nuts of 25 percent of the time, or calls with worse and then mucks 25 percent of the time, and I’ve only lost like 3 times using this strategy. If I’m ever reraised without a value hand I can just snap fold and lose the minimum to a monster.
Across like the 3k hands I’ve played (so a tiny sample size but I feel as if it’s still relevant) I have been raking in so much money in terms of BB and my win rate has gone up to like 200 BB and hour (again definitely inflated but I feel as if there is some merit to it considering the consistency of it) and I want to know why. I don’t have a super deep grasp on the deep theory of poker, I’m just familiar with the common buckets of spots in poker, and I feel that by understanding the why behind what I’m doing, I’ll be able to apply it to other similar situations, find more exploits, and at some point move up stakes once my (small) bankroll can afford it.
Appreciate any help in understanding the theory behind this, and, seeing as this is my first post in the sub, please let me know if this post is violating any rule or something. Peace
Anybody else stuck in the tilt cycle? I feel like this is getting to the point where tilt is costing me more money than theory mishaps.
Every time I think I've got it under control, I end up spiraling again a few sessions later. Get a bad beat, chase, lose a couple buy-ins, swear I'll quit for the night, then sit back down 20 minutes later and just lose more.
I've tried the usual stuff like walking away after a big loss, setting stop-losses, and meditating before sessions. Works for like a week, then I'm right back at it.
Got frustrated enough that I started building an app to help myself catch it during sessions and help before and after sessions. Curious what's actually worked for people here, though, because clearly I haven't figured it out yet. What finally got it under control for you?
I find it very irritating when players who are not in the hand can't stop talking about what they folded, this guy yesterday couldn't shut up about how he folded Q7s preflop and would have made a flush against me when I had a set of 8s, I never understand what do they achieve by it?? Bro, you aren't in the hand, he kept blabbering throughout the night and actually tilted me last hand when he stacked me playing T3o from SB after my BTN raise with AA and hit trips on K33 flop and had the audacity to laugh at the runout, I was playing a top game until this happened and I left angry from the table, spoiling my whole night.