UATrewqaz
06-25-2006, 04:50 AM
10K isn't a huge sample size but my story will help others I believe as I feel I have learned some things.
Ok so NLT&P arrived and this long time low stakes limit grinder decided he wanted his share of the NL gravy train. I had only dabbled in a few NL SNG's and tournies and did ok (I had read HoH1 and HoH2).
So after reading it and reviewing it for a few days I dove into NL. My first stop was Party because I had a bonus to clear there, 1200 hands later, gravvvvy.
http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/5328/ppnl7mj.jpg
One thing did disturb me though, my two biggest hands I won I got all my money in with the worst hand (my QQ drew out on KK, and my top 2 pair turned a full house vs a straight).
I had several bonuses stored up at PokerRoom and luckily they have alot of NL25 games going at all time and yes there are tons of donks. The results have been uh... well take a look
http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/9408/prnl9wf.jpg
I have noted a few key moments.
Key Moment #1: I realize I am playing losing poker, there is something fundamentally wrong with my play, this is not normal variance. It turns out my biggest mistake early on was stacking off with single pair / two pair hands, when action clearly indicated they were beaten.
In limit hold em you rarely fold very solid made hands when you think they may be beaten (in large pots). You frequently "call down" even when the action indicates you're probably not best. The reason of course is that the pot size is so large compared to the bet size you only have to be good a very small % of the time in order to break even or show a profit.
This mentality is drilled into the head of every good limit hold em player and it had seeped over into my new NL play.
It was at this point I began to LET HANDS GO when faced with heavy action. As you can see the freefall stopped cold and I began churning upwards. I was still playing poorly (read on) and I had my first run in with good old fashioned variance. I had a fair number of strong hands drawn out on or cold decked (lost my KK vs. AA all in virginity).
This lead to
Key Moment #2: I'm still doing something wrong. I'm no longer stacking off stupidly, however breakeven is no good.
So I dive into the forums a little more and find some very very very useful posts.
Pokey's post here:
Pokey on switching from limit to NL (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Board=ssplnlpoker&Number=614572 0&Searchpage=6&Main=6145720&Words=Pokey&topic=&Sea rch=true#Post6145720)
is really great. I read through most of the threads he links to and learned very important point number 2.
POSITION POSITION POSITION POSITION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Position matters significantly more in NL than it does in limit. I was playing way too many hands out of position, hands like AJo and 86s, etc.
playing these types of hands in position vs. out of position is the difference between shooting with a scope vs. shooting wearing a welder's mask.
I began dumping marginal top pair hands and the worst of the drawing hands in EP/MP. I also began RAISING them in LP (rather than calling). Not only do you win the blinds/limps frequently, you also clear out players behind you (buying the button, VERY valuable) but you frequently win with a contiuation bet post flop.
This lead to me
1. Stealing alot more blinds/limps
2. Winning MANY MANY more smallish pots ($2-$5 range) with continuation bets on the flop
3. Playing my drawing hands MUCH more effectively (cheap or free turn/river cards, extracting more when they connected, etc.)
A big mental thing I had to realize was not every hand is meant to be a HUGE hand. For whatever reason got me thinking that your goal was pretty much to wait for a big hand to try to double up on. The problem is in my desperate attempt to play "big pots" I was missing playing them badly and also missing out on the dozen or so small-medium pots you can win in between.
Also NLT&P focuses on games that can be very deeply stacked, more so than low stakes NL online. At NL 25 with a full buy in you have 100BB. Certainly not shallow but not exactly super-deep either. There are also many players at the table with significantly less, thus you are playing frequently with effective stacks much smaller (smaller stacks lead to much mroe straight forward, value betting type play, due to the absence of bigger implied odds).
Anyway that's about it. I'm still plugging along (I got 2 more PokerRoom bonuses left to go... I can't wait to get over to Party again)
Ok so NLT&P arrived and this long time low stakes limit grinder decided he wanted his share of the NL gravy train. I had only dabbled in a few NL SNG's and tournies and did ok (I had read HoH1 and HoH2).
So after reading it and reviewing it for a few days I dove into NL. My first stop was Party because I had a bonus to clear there, 1200 hands later, gravvvvy.
http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/5328/ppnl7mj.jpg
One thing did disturb me though, my two biggest hands I won I got all my money in with the worst hand (my QQ drew out on KK, and my top 2 pair turned a full house vs a straight).
I had several bonuses stored up at PokerRoom and luckily they have alot of NL25 games going at all time and yes there are tons of donks. The results have been uh... well take a look
http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/9408/prnl9wf.jpg
I have noted a few key moments.
Key Moment #1: I realize I am playing losing poker, there is something fundamentally wrong with my play, this is not normal variance. It turns out my biggest mistake early on was stacking off with single pair / two pair hands, when action clearly indicated they were beaten.
In limit hold em you rarely fold very solid made hands when you think they may be beaten (in large pots). You frequently "call down" even when the action indicates you're probably not best. The reason of course is that the pot size is so large compared to the bet size you only have to be good a very small % of the time in order to break even or show a profit.
This mentality is drilled into the head of every good limit hold em player and it had seeped over into my new NL play.
It was at this point I began to LET HANDS GO when faced with heavy action. As you can see the freefall stopped cold and I began churning upwards. I was still playing poorly (read on) and I had my first run in with good old fashioned variance. I had a fair number of strong hands drawn out on or cold decked (lost my KK vs. AA all in virginity).
This lead to
Key Moment #2: I'm still doing something wrong. I'm no longer stacking off stupidly, however breakeven is no good.
So I dive into the forums a little more and find some very very very useful posts.
Pokey's post here:
Pokey on switching from limit to NL (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Board=ssplnlpoker&Number=614572 0&Searchpage=6&Main=6145720&Words=Pokey&topic=&Sea rch=true#Post6145720)
is really great. I read through most of the threads he links to and learned very important point number 2.
POSITION POSITION POSITION POSITION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Position matters significantly more in NL than it does in limit. I was playing way too many hands out of position, hands like AJo and 86s, etc.
playing these types of hands in position vs. out of position is the difference between shooting with a scope vs. shooting wearing a welder's mask.
I began dumping marginal top pair hands and the worst of the drawing hands in EP/MP. I also began RAISING them in LP (rather than calling). Not only do you win the blinds/limps frequently, you also clear out players behind you (buying the button, VERY valuable) but you frequently win with a contiuation bet post flop.
This lead to me
1. Stealing alot more blinds/limps
2. Winning MANY MANY more smallish pots ($2-$5 range) with continuation bets on the flop
3. Playing my drawing hands MUCH more effectively (cheap or free turn/river cards, extracting more when they connected, etc.)
A big mental thing I had to realize was not every hand is meant to be a HUGE hand. For whatever reason got me thinking that your goal was pretty much to wait for a big hand to try to double up on. The problem is in my desperate attempt to play "big pots" I was missing playing them badly and also missing out on the dozen or so small-medium pots you can win in between.
Also NLT&P focuses on games that can be very deeply stacked, more so than low stakes NL online. At NL 25 with a full buy in you have 100BB. Certainly not shallow but not exactly super-deep either. There are also many players at the table with significantly less, thus you are playing frequently with effective stacks much smaller (smaller stacks lead to much mroe straight forward, value betting type play, due to the absence of bigger implied odds).
Anyway that's about it. I'm still plugging along (I got 2 more PokerRoom bonuses left to go... I can't wait to get over to Party again)