Two Plus Two Newer Archives - phydaux's PBP - Confessions of a uNL grinder

Well, here it is, my Pooh-Bah Post. I've been looking forward to this day, because I wanted to give something back to the forum that has helped me out so much. I'm a little late in posting it because I've been working on it and trying to make it something of actual value.

I've been wondering what I could post about for my PBP. I had all kinds of elaborate plans, like essays on fancy topics - How to play AK for maximum +EV, stuff like that. In fact, I really wanted to do a post like that, mostly because I really want to know myself how to play AK for maximum +EV.

Then I thought, "Pfft! Get in touch with reality! You're a FR uNL grinder. These guys in the forum are playing 200NL & 400NL. What could you possibly teach them?"

And the honest answer to that is, "Not very much." But if you are a uNL grinder yourself, or intend to transition to FR NL, then I do have a few things to say, since I have been a consistent, winning player for going on a year.

I'm going to talk a little bit about myself, since I've always believed that it's wrong to separate the story from the storyteller. Then I'm going to discuss two adjustments I made to my NL game that I think are most responsible for my consistent win rate. Finally I'm going to discuss two truths of NL, two things that everybody knows but not everybody always remembers.

In January of 2006 I started a new Poker Tracker database, chose one level of micro limit hold'em and started what I called "My ten thousand hand experiment." At the time I had been playing poker for a few months, but I was still a rookie player. Limit hold'em literature was everywhere, so that's what I played. Up to that point I was somewhat successful, but I moved up and down the limits as I won or lost, and I never really made or kept any money. I was studying the game and reading 2+2. I decided that if I was going to play seriously then I needed to find out if I "have what it takes." The prevailing wisdom was that ten thousand hands was the minimum sample size necessary to know if you were a winning player or not. I wanted to prove to myself that I was a winning player, so I spent the next several months grinding ten thousand hands of limit hold'em.

I learned a lot during that experiment - Pot odds & pot equity, how to value position & aggression. I went through my first three thousand hand down swing. I learned how to deal with folding seventy-five hands in a row because you keep getting dealt crap, or even more frustratingly you're dealt hands that are playable but not from the position you're currently in. This experiment went a long way toward ingraining in me patience, discipline and a healthy respect for the fundamentals of the game.

But every now and then I'd turn off Poker Tracker and open a uNL cash game. I found I really enjoyed NL. That I could make a mistake at any time and lose my entire stack created a lot of seat-of-the-pants excitement for me. Also I loved that I could make large bets when I believed my opponents were on a draw, and really punish bad players for chasing their straights & flushes. I simply found NL more fun. After I completed my ten thousand hand experiment and had proven to myself that I could beat bad players over a long period of time, I decided that I would switch over to NL.

I started playing uNL in August of '06. It took me less than a month, less than 500 hands in fact, to lose half my BR.

I dropped down to the lowest limit possible and kept at it. The lessons I'd learned in my ten thousand hand experiment helped - Patience and discipline to keep playing in the manner I knew was correct, even though I was losing. Also, study and session review to make sure that what I thought was correct play was, in fact, correct.

I began to win. I began to slowly rebuild my roll. But I also made a few adjustments. These aren't necessarily limit to NL adjustments, just adjustments I made to my game that helped me turn the corner from a break-even player (or slightly worse) to a consistent, winning player. These adjustments are particularly interesting, since they all have to do with position.

In NL, post-flop mistakes are costly. This is because the bet sizes on later streets grow exponentially. A mistake before the flop will cost you only a few BB. A mistake on the river can cost you most of your stack. As a new NL player, I knew this. But as an old limit player I was conflicted. In Small Stakes Hold'em, Ed said to call liberally on the river. I didn't want Dave & Mason to call me "weak-tight." Well, this ain't limit, and calls on the river don't cost "just one more bet."

Players make mistakes when they are faced with a difficult decision. To minimize mistakes, you have to minimize difficult decisions. And how do you minimize difficult post-flop decisions? By making easy pre-flop decisions. And one of the easiest pre-flop decisions you can make is to fold pre-flop if calling would leave you out of position.

In NL hold'em your pre-flop strategy should lead you into situations where, after the flop, you are in position, head's up with a weak opponent. That your pre-flop strategy leaves you in position most of the time can not be overemphasized. Most literature on NL poker stresses the importance of position. It's easy for a new player to read that and just kind of nod and say, "OK, position is important. Got it." But it is simply more important than that.

When you play in position you will win more with the hands you win and lose less with the hands you lose. When you are out of position the hands you win will be smaller because your opponent can fold cheaply to your flop & turn bets. Out of position you will often be forced to fold drawing hands because you can not check behind and control the price of the next card. Further, you will often be forced into a difficult river decision between folding a made hand that might be best, or calling for most of your stack with a dominated hand.

The best way to avoid these difficult and costly post-flop decisions is to have a pre-flop strategy that leaves you in position most of the time.

My FR NL pre-flop strategy includes limping/calling from middle position with a wide range of speculative hands when I think I can see a cheap flop, and raising from late position with a very wide range of hands, counting mostly on a combination of position and aggression to win the hand. This is still part of my over-all pre-flop strategy. But when I was just starting out I found myself having to fold speculative hands a lot of times because of a raise after my limp. Also, many of the times when I raised from the Hi-Jack, counting on position and aggression to see me through the hand, I found myself called by the Cut Off or the Button. And suddenly I was playing from out of position in a raised pot with a marginal holding.

This lead me to the first adjustment I made to my game. I realized that late position is actually later than I initially thought. Stars FR NL tables are 9-handed. Once you remove the button & the blinds, that leaves six seats. Initially, I divided these six into three neat pairs. UTG & UTG+1 were both Early Position, the next two seats were Middle Position, and the Cut Off & Hi Jack were both Late Position. This was neat and easy to remember, but it was utterly wrong-headed.

I now consider the first three seats after the blinds to all be Early Position. The Hi Jack and one seat to his left are Middle Position. The only seats I consider Late Position are the Button and the Cut Off. This adjustment lead me into situations where I had position most of the time, and the few times I was out of position I was the pre-flop raiser and had a very strong holding.

Another adjustment I made to my game came about because, initially, I had a complete misunderstanding of the Rule of 5 & 10. For those few of you who aren't familiar with the Rule, I'll quote it here:

[ QUOTE ]
"When contemplating calling a raise because your position is good, you have a clear call if the raise is less than 5% of your stack, and a clear fold if it is more than 10%. In between those numbers, use your judgement."

[/ QUOTE ]

When I first started playing NL I had already read Bob Ciaffone's book, but had completely missed the "because your position is good" part. Remember how I said I like to get involved in cheap pots with speculative hands from middle position, but initially I thought middle position was earlier than it actually is? Because I didn't understand the Rule, I found myself limping from Early & Middle position way too much and then calling raises from late position because "Bob says it's OK to call here..." And so I was playing too many drawing hands in raised pots from out of position. I spewed piles of chips before someone in the Beginner's forum corrected my understanding.

There are two fundamental truths of NL poker that I'd like to share with you now. Like most fundamental poker truths, position for example, they seem both straightforward and obvious. Because they are straightforward and obvious people tend to ignore just how important they really are. Just like people tend to ignore just how important position actually is.

The first is that in NL poker most of your short term profit, your win during any one long session, will come from just a few hands. This is very much unlike limit hold'em, where every few pots you strive for a few chips, and your profit comes from the accumulation of lots of hands.

This goes back to the exponential nature of bet sizes in no limit. Bets on the turn & river are much larger than bets before and after the flop. TPTK seems to be the "pivot" hand. Unless they are very weak (and many uNL players are), most players won't call Turn & River bets unless they can beat TPTK. This is why hands that beat two pair (the most common hand that beats TPTK), hands like sets & flopped straights, are so powerful. That's also why monster draws are so powerful when stacks are 100BB or more, and why you should bet big and punish bad opponents for trying to chase their draws.

The next fundamental truth of NL poker is that the majority of your long term profit will come from just two pre-flop holdings - AA & KK. A recent survey of players on this forum reported that AA & KK represent 60% or more of most player's total win. Now, this doesn't mean that you can be a winning player by folding every hand you are dealt except AA & KK. Short stacking aside, you should strive to show a long-term profit with all your medium & small pairs, all your suited connectors, all your suited aces, all your off-suite broadway. But always remember that, in the long run, the total profit of all those hands put together will be less than the profit you get from just AA & KK. The other side of that coin is that the more aggressively you play those other hands, then the more action you will receive the times you do hold a premium pair.

I hope these observations are helpful to new players, other uNL grinders and players making the transition from limit to NL. The others in the FR forum have all been very kind to me. What little skill & understanding of the game I have has come mostly from them. I hope this can help other new players on their journey to being winning players.

phy