RYANCMU teaches struggling NL50 and NL100 players

[RyanCMU]

Basically, I am home for Thanksgiving. Can't play much online poker or live poker. So I will attempt to just randomly spew out my thoughts on SSNL and how a lot of you can improve.

There really will not be any structure to my rants or my points. Just whatever pops into my head, I'll post about.

Hopefully, I can keep this thread reasonably active til' Sunday and we can get some good discussion going.

This will mainly be geared to struggling NL50 and NL100 players who just can't find the next level in their games. To most of you though, I'm sure all of this is going to be very trivial.

This isn't a "Well" so lets keep the discussion poker related and on track.

[RyanCMU]

Crossposted from "Stars regs thread"

[ QUOTE ]
Taking this thread in a different direction because it has basically turned into a NL100 gossip ground

What do you think separates a lot of the winning NL100 regulars from being able to take the next step and become winning regulars at NL200? I know a lot have tried and ended up back at NL100. Please don't answer "they suck."

Some of the reasons I think is that at NL100, I think a lot of us fall into sort of a trap. It's the first level where you can really make significant money multi tabling and the competition for the most part is relatively horrible. So we develop a style that works well multi tabling NL100, however, this style becomes very exploitable as we play better competition.

One thing I have noticed is that a lot of NL100 players, our ranges become heavily weighted towards a specific spectrum in certain situations. And vs observant opponents its very easy for them to take advantage of that and continuously own us. I really won't go into more about this specific topic here, because I think this is one of the things that allows someone who isn't on autopilot at NL100 to really take advantage of all the other TAG regulars and exploit them heavily. SABR42 indirectly touched on this when he earlier int his thread talked about how easy it is to pick on other players at this level and why you are leaving money on the table by not doing so.

Another, thing I have noticed and this goes hand in hand with what I said above, is that lots of regulars at NL100 still practice avoidance, and for a lot of them this is the best thing, since, well they play horrible. However, this is allowing the better players at the level to just bleed them dry by constantly abusing them and they never adjust and play back. Prodigy's comments about avoidance, I think are spot on for the weaker players who can't adjust, yet, still are able to make $$ vs the donks. But again agreeing w/ SABR42, avoidance isn't nessecary since its so easy to just relentlessly pick on and exploit the other regulars.

I know a lot of people are going to read this and say "blah blah blah, I win at 4ptbb/100 and I don't do any of this." Well, think of how much money you are leaving on the table? Why should your WR be satisfactory, when you are leaving so much on the table?

This brings me full circle to my original point about what is separating winning NL100 regs from being winning Nl200 regs...Everyone can play good vs horrible players. It's not hard to learn to extract the maximum vs bad players. You need to learn how to play the other 70% of the game, most of you just play bad, and thats why you will always marginal NL100 winners.

Hopefully, this will get the thread back on track and we can focus more on what certain players are doing well and learning from that to help improve our own games. Instead of just bashing everyone and gossiping like HS girls.

[/ QUOTE ]

[RapidEvolution]

Thanks Ryan! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] I am new to 50NL so I'll probably be reading here like...every 5 minutes. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] I'll mail you some food as thanks!

[RyanCMU]

crossposted from "Stars regs thread

[ QUOTE ]
-AGGRESSION
-Hand reading
-recognizing situations

They are aggressive in spots where they need to be.

Good players also hand read very well, and use their superior hand reading skill to put their weaker worse opponents to tough decisions and also are able then to extract more value with their marginal hands.

They don't just do things because they are told to do them or because they heard you should 3bet more. Good players are able to recognize situations where you should be 3betting light, firing multiple barrels, valuetowning middle pair.

A lot of players you mentioned also, play a slightly more Laggy game compared to other TAGs at our levels. This does two things for them.

(1) It allows them to believably be able to represent a wide range of hands post flop. Which in turn allows them to bluff more effectively and also extract more value from thier marginal hands.

Example - "Ahh bottomset defiantly would 3bet me w/ a suited connector and this flop of 567 hits him pretty hard" Conversely, "He is always 3betting me light, he doesn't have anything here" and you stack off w/ a marginal hand.

(2) You know so little about thier reasonably wide range, however, they know so much about your narrow range. Someone who is very actice and agressive its very hard to put them on an accurate range of hands, especially for a novice or bad TAG regular at NL100, especially the ones playing shitons of tables. However, its very easy for them to put you on a range of hands and then just abuse you.

Starting to get the point?

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[Mr_Donktastic]

What is the ideal ratio of bong hits to open tables?

Does this change if you are stacking or tiling?

[Mr_Donktastic]

Also

[coordi]

That cat looks human and it creeps me out when I see it.

Nice idea Ryan. Where are those vids you procrastinator??

[coordi]

Use your position to attack weaklings and unknowns.

Dont limp up front

[RyanCMU]

Image.

Image is a two sided coin at SSNL. Vs the vast majority of opponents you will encounter at SSNL, image is meaningless and no one really ever pays attention.

However, VS. some of the better opponents, if your not taking your image into consideration you are losing money in one way or another.

For instance, if you have a really aggressive and loose image, you can effectively be valuetowning your marginal hands on the river vs observant opponents. Obviously, that is a very basic and general example.

Continuing...

If you have a nitty image, and you suspect another regular has been 3betting you very light, you can play back at them a lot more frequently and technically be re stealing lots of pots whether it be pre or post flop.

Again, a very basic and general example, but you can see how by just auto piloting folding you are giving up too much? when based ony our image you can certainly understand why they are picking on you?

While both those examples are very basic and not very important in the grand scheme of things, hopefully it will get you thinking about in general how you can use your table image to your advantage.

Continuing...

Its important to keep track of your constantly evolving image. Lets say you have started to play back vs people who are 3betting you light and pushing you around and they have been for the most part allowing you to re-run them over. You need to be aware of this and adjust accordingly.

Again, hopefully, this will just get you in the mind set of looking for situaions where you can use your image to your advantage, and also for situations where you need to be weary of the image you have cultivated recently.

[GT30]

ok, lets start w/ some uncomfortable positions I find myself in as a nitty TAG 12/9/3...

I find that lately more of the 15/12 regs that have been moving down are calling in position my EP and MP raises. Due to my lack of experience in these spots I find it difficult to play hands like TT-KK, AQ+ on a flop w/ 1 or 2 overcards(TT-KK) or a blank flop (AK)

what do you recommend as the best way to approach these situations.... also how to approach the more favorable flops like no overcards (pocket pairs) or TPTK (AK) in a way to not telegraph the relative strength of my hand

I think I find myself taking the same lines I'd take against a more predictable player (like myself or an even donkier player) and I feel I am being exploited, just simply by the amount of time I am put in uncomfortable spots by the better players

thoughts?