Working on your game (Long, with graphs!!)

[kom]

I decided to post what is most of my 50nl "career" because I thought it might be useful for some players. First we begin with my first ~150k hands which can only be described as mediocre.



As you can see I was pretty much the typical "tagfish". I was tight preflop, vaguely aware of position, knew how to c-bet etc but still had some pretty big holes in my game.

So I signed up for cardrunners, spent alot of time reading posts across unl-HSNL, got some coaching and did some sweat sessions with friends.

The results are my last ~100k hands...



I think the things I learned in the second batch of hands are:

1. Turn aggression is important. Alot of players have gotten flop aggression down, ie c-betting, check raising flush draws etc, but alot of uNl players are not aggressive enough on the turn. Looking at the two stats samples you can see in the 2nd one my turn aggression is signifcantly higher and I think that has been one of my biggest improvements. Work on identifying profitable places to fire again on the turn (Scare cards against habitual floaters etc) and it will pay dividends.

2. Showdown Comparing the 2nd sample to the first you can see that i went to showdown less and won more often when I got there. Look to make river folds!! Too many times I used to make alot of very bad, "meh, whatever pot odds" calls on the river when it was obviously -EV. Working on stopping this has brought my showdown numbers into the range which I think is about right for a taggy style.

3- Table image Be aware of your image at the table! My defualt is to c-bet ~100% of the time and look to aggressively take down pots with or without a hand. If early in a session I showdown premium hands and establish a tight image then this becomes very successful as I can abuse this image to steal and rob lots of small-medium pots. However, I never used to adjust my play if my image wasn't so great. If you have been caught stealing with trash/double-barrelling with air etc, then ADJUST!! Tighten up a bit from late position, c-bet less and wait for a good spot to use your bad image to get paid off. One good tip here is to include your net $won/lost in your HUD. I find it can be a decent indicator of how you are viewed by the table.

4- Variance In the brew etc people are always moaning about tiny swings over tiny samples. Man up and play the hands and don't talk about variance until you've played at least 50-100k hands, and even then probably don't talk about it. The one thing I will say is it is quite obvious that the 2nd graph has far less variance than the first due to the significantly higher ptbb/100. Although even with a >6 winrate I still experienced a ~13 buy in downswing while playing my A game.


In conclusion, whilst I still have alot to learn I feel I've at least grasped the fundamentals of playing good ABC tag poker. Those of you struggling as breakeven/small winners like I was, take heart. You are on the right track and with some small adjustments you can join me in beating the uNL games at a good clip and getting ready to take shots at the higher games.

[Dave Coulier]

Very good post. I enjoyed reading it.

[MusashiStyle]

wow very interesting
i will read this again

[Heine]

Good points on turn aggression and river analysis.

Great post.

[Panic__NL]

great post, TY!

[nukewell]

great post

you play a lot

move up

i hope u have rakeback

[img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]


also i think your showdown info is really
important because the bets are always bigger
(as the pot is bigger)on the river and if u
can make a couple of smart folds instead of
crying calls every session can really have
a big impact on your win/loss amt.

[ontiltsoon]

nh sir

[hennnerz]

Move up ffs. I hope you have rakeback too. We can see your sn btw, jic you didn't realise. Nice one though.

[kom]

All hands are on stars so no official rakeback. FPP's at supernova level while 8 tabling 50nl isn't too bad though.

[corsakh]

Almost copycat stats [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]