RYANCMU teaches struggling NL50 and NL100 players

[coordi]

I only play 3bb lp from a steal or if there are 2+ non folding floating limpers from ep and i want to build a pot with speculative hands.

[RyanCMU]

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solid thread curious as to what your stats such as WTSD, att to steal are?

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23, 35

[RyanCMU]

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Awesome thread mate! I'd say maybe even the best one I've read here.

I've got a topic for you... game selection. Do you even bother table selecting at 100NL? If so, what type of tables do you look for? Ones with lots of full stack predictable tags/nits or ones with heaps of donk calling stations, that all have around 1/2 to 3/4 buy-ins? What other factors do you consider?

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Table Selection.

I think table selection is one of the most important abilities relative to win rate that a player can have at SSNL. I think that by having above average table selecting skills and being stubborn about your tables and seat selection at tables you can significantly improve your win rate.

Some steps for table selecting I think people could benefit from;

-First, simply pick out good tables from the lobby based on $/pot and plyrs/flop. Once you have whatever your desired number is...

-Second, now lets say we have 12 tables that appeared good from the lobby, I look to see what players are at this table, and my position vs aggressive opponents, vs. the fish, and vs. other regulars. I will then close down tables that I don't think will be profitable and start over at step 1 w/ the new tables I am opening up.

Throughout a session I am constantly changing and adding tables, even switching seats at tables. Poker is a game about tiny edges, its important to give yourself every opportunity and if there are better tables available, why aren't you playing on them?

If I playing any more tables then 12 though, I usually don't put much effort into table selection. And I just don't do anything beyond step 1, and then as the tables look bad (acording to PAhud stats for table) I'll sub in new ones.

Recently, I have been anywhere from 20-24 tabling NL100 FR, w/ very little is any table selection, and my WR during that stretch has been attrocious (2.5ptbb/100). I would attribute this huge drop in WR to be related to me not table selecting at all, rather then the mass ammount of tables. Just to show you how important I think table selection is [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img].

[RyanCMU]

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I'll elaborate more later.

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I'd like to hear more on this subject.

I think it is one of the toughest situations, when you are out of position and you missed the flop.

If your opponent is a nit, you can just check/fold, but if they are loose and there are draws on the board how do you play the turn and river out of position?

Also do you try to balance your play by checking the turns with your strong hands after cbetting the flop? I sometimes do this but there are so many more weak hands than strong ones I don't know if it's worth it.

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People as a whole i think cbet way to much at SSNL, especially in reraised pots. It's very exploitable. Especially, OOP.

For example, we 3town a steal attempt from a TAGish button, he is going to be calling w/ a somewhat reasonably wide and range and he will be floating a fair amount of flops w/ lots of hands. In situations where we totally miss this flop and in situations where we hit this flop hard, it is important to not always be cbetting. Since often, when we don't have a hand its going to take probably 2 barrels to push him off his hand, and depending on the board, it could be tough to fire a second barrel and we open ourselves up to getting outplayed if we are always cbetting here. Conversely, we also need to be balancing that by checking our good hands, so that they can't get comfortable assigning us ranges when we check flops after being the aggressor preflop.

We also, need to get good at analyzing board texture and how we perceive that it would hit our opponents hand, and how they think it will have hit our hand.

For example, if I know that my opponent is capable of making moves and floating flops. I'm going to be much less likely to fire a cbet and a subsequent turn bet on drawy or coordinated boards, unless I have a hand that I plan on showing down. Since the chance of them floating me on the flop, taking it away on the turn when checked to is so great, along with the fact that they are capable of making moves so they could be bluff raising scare cards that come in on turns (if like the OESD came in).

If we know someone likes to float a lot of flops and is pretty aggressive on the turn, obv. we can be c/r'ing lots of turns. And depending on board texture, this line often looks very scary (if the board is not very drawy, this is a very strong looking line) so we can be balacing this action by throwing in bluff c/r's on the turn as well as doing it with our made hands. And they will need very strong hands to call, and they aren't going to have the upper ends of thier range that often, so its very profitable.

On rivers, if draws have missed and our opponent is capable of bluffing the river, we obv. can be c/c'ing lots of rivers. If they have called two barrels previously on a dry board, depending on our hand we can be valuetowning the river or we can sometimes be c/r'ing the river and extracting even more.

As you are making your postflop decisions in these spots, run down this mental checklist...

-Opponent type (TAG, LAG, tard)
-Opponent range
-Specific opponent reads/tendencies (You should have notes on most regulars) IF you don't have notes some things to look at are; WTSD, W$sd, Raise Cbet, Turn and river agression.
-Board Texture
-What range am I repping

There is no real simple cut and dry solution for every situation. You just need to learn to use the information you have and make the best decisions you can. Anyone can do it and play very very well, its just tough to force yourself to constantly go through the motions and think it through.

[diebitter]

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Any suggestions how I can practice hand reading? For example, fire up 4 tables, tile them and start playing and think each hand and look what opponents doing. It would be good exercise? Or anyone have better ideas?

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Diebiters hand range tool is a great way to start, I'll look up the link a little later.

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eh, so you all know, I forgot to renew the domain it's registered under, so there's no working link at the moment. I'm trying to reacquire it, and I'll post when it's back.

[RyanCMU]

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if i am running 15/10, how often should i be folding my PFR to blind 3/bets? Min 3/bets? 3/bets from regs?

How about if the 3/bettor has position?

Like other 2p2 players, the later the position, the wider my PFR range. I feel like against most players 3/betting the blinds, i should be folding a majority of my hands. But if it is a min PFR i'm calling often because i have position, as well as the fact that it is cheap to stack him. I feel one leak is that i'm folding way too often to regs who are 3/betting me light from the blinds, and with position i should be calling much more often.

If the 3/bettor has position, i'm very much inclined to fold.

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I don't think I have ever folded to a min-reraise in my life?

If your opening range is light, and you think your opponents are aware of this and are thus 3betting you light. You need to punish them. We can do this in a number of ways...

-4bet more preflop
-If we have pos. we can be calling a wider range then they think we would be and exploiting them postflop. Whether it be raising them when they cbet too much, or floating them and taking pots away on the turn, or even calling down.

Especially in steal situations, so many regulars know to 3bet light in steal situations. However, they make so many mistakes post flop its gross. They cbet automatically way way to many flops, and then they just give on the turn too much, they don't follow through enough w/ double barrels, turn c/r's. Their style of play is so robotic, 3bet>cbet>c/f. Its so exploitable.

As far as playing OOP goes...

You need to before you act look ahead on the table, are there active players after you who are going to be 3betting you light? Are they aggressive post flop? If those answers are yes, I'm much less likely to get out of line w/ my initial opening range especially in EP and MP.

However, if we feel that they are 3betting us light, but play horrible postflop, then even though we are OOP, the chance to play a reraised pot vs a bad opponent who likely can have a very marginal hand is a great situation and one we can make lots of money from.

Again, lots of regs 3bet light, but they play so bad postflop, we can afford to play marginal hands ourselves OOP.

Like my above post, it comes down to knowing your players.

[RyanCMU]

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Any suggestions how I can practice hand reading? For example, fire up 4 tables, tile them and start playing and think each hand and look what opponents doing. It would be good exercise? Or anyone have better ideas?

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Diebiters hand range tool is a great way to start, I'll look up the link a little later.

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eh, so you all know, I forgot to renew the domain it's registered under, so there's no working link at the moment. I'm trying to reacquire it, and I'll post when it's back.

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Thanks, I personally wish that tool was around a lot earlier in my playing days...

I refered a few players who I coached (uNL players) who were having trouble w/ hand ranges to use it in their down time just to gt comfortable assignign basic ranges to player archeotypes quickly, they siad it was super helpful to them. So heres a delayed thanks in creating it [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[RyanCMU]

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I am wondering what u prefer in a preflop raise between 3 or 4 bb +1 for limper. I find that I can make arguments for either depending on the playing style of the player game and the factors of how loose or tight a game is, as well as a few other things to consider that I wont go into now.

edit: Id luv to hear other people's view on this as well

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Generally I do standard 4x +1bb for every limper. Mainly, because I feel like i'm losing money by making it 3x, those extra bb's add up [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Lately, though I've been using a betpot script as I have been 20-24 tabling.

[Specialwon]

Hi Ryan, great thread and thanks for taking the time.

Just a question following on from the AQo discussion earlier. I was pretty surprised you 3bet this so often, I usually do the opposite and 3bet about 15% of the time, fold the rest. Here's why, maybe you can tell me where I'¨m going wrong.

You're assigning a hand range of ATo+, 98s+,22+. I assume you're also including at least A9s+ for the complete range, tho maybe not KJs.

That's about a 13% pfr range, against which AQo is a very slight favourite, around 50.5%. So, I can see why it makes sense to 3bet that range with these cards. But I just wonder whether you're being a bit optimistic with your ranging.

I've been doing some work on my own 3 bet range recently. I play Ongame 50NL, which is 10 handed.

The average stats for all players over about 60k hands is about 18/7. Average for regulars with 500 hands or more is about 15/7. It's very unusual to see a pfr of more than 10, in fact I am one of the most aggressive with an average PFR of just under 11.

Adjusting for position, my pfr never really goes over 10 earlier than CO and I am unusually aggressive. I would say the typical range is probably about 8% at most, which is more like 88+, AJs+, QJs+, KQo+. Against that range, AQo is a 48% dog.

So, my 3bet range here is really just AA-QQ, AKo, AQs+.

Are we comparing apples and pears, am I being too conservative, what do you think?

[The Eureka Kid]

A common situation I found troubling when I first started at 100NL was holding an overpair or like an AK that hits and then having my c-bet min raised. especially when I'm out of position. Obviously, there are a lot of variables that go into a situation like this, but maybe you could talk about some of the things you analyze in such a situation.

For example lets say its folded to you in MP and you raise with QcQs (you have a solid tag image), you are called by the button (100bb deep, same as you and you have his stats at 12/10/2.5 and no other reads) and everyone else folds. Flop comes 4c8cTd, you lead for 3/4 on the pot and he min-raises you. It isn't uncommon at SSNL for a player to min-raise a set like this, it's also not uncommon for a player to be 'feeler' raising you with like AT, JJ or 99, additionally they could be raising with a flush or straight draw trying to slow you down/maybe pick up the pot here or at least get you to give them a free river. To me, these are the types of decisions on how to proceed that separate the better players from the good ones.