Dandiiik back in the game - NL cash game

Welcome back!

Best of luck,
VS

Hey mate,

so virus bring back lot of known faces

Do you remember me ? (Měli jsme spolu hodně sweat sessions po skypu :f_cool::f_drink:)

I would suggest to play as much aggresive bankroll as possible, till the virus bring money into poker

Originally posted by Phaantom

Do you remember me ? (Měli jsme spolu hodně sweat sessions po skypu :f_cool::f_drink:)

Oh hey man, how could I forget Glad to see some old companions!

Originally posted by Phaantom
I would suggest to play as much aggresive bankroll as possible, till the virus bring money into poker

I know what you mean but I am simply not confident enough yet. For the time being I will stick to the classic 25BI roll. Maybe I will try to shoot NL5 with 20BIs but will see how I will feel when it happens. It will take a while for sure before I get there, I am very rusty

I have played a little over 3k hands now and here are some of my thoughts:

- there is fish everywhere. It is absolute madness in NL2 these days. But sometimes it feels it can be a disadvantage because there is so many of them that many spots are very variational because many people raise/call. So my strategy now is to play solid ABC poker with very little bluffing. And a lot of trying to avoid marginal spots.
- there is many fish, but very few are real calling stations. Feels like this kind of player does no longer exist. There are many of them that have stats like 60/8 or more, but they are very aggressive post flop. Checking to them is like waving with a red rag in front of a bull they bet pots, overbet, shove, no problem.
- anytime someone from Canada, UK or Germany is at the table, you can immediately mark them as a fish with like 80% success rate
- I have been running somewhat neutral so far. There have been some large pots I won, some I lost. No winning or losing streak so far. But thanks to applying the winning by folding strategy, I guess that is why I am 4BI up now instead of break even.

- sometimes I am still curious if the lines that used to be nutty, are still nutty.......they are so just be patient and dont pay their big hands which they play in a weird way. Could have been like 8BIs up if I had not done that.

So far I have read a few articles, reminded myself the concepts of odds, pot odds, implied odds and other basic stuff like pot control, c-bet or value bet. It is quite quickly coming back to me but I am taking one step at a time. I have decided to do a small analysis after 10k hands. Just to check if my basic stats are ok and where are my biggest leaks which prevent me from beating micros.

And I am very glad to find out that the promotion of 5 PSGY points per day for discussing hands in the forum is still valid. I should make it to silver by 20th of April which is just about the time when I expect I will need a little bit more advanced study material.

So cheers and GL at the tables

Bankroll: 58.59$

Hey Man,

Good Stuff! You'll be back to NL25 in no time

Originally posted by SiKWiThIt
Hey Man,

Good Stuff! You'll be back to NL25 in no time
Thank you for your belief!

Just to show you, how it looks at NL2 on PS these days. Green is passive fish, light blue maniacs. 13 of them on 4 tables and I think that a few more werent marked just yet

Spoiler

So I have been doing some calculations and plans regarding poker. There is a lot of changes going on in my life right now and I want to have some realistic expectations for the mid-term future. Besides working full time in marketing I have a wife, we will be moving in 2 months from Prague back to a small town, we are getting a mortgage and will be building a house and on top of that we are expecting a baby I also have other hobbies like working out or online video games (I play Rocket League and Hunt: Showdown if anyone cares).

And where is poker in all this? Well the only thing I am willing to replace with poker is those video games. As I wrote above I played over 1000 hours in 2019 which is over 80 hours a month. Obv with a baby born I will not have so much time but I hope there will be some anyway. The date is at the end of August.

I think I could play 40-60 hours of poker per month. Making it up to 2 hours per day on average. That is realistic. In these 2 hours and 4 tables max on PS it gives me 700 hands a day. I guess I could add a zoom table in the future which could add up to 1k hands a day = 30k hands a month = 360k hands a year. With a realistic long-term winrate of 5bb/100 I could make 18 000 BBs a year. That is 360 dollars on NL2, 4 500 dollars on NL25 or 9 000 dollars on NL50. And that is not bad at all. Would almost pay our mortgage

These are some wild calculations of course. But even though I wanna play poker mainly for fun I also want to have some goal to look up to in the future. So my ultimate goal is:

5BB/100 on NL50

But one step at a time. Now I am at NL2. Soon I will post a small report about how it is going so far.

So here we go. I claim that:

NL2 is beat

It took me 9 113 hands with a winrate of 28 bb/100. True, I have deviated a little from my original plan. I planned to move up to NL5 with 25BIs but the field is so soft that I have decided to give it a try and move up to NL5 with 20 BIs with a 4-5BI stop loss. Also I dont want to stay at NL2 longer than necessary because there is so many fish that you basically dont play poker. You just wait for a hand and bet bet bet. So I dont want to build up some bad habits. Graph from NL2:

The graph and winrate look nice but I am well aware that I have been running quite well with just a few coolers or badbeats and that all that profit comes from fish. This can change very quickly so I have to be ready and work on my game.

My plans for the nearest future:

shoot for NL5. I will do that on Friday probably.
get silver status which I should achieve on 20.4. for commentating on hands in the forum. And use it to access more study materials.
do a small analysis of my game. Nothing too deep or serious. I just wanna check out my basic stats, if my losses were just bad luck or spew and try to find some exploits in the tendencies at micros. It seems to me that one huge tendency is pot or overbetting at any given time. So I wanna check out what it means most of the time. I also wanna check how I do in hands where I call preflop. It seems to me that I do it very often and with speculative hands and I have to fold very often which lowers my winrate and makes my redline drop even more. So maybe tighten up my preflop calling range. I do this often from SB when I have like suited connectors or suited ace and the pot seems to be multiway. The first hint that something is wrong is my SB winrate which is -22,8 bb/100 making it my only losing position. I am BE even at BB and other positions are highly profitable. So will definitely look into that.
think about moving from Hand2Note to HEM3. The microstakes version costs 60 dollars which is a small investment and the tools it offers are much better than what Hand2Note offers. It is also more user friendly. So I will consider it and if I manage to get deep in NL5 and not drop back to NL2 then I will probably go for it.

Bankroll: 101,68$

Progress tracking:

NL2 - beat
NL5 - in progress
NL10 - first shot with BR of 200$
NL16 - first shot with BR of 320$
NL25 - first shot with BR of 625$ (for NL25 I plan to use the classic 25 BI safer bankroll)

Congratulations, @Dandiiik!

Can you post some stats for NL2? (VPIP, PRF, 3Bet etc?)

Also you will be losing money from blinds on long run. It's very hard to make money from there because every hand you play you give money initially.
If you fold every hand from BB for example, your win rate will be -100BB/100 hands (50 for SB), so if you have -22.8 / 100, thats good in my opinion).

I have the same problem, it's very tempting to play all kinds of hands, suited connectors, Axs and all that from those positions because you are already commited in the hand somehow because you gave some money.

Also, after NL10 you don't want to try Nl16?

Good luck at NL5 and see you soon at NL10

Nice winrate! I see you at the nl5 tables

Thanks guys. I will certainly share my stats after I finish the small analysis. I have briefly looked at them and it is nothing too good

And yeah, I forgot there is NL16 too. I used to play on Party Poker and there was NL25 right after NL10 so I am not used to it:f_confused:

So first session on NL5 went well. And by well I mean I did not have to go right back on NL2. I won 2BIs which is not important. Important is that I got used to the new sizings pretty well, the game feels pretty similar and I am not money scared. Fish do the same stuff, there are still plenty of them. There are also slightly more players which I labeled as regs, but really just slightly more. And dont worry I am not gonna report every session. Just these important one like going higher or lower.

There are two hands from this session which I am proud of and I think I read the situation quite well:

But I am still pretty nitty and sometimes I have problems with extracting value from the fish like in this example:

So will see how it goes in the future. Peace.

GL with everything Daniel just hope I'm not one of your fish!

Originally posted by hardlife66
GL with everything Daniel just hope I'm not one of your fish!

Thank you. I highly doubt that any pokerstrategist is a fish :f_cool::f_drink:

Anyway I made a small adjustment regarding my short-term plans. I am not gonna make an analysis of my game now because Hand2Note is very, how to put it, stupid when it comes to analyzing your game. There are too few options and it is not too user friendly. So when (and if) I get on the verge of NL10, I will buy HEM3 for micros, try to export my hands from H2N and do it there.

Just a quick one. My stats:

20 VPIP and 17 PFR. Thats ok. Not need to be more loose. I just wait for the right spots and I try to avoid marginal spots.
My 3bet is very low (3) but that is probably caused by the fact that there are very few opportunities to 3bet light. Most of the pots I am in are just isoraises of limpers. Or I 3bet for value or call a raise to keep a fish behind me in the pot. But in general this number is very low now and I know it needs to be much higher on higher limits (7-9). I will also try to increase it after I get more confident in post flop play.
Cbet of 56. Could be higher. But then again many players are very loose so I dont bluff so often in general.
Steal 41. Again could/should be higher but there is the same reason as with Cbet. Too many loose players so I play rather tighter. But it is almost the same in BU (41) as in SB (42). Which might be a legitimate leak because from BU I should steal way wider even against looser players. So I will look into that in the upcoming sessions.
Fold to steal 89 in SB and 79 in BB. Definitely should look in that as well. But all these stats are so high or low because I play tight, or even weak sometimes because I am not experienced enough. I also think that people dont exploit these leaks at least up to NL10.
Went to showdown 27 and Won at showdown 62. Quite good stats I think. The first in normal and the latter I would say is pretty good.

Anybody wants to know any other stat? I think these are the most important ones now.

And a few nice hands from the last sessions. I am quite surprised how light people sometimes call on later streets:

Hello Daniel!

Originally posted by Dandiiik

Just a quick one. My stats:

20 VPIP and 17 PFR. Thats ok. Not need to be more loose. I just wait for the right spots and I try to avoid marginal spots.
My 3bet is very low (3) but that is probably caused by the fact that there are very few opportunities to 3bet light. Most of the pots I am in are just isoraises of limpers. Or I 3bet for value or call a raise to keep a fish behind me in the pot. But in general this number is very low now and I know it needs to be much higher on higher limits (7-9). I will also try to increase it after I get more confident in post flop play.
Cbet of 56. Could be higher. But then again many players are very loose so I dont bluff so often in general.
Steal 41. Again could/should be higher but there is the same reason as with Cbet. Too many loose players so I play rather tighter. But it is almost the same in BU (41) as in SB (42). Which might be a legitimate leak because from BU I should steal way wider even against looser players. So I will look into that in the upcoming sessions.
Fold to steal 89 in SB and 79 in BB. Definitely should look in that as well. But all these stats are so high or low because I play tight, or even weak sometimes because I am not experienced enough. I also think that people dont exploit these leaks at least up to NL10.
Went to showdown 27 and Won at showdown 62. Quite good stats I think. The first in normal and the latter I would say is pretty good.

Anybody wants to know any other stat? I think these are the most important ones now.

Work on your 3b. Think about the hands you'll be 3b in the future and how will you continue them playing postflop. Even on NL10 people will exploit your straight forward game.

Many of us are frustrated with our play from the blinds but I think it's very hard to play OOP. In my humble opinion there are many other areas which I will give advantage over the blinds. Not that they are not important but atm I think I have to work on my postflop game to understand it better and don't overplay my medium hands.

What is your PFR by position?
Also at micros we tend to call too many 3b, what's your stat in this category?

Originally posted by DandiiikAnd a few nice hands from the last sessions. I am quite surprised how light people sometimes call on later streets:

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

This is a must fold for him on the turn

Hand 1:
Just shove T because there are so many draws you might get a call. On the R many opp have easy fold and they are happy for free street.

Hand 2:
After this kind of preflop action there are many overpairs which will gladly put it in. T is super dangerous but obviously it doesn't hit opponents preflop range (usually they don't call 5b preflop with SC).

Hand 3:
This is too dangerous board on the flop to slowplay. FD + SD + 3 opponents. Raise flop is the way to go.

Nice to see your blog and good luck at the tables.

:f_thumbsup:Wish you all the best.:f_thumbsup:

Thanks for the hand review.

Hand 1: I would have shoved turn if I had had the initiative. But as played it would be a donk by me OTT and to be honest I dont have donk in my game plan like at all. I dont know when to use it efficiently. Maybe I shouldnt complicate things for myself and should have just 4bet preflop.

Hand3: Yeah I see that and agreed. But in the heat of the moment I just wanted to keep all the fish in the pot and get some extra money from them. But I realize it could have easily gone wrong. It probably wasnt worth for the extra 10bb which I got from them.

As for the stats I will post them later today but I dont expect them to be loose. Many people have problems with spewing. I have always been the exact opposite. My problem has always been overfolding. It is extremely easy for me to fold overpair of aces if I dont feel well in the spot. I have worked on that over the years so I have developed from a very nitty ABC player to a player who is able to 3bet/4bet light and double barrel as a bluff etc. but still I just fold and give up spots too much I guess. So I expect my fold to 3bet stat to be quite high.

Regarding ranges I have them prepared for any basic scenario. For each position I have ranges for open raise, call, 3bet/fold, 3bet/5bet, 4bet/fold and 4bet/call. But I dont use them much now to be honest. One reason is that in almost every spot there is one or even more fishes and I want to go almost strictly for value there. Another reason is that I am not comfortable in light 3bet/4bet spots. So if I 3bet light and get a call I dont know what to do in that spot unless I hit.

But it is a good thing that I am in a stage where I know what I dont know which is a good starting position to get better :f_biggrin::f_drink:

Hi Dandiiik,

Congratulations for your blog, nice results

I'm on NL5 too, only zoom. Are you playing zoom or regular tables?
Do you think it's easier on regular tables?

Hi mafioso, thank you

I prefer regular tables and the main reason is that you can exploit your opponents weaknesses better. You play with same opponents at the same table and for some period of time so you can observe how they behave in various situations and adjust accordingly. Thats almost impossible on zoom. Good example from yesterdays session:

I sat down to a table with this monster fish and he was pissing me of from the beginning. I always raised preflop and had to fold post flop because I did not hit absolutely anything and he was betting all the time. So I adjusted my strategy against him to hit or fold and if I hit, I let him bet to me. After a few hands these 3 hands happened quite quickly after each other.

This is something that will hardly ever happen on zoom because you dont have any dynamics with other players there. This is an extreme example but you get the point :f_biggrin::f_drink:

I hope you took notes!
Or does Hand2Note take care of that for you?

It may be an extreme example, but it is sure a good one!

Dandiiik, thank you for the feedback.
Nice examples. I think i will mix between regular and zoom. Let's see the results:f_thumbsup: