Ramble's Ramblings

Some early observations after my first 1000 hands of NL2

Limpers: Man oh man... is there a poker strategy that advocates limping almost your entire range? I'm not complaining about all the dead money in the pot or the clear signal of when villain has a top 5% hand because that is all they raise pre-flop with (maybe)...

Min-bets: This one is crazy to me... and I haven't figured out if villain is hoping someone clicked the "fold to any bet" button... but I see a lot of pots with say 10-15 bb pre-flop, and then villain bets 1 bb on flop and every street after... and opponents just flat-calling... every street...regardless of their hand... nuts or air... too funny to watch.

Poker Stars "All-in Cash-out" option: This seemed like a bit of a scam to me when I first saw it, and I see a lot of people using it, but I've come to understand it better and don't really have an issue with it. For those who are not aware what it is, for a 1% rake, you can cash out your equity when you are all-in and give up any claim to the hand when it is resolved (i.e. you can't win or lose anymore). At first, I thought this meant that Poker Stars was coming ahead whenever someone cashed out and lost the hand... (i.e Poker Stars was keeping the balance of the pot), but this is not entirely the case.

• If your hand wins, Poker Stars keeps the balance of the pot.
• If your hand loses, Poker Stars adds in the balance you cashed out so villain wins the whole pot.
• This should balance out so that Poker Stars is only keeping the additional 1% rake from the players who opt to cash out.

Although I don't see myself using this option too often, I found a post on here where Kyyberi wisely explains that taking a 1% hit on your equity may be worth it, if losing those hands when you're a favourite might cause you to tilt off more than 1% of your winrate. Something for me to remember and consider when I hit a downswing and might need that mental-game protection.

I'll be posting some hands to the review forums later and if I get some interesting feedback or insight, I'll share it here.

I don't play a lot of hold'em, and when I do I don't see a chorus of limpers all that often.
Usually, if there is one someone will raise large from the BTN or the BB.

I play a lot of split-pot Omaha Hi/Lo -- there the limper's chorus is very loud.
The way equities run in that game, as soon as there are 3 or 4 players in the pot, you have pot odds to get in.
Even if the first in pots it, as soon as there are 3 callers, the rest are in as well.

As far as cash out goes, I've only had the opportunity few times.
I only use it if more than 150BB deep.
That's arbitrary. I don't know if it makes any sense...

Getting Friendly with Ranges
I've been playing quite a bit of NL2 since the last post and studying my ranges. I'm starting to get to know them much better and knowing what my plan is versus a bet in front of me and/or a 3-bet behind me. I've also got a rough plan on how I'll continue my hand on different flops, turns and rivers.

I'll soon have to give more thought to multi-way pots and how that figures in to my game plan post-flop with bet-sizing and such.

I'm still working on trying to properly assign my opponents ranges and narrowing them on each street. To be honest, I'm not very good at it, but it is still very early days and I'll get better with experience.

A Pleasant Stab at NL5
I took a stab at NL5 today to see how that went. I felt like I was card dead for most of it, but managed to keep accumulating chips most of the session. I did get stacked in 1 hand that got away from me with some really bad play on my part, but played decent otherwise (as far as I know). Overall it was a confidence booster that when I'm ready to take another stab, I can swim in those waters for a bit and not feel like I'm completely outgunned.

I think when I do move up, table selection will be more important then at NL2 which I haven't really been doing at all. I noticed a difference in limping (much lower) and 3-betting (much higher) at NL5 then NL2. To be fair though, I didn't try very many tables, so maybe that is not representative of the stakes in general.

Leaving the Knife in for now...

I spent most of my time today studying, but then decided to end the night playing a short session. I decided to take another stab at NL5 and found that with the game dynamics as they were, I felt confident I could add another table. <<Not my best idea to take a stab at a higher level AND add a table at the same time...but it worked out ok>>

I ended up half a buy-in up after about 100 hands, but I wasn't happy with the quality of my play in the last 20 hands or so. I completely wasn't thinking of my game plan on many of the later hands.

For instance I feel I put myself in a bad position on this hand... and didn't really have a plan on what I wanted to do...

PokerStars - $0.05 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by Holdem Manager 3

SB: $5.00 (100 bb)
BB: $6.08 (121.6 bb)
UTG: $4.80 (96 bb)
MP: $5.50 (110 bb)
CO: $5.14 (102.8 bb)
Hero (BTN): $10.37 (207.4 bb)

SB posts $0.02, BB posts $0.05

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.07) Hero has A♦: K♥:
UTG raises to $0.10, 2 folds, Hero raises to $0.40, fold, BB calls $0.35, fold

Flop: ($0.92, 2 players) 9♣: K♠: T♠:
BB checks, Hero bets $0.54, BB raises to $1.08, Hero raises to $3.21, BB calls $2.13

The board is pretty wet with 3 cards both in our ranges, with straight and flush draws. I feel like my flop c-bet is good to protect my hand, but...
Question 1 - maybe a check-call on such a wet-board would be a wiser play to keep the pot lower if the turn card is bad for me?
Question 2 - maybe a larger bet to try and take the pot down right there and deny draws?

When villain raises my flop c-bet, I feel like I really lose my way... I feel like I need to either commit to the hand (shove) or give it up (fold) at this point, and don't particularly like my raise-size.
Question 3 - Is there value in just calling villains flop raise?

Turn: ($7.34, 2 players) 7♠:
BB bets $2.47 and is all-in, Hero folds

I think his all in is to be expected... and I'm left with 4:1 pot odds to call...
Question 4 - is top-pair top-kicker good here 20+% of the time?

Results: $7.34 pot ($0.30 rake)
Final Board: 9♣: K♠: T♠: 7♠:

BB wins $7.04

Hey ramble.

I like ur rambling, keep it going!
We are in the similular situation (I was I sng-grinder myself to around 2014 and just recently started cash NL2-5). I am stabbing NL5 myself.

Q1: all villain depended, but vs. unknow I would cbet more often. We cleary have range+nut advantage.
Q2: betsize is fine... could be 2/3 of pot.
Q3: U decide ur hand on the Flop! So either u nit-fold after his Raise. (I wouldn't.) or ... Ur ReRaise is good, but I would shove it!
Q4: hmm almost no worse turncards. Fold is strong on ur part.

The Questions 4 is interesting for the flop action I think... Is it (in generall) +ev to going AI an the flop in these Spots (TPTK on drawheavy board)?! I don't know... and further more. ...do we shove even vs. a reg?

Originally posted by Incog
I like ur rambling, keep it going!
We are in the similular situation (I was I sng-grinder myself to around 2014 and just recently started cash NL2-5). I am stabbing NL5 myself.

Thanks Incog. I appreciate you taking the time to respond with your thoughts. I'm going to post this hand over in the review section and see what comments I get there as well.

Do you miss the SnG Grind? I do somewhat, probably because I could see the results of my hard work studying the game pay off and I enjoyed the challenge of moving up stakes. I think that challenge is what is exciting me about taking on the cash games and I feel there is more opportunity for me to grow in cash then STT SnG formats now.

Good luck to you in your NL cash journey - be sure to drop in here from time to time and let me know how you are progressing.

2000 Hands and Having Fun!

I'm just beginning this journey but man it's been a blast so far. I'm feeling very rejuvenated by all the different aspects of study. So far I have a VERY rudimentary grasp of the basics, but I think I have a good foundation to build on.

• Most of my pre-flop ranges seem pretty solid and I feel like I'm adjusting appropriately to the table dynamics (I'm adjusting pretty light - only adding or subtracting about 5-8 hands or so depending on position)
• I'm getting better at identifying where I want to build pots and where I want to keep them small, but this is certainly a weak area for me in execution.
• I've got a lot of work to do on bet-sizing, barreling, and understanding blockers while in the hand.
• I've decided to stick to one table (only multi-tabled that one time) so I can think more about the action and different situations that come up.

Moving up to NL5
I've been fairly happy with my stab at NL5 even if I'm not profitable at it yet. Most sessions have run very favorably overall. I'm winning a healthy share of hands and getting it in good in most situations (villains are called villains for a reason though!). I'm not letting that get me down, because I feel good about those hands and would play them the same way again (for the most part).

My plan is to stick with NL5 for now and then move back down if I need to. I'm never discouraged by having to go down a level to protect my bankroll, work on my game and build my confidence back up.

First time seeing a whale and it got weird...

So I was nearing the end of my session for the evening last night when most players at my table beat me to it and sat out. It was late, I was exhausted but wanted to get just a few more hands in before bed, so I sat down at another table with the intention to just play a 10-15 hands and then call it a night.

The first hand I observed while waiting for the Big Blind, I saw villain shove 20-bb all-in into UTG's 3-bb bet... UTG had AKo, villain had J3o. Interesting...

Over the next few hands I see him calling every bet on every street, going to showdown with a high-card or bottom pair... it's a train wreck.

About 9-hands in, this happens (villain is UTG):

PokerStars - $0.05 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by Holdem Manager 3

UTG: $4.20 (84 bb)
MP: $5.15 (103 bb)
CO: $5.72 (114.4 bb)
Hero (BTN): $5.62 (112.4 bb)
SB: $5.00 (100 bb)
BB: $6.04 (120.8 bb)

SB posts $0.02, BB posts $0.05

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.07) Hero has Q♠: 2♥:
UTG raises to $0.10, fold, CO raises to $0.40, Hero folds, 2 folds, UTG calls $0.30

Flop: ($0.87, 2 players) T♣: 4♣: 5♦:
UTG bets $0.05, CO raises to $5.32 and is all-in, UTG calls $3.75 and is all-in

Turn: ($8.47, 2 players) 2♠:

River: ($8.47, 2 players) T♠:

Results: $8.47 pot ($0.35 rake)
Final Board: T♣: 4♣: 5♦: 2♠: T♠:

UTG shows 7♥: 8♠:: (One Pair, Tens)
(Pre 20%, Flop 21%, Turn 10%)

CO shows Q♥: Q♦:: (Two Pair, Queens and Tens)
(Pre 80%, Flop 79%, Turn 90%)

CO wins $8.12

This all-in with anything mentality continued over the next few hands and I decided that despite how tired I was, I needed to keep playing this table. I doubled my buy-in a few hands later.

In the span of 34 hands, villain had a VPIP of 94%, cold-calling 79%, and had lost over 4 buy-ins. The final hand he had pocket kings and flop came AJ4, and of course he couldn't fold it and lost nearly another buy-in... he finally had enough and quit. Good for him.

I've heard of players spewing money like this, but have not seen it to this level yet. When he left the table, another player instantly left (I assume to follow him if he joined another table). I admit, I thought about it as well, but thought following him was maybe kicking a guy who was already down.

I felt pretty conflicted about it. It was weird, I didn't have an issue with exploiting him while he was at my table, but following him to another table seemed to cross a line for me. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

Originally posted by Ramble

Originally posted by Incog
I like ur rambling, keep it going!
We are in the similular situation (I was I sng-grinder myself to around 2014 and just recently started cash NL2-5). I am stabbing NL5 myself.

Thanks Incog. I appreciate you taking the time to respond with your thoughts. I'm going to post this hand over in the review section and see what comments I get there as well.

Do you miss the SnG Grind? I do somewhat, probably because I could see the results of my hard work studying the game pay off and I enjoyed the challenge of moving up stakes. I think that challenge is what is exciting me about taking on the cash games and I feel there is more opportunity for me to grow in cash then STT SnG formats now.

Good luck to you in your NL cash journey - be sure to drop in here from time to time and let me know how you are progressing.

Hey Ramble. Sry its been a busy past few days. And sadly work keeps on piling up. I Don't even know if I have time to play some cards this week.

@SnG: Yes, I miss it ... or rather I miss my bankroll :-P ... playing 10 table 22$ SnG on Partypoker and then going NL2-5 seems strange. But its been a while and I have to say, that the concepts of NL Cash are interesting. My ambition is actually to be a somewhat decent MTT player... and I am trying to boost my bankroll with NL5 to NL10.

@AKo Hand and our Questions: Sadly I have to say that I think the english forum is "dead" or everybody has a blog ... the hand evaluations are rarely visited. I will translate our hand and Questions and post them in the german forum. Hopefully I have the time for that in the next two days.

Farewell

1000 Hands of NL5, Tilt and a stab at NL10?

So I am now at 1000 hands of NL5... which I know means nothing. But I really feel confident that I am holding my own at that level, usually feeling like I have an edge over most of my opponents. I'm just about rolled for NL25 (conservative bankroll), so I think taking a stab at NL10 makes sense. I'm going to implement a 10 buy-in stop loss and continue to work on my game regardless.

I'm currently studying post-flop spots in various situations and discovering their are lots of fun little scenarios to consider... position, whether I was pre-flop raiser or caller, single opponent or multi-way, dry boards vs wet boards, effects of blockers, effective stack size considerations... man... a bit overwhelming and hard to learn, but MUCH harder to actually put into practice. I think I'm at a point where I am familiar with the overall concepts and need to just focus on one or two scenarios to put in practice until they become second nature, then add another 1 or 2 scenarios.

Oh... and I mentioned tilt...
So I'm a reasonably disciplined player except for one area... run-good tilt. If I've been on a good run for awhile and seem to be making good decisions and also hitting boards well, I get a bit cocky. I feel like I'm just going to hit that draw no matter what because "how could I not?"... I'm fortunate here for 2 reasons:

:diamond:It happens very rarely... I purposely play shorter sessions of about 200 hands (single table) so that I stay focused and mindful of my game. This helps me stay fresh, positive and disciplined.

When it happens, it's usually so "out of the normal" that it grabs my attention and makes me double down on reviewing my hands and self-analyzing... in other words, it forces me to improve.

Here's the hand that grabbed my attention and made me say WTF was I thinking? Note that I don't have a lot of hands on villain, but my early impression is that he is fairly tight:

PokerStars - $0.02 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 5 players
Hand converted by Holdem Manager 3

UTG: $1.88 (94 bb)
CO: $1.00 (50 bb)
BTN: $2.46 (123 bb)
SB: $2.51 (125.5 bb)
Hero (BB): $2.00 (100 bb)

SB posts $0.01, Hero posts BB $0.02, CO posts $0.02

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.05) Hero has A♣: T♣:
fold, CO checks, BTN raises to $0.08, fold, Hero raises to $0.24, fold, BTN raises to $0.53, Hero calls $0.29

Flop: ($1.09, 2 players) T♦: Q♣: 8♥:
Hero bets $0.74, BTN raises to $1.93 and is all-in, Hero calls $0.73 and is all-in

Turn: ($4.03, 2 players) 4♥:

River: ($4.03, 2 players) 2♥:

Results: $4.03 pot ($0.14 rake)
Final Board: T♦: Q♣: 8♥: 4♥: 2♥:

Hero shows A♣: T♣:: (One Pair, Tens)
(Pre 33%, Flop 24%, Turn 11%)

BTN shows K♥: K♦:: (One Pair, Kings)
(Pre 67%, Flop 76%, Turn 89%)

BTN wins $3.89

A dip into NL10

Just a quick update. (with the usual disclaimer that I realize my sample size is very small).

I took a dip into NL10 and my first table felt very grindy... after 56 hands I was only down 1.5 bb, but it felt like I was working pretty hard just to break even. I know the games get tougher as you progress, but this felt like I was going to have to put a lot of work into my game to get an edge.

I decided to switch tables and see if it would be similar... I was happy to find this table had one weak-loose player and one very tight player, and that was enough for me to start accumulating chips. Over the next couple hundred hands I had almost everyone at the table tagged as players I'd sit down with again. It was another good confidence boost, and I think I can hang out at NL10. We'll see how the next few sessions go, hopefully it isn't just beginners luck.

Yeah, if you are having a tough time at a table, finding a new one is usually the best move...

Best of luck :gl:,
VS

Originally posted by VorpalF2F
Yeah, if you are having a tough time at a table, finding a new one is usually the best move...

Best of luck :gl:,
VS

I love how you ride that edge of concise observation/remark and dry-wit humour with so many of your posts Vorpal... Cheers Bud!

Originally posted by Ramble
I love how you ride that edge of concise observation/remark and dry-wit humour with so many of your posts Vorpal... Cheers Bud!

You left out "stating the obvious"

NL10 - Update

I'm only 600+ hands in, but thought I'd share some early observations. I'm running at 1.6 bb/100 so far. (I played a few questionable spots that got me into a bit of trouble... need to review those hands this weekend.)

I think this is the first level where table selection is going to start making a big difference in win-rate. There are still a good number of limpers, calling stations, TAGs, etc... but I've also sat at a few tables and found nothing but grindy action - lots of position play and 3-betting. I've been a bit too slow to leave those tables I think.

Tonight I also ran into a number of mid-stack buy-ins that were actually pretty good at applying pressure. It was an interesting dynamic at the table and one that I haven't played against much.

Sticking with it...

So after about 300 more hands last night at a few different tables, I'm feeling much more confident at NL10.

I did a mini-review of my NL10 sessions and found that the reason I was breaking even was less about my opponents and more about my play. I had started drifting from my game plan after the flop. Once I got back to my gameplan, my win-rate shot up significantly. Some of the mistakes I was making:

C-Betting flops in multi-way pots that had little chance of hitting my range
Building big pots with weak holdings and/or draws
Barreling too many hands
Calling River bets too weak

The calling river bets one is a weird one for me. I feel like I make some pretty good bluff calls based on how the hand went or observations on a particular villain a good amount of the time. I think I just need a small adjustment on this one, I don't want to get scared to call when I think I'm ahead a good percentage of the time.

Ahh, the classic blunders...

Originally posted by VorpalF2F
Ahh, the classic blunders...

I don't often re-watch movies, but I made an exception for The Princess Bride recently. It's so good and still holds up.

Fun and somewhat relevant side-story... When I was much younger, long before I started playing poker with living breathing people (either in-person or online), I used to play a poker game I had on a floppy disk... I think it was 5-card draw.

The game was pretty good for it's day and featured audio clips from your opponents... My favourite was one opponent would often say "Inconceivable" when you took down a pot... I thought it was funny, so I started saying "Inconceivable" in social situations until one day someone says to me "man, you really liked that movie eh?"...

I hadn't seen the movie yet and had no idea that's where it came from...

My most used quote from the movie is "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means"
Well, that and "I see you've studied your Agrippa"
Oh yeah and ...

One of the cleverest pieces of writing in the last 40 years -- have your read the book?
(the movie is better)

Hand Review

I had a question from monteCarlol in his blog: Beat NL2 Challenge AMA about what my approach to hand review was... I thought I would share it here as well in case it helps anyone.

Basically the hands I review fall into 3 categories:

1) Hands that were big pots - won at showdown, lost at showdown and folds... don't forget the folds.

2) Interesting hands marked in session... keep a notebook beside you while you play and mark down hole cards and a very brief note on what made the hand interesting - what your question or thinking was.

3) Exploring a certain aspect of the game... i.e. look at all hands in a session from a certain position, or where you 3-bet, or faced a 3-bet, flop-cbets, etc... I usually stick to one aspect per review. Sometimes the aspect I decide to look at comes from one of the interesting hands noted in category 2 above.

As you review hands, you'll find that there will be something that you question or wonder about - jot that down for another hand review or researching online or in forums later.