How to beat 50NL 6Max Part 3

continues from previous post.



Neutral EV/Marginal Situations

These situations occur when you are making a tough decision that is not clear cut and could go either way. Calling a river bet that would lead to an EV of around zero. The outcome is the same as folding. The difference in your winrate over time will be negligable. By calling these marginal situations will only increase your volatility and maybe change your percieved table image at the time. Dont chase small ev situations at this level, keep the volatility low and get our money in when you are in a clearly +ev situation. Concentrate more on how to extract the most money with your +ev situations not the tough decision hands. My game is about easy decisions.


Avoiding the Regulars for now

Now I am not saying run for the hills if you see a regular player at your table. They are just human and just because they are a reg that doesnt mean they are better than you. The fact is though at 50nl there are so many fish that you dont need to battle it out with a reg for 2bb/100 when you have players that you can extract 10+bb/100. It makes no sens at 50nl to be sitting at a table with 4 regs +1 fish. Unless the fish is deepstacked and to your immediate right, then up and leave. There will be 20+ other tables with which to feed on.

I think the next evolution of poker will be to learn how to play back at the regs. Learning how to add on another 2bb/100 by including the regs that you feed on. But this is not needed at 50nl to make money.

If you are to play against any regs just know they are not calling stations and will let you know when you are beat. Regulars are normally sold multitablers and will not bluff often. Steal from them with half pot bets and fold to any aggro. Pick on the weak, table select well and dont sit and lose value with a table full of regs.


Stealing Blinds

There are a lot of players unaware of the blind steal and also a lot of regulars that will automatically fold to a blind steal. This provides a lot of inocme over the course of thousands of hands. If you are sitting on the button and the blinds are tight players then bet. On the next orbit, if you are folded to, bet again. Keep doing this until they play back at you. Put them off their game and become a thorn in their side. This will make them frustrated and they will start to play pots with you when they are out of position. This also can achieve great pay offs when you hit a large hand on the button.

Even if called a continuation bet (cbet) will normally take the pot down. Just be aware of coordinated boards and players calling range. You can always wait until next orbit if its marginal.

Obviously the worst type of player to steal from is the Loose Aggressive player (LAG). Keep this one low on the steal frequency and maybe move table if LAGs on the left and no LAG's on your right.

Blind stealing is essential for a decent winrate.


Session Review

At the end of each session, spare yourself around 10 mins to go over some highlights of your play. Use PT to find the top 3-5 hands of both wins and losses. Replay them and see if you could have done anything different. Were you ahead when the money went in ? Did you apply the right pressure and could you have found out you were beat earlier in the hand.

The winning hands are just as important here as you may have left money on the table. Ask yourself was the bet sizing correct. Could you have extracted more $?

Give yourself some time to go over these hands and anything you are unsure of ask someone. Use forums like twoplustwo, ask some poker buddies or even send an email to me and Ill give you my opinion. There is no downside to asking someone if you could have played it differently.


As i said earlier, this is pretty much how I have beat 50nl over this year. Its not about playing fancy. Its about playing solid poker and creating situations with easy decisions. 50nl is not aggressive and has a lot of dead money floating around. Play more hands in position, control the bet sizing and stay away from marginal decisions and you should be making some relatively easy money.

Hope that helps someone.

Feel free to donate :)

Ryverrat.

How To Beat 50NL 6Max Part 2

... Continues from previous post.

Taking Notes

I take a lot of short notes on players. Im not writing full descriptions and I'm not taking down everything I see. I'm keeping it short and sweet.

Im looking for repeating actions in common situations. I am specifically noting the following.

PreFlop
Are they positionally aware?
Tight or Loose utg/utg+1 range?
Do they steal blinds with any two cards?
3bet calling range?
What does their all in pf range include?
Defends blinds with any two cards ?
Do they open limp?

Flop
Do they lead out of position (OOP) with a sets?
Do they lead OOP with flush draws?
Do they overbet/push with flush draws?
Do they fold to bets no matter what size, ie min bet?

Turn
2nd barrell bluffs ?
do they check/raise strong hands after leading flop?

River
Can they bluff missed draws?
what size % bet of pot do they call with medium hands?

Other
Do they use autofold?
Do they Tilt easy?
Timing tells?

There may seem a lot of information here but I will only have 2 or 3 confirmed notes per player. These can be added to the notes field very quickly if using a shorthand. Create the shorthand that you can easily read, there is no set language.

for example
dfnds BB atc
lds flp wth set
clls psb wth f/d on turn
c/r flop wth strng hands
min bet = weak

My number one main goal is to find out how they play their big hands. For me, knowing when they are really strong helps me save a ton of cash when I have a strong hand and can find a fold. I try to find something that has repeated and put a * next to the note to mean I have seen this more than once.

All this is very easy to add to a players notes while playing and very easy to understand when you glance at them.

Position and Starting Hand Selection

At 50nl there is no need to be fancy. When watching CardRunners videos at higher levels the pros are raising hands like KJs UTG and 3betting 88 in mid position. At 50nl a lot of players do not know how to fold and will be calling with a wide range of hands. When you are playing out of position this will get you into some tricky situations on the flop where you have a marginal hand and no idea where you stand.

Most of your profit will come from late position. Basic poker, if you play more hands from late position vs early position you will have the groundings to make a decent winrate. I play reasonably tight UTG. I suggest dropping ALL suited connectors from UTG /UTG +1 and all those marginal hands like KQ, AT etc (more on second best hands later). 50nl is about easy decisions and by controlling the range you play out of position helps you achieve this.

I find raising pocket pairs in any position works. I do sometimes drop 22-44 from my UTG range if at a decent table or if there are a lot of shorties <50bb stacks. As said before, there are a lot of calling stations at 50nl so calling pocket pairs TT and lower for set value in position is preferrable.

Avoiding Second Best Hands

Dangerous hands to me are AQ, AJ, AT, KQ, KJ, KT, QJ, QT. These hand are the trickiest to play imo. Its easy to lay down T9 on a board of KT4 but no so easy if you hold KQ. These types of hands will see you get a decent amount of your chips in only to find you are dominated by AK. Folding these hands to aggression can save you a lot of money over the long run. Dont go broke with Top pair 2nd kicker and try to use some pot control where possible.

Bet Sizing

I am a firm believer in masking your preflop ranges with the same bet sizing. Its is very readable when a player open limps sometimes and open bets other times. I say never open limp. This keeps your game aggressive and your bet sizing doesn't polarize your hand. With the amount of bad players at 50nl and the lack of 3 betting I always open bet $2 (4 x bb).

When 3betting preflop I usually raise around 3 times the players opening bet. 3 betting gets a lot of respect at this level and normally takes down the pot.

Once you have seen the flop, make a plan in your head what you aim to do. Are you willing to get the money in with this hand? Are you going to fold to any aggression ? Are you wanting to get to showdown cheaply ? This will help in sizing your bet to achieve your plan. If your aim is to get it all in, make sure the amount you bet on the flop and turn leave you with a less than pot sized bet for the river. This is not always possible try to be aware of this and check raise if possible to get the money in.

If you find yourself on the river with a stack larger than the current pot, you think you opponent has a decent hand and you think he will call a pot sized bet, then push all in. I find that players willing to call a psb will also call a lot more than that.

If you believe the player has missed the river then I find 1/3 psb works. I would be wary of betting small with bluffs as calling stations are liable to look you up with bottom or mid pair.

One last point on this subject is giving the opponent incorrect odds and not trying to blow them off the hand. Like if you believe the player is drawing to a flush, bet enough to make them call with incorrect odds, dont overbet to make them fold unless the board is really dangerous and they could have other outs. Poker is about the sum of everyones mistakes. Give them the opportunity to make one but be ready to fold if they hit.

to be continued....

How To Beat 50NL 6Max Part 1

I promised a while ago to write a post sharing my thoughts on how I have recently beat 50nl. I have played approx 44k hands at this level and have a win rate of 7.5bb/100. Most of this will be basic poker to a lot of readers. This is aimed at the 25nl looking to move up or the losing/breakeven player at 50nl. These are the areas I will cover.

Pokertracker

Bankroll Management

Multitabling

Table Selection

Taking Notes

Position and starting hand selection

Avoiding Second Best Hands

Bet Sizing

Neutral ev/marginal situations

Avoiding the Regs for now

Stealing Blinds

Session Review


PokerTracker and HUD

For those not using Pokertracker I say you are at a fair disadvantage to other players using this tool. This becomes more evident if you play 3 or more tables. I would not be able to comfortably remember who is playing tight aggro, tight passive, loose aggro and loose passive let alone the more interesting numbers that can add to your win rate.

I am still using Pokertracker 2 and use the following information

$VPIP - Voluntarily put money in pot

PFR% - Pre flop raise %

AF - Aggression factor

Cbet% - Continuation bet %

Fold to Cbet%

Reraise Cbet %

Folds SB to steal %

Folds BB to steal %

Aggression on flop, turn and river


PT3 does this in real time. I have both PT2 and PT3 but the site I am playing is not supported by PT3 at present. PT3 also has 3bet% and fold to 3bet% which comes in handy.


Bankroll Management (BRM)

This is where a lot of players fall down. I have yet to go broke with my BRM but you have to be a winning player for this to work. I start with 20 buyins for a level and move up when i have between 20-25 buyins for the next level. If I fall down below 20 buyins for the new level I wont play it.


Example $25nl
Bankroll start $500
Move up to $50nl between $1000 - $1250
Move back to $25nl at $1000


This may seem passive to some but it allows you to really see if you are beating the current level and allows you to ride any variance that you will run into. In the example above you need to make $500 at 25nl. That is 2000 big blinds to make.


Below shows winrate vs hands needed to play.


5bb/100 = 40,000 hands
7.5bb/100 = 26,666 hands
10bb/100 = 20,000 hands


If you are playing on average 3 tables at 7.5bb/100 and putting in around 90 hands per hour per table then that will equal approx 100 hours of play to be able to comfortably move up a level.

You have to be able to put your pride to oneside and step down when necessary. Moving down is part of the game, moving down controls tilt and slows down losses. Managing your bankroll is a fundamental part of climbing the ranks.

I also find that when moving up its easier for me if I dont just dive straight in and fire up 2-4 tables of the new level, but gradually transition through by replacing one of my tables with the new level and replace more as I feel comfortable.

Multitabling

With the idea of playing a semi tight aggressive style, you can comfortably play more than 1 table. The amount of tables you can play will be down to personal preference. I find that I can comfortably play 4 tables and feel in full control, not rushed. I have friends that can only play 1 table and ones that can play 12+. Start with 1 or 2, play until you are comfortable and then add another. Repeat this until you are in your comfort zone.

Multitabling helps with the boredom factor of single tabling. This will keep you playing tight and help steer clear of what I will call boredom hands like KJo, A6o etc.


Table Selection

Hunt down bad players. You should as you are playing, be adding bad players to your friends/buddy list. When you next log in open up this list and add your name to the waiting list of all bad players if they are still at your current level. When a seat appears evaluate the position you have got. Where are the loose players, where are the tight players. You should be looking for optimal seats with the loose bad players to your right and the tightish players to your left. If the seat has villains the wrong sides, up and move. There is always a better seat at these levels and dont by shy to sit out and move. This also means when the fish up and moves and the table dynaics change.

With there are no fish to chase the obvious statistic in the table selection screen in most lobby's is the % of players seeing flops (%psf). The higher the better, dont waste your time with the low %psf tables, you want to be actively hunting the bad players and the tighter bad players dont return the same profit as the loose bad players. The problem here is that every other player sees this information in the lobby so you will see many tables with high %psf with waiting lists.

Another idea I had a while back is spotting fish by donkey stacks. Look for those tables with players sitting with 1/2 stacks, 40-70 big blinds. These could be potential unspotted fish.

I say again, dont be stuck on a table when the fish leave. I see so many players sitting at tables with 3-4 regs where there are so many other fishy tables to play. The main bulk of your money will not come from the regs. Sit out, stand up and fnd another table. This is not bad etiquette, this is bankroll building.

Part 2 soon.....