How long does it take to grind?

Hey all!

I started multi-tabling on alot of tables, around 15 table average, in 0.01/0.02 NL.

To be fairly honest, I thought grinding would be prety easy. Well its been 4 days of grinding for about 5000 hands, more or less. And I am down 10 dollars.

Now of course theres variance to take into account, but I would figure that variance isnt an issue through 5000 thousand hands. I've been going up to 50$ and down to 33$ since I started grinding, up and down always.

Now I want to know, is that a typical variance you would see in ring game multi-tabling, when playing TAG poker?

Or, on the other hand, am I doing something wrong, I don't use a hud, but I can tell you I have around 11 to 12 % calling percentage.

My hand range varies from AJ suited to AA, including pocket 10's or pocket 9's in good position.

sometimes I widen my range to A10 when I have a gut feeling or when I can figure something.

I usualy go prety nity post flop, not raising into a bluff, and raising the draws. It seems for the love of god I can't get the draws to fold, even when I go all in. Of course, I lose the most money to these people fetching flush draws, or to people flopping set's with low pocket when I am holding a pocket AA, should I maybe only go all in with the nuts? I figure that on a 1$ pot with a 1$ stack, to break the flush odds I gota go all-in.

Any hints and input into dominating this blind level would be quite appreciated.

Hi,

Well you may be running bad or running good, but as you said 5k hands isn't enough to determine if you're playing well enough to win or not.

Really hard to say if you're doing something wrong through a single post but I have a feeling you might be playing a little tight. Not saying you should do it this way, but I tend to play any PP and AQ+ early, and loosen up gradually up to the button where I play stuff like ATo+, Axs, 67s+ among others. Your range should also change depending on who you're playing. You should be raising the vast majority of hands you're playing.

You don't necesseraly need a HUD for 2nl, but I advise you to select the tables you play on wisely, fish money is easier to get than any other players money.

For 2nl, it's basic ABC poker, don't try anything fancy and you should be fine. You should be playing as many PPs as possible trying to hit sets (not against short stackers). You should be c-betting a lot of the hands you raise preflop, but don't c-bet air into multiple players unless you have a good reason to do so. Otherwise don't bluff and don't slowplay.

Hope this helps

Yeah, about that, I really don't select my tables at all because I have 0 criteria to do so. I usualy just mass select a bunch of tables, and when I have up to 15-20 tables running, needless to say I'm fully concentrated on my tables.

For the wider range, I try to do so when I set a super nity table image, I figure its the best way to do it, but it would seem people don't really put much into table image. I also seem to lose almost every hands I am in with A J, so I tend to fold it more often than not on a reraise with a A on the flop.

I am also wondering, should I be folding my pairs often? I tend to do prety frequent cbetting on top pair, and when I get reraised, unless I have the highest kicker, or 2 pair, I will fold. Is this the way to go?

I only call draws with pot odds. Of course, sometimes I do some mistake due to having 15 tables running and needing to react fast.

Should I be grabbing a HUD?

Thanks for your post by the way.

For table selection I usually order by average pot size, then from there working down I look for tables where the table VPIP is high, ideally over 40%, but tables over 30% aren't too bad, just watch out for the stack sizes, don't sit down if there is a majority of people playing with shortstacks. If on a certain table after a while, you think the action is completely gone, then leave, use the lobby to keep you updated on the table VPIP.

I wouldn't be worried at all about your table image at this level, people do not pay attention (with very few excpetions). To be honest when I'm up against fish I'll vary my preflop raises based on the strength of my hand, thats how shortsighted some of them are. Just know who you're up against, AJ is crap against an UTG nit raise, but golden against a 40% VPIP fish, you have to adjust.

Again for the pairs it depends who you're up against. C-betting is the only "bluff" you should be making at 2nl, but you should be doing it often, especially top pair against a calling station.

For the draws fine. Don't play too many tables if you don't feel comfortable, try taking some off, you must be playing your best game on each and every one of them.

No problem

Stop playing so many tables.

Play less tables until you can beat the game.



If not you'll leak money until your broke.

maybe im understanding this wrong or maybe you said it wrong? it sounds like your on c-betting with top pair? you should be c-betting i think its 60% even if you miss the flop cause chances are your opponent has missed the flop also. And chances are if your playing as tight as it sounds your probably ahead anyway. Remember your playing 2nl its mostly fish.

You are playing way too many tables. For that many tables you should have a hud. Also 5k hands isn't that much. Especially playing 15 tables. You can do that in a day pretty easily. So 5k hands isn't enough of a sample. Also if you are down ten and were up fifty bucks at one point those swings are way huge for 2nl in only 5k hands.

I am also c-betting a bit when I don't hit, but I guess I will do it more often now.

Alright, I will try 10 max and see how it goes form there, thanks.

How did you get that from my post? Just because you switch to full ring makes no difference

You should pick a game you like and stick with it.
Learn it. Inside and out. That in itself will take some time.
You cant do it while playing a bunch of tables.

I think he meant he will drop down to 10 tables.

Another point to note is that when action is checked around to you and you're the last to act, a 3/4 sized bet of the pot will normally take it down if it was not raised.

Always bet when you're last to act pretty much in those limits. I find it normally takes it down.

Drop down more. Start at 3 or 4 tables, get a HUD and start reading forums and books until you are confident that you are beating the game. Then when you are making money you will have a choice, move up in tables or move up in stakes? Also 5k hands is not a lot, for micros you should really be playing at least 20k to even start thinking that it may be weeding out the variance.

You're playing wayyyy too tight. There's no way you can throw away TT,99,88, or 77 when first to act. These are good hands, as occasionally they will be the best hands after the flop or turn into monsters when you flop sets.

Another thing that perplexed me is how you are a super nit in cash games compared to your super lag style in tourneys (Raising UTG with A7o, a suicidal play). I suggest you study more about your preflop game. At least you need to have some ideas about which hands to play in which positions.

Having read a few of your posts I feel you have a lot more to learn. Pot odds, implied odds, reverse implied odds, to name just a few. Micros are perfectly beatable but one needs to at least get the fundamentals of poker right before one is able to do so.

I guess thats fair, I know about pot odds, implied odds, not sure what reverse implied odds are. Of course I could be reading about poker, but I really rather read about good litterature or about my profession. I don't have the time to learn everything, and I am really just trying to improve my game. I take any advice and yours work, I'll try to have a tad wider range of hands. I am also watching alot of poker @ T.V., it helps my game in some situations, even though you can't apply high stakes poker to micro table.

I play super lag in turbo tourney because its the only way I found not to get blind out, not saying I am right, but I never call when pot odds are wrong. Reraise or fold.

I guess you do know about pot odds in preflop situations like when one should call all in. But the question you asked about how much to bet to chase away draws showed that you may not have had a good grasp of the concept yet. To answer that question, a bet of about 2/3 of the pot will be enough to give people with decent draws (OESD and flush draws), the wrong odds to call.

I do have a proper job too, but these concepts shouldn't take long to master as you can easily read about them in your free hours after work. There are lots of book out there which will explain those concepts along with preflop strategies. Understanding these should be more than enough to get you through the micros.

GL at the tables

Of course, the pot odds for a flush draw are always around 4 to 1, but even when I give the wrong odds for people to draw, they seem to call it any way, wich prety much pisses me off, thats why I reraise even more...

This. If you're just starting out in cash, start with 1 or 2 tables, move up to 4 when confident, and look at what the other players are doing so you know their ranges in typical situations. I would say use a HUD that has VPIP/PFR/AF

And yeah, you're being way too nitty. In my short period 8-tabling 4NL I was playing 600 hands / hour, you're clearly playing much less.

Alright so, happy to say I have been taking a bit of every advice and now I am looking like this:

I am playing maximum 4 tables, usualy 3, with a VPIP of 20%.

I have noticed that I can identify the fish prety easily so I know in wich raised pot to get with wider range. I have also widen'd my general range in specific position and lowered it in other, as I would in a tournament.

Playing lesser table has helped me be more alert to the types of player at my tables and I have been leaking alot less money. I've seen my good decision making go up by a great margin and I am making more money.

I am currently also focusing on selecting tables with big pots and alot of people as they tend to hold fishes. Most of my money is coming from fishes and I tend to evade more experienced players in reraised pots, as they always seem to hold a edge in their hands.

So far results seem very good, can't wait to reach a few thousand hands to tell you where I am standing.

I currently don't use HUD, they are expensive and I don't have a HUD when I am playing a regular table!

I'll keep you guys updated.

i will give you a little advice that worked great for me for hundreds of thousands of hands at 2nl. limp any small poker pair up to 99, if facing a standard 3x, call if both you and opponent have 100 big blinds, odds are there are going to be more callers than one when facing a 3x raise, this making it very juicy when hitting a set. if you miss, give up, unless they do on of their typical 2c bet

i like raising big hands bigger preflop, like 14-16c if i have AA, you don't want to raise 6c because, as you can already tell people don't give a vrap about 6c and you are going to end up with 3-4 callers, making any flop dangerous to your AA. take them to value town when you have at least 2 pairs, fish at 2nl like to chase draws, bet almost pot.

be aware of the check minraise, these are almost always huge hands, they will still do it up to 25nl, so easy to fold tptk when they do this, the fishes brain work in a strange way, check min raise seems like a lot of value for them.

other than that, i want to tell you that 5000 hands is nothing when it comes to variance, it can go on, as far as maths go for millions of hands. i can personally show you a 50k hands downswing, it ain't over yet, who know how far it will go.

2nl if definitely beatable without a HUD. i did it for 5.5 BB/100 or 11 bb/100.

BB=big bets=2xbig blind
bb=big glind

one more thing, dropping the numbers of tables does sound right, but if you can go with 2-3 sessions winning, i would pop 1 more table, i was playing 24 tables of 2nl without a hud and i did fine. and i was playing like 11% of the hands. so don't be afraid to add one more when you feel comfortable, grinding is slow, as more tables you play the easier it gets.

good luck.

Great, good to see you're taking in the advice given. I've cut back to 4 tables from 8 myself, following some advice in a 2p2 thread (can't find it now) by a well known high stakes player.

The thing is, try to watch everything, focus on betting patterns, what do the players stack off with, how easily can they be moved off a hand, even timing tells - which you could never do mass tabling.

You can get poker tracker free trial for 60 days btw, hud included, try it.

I like to watch TV poker but I've been learning to be VERY careful about applying anything of what you see to your own play.

Remember that you are only seeing selected hands so the game isn't a realistic comparison of a real game you'd be playing. Also, these players most often have played lots against each other and they're "playing the players" as much (if not more) than the cards in their hand.

I play micro poker and there's very little in common with what I see on TV and what happens in the game. If anything, I've learned that the "fancy" moves are totally out of place at the micro level because there aren't so many other players at a level where they're trying to figure out what hand I think they think I have.

Oh yeah, definatly, I could already tell that much. The way they play is almost always based on their opponents. You can tell by watching the big game, the way they play against these loose cannon is brutal.

Check yourself at 10,000 hands and 20,000 hands, and when Bankroll allows. But min 10,000 hands.

I could never play that many tables at once.

How have you been grinding 15 tables for 4 days and only have 5000 hands

Exactly. I'm grinding 4 tables of 6-max and reach 1k hands within about 3 hours. FR I guess it probably would take at most twice as long. But still 15 tabling for 3 hours a day should give you about 2k hands at least per day.

grindin take alot of patience specially if ur use too big money pot ive lost on them too due too patience

poker skill should come naturally like no book is goin to let me no what they got 4 cards i just no i was born with it kinda spooky when i call players hands they wont even play me any morethe card dont have backs on them 4 me

I was not playing 3 hours sessions. Besides, its an estimate.

:P

My apologies. May I suggest you to use pokertableratings.com? Since you don't use a HUD, you can review some of your biggest hands (especially the ones you lose) on the site, so you can see what you did wrong.

Also, open up your hand ranges, try to set-mine (preferably in position), as it is a lot more profitable in FR than 6-max. Suited connectors should also be played in late position too. Don't just stick to AQ,AK and premium pairs. You are not play TAG poker if you choose to play only premium hands. TAG is about opening with strong hands, relative to position.

GL at the tables.

I know this threas has taken a different direction but asking "How long does it take to grind?" Is like asking "How long does it take to walk?"

Ofc, and the answer to both is :













































'bout tree fiddy.

At a regular table you have many more reads on people. Not to mention the fact that it is physically impossible to play more than one live table at once so I don't think you multi-table live.

If you are going to play more than a couple tables at a time without a HUD you better have great note taking ability, a great memory, or plan on never making it past the micro's. A good HUD will pay for itself in no time and is a must for a serious, multi-tabling cash player on the internet.

If you want to play strictly ABC, no reads, no HUD poker, then I suggest you play a super tight aggressive style at Rush 5nl or 10nl.

I think playing so many tables might be hindering your ability to make logical decisions. Have you played poker for awhile? If not, I understand where your coming from. I suggest you play a LITTLE looser and don't sit down at many tables. GL

Sorry but this is baloney, most high stakes players do not use a HUD for instance.

Probably best since you are new to NOT use one AS LONG as you play max 4 tables. Just focus on villains, take notes.