I can't beat $10NL

Final graph for today: 1,385 hands (200 FTPs):

feb6.JPG


Would have been a bit more, but I missed a 15 out combo draw (flush and straight)-- I semi-bluffed it when checked to by the preflop raiser and he called w QQ despite the ace on the flop and a player to act behind him.

I would love to read more ring game strategy articles by some of our resident wizards. Perhaps I should start to visit the ring game analysis sub-forum too .

It sounds like there's some pretty serious play differences at $10NL between Stars and Full Tilt though - could be the explanation?

(Last comment @ jaketrevor. Woo, monniez! @ AG )

Im a bit shocked that that article is being semi widely refered to ever since i wrote it. It really and in all seriousness something that I threw together in 10 minutes sitting bored one evening. Looking at it again the majority of the concepts are good, but I would agree that some of them need a little refinment. It was something that i had in my mind to do for a bit, and i like keeping these things as simple as possible. IE Bet your hands, get in as much pre-flop as possible, and all these things are very applicaple. I always intended to do a follow up to it but forgot.

Anyway im off to play a bit on nl$10 like a nit on pokerstars to see if it still works

In an effort to join the crowd here, and maybe not donk off a big chunk, I sat at a $25 table for 91 hands. Broke dead even.

I did however clear another 50 cents toward nothing...........

As a reformed FRW, and semi-OK tourney player, I too want the faster winnings now, and possibly the best thing about todays session was that I didn't donk off that big chunk, and felt somewhat comfortable at the table.

My graph, which I wont bore you with shows that at one point I was down $8 , at another I was up $3.

My PT3 stats show I was VP$IP higher than my FT stats. This still confuses the hell out of me.

Not really, at these limits implied odds are so huge on just about any decent hand (even tptk often) that you're not playing to steal small pots. Read any 10nl comments by respected posters and they all say the same thing: It's all about the big pots. 10nl is a level to make money, not play creative poker.

I didn't say that there were no differences I just thought people were exaggerating these differences. What jay said could be completely true - ft might just be a lot different from pokerstars as it has no lower levels than 10nl so all the shiiiite players who don't really know the game past the basic rules play there.

Add me to the list of, "losing money at fulltilt whilst trying to clear the bonus". lol
I lost $50 playing 5c10c PLO. It was sick though. I won big at first (PLO players at fulltilt are TERRIBLE), i got up to $80.
Then came the beats, I'm not even gonna say what type of beats. You know when you CONSTANTLY put your money in with the NUTS and end up losing. Oh well back to pokerstars and F**K YOU FULLTILT!!!!!!!

God you're so lucky. You can totally tick that one off on the the scavenger hunt list.

I started low at the no limit tables before and started like everyone from freerolls. ive played poker for 4 years now. I was on my game for 2 months then ended my run at the $1000 no limit tables last year and lost with an ace high flush to a full house which he hit both runners when I slow played it. What I realized that improved my game is to stop playing low limit tables as soon as possible, when Id play the higher stakes Id keep 20%-40% at the table and play one at a time analysing everyone. keep in ind you can always watch the table a while before you start. Patience is the key, when I play at smaller stakes I risk getting to anxious to win and I seem to throw away my antes more often which is bad. Always go in raising with each hand and the rest will fall into place. Youll see yourself going up quick once you really concentrate on each hand and fold when in doubt preflop.

Got that one today!

Good bankroll management there ...

Anyway, here is today so far: 1,077 hands (150FTPs), all at full buy-in:

so far.JPG

Kind of choppy now that I look at it on a graph. At least I was in the black all the way...
Perhaps I'm getting the hang of this cash game thing again?
Anyway, time for some lunch, then a couple hundred more hands a bit later.

Chuck, could you elaborate on how this relates to 10nl?

Well, even in $10NL you can still have 100bb deep stacks. So the actual buy-in level doesn't really matter (theoretically).

Update: gave about $5 back, ended the day +18.10 over 1,471 hands (200+ FTPs). I have cleared half of the $75 FT bonus, so it has only cost me $41.25 to clear $37.50 . Anyway, at least I seem to be going in the right direction.

It looks like you're in the swing of things now.
I just took a look at Tenbob's thread, and it is basically what I've been doing and having a fairly successful time at 10NL. The only problem I see often, is someone calling a preflop raise with Ace and weak kicker and catching two pair against something like Ak/AQ/AJ, then calling through. They can't fold if they pair their ace on the board. It should be an advantage, but I see myself getting caught more times than not with better hands preflop, and thinking how can you call my preflop raise with that when I'm basically playing fairly tight?! They weren't even sooted.

I actually folded QQ preflop today:

FullTiltPoker Game #5160269449: Table Snow Trail - $0.05/$0.10 - No Limit Hold'em - 15:57:09 ET - 2008/02/07
Seat 1: GreenhouseOne ($0.70)
Seat 2: Lars2007 ($2.85)
Seat 3: LongliveEnkil ($17.40)
Seat 4: Stoners3 ($1.55)
Seat 5: Mankan ($10.65)
Seat 6: Baureo ($10.05)
Seat 7: StraightTN ($4)
Seat 8: aliengenius ($10.30)
Seat 9: airzor ($14.10)
airzor posts the small blind of $0.05
GreenhouseOne posts the big blind of $0.10
The button is in seat #8
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to aliengenius Q♦ Q♣
Lars2007 calls $0.10
LongliveEnkil folds
Stoners3 calls $0.10
Mankan folds
Baureo folds
StraightTN folds
aliengenius raises to $0.55
airzor raises to $14.10, and is all in
GreenhouseOne folds
Lars2007 folds
Stoners3 folds
aliengenius has 15 seconds left to act
aliengenius: wow
aliengenius is sitting out
aliengenius has timed out
aliengenius folds
Uncalled bet of $13.55 returned to airzor
airzor mucks
aliengenius has returned
airzor wins the pot ($1.40)
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $1.40 | Rake $0
Seat 1: GreenhouseOne (big blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 2: Lars2007 folded before the Flop
Seat 3: LongliveEnkil didn't bet (folded)
Seat 4: Stoners3 folded before the Flop
Seat 5: Mankan didn't bet (folded)
Seat 6: Baureo didn't bet (folded)
Seat 7: StraightTN didn't bet (folded)
Seat 8: aliengenius (button) folded before the Flop
Seat 9: airzor (small blind) collected ($1.40), mucked

The guy was 16.98/5.66/1.38--- good fold or was it JJ or AK?

hmmm, the 5.66 looks scary to me, I guess I could find a fold here with much pain involved on the premise that we wait for a better spot..... then again if we take a step back it does seem fairly mental not to stack with QQ pf at 10nl. Toughie though.

[quote=aliengenius;713729]Ok, did well in my second session playing w the full $10 (100bbs) buy in.

I developed kind of a style where I play big hands aggressively preflop, then somewhat passive post flop (kind of a pot size control style) depending on number and nature of opponents.

Instant fold with that QQ.

It looks like you are on the right track......

Good fold. He had you beat.

I don't quite see how you can be so sure of that? There are only 2 hands that would have had him beat no? And while yeah it does happen...you seem to be quite sure that it did happen

I'm just starting out and obviously have a lot to learn

Hello Deathwish, I presume you're the chap I was talking to last night on Stars

Welcome to CC

Rex

The guy only plays less than 17% of his hands, and only raises about 6%. This is 1. a RE-raise, which presumably is an even narrower range than the initial 6% raise range, 2. an all-in, which presumably is the strongest hands in that narrower range.

The only argument against him having AA or KK there is that pushing all in isn't a good way of making money from it. But I've seen some terrible play at this level so I wouldn't be suprised if that's what he had..

Timeout folding? Yuck.

I agree with your analysis though, this is 2 hands to me, JJ or AK. If i'm adding more hands to possible holdings, it's 10 10 and 9 9, not AA or KK - he doesn't want to make any tricky post flop decisions. I'm folding QQ (and KK) when it's raise, re-raise, re-re-raise, and it's obvious that your opponent is giving little thought to the hand apart from "how can I extract the most from this guy without making him fold?" (and i've got enough left to make it worth folding).

Call for me, but if your little numbers said different then.........

I don't know.... this is $10NL !

My reasoning exactly. The guy has AA, you can bet your mortgage on it, and this.......

.....is why he is not smart enough to disguise the strength of his hand.

Ok update:
I have cleared the $75 on FT, and it only cost me $57.20 to do it . So I'm ahead overall, but still can't beat $10NL. I got killed today, -$26ish.

Here is the graph for just over 9k hands, about 41 hrs of play since the start of the month.

10nl.JPG

Overall I am down $102 over 11k hands. Unreal.

So with the bonus you actually made about 40 cents per hour. Isn't "free" money great?

Well, here are the stats, if anyone can pick out a problem I would much appreciate it:

stats1.JPG
stats2.JPG
stats3.JPG

Hmm, won a SD is less that 50% which is not a good sign unless you're winning a lot of stacks when you do win. And to me that looks like too many check-raises for this level. Players at this level don't understand what you mean when you check-raise them.


Maybe too much playing from the blinds as well, though a lot are probably pot odds determined, given the limping/min-raising that takes place. Just my 0.02.

Well, yeah, I am a losing player at this level, so won $ at SD is not high enough. That's sort of redundant.

63 out of 9,658 is too many check raises?

Yeah, there are often odds to call from the bb-- usually someone min-raises or something ridiculous.

The sick thing is, if I five "stack" hands hand gone the other way I would be even. It just doesn't seem like I'm stacking the donks enough other times to make up for the one/two outer beats for some reason...

Have you ever thought about playing 6max AG? The tables are a lot fishier imo.

You're probably seeing too many hands through to SD for how loose you are playing. I also think you may actually be cbetting too often for this level (because we rarely have only 1 or 2 opponents) and losing more when one of them plays back at you as a result.

It's not that it's not high enough. I datamined $25NL FTP one day and one mulittabler did quite nicely with 43% won at SD, but, he stacked a few people when he did win and was up 12 BB/100 over 1,100 hands.


And I don't know for sure that that is too many check raises, but I'd be curious to know how those hands worked out for you. I just think at that level that you're talking in a language that the players don't understand. But, I'd be curious to know if that was working for you there.

Here's a check raise gone wrong:

FullTiltPoker Game #5213742808: Table American Pacific - $0.05/$0.10 - No Limit Hold'em - 14:10:42 ET - 2008/02/11
Seat 1: balz7 ($6.80)
Seat 2: MilaMonster ($4.80)
Seat 3: aliengenius ($14.75)
Seat 4: Balu06 ($3.50)
Seat 5: murderotica ($14.05)
Seat 6: Clazziquai ($17.20)
Seat 7: sparta338 ($5.95)
Seat 8: maxx3971 ($1.70)
Seat 9: ImreBarta ($1.60)
MilaMonster posts the small blind of $0.05
aliengenius posts the big blind of $0.10
The button is in seat #1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to aliengenius [Jc Jh]
Balu06 folds
murderotica has 15 seconds left to act
murderotica raises to $0.20
Clazziquai folds
sparta338 folds
maxx3971 folds
ImreBarta folds
balz7 calls $0.20
MilaMonster folds
aliengenius has 15 seconds left to act
aliengenius calls $0.10
*** FLOP *** [9h 3c 7s]
aliengenius checks
murderotica bets $0.30
balz7 folds
aliengenius raises to $14.55, and is all in
murderotica calls $13.55, and is all in
aliengenius shows [Jc Jh]
murderotica shows [9s Td]
Uncalled bet of $0.70 returned to aliengenius
*** TURN *** [9h 3c 7s] 5♥
*** RIVER *** [9h 3c 7s 5h] [Tc]
aliengenius shows a pair of Jacks
murderotica shows two pair, Tens and Nines
murderotica wins the pot ($26.35) with two pair, Tens and Nines
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $28.35 | Rake $2
Board: [9h 3c 7s 5h Tc]
Seat 1: balz7 (button) folded on the Flop
Seat 2: MilaMonster (small blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 3: aliengenius (big blind) showed [Jc Jh] and lost with a pair of Jacks
Seat 4: Balu06 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 5: murderotica showed [9s Td] and won ($26.35) with two pair, Tens and Nines
Seat 6: Clazziquai didn't bet (folded)
Seat 7: sparta338 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 8: maxx3971 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 9: ImreBarta didn't bet (folded)

Ok, that's played yuckily. Firstly you have to raise your big hands pf otherwise they have extremely little value due to outfloppage in multi-way pots. What was your reasoning for flat calling (probably something about not swelling the pot oop, but if you don't you're in an even worse one as their ranges are so wide)? Build the pot and get it HU or take it down right there plz - get as much money in while you're ahead. Secondly, wth was the ubershove? You're just giving your stack to hands that have you beat and scaring off the ones that you do (not in this case but most of the time). You cold be trying to look like a donkmaniac and get a loose call from a 9 but I still think you're chasing off value from most 7s and 9s most of the time. And even if you do get called your hand is very vulnerable (as we saw above).