Learning cash games: SD vs NSD

What are the benefits and drawbacks of each one?(I'd really be interested in hearing from C9 and Vanquish)

well i generally win most of my money in non-showdown pots, because my approach involves playing speculative hands in position, and then taking down a lot of pots on the flop/turn against exploitable opponents.

ie: i'll isolate a limper with something like JTs, and then try to take down the pot with a c-bet or another type of bluff when i don't hit (and just play standard poker when i do hit).

high NSD winnings come from playing lots of pots in position, c-betting a lot, and skewing your ranges towards hands where you know exactly where you stand (ie: you either try not to see a showdown, or you try to get as much money in as possible)

basically people with higher NSD than SD bluff more. it helps if you're playing a really nitty game etc., both because you win a lot more pots, and because you get looked up a bit lighter (which is nice when you're playing a FR game where no one wants to go all-in no matter how strong their hand).

edit: that's kind of the jist of it, i'll try to post some more stuff on this later

Ya, this is pretty much what I was looking for, how to get into the spots to take down lots of nsd pots. Still interested in hearing from C9, I know he plays 6 max(where I'll be playing)

i understand 6max theory better than i play 6max (because i become too much of a LAGtard when i actually play). i'd say in 6max, it's sooooooo soso soso key to figure out how people play in 3bet pots so u can properly own them. FR is too nitty for people to be really bad in 3bet pots, but in HU and 6max, people will have huge leaks (such as folding to too many cbets in 3bet pots). once u can discover these spots and take advantage, your NSD winnings will skyrocket.

ie: u 3bet the button from the BB with T9s, you know he has a really low fold to 3bet, but a high fold to cbet. now, when you hit, you can often stack him with your concealed hand (obv not 9xx boards, but like Q8xss, etc), and win a lot of pots where he doesn't hit and you don't either. this is mostly what i know from HU play, though.

Yeah in 6max, its certainly feels easier to gain more in NSD pots than in FR, mainly due to the reasons Vanq has described.

Some more plays that will help in NSD are isolating limpers when your in late posistion (thats obv standard), squeezing when your in the blinds against aggro stealers, and also floating looking to take down the pot against weak tight players on later streets. Double barelling is also useful.

Caveat: These plays can be come very expensive and can actually do you more harm in NSD pots when overused or not used against the right type of villain.

FWIW, I suck in NSD pots. I can have like 10k hands were I'll show a positive for this area, but then I can go on like a 20k run were I spew in NSD pots. I certainly don't have real consistency in that area and is something I need to work on.

this is interesting, i never really thought you'd win more when you don't show down. i would have expected most of the winnings would come from loose players calling you down...

SD and NSD are connected, which I think a lot of people don't get. You can't significantly increase one of them without simultaneously losing mostly the same amount on the other one. You can play better, and increase winnings for both columns, but actively trying to skew your game towards one or the other is not worthwhile.

Consider this: The biggest winner in NSD pots is the one who shoves every hand.

We have a winner !! TBH this was something that got me very worked up last year for a few months. Really the whole thing is about balance, worry about your green line and any adjustments/leaks in your game rather than the dreaded "red line of doom and gloom". The red line naturally will be of much much greater importance when you play HU, a little less when playing 6 max, and tbh playing FR on nl$50 and below should be getting as much value as possible out of your big hands, hence you red line should be of less concern than your blue one.

had to ask, what's the green line, red line, etc?

green line is your overall winnings, red line is non show down winnings.

I was wondering about this topic also, i can never get my NSD winnings even to be positive...

Also, vaquish talks about how he generally tries to steal the pot when he doesn't hit but then he more or less says that he gets the opponent to call when he does hit...now i know you can't choose which bets you want the villain to call or fold (unfortunately) but not quite sure how he distinguishes between them, does he mean that he tries to keep a small pot when he misses and make a big one when he hits?? can someone explain?

Mine are nice, especially for FR.......I think!? 2 BI up over 4k hands this month from NSD winnings ^_^ Maybe I'm just too agressive?! Maybe that's not good but I dunno!!?? DKnight, dunno what you're game is like, but try to not Limp-call PF..... or just utilise position as much as you can . What limits you playing?

I think this is kinda a silly debate for the limits you're playing at Inscore. You're not going to be 3-betting light, stealing with any 2 often, or firing double barrels much. For the most part you're going to be playing with weak/passives who go to showdown too often. You should still be playing good solid aggressive poker preflop & on the flop, but I wouldn't think it was weird if your NSD winnings were slightly negative at those limits.

Only if your NSD winnings are significantly negative (so that it impacts your win-rate more than say 25%) would you need to possibly change your game.

I think the most applicable discussion at low limit 6-max is playing in 3-bet pots, and thin value betting. Fish call too much, and they get spewy in 3-bet pots, so you'll want to get good at exploiting those tendancies.

I don't really consider myself to be limping/calling too much, except an occasional limp/call from EP with a low PP. I just moved up to 10nl after about 7k hands of 5nl :\, so it does get limped to me in the small blind so i limp pretty often there. I'm running 19/12/3.7 at 10nl right now, should i be limping from small blind a little less you think?

You're AF is quite high I think? Maybe C9 will know more but does this take into account how much you bet into a pot? If it does then maybe you're betting too much on your c-bets which is causing a negative in your NSD, but like C9 said, it's really not something to start worrying bout too much. DK are you playing FR or 6-Max?

This just isnt true. You can increase your NSD winnings without negatively affecting your SD winnings. All you have to is win some pots that you'd normally fold. Bluff raises, float to steal, etc . . . This is why most people (even most winning players) have extremely negative NSD winnings. They just aren't aggressive enough and give up too easily post flop.

3.7 is a pretty awesome AF anywhere below 400nl i would say

Dsvw - FP said 'significantly'. Whilst I agree that you can improve both to good effect without harming the other. To increase NSD winnings dramatically, will usually have the affect of decreasing SD to some extent.

Define significantly.

to stir the pot a little bit:

-when i started beating 100nl and was moving up to 200nl, my NSD winnings were the highest i've ever seen compared to any winning regular's graph
-my SD winnings were kinda negative

when i was beating 2/4,
-my SD winnings became positive, and my NSD winnings went down a little bit, so that the two lines were like y = 3x/2 and y = 2x/3
-its def possible to get both lines in very favorable spots

just don't go busto b/c ur stubborn imo


(btw, i have now seen wonderboy's graph (its on a different forum i won't mention) and he has the most amazing green + red line combo ever)

sig⋅nif⋅i⋅cant

1. important; of consequence.

would you consider a 0.5BB/100 increase significant?

Like let's say you're losing 6BB/100 in NSD, and winning 8BB/100 in SD, for an overall WR of 2BB/100. Would changing your NSD to 5.5BB/100 without affecting your SD be significant?

all 6-max

I always thought my lines were pretty cool when I played nl25:
25nl.jpg (http://www.cardschat.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=15578&d=1228797855)

Unfortunately since moving to 50nl I suck at the pokers and my SD and NSD winnings are just about equal and neither are that great.

Bluff raises and floats generally carry with them a decrease in showdown winnings. But as I said in the sama paragraph you posted, playing better will indeed net you more money. This is no secret; what people should steer clear of is looking at their NSD graph and go "crap, I must be doing something wrong."

I contend that what I said is true.

I realized that I left something unsaid here:

The feat of bluffing more without affecting SD winnings at all means you're bluffing with a 100% success frequency, which I hold to be impossible over any meaningful period of time. If your way of increasing NSD winnings is to bluff more, then your SD winnings will be negatively affected. Period. Maybe not by as much as your NSD winnings will be positively affected, but then it comes back to playing better and increasing overall profitability. So to suggest that there's a way to increase the one without at all affecting the other one negatively simply doesnt hold.

I think successful bluffing has more to do with the size of the pots won than with success %. You could lose $2 to bluffing 9 times but win $30 with 1 bluff and be +$12 NSDW, but only 10% bluff success.

****
Now for my 2 cents...

I just try to use my graphs to look for fluctuations in my play and possibly find leaks. "Why did my NSDW take a harder dip for 2 days?" "Why did my blue line and red line cross for one day when they usually don't?" "My redline shot up a bit that day, so I guess my c-bets where getting respect." IMO, fluctuations are important because they are usually caused by things like tilt, poor table selection, or even luck.

As far as gauging my overall results or progress with my graphs, I agree with TB. Worry about your green Winnings line and just use the other lines to figure out what affects your total winnings.

EDIT: Here's a graph that really took some analyzing:

1008HemGrph2.jpg (http://www.cardschat.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=15620&d=1228943239)

Oh, sure. But that means that the cost of the failed bluffs will show up in SD, whereas the successful bluff will show up in NSD. The benefit falls on the NSD, but SD takes the downside. Or maybe you were agreeing me; I wasn't sure so I just wanted to clarify.