My biggest leaks and how to fix them

D

Donkus Maximus

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Over the last 20,000 hands or so of 4 NL I have been doing very well and I feel that I am ready to take another shot to 10NL. The last one sucked- I was beating it by a mere 3BB/100 over about 10,000 hands and was demoralized by a patch of major suckouts, hence the 3BB figure. That being so, I decided to move back down to 4 NL and get my bankroll to a point where I could easily take 10 bad beats in a row at 10 NL and still be well rolled. When the money becomes less significant, I find it easier to make the right decisons.

Another reason I moved down was to find and plug the major leaks in my game. Here is what I found:

(1) Stacking off on TPTK while meeting significant resistance throughout the hand.

(2) Calling with the likes of KJo and A10o out of position and being punished for it- again, an inability to give people credit for a better hand.

(3) Pot control- I need to not overrbet and build massive pots with marginal hands.

(4) Failing to protect big hands- too much slowplaying and bad bet sizing that will give draws the odds to call. Question- If i hit a set and there is a flushdraw on the board, how big should I be betting against a player that I know is drawing?

(5) Situation 4 except the draw hit on the turn and I either bet it or call a big bet when I am likely behind.

(6) Playing too many hands out of position- how tight should one be at 4 and 10 NL when way out of position?


Those are some of the main leaks I have spotted and I am actively trying to fix them. They have improved a lot and my win rate at is now above 10BB/100 over the last 20k hands.

May I ask:
- have any readers had the same sort of leaks? Any tips on hpw to deal with the above?
- Are there any other common leaks that may have but could have overlooked?
- What kind of adjustments should I be looking to make at 10 NL?

Cheers.
 
thepokerkid123

thepokerkid123

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Over the last 20,000 hands or so of 4 NL I have been doing very well and I feel that I am ready to take another shot to 10NL. The last one sucked- I was beating it by a mere 3BB/100 over about 10,000 hands and was demoralized by a patch of major suckouts, hence the 3BB figure. That being so, I decided to move back down to 4 NL and get my bankroll to a point where I could easily take 10 bad beats in a row at 10 NL and still be well rolled. When the money becomes less significant, I find it easier to make the right decisons.

Another reason I moved down was to find and plug the major leaks in my game. Here is what I found:

(1) Stacking off on TPTK while meeting significant resistance throughout the hand.

(2) Calling with the likes of KJo and A10o out of position and being punished for it- again, an inability to give people credit for a better hand.

(3) Pot control- I need to not overrbet and build massive pots with marginal hands. Check lots of turns. Seriously if there was some manual to post flop play it'd be printed in big bold letters on the front: Check lots of turns. It improves pot control, it induces bluffs, it under represents your hand or lets you draw, it counters all of the nut peddling nits and excessive slow playing fish.

(4) Failing to protect big hands- too much slowplaying and bad bet sizing that will give draws the odds to call. Question- If i hit a set and there is a flushdraw on the board, how big should I be betting against a player that I know is drawing? Your bets should mostly all be the same size on the flop, cbet to somewhere around 2/3 pot as standard and add a couple of bb when it's for value and take away a couple of bb with air (against fish, they wont notice) and against calling stations move the bet size up closer to pot size and never bluff.

If the question is how much do you have to bet to make money against their draw, that depends on how good the implied odds you're giving them are but generally as long as you're not paying off overbets or building pots on turns when their hand completes (and paying them on the river afterwards), then you don't have to price them out by much for it to be +EV.


(5) Situation 4 except the draw hit on the turn and I either bet it or call a big bet when I am likely behind.

(6) Playing too many hands out of position- how tight should one be at 4 and 10 NL when way out of position? Very tight. Depends on 6max/FR and how the table is playing but folding OOP is usually most profitable.


Those are some of the main leaks I have spotted and I am actively trying to fix them. They have improved a lot and my win rate at is now above 10BB/100 over the last 20k hands.

May I ask:
- have any readers had the same sort of leaks? Any tips on hpw to deal with the above?
- Are there any other common leaks that may have but could have overlooked?
- What kind of adjustments should I be looking to make at 10 NL? None.


Cheers.

Responses in bold.
 
arahel_jazz

arahel_jazz

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(1) Stacking off on TPTK while meeting significant resistance throughout the hand.

May I ask:
- have any readers had the same sort of leaks? Any tips on hpw to deal with the above?

Cheers.

I don't even have Poker Tracker or HEM and I have figured out that your #1 is my #1 leak. I started backing off of being hyper-aggressive with TPTK and instantly went from a losing February back to where I was in January, placing ITM deep on tournaments. For some reason, maybe because I'm playing micros, I just couldn't give anybody credit for a hand.

Is it arrogance? Or impatience? I haven't figured out which yet. All I know is that when I'm a little (note "a little" means not re-shoving over the top) less aggressive, I end up doing so much better at the tables.


My $0.02... which is more than my current Stars bankroll because I didn't plug that leak fast enough.
 
D

Donkus Maximus

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Responses in bold.

Your advice is much appreciated and I have been applying it. I owe you particular thanks for putting the pricing out of draws in its correct EV context. I guess its up to me now to have the discipline not to pay off when the draw hits.
As it happens, I play full ring. My win rate at 6 Max is slightly higher, but I find I can multitable with greater ease when 9 handed. I get the feeling though that 6 Max could teach more more about poker.

@ arahel_jazz- Do you play cash games too?
 
arahel_jazz

arahel_jazz

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@ arahel_jazz- Do you play cash games too?

I have from time to time, although I'm not even rolled for 2NL properly at this point, so what happens is that I have a good spell, then end up with bad variance and the aforementioned leak that cleans out my BR. This happened to me on Stars this last month playing the 40Bil bingo on full ring.

Starting from scratch at the moment... licking my wounds playing massive freeroll donkaments.
 
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