K
Kaleiduo
Enthusiast
Silver Level
I play full ring zoom at the micros, and you can absolutely beat them and still read your opponents. Zoom is a grinders paradise and worth putting time into it.
First off, full ring has less players than 6-max. Even while playing only two tables, you still quickly build profiles in your HUD. It's actually incredibly important to use your HUD in zoom, and full ring makes it possible to build player types quickly to exploit.
The games are incredibly soft, full of bad regs and passives and absolute maniacs, you just have to know how to extract maximum value from the player types. You'll want to practice a LAG style though, but that doesn't necessarily mean go hog wild with your opening range! Just play TAG with just a few more hands added to your opening range.
DO NOT CALL UNLESS YOU HAVE A GOOD REASON TO. Calling is death. Calling will put you in bad positions. Calling is weak. Calling takes away initiative. Calling makes things more complicated. This is zoom, not the wsop final table. Call with your small pocket pairs is the one exception and fold if you miss the flop. If you want to open up this calling range, you better know why you are doing so. Otherwise, you should be betting or folding.
If you can't c-bet to the river, what are you doing?! There are too many call stations at these limits not to c-bet them to the river. I am c-betting the flop almost 100% of the time heads-up. I am amazed this still works in this day and age. Sometimes I get min raised and unless I hit the board or have some mega draws I will fold, because I hate losing betting initiative, especially if I'm OOP. Calling is death, calling is complicated, calling causes problems. I want my opponent to call, not me! Depending on flop texture and player type, I will also c-bet all the way to the river, because there are a lot of players at the micros that think the river will save them, when in actuality it very rarely does. And by that point, they have committed 1/3-1/2 of their stack chasing draws that never came.
That said, we should be folding to 3-bets more often. Why? Position! Calling 3-bets out of position is losing play, even with decent hole cards. If we call, we must be prepared to fold if we miss the flop. Being out of position and losing the betting initiative is bad, and worse, complicated. At the micros, we want things to be simple. THEY should call your 3-bets, not you.
You should study players you lose against. I have one player marked in my DB who is an ultra nit, plays AJ+ only, and calls down flops when he should be pushing or 3-betting, but fails to recognize when he's behind against a set for instance. This guy is a bad player, but it's important to know how to beat a player like this. So I have a red box for him - if he's re-raising or just calling every street, then I know it's time to back away if I don't have a monster.
Betting like this means that you will put certain players on tilt and they will target you. Maintain your discipline and make them pay big by playing better cards than them. This is zoom, the good cards will find you soon.
First off, full ring has less players than 6-max. Even while playing only two tables, you still quickly build profiles in your HUD. It's actually incredibly important to use your HUD in zoom, and full ring makes it possible to build player types quickly to exploit.
The games are incredibly soft, full of bad regs and passives and absolute maniacs, you just have to know how to extract maximum value from the player types. You'll want to practice a LAG style though, but that doesn't necessarily mean go hog wild with your opening range! Just play TAG with just a few more hands added to your opening range.
DO NOT CALL UNLESS YOU HAVE A GOOD REASON TO. Calling is death. Calling will put you in bad positions. Calling is weak. Calling takes away initiative. Calling makes things more complicated. This is zoom, not the wsop final table. Call with your small pocket pairs is the one exception and fold if you miss the flop. If you want to open up this calling range, you better know why you are doing so. Otherwise, you should be betting or folding.
If you can't c-bet to the river, what are you doing?! There are too many call stations at these limits not to c-bet them to the river. I am c-betting the flop almost 100% of the time heads-up. I am amazed this still works in this day and age. Sometimes I get min raised and unless I hit the board or have some mega draws I will fold, because I hate losing betting initiative, especially if I'm OOP. Calling is death, calling is complicated, calling causes problems. I want my opponent to call, not me! Depending on flop texture and player type, I will also c-bet all the way to the river, because there are a lot of players at the micros that think the river will save them, when in actuality it very rarely does. And by that point, they have committed 1/3-1/2 of their stack chasing draws that never came.
That said, we should be folding to 3-bets more often. Why? Position! Calling 3-bets out of position is losing play, even with decent hole cards. If we call, we must be prepared to fold if we miss the flop. Being out of position and losing the betting initiative is bad, and worse, complicated. At the micros, we want things to be simple. THEY should call your 3-bets, not you.
You should study players you lose against. I have one player marked in my DB who is an ultra nit, plays AJ+ only, and calls down flops when he should be pushing or 3-betting, but fails to recognize when he's behind against a set for instance. This guy is a bad player, but it's important to know how to beat a player like this. So I have a red box for him - if he's re-raising or just calling every street, then I know it's time to back away if I don't have a monster.
Betting like this means that you will put certain players on tilt and they will target you. Maintain your discipline and make them pay big by playing better cards than them. This is zoom, the good cards will find you soon.
