if part 1 can be considered "basic game plan" than part 2 can be called "3 bet pots and exploitation." but really they are pretty much the same thing.
poker can be summarized by exploiting and adapting. a perpetual game of rock, paper, scissors. many games are like this. a popular one being starcraft. wrestling if you've ever done it or know anything about it. mma to a smaller degree.
its like pokemon. if he sends out a charmander then send out a squirtle.
our basic game plan covered in the last post works because it exploits opponents tendencies to make undisciplined calls. i feel as though this strategy should work fine and crush those limits in single bet pots. now onto 3 bet pots.
why 3 bet?
-opponent will call with lots of dominated hands
-opponent will fold a large majority of the time
-you have position and the proper skill advantage to win many pots post flop.
for the most part these are the main reasons to 3 bet a hand. @ micro stakes however opponents rarely call with dominated hands. opponents do however fold a large majority of the time. so what is the proper strategy for this?
something i've never heard anyone else do, that i myself used relentlessly at these limits is flatting AA KK QQ JJ in the blinds all day vs button opens. in my experience button opens are extremely wide and therefore many ppl fold to 3 bets. so why raise AA KK here? they rarely have a flatting range and most likely have a 4 bet range of AA KK themselves. 3 betting AA KK here is not that + ev. what is + ev however is flatting AA KK here against WIDE button opens. they will miss several flops and you can win flop cbets and turn cbets VERY often. to a lesser extent opponents will value town themselves over 3 barrels. and although very rare, you will be able to out cooler many players here with TOP SET. as stated this happens very rarely but nevertheless is an important segment in winrate.
therefore 3 betting hands like KT, A2-A7 in the blinds against a button opens is a good adjustment since they rarely flat and only 4 bet nuts.
wait so my 3 betting range is polarized to only garbage handS? my answer to that is pretty much. there are obviously always exceptions. but for the most part i 3 bet bluff almost exclusively @ nl50 and below.
squeezing
-squeezing is when you 3 bet an opener and a caller.
so given that the original opener is somewhat late pos or has a wide range what are good hands to squeeze here? take a moment to think of a range that most exploits this. (there are multiple right answers)
-strong top pair broadway hands still have value in FLATTING
-medium pocket pairs like 99-JJ still have value in FLATTING (can flop overpair/set)
-small pocket pairs that you will often fold to a cbet like 22-55 have more merit in 3 BETTING.
-decent broadway cards that have KICKER problems like QJ, KJ, KT, AT, AJ, A2-A7, etc have more merit in 3 BETTING
i don't think my game is anything special and by no means is my range suggestion here the ultimate guide or say all. it is just my preference and my comfort zone over playing many hands @ micro stakes.
final note about AK.
its the nuts. or is it?
most lpers will prob be disgusted in my suggestions here AK is the most over played hand at micro stakes. the fact that you have blockers to AA KK and are flipping with QQ often makes it profitable to ship in at higher limits. however shipping AK against nits @ micro stakes is not a good idea. you will very often see AA and KK. i remember when i played micro limits i was happy or relieved to see QQ's. ducy this is a problem?
AK makes VERY strong top pair hands Kxx Axx board that you will get LOADS of value. i don't mind calling AK in the blinds 3 way or on the button 3 way. there is SO MUCH value in flatting dominating weaker kickers.
final note 2: reads
- you usually need only basic reads the 2 most important ones in my opinion is barreling frequency and calling frequency.
1-barrel monkeys (they cbet all flops and only 2 barrel with strong draws or top pairs)
- my personal favorite, exploit by calling with anything on the flop and fold weaker hands to a turn barrel. bluff or bet river when checked to. or? c/r the flop often (try figuring out a decent range here)
2 barrel fiends
- flat stronger hands like AA KK and AK. when you flop a good hand like an overpair a strong top pair hand or sets, just c/call 2 streets or c/r turn. or c/call turn bet river small to induce.
calling stations
-check back med pairs and A highs. (although once you get better you can actually vbet both these hands with proper reads)
-barrel strong pair hands
gl to you. obviously i hope my short guide can help you some through some of the specific guidelines, but
-do read other guides
-do constantly think about poker (ranges, exploitation strategy, potential future leaks in your game against stronger opponents, reads, how to get reads, what one hand showodown may say about opponents overall game plan/strategy/way of thinking.
the following articles didn't help me much till much later but i think these were pretty well written and informative (in order of what i think to be most important)
Is what I said today when I flopped my first set in 9k hands in a three bet pot with 55. Me and villain are 230bb deep. "Unbelievable" is what I said at the end of the hand when we got it in on the river after he turns a set with 99. Two other funny hands:
I 3 bet button with 55 - he flats - Flop J46r - I cbet - He flats - Turn 5 - I c/shove and he shows 78s.
I 3bet light with A5s - 50bb SS cold calls - flop 456 - I shove - he shows 45s. Who cold calls 1/5th of their remaining bankroll with 45s?
I'm looking for a few people who plan on making a career out of poker to discuss the game with on a higher level. If you would like to discuss this further pm me or hit me up on aim at chibuzo21.
I've been looking forward to the miniFTOPS for like a month now, basically since the FTOPS started running and I didnt have enough of a BR to play. So I'm getting ready to 1 table event 1 all night while working on some homework, and my computer starts flickering and shuts down. This is at about 3pm EST. I try everything to get it to work for the next 3 hours, I open it up and everything and nothing works. I go to my schools computer lab and try to install FTP and it wont let me install anything. Now its 10 mins before the tourny begins and I had to pay one of my basketball teammates $10 to deliver me his laptop so I can play. Do you think they will make a movie about this when i win?
Been trying to incorporate body language in my live poker games recently, just because I feel there is some slight edge to be had here that I've been ignoring all this time. I've always been a strictly "range find" type player, you know like observing previous hands and how they were played to determine your likely holdings, because all my experience comes from online play.
Anyway I raise KQo and get flatted by the SB. Flop comes K86ss and I'm holding 1 spade. Villain checks I bet and he snap calls. I put him on a flush draw, likely the ace high flush draw, or maybe just Ax that he doesnt feel like folding. Turn brings a non-spade ace. He insta-overbet jams allin, like 60BB's into 20BB pot.
I had only observed about 10 showdown hands from him, and every time he had something decent he was fixated on the board with lasers coming out of his eyes. I tend to notice this a lot with players recently. I assume because they are concentrating on the value of their own hand, checking the flop 100x per second to make sure they have what they think they have, etc etc. But not this time, this time he was all over the place. He was very non-chalantly looking about, not really caring about the board at all.
Now I know Caro says a disinterested player probably has the nuts or whatever. And in general I have found this to be the case as well. But I mean cmon, going from always staring at the board to doing something completely different? It's gotta mean something AMIRITE?! I decide to be a hero and call my whole stack off with 2nd pair entirely because I thought he was bluffing. He turns over A3s for the combo nuts and I fail. Funny thing is, I put him exactly on a hand like this when I broke it down like I normally would without trying to spot tells on people, and would have very comfortably folded. I then abandoned everything I knew about him based upon one instance where his body language shifted because I thought I had a tell. And in a way I did I guess, I just misinterpreted it.
Moral of the story? Online players are much better than live players for a reason, and accurate hand analysis is vastly superior to live "tells".
Now there's one other FPS'ing reg that I simply KNOW is bluffing when he stares at you. Lets see how much I pay to find out!
Yo I plan on buying a new gaming pc soon but I am worried about the electrical system in my house. The thing is, both my room and my brother's room both share the same ciruit which keeps getting turned off by the circuit breaker everytime I plug in this electrical heater which uses around 600W. Seeing how the power supply of a gaming pc can draw up to 600W I'm worried that if I were to use my new pc while my brother is watching tv/playing on his comp etc. I'm worried that the new gaming pc will also keep causing the circuit breaker to keep turning off our circuit to prevent overheating or whatever.
My mom is pretty anal when it comes to wiring around the house, seeing as a simple solution might running an extension cord to my sister's room which utilizes a different circuit might help but I'm not sure, and I'm sure my mom is going to start bitchin about an extension cord running through the hallway + my dumb sister is prolly going to keep tripping over it the whole time.
So I guess I'm wondering what can be done about the situation. Does this require a electrician to add a new circuit or do x,y, or z ?
And it was
I've been thinking about attempting to reach supernova next year. To help better my chances, I thought I'd try to increase tables to 12. Decided to experiment at 20-50bb .25/.50 PLO. Games were very good and very suitable for mass tabling. Not too many difficult decisions at lowstakes shallow PLO.
This was basically my first ever attempt to play more than 6 tables of a cash game though, and it was quite overwhelming. I'm not using table ninja or AHK. I still managed to play 20vpip and tried to pay attention to game dynamics + player adjustments as much as possible. Also my first time playing stacked so it was weird not being able to see the results of my hands immediately, but that's probably a good thing for PLO.
Based the rate from today, I estimated I need to play about 44 hours a month to make supernova 12 tabling shallow stack 50PLO. Less if 100bb, and less if I move to 100PLO.
So i am living in some apartments in Tennessee and I signed a 13 month lease back in October. Which means my lease was up on November 30th but when I went to give my keys back to the office they told me they never got my 60 day termination notice and I had to pay them 2 more months rent. I had never heard of a tenant having to give the apartments notice if they had a lease for a fixed period, however when I went back and looked through my lease it was there. Ive been looking online but cant even find anything where people are even talking about 60 day termination notices from tenant to landlord. Anyone with legal knowledge know if this even legal or where I could find out if it is? All of the legal hot lines around where I live all seem to be for the landlords and wont tell me anything.
beating micro stakes my abridged short guide pt 1by mnj, December 07
basically making this guide because i had a pretty tough time getting up here and there and just wanted to make it a little bit easier for those willing and those dedicated or dumb enough to try out online poker
this assumes some minimal knowledge of poker. i also want to get across that i am not really an ass irl but i feel like the advice that must be given should be given as an ass.
so you've been playing micro stakes poker for however long. who cares. yea you're probably a break even player who can do fancy stuff like 3 bet bluffing and floating. but look at where it's gotten you. no where. play for days and days and days just to be a break even player. lol.z.
at nl 10- nl 50 everyone has a hard time folding preflop. including you apparently. it's simple game theory really. it's simple rock, paper, scissors. the opponents you face have an unbelievable retarded urge to call any 2 pf, and with any pair on the flop over multiple streets. ENGRAVE THIS IN YOUR MIND. how do you counter this? by raising suited connectors? lol. by incorporating a wide 3 bet range? lol. by bluffing? lol. by completing your ranges with balance? lol. by opening a really cool range on the button like J5o? lol.
stop playing retarded hands and just play strong broadway cards. some large percentage of the time like 80%, you are going to show a pair @ show down. it's important that these are quality broadway cards that can get value over 2 streets.
seriously why do you <3 suited connectors? because you can flop a pair of 7's with 78 on K73 board? are you gonna barrel that? so you can flop a flush draw loL? and barrel some flush draws to the river against calling stations?
the point of poker isn't to be cool, or unexploited or to feel like a man when you 3 bet. it's to win some fucking monies. who cares how you do it? who cares how polarized your ranges are? who cares how transparent your strategy is? if it works it works and you never have to move to lvl 2 play. just stay @ lvl 1 till someone else adapts or adjusts.
no one will. if they would have they wouldn't be playing micro stakes
a few random tips:
+ bet big and close to pot for value. usually ppl are gonna click call or fold w/e the bet size
+ call in position with as many pocket pairs as possible. 99-QQ can often flop an overpair as well as sets. sets at this lvl are wonderful considering how you will get paid by a variety of hands.
+ when you have the nuts on the river sometimes it will be hard to get stacks in. don't be silly and overbet jam. it is ABSOLUTELY crucial and important that you get good value on the river when the pot is inflated. mistakes post flop are magnified. ie you have AK on an AK355 board. the pot is about 50bb (you have 25 percent of your stack in). betting 35-40 bb is much better than shoving and potentially pushing a fish away. (although a fish prob calls here, not the best example but the point is to TRY your HARDEST for 3 streets of value. VARY bet sizing). A large percentage of your profits and winrate will come from good river bets. Consider the pot until the turn. you've seen 4 cards and you've only invested about 25 bbs. so even if you make mistakes on the flop/turn when you make a mistake on the river it can cost you 35-40 bbs. and these mistakes will be made by your opponents usually in the form of CALLING.
also if someone is giving you a hard time in general pick up your money and leave. don't have a dick waving contest with someone through the internet. and if you ARE going to stay because your actual poker skills probably suck, folding preflop is most likely a small mistake and calling and seeing flops tends to be much bigger mistakes. (mainly because aggression/initiative is unbelievable strong in poker. even over aggro tards can win a decent amount if no one adjusts)
so basically learn to vbet. and know when to vbet. and know how much to vbet. and then go learn some more ways to vbet. and completely forget about bluffing. ever.
I moved out of my house over the weekend. With my two mates. About 15 mins walk from the beach. The summer is here so it should be awesome.
GOt my own room and queen sized bed, hope to bring few girls back here, haha.
In other news my 6 months probation is finished at work. So now I can slack around and not get fired. Should be cool. Job's ninetofive and gest boring sometimes, but its starting to kick off, so hope it wil get interesting soon.
Also going to thailand over christmas holidays for two weeks, should be a blast.
Anyways. HAve a good one everyone, next blog with pics yea.
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