NL2 - FE at last?

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NewbSaibot United States. May 05 2009 20:03. Posts 4948

Ok so one of the most important aspects of poker is understanding where you are at in the hand. How players react to your bets is probably the #1 way of finding this out, when somebody isnt trying to be creative. I once stipulated that the only way to actually get any info out of a penny stakes villain is if you simply make the bets too big for him to call without having a legitimate hand, i.e. overbetting. Typical poker theory suggest betting the minimum possible to get this information, usually 75% of the pot for most people is enough to get them to give up if they dont really have good odds to hit anything. It also saves us money when we are wrong about our assessment of the situation. Betting less to get the same info is tactically smart. But I have long since believed this is simply not possible using normal poker theory at NL2. Villains calling cbet range is any PP, any pair, any draw, and AJ+. On the turn you can rule out AJ+ and thats it. This range is far too wide for us to ever be able to put villain on anything, since thats like half the deck (somebody do the math for me). This is why it's always said to be imperative that you have showdown value, because too often you cant really put villain on something without the insurance that your hand can win at the same time, in which case it doesnt really matter b/c youre already playing the best hand. As soon as villain calls your strong holding THEN you can start to put him on a range. I.E you have AA and he calls 2 streets on a King high board, villain almost always has the king.

So what kind of leverage must we use to curb villains into playing like you expect at higher limits? Well, if you play hard, and i mean HARD against them, it seems they WILL fold out all but top pair, and OESFD's, and the nuts. They also seem to interpret your strength as a hand you are willing to stack off with, so they frequently shove with TPNK and the nuts, giving you an easy fold, albeit you paid a lot to find out in the process. But so long as you stick to a relatively strong starting range of hands you arent going to be frequently behind on the flop spewing away with "information gathering bets". So now the question becomes how much money are we winning in the long run risking so much to achieve a certain result pending villain will fold. Is our FE through overbetting really worth not playing the top 5% starting hands. Can we ever play a LAG game at NL2 if we simply make it near to impossible for villains to play their rag hands? Well, I think the answer is yes.

I am going to attempt to really fight villains by hitting the POT button every single time I intend to bet. TPTK, OESD, FD, multi-way pots, IP/OOP, etc etc. In fact, I will probably only value bet less when I have the absolute nuts and I dont think villains will notice that my bet size has suddenly decreased (as I have been folding too many people on the turn/river when I hit and they donk out for .20 and I raise to $1.50)

I expect variance will be higher than normal, but nothing that I cant outlast with enough BR to cover the swings when someone is crazy and stacks off with bottom pair. It WILL happen, but not as much as I originally thought.

0 votes

bye now

Last edit: 05/05/2009 20:05

LemOn[5thF] Czech Republic. May 05 2009 20:37. Posts 15163

LAG is possible to be played at NL2 indeed (at least SH), but I don't see any good lag's who would lose time with NL2 -.-

Tight ABC pot pot shove lines with made hands are really the best for NL2, no question.

I don't like the over-betting to find out where I am though, just build your roll and wait for higher limits (You can play normal poker as early as NL5 if you play stars, like 50-60%+ fullstack 200bb guys know how to fold)

93% Sure!

Venrae United States. May 05 2009 21:57. Posts 1545

NL2 is more about learning your hand strength in regards the the board and just bombing whenever you have a strong hand. You cannot hand read on NL2.

Learn to appreciate the value of the dollar. The rest is easy. (Hurricane @ TL)

ShaperofDreams Canada. May 05 2009 22:19. Posts 438

im just a newb but it seems to me like you wont get paid off as much.