NL 10 Pf Open

why do you 3bet all of your pairs?

and dont play robotically, learn to adjust to your opponents.

Is it -EV to 3-bet low pairs?

I want to get a full version tracker but plan to use poker money to do it. I am hoping robotic play and table selection can get me to that point

why 3bet low pairs when you can call and hit a set and stack the guy?

When I played NL10 I was playing something like 16/8 and nowadays I play like 30/27. I loosened up gradually, adding a few more hands to my opening ranges and 3betting ranges as I moved up through the limits. You have to be comfortable with it though, you can't just suddenly go from playing 16/8 to 30/27 and expect to see instant success, you're going to get into a lot of marginal situations when you play that loose and you need to be pretty experienced to navigate those situations without spewing away buyin after buyin. I would suggest that you just loosen up a little on the button for now, add a few hands in there like K8o, A2o, 64s, 87o if you're not currently playing those hands on the button and then when you're comfortable with that add some more hands in other positions or a few hands on the button. Don't be scared to try stuff out, you can't make progress if you continually play the same way all the time and never change anything.

Some more things from what you said:

Don't 4bet fold to a 5bet with AK or QQ. When you 4bet people will either go all in or fold, and if you're 4betting planning to fold to a 5bet you're effectively bluffing with QQ or AK preflop which is ludicrous.

Calling 3bets with low pairs is generally bad, unless they're giving you really good odds to setmine or stacks are deep, it's really marginal at 100bb stacks if you're putting in 10% of your stack EVEN IF they have a really tight range, and if they have a looser range it becomes atrocious to setmine.

3betting small pairs is generally bad too, those hands play better when the pot to stack ratio is large since the value of your hand pretty much lies in hitting sets and you want to do that cheaply. They're also generally bad hands to bluff with because you're only going to have 2 outs if you're called and generally you want outs when bluffing. If you're 3bet bluffing it's better to do it with some kind of suited connector or 2 big cards that can flop a decent top pair or decent draw, allowing you to get all in your money in with reasonable pot equity when called and a decent amount of fold equity in a bloated pot, whereas a small pair is either going to flop a set or have nothing the rest of the time.

Playing tight oop is rarely wrong so that's fine, just be more aggressive in position, opening more marginal hands when it folds around to you, 3bet loose openers when you have position on them etc, particularly button vs cutoff or big blind vs small blind. Don't go overboard with it or do it with too many worthless hands though especially since players at these limits generally don't open too loose to begin with and don't fold a whole lot in general, try to be more aggressive vs specific opponents such as standard regulars that open fairly wide but have a fold button.

Oh, also 3betting 88-JJ is very player and position dependant. 3betting JJ is very standard most of the time, whereas 88 is not since it's difficult to get value from worse after the flop without hitting a set in a 3bet pot. You simply won't flop an overpair very often so it's just like with the small pairs where your hand isn't strong enough to play a big pot unless you hit a set.

robot style is pretty good when just starting out

you should be more concerned about your post flop play than your PF play since PF is a single street while the flop turn and river are 3 total streets....
so i never understood why people are so religious about the PF play.

practice getting value...when i used to play 10nl about 2 years ago people call shoves or even full pot bets all 3 streets with such weak hands...
iv seen people flat call rivers with the nuts...iv seen people check check shuv the nuts... if i were u id be 4 tabling and concentrating on getting value and making good folds.


im just saying this because no matter how optimal you play PF, that alone wont make u a 5bb/100 winner. learning how to get someones stack in by the river with a set will.

On June 27 2010 05:17 ToT)MidiaN( wrote: When I played NL10 I was playing something like 16/8 and nowadays I play like 30/27. I loosened up gradually, adding a few more hands to my opening ranges and 3betting ranges as I moved up through the limits. You have to be comfortable with it though, you can't just suddenly go from playing 16/8 to 30/27 and expect to see instant success, you're going to get into a lot of marginal situations when you play that loose and you need to be pretty experienced to navigate those situations without spewing away buyin after buyin. I would suggest that you just loosen up a little on the button for now, add a few hands in there like K8o, A2o, 64s, 87o if you're not currently playing those hands on the button and then when you're comfortable with that add some more hands in other positions or a few hands on the button. Don't be scared to try stuff out, you can't make progress if you continually play the same way all the time and never change anything. Some more things from what you said: Don't 4bet fold to a 5bet with AK or QQ. When you 4bet people will either go all in or fold, and if you're 4betting planning to fold to a 5bet you're effectively bluffing with QQ or AK preflop which is ludicrous. Calling 3bets with low pairs is generally bad, unless they're giving you really good odds to setmine or stacks are deep, it's really marginal at 100bb stacks if you're putting in 10% of your stack EVEN IF they have a really tight range, and if they have a looser range it becomes atrocious to setmine. 3betting small pairs is generally bad too, those hands play better when the pot to stack ratio is large since the value of your hand pretty much lies in hitting sets and you want to do that cheaply. They're also generally bad hands to bluff with because you're only going to have 2 outs if you're called and generally you want outs when bluffing. If you're 3bet bluffing it's better to do it with some kind of suited connector or 2 big cards that can flop a decent top pair or decent draw, allowing you to get all in your money in with reasonable pot equity when called and a decent amount of fold equity in a bloated pot, whereas a small pair is either going to flop a set or have nothing the rest of the time. Playing tight oop is rarely wrong so that's fine, just be more aggressive in position, opening more marginal hands when it folds around to you, 3bet loose openers when you have position on them etc, particularly button vs cutoff or big blind vs small blind. Don't go overboard with it or do it with too many worthless hands though especially since players at these limits generally don't open too loose to begin with and don't fold a whole lot in general, try to be more aggressive vs specific opponents such as standard regulars that open fairly wide but have a fold button.

some pretty good stuff here ,
now i know why i play some hands like i do , midian explained to me ^^
thx

PTR tells me im 40% looser then optimal preflop, 30% more aggresive then optimal on each street and I showdown 40% less then optimal

Thats what happens when it compares me to the terrible regs who pay my bills

brings back memories

On June 27 2010 11:08 TalentedTom wrote: PTR tells me im 40% looser then optimal preflop, 30% more aggresive then optimal on each street and I showdown 40% less then optimal Thats what happens when it compares me to the terrible regs who pay my bills

Ya mine is pretty much the same. It just compares looseness, aggressiveness etc vs the top x winners at those stakes and considering the top winners at every stake below 2kNL play like 18-24 vpip and play 8876876 tables it's actually pretty easy to be a lot looser than them and be correct in doing so.

Thanks for the tips everyone

Overbetting low pairs always seemed like a leak but now I'm sure

Very useful advice midian, I've recently started playing 10nl and those tips will help me out a lot! I do a lot of the mentioned already, but it's nice to better understand why I'm playing some hands the way I do explained to me.
just a question:

What would I be looking to change when I make the eventual transition to 25nl? Should I be expecting the same nitty players and play styles?

Each move up is a pretty small step up in quality, slightly less fish, the regulars are a bit better etc, but the move is still small. 25NL will still have many fish, there will still be a lot of nitty regulars playing 12+ tables just winning money from the fish and losing money to any regular that has half a brain. You won't have to make drastic changes really, if you're winning at 10NL for a decent winrate, you're going to win at 25NL aswell, even if you change nothing. That being said, obviously that doesn't mean you shouldn't try to change things up, you always need to improve, even top players like Phil Galfond, Tom Dwan etc constantly need to work on their game or they'll become stagnant and other players will overtake them.

In short: yes you're going to see the same types of players, but slightly less total fish, slightly better regulars. You don't necessarily need to change anything to win, but you should always be looking to improve anyway. You can do this by posting hands on forums, making poker player friends and talking things over with them, looking over your hand histories in hold'em manager and running equities etc, using pokerstove, watching training videos etcetc.