Adventures into nl10

It seems a little strange to me, there seem to be waaaay more aggressive fish at nl 10. I've been trying to tailor my play to the individual players and am also trying to practice and improve my valuebetting, however sometimes I think that I'm overthinking things and making it harder for myself.

I know that I'm terrible at dealing with 60/40 type aggronuts who 3bet about 20% preflop and raise a plenty postflop, but only if they are the ones betting. It feels like if I just try to wait for a good hand against them I end up spewing mountains of chips folding and when I do get a good hand, they shut down because I cbet or bet the turn and not them. Not sure what to do generally here.

Also I'm not sure how to deal with 10-15% 3bets from some guy in the small blind when I open otb and I'm more likely to just leave the table than to do anything about it in the game itself.

Lastly, I feel really uncomfortable 3betting for value with any of the unpaired hands. Even if I know they will call with worse preflop, if I miss the flop I have no idea whether I am ahead or not and don't really want to cbet bluff into a 3bet pot with A high knowing that they will call with all sorts of random pairs, but don't like the idea of check folding every time I miss either. You just don't hit top (or middle depending on villain) pair that often to make nice value money it seems.

My most hated thing of all is when I raise to isolate a limper preflop, get a call, limper checks so I cbet the flop and get called. We both check the turn and then he bets ~3/4 pot otr. I feel totally helpless to this and it happens a lot.

I think I need to sort out my thought process tbh, trying to remove these kinds of inconsistencies atm. I feel as if it should be simple to see what to do against each villain of a certain type in the micros but I feel confused instead unable to come to the right idea on how to play against them.

Right now I'm playing a mixture of 5nl and 10nl, but hope to feel 100% confident to move to playing 10nl all of the time soon!

Cheers

0 votes

Hey I also play NL 10 and have seen pretty much all of these issues as well. Here's some solutions I've found (which you should take with a grain of salt because I'm playing NL 10, after all).

Against these 60/40 types, just wait for a good hand preflop and then wait to hit on the flop. You'll have to call down looser, though, i.e. top pair is the nuts vs. these guys. If they shut down when you cbet or double barrel as the aggressor, you should consider doing this more w/ air and checking behind to induce bluffs with your nut hands.

Against the loose 3bettors in the blinds, you can try opening smaller from the button (3x or even 2.5x), opening tighter, calling the 3bet wider, or 4betting light. What will work depends a lot on the player.

You can think about it this way: either villain is calling your cbets too much, in which case you can just bet with good hands and valuetown him, or he is calling too little, in which case you should bet more of your air. (If you are cbetting just over half pot, you need him to fold 1/3 of the time to breakeven.) But it is also ok to c/f sometimes.

If your cbet gets called, you should sometimes just give up -- there is no point in bluffing a calling station. But some villains will call almost any flop and fold to further aggression on the turn, in which case double barreling will make you a lot of money.

quit while your behind man

Also struggling at NL10. Wish I was better with HEM filters, but I think I've been pretty successful double barreling the turn a lot. Mostly paired boards and dry boards. It seems like I'm getting tons of floats or weak PP hero calls from villains, but they tend to give up on the turn, I guess because they put me on a better pair. I really try to use timing tells for this. The faster they call the weaker their hand. That plus scare cards on the turn to really send the message they're beat. Now if the flop comes something like KT5, and turn is 2, im not barreling here.

You will have to open your range a lot more at this stake it order to move on. Problem is that you don't get a lot of action if you just sit on good hands. You'll have to play more and take advantage of the fact that people are more tight.

You mention that you hate when people check call you one street and lead out river. This line is pretty standard. Most of the time the villain has a hand like top pair but not always. Usually when you are the preflop raiser you are cbetting most boards so when people call you in position they usually check/call at least one street in order to either float you later or catch your bluffs. When you check the turn back, a lot of guys take that to mean that you are weak, which is most likely true. They generally lead river for value. DON'T CALL IF YOU DON'T HAVE A REASONABLE HAND! People lose a lot of money on their curiosity (I used to be guilty myself).

The biggest secret to beating this stake is maximizing value from your decent hands. I obviously don't know how you play, but maybe I can provide some suggestions.

-If you are in position after raising preflop and hit a hand like top pair, you may cbet and get called. A lot of people get scared on certain turn cards and check the turn and maybe call a river bet if villain leads out. YOU WILL LOSE A LOT OF VALUE IF YOU DON'T BET THE TURN WHEN YOU THINK YOU ARE AHEAD! This includes even when flushes hit. For instance, you hold AK on a flop of AT8 and the turn is a 9 which completes a flush on the board. Villain checks to you. A lot of people get scared cause there are a shitload of draws out there. Don't be scared to bet the turn. If you get called, its very likely villain will check back river so you can check safely and see a free showdown. You don't want to risk losing that potential value bet on the turn.

-People tend to get knocked around by sets a lot. If you see fairly tight regulars flatting your preflop raise and going nuts on low cards boards, you can almost guarantee a lot of them have a set. You may have to muck stuff like KK/AA against specific villains in instances like this.

-When I played NL 5, my default range to get all in preflop was QQ+/AK. AK and QQ aren't going to be good enough here against some of the regs. I'm still almost always 3betting these hands, but if you start getting into 4bet commital situations with deep stack regs, you might have to start abandoning AK and QQ.

-Think logically. People are sometimes going to start getting a little sneakier. You see more check/call check/raise lines. People generally call the flop to disguise their hand and raise the turn for value. Don't fall for these pitiful tricks that people try to bust on you. When a guys goes crazy HE'S GOT IT. DO NOT START THINING YOU ARE GETTING BLUFFED ALL DAY CAUSE IT'S FALSE. Think about why you are betting and what you are trying to accomplish. Try to balance your range a little by cbetting frequently with both bluffs and monster hands. Don't be obvious about how you play.

-Value betting river is essential. You will have to realize that some guys aren't complete tards. If you have a monster hand on a river against some decent reg, you don't want to start jamming pot on the guy if you know he probably won't call. Sure this is excellent against a fish but against a stronger player it's pretty obvious you got the nuts. Vary your value bet sizes on the river in the best way to get a call.


Pretty much all I can think of right now. Just practice understanding what you are doing and why you are doing it, and think really hard about what villains could have.

GL

Sick responses guys, this is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for. I do think I am doing most of this already which is good, but I find that other peoples perspective on the same thing often leads to insights. Just gotta keep improving thought process, always have a solid reason for every action and try to think logically through those trouble spots that I'm having difficulty with. Its just a matter of practice I think.

Oh btw I'm playing 24/21 with about 80% flop cbet (lol), have been actively looking for spots to steal or isolate a limper etc,

something that seems to be working really nicely is if you are on the bb against a limper and you hit top/mid pair with your two crap cards, if you bet like 1.5x bb then most people who are limping will call with anything because its so cheap, and the same goes for the turn and river with small 2bb ish bets. I've been winning a few small pots here and there this way, they almost always have air/bottom pair and just are interested to see for another 20c, but it all adds up.

Gl everyone