Where the $$ are at micro NLH

I used to play too many hands. I played sc's, 1 gappers, and other junk. A few months ago, I used PT2 to analyze where my winnings were coming from, which hands consistently won $$ - and how much they won.

The results surprised me, but this is why people say "tight is right." I filtered to 38k hands 10nl 6max, overall win rate of 6+ ptBB/100.

Gross Winnings: $890
Rake: $440
Net Winnings: $450
Rakeback: $133

Overall net poker winnings including Rakeback: $583.

1. Top 8 NLH hands (AK, 88+): $530 won.
Hands: 1500, 4% of total hand dealt (perfect odds say 3.95%).

2. PP's (22 - 77): $105 won.
Hands: 850, 2.25% of hands (perfect odds say 2.71%)

3. Premium Aces (A9+) and KQ: $150 won.
Hands: 2800, 7.4%

4. All sc's and suited 1-gappers: $60 won.

These 4 hand groupings account for $845 of $890. The rest is accounted for by bad aces, connectors and playing other junk from position or in blind vs. blind battles. In difficult hands, that are hard to play. That tend to win small or lose big. So 90% of poker profit is made on easy-to-play, win-big or lose small hands.

Lessons I learned:
1. I would have beaten the game playing only the Top 8 hands.
2. Only 10% of Holdem hands are consistently profitable, and only 8% are consistently profitable from all positions.
3. Playing anything outside the Top10% PROFITABLY requires (A) positional advantages, (B) reads, and (C) experience.
4. 95% of poker winnings come from10% or less of all hands dealt.

There are other lessons here. But if you're a losing noobie player like I was, consider this.

Are you playing only profitable hands in profitable positions? If you aren't, WTF?? Cool

Great post - really puts things in perspective. Thanks!

Great post - really puts things in perspective. Thanks!

I've been thinking about this lately too...

vn post Robb

My first experience came from 200K hands at $5 & $10NL FR... where tight is not only right, it's essential. You'll get creamed at those levels playing loose against nut campers -- winning lottsa blinds and small pots but getting stacked far too often in the process.

Went to 6max and am running 6+BB/100 over 15K hands to date. Yes, can loosen up IF and WHEN your post-flop skills (hand reading, pot control, positional aggression) catch up with your pre-flop skills. Remember that playing 2nd and 3rd tier hands, even in position, give you a much weaker foundation to start you post-flop plan from -- and therefore make for much more difficult decisions.

15K hands isn't sh!t -- but I'm recognizing a pattern at these levels. Steal blinds, poke aggressively and then back off when appropriate, take down small pots opportunistically (usually in position) keeps me ahead of the blinds and maybe contributes a BB/100 or two... The money is coming from the monster hand stack-offs -- and most of those are coming from big flopped hands... QQ+ over pairs, AA-KK PF stack-offs, and flopped sets from mid+ pocket pairs.

Took me about 80K hands to learn that taking people's stacks with monsters every 3-400 hands don't mean sh!t if I proceed to give it all back over the hands in between by p!ssing it away at the margins. But I'm a little dense.... Shocked

I think the main post here can be completely quoted for truth, with the one qualifier that it is true if you want to become a winning player while not being a particularly good player. I think it's particularly valuable to have a post once in a while that outlines how we can learn specific lessons from studying the statistics we have assembled through playing hands.

I've thought a bit about poker the last 3 or so months and played a smallish amount of hands (30k or so) and one of the things I think about the most is how best to learn. I ask myself sometimes how to maximise my learning per hour rather than my earning per hour.

While I am completely convinced that learning a tight-aggressive style of poker is the easiest way to become a winning player I am not convinced that it is the most effective way to learn to play poker. It may well be that the most effective way of learning is in reading and writing forum posts, doing hand analyses and hand reading exercises and picking one poker skill to focus on practicing every time you sit down at a table. It may also be that the most effective way of learning poker while playing is to play loose. But it is probably also the more costly, and anyone considering this should consider if trading earning for learning is going to put them on tilt. For many learning poker players it is only fun as long as they make a profit every month and if they end up having a losing month they might be discouraged from playing again.

On a completely generic level I think there is an argument for introducing risk (lower expected EV, higher variance) if there is a reward (such as faster learning), but it is a delicate decision and it is certainly not wrong for a beginner to learn "tight is right", but there will come a time where the potential of that playstyle will be reached.

I agree with ponyboy!

When the pot starts getting big, you really need to ask yourself what villain has that he wants to play a big pot, then ask yourself if you really want to play a big pot against that range of hands.

I was playing 50NL 6max pre UIGEA and I could run 16/14 and show the same winrate I did playing 30/25

1) I was better post-flop (they were terrible, not saying I'm good)
2) They basically played they're own cards

It doesn't matter if you're tight at 10NL because they're playing their cards, not your image. They might notice you're more aggressive, but they won't relate it to starting hand selection. You can open up and get some experience post flop and reading hands, but opening up (giving action to get action) it won't directly help your win rate at 10NL.

1 exemption is if you have position on a spewy ATM. You can raise almost any 2 for isolation.

theres still so many bad people at 100 and 200nl you can still just table select and make like 100k a year

just play Thurs-Sun eve only

For what it's worth, I ran 21/13 today playing 6 max. I made $250, of that $41 was raising hands other than AK/22+/Tens-or-better-suited on the button.

Once you get to the $1/$2 level online, stealing small pots from multi-tablers becomes a pretty key revenue stream and 55-22 go way down in value as people stop stacking off with one pair in unraised and lightly raised pots.

Also, another reason I play so many hands is that it makes it more difficult for aware players to figure out when I have a top hand. If you run a low PFR, you will get less action on your big money-making hands.

Poker Forum

Join Our Poker Community!

Poker Forum Index

Beginners Circle

Where the $$ are at micro NLH

Poker Forum Index

Beginners Circle

Where the $$ are at micro NLH