5K hands

I'm starting to feel comfortable playing at 5NL and the results show in the graph. Sorry Robb ....but I dumped the guide's starting hands around the turnaround point and I have been playing more of a LAGGY game since.Once I move up to 10NL then I'll have to tighten up . stats for the last 2200 hands since the turnaround are


what surprised me was that I'm managing to be in profit in both the blinds .

The major reason for my turnaround in fortunes .....the sweat sessions that I did with Erpel, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank him again. And hopefully arrange some more . It wasn't really pre flop play that I've changed but more in the post flop , selecting tables with fish on them and playing the people rather than my cards. I've identified a nit that multitables who I like to sit just after me if possible, thats why my steal stats are probably so high.

wow man, you might be profitable right now, (5k hands is too small a sample) but seriously running that loose is going to cause you all kinds of troubles.

You need to tighen up a lot UTG. 23/19 is way too loose to be opening. I run 14/11 UTG at 5nl 6-max and I am doing just fine.

Running 44/34 isn't terrible because you are the last to act after the flop, but you can tone it down to ~30/20.

Main point is don't get too in love with playing this loose because you are winning right now, you are quite obviously on a heater (look at the last 1500 hands if you want proof) and its going to level out/go down some time.

Looks like you're limping too many hands UTG and UTG+1 and completing your SB too much? I don't play 6max but running 40/18 on the sb means you'll be playing a lot of crap OOP.

I would just tighten up UTG a bit, otherwise PF looks fine

1500 hands is only like a week of playing if you play leisurely. Plus it's only 10 buy-ins won, congrats but I think it will tone down a bit, but Spenda is always right so...

Oh, and also VPIP does that count Heads up matches too, because the number would be significantly higher and alter a lot of results.

I fully acknowledge that I'm going to have to tighten up early position and probably the blinds but these latest stats have been more a result of becoming comfortable actually betting my good hands and controlling the pot with my poorer hands and trying to table select and seat select well.
I'm aiming to buy into tables at 5$ where hopefully 2 or 3 other people have $10 stacks.I play pretty tight for the first couple of orbits until I can get a feel for what the other people are playing like and hopefully get position on single tablers playing loose passive and multi tabling nits on my left.
Spenda will probably know better , but I think my red line is doing so well because I'm raising the passives with mediocre + hands and blind stealing with virtually any two cards once I've got the players identified.Since they are single tablers ,I'm putting the loose passives (50/5 sort of stats ) down as noobs playing scared money(my first 2000 hands) and pot sized bets scare the hell out of them. I'm taking down lots of 1-2 $ pots which are more than making up for the times I'm having to fold to resistance.
As for being on a heater, quite possibly, last night I had my best table yet taking $5 up to $35 in about 250 hands.Somewhat ironically I think that moving up to 2 tables has benefitted my play,in that I'm now playing looser on two tables so that its a lot easier to find the fold button when I think I'm beaten rather than having been in the single table , haven't had a hand I can play for ages frame of mind and taking second best hand to showdown.
One thing that Robb said in one of his strategy posts has stuck with me though in that I'm trying not to showdown the crap end of my cards. The only cards I'm trying to let my opponents see me playing are the good ones which I'm hopefully trying to get paid stacks with.It gives my other raises more authority against the opponents I'm trying to play against .

I have actually stopped playing at certain times of day in order to sit at decent tables, since i'm waking up at 7 GMT which is like 2 ET and come 9 GMT, or 4 ET, the tables are more or less completely devoid of fully stacked fish. The importance of table selection...

I was wondering how you managed to display only your last 2,200 hands in pokertracker?

go into filters and set a filter for all hands since a certain date .its on a drop down menu button in the session dates section. I tend to be playing 9PM GMT -12

Thanks for that

As for the times I play, I just noticed that there's a period of a few hours were lots of short-stacks join tables and everything becomes nitty. I suppose the vast majority of volume is from the United states so 4 a.m. ET - 6 a.m. ET it's going to be really quiet so you end up with your ss nits multi-tabling drones and Europe's unemployed (me)

I find the best times are probably like 7 p.m. ET - 2 a.m. ET when volume is at its highest and lots of casual players are playing.

Spenda's on the money obviously - tighten up early. And sure, let's get some more sweating going Keith. It's good to talk and think at the same time if playing on few enough tables and it helps stave off some kinds of tilt.

On positions and similar - let me summarise a marathon post I've thought about putting out.

History:
I'd decided I wanted to steal a lot from the BTN, but I didn't want to put in a 4bb bet with a super wide range, so I started doing 3bb raises from the BTN - then the CO - then the SB. Always questioning whether that was solid. Then we had the sweat where Spenda pointed out basically exactly the same thing as solid and I was heartened. Then I found a video by Pokey where he goes into the same principle, talks more about it, and advocates 2bb raises from the BTN.

Principles:
The weaker the range you bet/raise the smaller the size of your bet should be.
The wider the range you bet/raise the weaker it tends to be.
The bigger the (relative to pot) stacks behind the more valuable position is.

When in position you want to play a wide (and weak) range with lots of money behind for implied odds and positional/tricky plays.
When out of position you want to play a narrow (and strong) range with relatively less money behind for simple stack off decisions.

In terms of preflop opening ranges this translates roughly into (6 max assumed):
UTG: Raise to 4bb - any pocket pair, AQ+, AJs, KQs
UTG +1: Raise to 3.5bb - additionally ATs, AJo, KJs, KQo, T9s+
CO: Raise to 2.5 / 3 bb - Any hand with potential (Any pocket pair, any two broadways, any suited ace, any suited king, any suited connector, one gapper, two gapper, three gapper, any offsuit connector and one gapper.)
BTN: Raise to 2bb - ATC
SB: OOP pulls for a a big raise size (4bb + 1 per limper) and a narrow range - folded to SB I'd play a wider range to a smaller raise size (3bb) for blind steal alone. 2bb works from BTN where blinds know they will be OOP - it does not work as well from SB, and as a result SB blind steal may need to accept a bigger bet size and CONSEQUENTLY a more narrow raising range (for stealing).

None of these ranges are intended to be gospel and should of course be varied based on table conditions, but the basic PFR sizes are pretty sound I think and the principles of relating bet size to strength of hand range to width of hand range I think are sound also.

In other words: Your UTG and UTG+1 ranges are too wide.

Let's get some more sweats going.