Getting Destroyed at NL5 SH - Need Help!

After deciding to move to cash after some brutal sng variance I beat NL5 FR at 6BB/100 hands over a 30k sample. My roll was sat nicely at $210 and I decided to play 6 max, I figured this would only improve my game and set me up nicely to start moving up the limits once my roll hits $300.

I watched a ton of video's and read all the strategy articles I could find but got my backside well and truly handed to me. My all in EV line is about $45 below my expected all in performance so that amount at least is down to me being all in with the best of it and getting beat. The problem is, I'm not only $45 down, I'm $90 down and I've not even played 5K hands yet.

It seems that everytime I show down a hand I'm showing down second best which is making me fold a lot of top pairs and two pairs when I've likely got the best hand.

One side of me says "Just go back to NL5 FR and forget it" but I can't because if I can't beat NL5 6 max now I must have massive leaks which will be exposed once I move up the limits so I'd rather just get this sorted now!

I'm in work now but have PT3 at home so please tell me what you need to see in order to help me with my game... I'm in desparate need of some advice before my BR goes pop and I refuse to stop playing 6max micro stakes until I am consistently beating it.

Any help will be much appreciated.

post hands where you're not sure what to do, post your positional stats ( include VPIP pfr ATS AF maybe AFq WTSD W$SD 3bet% fold to3bet%)

Is this enough stats?

I'm sure you will all find lots of leaks so please hit me with them, I know I need to improve my whole 6 max game so am ready for a pasting.

Your sample has fewer hands in it than I played yesterday.

Imagining these stats happen to be like what you were aiming for:

Steal more. You can run 50% RFI from the button quite profitably. Loosen up a touch from all positions, except maybe the sb. You're perhaps showing down too light, but that takes a long time to converge. 3bet from the blinds more. Flat call less from the BB. If you're in the BB blind, and there is only one limper in the pot, raise them with the same range you'd raise from the button, were this player in the big blind. Against most players, the small amount you loose doing this preflop, is well made up for from cbetting.

It looks fine though, really. I'd be suprised if this strategy didn't make money over a decent sample, and not an afternoon's worth, like you've posted here.

Get laggyer, put in more hands.

heres my 10nl stats for this month. You can see i'm laggier , steal more , fold to 3bets more (I think at 5nl you should probably be folding even more as its much more likely to be QQ+ AK that are 3 betting you whereas 10nl 3betting gets a lot more prevalent than at 5nl and you'll find more smaller PPs and AJ and worse .

Thanks very much for your replies.

So basically, for the time being, apart from loosening up a little on the button and being more aggro in the BB to one limper I don't need to change anything?

I know it's a small sample size but losing so much so quickly scared the shit outta me lol

I'll stick at it then and see how it goes.

A quick question, what BRM do you guys suggest for micro stakes 6 max? I should probably move down to nl2

neither of you fold enough to 3b's.

OP, def open up in LP. obviously fiddle with attempting to steal like more than 2x's as much as you're doing it, both OTB and in the CO. less obviously, iso limping fish when you have position on them A LOT. if they're fit or fold fish, iso them for 4bb's with any hand that has potential (76o, 75s, etc), and take it away on like any flop. if they're complete station tards who call down 3 streets with any piece of anything, then iso them for like 5-6bb's with any hand that has top pair potential (J7o, etc), and vbet vbet vbet.

your AF is quite huge. not much general advice i can give on this, you'd have to post hands. probably the best general advice i could give you on this is to know before every time you bet whether you're betting for value or as a bluff.

finally, post hands

Originally Posted by Wurble

Thanks very much for your replies.

So basically, for the time being, apart from loosening up a little on the button and being more aggro in the BB to one limper I don't need to change anything?

No no, I didn't quite mean that. Those are just the two things that immediately jumped out at me. I'm sure you do many more things poorly :->.

As another poster says, isolate more. Against average blinds, isolate any limper with >50% fold to cbet, if you think he'll fold better than say 40% of the time to your isolation. Doing so shows profit without winning a showdown.

The cut off is different, and a way weaker position, but on the button, against middling opposition, just go nuts. Even weak opposition will begin to adjust if you do this 100% of the time, so just skip the worst hands. The Jack 4 offs, or T5s, etc. Other than that, pound on them, avoiding doing so more for game flow, than hand weakness.

Really, it's the same situation, when up against 1 limper in the BB - having to play out of position is somewhat made up for by only having to fold out 1 opponent. However, isolating from other positions, or against multiple limpers - in my opinion - should be either a semi-bluff, or a value bet. You're doing it with hands that have strong potential, or are already strong, but never as a pure bluff... well pretty much never.

Originally Posted by Wurble

I know it's a small sample size but losing so much so quickly scared the shit outta me lol

I'll stick at it then and see how it goes.

A quick question, what BRM do you guys suggest for micro stakes 6 max? I should probably move down to nl2

I recommend being way over rolled for what ever level you feel most comfortable playing.

For me, I guess that's about 10NL. I have $400, and I know that with that $400 I can play 10 NL, and take terrible swings, and I will never ever go broke, and I will eventually grind up more money. Anything I have over that 400, I use to take shots. I could even take reckless ones, if I wanted to. I can afford to do this, because I have the comfort of knowing that as long as I have my 400, I can go back and generate infinite, slow, comfortable money.

Also, if you take a bad run, drop down just for the sake of it, regardless of how well rolled you are. Everytime I drop 7 buyins below my highest ever point, I drop down a level, and I've climbed 2 buyins back. This keeps my mind on the task of analyzing hands.

Really, bank roll management has more to do with managing your personal psychology, so the right techniques are specific to the individual.

OK, thanks for all of the advice... I'll put it in to practice at NL2 SH and see what happens.

I think my biggest problem is pushing bluffs too far or firing that 3rd barrell when I've not hit my 8+ out draw. Whenever I show down TPGK I seem to be running in to 2 pair or better and another thing is being called all the way to the river just for villain to find just the card they needed... of course then they shove and I'm too much of a donk to let go of my 2nd best holding

pushing bluffs too far ties in with your high aggression frequency,but maybe you should be questioning if you are bluffing too much. Bet sizing may be a problem as well but you'll need to post hands . If you're getting raised on the turn or river you need a good reason to be continuing with the hand , top pair usually isnt a good enough reason especially when draws may have completed .

Originally Posted by Keith_MM

pushing bluffs too far ties in with your high aggression frequency,but maybe you should be questioning if you are bluffing too much. Bet sizing may be a problem as well but you'll need to post hands . If you're getting raised on the turn or river you need a good reason to be continuing with the hand , top pair usually isnt a good enough reason especially when draws may have completed .

You're right about my AF, It's generally when I've got a good Ace, if I don't hit I c-bet as standard, if called I'm often firing a second barrel which in itself is probably ok because I seem to take a lot of pots like that, it's when the second barrel is called and for some stupid donkified reason I fire a 3rd which inevitably is a big ol' bet and then that gets called... oh dear.

On top of that if I have TPTK but there is a draw out there I bet hard so they have the wrong odds, the turn is a blank and I bet big again... The river comes and of course it completes the draw or gives them their Ace or whatever, they shove and I donk call knowing I'm beat... It's silly.

This is the first time I've really analysed my game, in FR I don't make these mistakes, maybe because hand ranges are easier to read and I'm playing less marginal situations.

I've played a few K hands at NL2 today and am up nearly 20 stacks, I've been concentrating on these two rather big leaks and it's paid dividends already.

your hole cards are probably literally the last consideration in whether or not you fire more than one barrel (after stack sizes, reads on villain, ranges, board texture, position, etc), considering the whole purpose of bluffing is to not make it to showdown, and even so "good aces" are not the type of hands that would receive my preference for two reasons:

1. i would prefer a hand with more clean outs like a gut shot, or even bottom pair which has 5 outs to trips/two pair (whereas a good ace has 3 outs to top pair).

2. A-high very often has showdown value, especially when you have position and you're already at the turn (or further) against a fish. in fact, one reason why you may have been kind of accidentally showing profit by "bluffing" with these hands for long enough to make it a habit, is because you may have barrelled it and accidentally gotten more value out of the winning hand sometimes. it isn't uncommon for me at alllllll to bet something like AQo that missed the board for two streets for value.

just reread my first post itt and realized that point #2 directly correlates to my closing point in my first post, so *pats self on back*

Originally Posted by surviva316

your hole cards are probably literally the last consideration in whether or not you fire more than one barrel (after stack sizes, reads on villain, ranges, board texture, position, etc), considering the whole purpose of bluffing is to not make it to showdown, and even so "good aces" are not the type of hands that would receive my preference for two reasons:

1. i would prefer a hand with more clean outs like a gut shot, or even bottom pair which has 5 outs to trips/two pair (whereas a good ace has 3 outs to top pair).

2. A-high very often has showdown value, especially when you have position and you're already at the turn (or further) against a fish. in fact, one reason why you may have been kind of accidentally showing profit by "bluffing" with these hands for long enough to make it a habit, is because you may have barrelled it and accidentally gotten more value out of the winning hand sometimes. it isn't uncommon for me at alllllll to bet something like AQo that missed the board for two streets for value.

I'm not sure I've particularly shown a profit to make bluffing a habit, I don't know what it is but all of a sudden when I started playing 6-max I turned in to an uber donk... Not necessarily with my starting hands, I play fairly tight, probably too tight for 6max but for some reason once I start firing bets I get it in to my head they are going to fold when quite often they've hit and I'm about to blow my stack for nothing.

I read so many articles and watch so many video's I really should know better.

I don't fully understand the whole betting for value thing, I see people mention it regularly but don't yet get it. I assume it's about getting money in to the pot while ahead but generally with A high I don't ever feel I'm ahead. It's probably a mistake but unless against only one opponent I tend to think someone has hit something and so I try to push them off whatever it is they've hit provided I feel I can. The problems start when my 'feeling' is wrong (quite often so far in 6max).

Too small of a sample size to really come to any conclusions.

at first i was like ZOMG STAX IS BACK

and then i was like oh

At first I was like "I'm going to go give useful advice in this thread"

Then I was like "shit"


Ps - No offense to you OP. Sound like you are hear to learn. Was just stating that sample size was too small to really give much advice.

Originally Posted by surviva316

your hole cards are probably literally the last consideration in whether or not you fire more than one barrel (after stack sizes, reads on villain, ranges, board texture, position, etc), considering the whole purpose of bluffing is to not make it to showdown

I don't think you put much thought into this considering you need to see your hole cards to know your equity.

Originally Posted by XxStacksxX

At first I was like "I'm going to go give useful advice in this thread"

Then I was like "shit"


Ps - No offense to you OP. Sound like you are hear to learn. Was just stating that sample size was too small to really give much advice.

lol well thanks for taking a look anyway. I am here to learn and once I have a bigger sample I'll post my stats again

Don't wait for that. There's more to life than statistics. Rather post a hand that confuses you and be eloquent in spelling out your thought process at each point in the hand. Why you chose to do one thing rather than another. What you thought your opponent could possibly hold considering the way he had played. What you think your bet or check or raise was likely to accomplish against the various kinds of hands your opponent could be holding. Why some actions would be likely to be more profitable and others less profitable on average. Etc. Everything you can think of.

And if you're lucky people will helpfully point out where and why you were stupid to think that and ask you ten or twenty more questions that you should have considered yourself and thought of the answer to before making your decisions.

It truly is the way to learn.