how to beat shorthanded mid-stakes NL

when in doubt, raise. Seriously.

since I took a break and started playing semi-seriously again (at least 1h every day, usually playing 7-9 tables):



I feel I can sustain 5+ptbb/100.

Any other questions?

ps, some idiot tagfish moron coolered me at 3/6 hu then hit n ran

the first thing i noticed (besides the kickass winrate), is your flop aggression is through the roof, which suggests that you use a lot of bet/fold and raise/fold lines. can you elaborate more on your general strategy on the flop?

Hmmm, I actually have a lot of thoughts on this, but I'll do my best to keep it fairly simple.

I think it's best to think of it from the top down. I really don't think, to the majority of players out there, that I have a 'solid' image at all. I think a lot of people view me as some crazy, overaggro laggfish that they just can't wait to bust (almost as if they don't realize I know exactly how they are thinking). People drastically overestimate their implied odds while I pick up way too many small/moderate sized pots, even if I'm usually taking the worst of it when I'm allin preflop or on the flop (this is definitely true).

So I think people are afraid to raise me on the flop, knowing I can easily shove an 8 high flush draw and they have to fold whatever garbage they have (since I can easily have a good made hand as well). I think most people play pretty poorly facing light raises on the flop-- they are just too terrified of getting stacked. Always folding air, 3-betting sets/combo draws, and calling with marginal 1 pair hands is just too easy to read and play against if you don't have decent balance.

A much, much simpler and perhaps better way to look at it would be something like this: I feel I can use raw aggression/skill/hand reading ability to win most pots, and when people start playing back at me, I get out. The thing is though, it just doesn't seem like a lot of people at midstakes know how to adapt and play back at you. When you start playing the tougher 5/10 games with a bunch of regs, they pretty much think like me and are constantly putting pressure on you. Some people think thats a good thing but its most certainly not (for our personal winrate).

Good to have you back, Lukie. Thanks for some explanation on your numbers. I'd love to see you elaborate with some HHs of your aggression: both examples of your getting folds and getting all in with 30% equity or less.
How much do you have to have reads on the villain to know if they will fold to those raises or is that determined by stats?
Do you overbet raise much to get it all in on the flop when you have the most equity?

Nice stats and nice post. I would love to see some HHs. Do you think your play would work as well at lower limits? Also, what is the biggest difference between $100-200NL and $400-600NL?

Lukies Super System?

Originally Posted by Lukie

I feel I can sustain 5+ptbb/100.

I believe you.



I disagree about pure aggression being the key though. I find the biggest leak at msnl to be spewiness, not nittiness (at FT at least). I think there are plenty of msnl regulars you can push around on the flop and will fold top pair hands to a big raise or c/r. But I think there are even more who assume you're putting a move on them and will push over. Or call and bet the turn if you check.

I think you could never bluff outside of c-bets in the 2/4 game at FT at be a 2-3ptbb/100 winner long term. (Pure speculation though obv.)

Nice stats lukie. I'd like a bigger sample size (wouldn't we all) but the strategy you speak of rings true to my ears.

Originally Posted by Silly String

Good to have you back, Lukie. Thanks for some explanation on your numbers. I'd love to see you elaborate with some HHs of your aggression: both examples of your getting folds and getting all in with 30% equity or less.
How much do you have to have reads on the villain to know if they will fold to those raises or is that determined by stats?
Do you overbet raise much to get it all in on the flop when you have the most equity?

there's all kinds of ways you can use aggression to get other people to fold... c-betting, 2-barreling, c/r'ing air vs a wide range, raising pre, 3-betting pre, 4-betting pre (in the right spots), etc. Examples of times where I might have 25% or 40% are countless... obvious examples might be bare flush draw vs overpair, flush and gutter draw vs set, shoving A8s over a light 3-bettor pre who happens to wake up with JJ or AK, whatever. all are situationally dependent obviously.

I do use a HUD but I try not to pay too much attention to it. your own image is every bit as important. I generally just assume everyone is your typical tagg until they do something to show me otherwise. Even playing 8 or 9 tables 6max tables, I can keep track of people surprisingly well.

Originally Posted by Deanglow

Nice stats and nice post. I would love to see some HHs. Do you think your play would work as well at lower limits? Also, what is the biggest difference between $100-200NL and $400-600NL?

I prefer to compare the differences between players, not limits. If by lower limits you mean fishier/more passive games where people call too much, you have to adapt your strategy. It's more about relentlessly value betting made hands and not so much about constantly pressuring or playing back at people.

Trust me, I wish I could play in more games like this.

Originally Posted by Pelion

Lukies Super System?

no

I disagree about pure aggression being the key though. I find the biggest leak at msnl to be spewiness, not nittiness (at FT at least). I think there are plenty of msnl regulars you can push around on the flop and will fold top pair hands to a big raise or c/r. But I think there are even more who assume you're putting a move on them and will push over. Or call and bet the turn if you check.

I think you could never bluff outside of c-bets in the 2/4 game at FT at be a 2-3ptbb/100 winner long term. (Pure speculation though obv.)

my SS wasn't meant to be a brag. Actually, yeah it was, but I could have produced better brags.

I disagree with the spewiness part though... I don't see many MSNL regs on stars who are very spewy at all. In fact, I honestly believe if most of them spewed a bit more, they'd be tougher to play. The part about never bluffing is probably correct. It's not really important though. Our objective shouldn't just be to be a winning player, it should be to exploit just about every edge we can get to maximize our winrate. If we have to bluff our way out of a lot of pots, so be it. That said, nowhere do I equate raw aggression with constantly bluffing. One of the great things about working up a bad image is that people give you less respect and you can get some nice, large value bets in when you have greater overlay on the turn/river. That lends itself more to thin, aggressive value betting and less to bluffing.

I'm sure everybody has their own definition of bluffing so it's somewhat arbitrary. If I repop a CO open with ATo from my button, against most player types that's almost surely +EV. If I shove over a 3-bet pre + flop cbet with a gutter and backdoor flush draw, I just see that as a semi bluff. Guy folds x% of the time, I have y% equity against the range I think he'll call a shove with. If I fire a 2nd barrel with overcards, I don't know if I really call that a bluff or not. It doesn't matter a whole lot though. As far as like big hopeless allin bluffs with air or whatever, thats usually just not smart poker.

Originally Posted by SmackinYaUp

Nice stats lukie. I'd like a bigger sample size (wouldn't we all) but the strategy you speak of rings true to my ears.

I would but the domination of high stakes and subsequent getting dominated at high stakes is just too painful for me to bring up on pokertracker. My last 100k or so hands of midstakes (2/4 making up a lot of them) are v. good. 7ptbb/100+, I think. Not sure honestly and I don't wanna check. new leaf or whatever.

I have a couple of questions. First thing I noticed about your stats was that your flop and turn aggression are a lot higher than mine but your river aggression is lower than mine. I make a lot of super thin value bets on the river and I balance that out by bluffing the river a decent amount too. Seems like you probably go bet-bet-check in spots where other players (like me) might go bet-check-bet. Could you elaborate on why, or let me know if I'm just way off?

Also, I really liked where you said that people are just terrified of getting stacked. At 1-2 NL I've noticed some players who seem like they'd much rather lose 4 $50 pots in a row than get stacked once, which I find to be ridiculous because if you get all-in at least you suck out sometimes but if you fold in 4 $50 pots in a row then you lose $200 always. First of all do you find that there are more of this type of player at 2-4 and 3-6 than at 1-2, and second do you have any idea of the psychology behind why people think like this?

Originally Posted by |~|ypermegachi

the first thing i noticed (besides the kickass winrate), is your flop aggression is through the roof, which suggests that you use a lot of bet/fold and raise/fold lines. can you elaborate more on your general strategy on the flop?

The only thing about stats ive remotely cared about is W$WSF% and winrate. Whats the obssession with aggression factor?

Originally Posted by mcatdog

I make a lot of super thin value bets on the river and I balance that out by bluffing the river a decent amount too. Seems like you probably go bet-bet-check in spots where other players (like me) might go bet-check-bet. Could you elaborate on why, or let me know if I'm just way off?

Bet Bet is a stronger line than Bet Check Bet. The easiest to pick off and quite common bluff is the Bet Check Bet line, you get called down on this a lot more than someone who makes the same $ total on Flop and Turn. There's a lot of hands people are willing to go through two streets of betting, but not three. When someone makes a second strong bet on the turn, opponents fear calling not just the turn but also the river and many will fold a large part of their range. These same players would call the second bet on the river though, instead of the turn.

lukie you miss too much val on riv

IMO the biggest leak players seem to have at 2/4 is they're still not very good. Lol it sounds funny but 1/2 consists of a lot of players who know how to take a line but don't have any clue what they are doing. Those regs win and move up, and now they understand the games are looser and aggressive so they make certain moves they have been told to but again they have no idea what they're doing. Because of enough fish they stay, but that's the only reason.

And to those reading this thread: If you say to yourself "Hmmmm maybe I should up my flop aggression, or maybe i should up my aggression in general." Take a step back. Aggression isn't just something you can commit to and do, it's something that comes from analyzing the elements of the game, mostly opponents hand range, your hand range, and your hand.

Originally Posted by IowaSkinsFan

And to those reading this thread: If you say to yourself "Hmmmm maybe I should up my flop aggression, or maybe i should up my aggression in general." Take a step back. Aggression isn't just something you can commit to and do, it's something that comes from analyzing the elements of the game, mostly opponents hand range, your hand range, and your hand.

Really good point ISF. This is a problem I had a year or so ago. I was just betting hoping the villain would fold. I didn't actually think what could he possibly have here and would he likely fold it to further aggression. It was more of a bet and pray approach rather than applying pressure to someone I knew was weak.

Originally Posted by IowaSkinsFan

The only thing about stats ive remotely cared about is W$WSF% and winrate.

I really believe this is the key stat. Your W$WSF number can make or break you. I really looked into all the stats that PT offered, then compared those who are long term big winners( I will classify this as 3.0ptbb/100+), with those who post stats that show they are at XX ptbb/100 over X sample(winners or losers, but there are alot of brag posts and fix my leaks posts out there). The long term big winners have 2 things in common, 1 their W$WSF is above 42% and they all play well out of the blinds and I think it may also be true that these 2 things are very much correalated.

Originally Posted by mixchange

The easiest to pick off and quite common bluff is the Bet Check Bet line, you get called down on this a lot more than someone who makes the same $ total on Flop and Turn. There's a lot of hands people are willing to go through two streets of betting, but not three. When someone makes a second strong bet on the turn, opponents fear calling not just the turn but also the river and many will fold a large part of their range. These same players would call the second bet on the river though, instead of the turn.

You say this like it's a bad thing. Sometimes I can scarcely believe the shit people call me with when I value bet my second pair on the river after checking the turn, which they would've insta-folded had I bet the turn. Why do you think I started playing like this in the first place? That's why I'm asking Lukie if there's some kind of a change at MSNL that makes bet-bet more profitable, such as people perhaps no longer paying off river value bets with 22.

Originally Posted by mcatdog

I have a couple of questions. First thing I noticed about your stats was that your flop and turn aggression are a lot higher than mine but your river aggression is lower than mine. I make a lot of super thin value bets on the river and I balance that out by bluffing the river a decent amount too. Seems like you probably go bet-bet-check in spots where other players (like me) might go bet-check-bet. Could you elaborate on why, or let me know if I'm just way off?

Also, I really liked where you said that people are just terrified of getting stacked. At 1-2 NL I've noticed some players who seem like they'd much rather lose 4 $50 pots in a row than get stacked once, which I find to be ridiculous because if you get all-in at least you suck out sometimes but if you fold in 4 $50 pots in a row then you lose $200 always. First of all do you find that there are more of this type of player at 2-4 and 3-6 than at 1-2, and second do you have any idea of the psychology behind why people think like this?

I think my skill at playing the turn and river are far inferior my my skill at playing preflop and on the flop. That could be part of it. Another part of it is that when you're aggressive on earlier streets, you're not risking as much money but the IMPLIED THREAT on later streets IS there. People also generally have less earlier in the hand... take a 20/15's range on the flop... most missed it... now if he's in a huge pot on the river, that range is narrowed down tremendously. About b-b-c vs b-c-b, it's obviously situation-dependent. Two generic points.. 1, when you pound out the first 2 streets you are putting sooooooo much more pressure on the other guy, if your goal is to win lots of small/moderate pots while putting yourself in position to win a huge pot every once in a while, this is usually better. You might have to face a lot more tough decisions though. 2, somewhat random, people mindlessly throwing out lines like b-b-c or b-c-b or c/r - b - shove kinda behooves me. I don't really get it. It's incredibly rare for a poker hand to have any discussion of pot size manipulation, even though it's one of the most important concepts in NLHE.

Originally Posted by IowaSkinsFan

The only thing about stats ive remotely cared about is W$WSF% and winrate. Whats the obssession with aggression factor?

I'm trying to preach aggression; most won't listen and I might be wrong on a lot of my points anyway. I'm not trying to say your aggression factor should be x. You could raise sets and fold everything else and your AF would look like a sideways 8. That is NOT aggression.

Nowhere have I ever said that my stats were ideal. I'd like to think that my play, as somewhat-represented by my stats, is far more ideal than most though.

Originally Posted by gabe

lukie you miss too much val on riv

probably.

if you could show me an example of a hand where I missed value on the river, that would be great. Since we've logged 25k+ hands together, I hope you have at least one example and you're not just going off a silly river AF # that is likely a bit lower than ideal.

thanks gabe

Originally Posted by mcatdog

Originally Posted by mixchange

The easiest to pick off and quite common bluff is the Bet Check Bet line, you get called down on this a lot more than someone who makes the same $ total on Flop and Turn. There's a lot of hands people are willing to go through two streets of betting, but not three. When someone makes a second strong bet on the turn, opponents fear calling not just the turn but also the river and many will fold a large part of their range. These same players would call the second bet on the river though, instead of the turn.

You say this like it's a bad thing. Sometimes I can scarcely believe the shit people call me with when I value bet my second pair on the river after checking the turn, which they would've insta-folded had I bet the turn. Why do you think I started playing like this in the first place? That's why I'm asking Lukie if there's some kind of a change at MSNL that makes bet-bet more profitable, such as people perhaps no longer paying off river value bets with 22.

yeah most people start getting the hint that a check on the turn doesn't indicate supreme weakness after a certain limit.

another thing to consider is that it's certainly possible, maybe even likely, that in situations like that you might have a higher EV VB'ing 3 streets against horrible players than checking the turn and VB'ing the river, even if on most hands you win less.

Lukie, have you found a big difference between 2/4+3/6 and 1/2?

I dont seem to play well in 1/2 but my results are encouraging at the other two?
As your posting this is thestep from 1/2 to 2/4 big ?

mcat your comment about ppl being willing to drop 4 50$ pots by folding rather get stacked with a semi-strong hand is golden

Originally Posted by Miffed22001

Lukie, have you found a big difference between 2/4+3/6 and 1/2?

I dont seem to play well in 1/2 but my results are encouraging at the other two?
As your posting this is thestep from 1/2 to 2/4 big ?

yes. Keep in mind I play almost exlusively on pokerstars, always have (i know i know).

there's a big difference between 2/4 and 3/6, and a big difference between 3/6 and 5/10.

the idiots that think that 'solid regs' at NL50 could beat NL2k are just so $#&*$)#*(#*&)$#*) wrong it's not even funny. and I only mention that because I've read that a couple times recently. That's not like a "wait, what?" moment so much as an "omg kill me now" moment.

if your results are encouraging at 2/4 3/6 why play 1/2? you might just be running bad there. or maybe you adjust very poorly to softer games.

Originally Posted by Genitruc

mcat your comment about ppl being willing to drop 4 50$ pots by folding rather get stacked with a semi-strong hand is golden

yeah, while his comment was probably overly simplistic, it stood out and I agree with the idea behind it.

Originally Posted by Lukie

Originally Posted by IowaSkinsFan

The only thing about stats ive remotely cared about is W$WSF% and winrate. Whats the obssession with aggression factor?

I'm trying to preach aggression; most won't listen and I might be wrong on a lot of my points anyway. I'm not trying to say your aggression factor should be x. You could raise sets and fold everything else and your AF would look like a sideways 8. That is NOT aggression.

Nowhere have I ever said that my stats were ideal. I'd like to think that my play, as somewhat-represented by my stats, is far more ideal than most though.

I wasn't saying anything about you, what you said was fine. I'm saying comparing stats is pretty retarded, it says very little about how good someone actually is. I just don't want someone to read this thread and go "Wow should really be more aggressive." That thought has nothing to do with being good at poker.

Thanks guys. One of the more informative threads in months. Not saying it's the only one, but it touches on a lot of ideas and concepts worth thinking about and discussing.

Originally Posted by IowaSkinsFan

The only thing about stats ive remotely cared about is W$WSF% and winrate. Whats the obssession with aggression factor?

it's just one of the many numbers to use to compare 2 different game styles. if you wanna get better, you need to figure out where you're different from another player to see if you can imitate it.

like, take Cocco_Bill's stats. over 137k hands at $400NL, he ran 22/12 with F/T/R of 2.5/1.3/1.3. that looks pretty passive compared the stats Lukie or zook posted.

Originally Posted by Jager

The long term big winners have 2 things in common, 1 their W$WSF is above 42% and they all play well out of the blinds and I think it may also be true that these 2 things are very much correalated.

you might be surprised to find out Cocco_Bill had 37% for this stat.

and yes, Cocco ran an amazing 6.8ptbb/100 over this sample.

just being devil's advocate here....

Originally Posted by Lukie

Originally Posted by Miffed22001

Lukie, have you found a big difference between 2/4+3/6 and 1/2?

I dont seem to play well in 1/2 but my results are encouraging at the other two?
As your posting this is thestep from 1/2 to 2/4 big ?

yes. Keep in mind I play almost exlusively on pokerstars, always have (i know i know).

there's a big difference between 2/4 and 3/6, and a big difference between 3/6 and 5/10.

the idiots that think that 'solid regs' at NL50 could beat NL2k are just so $#&*$)#*(#*&)$#*) wrong it's not even funny. and I only mention that because I've read that a couple times recently. That's not like a "wait, what?" moment so much as an "omg kill me now" moment.

if your results are encouraging at 2/4 3/6 why play 1/2? you might just be running bad there. or maybe you adjust very poorly to softer games.

my experience (albeit limited) from 5/10 was that i am definitly not good enough, but then my experience from 1/2+ is not huge as yet, but sure 2/4 seems to have more spots to exploit. hmmm. Thnx anyways.

Your W$@SD% is lower than i expected for someone with such a good BB/100 win rate.

Do you think this is due to the fact that you are often getting it all in pre-flop/on the flop with the worst hand and losing, but more than making up for the times you get stacked by taking down a lot of small/medium pots when people won't play back at you because they are scared you will push?

Originally Posted by |~|ypermegachi

it's just one of the many numbers to use to compare 2 different game styles. if you wanna get better, you need to figure out where you're different from another player to see if you can imitate it.

Unfortunately, I think this is far from the case. There are times when this may be true, but when it is true it involves you figuring out a concept through how an opponent played a hand.
Comparing stats on the other hand will do absolutely nothing. If this is way off, someone please back Hyper up.

Originally Posted by IowaSkinsFan

Originally Posted by |~|ypermegachi

it's just one of the many numbers to use to compare 2 different game styles. if you wanna get better, you need to figure out where you're different from another player to see if you can imitate it.

Unfortunately, I think this is far from the case. There are times when this may be true, but when it is true it involves you figuring out a concept through how an opponent played a hand.
Comparing stats on the other hand will do absolutely nothing. If this is way off, someone please back Hyper up.

Yea I dont agree with that either unless you are doing something really really wrong. If you just finished your first session running 70/30 then finding a winning TAG or even tight-passive to imitate will do wonders for your game. If you pretty much have preflop down though, then its far more about finding concepts to apply to different games/opponents/tables than it is about having an AF of 3 because gabe/Fnord/Lukie or whatever has one.

The generalizations on this forum lately are really starting to upset me.

Since when did poker become a "paint by numbers" game?

Originally Posted by mcatdog

Originally Posted by mixchange

The easiest to pick off and quite common bluff is the Bet Check Bet line, you get called down on this a lot more than someone who makes the same $ total on Flop and Turn. There's a lot of hands people are willing to go through two streets of betting, but not three. When someone makes a second strong bet on the turn, opponents fear calling not just the turn but also the river and many will fold a large part of their range. These same players would call the second bet on the river though, instead of the turn.

You say this like it's a bad thing. Sometimes I can scarcely believe the shit people call me with when I value bet my second pair on the river after checking the turn, which they would've insta-folded had I bet the turn. Why do you think I started playing like this in the first place? That's why I'm asking Lukie if there's some kind of a change at MSNL that makes bet-bet more profitable, such as people perhaps no longer paying off river value bets with 22.

Neither good or bad. You can exploit the situation by thinking about their likely actions based on your choice and deciding optimally. MSNL I have seen people call down some fairly marginal hands. What I've noticed is a lot of people willing/attempting to call down "medium strength bluffs" on non-scary boards, e.g. they put you on AK/AQ and by the turn it's been 10 high with no flush, they will call you down or raise despite say you leading the whole time. What I find is that when I hit a hand on a "non scary" type board, I can value bet it to death

basically I was just saying at MSNL people like to try to call down bluffs a lot more. Bet flop check turn will be tough to bluff on the river, but it could earn you an extra street of value on the river based on the turn check if you do have a hand and you think they have missed

Originally Posted by Lukie

yeah most people start getting the hint that a check on the turn doesn't indicate supreme weakness after a certain limit.

hmm i'm not sure where you got the idea someone was implying it did

another thing to consider is that it's certainly possible, maybe even likely, that in situations like that you might have a higher EV VB'ing 3 streets against horrible players than checking the turn and VB'ing the river, even if on most hands you win less.

you mean that there are enough horrible players that betting hard will net more total even though on average more total players don't call you down because the bad player made you enough profit. Thats a pretty familiar concept of just betting your hands hard, or were you saying something else?

Originally Posted by mixchange

Originally Posted by mcatdog

Originally Posted by mixchange

The easiest to pick off and quite common bluff is the Bet Check Bet line, you get called down on this a lot more than someone who makes the same $ total on Flop and Turn. There's a lot of hands people are willing to go through two streets of betting, but not three. When someone makes a second strong bet on the turn, opponents fear calling not just the turn but also the river and many will fold a large part of their range. These same players would call the second bet on the river though, instead of the turn.

You say this like it's a bad thing.

Neither good or bad.

Anytime you know a players tendencies in a certain situation its very good for you and very bad for them, as long as you know how to deal with it.

Originally Posted by Pelion

Originally Posted by IowaSkinsFan

Originally Posted by |~|ypermegachi

it's just one of the many numbers to use to compare 2 different game styles. if you wanna get better, you need to figure out where you're different from another player to see if you can imitate it.

Unfortunately, I think this is far from the case. There are times when this may be true, but when it is true it involves you figuring out a concept through how an opponent played a hand.
Comparing stats on the other hand will do absolutely nothing. If this is way off, someone please back Hyper up.

Yea I dont agree with that either unless you are doing something really really wrong. If you just finished your first session running 70/30 then finding a winning TAG or even tight-passive to imitate will do wonders for your game.

Good point. Ofc I wasn't thinking on those simple of terms but you are correct.

Originally Posted by IowaSkinsFan

Originally Posted by mixchange

Originally Posted by mcatdog

Originally Posted by mixchange

The easiest to pick off and quite common bluff is the Bet Check Bet line, you get called down on this a lot more than someone who makes the same $ total on Flop and Turn. There's a lot of hands people are willing to go through two streets of betting, but not three. When someone makes a second strong bet on the turn, opponents fear calling not just the turn but also the river and many will fold a large part of their range. These same players would call the second bet on the river though, instead of the turn.

You say this like it's a bad thing.

Neither good or bad.

Anytime you know a players tendencies in a certain situation its very good for you and very bad for them, as long as you know how to deal with it.

I think my comment is misinterpreted without " You can exploit the situation by thinking about their likely actions based on your choice and deciding optimally. " just some pretty bad wording I guess. I post too fast without thinking about how clear my point is sometimes

of course knowing a tendency is good, thats the game of poker -- figuring out others tendencies (you can't mind read but being right 60% of the time about situations even is enough to win) and then acting optimally is basically it