ITH Poker Forum

[philhux]

In my dreams I am a solid winning player at 200 and 400nl who plays tournaments only on Sunday. It keeps constantly burning me out playing tournaments several days a week in a euro timezone.

I used to be a cash player and that's how I build my roll. But that was Limit and was also pre UIEGA. I did play some 200nl back then on Ladbrokes and did ok considering I was a terrible player back then.

So I decided the time was right to finally try and learn to play cash games rather than just random dabblings. As limit is pretty dead and I've never taken to PLO, it seems nl cash is the only answer.

I will be playing 6 max nl on Stars. I will start with 100,000 hands at 100nl, playing 6-10 tables at once full stacking. I will do my best to gameselect some and I will also be watching some training videos. Nl cash is much more transferable to MTTs than Limit cash and hopefully it will improve my MTT game in the early stages also. I have a good friend here in Berlin who is a 200nl/400nl pro, so I hope to get some advice from him also.

So far I've done ok and don't feel like too much of a fish. It almost feels like leaning to play poker from scratch all over again, having to play 100bbs deep and over and having to play through the streets, rather than just knowing reshove ranges.

I'll use this thread to post my progress and frustrations

[Fenris78]

Yeah, cash games are a completely different beast than MTTs. Most of all, you have to learn turn and river betting. I noticed that in MTTs player check back the turn with the lead so much more often compared to cash games. You will probably notice a ton more barreling and defending your blinds against good players becomes much more painful. Also, learn 3betting in position and how to play 3bet pots 100BB deep. That's where the money is made. If you like I can take a look at your stats when you played a reasonable amount of hands to look for possible leaks in your game.

[philhux]

Thanks man!

Only played 10k hands so far but I am up $877 so far plus rakeback and feel like I'm learning and improving I go. I guess I want to play at least 50k hands or maybe even 100k before I start analysing my stats?

It is interesting you mention checking back the turn, becuase I do that a lot. I think it is a tournament players mentality to avoid being put in tough spots with your tourney life on the line and just take the least risky option whilst at the same time giving up value. Obviously this doesn't matter in cash because you reload.

[Fenris78]

Yeah, 50k is the absolute minimum to start seriously filtering your database for leaks. And turn and river betting is usually the most important part of the game. That's where the bets get really big and that's where you can really make money. And by checking back too many turns and giving up the initiative you often end up in river spots where you have to play a guessing game when villain bets, which is never a spot where you can expect to make a lot of profit. Of, if you bet the river after checking back the turn, villain gets a pretty good read on your hand strength and can now play his hand pretty well. But we'll see what your turn agg% and cbet% will look like after a couple of 10k hands and then take it from there.

[philhux]

Slowed down my volume quite a bit lately but done a few sessions. My win rate has dropped as it should and I'm still running above ev - but the sample size is still very small - ~20k hands or so...

I'm playing on stars at the moment but might change that. There are a lot of regs but still some fish around. So I guess one thing I'm trying to learn to do is categorise the regs and work out how to take advantage of them, whilst at the same time trying to have at least one fish at the table.

I am prone to spew a little preflop but thinking people are making more moves than they are, so I'm trying to rein that back in.

My three bet rate is 10.5 which I also think is a little too much.

[poker_Elmo]

Just saw this thread. This is fascinating. As someone who gave up cash games after finally being convinced I'm a losing player in them (at least the stakes I can enjoy), I will be fascinated to see your thoughts on the biggest challenges you face to beating these games as you progress through your quest.

GLGLGL

[Llanlad]

I watched a CR 6 max video today at $400nl ...

I was quite surprised how much the regs would play for stacks with top pair medium kicker type hands .. they seemed to throw buy ins about like it meant nothing ..

Look borderline spew to me ..

[mconstab]

I
Look borderline spew to me ..

It would be at 100NL but not at NL400 I'd assume, games are super aggro.

[Fenris78]

I watched a CR 6 max video today at $400nl ...

I was quite surprised how much the regs would play for stacks with top pair medium kicker type hands .. they seemed to throw buy ins about like it meant nothing ..

Look borderline spew to me ..

Are we talking about 3bet pots or single raised pots? Steal situations, aggro history? Very aggro villains?

Usually even the wildest regs aren't stacking off with TPMK in a single raised pot for no reason. I have notes on a couple of LAGs who might go crazy postflop, but as I said that's definitely not the norm.

The only thing I could assume without knowing the vid you are refering to, is that the coach played a really LAG and aggro postflop game and he encountered other LAGs who started going crazy with weak hands post flop now. But it's definitely not the norm to play TPMK for stacks. In 3bet pots in steal situations though, you will have to stack off with TPMK unless your opp is a total nit, which is kinda rare.

[mconstab]

There's probably a good chance the vid was from Nxtwrldchamp if it was 400NL and I know you've played a lot with him Fen. I watched his most recent vid a few days ago and there was some aggro stuff going on but all in 3bet pots (shoving turn with weak top pair etc) but this happens a lot in NL100 as well, you have to be willing to go with a lot of marginal holdings in 3bet pots in general.

This is a reason why I'd find FR so dull, you can literally put the standard TAG villain on a hand when they 3bet in FR .

[Llanlad]

Yeah .. i think that was indeed the video mconstab ... i only watched it for a while and thought their was loads of spew.

but this happens a lot in NL100 as well, you have to be willing to go with a lot of marginal holdings in 3bet pots in general

Im not sure you have to play like this to be profitable ...seems just because its a 3 bet pot .. your more inclined to shove and hope for the best... no wonder variance is so huge in these games.

This is a reason why I'd find FR so dull, you can literally put the standard TAG villain on a hand when they 3bet in FR

Less guesswork means more control imo ..and more profitable if done correctly.

There seems more machismo in a 6 max player and he feels he has to be overally aggressive to be accepted as a decent 6 max player ... im pretty sure there are big winners at 6 max playing a pretty standard TAG style and most of his money comes by picking off these machismo types .

[mconstab]

Im not sure you have to play like this to be profitable ...seems just because its a 3 bet pot .. your more inclined to shove and hope for the best... no wonder variance is so huge in these games.

You have to fight fire with fire really or else you'll get owned. You can't just wait for a strong hand because a good reg is just going to shutdown post flop and you'll get no value from your hand. Likewise if your range is wider when calling his 3 bet he's going to be more inclined to fire 2 or 3 streets with any piece so you have to be prepared to shove a lot of turns with made hands and draws. The pot is usually too big at that point to just flat the turn bet and hope for a good river and that he shuts down.

Less guesswork means more control imo ..and more profitable if done correctly.

Disagree with that just because you're never going to get paid off by the nits at FR, they're just going to shutdown unless they have AA or KK or flopped a monster. You end up just trying to set mine which is usually bad if 100BB deep or you have to be prepared to push villain off a narrow range.

[Fenris78]

There's probably a good chance the vid was from Nxtwrldchamp if it was 400NL and I know you've played a lot with him Fen. I watched his most recent vid a few days ago and there was some aggro stuff going on but all in 3bet pots (shoving turn with weak top pair etc) but this happens a lot in NL100 as well, you have to be willing to go with a lot of marginal holdings in 3bet pots in general.

This is a reason why I'd find FR so dull, you can literally put the standard TAG villain on a hand when they 3bet in FR .

Yeah, in that case I am not surprised. If you end up with top pair in a 3bet pot in a resteal situation, you need a really good reason to fold it post flop. But I wouldn't be surprised to see real spew in this guy's vids, as I think he really does monkey out in some situations that don't warrant it.

I also don't think this has to with machismo at all. It's all about ranges and balancing. If someone 3bets 15% from the blinds, chances are that your top pair will be good on the flop against such a wide range. Yea, of course, it's much harder to put a someone who 3bets 15% on a range than a FR nit who only 3bets AA/KK. But it's also much, much harder to balance a 15% range which is why you can still outplay these guys postflop if you know how to adapt to their tendencies.

[Llanlad]

I dont play 6 max anywhere near as much as you both .. and neither do i play the stakes you two play ..... so i have no problem agreeing with what your both saying.

FR is obviously nittier ...but not to the extent where everyone only 3 bets with the top 2% of their range..

Although it was really interesting to see the 6 max table dynamics at such levels .....

Basically ..the better you get ..the worse you become

[philhux]

100nl experiment on hold since Black Friday and over SCOOP...

The games are pretty damn aggro at 6 max these days - even at 100nl. I have played a lot of turbo MTTS, so I am not shy of a shove. If anything I've been too spewy, so I'm trying to have selected aggression instead of 5 bet shoving on someone pre with j9s because I think it's a good dynamic to 4 bet me light!