Bytien

Thanks, to you and everyone else who posted. Youre right that the solver pretty much only split between a small size and checking back. I asked the question because my very simplistic heuristic of "bigger size on wetter board" failed me.

So you actually think its very feasible then? do you have any recommendations on what a good version of "the work" looks like that could take one up to that level?

Hey thank you very much for taking the time to write this

Your first point is excellent and i hadnt considered it really as i live in an extremely developed country (canada). So in my case it would be harder to make a relatively good income

Your second on motivation and incentive and life style etc etc, i really do understand this. Ive indeed invested hundreds and hundreds of hours, felt the pain of variance and its highs. I know it would only be the beginning, but its not necessarily getting through the process that kills my motivation. Its that im not confident that theres a payoff... like say i treated poker like a full time job, 40 hour weeks, it seems like it would be months and months of slogging before just being able to scrape a near minimum wage.

Is there really money to be made at higher stakes? Or is it just harder and harder pools fighting over smaller and smaller scraps?

@my motivations, quite honestly what i want is to avoid those different areas but still have food on my plate, and one or two robots to jerk me o-i mean a normal person metaphor for a cushy western lifestyle

river raise was $10 effective. but yeah basically i goobered this one and wasnt sure what the best line would be

If its not a bluff then its for value, right? So which hand do you expect him to call with? If he was bluffing flop and then giving up then you always win with a check and never get him to call with worse. If he value raised flop then youre way behind, but i agree this isnt likely as he shouldnt be raising so much with hands like kj or ak. If he was bluffing anything like a2 or 66 then they cant call off river

I think the background part is wrong? Mdf tells us what frequency to fold at to make villain indifferent to betting any card. If youre below mdf he cant add more combos to bet because hes already betting every single one. If you defend exactly at mdf then his 0 equity bluffs are 0 ev, which means his >0 equity bluffs are >0 ev (in a simplified scenario where he gets to realize it anyway). In reality, unless he snuck in some pokemon cards, he doesnt have any literal 0 equity hands otf

There IS indifference at the threshold between checking and betting in gto on all streets, but thats not a result of defending at mdf. Mdf warns us about potential auto-profit spots, its not actually a target number to build our strategy around

Cbet was good, villain has a slight nut advantage with more 44 and QT, but we have an equity advantage with kk+ and a higher concentration of Qs and straight draws + overs. And, like you say, theres not too many draws to worry about giving them a good price. So a small bet with a wide range is appropriate

Definitely note on villain. Underpairs have very very low odds to improve so when you bluff and get called its basically 0 equity vs their range. If they have relevant blockers they can become good bluffs, but here they block nothing. Maybe if hes polarizing and just doesnt have any low equity bluffs in his range it could be good, but something like 78d is just way better to bluff flop because it has backdoor draws. And also you cant have a polarized clickback range, hes basically asking you to call flop for that size which is why his range should be slightly ahead of your continuing range rather than slightly behind with all these medicore pairs

I disagree on the microstakes pop read. at least at fast fold you will get jumped on every time you check so defending the range is both very important and profitable

I cc 3b spots like this sometimes exploitatively just because population (the one i play anyway) isnt aggro enough and utg will often call with all the hands he otherwise would have folded

But then if i let myself call because people arent aggro enough, and they start getting aggro, i have to let it go because theyre just very nutted

For these sizes villain has a merged range after raising flop which is not unreasonable

After he x river im expecting a lot of chops, some aq and maybe maybe some qj. Could also have kj maybe aj.

Jj i would probably fold turn and kick myself for not folding flop. Folding kq to river bet.

I find these kind of trivializing comments to be harmful. Misrepresents the pool and gives losing advice.

thanks this had me feeling good for a while

...and then i logged another 4 hour massively losing session. like I just cant win, and its crushing me. despite being a staunch materialist and believer in the math, i just cant help but think that my decisions dont matter and im simply destined to lose.

Sample is only 60k for my main stake. its very triangular, I was very lucky the first 30k and the next 30k is just near exclusively losing. the kicker is that i ran out the first 30 quickly, and the next 30 are sessions separated by many hours of studying because when I get tilted I quit and study instead, sometimes for days at a time, before I can bring myself to sit at a table again. the more I study, the more I take lines that seem correct, the more I lose.

sorry I know I'm just being whiney, but its just so unbelievable and its so hard to want to play when winning feels impossible

same session...

PokerStars - $0.05 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

BTN: 164.2 BB
SB: 127.2 BB
BB: 100 BB
UTG: 130.6 BB
MP: 151.8 BB
Hero (CO): 116 BB

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has Kd Qc
UTG raises to 2.4 BB, MP calls 2.4 BB, Hero raises to 13 BB, fold, fold, fold, UTG calls 10.6 BB, MP calls 10.6 BB

Flop : (40.4 BB, 3 players) Js Ks 2c
UTG checks, MP checks, Hero bets 12.8 BB, UTG calls 12.8 BB, fold

Turn : (66 BB, 2 players) Td
UTG checks, Hero checks

River : (66 BB, 2 players) 4d
UTG bets 20.8 BB, Hero calls 20.8 BB

UTG shows Qd As (Straight, Ace High)
(Pre 74%, Flop 31%, Turn 97%)

Hero mucks Kd Qc (One Pair, Kings)
(Pre 26%, Flop 69%, Turn 3%)

UTG wins 103.2 BB

70 hand samples are not even close to completely irrelevant.

For hand 1 you just x, or do you x/call?

And hand 2 i feel like im betting flop, do yall hate that? EDIT nevermind i misread action, im definitely betting river and up to then is wp

Im interested in any groups or whatever (discord?). In a very similar boat

I just keep on losing at 5nl despite hundreds and hundreds of hours studying. Down another 3 or 4 buyins this afternoon, seems like it happens every time i sit down and im just feeling crushed. And then i take a break and just watch videos here or read books, return to the table with confidence and get smashed again and repeat the process