Greed

Hi, added you. Let's mastermind this stuff and crush NL500 ZOOM on Stars around the clock so we don't have to battle each other.

I think it's fine as played, I love your over-3bet, no way he called it!OMG; but as he did that's great. I think you played amazing and nice notice that fish would call so much, my zoom fishes don't call that much. Although on turn you're somewhat likely beaten, I think that is just too nitty and exploitable to fold such a fancy hand to just $3 more. Did the fish setmine you and have a FH or just a random 8-trips or the disgusting A8o?

If your overall winrate in NL5 is fine, it's all good and feel free to move up to NL10 or whatever. I did some database analysis on NL5 FR ZOOM regs back in the day and most of those poor fellas were pushing a mere 3 to 3.5bb/100, it's probably more on regular tables but still, if you're, say, over 6bb/100 in regular tables, you're fine.

Omigod, I was expecting NL100 zoom (50c, $1 blinds) and this is like high stakes :O Came for 50c/$1 example, stayed for being curious.

I'd agree with suggestion to mostly (if not always) just call the 88 and set mine or play a small pot. Like 88 is pretty unplayable post-flop and I think, if enemy has started betting he's often ahead and in general, you should not try getting him out of the pot via bluffing.

If you want to 3bet and have information that the player in question might fold, OOP use something bigger, IP nobody folds anything, in general to 3x only. I would not use full 60, but something like full 55 I think has considerably more fold equity than 45, at least in FR (I mostly play FR so take what I write with a grain of salt) and you can also bet yourself on the flop to make it easy for you (enemy wold stick around with AK, hopefully). Basically, 88 on the flop as it was, you can cbet, if he calls you're likely behind, if he folds, at least you didn't lose and lose more on the crazy bluff.

By the way the hand is played I think enemy likely has Kx for trips, boat or just random Jack or TT+ that was already too committed to fold, if he was a reg, but this could vary a lot on the specific player and player to player (opponent-dependant)

I've seen people do this play with as strong as trips or boat, however, usually it's just a missed pair that typically just wants to build a pot (value/protection) while there's no overs on the board that could kill him. I would suggest folding multi-way with missed overs as an easy fold.

I'd check back on the river. I don't think there's really any value, villain can have a decent amount of stuff that beats you on which you don't want to pay him more (weak Ace.X, KQ and anything else that beats you). I like the flop check and yeah, this is how I'd play the river. I think if you bet the river you only get called by better, like very often and that doesn't pay itself for the bet.

I think on NL2 the best play is to just... you could call 1, see if you turn the nut str8 or at least BD flush. Also your raise is so small, the loose player will call, almost 100% of the time and give you a hard time later (as he did). However, if you did bigger raise it would cost you a lot more and effectively have the same effect as an overbet, which might not be a great play on NL2.

Basically, at NL2, be as straight forward as possible, advanced plays (where you do some crazy bluff or semi-bluff like you did with actually little equity, probably, or even if you're ahead you won't stand the heat), keep them at minimum, don't put money in where you're likely behind and the loose enemy often has Ax or will still call you because of small raise size with his missed pair or 2nd pair or whatever.

I'll prob watch the rest of the series as well. Yet, personally I'd like it way more if you had the field experience as well and would have had played 1000s of $30+ Spin & GOs to bring some reg-experience / tested the theory infield to bring more value to the table

Gotta like and fav this comment, I've burned way too many buyins myself light 3betting and trying to save it with some wild bluffs, it's just not a working play at NL5 w/o having stats backing up high fold to 3bet to justify bluffing + safe blinds

I'll 5bet jam light (AJ+;ATs+; 88+) vs the VERY FEW regs who habitually bluff 4bet me and only when it's around the blinds (BB vs SB, blinds vs CO to BTN) and where they both pfr wide and 4bet me wide and still do that with some caution (a.k.a. sometimes I don't) I don't do this 5bet jam as bluff but because these guys just habitually 4bet me wide from a wide starting hand range and it's possible I'm coin flipping often enough while usually taking down their ~24bb.

Against other positions and players, don't. In micros if they 4bet you, they usually have aces, sometimes kings, your bluff has very little equity against those hands. If it's around blinds and they're fighting back, still, they usually have AK or JJ+ and are commited, meaning, they won't fold to your 5bet jam and if your 5bet jam is a bluff, they're ahead.

I'm currently pushing 7.5bb real EV myself, over close to 70k hands played recently. I want that full 9 or 10, but it's really hard because with downswings counted in you have to be really sick for 9 to 10, a lot of sick hero folds and hero bluffs and sick no-opens which all are easier to just not do and to just get more medium win rate. Thx for advice but I don't really see other options. Lowest spins that would earn me more than this is $7s and if I lose $35+ in them it would tilt me into moving up stakes (read: Hail Mary $100 spins on half-a-br a piece) which has many times produced me winning a few $100s and being happy as well as many punts of my whole roll as well. As of now, I'm trying to be more disciplined about my roll and I know I'm very sensitive to losing a significant portion so I think I'm just biting down on the boredom and just grinding my $200 into $500 over like 2 heavy-ass weeks and then moving to 10, which will be same level of boredom to me and then moving to 25 and then prob. switching to 6-max, because there's no higher FR zoom than 25 on Stars. :|

Lastly: the rake:
As far as the info they're giving out, Pokerstars still has better rakeback for micros. 2nl gives 10vpp, 5nl gives 8.5 and 10nl gives 7 per $1 paid in rake, as opposed to default 5.5 for basically everything else except high stakes, which has none. As a "GoldStar" nearing "PlatinumStar" I've had an effective rakeback of 29%. Which, yeah, is not great, but still I make more net than the amount of rake paid. The real bad rake for NL cash is NL25, the cap is not there yet and else the rake is as big as ever and no microstakes bonus.

Thx for pointing out. To be fairy honest, as a paying RIO member I see no purpose attempting to like get big bad guy virtual rep on the forums via just acting something I'm currently not and talking like I play stakes I don't. I'm just a humble student of the game.

if you've never seen a reg punt and you play a lot vs, he's the stuff.

I think in these spots you have to appreciate how good your opponent played the hand. Even starting from the 18c 3bet (I standard 20c, but guess what, you'd probably run away to full 20c, so the sizing was just right). The turn J and A river is basically you running bad (non all-in EV, but situational), it's just cards that make you feel strong and while you're actually dead. I think you played just fine, I'm 9.6bb/100 EV on $2nl as of last 50k sample hands myself, for me the keys is basically not tilting (I still do, but I try to limit that) and... well for me the big income is bluffing weak regs (read: ~85% of them) effectively and getting away in most cases when they fight back and just stacking the occasional fish here and there. I don't really see much regs with higher winrate as me as far as I'm aware for FR NL2 zoom. I think if you really want like 12 to 15*, you gotta be very sick and maybe even get away from your hand in that situation depending on your opponents tendencies and range. If his range for 3bet is like very tight you can probably check-fold flop and basically play AJ for the royal str8 and flush mostly and not rely on hit cards too much if you know your opponent to the bone and his tightness.

*if you already get more than that long-term let me book your coaching.

vs my normal semi-fish / semi slp, I'd say "yes" and be quite sure about it. However with probably a true aggro fish as in this example, maybe even no, actually. I start liking your TT calldown more as thinking about it. You're gonna reveal what he showed up like after the thread is done, right (assuming you called)?

I think folding is just right. Uh, in my experience anything over 150 hands with 0 or 1 4bet is a pretty sure tell of a very high likelihood of his 4bet being exactly AA/KK. A bluff heavy 3bettor like me who tries to bully basically everyone with high 3bet fold and / or high setmine-give up call vs 3bet is a target and basically I can't hold over 70-80 hands of any sample not 3betting.

yeah and the chance he has AA is way higher than KK, if he had KK, he'd prob. just call, actually. These guys are so tight.

I'd 4bet jam with timing in middle to late timebank preflop. As played, I'd be surprised if "the villain" didn't show up with some sort of a king, most likely. I think these aggro guys, if bluffing, I think they'd bet maybe even bigger if they were bluffing, when I called down a lot of betting patterns like this have been... guess what? The exact hand he's representing: any King.X

Yeah, ridding games of regs and rakeback cutting high-volume fish by Pokerstars is a plain disgrace, upsets me a lot. I'll probably still play $100 spins there because I deeply believe I can keep up winrates good enough so I don't need rakeback even... just getting that quality volume in and waiting till these 2500 spins and nailing 'em type of thing. As for NL and maybe Omaha: as soon as PS cuts rakeback even more, I'm out. I hope RIO makes it too, would be so cool if RIO could take over a good piece of the market and offer lower-rake cash to grind.

Hi Mark!

questions:
1)In your experience, what are the typical winrates at 2.5/5 Lambda Velorum zoom for good regs? What do you think is max attainable using allowed methods such as things you're using + analyzing opponents at free time playing this game full time at ~100-125k* hands a month?

*-imo attainable number counting in time analyzing opponents off the table, correct me if more is attainable.

Bonus question (honestly, I really only want 1st question answered, but if you have time this would be cool too). You're Supernova and the step is only 2500 SC? Have they nerfed bonus program again? Last time I checked on March, Supernova gave 5k SC steps as the baseline, leaves me wondering. P.s. I'll delete this 2nd question if I find answer to this myself.