Halp! I'm a 50NL donkey!

Hi guys, I need some help. I've played about 80K hands at 50NL 6max and I AM NOT A WINNER.

I know I have some issues with not bringing my A-game all the time - I tilt and autopilot too much - which has definitely contributed to this. I am trying to do something about these by cutting down tables, limiting playing time, taking away distractions and sitting out if I feel myself getting angry. I'm also playing way over-rolled (80+ BI) so that getting stacked hurts less. But I thought maybe there might also be some fundamental leaks that I haven't been able to see in my stats, but some FTR experts may, hence this post with my stats below.

I would really appreciate any suggestions for what I am doing wrong. Please ignore the categories - all these hands are 6max (with a couple of OnGame 5max thrown in). As you will see from my positional stats, there is virtually no FR.

I have made 2 changes to my game in the past couple of weeks, as a result of some self-assessment - I am trying to 3bet more preflop, both in and out of position, and to bet the river more either as a third barrel bluff or for thinner value. I thought both of these numbers were low. Also my red line sucks, so I thought I might be checking, calling or folding too much when I should be betting or raising, especially postflop.

Please tear me to shreds!

Thanks in advance!

Your stats don't look bad. You should be stealing more from the CO and BTN though. 18% pfr from the CO is way too low and even 30% from the BTN is too low. 3betting a little more often is probably a good idea too, but not essential. Post-flop stats are pretty hard to judge, but raising flop cbets 17% of the time is really high. What's up with that? You're cbetting the flop a lot yourself, might want to find some flops and opps to just c/f.

Overall your stats aren't terrible so you clearly have some post-flop leaks... tilting and autopiloting could easily keep you from being a winner over this sample size. If things don't turn around for you I would suggest getting some coaching or finding a winning player at this level to ghost you or swap hh's. Post some hh's in this forum too. GL.

It's very possible to run bad for 80k hands. I know everyone always says this and it's of little comfort but I never truly understood it until I went from being an 8ptBB winner at 200NL for well over a year to a breakeven 50NL player for quite some time.

Your stats don't look bad at all imo. I wouldn't suggest going for coaching just yet. But definitely find a winning player that will help you out and sit for a session with you. It's possible you have some leaks in weird spots.

1) Post your EV graph
2) Post a few non-cooler hands in this thread
3) How soft is Ongame? Could you be playing in softer games? Do you have rakeback?

Originally Posted by zook

Your stats don't look bad. You should be stealing more from the CO and BTN though. 18% pfr from the CO is way too low and even 30% from the BTN is too low. 3betting a little more often is probably a good idea too, but not essential.

I feel as though I steal a lot, and have upped it recently - its over 40% in the last 10K hands or so compared to 34% over my whole 50NL history. I do steal a lot more from the button than the CO though, so I think I could look for more spots to do it from the CO particularly if I have a nit on my right.

FWIW, I steal from the SB much less often, because I think a lot of players give me less credit in blind battles and I have to play the rest of the hand OOP if they call me.

My low raising % in the CO and BTN might also be partly caused by my tendency to flat in position. If I have a raise in front of me I'll often flat pairs, SCs and broadways, thinking that I don't want to bloat the pot too much with speculative hands and I'd rather see a flop and use my positional advantage. Maybe I should 3bet more often to isolate (or take it down immediately) and avoid leaving myself open to squeezes?

Originally Posted by zook

Post-flop stats are pretty hard to judge, but raising flop cbets 17% of the time is really high. What's up with that? You're cbetting the flop a lot yourself, might want to find some flops and opps to just c/f.

Nice - I didn't pick that one up at all. Thanks! As to why, I am absolutely a chronic cbetting monkey, and I guess I probably assume that other people do the same thing and so I don't give them enough credit for their cbets. I do often raise a standard cbet if I hit the flop even with a medium hand on the assumption they will have missed it most times. Thinking about it, it probably does get me into trouble with a weak hand in a big pot too often.

I might try to focus on thinking through each individual cbet a bit more, rather than my current approach which is to just fire if I can't think of a really, really good reason not to.

Originally Posted by zook

Overall your stats aren't terrible so you clearly have some post-flop leaks...

Absolutely I do. Just got to work out what they are ... but I think this cbet thing is a good start.

Thanks a lot for your thoughts zook.

Originally Posted by Galapogos

It's very possible to run bad for 80k hands. I know everyone always says this and it's of little comfort but I never truly understood it until I went from being an 8ptBB winner at 200NL for well over a year to a breakeven 50NL player for quite some time.

Your stats don't look bad at all imo. I wouldn't suggest going for coaching just yet. But definitely find a winning player that will help you out and sit for a session with you. It's possible you have some leaks in weird spots.

Thanks man.

Maybe I've been running bad, maybe not, but I think over this sort of sample I'm going to assume not. And even I have, if I can improve my game anyway I'm going to benefit from that in the long run.

Originally Posted by Ash256

1) Post your EV graph

I hate those things - I think they're at best limited and at worst completely misleading. They take no account of coolers, and because they only calculate equity when the last dollar goes in they often misrepresent suckouts too. When I flop a monster I generally try to bet size to get all villain's stack in by the river, and if he rivers me with just a few dollars left behind the EV graph shows the result as expected when it was anything but.

Originally Posted by Ash256

2) Post a few non-cooler hands in this thread

Good idea - probably the best way to get some help with my post-flop leaks. I'll try to look for a few over the next day or two and post them.

Originally Posted by Ash256

3) How soft is Ongame? Could you be playing in softer games? Do you have rakeback?

I don't play at OnGame much at all (thats why so few 5max hands).

Maybe half of these hands were played on iPoker because I've been getting 60% RB there. Another 30K were played on Microgaming because the deal I got there was even more lucrative. I'm actually a hell of a lot better at bonus/RB whoring than I am at poker - thats how I've ended up with 80+ buy-ins despite losing overall at 50NL!

I think iPoker is reasonably tough, but I don't think Microgaming is.

After my quick glance I don't think this looks too bad. I would suggest not calling IP w/ SCs vs tight PFRers.
Also you might be betting too thin for value at your stakes and you might consider taking a couple pot control lines with marginal holdings.
And my last tip goes for everybody: fold to aggression more often from anyone with an AF under 3.

Originally Posted by TonyB73

I know I have some issues with not bringing my A-game all the time - I tilt and autopilot too much - which has definitely contributed to this.

Originally Posted by TonyB73

I'm also playing way over-rolled (80+ BI) so that getting stacked hurts less.

There seems to be quite the contradiction here. How are you playing with 80 BI's so you don't tilt, but stilll tilt.

Originally Posted by TonyB73

I do often raise a standard cbet if I hit the flop even with a medium hand on the assumption they will have missed it most times.

This is wrong thinking, think about the difference between calling ranges and folding ranges. When you raise the flop Cbet, what hands call/continue and what hands fold?

yah in general your stats look alright. Its for sure a postflop thing if I were to say anything.

Originally Posted by jyms

Originally Posted by TonyB73

I do often raise a standard cbet if I hit the flop even with a medium hand on the assumption they will have missed it most times.

This is wrong thinking, think about the difference between calling ranges and folding ranges. When you raise the flop Cbet, what hands call/continue and what hands fold?

Yaah this is reasonably important. You're probably losing the most/winning the least when you have a medium strength hand.
Your raise is probably costing you a similar amount than it would cost to call flop/turn, except you're losing his turn bet from all his 'bluffy' hands if he folds to the raise. You might also be raise/folding the best hand sometimes.

Originally Posted by jyms

Originally Posted by TonyB73

I know I have some issues with not bringing my A-game all the time - I tilt and autopilot too much - which has definitely contributed to this.

Originally Posted by TonyB73

I'm also playing way over-rolled (80+ BI) so that getting stacked hurts less.

There seems to be quite the contradiction here. How are you playing with 80 BI's so you don't tilt, but stilll tilt.

Playing over-rolled helps it hurt less. I still have trouble not getting upset when I ship my stack for the second time to some donkey who called my 3bet preflop with J3o (as happened to me yesterday).

Imagine how badly I might tilt if I was playing under-rolled ...

Originally Posted by griffey24

yah in general your stats look alright. Its for sure a postflop thing if I were to say anything.

Originally Posted by jyms

Originally Posted by TonyB73

I do often raise a standard cbet if I hit the flop even with a medium hand on the assumption they will have missed it most times.

This is wrong thinking, think about the difference between calling ranges and folding ranges. When you raise the flop Cbet, what hands call/continue and what hands fold?

Yaah this is reasonably important. You're probably losing the most/winning the least when you have a medium strength hand.
Your raise is probably costing you a similar amount than it would cost to call flop/turn, except you're losing his turn bet from all his 'bluffy' hands if he folds to the raise. You might also be raise/folding the best hand sometimes.

That makes logical sense to me - I feel like I need to control my spew a bit on the flop.

I just did some filtering on this on PT3 though. It seems that when I have middle pair or worse on the flop I'm losing no matter what I do, but I'm losing the least when I raise and the most when I fold. Does this make any sense?

EDIT: I'm an idiot - I forgot to filter for only hands where I faced a cbet. So , fixing that up, it turns out that I raise about 11% of the time when facing a cbet holding middle pair or worse, and my winrate is 147ptBB/100 when I do. I get folds about a third of the time, win at showdown another third, and lose the rest. Looking through the hands, a lot of the time when I do it I often have a decent draw (FD or OESD) so I'm basically doing it as a semi-bluff.

Whats your call flop/turn cbet percent and then your call river percent?

You could be making good calls on earlier streets and bad folds later. Or you could be making bad calls on earlier streets and good folds later. Or bad calls everywhere!

Originally Posted by griffey24

Whats your call flop/turn cbet percent and then your call river percent?

You could be making good calls on earlier streets and bad folds later. Or you could be making bad calls on earlier streets and good folds later. Or bad calls everywhere!

When facing a cbet on the flop, I call and lead turn 6.3% of the time. Just under half of those hands have made the river, and I've then called on the river ~10% of the time. We're getting to small sample sizes now though - thats only 5 hands in total from 80K that have got to that call river stage. Is that what you were asking?

Good questions you have posed there too. I often find myself on the turn or river with a mediocre hand facing aggression, and end up folding. I'm not sure whether its because I'm making bad raises and calls early, or whether I'm just being pushed off the best hand too much. I suspect its probably the former, because it seems that every time I call down in that situation I lose. Plus I feel like one of my leaks when I'm not playing well is getting into too many pots with speculative hands (like suited Aces) and chasing draws post flop.

Someone suggested I post some hands so you guys could have a look at my post-flop play. Here's some from my last couple of sessions that I'm not particularly proud of but if I'm honest are probably fairly representative of some of my post-flop donkey-ness:

HAND 1

Villain here is 38/12 after only 26 hands, and had folded to a flop cbet every time so far. I didn't have any other reads on him at this stage.

iPoker No-Limit Hold'em, $0.50 BB (6 handed) - iPoker Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

saw flop

BB ($64.60)
Hero (UTG) ($78.13)
MP ($25.70)
CO ($43.44)
Button ($10.53)
SB ($18.26)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with 4, 4
Hero bets $1.75, MP calls $1.75, 4 folds

Flop: ($4.25) 6, 6, 7 (2 players)
Hero bets $3, MP calls $3

Turn: ($10.25) 5 (2 players)
Hero bets $7.50, MP calls $7.50

River: ($25.25) 7 (2 players)
Hero checks, MP bets $13.45 (All-In), Hero folds

Total pot: $25.25 | Rake: $1.26


HAND 2

Villain here is 43/12 after 84 hands, with had not 3bet once prior to this despite 31 opportunities (which probably suggests I should have given him more credit despite it only being $1.25 for me to call). He cbets 57% of the time. I also had a note on him as being weaktight postflop. By the river I was thinking 88-TT, KK, AK were pretty likely holdings, and maybe AQ/KQ (which of course had me smashed). QQ/JJ quite unlikely as only one combo of each is available. I think the river most likely changes nothing as I'm WA/WB beforehand and still WA/WB after, but I'm not sure I realised that at the time .

iPoker No-Limit Hold'em, $0.50 BB (4 handed) - iPoker Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

saw flop

SB ($19.78)
BB ($85.93)
Hero (UTG) ($57.74)
Button ($113.04)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with J, A
Hero bets $1.75, Button raises to $3, 2 folds, Hero calls $1.25

Flop: ($6.75) Q, Q, 2 (2 players)
Hero checks, Button checks

Turn: ($6.75) J (2 players)
Hero bets $4.50, Button calls $4.50

River: ($15.75) A (2 players)
Hero bets $12, Button calls $12

Total pot: $39.75 | Rake: $1.98


HAND 3

This guy is 42/3 after 33 hands, but I don't have much else on him in terms of reads. At the time I thought there was a pretty good chance his flop raise was a flush draw, but in retrospect I think I was probably wrong about that. I should have folded then.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.50 BB (6 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

saw flop

BB ($50)
UTG ($161.15)
MP ($25.80)
CO ($115.20)
Button ($108)
Hero (SB) ($50.55)

Preflop: Hero is SB with A, J
UTG calls $0.50, MP calls $0.50, 1 fold, Button calls $0.50, Hero bets $3, 1 fold, UTG calls $2.50, MP calls $2.50, 1 fold

Flop: ($10) 8, J, 9 (3 players)
Hero bets $7.50, UTG raises to $15, 1 fold, Hero calls $7.50

Turn: ($40) 4 (2 players)
Hero checks, UTG bets $38, Hero folds

Total pot: $40 | Rake: $1.95

1- I would bet flop smaller and c/c turn. I don't think betting turn is bad, it's just that I like to see another street with that hand and it sucks to get raised.

2- River is a c/f to me, he isn't calling worse. Pre seems like a fair enough price to call.

3- I call pre. As played I c/c flop. As played I fold flop. As played it doesn't really make sense to call flop and fold turn, but as I still think you're beat there like always I think it's the best move. This is a pretty bad hand tho imo.