4NL Help

[KevinsKaotic]

Does anyone have any tips for beating 4NL on Carbon Poker

I am currently down $35 over 11k hands

All of the big pots I get in I lose with second best hands, I am sometimes able to lay them down but when it keeps happening it seems like I am paying off people because I think there is no way I can keep coming up short

It seems like every session I play I get up a certain amount and then 1 hand comes up and I lose basically my whole stack on that one hand and everything I had done over the last hour doesn't matter

I do not know if I am running bad or if I am playing bad

In a lot of these spots I feel like I am beat but for some reason I call, how often can the villain have the one hand that can beat me... shouldn't be as often as it is happening

Has anyone else experienced this, can you give me some guidance or tips...

I hope that I am not so bad that I can't even beat 4NL, I work on my game daily and am really trying to get better

Thanks,

[The Bean Counter]

If you are unsure if you are running badly or playing badly, you really need to post some hands so that more experienced players that have graduated from the micros can analyse if you are running badly or playing badly. It also strongly sounds like you need to work on your mental game (I'd start with Jared Tendler's books).

The reality is that you'll improve with experience and study and you need to realise that you are not entitled to win. Most players start out being calling stations that over value top pair-type hands and gradually learn to realise when they are likely behind (and the pot odds are not sufficient to call). There are also a number of truisms at the micros that you need to learn and there are plenty of articles out there that can help.

[KevinsKaotic]

The type of spots I am talking about are:
Having pocket aces against one player on a 252 with 2 clubs and I have the A of clubs
I bet villain calls turn comes another club
I bet villain calls rives comes K of clubs
I bet get raised and I think really? A boat, I call and the villain shows KK

These type of spots happen very often to me, if this happened once I could possibly fold but over and over makes it really hard to believe they have such a hand

[abelardx]

I played 4 nl on Carbon. It can be tough. There are a lot of taggy players. The real answer is to study and get better. It's not as easy to beat microstakes as it used to be but it is still very doable.

The hand you talked about is a cooler. I would get all-in with it every time. He usually will not have a full house there. Try not to focus on the coolers and beats. Move down to 2 nl if you have to.

It takes a while to get good and win.

[griffey24]

Post hands. Read hands other ppl post. Learn about variance.

You're talking about 8-9 buyins in 11k hands. It's conceivable to lose 10 buyins in a few hundred hands through mostly variance alone.

The more volume you put in, the more you'll learn about variance and what kind of up and downswings should be expected. A critical skill for being a poker player is being able to handle variance and play through variance.

[OngBonga]

Post hands.

This is exactly what I was going to say. No-one here will be able to tell you if you're playing bad or running bad unless you post hands. Chances are you're playing bad, and posting hands and taking constructive critisism on board will help you play better.

[The Bean Counter]

The type of spots I am talking about are:
Having pocket aces against one player on a 252 with 2 clubs and I have the A of clubs
I bet villain calls turn comes another club
I bet villain calls rives comes K of clubs
I bet get raised and I think really? A boat, I call and the villain shows KK

These type of spots happen very often to me, if this happened once I could possibly fold but over and over makes it really hard to believe they have such a hand

Micro Stakes Truism #1: Nobody bluff raises the river. You have the Ac, so you need to ask yourself what villain is raising with that beats that. Villain flats worse flushes, so you are really only left with 22/55 and maybe KK depending on pre-flop action.

[abelardx]

Check out the book Crushing Microstakes by BlackRain79. He's the biggest microstakes winner of all time on PokerStars. His book outlines a very solid ABC strategy that if followed will beat 2nl and 5nl. I tried it. It works great.

[Robb]

Read one of the several great microstakes guides on FlopTurnRiver - do we still have the beginner's digest? (Sorry, been away for a while.) And post HH's and join the disucssion of other's HH's. Discussing hands is the best way to learn pokerz.

Good luck!

[griffey24]

Also find peers that you can talk to on a regular basis, discuss hands with, improve with etc.

When I was moving up stakes 3-5 yrs ago there were SEVERAL players on this site playing similar/slightly higher games to me, who I never really spoke much with outside of FTR on a regular basis. Many of these players moved on to very great things. It's difficult not to kick yourself looking back thinking about what you could have learned from them had you spoken to them more.

Don't be shy about reaching out to ppl who play similar games to you, whose game style and work ethic you respect etc etc. It's not a fluke when you see a bunch of tight friends all start crushing or doing well together. Sure they were probably good before meeting up, but don't underestimate this importance.

[BorisTheSpider]

Yeah everyone else has already said it, but post some hands. Be willing to lay your terrible plays out in public for everyone to ridicule (just kidding, we've all been there). Just accept that it takes time and effort to get better, and that is a good thing - if it were easy, all the other players would be good.

Don't feel bad that you can't beat 4NL - I mean this in a helpful way: You're probably not as good as you think you are. Even if you can beat 4NL, you still suck (and so do I) but again, that is a good thing - if we suck, we have great potential to improve massively by fixing some basic thought processes, wheras once you get a bit better the improvement is more incremental.

It sounds like you're pretty tilted by stuff that you just have to learn to deal with if you're gonna play poker. Jared Tendler's book "The mental game of poker" will be helpful. If I could recommend one book about poker other than that, it'd be easy game by Andrew "BalugaWhale" Seidman.

Lastly, don't think that just reading books and watching videos constitutes proper "off the table work", the real work is stoving stuff and doing maths yourself, not just reading stuff other people have done - when you do it for yourself, you not only have the satisfaction of knowing you've done the work, you also internalise and remember it more because you had to work through it rather than being spoon-fed.

[Pascal]

Check out the book Crushing Microstakes by BlackRain79. He's the biggest microstakes winner of all time on PokerStars. His book outlines a very solid ABC strategy that if followed will beat 2nl and 5nl. I tried it. It works great.

Don't take any book like this as gospel. It's a good starting point but it's meant to do what it says on the front - help you beat microstakes. It'll miss big parts out about becoming a good player and holding onto the concepts for too long with prohibit you from moving up stakes profitably. There's a reason BlackRain has never moved up

[griffey24]

Don't take any book like this as gospel. It's a good starting point but it's meant to do what it says on the front - help you beat microstakes. It'll miss big parts out about becoming a good player and holding onto the concepts for too long with prohibit you from moving up stakes profitably. There's a reason BlackRain has never moved up

I was thinking the same thing. Is it really a good thing being the biggest microstakes winner of all time?

[abelardx]

Well it's certainly better than being a microstakes loser.

edit: But I agree that it's only a starting point. If you're not beating ms then it's a pretty good starting point. I think there are many people, esp those who don't have poker buddies, who don't really understand what ABC is and think it doesn't work at the micros when really they've never learned it or tried it.

[Robb]

I was thinking the same thing. Is it really a good thing being the biggest microstakes winner of all time?

Like in Bull Durham, when Crash sets the all-time record for minor league home runs (and nobody notices).

Some things we learn well from peers and others are best taught by experts. I'm one of those who moved up from NL10 through 25's and 50's. I got to NL100 and got obliterated. I got obliterated so bad I couldn't beat NL50 any more. Those guys were SOOOO much better than me.

Grab any resource that will make you better, sure, but remember there's tons of great (FREE!!!) content at FTR from folks like Griffey, Daven, and Spoonitnow (and IowaSkinsFan and Spenda and dozens of others). They started at the micros and won their up to NL100 and beyond. And their combined strategy posts would more than fill a couple books.