Is ABC poker the best strategy at Micros ?

dad2adrina said:

@micromachine you love to disagree. Haha. Youre not wrong in your opinion and i enjoy reading your insight but i can definitely count on going into a thread knowing your against the grain on most subjects. Haha

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He doesn't love to disagree. You are wrong. If every hand but the nuts is beaten by the river then you are implying that someone will always have the nuts OTR and therefore if you don't have the nuts you should never GII which is complete bullshit and something that any good player on here will call you out on.

This is where HUD's help, because by simply playing a number of hands with a player and seeing their VPIP, you'll figure out whether they're an ABC player or a donk.

@scottishmatt first of all i was speaking in generality. I was purely suggesting in most hands anything but the nuts on the river arent winning the hand. Obviously there are a lot of missing exceptions to that statement. However; there are exceptions to everything. And to berate somebody through implications of not being a good player or not on a forum is ignorant. You have never played with me and thats not to say you wouldnt win i am just suggesting you dont have all of the information.

Just to reiterate as well i said that i enjoy reading his insight. As i would anyone who can formulate their opinion for or against any subject on any thread.

I haven't seen a flop with AA I think the last 3 times I had it, 2 times I finished the hand with a strong 3 bet I had to because 2 people behind me had called a 3x raise with blinds behind me and I would much rather end the hand there than have a family pot with AA. And once everyone folded to my BB which REALLY does suck a lot but again its the way it is you gotta move on. Its better to win small pots with AA than to lose it all.

AA will pay off when the situation is right but in cash games getting AA doesn't mean you are going to win a big pot unlike tournaments where pro-flop shoving is very loose and very easy to trap with AA.

enesem said:

Doesn't that back up my point that big hands win small or lose big ?

So the money is from weak hands that improve....

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No, you only going to lose big if you don't fold when you should, the when is the part you need to learn.

I get my biggest wins from AA/KK just like Micro mention.

I do not know how you play. But at 2and 5 NL is like printing money. There is nothing more profitable.
Maybe you are result oriented fact that is messing up with your game. Playing poker is not playing the hands but situations . You need to play the player witch makes it easy at micros because most of the regs are bad and the number of fish is the highest possible.
I did not played a lot this year but these are my stats and winnings while playing 12 tables.


I think you are not plating the player. AA for example plays different postflop against different types of players.
Also table selection is important. I jump a lot from tbale to table until I find the sweet spot. Nit on my left and fish on my right. The most important skill is table selection. Do not stay at tables where you do not know where your money will come from.

dad2adrina said:

@scottishmatt first of all i was speaking in generality. I was purely suggesting in most hands anything but the nuts on the river arent winning the hand. Obviously there are a lot of missing exceptions to that statement. However; there are exceptions to everything. And to berate somebody through implications of not being a good player or not on a forum is ignorant. You have never played with me and thats not to say you wouldnt win i am just suggesting you dont have all of the information.

Just to reiterate as well i said that i enjoy reading his insight. As i would anyone who can formulate their opinion for or against any subject on any thread.

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"most hands" . . . I'm not sure how large a percentage you would describe as "most hands" - however to even suggest that in 60% (which is less than what I would consider "most") of river spots someone must have the nuts is an insane statistic.

My issue is not with your skills as a player - I've no idea if you are good or not, nor am I claiming anything of the sort. I do however know that all highly respected members on here are well aware of just how rare it is to have the nuts OTR and are willing to back up MM on his dispute of your point. To try and invalidate his points by saying "i can definitely count on going into a thread knowing your against the grain on most subjects." is a complete fallacy. If the grain of the thread is wrong then all our regular posters will go against it. Just as I am.

Your suggestion is just straight wrong. Most hands don't end up with someone having the nuts OTR. It's a simple as that. No disrespect.

the key is to keep control of yourself since there are a lot of variance based on the fact that people who play there don´t care about the money so they play based luck, a kind of lotto,

saying that your aces are going to be destroyed by by trash hole cards when the board puts trips or straights or 4 cards to complete a flush, and those people never fold no matter if they have the third pair in the board or the have a draw, so no matter what you bet they are going to keep stuck to their position, and more than that they are going to bet including after the sd because a draw after the sd is still valuable,

so yes a lot of opportunities to win but a lot of chances to be badbeated once and again, so control is the key, don´t tilt be happy and enjoy the game

TAG at micros FTW.

Have to lol at this:

OP said:

QQ - Last 7 times, 3 times folded to me, 4 times all in cracked (77 twice, KK, AA)

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OP, loosing QQ to KK and AA is not being cracked its being coolored. sounds like you just can't handle beats, also fwiw AA - 7 times you won, hope you don't get mad when you possibly lose the next 2/3 times with them LOL.

Ok, cracked, coolered, I get the difference.

I am disappointed you would accuse me on not handling beats. I opened this discussion by stating it wasn't a thread about bad beats. I haven't complained in this thread about losing, I am stating my position and asking for comment.

If anything, I am handling beats much better than before I started studying seriously. I am dedicated to improving my play, I am reading, studying and engaging in debate. I have a subscription to Deuces cracked and I am having Nathan Williams provide coaching.

I am pointing out my observation and asking for comment, and the comments have been very enlightening. I bet a lot of players think about this.

If you are congratulating me for surviving AA 7 times, then what hands do you expect me to make good returns on ?

From my observations, the most money won is not on big hands, it's on moderate hands that improve.

Anyone using PT or HM 4 can look up the stats and see if this is correct or not.

By the way, no one EVER won the wsop with AA or KK, though AA was the losing hand TWICE.

Look, it's a good debate for Poker players to have.

I am enjoying reading the comments, no-one needs to get flamed here, I would rather people be able to say what they feel.

(FWIW I don't advocate loose play, I am hoping for TAG but I keep getting burnt. I am still working at it).

When I was reading Doyle's Super System I was mainly a tournament player. He said that AA and KK will mostly win small pots but lose big pots when you are beat. I thought he was nuts but when I actually started playing cash games I realized how true it is. Doyle's book is talking from the perspective of playing against GOOD PLAYERS and good players don't lose all their stack with a pair. Of course sometimes we all do lose with just a pair but it doesn't happen regularly for any good player.

The thing is that you have to play the player as someone said. First of all if you decide to "just call" a raise with AA pre-flop you gotta be certain that its a heads up battle, you really don't want 3 people playing the hand in my opinion. Then the really big factor is if you will have position or not? If you do then its a good idea to try to trap.

Do you think someone will give away all their stack with just top pair? You can again try to slow play against such players.

Then stack size is so important, I have no problems slow playing against short stacks since they are likely to shove with just a pair on the flop and if I lose the hand its not very significant. But playing against good big stack players? Its a risk trying to trap them they won't just hand over all their stack with a pair.

Oh and btw I have seen time and time again that QQ pre-flop all in gets caught by KK or AA even on 6-max tables so whenever you are 3-bet with QQ its not a bad idea to just call. And if you are 4-bet by a tight player it isn't completely incomprehensible to fold QQ pre-flop. A tight big stack player only 4-bets with AA/KK/AKs so you don't really have much equity here.

Beautifully written.

Thank you.

What do you mean by ABC? Nut peddling, folding too much, and overplaying AA?

Use pot control with marginally good hands like top pair or bottom two pair, and identify how each player is playing so you can adjust to them independently.

Recognize many of them only know they have a pair and will get all of their equity by seeing every street regardless of how much pressure you put on them. Be content to play a lot of small and mid size pots, and if the pot gets very big consider they may have the nuts.

I think those who are saying that their big wins happen with premium hands are perhaps you know only playing premium hands? You can't possibly play a range of hands if playing on 12 tables.

I play on 2 tables and I open raise with pretty much anything. I have a pretty good observation of the table and I am able to take down many pots having nothing.

enesem said:

Doesn't that back up my point that big hands win small or lose big ?

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No. You do win more small pots with AA than big ones. So? What hands is this not true about?

But you should also win more big pots with AA than you lose with it. If not, you're either looking at a small sample or you're playing them poorly.

@OP post up the last 10 hands you played with AA/KK/QQ that WTSD. I guarantee you could have played at least one of them far better.

LAG players make more money but takes much more skill. You seem to overvalue your pocket pairs still and want to just get it in with them no matter who you are playing against. I assume you have a HUD so you should check when you have an overpair if you are getting raised by a set mining nit or not. If you are playing Full Ring poker atleast 3 of the people are there strictly set mining.

ScottishMatt said:

@OP post up the last 10 hands you played with AA/KK/QQ that WTSD. I guarantee you could have played at least one of them far better.

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For sure...

I am having a professional coach review my PT on Friday, I will let you know.

Anyway, this post wasn't really about me. Here is an experiment - I bet if everyone checks their biggest winning hands (ie the hands that won the most at a particular level) I reckon AA,KK or QQ isn't in the top 5, and maybe not in the top 10. Now, check the biggest losing hands, and how many AA,KK and QQ in the top 10 ?

My stats at 5NL:

Top 10 winning hands - no AA, KK or QQ
Top 10 losing hands - QQ 3 times

Now, maybe I am a bad player and I played the hands badly. But, what would a good player's stats look like ?

I am not complaining here, I am asking a genuine question about strategy, based on my query as to whether weaker hands represent better earnings in the long run.

(Again, FWIW, I think the answer is variance and sample size, but I would love to hear everyone's own figures. Top 10 winners and losers, I bet it will surprise you if you look at your own hands).

enesem said:

For sure...

I am having a professional coach review my PT on Friday, I will let you know.

Anyway, this post wasn't really about me. Here is an experiment - I bet if everyone checks their biggest winning hands (ie the hands that won the most at a particular level) I reckon AA,KK or QQ isn't in the top 5, and maybe not in the top 10. Now, check the biggest losing hands, and how many AA,KK and QQ in the top 10 ?

My stats at 5NL:

Top 10 winning hands - no AA, KK or QQ
Top 10 losing hands - QQ 3 times

Now, maybe I am a bad player and I played the hands badly. But, what would a good player's stats look like ?

I am not complaining here, I am asking a genuine question about strategy, based on my query as to whether weaker hands represent better earnings in the long run.

(Again, FWIW, I think the answer is variance and sample size, but I would love to hear everyone's own figures. Top 10 winners and losers, I bet it will surprise you if you look at your own hands).

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I'm commenting on the flu here but last I check AA
KK and QQ consistently make up to be my 3 most profitable hands, followed by AK and then JJ AQ roughly the same win rate.


You must show us your hands man, there's only 2 explanations here, either it's variance or you play them plain wrong.

EDIT: if no mistake AA makes about 1000bb/100, KK at around 400-500 and QQ about 250-300

AK is slightly more meh at around 200, AQ JJ about 100-150

enesem said:

Good hands tend to either win small amounts of money or lose a lot.
.

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Disagree

Good starting hands played well tend to win money

Good starting hands played badly tend to lose money

Solid TAG poker is the best style for someone who is a losing or B/E player to become a decent winner. After reaching that level, you can look at trying to optimize your win rate.

/Logan/ said:

My top 5 winning hands on last 100k hands.

View attachment 57348

So, the "money is from weak hands that improve" statement is wrong.

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Thanks for posting this, Logan. It was helpful to compare against my own.

BearPlay said:

Thanks for posting this, Logan. It was helpful to compare against my own.

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I'm amazed how much this one matches mine