Strategy in low stakes tourneys.

najisami

najisami

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You tried everything. Playing with your instinct, studying and applying GTO and even experimenting by playing the way micro and low players do, but still, the results aren't there.

This is a question I've heard many times: "Exploit or GTO"?
And I also heard all kinds of answers to it, from decent players as well as from pros. Honestly, I haven't heard anything convincing.
It looks like you have to come up with your own strategy or start with an enough bankroll to move up the stakes.

What's your answer and thoughts?
 
saber extrair fichas dos adversarios, evitar all-ins pre flop desnecessarios, mesmo ganhando as vezes, jogar de forma segura
 
vineravip said:
saber extrair fichas dos adversarios, evitar all-ins pre flop desnecessarios, mesmo ganhando as vezes, jogar de forma segura

Well, reading opponents becomes very difficult when they have no range, play any 2 cards and call bets with bottom pair.
 
I think the most important thing is to be patient and study your own game. It's easy to keep changing strategies whenever the results aren't good, but sometimes the problem isn't GTO or exploitative play. It may be mistakes in our own decisions that we haven't noticed yet. I would review my hands, look at the situations where I lost the most chips, and try to understand what I could have done differently. Poker has a lot of variance, so we can't judge our game only by short-term results. We need to focus on making better decisions consistently and give ourselves time to improve. Before trying to invent a new strategy or moving up in stakes, I think it's better to understand our own weaknesses and work on them. Progress takes time, and patience is just as important away from the table as it is during a tournament
 
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zvmbk88001 said:
Instead of constantly changing strategies, I'd focus on reviewing hand histories, identifying leaks, and improving one area at a time.

Totally agree on that, especially the last part. It actually could be a good idea to focus on one leak at a time, in studies as well as at the tables.
 
It is simple. Tournament Poker has a lot of variance regardless of micro, low, mid or whatever stake you try to play even freerolls.
Treat every tournament as if you were playing a $10000+ tournament, don´t make any differences the math behind poker is your friend.
So A-Game, A-Game, A-Game is the way to go, regardless to what style you are playing, exploitative, GTO, OMC (Old man coffee).
 
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najisami said:
Well, reading opponents becomes very difficult when they have no range, play any 2 cards and call bets with bottom pair.
Take a TON of notes, & perhaps consider using a color-coding system, marking players for their particular 'style' of play (&/or their tendancies, weaknesses).
Focus on how to exploit each.
 
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I checked your sharkscope for PokerStars, and based on, what I see there, one of the potential issues is your game selection, where you are (or were) mixing Hold´em and Omaha games. Until you are proven winner, its better to focus on just one game rather than multible. You also mainly played Single table SnGs, which is not the best choise on PokerStars, since the rake is very high in the micros now. Its easier to beat both cash games, On Demand SnGs and MTTs. For what, its worth, these are the insights provided by Sharkscope:

..........................................................................................................................................

Predictions​

This player is unprofitable, and unfortunately, the performance of similar players gets even worse over time. Games involving higher stakes should be approached with caution; players with similar profiles often start entering higher stakes games as they play more, which increases losses more often than not.

Recommendations​

  • At this time it’s important to significantly lower the stakes of the games you are playing.
  • Do not play at stakes higher than $1.10.
  • Think about joining a coaching or training site to help boost the quality of your game.
  • Improve your end game by studying ChipEV models using tools such as the ICMIZER Suite.
  • Use the SharkScope Tournament Selector to find easier tournaments.
  • Use the leak detectors found in the SharkScope Hand Tracker to identify which hands you may be playing incorrectly.
  • Avoid playing Omaha H/L, Multi Entry, Bounty and Turbo tournaments and focus on playing Hold'em tournaments.
  • Some of your losing streaks are statistically improbably for natural variance, suggesting you may have a tendency to go on tilt. If you lose multiple games in a row take a break.
  • Your results are proven up to $0.56 per entry. Above that you have lost $3864.97, so treat $0.56 as your ceiling until your results there improve.
  • Your best stakes are $0.10 to $0.32, one to two levels below your ceiling of $0.56: that is where the money per game is highest.
.............................................................................................................................................

You played your last game on PokerStars last year, so I cant say, what your game selection is now. If you play on WPT Global, games were only tracked by Sharkscope for a few month, so thats going to be fairly useless. Based on the above you should probably pick NLH as your game for now. But you also need to find your leaks and plug them, whatever they are. And moving up "where they respect your raises" is not the solution, when your best stakes are $0.10 to $0.32. Its not easier to beat better opponents in more expensive games.

Other than this its really difficult to say, what your leaks are, and its probably very down to earth things like "maybe I should not bet this turn" or "maybe I should fold to this river raise or this preflop 3-bet" rather than meta considerations about "GTO or exploitative". You could consider hiring a coach or joining a paid training site.

But there is also the free CC 30 day course, which is a good place to begin, if you did not take it already. Look at all the hands and ask yourself, if you would play them like the authors of the course. If not try to understand, why they do something different. And of course you can share hands to this forum and get feedback. And if you did not do so already, get yourself a tracker. And maybe move back to PokerStars, where you can use it.
 
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patience is essential, knowing when to exploit your opponents is just as important as understanding GTO. Consistency comes from making good decisions, not from rushing to move up in stakes
 
Low-stakes players can be unpredictable, so adjusting to their mistakes seems useful. The tricky part is knowing when to stick to GTO.
 
As for choosing between exploitive and GTO play I think its pretty easy....For errors that your opponents make there is an exploit, if they raise too often, if they fold too often, if the dont defend their blinds enough, etc.

When players are doing things at the correct frequency they are unexploitable, which means its time to switch to GTO.

In most low stakes games you are playing against very exploitable players, in tough games you might face a whole table of unexploitable players.

The reason for doing it like this is you can make more money, risking less exploiting players. So you want to exploit when you can and GTO when you cant.
 
The first point is to analyze the moves and study the opponent, before risking any move. It is necessary to read the other one so as not to fall into the risky moves of those who lead you to make mistakes.
 
najisami said:
You tried everything. Playing with your instinct, studying and applying GTO and even experimenting by playing the way micro and low players do, but still, the results aren't there.

This is a question I've heard many times: "Exploit or GTO"?
And I also heard all kinds of answers to it, from decent players as well as from pros. Honestly, I haven't heard anything convincing.
It looks like you have to come up with your own strategy or start with an enough bankroll to move up the stakes.

What's your answer and thoughts?
I only started playing a GTO-based game a year ago, and it’s already starting to pay off—just by sticking to the ranges and calculating my equity approximately.
I don't mean to offend you, but I've seen you play, and you play way too many hands compared to what the theory suggests; you really need to start by sticking to the ranges.
 
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Goggelheimer said:
Tournament Poker has a lot of variance regardless of micro, low, mid or whatever stake you try to play even freerolls.

That's a good point.
It's true that in tournaments, the variance is cruel. Even pros don't cash that often in big MTTs.
 
Poker Orifice said:
Take a TON of notes, & perhaps consider using a color-coding system, marking players for their particular 'style' of play (&/or their tendancies, weaknesses).
Focus on how to exploit each.

Thank you. I've been using notes and color labels, but probably not enough.
 
fundiver199 said:
I checked your Sharkscope for PokerStars, and based on, what I see there, one of the potential issues is your game selection, where you are (or were) mixing Hold´em and Omaha games. Until you are proven winner, its better to focus on just one game rather than multible. You also mainly played Single table SnGs, which is not the best choise on PokerStars, since the rake is very high in the micros now. Its easier to beat both cash games, On Demand SnGs and MTTs. For what, its worth, these are the insights provided by Sharkscope:

Well, I haven't played on PS that much and it was on and off. Nevertheless, that info is very accurate. Unfortunately, it's no longer available here and I'm lost between a few: GG, Pokerking, Coinpoker and WPT. Not really sure which one to stick with.

Thank you for the insights and especially "the advice to stick to one game".
 
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moraeskvmi said:
Consistency comes from making good decisions, not from rushing to move up in stakes

That, I definitely agree on. Making good decisions is certainly a crucial part in a successful player's game.
 
massautv said:
The first point is to analyze the moves and study the opponent, before risking any move. It is necessary to read the other one so as not to fall into the risky moves of those who lead you to make mistakes.

Are you talking about both live and online or about live game only?
 
tigre666 said:
I only started playing a GTO-based game a year ago, and it’s already starting to pay off—just by sticking to the ranges and calculating my equity approximately.
I don't mean to offend you, but I've seen you play, and you play way too many hands compared to what the theory suggests; you really need to start by sticking to the ranges.

No offense taken at all. Thank you for saying what you think it is.
And if you don't mind, what GTO/Solver you have chosen to study?
 
Defining your opening ranges is the main thing, playing in position always draws value from your strong hands and above all watching your rivals observe every hand you don't play.
 
najisami said:
Unfortunately, it's no longer available here and I'm lost between a few: GG, Pokerking, Coinpoker and WPT. Not really sure which one to stick with.
I would probably go with GG Poker, just because they are the largest, and you kind of know, what you get. WPT Global seemed like the next up and coming thing, but they lost more than half their players over the last few years. Coinpoker seem to be mostly about cash games, and Pokerking I dont know much about. Or let me put it this way: If you can not win on GG Poker, you can probably not win on any of the other sites either.
 
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