Typical NL game
Hi,
As you might have seen in a previous thread, I'm an inexperienced NL player, playing at micro limits right now ($10 NLHE).
I am curious about how your typical sessions go.
My experience so far is that NLHE is alot like LHE, except that the pots are bigger in proportion to the blinds. So as a tight and aggressive player (aren't we all?) It's advantageous for me to be able to wait, pay my cheap little blinds, and get paid more when I hit something. I do realise that there are strategic differences, like for example you can play draws alot more in LHE because people can't put you on bad odds as easily. And small pocket pairs are better in NL due to implied odds. And all that.
Anyway, the point of my rambling post: I think I'm missing something in my NL game. I'm reluctant to push all-in unless I'm very confident in my position. I am even more reluctant to call all-in as I have no folding equity. As a result, my typical 1 hour session is to win about 30% of my buy-in (very small sample size as they say..) I think this is not bad, but I would like to double up now and then!
How often are you pushing/calling all-in? Are you doing this once per hour? Once every 100 hands? Do you typically double your stack or better in a good session and lose your stack in a bad one (hopefully more of the former than the latter!)?
Or is NL sort of a grind like limit is?
Just curious about the long-term "flow" of NLHE for a good player...
As you might have seen in a previous thread, I'm an inexperienced NL player, playing at micro limits right now ($10 NLHE).
I am curious about how your typical sessions go.
My experience so far is that NLHE is alot like LHE, except that the pots are bigger in proportion to the blinds. So as a tight and aggressive player (aren't we all?) It's advantageous for me to be able to wait, pay my cheap little blinds, and get paid more when I hit something. I do realise that there are strategic differences, like for example you can play draws alot more in LHE because people can't put you on bad odds as easily. And small pocket pairs are better in NL due to implied odds. And all that.
Anyway, the point of my rambling post: I think I'm missing something in my NL game. I'm reluctant to push all-in unless I'm very confident in my position. I am even more reluctant to call all-in as I have no folding equity. As a result, my typical 1 hour session is to win about 30% of my buy-in (very small sample size as they say..) I think this is not bad, but I would like to double up now and then!
How often are you pushing/calling all-in? Are you doing this once per hour? Once every 100 hands? Do you typically double your stack or better in a good session and lose your stack in a bad one (hopefully more of the former than the latter!)?
Or is NL sort of a grind like limit is?
Just curious about the long-term "flow" of NLHE for a good player...
Comments
No mistake there. Especially at the low-limits, you are very likely to be called when you push all-in, so make sure you have a very strong hand. And it always takes a stronger hand to call than push. Also, most players are looking for an excuse to push all-in ("cuz I saw it on TV"
Assuming you are buying in for 100 big blinds and playing around 50 hands/hour, this means you are making 30BB/hour (60 big blinds / hour), which is quite good in my opinion (see http://pokerforum.ca/forum/index.php?topic=9162.msg81204#msg81204). Doubling up regularly in a 1-hour session is a bit aggressive in my opinion, and not sustainable long-term.
NL is a grind, same as limit, it just takes different skills. When I'm playing, I might be all-in once every 400 hands (on average). Partly this is tightness and requiring a strong enough hand. The other part is that sometimes you simply can't get into a pot with your premium hands, since people do fold occasionally. To me the variance is worse than limit, and I've had swings where I've quadrupled up in a lap, and I've also lost entire buy-ins in back-to-back hands. Grinding away at all the small pots is key to stay even, but I've found that most of the profit (or loss) does come from a few key hands. However, 1 hour (50-60 hands) is too short a session to expect to see lots of big pots - consider that you only get aces every 220 hands (so around 4 hours if you're single-tabling).
If you are making 30% of your buy-in for an hour's play though, than just keep doing what you're doing, and hope variance doesn't bite you. Good luck on the tables!
30BB/hr sounds really respectful...
i remember my early NL secsions, big wins = short term
i didnt sustain them, thus i m back to my boring tight self...
Hey Trev you playing in the next Canuck tourny...?
Well, according to my PT, I'm actually about 15bb/hour (guess I overstated my case!!), which I is still much better than I expect to do long-term.
And certainly better than I expect to do when I move up to higher limits!
Anyway, looks like my "limit plus" style of no-limit is fairly typical.
The Tenenbaum articles look like just the thing, I'm going to read them now! I'm planning on getting my feet wet at B&M limit and NL in vegas next week, every bit of ammunition is good.
Thanks for the link.