I'm starting to get into poker as a hobby and am trying to improve my game. I'm relatively well-studied, but I'm by no means at an extremely high level. I'm comfortable with a lot of poker concepts, including GTO theory, but I'm not really sure where to go from here to take the next steps in improving my game. I'm looking for advice on that, but more importantly, I'd like some advice on how to approach my specific home game and the players in it.

My bankroll is relatively small—I only have about $200 to work with as I'm getting started—and the buy-in for this game is essentially my entire bankroll. I'm mostly playing micro stakes online right now, but I also regularly play in this private home game with a lot of inexperienced players. When I first started playing, I was one of the only people who really knew how to play, so the game often felt more like gambling than actual poker. However, as everyone has gotten better, I've started to notice different player types and tendencies emerging. I haven't quite gotten to the point where I'm confident in identifying those tendencies and knowing how to exploit them effectively. If I want to build up my bankroll, I need to start winning in this game, so I'm looking for advice on how to adjust my strategy and play against this specific group of players.

The game is a standard no-limit Texas Hold'em game with 25¢/50¢ blinds and usually 6–9 players. Overall, there is a lot of beginner-style play, particularly limping preflop. There are raises, but they aren't especially frequent. Most players have a decent general grasp of poker, but as far as I know, essentially no one in the game has much knowledge of poker theory or GTO concepts. When someone does raise preflop, they can usually isolate the field and get the pot heads-up or 3-handed. Occasionally, the pot will go multiway, but that's relatively rare. Overall, most players tend to play fairly fit-or-fold postflop, meaning they are generally willing to fold when they don't have a made hand or a draw, rather than continuing with weaker or speculative holdings.

Player 1 – Extremely Tight Postflop: This player limps very frequently preflop, but once the flop comes, their range becomes extremely polarized. They either have something very strong or essentially nothing. They will almost never continue with a hand weaker than top pair with a decent kicker, a strong flush or straight draw, or another high-equity draw. They are extremely straightforward postflop, which makes them relatively easy to read, but I'm not sure I'm doing a good job of maximizing my exploits against them.

Player 2 – Best Player at the Table / Most Difficult for Me: This player is somewhat unpredictable. They will raise their stronger hands preflop, but they also limp frequently and will often call preflop raises with marginal hands. Postflop, they are capable of bluffing and generally seem to choose their spots well. They may be slightly unbalanced toward bluffing, but overall, I would consider them relatively balanced and probably the best player at the table. This is the player I struggle with the most, and I tend to lose a significant portion of my money to them. I'm particularly interested in advice on how to adjust my strategy against this type of player.

Player 3 – The Definition of Fit-or-Fold: This player limps frequently and is willing to continue calling preflop. Postflop, however, they are very much a fit-or-fold player. They will not fold their draws, top pair, or most second-pair hands, although they may fold weaker second-pair hands with bad kickers if the action gets aggressive. On the other hand, they will generally fold all of their complete misses and rarely put significant money into the pot without at least having first or second pair. Their biggest weakness seems to be that they don't have a particularly strong understanding of the relative strength of their hand or how much they should be betting. They can therefore be somewhat predictable, but I'm not sure how best to exploit their sizing and hand-strength tendencies.

Player 4 – Stronger Preflop, Weaker Postflop: This player has recently become fairly good preflop and seems to have improved significantly in that area. Postflop, however, they are noticeably weaker. They have a tendency to make bluffs in some unusual or unexpected spots, but at the same time, whenever I try to bluff them, they somehow seem to have a hand. They are also very willing to see rivers and consistently call bets, which makes it difficult for me to know when they are actually weak. However, they have shown a tendency to fold some fairly strong hands to large river shoves, so there may be an opportunity to apply pressure in the right spots. I'm not entirely sure how to balance exploiting their willingness to call with their apparent vulnerability to large river bets.

Why does I’m capable of beating nl50 6-max with this style but having a hard time beating nl100 rush ?

How possible is it to make about 500-1000 a month playing online only - cash and tournaments? Not necessarily full time but on the side.

I'm just asking in general, like is it an actual realistic/achievable thing? If you were to play exploitatively in the sense of mainly playing on evenings and weekends, targeting tables with "worse" players.

Does it make sense to work up through stakes too? Start at micro stakes and once you're able to win some-what consistently move up.

I play on a site that displays players VPIP/PFR stats, and I have some preflop charts for the straddle+ante games played on that site.

Is there a way to calculate what someone's stats would be if they played according to these charts? How do you account for opens vs calls vs 3 bets or 4 bets?

I play nl2 on ggpoker and they overfold on 3bets, so it would be nice if I could widen the range with an adjustment or narrow the range until I reach about 12% 3bet rate. I also play live poker, the most common bet is 5bb, but sometimes 10x or even 20x is the standard. I guess the higher the bet, the narrower I have to play. It would be best if there was a chart that marked 20x bet in red, 10x in yellow, and 5x in green.

So what program would be ideal for me to use to create my own chart? GTO charts are based on 2.5x bet (or 3x sb, 3.5x bb), it would be nice if I could change these values ​​and the program would create the chart based on the new values.

Hero is UTG with A♠A♣.

Preflop: Hero opens $15 (standard here). Five callers. Six to the flop, ~$90.

Flop ($75 after rake): Q♣ J♣ 4♠. Hero has an overpair + backdoor nut-flush draw + backdoor Broadway.

Two blinds check. Hero bets $70.

Villain A (tight/nitty player, immediately to Hero’s left) jams $132.

Villain B (directly to A’s left) cold-calls the $132.

Two players fold. Action back on Hero.

The $132 is an underraise (less than a full raise over Hero’s $70), so Hero’s action is call or fold only — can’t re-raise. Hero calls $62 more.

Pot going to the turn ≈ $471. Villain A is all-in ($132 total). Hero and Villain B have stacks behind; Villain B has ~$230 left. So the turn is a side pot, Hero vs Villain B only — Villain A is drawing to showdown.

Turn ($471 main): 5♦ (offsuit — flush misses).

Hero bets $100. Villain B jams ~$230 all-in. Hero calls $130 more.

River: brick.

Showdown:

**•** Villain A (the flop jam): **J♦J♠** — set of jacks, wins the main pot.

**•** Villain B (the cold-call + turn jam): **Q♦J♥** — top two, wins the side pot.

**•** Hero: AA, no improvement.

curios if anyone thinks I could have got away from this or if it’s just a cooler.

So yesterday I was playing this hand, I had AJ o in a 3bet pot, I was BB and i 3 bet and got two callers in SB and Button. For context im a pretty new player, been playing cash games for around 6 months.

The flop comes 3 5 9 rainbow and SB checks to me, so I completely bricked the flop.

After SB checks to me, my question is what should I do?

I was thinking of betting but I thought that my range doesn't hit this flop well at all compared to the callers, so I thought I might get called down by a 5 or 9 and just lose a big pot for no reason.

I ended up just checking, but should I be betting there?

I'm pretty new to taking poker seriously with only about 8000 hands online and a handful of trips to the casino. Had this hand and wanted to get some feedback as I feel like I played the hand incorrectly.

Playing .05/.10/ with .05 ante on WPT Gold

(Villain 190BB) UTG limps 1BB
(Hero 320BB) AKs Hearts UTG +1 raises 6 BB

All Folds back to Villain who calls

Flop Qh Jd 4h - Pot Size 17.5BB

Villain Checks, Hero Bets 15BB, Villain Calls. Pot Size 47.5BB

Turn Jc

Villain Checks, Hero Bets 23 BB, Villain Calls. Pot Size 93.5BB

River 4d

Check Check. Villain Shows Q8o

I was worried he was a station and that I wouldn't be able to get him off of a Queen and gave up. Right after I was mad I didn't just blast the river so I ended the session and went to solver. It looks like to me the first mistake was I should have bet way bigger on the turn, but even then Q8o is supposed to call. But then on the river it says I should just be checking back most of the time with my hand, which I felt was a mistake. Can someone help me understand this or the hand in general?

Online MTT early stages so quite deepstacked.
Hero UTG+1: 85bb
Villain UTG: 94bb

Hero has AhQh

UTG limps, I raise to 4.1
BB and UTG both call.

To a flop it comes 2s Ac Jd
BB and UTG both check
I cbet 3.1, BB folds UTG calls

Turn is Qc
UTG bets 8.1bb I jam pretty quickly, if he’s on a flush draw which I think is unlikely I don’t want to price him in and I don’t think he limps with the nut straight.

He snap calls and turns over 85 clubs and of course the river is the king of clubs.

My thinking is he has terrible odds to call on that turn he could be drawing dead and at best has maybe 25%.

Is this just a massive suck out or did I play this wrong?

I was watching a video on MTT 3 bet strategies and one strategy in particular made me question the usefulness of it. So on JTx 2 tone boards as the IP 3better we are supposed to utilize a jam at a decent clip:

And in response OOP should defend with this range:

This makes sense to me and I started thinking about actually implementing this but then I looked over the hands that are supposed to defend here and I just don't think the live low stakes tournament pools I play in are defending with hands as weak as 98s pure or hands like J9s, QTs, T9s. Part of the strategy is built around jamming hands like KTs and actually being able to get called by worse. And then I looked closer at the range and I don't even think hands like J9s and T8s, K7s, K6s are even in the 3 bet defense range. It seems very hard to implement practical strategies against real ranges without spending a lot of time going into bespoke nodelocked solutions that try to replicate real ranges? I am still more a theory acolyte but when I try to study spots like this I feel I end up going down rabbit holes of how to use in practice and end up discouraged due to the complexity of this game. Curious to hear how others translate theory into actually meaningful applications in their game and do I need to just bite the bullet and find a solver with nodelocking or am I missing the forest through the trees here?

Are miscellaneous solvers adjustable for "no flop, no drop?" I would imagine this small detail can influence strategies quite strongly.

For a 2/5 Game with 5% 25cap, what do you think are it's adaptations (vs GTO, and node locked vs Nit, loose whale eg.) with varying stacksizes from 100 to 400bb deep?

Got into a spot recently that I need you wrinkle-brains to help me understand.

Hero opens MP with JTs and gets 3bet by CO. Hero calls, which is solver-approved.

Flop: Qd8d3h. Hero checks, villain bets 1/3 pot, hero calls (solver approved).

Turn: Jh. Hero checks, villain checks back.

River: 7h. Hero checks, villain jams for about 120% pot.

Reviewing this later, I was surprised to see that in GTO land JdTd should be calling this river jam about half the time, but JcTc is always a pure fold. Why would that be? Doesn't JdTd block a couple bricked flush draws (AdJd, AdTd) which are now river bluffs? It seems to me like that removes two more bluff combos, which should make villain's range stronger, not weaker.

Why do JcTc and JsTs always fold to this jam, but JdTd calls it about half the time?

Hello, yesterday I wrote the post about my JJ game, now it was almost the same story, the only difference was that I was in late position. So I bet 20bb, two people called, the flop was 976r. In the earliest position was the same player who slowplayed yesterday with AA. Now he bet 20bb on the flop, the other player called and I shoved 70-75bb, he called, the other player fold. He had KTs, a gutshot, and a backdoor flushdraw, i won this time.

Hey everyone, I’m currently starting at NL2 with a €100 bankroll. I chose a small bankroll because I want to build a good foundation first and prove I can beat the limit before moving up.

My biggest issue is time. During the week, I can only squeeze in one 30 to 45-minute session per day (maybe an hour max). Playing multiple shorter sessions doesn't make much sense to me.

To maximize my limited time, I’m considering buying the cheapest GTO software (from a popular brand i can't name because of the sub rules) subscription purely to use the Trainer/Drills feature. I want to play through real simulated scenarios to drill both preflop and postflop lines efficiently in short 15-30 sessions multiple times a day on weekdays especially.

the cheapest subscription would technically wipe out my bankroll, the cost doesn't matter that much though. I see it as an educational investment.

Does using the GTO Trainer make sense at NL2 to build a solid baseline, or will it just confuse me since microstakes players play completely different?

Is the Trainer feature efficient for someone who only has very short blocks of time to study?

Would you recommend this setup, or is there a better way to learn efficiently on a tight schedule?

I was doing a drill in GTO lizard where I had to make a fold, call or raise decision UTG to a CO 3bet. KQo and JTs were hands where the solver wanted me to call. AJo was supposed to be a fold. I don’t understand why the silver prefers KQo and JTs over AJo.

Also I got a warning that GTO lizard has set the online poker community back 20 years. how is that? lol

Context: Online MTT, past late reg (1300+ entries) with about 368 people left, 6 handed
I have 88 with 38 bb in the BB (around average). Action folds to SB (whom had around 49 bb) who makes it 3bb. I elect to call

Flop runs Qx 6s 8s. SB bets 2.2bb, I make it 4.4b, he re-raised to 9.6bb (at this point 21bb in pot). I jam, he calls. Board finishes off with 3c, Qs (so he hit quads)

Given I hit middle set with 88s in the BB and he was in the SB, i wasn't placing him on QQs. Thinking his range was going to be a lot wider with lower pocket pairs, brodway flush draws etc.

Did i overplay the 88s when he 4 bet? Should I have simply called (but would have probably ended up jamming after the 3c came out).

Or was this just a massive cooler?

Advice, suggestions welcome. This is my first week playing real stakes in a tournament series online mostly in low and micro stakes event (after about a year studying on the side).

Also any thoughts on entering multi-level satellites for larger buy events? I've been doing these 10-55 cent ones just to get practice, not because I'm limited on bankroll

Looking back, what's one mistake you kept making for years before finally fixing it?

Mine wasn't bluffing too much.

It was making okay decisions when I had time, but different decisions under pressure.

Curious what everyone else's biggest leak was.

I recently played these two hands in 200 nl online 6 max

Kjo I was in the bb the cutoff raised to 2.5bb and the button called I 3 bet to 12bb the cutoff and button both called. For context the cutoff is a weak reg and the button is a loose reg that gets out of line pretty often and overvalues hands even when the board gets scary. Action came k9k with 2 diamonds, I checked because I was oop against two players with the intention of putting in a check raise if the button got out of line. Action checked through and the river came 10c. Now I bet 66% since I knew it was very likely I had the best hand, cutoff folded button called. The river then came an 8h. I bet 66% pot again to extract value from weaker kings and 10x he snap calls and shows the low end of the straight with 67d. Did i misplay this hand against this particular player type?

Next hand I had ako utg action folds around to a loose passive maniac who was opening 75% of hands, calling down, but not reraising ever Preflop. Flop came ac4djc. With the board being somewhat dynamic I sized up to 75% on the flop to which he called, turn came the 2d I bet 50% pot he called, river came 2s I put out another 50% value bet as I could get value from weaker ace x, jack x and lower pocket pairs as he doesn’t fold if he has something. He raised all in for his remaining $50 he was 85bb deep. At this point I needed to call 25bb to win 170bb so my decision was easy, I called and he showed pocket 4s for a flopped set which turned into a boat on the river. Could I have played this differently?

Would love your guys opinion always trying to improve my game

I was in late position, I bet 20bb, two people called. The flop was 933r, everyone checked, I bet 50bb, 1 person called, another folded, the turn was a 7, the early one checked, I shoved with 84bb. He had AA. Its lowest stake, BB and SB is the same.

Hey everyone! I'm a Korean regular who mostly plays at offline poker pubs. Since the recent "Crackdown" on our local platform, I finally made a Reddit account. Looking forward to learning from everyone and joining the discussions

Obviously in hindsight I’m glad I folded because I went on to deep cash this tournament but still, too nitty?

What is the range of the BB when it limps to him? I didnt find a chart for that

Unlike nodelocking, which only deals with one particular imbalance in a single node, Player profiles are powerful features that allow you to study exploits against a player's entire bundle of dispositions. Combining profiles and custom reports can validate conventional wisdom about how to target common player types and discover more profitable heuristics.

In this article, we will specifically derive heuristics on how to exploit calling stations. However, before that, it is important to understand what exactly the player profile is and what can and cannot be done.

A widely applied story (limit of player profiles) When you hear the word "calling station," you'll probably think of a particular image or assumption. "Calling Station" player profiles also try to model those assumptions, but they are very dull tools. The way they work is to incentivize certain actions. In the case of calling stations, algorithms incentivize more checks and calls and less bets and rays.

This incentive applies to all post-flap decision points regardless of other factors. Therefore, real human players can bet on some hands (e.g., overfair) more often and check others (e.g., draw), but profiles make all kinds of hands bet or check preference to the same extent.

Not considering the river. Player profiles do not look to the future. In other words, when calculating the optimal strategy against a player who calls too frequently on the turn, we do not assume how that player will play on the river. The assumption that "the opponent also calls too frequently on the river" applies only when we bet on the turn and the river card is laid down after the opponent calls.

In this article, the uppercase "Calling Station" refers to the player profile itself, and the lowercase "Calling Station" refers to a real human player. This is to remind you that profiles do not fully reflect real human behavior.

Experiment

We will first generate two custom reports, and compare how the flap c-bet strategy differs when BTN is calling station and when it is GTO counterpart in UTG vs BTN 100bb SRP situation.

We then compare certain turn and river situations and look at how these strategies develop on the streets afterward.

Like all custom post-flop solutions, the pre-flop starting range is our own choice. In this experiment, Hero (UTG)'s range uses the GTO strategy of that configuration as is, and the range of Calling Station (BTN) is modified only slightly. All mix strategies are simplified by rounding to the call side instead of the raise or fold. This is not as extreme a change as the post-flop weight, but it allows human players to not rely on strong assumptions about how to handle pre-flop decisions.

I mean I don’t think I’m ever getting away from it when they raise my ass but dunno if I would have been better betting smaller.