I played two more sessions of NL25 recently, one last night, and one this afternoon.... won about 2 buyins last night, and won just 3 dollars today lawl. Today's session I think I played well, and I ran poor in a few spots... Lost AA

On to some good hands:

www.pokerhand.org/

This wasn't a big hand, but is a good example of some of the key things I've learned from watching CTS and Taylor's videos. In this particular example, villain was a 14/10/2 nit over ~280 hands. When he flat/calls the raise from the BB, I really think his range is skewed towards small pocket pairs, like 66's or 77's. Flop comes AK3 with 2 hearts. I KNOW he doesn't have AA/KK/AK here because a nit would 3-bet me preflop, especially since I was playing very aggro preflop. When a nit donks into you on a board like this, very often he realizes I miss the flop a lot and will prob cbet, and he's just trying to see whether his pocket 7's are good. The important thing here is that because of preflop, his range CANNOT contain any monster except 33 and sometimes A3. However, AA/KK/AK can definitely be in my range, because all I did was raise preflop. Also, the fact that he leads the flop, makes me think he doesn't have 33. The fact that I hold K6 is kind of irrelevant..... if I had 56o, I would raise this flop, because I can represent a monster. In retrospect, having a K means I have showdown value and calling is okay too, but at the time, I felt he might have A2 suited or something and could bluff that out too.

Months ago, before I watched CTS/Taylor's videos, and if I held 56o in this spot, I would have always folded. Now, I'm thinking about my specific opponents, their hand ranges, what their actions mean, etc. I'm learning to value bet calling stations much lighter, know when to fold monsters, etc. I feel very happy with my progress, and am excited that in such a short period of time, CR has already helped improved my understanding of the game so much.

www.pokerhand.org/

Villain was a major calling statiion, so value bet the whole way, and well river card is just perfect.

www.pokerhand.org/

Villain was a hugeeee maniac.... tho his actual hand surprised me obv. I snapcalled the turn, but I was scared for a second that he hit 2 pair or smtg haha.

www.pokerhand.org/

This is another spot where I used to fold before joining CR.... I mean I only need to be good here 25% of the time on the river, and I didn't think a calling station was good enough to value bet Kx or Qx on this board.... and weak players tend to make weak bluffs.

Anyways, I played 22/19ish today, and was very happy with those numbers. Before I would fold a ton in the CO or btn because I was scared of getting called.. but honestly, the action goes, raise, call, villain c/f flop SO often, that it really doesn't matter what my cards are a lot of the time.

I was talking to my good friend last night, and I shared with him my realization of the 4 types of players at this level:

(1) Fish. And within this category, we have the passive calling station fish, and the crazy, maniac, bet every hand fish. They lose lots of money and can beat no one in the long run. Well the maniacs can crush some bad TAGs and nits in the short term, to be fair.

(2) Nits. These are the 12/10 guys whose preflop and post flop play is so predictable, the only peopel they can beat are the fishes. So they don't make money off of the TAGs.

(3) ABC TAGs. These guys have a decent understanding of solid poker. They can beat the fish, and steal blinds from the nits. The problem is that they can't beat each other.

(4) The good TAGs (and somewhat good LAG). These are the 25/20 guys who not only beat the fish and exploit the nits, but are also able to find weaknesses in the ABC TAGs.

Before CR, I was definitely an ABC TAG, and my winrate was prob something like 2bb/100 hands. Since joining CR (I know small sample size), I'm slowly turning into a Type 4 good TAG/LAG player.

I'm looking for leaks in not just the fish and nits, but the different TAGs. I've learned to be more fearless. If I think you are making an info bet with a mediocre hand, and my hand has no showdown value or I have a draw, I'm going to raise it up. I'm not scared to lose 5 dollars anymore in a bluff raise, because I am confident in my reads.

I see a 20/15 TAG raise in the CO. I look to my left and see two nits in the blinds. I look down at my hand and see 45s. I realize I haven't 3-bet this guy ever, or in a while. So I 3-bet.

I am running at 22/19. I raise my button for the 10th time in a row. a 20/17 TAG player in the SB who I feel is going to start playing back at me soon light 3-bets me. BB folds. I look down and see A4o. I 4-bet.

There are so many ABC TAGs whose winrates would be so much higher if they just learned they need to be exploiting everyone, and not just the fish. And I think this inability to attack every single opponent at the table is what prevents decent players from moving up the stakes.

There are so many NL25 tables going on, and table selection takes a long time to do, so I'm prob going to have to find a better way to look for tables....

GL at the tables!