Beat the Micros in 2012

Congratulations on downloading this ebook and taking your first steps towards beating the micro stakes in 2012! I cant promise to make you a millionaire, WSOP bracelet winner, or the best poker player in the world. What I can show you is how to reach your highest potential in the micro stakes, enjoy a deeper understanding of poker, and make a $300 to $1,500 a month playing a game you love. Heck, you might even find yourself like me paying for life expenses and going to school on poker winnings at the micro stakes. Are you new to poker and want to hold your own at the micro stakes, smalls stakes live, or your buddys home game? Are you breaking even or slightly losing at the micro stakes and want to become a winning player? Do you want to increase your bb/100 by making small adjustments? Do you want to build a bankroll quickly? Do you want to fairly consistently earn an extra $300-1,500 a month playing a game you love? Chances are you answered Yes! to one or more of these bullet points and chances are this ebook will help your game out and get you that much closer to your poker goals! Now that we are on the same track, Im not going to waste your time with fluff. Lets get into the meaty stuff :)

Poker Goals
If you are like me, you hate reading advice about mindset and goals because usually it is just rehashed fluff with very little content. Because poker is a mental game (some even consider it a sport), I do feel that I need to briefly touch on the goals aspect of poker since that is the foundation of everything we are going to be talking about.

One of the first things I ask my students is, What are your poker goals? I hear all sorts of goals such as: Make 20 buy-ins this month Quit my daytime job Win a big poker tournament Make enough money to move up in stakes I want to make a lot of money I want to watch more poker videos and study poker more

These are all very standard goals that many people (maybe even you) have. There is one problem though: all of these goals suck. Im not saying that you shouldnt strive for any of these things. Im saying these arent goals. OK Nitreg, then what are goals? Glad you asked! :) Goals are difficult, but obtainable milestones which are quantifiable and which you can control directly. I put every type of formatting I could find on the word quantifiable because I cant stress how important it is. Quantifiable just means you can count it. Simply put, you need to be able to track if you have reached your goal or not. Playing tons of hands isnt quantifiable. Playing 35,000 hands is quantifiable. If you can count it, it is quantifiable! Equally as important is being able to control the outcome. This is usually where students of mine go wrong with their poker goals. You have to be able to control every aspect of your goal so if you succeed, you met your goal and if you fail, you didnt live up to your goal. For example, you cant have the goal of making $1,000 in the month. You have no control over that! Sure, with the law of averages carried out an infinite number of times you might be able to win $1,000+ a month, but this is your short term goal where the law of averages isnt very relevant. You could be Phil Ivey and still have a losing month or two in a row. Dont set up a goal outside of your control unless you like failing and not having productive goals! Instead, focus on the things you can control. Some good examples of quantifiable and controllable goals are:

Play 25,000 hands of poker this month. Quit a session as soon as you lose 2 buy-ins in a row to reduce tilt. Watch a poker training video every day. Review 3 hands before starting every session.

What to Reasonably Expect Playing the Micros

Many of my students have dreams of playing poker for a living and quitting their jobs. Thats a great thing that they are working for and I do my best to help them, but it is important for micro stakes players to understand their role playing in the micro stakes. I will tell you straight up: at the micro stakes you probably arent going to be making thousands of dollars and most good players wont even make enough to pay living expenses for a nice lifestyle. The micro stakes is all about improving as a player, moving up in limits, building your bankroll, and pocketing a few hundred dollars every month. So moral of the story is that you shouldnt go out and quit your job tomorrow. Poker is a process and the micro stakes are the first step in that process. Take it seriously and treat it as if the money means something and you will eventually get to a point where the money will mean something to you whether you are making $200,000 a year at mid stakes or whether you are like me and making enough for rent, food, beer, and tuition at the local junior college. The poker lifestyle you want is very obtainable. You just have to understand where you want to go and what role the micro stakes play in getting you closer to your dreams and goals. Work hard, stay honest with yourself, and never stop learning and you will get there. With enough work and persistence, Im convinced anyone can be a winner at the micro stakes, most people can win the small stakes, and few people can win the mid stakes and higher. Most people in the world can live a modest lifestyle off of $1,000-2,500 a month at the micro and small stakes and Im sure most of you guys reading this ebook would appreciate

an extra $300-$1,500 a month off the micro stakes. For some of you, that is enough to pay your bills and for some of you, that is enough money to have some luxuries in college, save up for a car, go out for a beer on the weekends with your buddies, and take that special someone out for sushi here and there.

Fundamental Rules of the Micro Stakes

If you only remember one section from this entire book, remember this one! This section is the 30,000 foot view of everything you have learned or will learn about the micro stakes. When thinking about any aspect of any hand from here on out, think about everything in terms of these two rules: 1. Value bet liberally and be hesitant to bluff 2. Maximize wins and minimize losses Value Bet Liberally... At the micro stakes, you arent going to be out playing people like you see the high stakes guys do on TV. Most people that log in to play online poker just load up $50 or so on the weekend and open one or two tables of micro stakes games. They arent there for a living. They are there to have fun and try to make big hands. We must realize this to figure out how to extract the maximum value from these players. The first common mistake of most micro stake players is that they play too many hands. You will see people come in with any ace, low suited connectors out of position, and even sometimes see people call with crazy hands such as J5o. This is a win-win scenario for both parties. The fish and bad regs are there to see a lot of hands because it is fun for them. We are here to make money so we need to adjust to the fact that players passively play a wide range of hands. The best way to do this is to stick in position and have a tight range (they dont call me nitreg for nothing!). In essence, we want to be seeing lots of multiway small pots in position with speculative hands (strong suited connectors, Axs, pocket pairs) or we want the pot to be heads up with strong value type hands preferably in position (big pocket pairs, two broadway cards, strong Axs hands). Expect to fold a

LOT and expect to be playing a huge chunk of your hands in the cut-off and button! Post-flop is a very similar situation: we are against opponents with a wide range who play passively (mostly check/call or check/fold). If our opponents never like to fold, then our range for betting is usually going to be value hands (more on this coming up). Think about all the times youve seen an opponent call rivers with K high or bottom pair. If this is the player pool at the micros, make sure you select quality hands pre-flop that flop well post-flop and get yourself some value! And Be Hesitant To Bluff When we are playing with opponents who call any piece of the flop or like to float with overcards (especially in position), our game plan should NEVER be to bluff these people. If you find yourself getting frustrated by whatever junk hand your opponent calls and beats you with, you are probably bluffing too much. Since our opponents are so passive and never fold, we will rarely be purely c-bet bluffing on certain boards (especially multi-way), but will focus mostly on value betting made hands or hands with tons of outs if called (such as flush draws, two overcards, gutshots with second pair outs, etc.). But wait! If we arent bluffing fish, what about c-betting? Isnt that a standard part of playing poker against passive players? In short: yes. This will pretty much be the only time we will be purely bluffing. Lets say we raise in MP with QJs and we are up against a passive fish on the button who folds to 37% of c-bets. On an A92r flop you can guarantee Im betting there! I know this sounds a little contradictory, especially to my theory on when we should be betting, but there are exceptions all the time in poker. Here we have a mathematical advantage based on our bet-size, but we will get into that a bit more later :) By the way, if you still havent clicked on my blog post link above, you dont know what you are missing out on! If I had read that blog post when I was learning poker I would have saved myself hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars over my poker career. Believe me when I say that it is a simple concept to learn, but difficult one to master. That is why repetition in reading this ebook, studying poker, and reviewing hand histories are so vital to becoming a winning player.

Maximize Wins And Minimize Losses I wish I could have a dollar for every time I say this in a coaching session with students. I think it stems from a misunderstanding of where money comes from in poker. I think many people (me included for the longest time) think that since they are superior players, they are somehow destined to win all the time or at least the vast majority of the hands they play. This is actually incorrect. To be perfectly candid, you will lost a crap load more hands than you will win. It is just a fact of life, but it isnt something to get down on. Think about it: you are only playing somewhere between 12 and 16% of your hands. Right away you are already losing 85% or so of the hands you play. Now if you know proper stats, you will know that of those 15% or so hands you play, you are only getting to showdown 25%. On top of that, of those hands you showdown, it is proper poker to lose half of those ands. Basically, look at your W$WSF (won money when saw flop) stat and that should give you an idea of how many hands you are winning when you take your hand to a flop. For most people it is slightly under half the time. So the next time you get AK and have to check/fold the flop multi-way, dont get upset. Folding is by far your best ally in making money. So how do we win at poker if we arent trying to win every hand? I know this seems really trivial, but seriously! Most people dont ever think about these sorts of things! We win at poker when we maximize our wins and minimize our losses. In other words, for the hands we lose, optimal play would be to just fold and thus lose $0. On the hands we do play, we want to maximize our value by betting the most that we think our opponent will call with his worse range of hands. This sounds super obvious, but Im willing to bet that you arent playing 100% optimally. When was the last time you flatted a pocket pair below 77 in the blinds to one normal stacked raiser? If you do this the majority of the time, chances are you have giant leaks and are losing a lot more money than you need to with -EV hands. Dont believe me? Go into HEM1, HEM2, or PT3, set your filters to show only hands where you flatted 55 in the blinds to one preflop raiser and no callers. Practically everyone loses here over a large enough sample. Try out a few more

low pocket pairs and see which pocket pair is the first pocket pair you can profitably call with. When was the last time you overbet the pot on river for value against a player? Most people dont have this play in their arsenal, which is OK, but it isnt optimal. There are actually times where overbetting the pot is more profitable than making a normal sized bet. Heck, even tiny bets (less than half pot) are very optimal in TONS of spots! If you arent doing the little things with poker, you probably arent playing 100% optimally. I dont want you guys to start spewing or anything, but really approach your game with this mindset that you will extract the most value from your opponent whatever that may take and dont give in to playing losing hands in losing spots to minimize losses.

Hand Charts
Ive included hand charts along with this ebook to help you better construct your own range at the micros. I want you guys to use these as a resource, but dont use it religiously. If you are losing a lot of money (or are on a downswing), then by all means, just spend a session or two playing these ranges and folding everything else. It is a good foundation to work with as your standard range. What makes poker so hard (if not impossible) to master is that we need to constantly be bending the rules to maximize wins and minimize profits. For example if a 9/2 opens UTG and everyone folds to me on the button, Im probably folding AQs on the button without even thinking twice. If the same situation happens, but this time my opponent is 92/63, then by all means you can expect me to be flatting the button with all sorts of hands not on these charts. I basically want you to imitate these hand charts and go through the practice of playing a solid nitreg style. You shouldnt stick with the charts like they are infallible, but use them as a guide as to around where your range should be. Of course everyone is different so everyone will deviate from this chart differently. If you want help knowing which hands are profitable to deviate with, feel free to play around with your tracking software to see what ranges are profitable from which positions and start only playing those hands.

Iso Raise Or Call?

This spot comes up so often, Im dedicating an entire chapter to it. Practically every time you are on the cutoff or button, you are thinking about coming into the hand because positional advantage is so strong. If you are coming into a pot, which one is better though? Remember that iso-raising means that there is at least one limper behind us. There are many factors to use in making our decision. The most obvious one is the type of hand we have. Another huge factor is whether we are multi-way or likely to be heads up. There are other relevant factors such as who is in the blinds, what size we should make the raise, what the effective stack sizes are, whether there an aggressive 3-better behind us, and many other variables. In general we can sift through the majority of these factors by asking ourself one question: Is my hand speculative or is my hand a hand I want to get value with? Speculative Hands Speculative hands are hands like low pocket pairs, suited connectors, and suited aces. They probably arent the strongest hand at the table, but thats OK! You win a lot of money with speculative hands by seeing flops for a very cheap price, mulitway, and preferably in position. The goal is to flop well and then start building up the pot once you have made a huge hand. Since our speculative hands miss the vast majority of the time, we should be folding them out of position in heads up pots, we shouldnt be raising with them unless we are in late position and have some fold equity, and we shouldnt be putting in a huge chunk of our stack trying to see flops and turns. For example, we arent going to be raising 33 under the gun in a full ring game because our hand rarely hits the flop and playing multiway out of position sucks with an underpair. The correct play would be to open fold.

Another example is if a reg opens in MP and we have 56s. We would fold here because we wont flop a huge hand often enough to make a call profitable and calling down flops and turns in hopes of hitting a draw heads up usually isnt as profitable as most people think. One last example is if a short stack with 25bbs opens UTG and it folds around to us on the button with 77. Our hand just isnt good enough to call here to set mine so we should just fold it. The other alternative is 3bet/calling against the short stack, but that is generally going to be a -EV play with people left to act and against a tighter UTG range. If we had a slightly better hand or if we knew the shortstack has a wide stack off range, I would be getting it in with a much higher frequency. Value Hands Strong value hands are hands such as two broadway cards, big Ax hands, and big pocket pairs. The goal with these hands is to usually see heads up flops in position since our hand is strong, but still vulnerable. Since these hands are strong and have a lot of equity when we are behind, we should be doing very little calling and be doing a lot of raising. In general, I like to mash the pot button in position when there are limpers. Another strategy I highly recommend is to raise it up 4bbs + 1bb per limper. So if there were 3 limpers, I would make a raise of 7bbs (4bbs + 1bb * 3 limpers). When out of position, I like making it pot + 1bb for being out of position (or make it 4bbs + 1bb per limper + 1bb for being out of position). The reason for making a bigger raise out of position is because my range is exclusively very strong hands so I want to get maximum value and thin out the field. When in position, my hand range is much wider so I should make my bet sizing smaller in general so I dont get myself in huge bloated pots with dominated hands or have to fold a lot of money to 3bets. Post flop, we are generally looking to cbet in multiway pots with top pair or better and very strong draws. We rarely want to be purely bluffing postflop multiway against multiple fish because the more people in the pot, the more we arent getting folds. Heads up, we can c-bet a lot more on dry boards and even some semi-wet boards because we only have to get one fold to win the hand.

The Only Poker Math You Need to Know

There are a lot of poker math books and resources online so I wont bore you with all of the details. To be honest, Im not much of a poker math guy and if you are like me, the math part will seem very intimidating if you try absorbing it all at once. In this section, I want to give you basic principles, prove them with math, and give you the building blocks you need to figure things out in the future. 3-Betting Since most people in the micro-stakes (regs included) dont fold to 3-bets often, the vast majority of our 3-betting range should be value hands. This doesnt mean we shouldnt bluff though. 3-bet bluffing and 3-bet squeezing are still very profitable! Below are some charts showing how profitable 3-betting and squeezing are.

So what is the formula for figuring out if 3-bet bluffing is profitable? Fold % = (How Much We Risk) / (How Much We Win + How Much We Risk) As you will see for the rest of this session, this is a common formula for anytime you are pure bluffing. When we are pure bluffing, we are trying to get our opponent to fold his hand pre-flop and not see a flop. Because we want to discourage our opponent from calling or raising, we should always try to be in position when 3-betting as a bluff because it really sucks playing out of position postflop and many opponents love flatting 3-bets in position to try out playing you postflop if they are in position. Also be conscious of what someones fold to 3-bet stat means. Just because someone folds 75% of the time doesnt mean you should 3-bet them all the time. We want to analyze how many hands their stats are over, what position they are in, and what the table conditions are. If they are UTG, we probably dont want to 3-bet bluff while we want to 3-bet bluff a guy all day who opens wide in late position. Also, if a reg is isolating a fish, we definitely want to be 3-bet bluffing a lot since the regs range is very wide. If someone is potting it out of position to a someone who posted, then you can be pretty sure that the raiser is generally going to have a big hand that probably doesnt want to fold anytime soon.

Another thing we need to pay attention to is what hands we are bluffing with. You want to 3-bet them with hands that have blockers and can pick up outs post flop. For example 3-betting hands like AJo and K8s are great because they match these descriptions. AJo blocks several big combinations of hands our opponent may have (AA/JJ/AK/AQ) so we know our villains range is going to be slightly more skewed towards weaker hands. K8s is great because the K blocks some Kx hands our opponent may have, plus it can flop or turn the nut or second nut flush draw. This is good because if we play postflop in position, we can c-bet all day with back door equity because we get fold equity plus a chance at hitting huge disguised hands. You will also only want to raise about 3x their raise size in position because it perfectly balances your range, while you will want to mash the pot button when out of position since your range is going to be skewed more for value. Lets go over an example to demonstrate how much fold equity we need. Lets say for the first hand we are on the button with A7dd. An UTG fish limps and a reg in the cutoff goes ahead and raises to 4bbs. The reg folds to 3-bets 70%. Flatting sucks here because we are dominated too often, so should we 3-bet bluff here? Lets plug in some numbers for when we 3-bet to 12bbs here. Fold % = (How Much We Risk) / (How Much We Win + How Much We Risk) Fold% = 12bbs / (6.5bbs + 12bbs) 12bbs is our 3x raise size and 6.5 bbs is the sum of the blinds, the limper, and the regs raise. Now lets simplify. Fold% = .649 As you can see, the reg just needs to fold around 65% here for this 3-bet to be profitable! The smaller our 3-bet size, the less our 3-bet has to work and the greater our 3-bet size, the more it needs to work. Blind Stealing

Blind stealing is not as important at the micros as it is made out to be, but it is still a big money maker. Blind stealing is most effective when we have tight players in the blinds. Usually at the micro stakes, we arent going to be seeing two tight players to our left, but we should still understand the concept because you should still be blind stealing in a lot of scenarios. Below is a graph showing how profitable it is to steal frequently.

First of all, lets figure out the formula for stealing the blind. Luckily for us, it is the same formuala for every time we are pure bluffing: Fold % = (How Much We Risk) / (How Much We Win + How Much We Risk) This is a pretty golden formula so it is best if you memorize it or keep notes on it to refer back to it later. This formula finds out how many times our opponent needs to fold for our steal to be breakeven. So for example, lets figure out how much someone needs to fold for us to breakeven when we raise 3bbs on the button (assuming we never play post flop and just open fold). F% = (3bbs) / ([1bb + .5bb] + 3bbs) All I did here was just plug in the numbers. The amount we risk is obviously just our raise size and the about we win is just the blinds. Now to simplify

F% = 3 / 4.5 F% = .666666666667 This means that we need both blinds to fold 2/3rds of the time for us to break even on the steal (neutral EV). Everything above that is pure profits! I would strongly advize that you put a players Fold vs Steal on your HUD and if you want extra brownie points, color it an eye grabbing color such as purple (thats the color I use). There is just one mathematical problem: there are two people in the blinds. No worries! To figure out their combined fold equity we just multiply them together. Total Fold % = Player 1 F% * Player 2 F% So lets say that Player 1 folds to 80% of steals and Player 2 folds 72% of the time. Here is the percentage they both fold to a steal: TF% = .80 * .72 TF% = .576 So they will BOTH fold to a steal a total of around 58% of the time. Unfortunately, we are against two nits who both fold 58% of the time while we break even at 67% when we steal the blinds with a 3x raise! What if we try making a min-steal (2bb raise)? Recall our original formula: F% = (2bbs) / ([1bb + .5bb] + 2bb) F% = .57143 So when we min-raise, we only need both opponents to fold around 57% of the time yet they both fold around 58% of the time. This means we dont even have to play post flop and we automatically make a profit!

The one cool thing about playing in position is that we dont only need to win by straight up stealing. We make a ton of money by c-betting as a bluff and by cbetting for value post flop in position! Because fish never like folding, we should rarely be stealing as a bluff, but should have a solid value range. Because we only have value hands with fish in the pot, we should be opening the pot 3 to 4bbs preflop as a steal. If there are nits in the blinds, a lot of the time it is profitable to just min-raise with any two cards so long as you dont find yourself getting out of line postflop. Adjusting your bet sizing based on your villains is a key to maximizing wins and minimizing losses! It is completely exploitable by your opponents, but the thing is they are only paying attention to their hands so 90% of them will never notice and the other 10% most likely wont know how to adjust properly! Below is a quick chart of bet sizes and how often both opponents need to fold for it to be profitable: 2bb = 57% 2.5bbs = 63% 3bbs = 67% 3.5bbs = 70% 4bbs = 73% 4.5bbs = 75% Continuation Betting Continuation betting is another one of those golden concepts that will make you an insane amount of profits over the long run. It may not look like it, but all those small pots really add up and will be a massive chunk of your winnings! Since cbetting is done postflop, the pots are generally bigger than just preflop bluffs. On top of that, you dont have to bet nearly as much relative to the pot size as you do preflop on a steal attempt. The graph below shows winnings from just cbetting and it should be obvious how profitable it is to c-bet.

The formula for c-betting is fairly easy and is very similar to blind stealing. Fold % = (How Much We Risk) / (How Much We Win + How Much We Risk) Just like the blind stealing formula, we are trying to figure out the fold equity needed in order for our play to be breakeven or better if we are pure bluffing. Lets say for instance we cbet half pot (how about $0.75 into a $1.50 pot) on a dry board such as K73r. How much fold equity would we need if we are just pure bluffing? Fold% = (.75) / (1.5 + .75) Fold% = .333333333 So when we c-bet half pot, we only need to take it down 1/3rd of the time to break even. If our opponent folds just 34%, we are instantly making a profit! You can see how powerful this and why being in position is so powerful. We can c-bet relentlessly and make a profit even when our opponents dont fold most of the time. We do need to be careful though. Not all flop textures are created equal. You cant just c-bet the flop pot every time and expect to win. We will go over that more in the next session.

Here are some common bet sizing amounts and some bet sizes that arent so common. I hope you can see the amount they need to fold for you to break even and start implementing some of these different sizes in different situations to maximize your wins and minimize your losses when called (yes, theres that theme again). 10% Pot = They need to fold > 9% of the time 33% Pot = They need to fold > 25% of the time 50% Pot = They need to fold > 33% of the time 66% Pot = They need to fold > 40% of the time 75% Pot = They need to fold > 43% of the time 100% Pot = They need to fold > 50% of the time 120% Pot = They need to fold > 55% of the time :) As you can see some of these numbers are a bit counter intuitive. Lets say you missed a 6 high flush draw, but something tells you your opponent had a draw that missed as well. Why not bet 10% pot to fold out his air? He only has to fold 10% of the time to be profitable. What if your opponent looks like he has a marginal hand on the river. Why not bet $6 into a $5 pot and watch him fold top pair weak kicker and middle pairs? It only has to work a little over half of the time to be profitable! If you remember a few paragraphs ago, we can also calculate how much fold equity we have when we are against multiple opponents! Lets say we are the pre-flop raiser in position on two opponents who both have a fold to c-bet of 60%. They check around to us on the same K73r flop. Is a pot c-bet profitable here in a vacuum? Lets remember the formula: Combined Fold % = (Player 1 Fold %) * (Player 2 Fold %) Combined Fold % = .6 * .6 Combined Fold % = .36

With a half pot c-bet, we just need them both to fold 33%. Here they are folding 36% of the time. It is instantly profitable! The problem with c-betting math is that our opponent will not fold every time. Because of this, we actually have more equity to win the pot (if we have outs) and we also have more chances to barrel as a bluff if we miss as well. Again, this is another aspect of why being in position is so profitable. You will always be in control of how your money goes into the pot and what price your opponent gets and there is nothing he or she can do about it. Lets consider another similar formula: EV = Fold Equity + Pot Equity EV = (Villains Fold % * Pot) - (Villains non-Fold % * Bet size) Figuring out our expected value (EV) is a little simpler with this equation because it can be expanded (hold on to that concept for one second). Fold equity in this equation is just Villains Fold to C-bet % times the size of the pot. Since Im assuming we just lose every hand our villains doesnt fold, our pot equity will always be a negative number that is our bet size times the percentage of the time villain doesnt fold the flop. Lets look at an example for a villain that folds 55% and we c-bet $1 into a $1.50 pot: EV = (.55 * 1.5) - (.45 * 1) EV = (.825) - (.45) EV = $.38 So this is a standard pot size at $25NL and in this spot, we make 1.5bbs or $.38 every time we make this play! If we are crushing the games for 8bb/100, that means we make $.02 per hand. In this one simple hand alone, we are making 19x that! Now lets expand this formula to include our equity when called. Lets say that we are c-betting A2ss in position heads up on a K73ss board. Our villain has a fold to c-bet of 40%. Here is the modified formula we will need:

EV = Fold Equity + Pot Equity Again this is pretty simplistic because we are only accounting for when we bet once and dont put any money in again and it doesnt account for other things such as our opponent check/raising. This should give you an idea of what is going on, but in the future, treat this equation as a function for each street and keep plugging in the values to figure out if it is +EV or not. Lets define some terms first: Expected Value: This is just how much money we look to win or lose in a given situation. Fold Equity: This is the easier part that we went over above. It is how much we win multiplied by villains fold to c-bet percentage. Fold Equity = Pot Size * Villains fold to c-bet % Pot Equity: This is the complex part of the equation that relies on subtracting two parts then multiplying it by the times our opponent doesnt fold to our c-bet. The first part is when we c-bet, get called, and improve to the best hand. Part 1 = (Pot + Villains Call) * Our Hands equity The second part that we subtract from the first part is the times we c-bet, get called, and dont improve our hand. Part 2 = Our C-bet * Our Villains Hand Equity Once we have our two parts, we need to go ahead and do one more step: Pot Equity = Villains non-Fold to C-bet % * (Part 1 - Part 2) Phew! We are almost done. I never said it was going to be easy ;)

Lets look at an example that will make things a lot clearer. In our hypothetical example, we are playing in position in a heads up pot at $10NL ($.05/.10 blinds). Villain limps and we isolate to $.45 with K9hh (pot is now $1.05). The flop comes out A22hh (we have the nut flush draw). Lets also hypothetically say our villain will only call this flop with A2s, 22, and any Ax hand (he is folding flush draws in this example because that would make the example really long and confusing). We c-bet $.60 into a pot of $1.05. Our villain folds to c-bets 40% of the time. What is our expected value? EV = Fold Equity + Pot Equity First of all, lets figure out our fold equity: Fold Equity = Pot Size * Villains fold to c-bet % Fold Equity = $1.05 * .40 Fold Equity = $.42 Now lets figure out our pot equity. We will start with part 1: Part 1 = (Pot + Villains Call) * Our Hands equity Part 1 = ($1.05 + .6) * .308 You will need the free program Poker Stove for this problem or some other type of similar online app. Once you have Poker Stove opened, enter in the villains range as shown below.

Note that our Ax suited range we are making sure that for each hand, just the suited to spades is clicked in the bottom right. If you have any other suits also selected, it will mess up your equity calculation. Now go ahead and calculate your hands equity by pressing evaluate. This will give you the numbers you need!

Now simplify Part 1: Part 1 = ($1.05 + .6) * .308

Part 1 = $.51 Lets wrap up with Part 2 of pot equity: Part 2 = Our C-bet * Our Villains Hand Equity Part 2 = .6 * .692 Part 2 = $.42 Now we just subtract Part 2 from Part 1 and multiply it by the percentage our villain doesnt fold to c-bet. Pot Equity = Villains non-Fold to C-bet % * (Part 1 - Part 2) Pot Equity = .60 * ($.51 - .42) Pot Equity = $.05 Finally we can figure out our Expected Value (EV): EV = Fold Equity + Pot Equity EV = $.42 + $.05 EV = $.47 We are making close to 5 big blinds in just one standard c-bet spot over the long run! This is HUGE and really adds up! Man, that was long! Do we really have to do that equity calculation for EVERY HAND?!?!? No! Please dont unless you like pain and torture. Do this every session or two for hands that you think might be close and you will start picking up patterns which will better prepare you for your next session. Most of your poker winnings are going to be figured out off the table. On the table, you are just

implementing your winning strategy and focusing on not deviating from that strategy (tilt).

The Factors of Continuation Betting

There are so many factors you want to pay attention to when c-betting. Here are a few I thought of (but Im sure there are even more smaller nuances if we dove in further): 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Position Board texture Number of opponents in the pot Villain type Our own hand

This is pretty much the order I think about things when deciding to c-bet in my own games. Ill walk you through some of the thought processes and how to adjust our strategy based on each one. Remember, this is partly a science and partly an art. You cant do equity calculations and know villains exact ranges on EVERY single hand. That is where your experience and intuition come in. You will never be exact or perfect, so dont sweat it. Just try and be as accurate as you can. Remember EV = fold equity + pot equity. So long as you make EV a positive value, it doesnt really matter how you arrange fold equity and pot equity. Where one is lacking, the other needs to make up for it. Best case scenario is when you are cranking out value in both parts of the equation. Position I keep repeating it but it is true: position is key in poker. You will be the one dictating the action and you will be the one who gets to see everyone elses actions before you will make your own. This will go a long way in helping you maximizing your wins and minimizing your losses. When in position, your bluffs will work a lot more frequently because your opponent is at such a disadvantage. He will have to check/call flop, check turn

hoping you check, then stab at blank rivers to reverse float you. That is such a spewy play and you wont be seeing a lot of people do that skillfully at the micro stakes. When your opponent is in position, he can peel with all sorts of stuff, then when you check the turn, he will go, Oh hey, this guy doesnt have anything. I should bet now. Fish and regs will float you all day whether they know what they are doing or not so your life will be hell out of position unless you have the nuts. In position, you also have more options to check back some draws if you choose to or you can check back a weak top pair hand to induce bluffs. You basically have more creativity when you are in position as you are dictating the action as opposed to letting your opponent be the last one to act. Board Texture Board textures are a super complex topic and will involve lots of combinatorics (next section) and EV calc (last section) review to really get a grasp of which boards are good and which boards are bad to c-bet. What I like looking for are boards that dont hit my villains range very well if Im bluffing, or I bet close to 100% when I have strong draws or value hands. For example, when I min-raise the button and a reg flats in the big blind, I will be cbetting a 367tt (two toned) flop because even though it is a wet and coordinated flop, it smashes a lot of the hands in my range and doesnt really smash that many hands in my opponents range (his range will be mostly big cards). Another bluff example is if I raise in middle position and get a caller on the button with a wide range. Im 100% c-betting an A95r (rainbow) flop as a bluff because Im folding out the vast majority of my opponents range that isnt an Ax hand, set, or some 9x hands. A board Im not c-betting is a board like J98tt with A5o because this hits a lot of the hands villains like to call with and I dont have much room for improvement when called (remember EV = fold equity + pot equity. I have very little of both).

These are just some obvious examples to give you an idea. It really will take some work on your part to formulate a better understanding by using combinatorics and EV calculations. Number of Opponents in the Pot Simply put, the more opponents in the pot, the less Im c-betting. Remember to find the formula for fold equity, we just multiply the fold to c-bet percentage of all of our opponents: Fold % = Player 1 Fold % * Player 2 Fold %... If you play around with the numbers, you are going to realize that your fold equity gets destroyed pretty fast the more people are in the pot. If there are one or two people in the pot, Im c-betting dry (non-coordinated) flops all the time and checking a lot of wet (coordinated) flops. In multi-way flops, Im basically only betting for value or if I have tons of equity (such as a straight flush draw or nut flush draw plus over cards). Villain Type We need to be constantly thinking about how we can exploit our opponents. Whatever they do, we need to do the opposite. If our opponents call too much to c-bets, we need to drop most of our bluffs and value bet wider. If our opponents fold too much to c-bets, we need to bluff a whole lot more and we need to pot control some of our more marginal value hands. Our Hand Obviously our hand is a pretty big deal as well. The fact is we arent going to flop that often, especially when we have a wide range in position. Because of this, we are mostly focusing on bluffing and semi-bluffing. That has been covered pretty extensively over the last few sections. When we have a hand though, we need to think about value!

At the micro stakes, value is easy. Our opponents are either calling or they arent. Bet size has very little to no influence on what their action is. Because of this, we can do things such as bet 1/3rd pot or we can overbet pot based on what we are trying to do. Most of this comes down to hand reading then trying to get our opponents to react in the most -EV way relative to what our actual hand is.

Combinatorics
This is a huge section for when you are doing your poker homework. It is close to equal in importance with the concept of EV = fold equity + pot equity. Combinatorics is simply counting the number and type of hands an opponent may have. Most micro stakes players think of their opponents hands as a single hand. When is the last time you heard some fish at a table proclaim, I put you on Ace King! That one always makes me laugh :) In reality, we cant see the opponents cards, so it is actually detrimental to think of their hand as an exact hand (such as AK). What we need to do is think about it mathematically. Think about your opponents hand as a range. A range is just a possible set of hands that an opponent may have. So if a TAG opens UTG, Im not saying in my head, I put him on KK. In my head Im looking up his UTG PFR (under the gun, pre-flop raise) stats to figure out he raises 6% or a hand range closely resembling 77+ and AQ+. This is where Poker Stove comes in handy again, but be careful, because Poker Stove only touches the tip of the iceberg. Lets say we want to 3-bet because we know that our opponent only folds non paired hands pre-flop, calls pocket pairs lower than KK and 4-bets AA and KK. Well looking at this we would say there are 2 hands he folds (AK and AQ), 6 hands he calls (77-QQ), and 2 hands he 4-bets (AA and KK). So that is a combination of 10 hands, 2 of which he folds, right? Wrong! This is where combinatorics comes in. To find out the combinations of a specific hand, you must multiply the possibilities of having the first card by the possibilities of having the second card. If the hands are inclusive (such as pocket

pairs), you need to multiply them together then divide by 2 because you hold 2 cards. So as a quick pre-flop cheat sheet: Holding any pocket pair = 6 combinations Holding any non-paired hand = 16 combinations Holding any suited non-paired hand = 4 combinations Holding any one specific hand = 1 combination (obviously!)

Lets take this 3-bet situation against this TAG UTG raiser as an example. How many combinations of AK (any suit) does he have? 4 Combos of Aces * 4 Combos of Kings = 16 Combos How many combinations of JJ does this TAG player have? (4 Combos of Jacks * 3 Combos left of Jacks) / 2 Cards Held = 6 Combos How many combos of suited cards does he have? This is a trick question because he can have two possible hands: AKs and AQs. We need to find the combos for each and add them together. (4 Combos of Aces * 1 Combos of Kings) + (4 Combos of Aces * 1 Combos of Queens) = 8 Combos Suited cards may seem kind of confusing at first, but they really arent. Lets take AKs for example. It really doesnt matter which Ace we start with (so we have 4 options to chose from). Once we pick an Ace, we need to find the King with the corresponding suit (which is just one card). This makes our options 4 * 1 = 8 combos. If I wrote it out, we could have AK of spades, AK of clubs, AK of hearts, and AK of diamonds. So now lets revisit the original problem where we 3-bet the TAG UTG raiser and figure out what he is going to do with combinatorics. First, lets classify which hands he is doing what with:

 Folds AK/AQ Calls 77-QQ Raises AA/KK Now lets figure out the combos for each one: AK/AQ = 16 Combos * 2 hands = 32 Combos of Folds 77-QQ = 6 Combos * 6 hands = 36 Combos of Calls AA/KK = 6 Combos * 2 hands = 12 Combos of Raises Now we add them all up to get a grand total range of 80 hands he is playing! This is why it makes me laugh when a fish claims they put someone on one single hand in arbitrary spots because even against a really tight range like this one, there are 80 total hands in our villains range! So here, we get our villain to fold 40% of his hands (32 folding hands / 80 total hands). When we first started this problem without knowing combinatorics, it appeared as if there were just 2 out of 10 hands he folds (20%). Now that we know combinatorics, we know that he actually folds 40%! That still isnt a lot of hands he folds, so we should probably not 3-bet bluff this guy. Lets look at one more problem. Lets say a tight 15bb short stacker min-raises in middle position and we call on the button with AJdd. The flop comes 8h3d2c and there is 5bbs in the pot and our villain has 13bbs left. We both check. The turn comes an Ace of hearts bringing about a backdoor heart flush draw. Our opponent bets 3bbs leaving him with 10bbs left and the pot of 11bbs when we call. The river is another 2 of spades and he shoves his remaining 10bbs into an 11bb pot. Lets first of all figure out our odds. We have to call off 10bbs to win 21bbs which gives us 2.1:1 odds. This means we just have to win around 33% of the time to be profitable. Now lets figure out his range (we should have already done this earlier in the hand, but for the sake of having a contrived example hand, play with me). Lets say he raises preflop with any broadway, pocket pair, and Ax suited hand. By the

river, he is only jamming all in with quads/full houses, Ax hands,and missed flush draws. Lets figure this out step by step: Quads/Full houses = 22, 33, 88, AA Ax hands = A2s-A9s, AT, AJ, AQ, AK Missed flush draws = KQhh, KJhh, KThh, QJhh, QThh, JThh Notice that i separated out the Ax hands because I only beat AT and lower, tie with AJ, and lose to AQ+. Now we have to figure out the combinations for each: 22, 33, 88, AA = (3 combos * 2 hands) + (2 combos * 1 hand) = 8 Combos of hands that beat us Notice how 22, 33, and 88 each have 3 combos. That is because there is one 2, 3, and 8 card already on the board. That means that 3 first card selections * 2 second card selections divided by 2 is 3 combinations. There are already 2 Ace outs taken as well (one on board and one in our hand). That means that there are 2 first card combos * 1 second card combo divided by 2 for just one combination. You would also be able to figure it out just by thinking about it as well. If we have the Ace of diamonds and the Ace of hearts is on the board, that only leaves the Ace of spades and the Ace of clubs. The same thing applies for the 2s. There is only one combination of pocket 2s our opponent can have. A4-A7s, A9s, A2s, A3s, A8s = (2 combos * 7 hands) = 14 Combos of hands we beat Remember that we have the Ace of diamonds and the Ace of hearts is on the board. This only leaves 2 combinations of Aces left. For example there is the A3 of clubs, A3 of spades, A4 of clubs, A4 of spades, and so on all the way to A9 of clubs and A9 of spades. Since we know they have to be suited cards and we know the Ad and Ah is taken, we know that no Axdd or Axhh can be counted as combos. None of the A2 hands can be used since all of their suits are blocked by cards on the board or in our hand. Also, the 3d and 8h blocks A3dd and A8hh respectively. AT = 8 combos * 1 hand = 8 Combos of hands we beat

Since there are only 2 Aces to start with as our first card, and there are still 4 Tens left in the deck, we do 2 * 4 to get 8 combos of AT of any suit left. AJ = 6 combos * 1 hand = 6 Combos we tie We have two Aces blocked and one Jack in our hand making our math fairly simple (2 Ace combos * 3 Jack combos = 6 total combos). AQ/AK = 8 combos * 2 hands = 16 Combos we lose to Again, two combos of Ax are blocked, but all 4 Queens and all 4 Kings havent been blocked. That leaves 2 Ace combos * 4 Kicker combos = 8 combos for each hand. KQhh, KJhh, KThh, QJhh, QThh, JThh = 6 Combos we beat I know your brain hurts so this one is easy. Just count the actual hands since they are already defined by suit. Now, lets add up the totals that we beat, the totals we tie, and the totals that beat us: We Beat: 6 + 8 + 14 = 28 Combos Beat Us: 16 + 8 = 24 Combos Tie: 6 Combos TOTAL HANDS = 58 HANDS Now we take the 28 hands we beat and divide it by 58 total hands he can have. By doing that, we figure out that we beat 48% of his hands. If you recall, we only needed to beat 33% of hands so we are way good to call here! I know that takes a hell of a long time to calculate for such a trivial looking hand, but I promise you this is the thing that figuratively separates the men from the boys. You dont have to do this with every hand, just find one hand like this every session or two and do either an equity calculation or do combinatorics on it. That way you will have tons of situations where youve figured out all the math before

hand so when you get to the spot at the tables you are prepared. Most people I coach really take their time in a lot of situations that seem standard for me. That is because most micro stakes players dont do this sort of homework off the tables. You too can have that edge if you just put the work in! The added benefit is that you can play and think a lot faster because you have done a lot of the hard thinking off the table. If you ever wanted to jump up to 8+ tables, continued practice and homework off the tables could be the missing ingredient you need!

Exploitation
Poker is a game of exploitation. You dont even have to be good at poker to win. All you have to do is be better at exploiting just one other person at the table. Most people just sit down to play the cards they are dealt. While that is a part of poker, the main thing you want to do is constantly be finding ways to exploit your opponents. Our primary way of systematically exploiting our opponents is analyzing our opponents with our HUD and notes, then create and implement a strategy to take advantage of them. If you arent doing all of the things listed above, you probably arent capable of winning past $10NL or $25NL. Analyzing Our Opponents When asking some students how they view the players at the table, I hear a lot of things like they are bad, fish, or good. Then Ill ask what my students gameplan is to exploit these villains and Ill usually get something generic like play balanced, mix things up, or play tighter. I think this is one of the biggest misconceptions in all of poker (especially the balanced part). Most people just say these things and have no idea what they really mean. First of all, saying things like someone is a fish or they are bad isnt specific enough. If Im looking to exploit someone, I need to know exactly what trait is bad, why it is bad, and what can I specifically do to exploit that trait. Generally the best way to exploit the villains bad tendencies is to do the complete opposite of whatever they are doing. So if someone is playing really loose, Im going to play tighter because I want stronger hands to be able to call down with their aggression. If someone is playing too tight, I want to ramp up my aggression

so I can really push them off pots and get them to finally crack and stick all their money in on tilt when I actually have a hand. Since we are constantly adjusting to the opposite traits of our opponents bad traits, having a balanced game plan makes no sense. Lets think about it in simpler terms by playing some rock, paper, scissors (RPC). Rock > Scissors Scissors > Paper Paper > Rock As we can see here, a balanced approach for us would be to run a random number generator between 1 and 3. We would then throw out either rock, paper, or scissors depending on whichever one corresponds to that number. This means that we would play Rock 33.33% of the time, Paper 33.33% of the time, and Scissors 33.33% of the time. Because we are balanced, we are unexploitable and no matter what our villain chooses, his equity will always be 50:50 against us. This is a great strategy if our opponent is some mental ninja who has mastered rock, paper, scissors and is destroying us. The thing with poker is everyone sucks at the micro stakes. Even the winning regs are pretty bad relative to the midstakes and high-stakes guys. You will not meet players at the micro limits (or 99.99% of live games) where you will ever need to play a balanced strategy. If you ever find yourself in a high stakes game with one fish and Phil Ivey, then you want to exploit the fish and play balanced against Phil Ivey. If the fish werent there and you played a perfect balanced strategy, you will eventually get destroyed by the rake. When our opponents are just clicking buttons while drunk on the weekends, they usually havent even thought about strategy. Their thought process is usually just one the first level of I have a draw, I call. I have the nuts, I will check/call down then check/min-raise the river (to learn more about the different levels of poker click here). Because our villain almost always plays the same way in every similar situation, they are playing an unbalanced and exploitable strategy. What is the best way to exploit this person? The answer is to play an exploitable strategy ourselves and go to the other extreme to maximize our wins and minimize our losses. Lets look at this from an RPC standpoint:

Our opponent always throws out Rock. We should throw out Paper 100% of the time. Sure, he could throw out Scissors 100% of the time and destroy us, but he wont because he is just clicking buttons and thinking about his own strategy. If we ever trying playing balanced here, for every rock we throw out, we break even and give up our opportunity cost of whatever we wagered. If we ever try throwing down Scissors, we will not only lose our money, but we will also give up any opportunity costs we had of exploiting our opponent. Lets say our opponent wises up because he has lost with Rock for the last 10 throws. He now starts throwing out Scissors 100% of the time because he is trying to overcompensate for our strategy. It will work initially, but after 2 or 3 throws, we will see what he is doing and then start throwing 100% Rock. Most villains at the micros will never make that initial adjustment and just throw Rock forever. The few that do make the adjustment will start overcompensating by playing Scissors every time against you and never adjusting from that initial adjustment. If you ever go to mid-stakes or higher, you will have to get into this mode where you are constantly adjusting your strategy and trying to stay one move ahead of your opponent. Good thing we dont have to worry about that at the micros :) Use a HUD and Take Notes If you havent already, grab a copy of HEM2. HEM2 and similar hand tracking pieces of software are an invaluable tool for any online poker player. It will tell you all sorts of statistical information about your opponent and allows you to take notes on them within the program so you can review hands and notes at a later time. There are several main stats that I have on my HUD that help me identify gaping holes in my opponents game. They are VPiP (Voluntarily Put $ in Pot PFR (Pre-Flop Raise) Steal % Fold to Steal % Cbet % Fold to Cbet % (for flop and turn)

 3-bet % Fold to 3-bet % I combine all of these stats in my head to formulate the best strategy against each player. For example, if someone has tight stats and folds to steals a lot, I will abuse them by stealing while in position (we talked about the math earlier). If someone folds to 3-bets too much, I will 3-bet them relentlessly in position. If someone has a wide range and c-bets too much, I will adjust by calling down with marginal hands, semi-bluff raise a lot of flops, or float them a lot in position depending on their other stats such as fold flop to raise and turn c-bet %. There is a lot of math behind all of these plays which you now know how to do, but a lot of the feel for when to do these things is a skill that is learned over hundreds of thousands of hands. If you follow my blog or watch me stream live, all I do is constantly explain my thought process on how to exploit players based on these stats. Check it out if you havent already! Its 100% free! Notes are mostly important at defining ranges and documenting bet patterns. Lets say we notice a player flats in position to trap with AA/KK, yet they only have a 2% 3-bet%. Just by looking at stats, we would assume their range is KK+ and AK, but since we have notes we know better. Maybe they only 3-bet bluff or maybe they only 3-bet hands like QQ/JJ and AQ. People are slightly different, so pay attention to what they showdown with and note it! Bet patterns are important to note as well. Remember the whole rock, paper, scissors thing? This is where it really comes in. Lets say we know that a player will only bet two streets with top pair good kicker and pot control river. This is definitely an interesting line and should be noted. Now when we are in a hand and they triple barrel us, we will know they either have the nuts, or they have a bluff such as a missed draw. If we do combinatorics, we can discover how bluff heavy their hand is since we know they simply wont ever have a good top pair hand. Little notes like that go a long way towards helping you exploit your opponent by maximizing your wins against them and minimizing losses when you know they are strong.

Im Ready to Start Playing!

Great! I know I havent told you exactly how to play, but I have given you the strategies and tools so you can teach yourself how. Think of this course like Morpheus from the Matrix. It can show you the door, but you are the one who has to walk through it. Get in the hands, do your homework off the tables, and start crushing! Before you get started, I want to show you better ways to maximize your poker experience and minimize any frustrations. You will need rakeback, know which site to play on, and know where to go to continue getting better.

Deposit Bonus and Rakeback

Before you even sit down at any poker table, you need to be thinking about maximizing any winnings you have plus minimizing any losses. Obviously with poker you can swing all over the place. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Many sites offer bonuses and rakeback to encourage players to play on their site. With all this extra money coming in, all you need to do is play and you will win something! There are even people whose whole income relies on breaking even at poker and banking thousands every year on bonuses and rakeback. What does all this extra money mean for you? For every hand you play, money is taken off the tables by the casino so they can fund their operation. A way for casinos to attract new players is to offer something called rakeback which essentially gives you a percentage of the casinos cut for every hand you play. Not only do you get money exploiting fish, but you also get paid by the casino for every hand you play! Rakeback differs from site to site so make sure you figure out which program works best for you. Since I play online poker to support my lifestyle, I have thoroughly investigated all of the major sites and have found the best rakeback offers on the internet! PokerStars If you are outside the United States, the hands down best choice for online poker is PokerStars. PokerStars is my favorite site because their software is the most

professional, they have the largest player pool, the biggest and best tournaments, fast customer support, and fast payment processing for deposits and withdraws! PokerStars doesnt have actual rakeback, but they do have cash bonuses which is effectively rakeback. Instead of getting weekly rakeback deposits into your account, you get points. Once you get a certain number of points at your player level, you can cash them in for money! Obviously the more you play, the more points you get and the more money you can cash in on. The best part about the PokerStars software is that they introduced a new format called Zoom Poker. If any of you played Rush Poker on the old Full Tilt site, you will know the concept. Basically whenever you fold a hand, you immediately move to another table and another hand. This way you can get in literally hundreds of hands per hour per table. When I started playing on PokerStars, there were $100NL regs who were grinding 24 tables for 8 hours a day to earn $160,000+ of bonuses for the year. With Zoom Poker, you can play just 4 tables and have the same number of hands per hour as someone playing 24 tables. This means that you earn bonus cash faster and your VIP level goes up REALLY fast! If Zoom Poker is not your style, no worries, there is still a lot of money to be made at the regular tables and tournament tables. There are literally hundreds of thousands of people playing poker at once so whatever floats your boat will be there! If you havent already, click here to grab the PokerStars software where your account will be activated to receive the cash bonuses. On top of that, you will receive a 100% deposit bonus up to $600. I highly recommend getting as much of that money as possible as they are literally handing you free money! Black Chip Poker (Merge Network) After Black Friday, Americans had no place to play poker online. Since April of 2011, the Merge network has really stepped up as one of the best overall sites for American players. On top of that, Black Chip Poker stepped up to become the best skin on the Merge Network. I now play almost entirely on Black Chip Poker as they are my favorite site facing the US. I really like their new software, they have good support, fast payouts for Americans, a 150% deposit bonus up to $750, and 35% rakeback. Also, they constantly run promotions for even more money! Right now, they have a $100,000 rake race where the more rake you generate, the

higher up the rankings you go. The top 400 players on the site for the week each share in the $25,000 weekly prize. You can find more details about the rake race here and if you want to get the highest possible rakeback, go here and enter in the code BCP750 for the 150% deposit bonus! Lock Poker (Revolution Network) The newest of US facing poker sites is Lock Poker on the Revolution Network. They were previously the major skin on Merge, but they ended up breaking off and taking over the old Cake Network. They dont have as much traffic as Black Chip Poker yet and they are still working out some minor issues that arose when they transferred their site over, but overall, they have potential to be the best US facing site! I would definitely check them out for their 36% rakeback and their MASSIVE 200% deposit bonus up to $2,000. If that wasnt enough, you check out their promotions and freerolls where they are basically just handing you free money. My favorite part about this site is that they have the highest rakeback for US facing sites, they pay relatively fast, and you get your rakeback payments hourly. Check Lock Poker out as it is a good site to grind the micro stakes on or at the very least, having a second bankroll to take advantage of all the free money they are giving away!

Poker Software
To be honest, most poker tools really suck and arent worth the money. There are a few tools that are useful for SNG and tournament players, but for cash game players, there arent many tools that are really that useful. Since cash game players play deeper poker than tournament players, we have to have less automatic decisions (shove/fold) that are pure math and we need to have more strategy (or actual poker as some call it). Ultimately, your arsenal is going to come down to two critical pieces of software: an equity program and a hand tracking program. PokerStove

PokerStove is hands down my favorite program for figuring out equity. The best part about it, it is 100% free! I use it all the time off the table to figure out my equity in different situations. I already discussed above how you can use it for

studying off the tables. It has many applications in both cash game poker and tournament poker and is very powerful in that you can specify your opponents ranges or exact holdings. Holdem Manager 2

Holdem Manager 2 (HEM2) is an absolute essential! It seems like every year that goes by the importance of having a heads up display (HUD) goes way up. If you are grinding multiple tables in the micros, there is no way you can pay attention to everything going on! This is where HEM2 comes in. You will have the ability to track all your opponents at the table, plus you can review all of your own stats and plug your leaks a lot easier. HEM2 makes it easy to study your game with their advanced reports, organized tracking, and clean hand review interface. If you are grinding the micro-stakes, I highly recommend purchasing their Small Stakes Version which covers all your imported hands up to $50NL and tournaments up to $22. For most people, this is the best solution and it only costs

$59.99. If you are at $25NL or higher and are thinking about moving up anytime soon, I would highly recommend just purchasing the full version for just a little more money. If you are still hesitant, dont worry! You can download a free 30 day free trial that gives you FULL access to the software! This one piece of software alone has literally paid for itself over 1,000 times over in my lifetime. If you already have HEM1 or PT3, your software will work fine with most of the popular sites, but you might want to consider upgrading to HEM2 as it is by far the most superior tracking software out today. There is a reason why all the pros use it! Poker Table Ratings Poker Table Ratings (PTR) is a website that tracks hands at the most popular card rooms on the internet. It is notoriously inaccurate but can still prove useful for the dedicated cash game grinder. PTR is useful because for just a few dollars, you can download thousands of tracked hands on your opponents. This allows you to get an edge at the table by having more accurate and up to date stats on your opponents. It is especially helpful when you are moving up in a limit or moving over to a different format (6-max, full ring, or heads up). When is the last time you have moved up, changed sites, or changed formats and felt completely lost your first few sessions? With PTR you will never have that feeling. You can save all the money you would have lost being clueless by downloading thousands of stats on your opponents! Check out their pricing as it is really reasonable in my opinion and completely worth not getting owned your first few sessions.

Where Can You Go To Get Better

Obviously strategy is half the game while the other half is the work you are willing to invest towards getting better. This book has hopefully helped get you to a point where you can know how to get better. There is no way I could cover every little topic that encompasses poker in one ebook (or regular book for that matter.... if anyone tries telling you otherwise they are lying). Because there is a huge amount of forever expanding knowledge out there for you to absorb, you will need some tools in your poker arsenal. Nitreg.com

This is my site so obviously Im going to say it is the best :) While Im not some high stakes baller or live some flamboyant lifestyle, I do live off my poker winnings at the small and micro-stakes to pay my way through school and live modestly. My belief is that with enough effort, anyone can make decent money at poker and beat the micro-stakes. Nitreg.com shows you how to do just that despite whatever your poker goals may be. I have free strategy articles coming out all the time, updated advice that is relevant to todays games, and you can peek over my shoulder and watch my grind for free on my Twitch channel and YouTube channel. Check both of them out and if you like what Im doing, I would greatly appreciate it if you would follow or subscribe on my pages. Remember, everything is free! GrinderSchool.com Again, I have to come forward and inform you guys that Im a coach on this site so take it for what it is worth. GrinderSchool.com is an awesome poker video training site because it is geared 100% towards micro-stakes players. Other sites have better strategy and content, but it is almost exclusively for $100NL and higher! If you take most of that advice and apply it to the micro-stakes, you will get crushed by some fish who check/calls down your bluff with second pair! On top of exclusively training you to crush and move up the micro-stakes, the pricing is very easy on the wallet. Some other sites charge hundreds of dollars up front then charge you a ton every month on top of that! Grinder School charges a very reasonable $19.99/month with no startup fees. If you only play $10NL and lower or micro stakes tournaments, you can get access to just those videos for just $9.99/month. You seriously cant beat all that specialized poker training geared around the games you play for just one buyin a month! Deuces Cracked Deuces Cracked is my overall favorite poker training site because I think it is priced fairly, has the best strategy for the games I play, and they always deliver multiple quality videos every day! The strategy they teach is amazing, but again, be warned that most of it should only be used at higher limits as your opponents will generally play differently. DC has no startup fees and they only charge $29 a month which is very reasonable considering that the strategy is geared for people

who play $100NL+. For most of you guys reading this, DC isnt for you, but in case you wanted to get that extra edge and really dive into some deep poker concepts for a great price, feel free to check out their library of videos for a month or two and see how you like it!

Conclusion
Thanks everyone for checking out my ebook and my site! I really appreciate all the emails coming in supporting everything Im doing! As the community grows, I get more and more motivated to pump out awesome new content for you guys. I have a lot of exciting things planned for the future that I think will revolutionize online poker training in terms of price (or lack thereof) and quality! Also, If you are looking to rise the poker ranks fast, check out my coaching page. It does cost some money and isnt for everyone, but if you really want results faster than the average person, I would highly recommend investing in my coaching program. If not, no problem! Ive got lots of free content on my site as well that I hope you can learn from. If you have any questions, want to leave feedback for this ebook, or just want to stop and say hi, please feel free to shoot me a message on my contact page. Best of luck and see you all at the tables! ~Patrick aka Nitreg