Sometimes poker is so easy! Congrats sir! Also, props for having the awareness to go after the easy games.

Why is every big winning session followed by a losing one? Monday nights are the worst to play! Fuck it I'm still ready to crush June!

Mmmm that bankroll looks nice bro and some nice hands there....makes me want to make another sky video!

BTW bro please leave a review for Virgin Games Here

Done

From my blog:

So I’ve played my first few thousand hands at 10NL on Sky and thought I’d put down some of my initial thoughts and observations on the games and any similarities and differences from 4NL.

After a swingy few sessions this week I’m hovering at 4 buy ins up since moving up. Mostly down to me making some really bad plays so I’ve got some work to do.




Here’s a link to the PokerVIP sign up deal: https://www.pokervip.com/deals/independent/skypoker

(Below – Queens paying off)





Limp City

As with 4NL you can throw your 6 handed opening range charts out the window because you will rarely need to refer to them. As long as you’ve got your early position ranges down the rest of the time you won’t often be first into the pot. The limping that goes on in these games is ridiculous. Even the “regs” don’t seem to understand that aside from the occasional trap, limping basically achieves nothing other than giving every other player a chance to see a cheap flop. It’s not a value bet and certainly not a bluff but they just keep doing it again and again. I do my best to see what hands they are doing this with, make notes, and punish them for it.

One difference though is that while players are limp-calling a lot, there is a lot less limp-folding than at 4NL. I think this is a good thing since we don’t get a lot of value from players limp-folding, but it does mean I’ve tightened up my isolation ranges. Again I’m always watching to see what hands players are doing this with. You have to be very careful with those that seem to do it with even AK and AQ type hands. I had a frustrating session where one player limp-called with any Kx hand, so I would iso for 5x or 6x with the top of my range. But every time he flopped a king and I lost with my JJ or bricked AQ. Because obviously they’re never folding. That’s another similarity with 4NL. If they hit top pair, they aren’t folding. So when I have 2 pair or better, I try to take them on a trip from Limp City to Value Town 🙂

Annoying Overcalls

Another thing that hasn’t changed is these frustrating overcallers who make things difficult, especially when it puts you out of position and sandwiched between 2 players . The ranges seem to be more defined though. At 4NL it could be any 2 cards but now it seems to be heavily weighted towards mid pocket pairs and suited connectors/one-gappers. Playing these multiway pots is an area I need to work on, but as always good observation and note taking makes it a lot easier.

Less Action

This is the major difference between 4NL and 10NL. For example as I write this it’s Sunday afternoon (one of my favourite times to play at 4NL) and these are the table lists:




^There’s actually another table running that I couldn’t get in the screenshot.




If you rule out the capped tables there’s 3 times the action at 4NL. Plus what you can’t see in those screenshots is that all but a few of the 10NL players are regs. Ok so most of them are pretty awful but the good ones are on every table. It’s frustrating waiting for ages to get on just two tables then finding the best player there sat to your left on both of them. This is why I’ve actually started playing at more varied hours. While there are plenty more fish at the obvious times like the weekend and late evenings (not Mondays though, I never win on Mondays!!), this is also when the regs are playing. I tried playing on a weekday morning and there were only two tables running. Within a few minutes I had every player marked green, not a reg in to be seen 🙂

There is of course the option to hop on an 8NL table (I think Sky are unique in offering these but I could be wrong). The problem is that there only a few and they seem to get even less action.

A quick observation regarding the 8NL tables: They seem to have a mix of 4NL and 10NL players, but I haven’t spotted a 4NL player at 10NL or vice versa.

Summary

So I think that covers the major comparisons. To summarise, the games are still super soft, if you’re winning at 4NL and have the bankroll you should have no problem at 10NL, but you will have to be more patient with finding the good action.


I’m tempted to switch to another site, perhaps Bet Victor, which at the same time as the above images had these tables running (plus 9 more anon tables I couldn’t get in shot):




I’ll stay where I am til the end of the month then see what I feel like doing. No doubt a whole load of regs grinding for rakeback there but it’s hard to resist with all those tables!

Plenty of action on BV most times now since player pools joined from PKR. I couldn't really say which site has softer micros but sky games are a pushover up to nl50 from what little I've seen. don't worry about the regs, most of them I call regreationals even if they are multitabling. You'll find the weak players do the same anyway, the hard part is hitting something in the middle in a 4 handed pot after your latest iso raise fail!

Have fun on sky, I liked it a lot when I was there.

Sky all the way. One of the softest sites out there.

Cons are hand histories are a nightmare to check after a game.

Yeh that's a huge thing missing right now, I'm doing pretty much no studying. I'm recording sessions but not making note of trouble spots. I'm going to make a concerted effort to study more.

I gotta say you really are one of the best forum members I have ever seen - that blog is epic and even linking in the deals sign up is beyond the call of duty but super appreciate it

As for the blog 100% stick to Sky IMO. Never rush and lets just really stay focused on the good points of that site and the goals. This is 100% a site you can climb the levels and have a very low fear factor of going broke IMO. Really start thinking about shot taking in softer looking games, put some time in just with the 20nl games open taking notes on the players when hands go to showdown. Then when you see some greens (green tag for me means fish) and have some notes and you see a soft table GOGOGOGO.

Thanks @Jon-PokerVIP, on the off chance that someone reads it I gotta spread the good word

Yeh I think I'll stick with Sky for a while at least. Like you say there's no fear of going broke there with my bankroll. I also think I need to improve my game and winrate on Sky before looking elsewhere.

Oh I think people are reading it buddy:

Got it in on the flop and held.




But why is it always against the short stacks? Later on I got it in again but for 140BB, nut straight vs top pair with flush draw. Of course the flush hit. Damn flush always hits.

Ha never complain about getting in the nuts even if it is vs a short stack......loving to see some colour coding and notes there buddy!!!

Mid month and break even at 10NL on Sky. Can't really complain, guess it's good I've been able to move up a level and not be losing straight away. But a fair amount of tilt and spew has crept back into my game. I think out of a lack of patience and wanting to win every hand/session. I'm absolutely loving poker right now so I'm ready to up my game and get serious.

Goals for the rest of June:

Play lots. I'm getting in regular 1 hour sessions and they fly by so I'm going to start playing up to 2, maybe 3 hours when games are good. I've been recording sessions but I need to make a note of hands to review so I can post on the forum. Also thinking of getting a mic so I can commentate and maybe even a webcam to stream. Figure it could help me play better knowing someone might watch. Plus feedback would be good.

Study more. I want my play:study to be more like 60:40 instead of the 90:10 it is now. I've started reading my poker books again and I'm thinking of getting Dusty Schmidt's Treat Your Poker Like A Business. Also need to rewatch some of Jon's microstakes videos. And start plugging hands and ranges into equilab and flopzilla. My poker math needs a lot of work, I must be losing a lot from calling/folding when the odds dictate I should do the opposite.

Reduce tilt. I'm going to reread The Mental Game of Poker vol 1. It helped me so much last year, it's time to revisit it. Training at the gym is going well so that helps and I'm riding the motorbike a lot more too which is great fun too.

Have to say I'm loving poker right now. Every morning when I wake up I hate the thought of going into work, I just want to play!

Yeh gotta take breaking even as a win buddy......the breakthrough will happen!

Had a couple of good sessions to take me up 6 buy ins. Then had a bad one to go back down a couple. Decided to start noting down what I think my main mistakes were (nothing too specific) and what the fix is, after each session. I already feel it's helping me get over the tilty bad feeling left after the session and recognizing the problems should make rectifying them easier. So here are todays:

Mistake 1 - Played 4 tables without any warm up.

Solution - Play 2 tables max until you have good reads, playing A game, and have a reason to open more tables i.e. spot a soft table, whale etc.

Mistake 2 - Didn't table select properly.

Solution - Always table select. Look at the players, the stack sizes, your notes. If they are reg filled or the fish aren't paying out, leave. Better to play one good table, or even none at all, than four bad ones.

Mistake 3 - Shoved straight flush draw with zero fold equity because there was no price to call villains large bet.

Solution - Don't get attached to strong draws. Don't call without the price. And NEVER shove a draw without a lot of fold equity.

Mistake 4 - Got frustrated because I wasn't winning after an hour.

Solution - 1 hour of play on 4 tables is roughly 240 hands. You CANNOT always win every 240 hands, or even every 24000 hands. See it as good practice, opportunity to take notes, and contribution to rake race - stay positive and DO NOT be results oriented.

Mistake 5 - Spewed last few hands in attempt to recover losses before big blind came round to end session.

Solution - If you are ending session because of tilt, leave the tables immediately. Do not wait for big blind. Do not play any more hands. And NEVER chase losses, you just lose more.

Actually for number 3 I think I had like 15 outs on the flop so I guess it's just get it in since we have the odds against pretty much every made hand right? I need to work on my math!

Lets bring in the Maths man @thetallpaul ......pretty sure he can put an exact number on this situation.

Think your mistakes are insanely clear and the solutions make sense! Learn and move on.

Grinding on Virgin much at all ?

Yeah it's a 92% call and you win 112% of the time.

I don't even need to look back in the thread to see what you are talking about to know that.

@Jon-PokerVIP will back that up.