Do you use a tracker? If yes then post your stats (VPIP, WTS, PFR, AF at minimum, listed by full ring and shorthanded). We all got our monsters cracked, this is normal when you are allways the favorite. If you are favorite then the only way your opponent can win his 18% money is with luck.
However, money should not come from monster hands only. Those are just hands which have such a big power that they should win the pot preflop, thus giving you a "free table turn" to get more hands with which winning money.
I personally started on Everest Poker with a account not linked to pokerstrategy (because I didn't know that site at that time). I started from scratch, a few tables there allows you to play a FL SNG 10 players with the prize pool being 5ct, 3ct and 2ct. I played them again and again Until I had 11ct to play a NL 10 players SNG, lost the 11ct, and go back to the beginning. After a few weeks doing that I managed to get to a 30 ct bankroll (which was huge for me at that time). I then played those SNG again and again to try to build up the bankroll, and after two months got back to 3cts (so I got back to the FL tourneys, for about 3 weeks playing FL and getting into a NL SNG whenever I had 11ct). I finally managed to get to 1$. For every 20ct above 1$, earned by SNG, I went on a NL2 table to play a "SPT style". I did this during 3 more months to get to the magic number of 2$!!! Now, for every 40ct above 2$ I could play the real SPT (with 20BB instead of 10!!!), everytime I got back to 2$ I got up again with SNGs... And one holy day! Little SPT God talked to the cards to reward my patience! My AQ cracked AA + KK in a preflop AI with a holy straight, followed by a KK in the very next hand called down preflop by AK + Acrap. I got up to almost 9$ while closing the table!!! I now had the correct bankroll to play NL2 SPT! And slowly but surely, my bankroll started to get up, until, 3 months later I reached 120$, cashed out 100$, and left Everest poker.
During the 6 last months I had already registered to PS, and got 50$ to Titan Poker, however I almost didn't use it, playing exclusively on Everest with my insufficient bankroll, meaning that I had to play with an extremely tough bankroll management, forcing me to change limit almost each two days.
Why am I explaining all this? Just for one thing: I learned patience through this. Most of the time when I though I was playing well I started to try to force the winrate, and retrospectively I know it were mistakes. I have learned to simply wait for the spots that are not good. I have learned to throw away that KQo UTG on a full ring table because I admit that even if my hand might be the best one on the table, I don't have yet the level to win money with it here. I had to force myself to play in position, to fold my big hands when it was obvious that they were beaten, even if my head was crying out loud "NOOO HE CAN'T HAVE THE FLUSH BECAUSE IT WAS BACKDOOR AND I PLAY BETTER THAN HIM". And through patience and downswing I did not lose that much. And through patience I could get until that beloved 100hands upswing that lets you double up your bankroll. What to do after that? PATIENCE! If you have enough money, you can give a shot to the next limit if and only if you are SURE that you are beating the current limit (otherwise you will play on a limit, and if you have to grind down you will need to struggle too hard, and therefore get frustrated). Don't change your limit up if you got enough money through luck. Only change limit when you KNOW that you beat the current one.
The other very important thing is to admit that your play is full of mistakes. I mean, if you can't beat NL4 it can't be only because of bad luck. Last week I was on a downswing on NL4 but I still had a 1,2BB/100 hands on the week (my average winrate there is about 20-27BB/100 hands). However my play is full of mistakes and leaks. I can see that when I get up to NL10 shorthanded and feel like my opponents have an edge against me. What to do there? Just get back to NL4, find a SH table with regular players and play them, until I have found a few leaks in my play, correct them, and got back to NL10. Feeling better when playing there now, but I still see problems in my play.
I will list a few problems I had when I started playing big stack on NL4:
-> slowplay: I slowplayed my good made hands sometimes hoping a villain to get trapped by it. This is bullshit! On NL2 and NL4, just never EVER slowplay. Villains are allways calling with gutshots so let them pay the hard price, allways! And remember: the more money in the pot before ther hit, the less money you will loose in the long run on the river when you get your stack in (because if they fold their flush draw on the river when they didn't got it you will have earned more money by betting, and in avarege you will earn more money that you will lose to the draw they completed when they pay the river allin. This doesn't mean that you have to play like that on higher limits, this is just a tip to limit the money lost in those cases)
-> bluffs and continuation bets: don't bluff in NL2/NL4: you just don't need to, especially in full ring. continuation bet is the only bluff allowed but:
1- only contibet bluff when a queen, king, or ace is on the board, and sometimes a jack
2- never contibet on a flop with all cards under 8
3- never contibet bluff into 3 or more opponents
4- never contibet into an opponent calling down almost any-two.
-> semibluffs: I don't think you need them. I almost never semibluff in NL4 full ring, and rarely do in NL4 shorthanded
This statement about bluffs is easy to understand: 95%of players you will encounter won't pay attention to what you are doing. They only play their cards, and they don't know when those cards are good, so without knowing what to do: they call.
-> When to raise? Just pick up a starting hand chart for TAG style on this site and stick to it. It might be frustrating to fold that ATo when you have the right to raise ATs or AJo, but remember: if it is writtent that way it is only to let you avoid hard decisions to take postflop. Because a mistake postflop will let you lose at least 5-7 big blinds, while a ATo fold preflop will make you lose 1BB in average (because on average you will not be able to make more money than 1BB on average with that hand out of position until you will play better).
-> When to call a raise? When you are in position! Because playing a raised pot out of position without the initiative is really hard to do when you don't know what to do and how to play it correctly (which is indeed the case if you can't beat NL2, no offense, this is just a statement and a solution to help you make that statement part of the past).
Also, don't call raises with any hand that "looks good". You should call with hands that are better than the range with which he raises. The best thing to do, I think, is to take your TAG starting hand chart, look at the position of the initial raiser, and call only with the top half of the hands written there. That way you are calling with a hand that is ahead of his range.
Allways reraise AK and QQ once minimum. If you saw the raising players playing bad hands allin preflop, do not hesitate to push allin preflop. Even if you get cracked, this is normal, even if frustrating, however you won money in the long run.
Allways reraise again and again AA and KK. Against a player that looks especially carefull preflop, don't go allin against him with AK. Just reraise once, call the 3bet and play the flop. If he plays the rest of the hand the same way he would play AA or KK, be careful. In general, try to see the showdown as cheap as possible, so that you will know with which hand he played so aggressively. I know that on the forums it is told to go allin with AK preflop, especially on bad limits. However with experience, this is not good in the long run. This is due to the fact that most players don't move allin with their hands preflop, unless they know their hand is SOOOO strong (AA and KK). Too much players limp/call AK to see a flop...etc... So be careful against unknown: try to see the showdown to get an information, and give him a note so that the next time he plays aggressively you have an idea of the hand he might play that way.
You might call a raise with pocket pairs, according to the "call20" rule (which means that you can call a raise if both you and your opponent have more than 20 times the money you have to pay to see the flop), according to pokerstrategy articles. In game, the accepted rule is normally "call15", however if you can't get through NL2 then you might have problems of getting enough money out of your made hands, and also problems identifying the situations where you have to fold your set. So in my opinion you should not go under a "call18" rule for the moment. Pocket pairs are an exception about position, because they are really easy to play even out of position: either you flop your set so you can start betting each street to earn as much money as possible, either you get an overpair with which you will generally bet 2 times for protection, but try to keep the pot SMALL (= no allin with that until you know your opponent will move allin with bad hands), even if this means a fold to a reraise on your 2nd bet, or a very big reraise on your flop bet!, either you flopped nothing and you can check/fold.
Do not call raises with suited connectors on NL2 and NL4! As already said, 95% of players don't take care of what you play. It's like they don't even know you have cards in hands, so there is no need to put money into hands that will get you to hard-to-play postflop. The real advantage of playing suited connectors is to incorporate different styl of hands in your range so that you are less easily readable. NL2 players DON'T TRY TO READ YOUR HAND, so don't waste money in those hands.
-> When and what to limp? On a table where a lot of players limp and don't raise (or only minraise preflop) you can limp pocket pairs in almost every position, but only if you are sure that you will have more than 4 other persons to see the flop (to have enough odds and not losing money). You can limp suited connectors and one gaped suited connectors in late position (MP3, CO and BU on a full ring table) if there are at least one caller (suited connector) or 2 callers (one gaped suited connector). You can also complete the small blind with those hands if there is at least one limper. Once on the flop, play according to the odds! If necessary, print a table giving you the odds per card according to the number of outs (or you can count that way: 1 out = 2% per card, for example, an open ended straight draw can be completed by 8 cards, hence 8 outs, so you have 16% per card. Which means 5:1 odds per card, or 2:1 on an allin (two cards). However remember that your draws can lose value: an open ended straight draw an a flop composed of too cards of the same color will only give you 6 outs, because 2 of them can give someone else a flush. On a flop of the same color you might even already be beaten. And remember that on a board with two cards of the same type there are risks of full houses, which is also a "not so good" spot to draw your card.
I know my post is a bit lengthy. I tried to tell almost all what I learned from playing NL2 and NL4 extensively for 3 years (I didn't have the time to play enough to keep my level and be able to reach higher limits, as I could only play for example 3 days each 2 months, I had two days to get my level back (and losing money during that time), and the third to get my money back. I got back to poker a few weeks ago, playing a little bit everyday and I know that I clearly beat those limits, as well as I know that I beat NL10 full ring. I'm just switching to shorthanded, and that's why I encountered some problems on that new limit: the dynamic is quite different from what i was used to play.
I will also apologize for my english that I know is not good, especially when you read it on such a lengthy text. Hope it helps.
