It comes from live poker where the table is typically made of felt cloth and your chips sit in front of you on the table. If you lose all of your chips (usually on one hand) then you are left with nothing in front of you but the felt - you have been “felted”.
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Thanks - never knew that. Can’t WAIT to use the term in a conversation.
Watching the replay and knowing u had a boat on the flop I was thinking I would have check-raised too but would have bet 2-3k and be happy with the smaller pot…but by the river I see you played it perfectly and won the biggest pot u could have…well played
He ain’t no beginner…only to low stakes tables.
Due to a challenge from someone in another thread (see OP) he agreed to try his skill with us less skilled players.
I can honestly say, I’m a better player today than I was when this thread started…thanks taco 
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I just hope you get to use it in the sense of “I felted him” instead of “he felted me” 
Usually when I flop a boat I am going to slowplay at least until the turn because there are very few strong hands that everyone else can have that will pay me off. I want to give them a chance to catch up a bit. It’s sort of the reverse of the more common situation where if you flop say 2 pair you don’t want people to catch their flush or straight - here I definitely do want them to complete their draw so that they will pay me off.
With this board of QQ9 with 2 hearts, after everyone calls the initial minbet on the flop I figured I could make a small raise and still get plenty of callers. Anyone with a flush draw is going to call, along with hands like JT or even KJ that are chasing the straight.
Here I got lucky on the turn and someone caught their flush and decided to shove. But if nobody had made their flush then at least I got a decent number of chips in anyway.
I think your plan of checkraising larger on the flop is good too. 2-3k might be too big, but lots of players with a flush draw are going to call that amount anyway, so you are getting more chips in without them having to complete their draw.
Having fun watching your progress and viewing some of these hands. I know you said you’ll do some breakdowns of the players after the challenge and I’m interested in that as well. In the Q9 hand where you flopped top FH, I may have gone for a smaller raise and tried to keep everyone in. 6x the min bet looks like a made hand and got half the field to fold. Maybe just a min-raise to keep everyone involved with absolute garbage and bloat up the pot? It seems like the bigger the pot gets, the more trouble people have folding marginal hands.
The real sign of poker greatness is the ability to flop the nuts 
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I would usually bet half the pot on the flop there. This often looks like a bluff and people will still chase with any decent draw. Check the turn if the flush card comes and look to win a big pot. This line seems to work better than slow playing, at least in the games I play.
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I was in a game a bit ago and had a similar situation. I had AQ…flop is QQ10…i checked around,so did all others, turn hits a 10, i have high boat, i checked around again, so did everyone else, river shows a Q, so everyone has a boat, Qs full of 10s, i have quads, checks around to me and i go all in, thought a few would call with their boat board to split the pot but most folded and 1 called my all in with pocket Js so he thought his Qs full of Js won but my quads did. Sometimes i slow play flopped trips and boats and slow play the turn too waiting for a check raise, in this case their were no draws out there so i mix it up depending on the players in the hand and texture of the table because u dont wanna scare too many out of the hand and decrease the size of your pot when u know theres most likely 1 player that will call after they all have many chips invested in the hand and that will cover more often than not than shoving too much early on. Most often than not check/raising will draw u the most chips on average, especially if u wanna get up early in a tourney.
It’s a tricky balance. My sizing was still small relative to the pot. Even though half the field folded, it’s still more money into the pot right now than if I minraised and everyone called. Maybe I am sacrificing something on later streets if people stick around with garbage, but really I am hoping that somebody makes a decent hand so that I can stack off - and the junk hands that fold to this small raise are never going to make anything much anyway.
This is the skill I really wish I could nail. No need for fancy plays if I can just have the nuts all the time!
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can’t add much to these hands except for that i think u played em all as well as possible 
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Day 7 results:
Hands played: 335
Chips won: 26,516
Big blinds won: 530
BB/100: 158.3
Starting bankroll: 275,913
Ending bankroll: 302,429
Final total results:
Hands played: 3,365
Chips won: 202,429
Big blinds won: 2948.5
BB/100: 87.6
Starting bankroll: 100,000
Ending bankroll: 302,429
Notes from today
Last day of the challenge. Some notes from today below, then tomorrow I will share my thoughts from the week overall.
I played all 25/50 today.
Some additional stats from today’s hands (I wish Replay had a hand history export function, this was a pain to do by hand):
Ended with no flop: 1.5%
Ended on the flop: 5.7%
Ended on the turn: 13.4%
Ended on the river (no showdown): 21.9%
Ended at showdown: 57.5%
Chatted with @Fozman at the table today, who had actually tried out the all in or fold experiment we were discussing earlier in this thread. Opened 5-6 tables at once at up to 5/10. Jammed premium hands preflop and folded the rest. Fozman said that it was quite profitable though a lot of variance and a lot of tables to keep track of 
Kudos for giving it a go!
I continue thinking about how best to incorporate bluffs at this level. In particular I have been thinking about number of players still in the hand, my position and the board texture. Some hands from today that I noted down on this topic:
Here I have AdJd and get a semi-bluff through heads up. This seems like a pretty standard bluff spot. I feel like if you can get heads up it’s going to work often enough to be bluffing a reasonable amount.
https://www.replaypoker.com/hand/replay/439209871
Here I have AhTh. Obviously the river is great for my hand, but if I can get so many players to fold the river then could I have bluffed the turn successfully? Could bluff this river sometimes if I don’t have the flush?
https://www.replaypoker.com/hand/replay/439218438
I have AT and flop 2nd pair. I felt good about betting it for value on the turn after it checks to me twice. But if I can bet and get folds then I can surely bluff sometimes as well?
https://www.replaypoker.com/hand/replay/439220367
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Hard to get a bluff through more than 1 or 2 players usually.
On the AhTh hand, the board paired on the turn, so a bluff would often work there. With so many people in and a possible flush draw on the board, it wasn’t the ideal spot though. Generally speaking, any paired board is worth a shot. Surprising that nobody else had a flush there.
On that last hand, I’m guessing your table image/stack/rank had a lot to do with it because the story you were telling made little sense. You raise preflop, then check the flop with a possible flush draw on the board, then bet when a deuce hits? I would love to know what they thought you had there.
Very interesting thread Tacos, thanks!
Chatted with @Fozman at the table today, who had actually tried out the all in or fold experiment we were discussing earlier in this thread. Opened 5-6 tables at once at up to 5/10. Jammed premium hands preflop and folded the rest. Fozman said that it was quite profitable though a lot of variance and a lot of tables to keep track of
I have to say it was pretty intense – there isn’t a lot of time to make a decisions with that many tables going. As far as range goes, I jammed with any pair, any ace, any suited king, any two broadway, suited connectors down to 98. I usually had one caller on all but the tightest tables, but often had two or more. So, I’d double or triple up 1-3 times and bank my winnings. I busted out a few times, of course, but I recouped it and then some with the next two jams. Over the course of an hour, I did pretty well except on one table. I would say it is similar to playing odds bets on a craps table.
In regards to the rest of the discussion here, I would say the challenge encountered at the lower levels is neither better nor worse – just drastically different. You’re more likely to encounter bingo/lotto play. When maniacs jam 72o pre-flop without hesitation, then RNGesus graces them with a boat on the flop… standard play style and opponent reading sort of goes upside-down. You can easily overthink the situation.
For example:
@love2eattacos might remember my reaction on this hand:
I had As-Kh to start with. You’ll see me say “hmmmm” on the turn. I’m sitting here thinking this guy came in with 3-5 and nailed a straight, because you never know with some of these folks who will call anything. It turns out I was behind at that point because another opponent had K4. Then the Ace came on the river and I was kicking myself for folding when I realized the dude just had a K7.
Regarding bluffs or image play: the opportunities don’t arise as often at this level because of maniac callers, but I have been able to do so effectively. It really just depends on your opponents, so pay attention to them.
Not the best example, but I played a Jd6d out of position on a table at which I had been playing fairly tight. I semi-bluffed the Ace after hitting my Jack on the flop, figuring my opponent would put me on AJ.
i still don’t see anything to add as they are played all well imo
the first one seems to be played right, not sure if tehy were calling that much all the time (i imagine they were) so the flop raise could have been a bit larger, not saying the sizing is bad, just thinking a little higher could have granted more value. the turn is a tough one, and i am also hestitant between shoving or a laydown, i think i would lean towards the laydown as well since there are just too many hands, assuming they do this often, i wouldn’t be amazed to see those strange 2pair hands.
as for teh second hand, obviously the limp was bad, but you already know so no need to specify any further. as for teh flop, i think you did right to go for value, it’s not a great hand but good enough to take a bit of value. the turn however is a more difficult one, the first and most important thing here is that i defenitely wouldn’t shove just to make em think you have AJ, if he has any ace i would almost certainly see him call, simply because they only think about their top pair. even if he’s thinking further, he might think you bet a J high flop and do it again on a A high flop, making him think either one of em was a bluff and making him call more loose. the reason however why i might consider it is if you’re checking now you have a serious chance he takes over the bluff and you either need to turn your weak J into a bluffcatcher, or you need to fold what might probably be teh best hand. so it’s more about keeping the control. but i think both a check and a shove are right.
gl both of you
I’ll be sad to see this thread end…I can honestly say I’ve followed it more intently than any others here…and I’ve learned a lot in doing so …thank you taco and all contributors 
Final results
Hands played: 3,365
Chips won: 202,429
Big blinds won: 2948.5
BB/100: 87.6
Starting bankroll: 100,000
Ending bankroll: 302,429
The low stakes leaderboard seemed to stop updating at some point on Saturday and is missing my last couple of days of play. If someone from the Replay team is reading this then please can you comment? In any case, I said that I would post a screenshot of my final spot on the low stakes leaderboard, so here it is:
How do low stakes games here compare with high stakes games here?
This is a general comparison between low stakes and high stakes play. There are exceptions, but here are my general observations.
Games are much looser and more passive. There is a lot of limping at every level on Replay, but at the low stakes it is routine to see 6-7 people on every flop. In the stats I posted yesterday, I noted that there were only 1.5% of the hands that I saw that ended before the flop. 98.5% of hands are seeing a flop. Typically the only way that there is not going to be a flop is if somebody goes all in preflop.
Preflop raising is less frequent - mostly. At low stakes, preflop raisers seem to fall into two categories: people raising only their very premium holdings and people who raise all kinds of junk every hand. The latter kind of player is less common and obviously pretty easy to spot. At high stakes in general many hands will see a preflop raise from someone and the preflop raises are typically strong ranges. It’s much more common there to see a preflop raise take down the pot immediately.
Player pool is larger. There are simply more people playing the lower stakes. After a week, I was finding that I knew maybe 1-2 players at any table that I joined. At high stakes you play with many of the same people most of the time so you have to not only figure out what they are doing but also know that they are doing the same to you. So at high stakes there is more need for balance and unpredictability in your play. At low stakes I could play a much more straightforward style that over the week grew increasingly exploitative of general player tendencies at this level (more on this below).
Many more hands are decided at showdown. Another stat I noted yesterday was that 79% of hands got to the river, and 57% of hands made it all the way to showdown. At high stakes it is more like 40% getting shown down. Often there are multiple players making it all the way to the end.
Less thinking about opponent’s holding. At low stakes, most players seem to be thinking only about their own cards and how they match the board. If they have something (anything) they will bet or call to get to a showdown, even if one or more opponents is betting very aggressively. At high stakes players will try to put you on a hand and are more likely to try to push you off your hand if you show weakness.
More preflop all ins. Because of the daily bonuses and the reloads when you bust, if you have a zero bankroll it is actually quite viable to gamble all in on a lot of hands with the aim of doubling up. As a result, players are prepared to call a preflop jam fairly light, knowing that it’s likely the opponent has very little in their hand. At high stakes you do occasionally see someone open jam preflop, but unless a player is doing this repeatedly it will only get called by premium holdings. At high stakes if the open jam gets called, it’s quite common that that initial raiser shows something premium like AA-QQ. I know some high stakes players who will open jam all their AA and just hope to get called.
How did I change how I play?
Overall I ended up playing a very simple strategy. Most of the hands are going to showdown, and people are calling even in the face of aggression. So my general approach was to pick holdings that have the best chance of being very strong by the end and bet them heavily when I figure I am ahead most of the time.
Preflop
- Stayed tight preflop. The range of hands that I was playing is about the same as I would at high stakes. Overall I am playing about 18% of hands. I think if I wanted to optimize more I could loosen up and add in some more speculative holdings.
- Raised much bigger with my premium hands preflop. With AQ+, TT+ I was raising to 10-12BB preflop. Often I was still getting 4-5 callers, and I don’t think I ever picked up the pot preflop with a raise this size. So clearly it’s possible to go even bigger and keep getting called.
- Raised smaller with my other hands. With my less premium holdings if I was first in then I would raise to 3-4BB. If there were already two or three limpers I would limp behind with things like small suited connectors and small pocket pairs.
Postflop
- Bet large with strong holdings. If I have a good hand, I would bet it big - 80-100% pot. I was still getting plenty of callers. If I was continuing this challenge I would start experimenting with even bigger - for example can I still get calls for my good hands if I routinely bet 1.5x or 2x pot?
- Eliminated most bluffs. Most people will call if they have any pair or draw, and with 4-8 other players in the hand that means your bluff is getting called. The situations where a bluff will work don’t come up that often so there is not a big edge to be found by bluffing. I also found that people thought I was bluffing anyway just because I was betting strongly.
- Eliminated most other tricky plays. By the end about the fanciest play I was using was check-raising the flop when out of position in order to get more money in with a strong hand.
- Eliminated most other balance. For example, at high stakes, I have to check back some of my strong hands on the flop, as otherwise some players will bet the turn every time I check and push me off my hand. At low stakes players are generally not making that play so I don’t need to defend against it.
- Showed more respect for aggression. Most players are playing straightforwardly with few bluffs (which is obviously correct given how the rest of the players are playing) which means that when they do bet they mostly have what they are representing. So for example if a third flush card comes and someone makes a large bet into me, I would given them credit for having some sort of flush and respond accordingly.
Obviously you could look at any of these adjustments and say “well if you do that then you are easy to read and easy to beat” - and you would be right of course. But at this level players were not adjusting to what I was doing and so I was able to keep making these exploitative plays.
Overall player skill
There is certainly a range of abilities among the people playing the lower stake tables. There are some who are stronger than the typical player at this level.
I talked with a few players who are clearly thinking about the game and figuring out how to improve. I also talked with a couple of players who had run up through most of the levels here (and had ranks in the 800-1200 range as a result) but said that they preferred the more casual experience of the low stakes games so had dropped back down.
Overall, the vast majority of players at low stakes play weakly - likely they are casual players who just enjoy the game and are not particularly interested in improving. There are also some players who may be stronger but don’t play much - but you are not going to run into them, simply because they are not playing much!
So back to the original question - are there as many good players on lower stake tables as on the higher stake tables? Honestly, I think the answer is no. Throughout the week, I didn’t ever really feel like there were players who were putting up a good fight or that I was having trouble beating. The main challenge for me was how to play the most exploitative poker and make the most out of the way people were playing.
Final thoughts
Overall, this was a fun experience and I’m glad that I did it. There was definitely some pressure that came with knowing I had to post my results every day, and that people would be watching and critiquing my play!
Thanks to @bigdogxxx for prompting me to do this. I enjoyed taking on a different challenge from what I am used to and I have learned things that I will be able to use in the future.
Thanks to everyone who gave me words of encouragement here in the comments, in private messages and at the tables. One of the fun things about this challenge has been that some people have been reading this thread and then finding me elsewhere. I have met and talked with a bunch of cool people who I likely never would have otherwise.
Thanks also to everyone who gave comments and feedback on strategy and the hands that I posted during the week. The discussion has been interesting and entertaining for me, and I hope that others have found it useful too.
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The low stakes leaderboard seemed to stop updating at some point on Saturday and is missing my last couple of days of play.
Yeah, I noticed this too. I was playing all day Sunday and never moved from 2313BB. Would like to know what happened here.
As far as your assessment goes, it is pretty much spot on. You may remember me saying to you at the table yesterday, “When in Rome…”. Given the loose passive nature at this level, there is a lot of value to seeing the flop for the low, low price of 1BB since you’re almost always going to get a call if you flop well. That said, you can’t pay to see every flop like @GrandyB mentioned earlier, but you also lose some value if you play tight like you would at high stakes. In my experience, the sweet spot for limp-in exploitation is somewhere around 30-35% of hands (adjusting accordingly if someone at the table usually kicks it up to 2-4BB).
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This feels a little wide to me, but maybe I am just a nit You presumably are limping things like Q4s and weaker offsuit aces in order to get to this wide a range? My concern with these hands is that when you do hit you have a much higher chance of getting outkicked or overflushed, and you won’t smash those miracle nut hands often enough to make them pay out otherwise.
I can definitely see limping in position with hands like suited one and two gappers right down to 52s because they are going to be very easy to play postflop and have a couple of different ways to win.
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I reported an unrelated issue this morning and support replied back stating there had been a technical problem over the weekend but they’ve tracked it down and that it should be resolved soon so you may want to check it again.
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