Breaking Through in 50NL Poker: Finding New Strategies

Hit a Rut? Refocus and Recalibrate 🎯

After 150 days of grinding 50NL and 100NL, I needed a reset. I had a goal: $10,000. Got close at $9,700, but after a few rough beats and poor play, I’m back at $7,000. This is the nature of poker — ups and downs like life and business. But here's the secret: When you hit a wall, it’s time to reevaluate, put in the work, and adjust your strategy.

Poker like business and life, it’s the same. When a campaign stalls or a product launch underperforms, you don’t keep pushing the same plan. You analyze, adjust, and test new strategies.

Lesson #1: What My Poker Stats Told Me 📊

One of the most frequent spots in poker is the “flop continuation bet” (C-bet). It’s where you maintain aggression after raising preflop. The goal? Control the pot and make it hard for your opponents to continue.

Here’s what my data said:

C-Bet on the Flop: 50%

BB/Hand when Betting: +6.4bb

BB/Hand when Checking: +2.7bb

So, should I always bet? Not quite. Aggression isn’t always the answer. It’s about balance.

Poker like business and life, it’s the same. Over-relying on Facebook Ads vs. organic content might be tempting you to keep pouring money into ads, but checking the data might show more efficient ways to balance growth.

Lesson #2: Finding Insights 🔍

You need to ask the right questions to find actionable insights. I drilled in the specific situation from Lesson 1, down to two key hand types: KQ, KJ, QJ and flopped sets.

KQ, KJ, QJ: Stop Bluffing So Much 🤔

When C-betting these hands, I was losing -2.6bb/hand. When I checked, I won +1.7bb/hand. My strategy wasn’t working probably because the market I was competing in, my opponents weren’t folding to my bluffs enough to justify this.

Actionable Tip: Stop inflating pots with marginal hands. Checking gives you more chances to see the turn and build value later.

Flopped Sets: Slow Play to Maximize Value 🤑

I was winning 21bb/hand by betting with sets, but a massive 43bb/hand when I checked back and let my opponents "catch up."

Actionable Tip: With strong hands, checking back the flop lets your opponent build false confidence and do the betting for you.

Poker like business and life, it’s the same. It’s great to see what is working (in green) and focus on what’s not (in red), but if we measure with a different lens, we might actually see that a positive metric is actually lagging and need of even more attention!

Applying Insights in Poker and Business 💡

Turning insights into results is what separates the good from the great. It’s not just about getting data — it’s about doing the work required to confidently create and execute a winning strategy to test.

In marketing or optimizing ecommerce funnels, testing and tweaking to reach a +2% conversion rate might seem small, but the compounding impact can be massive over time. Similarly, in poker, adding +2bb/hand means real dollars on the table.

Ask yourself:

Are you taking risks in the right spots, or are you blindly pushing an outdated strategy?

How often do you review your performance and look for subtle but impactful improvements?

What’s the next insight you can turn into action to see measurable results?

In the coming weeks, I’m aiming for +2bb/hand with these adjustments. It’s the poker version of scaling a business to the next level — small, thoughtful changes leading to big wins.

Until next time, poker like business and life…

If you are also interested in going through data to find new strategies to make money, check out Hand2Note free at https://hand2note.com