Operation Winning is a Habit

Honestly, the loosening up has a lot less to do with adding hands to your 'normal' ranges for opening and more to do with isolating fish and bad regs. If you isolate like a madman already then all you need is table selection, but I would bet you could stand to isolate more.

First session in about 7 days last night - down about $1.50 over 700 hands. The National Science Foundation is great to work with - the sign you're in the big time for folks with careers like mine - but they demand a lot of work for the tiny stipend they provide. I didn't get any poker played for 3 days before I left 'cuz I was doing work they expected me to get done prior to the meeting. Once there, it was work, work and more work. Still, small price to pay to get a chance to work for them.

Robb what's your FTP name? (Can PM if you prefer)

Yo Robb, sup bro? Update?

haven't seen you post forever robb. hope all is good

Today is my 12th wedding anniversary. But we're not celebrating tonight. We drove back from the beach yesterday - 6.5 hours in the van with 3 kids age 5 or less Shocked

My wife and I are going out for a nice dinner later this week when we can arrange for a babysitter.

Today, our soon-to-be 3 year old moved out of his crib into a toddler bed - no more bars, he's LOOSE Very Happy

I got two sessions of pokerz in, down 2 BI's. But my end-of-July withdrawal means I've taken nearly $2k out of my poker accounts. Daven's idea of withdrawing on a downswing works amazingly well for me psychologically.

Final thought: winning at 50nl isn't about taking down pots with the worst hand, it's about winning the maximum with the best hand.

Final thought: I just read this thread title as Winning is a Hobbit

Back to the grind - I'm running about 5 ptBB/100 last 4k hands. I was running a bit cold when I first got back to grindin', but I was playing like crap, too. But even rusty I can still play. Very Happy

Here are a couple of happy hands, where I got reads and played well, imo.

Hand 1: 35/20/inf (small sample), but very feeshy in one hand I've seen. Read is that I should be making this shove against this guy w/ KJo, but the BDFD made shoveling easier.

$0.25/$0.5 No Limit Holdem
8 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG ($43.45)
UTG+1 ($28.25)
MP1 ($50.00)
MP2 ($32.95)
CO ($49.20)
BTN ($51.20)
SB ($55.25)
Hero (BB) ($60.45)

Pre-flop: ($0.75, 8 players) Hero is BB King of Clubs

UTG raises to $1.75, 6 folds, Hero calls $1.25

Flop: Queen of Spades

($3.75, 2 players)
Hero bets $2, UTG raises to $4, Hero calls $2

Turn: Three of Clubs

($11.75, 2 players)
Hero checks, UTG bets $11.75, Hero raises to $47, UTG folds

Hand 2: 65/15/1 lulz - should I have value bet my K-high on the river?

$0.25/$0.5 No Limit Holdem
9 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG ($24.05)
UTG+1 ($16.30)
MP1 ($62.50)
MP2 ($55.05)
MP3 ($10.45)
CO ($56.60)
Hero (BTN) ($40.00)
SB ($25.70)
BB ($8.25)

Pre-flop: ($0.75, 9 players) Hero is BTN King of Spades

UTG calls $0.50, 5 folds, Hero raises to $2, 2 folds, UTG calls $1.50

Flop: Four of Diamonds

($4.75, 2 players)
UTG checks, Hero checks

Turn: Ace of Clubs

($4.75, 2 players)
UTG bets $3, Hero calls $3

River: Five of Hearts

($10.75, 2 players)
UTG checks, Hero checks

Final Pot: $10.75
UTG shows: Nine of Hearts

Some things I'm learning.

1. Deception ain't deceiving without playing "standard" lines pretty often. Overused, it's just predictable suboptimal poker.

2. Ranges matter. I've been giving thought (and some maths) to thresholds, for example, at what PFR is it time to start squeezing certain villains light, say, with A4s or 98s? At what BTN steal% is it time to resteal from BB with A4o?

3. I probably spend way too much time randomizing various actions at the table, but I'm a geek and I like doing it.

4. ZOMFG!! betting like 1/3 or 2/5 pot on the flop is way too fun. Can't do it very often, but I use it on semi-drawy boards, half the time with total air, the other half with TPTK or an overpair. Specifically, I'm looking for situations where my opponent's range isn't draw-heavy but mine might seem to be.

5. After betting the flop 2/5's, betting the turn 4/5's is also fun.

6. Betting is a cultural thing - certain bets mean certain things to the community of players at a certain level, in a certain game type and on certain sites. So betting non-standard amounts (like #4 and #5 above) really crosses people up. It's like the conversation was in French, then someone starts talking in Japanese. No one understands it, so they react to it quickly without enough thought and make mistakes.

7. The culture of betting at 50nl FR on FTP is to NEVER AND I MEAN NEVER bet the pot, unless you're drawing/bluffing. It's almost that way, but standard bets are about 2/3's, so just throwing out a psb every now and again is speaking Japanese.

Interesting night last night. I wrote some AHK betting scripts - does anyone else do that? I haven't wanted to invest in a commercial product 'cuz the software changes mean constant updates/down time.

So I played some 2nl and 10nl, testing out a bet-2/3s-pot script (which I can't get to work right Sad

), and those mothers must of thought I had lost my mind. I'd have 52o but have just finished some new code I thought might work, so I'd go raisy daisy. Hell, it was only a dime.

So I move up to 50nl, having to cut back on tables while I figure out my hotkeys. After an hour, I start thinking poker instead of "is that Right-click or Ctrl+Right-Click???" And I realize I'm on a massive heater, like +5 BI in 500 hands or something sick. I was getting AA and flopping A98 with some poor bastard who had AK raising my cbet. I had more sets in an hour last night than I think I've had all month, and half of them people are throwing chips at me. Weeeeeeee!!! Had a couple all-in coolers (deserved) to end the night, up about 4 BI's total over 900 hands or so.

About those scripts (which, since I'm a geek, were way more exciting than a 50nl heater - lulz) ... I play my tables stacked, so the buttons are all in the same place on every table. I hover over the "fold" and have 3 preflop hotkeys all based the "bet pot" button which auto-opens 3.5x + 1BB / limper. The other two auto-open 3x (for OTB) or 4x (for SB) by moving the mouse wheel after clicking the pot button. Just having preflop scripts is massively efficient. All the auto-open scripts move my mouse back over the Fold button as they finish, so I can take preflop actions on 10 tables in 15 seconds or less, as long as no one does anything stoopid.

Flop scripts that adjust to any pot size are harder. My scripts keep confusing FTP's software. So I'll probably have some common post flop bet sizes like $3 $5 and $10 where the script will auto-jump to the bet field, enter that bet, then allow me to scroll up or down to fine tune the bet I want.

I'm pretty much a geek as I mentioned a couple posts up, so the baby-programming was WAY more fun than it should have been if I was normal. Stayed up 'til 2 AM fiddling with it.

Just for full disclosure, I'm not trying to massively overdose on multitabling. But making all the repetitive motion extremely efficient frees up time to think about poker decisions and type notes on interesting hands.

Oh, yeah, and I've been doing a bunch of maths on squeeze bets. I'll be posting something soon. I've got the game theory and EV stuff right and 3 pages typed explaining my thought processes. I had a bug in my computations that I fixed last night, but I haven't had enough time to work through all the scenarios based on effective stacks, looser villains, etc.

Oh wow. I'm completely clueless with this stuff but that scripts works like a charm! Thanks Robb! Def. hoping you make a post about your new preflop betting script because FT Shortcuts is killing me.

Yah I'm interested in this stuff too, thanks dude!

So that above code you wrote, where is it saved? Are you writing a text file or what? sorry i'm a newb!

I guess I'll just wait for your post later Razz

Thanks to grif and kmind, who got me posting this stuff.

Creating Basic Scripts for Pokerz is a tutorial that teaches the basics of scripting and gives some screen shots on the parts I had a bit of trouble with initially (Rage helped me out when I was getting started).

And I put an advertisement post in the BC: Learning to Make Your own Betting Scripts.

Great post again!

Can these scripts only handle moushe up and down movements, or can it also handle text inputs?

For example, If I want a script that opens gmail. I can open the browswer, and it opens gmail. I know the coordinates for the "user name" section and I can click inthe box. Is there a way for it to automatically enter in my username?

Or any other text in any other text box you might wanna enter text into.. a bet size text box even.

AHK can imitate just about any action that you can do on your computer. So for opening gmail and signing in you could do a run command for www.gmail.com, you'll notice the cursor is already on the account by default so have AHK send your username, tab, password, then enter. I haven't used AHK for ages but it would look something like this:

(your hotkey)::
Run http://www.gmail.com/
Send griffey24+2gmail.com
Send {TAB}
Send irtehpwnleetz
Send {ENTER}
return

The second line being your username, +2 is actually a shift keystroke plus 2 which is @ and your domain name after. Fourth line is your password, then enter. Again, kinda rusty with AHK but that's the general idea for logging into your email. Sorry if I soulread your password.

p.s. Actually gmail doesn't require you to type @gmail after it so it could simply be Send griffey24 without the @gmail.com after.

Sweeet thats awesome, thanks gobbatino!

oh man I'm gonna get addicted to these things I'm pretty sure.

ugh time to change my password Razz

Nps, man. If you're planning on getting addicted to it, here's the list of commands:

http://www.autohotkey.com/docs/commands.htm

Also, with the script before, you'll need a short command after you load gmail to have the computer wait a few moments before executing the rest of the script due to loading times, opening the browser, etc. Depends on how fast your computer/internet is, I guess you'll have to test it. The command is:

Sleep, x

where x is in milliseconds so

Sleep, 1000

will have it wait one second before moving on to the next command. Enjoy!

p.s. Sorry to hijack your OP Robb. Rolling Eyes

oh mann yah you gotta lower that wait time, that would tilt me running a script to make my life easier/faster and having to wait 5 seconds Smile

Good work guys, gonna give this all a go tonight!

Try using the exact name for the window before you log on. On Firefox it's:

WinWaitActive Google Mail - Mozilla Firefox

since when you're logged in it should be something different such as

Gmail - Inbox (372) - pietrogobbato@gmail.com - Mozilla Firefox

it should work, I think.

Warning: Brag. Sick heater graph:

The green line ends in top right, 'cuz this was the VERY last hand (I had sat out of all my tables except this one):

$0.25/$0.5 No Limit Holdem
9 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:
Hero (UTG) ($63.25)
UTG+1 ($29.75)
MP1 ($84.60)
MP2 ($10.00)
MP3 ($10.00)
CO ($11.50)
BTN ($82.55)
SB ($21.40)
BB ($19.50)

Pre-flop: ($0.75, 9 players) Hero is UTG Four of Clubs

Hero raises to $1.75, 5 folds, BTN calls $1.75, SB raises to $3.50, 1 fold, Hero calls $1.75, BTN calls $1.75

Flop: Four of Spades

($11, 3 players)
SB bets $11, Hero calls $11, BTN raises to $39, SB goes all-in $6.90, Hero goes all-in $59.75, BTN calls $20.75

Turn: Five of Hearts

($148.40, 3 players)

River: Jack of Diamonds

($148.40, 3 players)

Final Pot: $148.40
Hero shows: Four of Clubs

BTN shows: Three of Spades

SB shows:

Hero wins $145.40 ( won +$82.15 )

Hand 1 (above): Just to clarify my preflop action, SB was goofy 16/12 player I little read on but no respect for, and BTN was LAG-tard I wanted to play against deep.

Hand 2: Most folks know I'm not a nit, but both of these villains were. I REALLY wanted to shovel:

$0.25/$0.5 No Limit Holdem
9 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG ($50.45)
UTG+1 ($60.70)
MP1 ($40.10)
MP2 ($119.25)
Hero (MP3) ($73.70)
CO ($71.30)
BTN ($50.00)
SB ($96.20)
BB ($50.00)

Pre-flop: ($0.75, 9 players) Hero is MP3 Queen of Spades

2 folds, MP1 calls $0.50, MP2 raises to $2.25, Hero calls $2.25, 4 folds, MP1 raises to $8, MP2 raises to $27, Hero folds, MP1 goes all-in $40.10, MP2 calls $13.10

Flop: Eight of Diamonds

($83.20, 2 players)

Turn: Ace of Clubs

($83.20, 2 players)

River: Four of Diamonds

($83.20, 2 players)

Final Pot: $83.20
MP1 shows: King of Diamonds

MP2 shows: Ace of Hearts

Hand 3:And this hand made an already-tilting LAG-tard leave the table:

$0.25/$0.5 No Limit Holdem
8 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG ($54.40)
UTG+1 ($33.15)
MP1 ($73.70)
Hero (MP2) ($117.55)
CO ($50.20)
BTN ($61.60)
SB ($57.65)
BB ($51.50)

Pre-flop: ($0.75, 8 players) Hero is MP2 Four of Clubs

1 fold, UTG+1 calls $0.50, 1 fold, Hero raises to $2.25, 4 folds, UTG+1 calls $1.75

Flop: Nine of Diamonds

($5.25, 2 players)
UTG+1 checks, Hero bets $3, UTG+1 calls $3

Turn: Three of Clubs

($11.25, 2 players)
UTG+1 checks, Hero bets $5, UTG+1 calls $5

River: Two of Spades

($21.25, 2 players)
UTG+1 bets $12.50, Hero raises to $25, UTG+1 goes all-in $10.40

Final Pot: $67.05
UTG+1 shows: Nine of Clubs

Hero shows: Four of Clubs

Hero wins $66.15 ( won +$30.90 )

Sorry for brag post, but I hadn't hit a straight flush in 2009 though I've paid a couple of them off.

And, of course, I made a screen shot AHK script to help speed up posting pics online 'cuz that's what I've been doing lately:

__________

^+S::
Send {PrintScreen}
Run Microsoft Photo Editor
WinWait Microsoft Photo Editor
Send !{E}
Send {N}
return

ah, some very sick hands there robb.

Hi, i'm back btw!

Keep in touch fella, i messaged you on here a little whiles ago. I have a new op.

So you're playing 50nl these days i see?

laters.

OK, in between AHK scripts, I've been working on the math behind the the Squeeze bet, specifically wider ranges for value squeezes, light squeezes and Hero adjustments to serial squeezing. Situation: 3.5 BB PFR, 1 caller, Hero 14 BB squeeze LP. All fold except (maybe) PFR.

There are three cases: PFR folds (F), calls (C) or 4bets (B). F + C + B = 1, and thus:

EV = 8 F - 14 B + C * {some function of Q and P}

The function in brackets depends on Hero's winning percentage (Q) and the average pot size when we see a flop (P). Call it F(Q,P). Hero's investment postflop is (P-5)/2 because of the 5 BB of dead money, and he wins (P+5)/2. This analysis assumes Hero can avoid reverse implied odds when forced to play postflop. When squeezing light, Hero must win a proportional share of big pots and small/medium pots, or win more than his share of small pots.

F(Q,P) = Q ( P + 5 ) / 2 - ( 1 - Q ) ( P - 5 ) / 2 = ... = P ( Q - 0.5 ) + 2.5

Setting EV = 0, and solving for Q, and then rearranging in several different ways to achieve something usable and reasonably simple, we get:

Q = (1/P) [ ( 14 B - 8.5 F ) / C ) -2.5 ] + 0.5

IMPORTANT!! The way I wrote F(Q,P) requires Q to be more than just equity, or how we think of poker equity. Q here is the "earn-able" proportion of the total dollars Hero invests that he can "win back" postflop. So Q is increased by position and includes Hero's postflop skill difference vs. this specific villain. An unimportant fact is that I assumed postflop average pot size P to be 80 BB when I worked through a few dozen example ranges, but Q turns out not to depend too heavily on it. We just need a ball park figure there.

I made an excel spreadsheet which does the math and then produced a couple hundred sample combinations of various PFR, 4b and CC ranges. (I'll ship it to you if you bothered to read all this and pm me.) But just the equation shows some interesting points.

1. The playable equity Q varies inversely with P, the postflop average pot size. This means that short stackers have a HUGE additional edge when squeezing, since their downside when they get stuck in a big pot is less.

2. The term in parenthesis is "Don't Continue Equity" divided by Continuation %. Well, whenever Villain's Fold:4b ratio is ~ 3:2, this value is positive. In other words, against any TAGG-reg, Hero can squeeze light in LP and then just break even (or slightly worse) when playing a flop to earn TONS of chips.

3. Whenever TAGG-reg Villains fail to adjust and are in positions where they continue with about half their range, Hero generally needs Q ~ 42 - 45 to break even.

4. If Villain continues with 40% of his range or less (whether PFR is small or big), Hero generally needs Q ~ 33% to break even.

5. Q doesn't change much in the blinds vs. LP squeezes, but Hero's ability to derive playable equity is severely diminished.

6. What if we're villain? Then adjusting is a giant pain in the arse. I haven't done tons of analysis here (next week's project!), but I do know it doesn't matter (much) in terms of impact on Q whether we adjust by 4b'ing lighter or calling more, but there are obviously limits to how much of our range we can 4bet when we're opening in a wide PFR spot. Obviously, flatting is better ip, and 4b'ing lighter is better oop due to playability issues.

7. Interesting Adjustment: Suppose a notoriously light squeezer is in the blinds and Hero's the flat caller in LP (so he'll have position postflop). Hero should FLAT a MUCH wider range than I would have thought, especially mediocre broadways we wouldn't generally want to play big pots with because they connect with lots of flops in the MIDDLE of the light squeezer's polarized range. There's so much dead money in the pot that Hero needs Q < 20% in most cases to profit.

Some rules of thumb when considering light squeezes:

1. Against nits and when squeezing from the blinds, we're need for F (fold %, or squeeze FE) to be ~60%, e.g. for F > 1.5 C. Otherwise, squeezing light is unlikely to be profitable.

2. LP squeezes are generally profitable when Villain will continue half or less of the time (F > C). This assumes we're squeezing light with hands like Axs or sc's where our equity will be in the 30's but we'll increase it ~42-45 by leveraging positional advantage and postflop skill advantage (which hopefully exists Razz

).

3. Adjusting to massive squeezing requires us to play uncomfortably big pots with medium strength hands, or tighten up preflop, or both. If we continue a third of the time or less, we're exploitable by someone squeezing with all their Axs and sc's plus a pretty wide value range.

4. Flat calling dynamics are more interesting than I realized, and in a game with lots of squeezes, Hero MUST adjust his LP flat calling strategy. Probably do it less, first of all, then shift the range away from small pp's and toward big cards hands that will hold up well when Hero flats after the PFR folds (and squeezer is in blinds).

or just flat his JJ and ship it in to a squeeze Wink

I think XTR got it right - the game is the same, but I'm not as successful in poker (50nl, 100nl, w/e) as I want to be. So the way I make sense of the game is work on maths. I haven't had a chance to post my results, yet, but I've put together sample ranges for villains of certain ilks and thought a lot about how to maximize my profit in various situations and adjust appropriately.

It's like XTR says, I think, it's all about ranges. But I understand ranges best in mathematical terms, so I do the math. Maybe I should have said "learning to respond the different ranges at 100nl by feel alone" SUCKS.

I think 100nl is the first time I've found regs who adjust to me and how I play. So I have to make my own game more flexible and resilient. Knowing what adjustments might work is easy. Knowing when and where to adjust, and why, and how effective each counter-adjustment might be ... well, that's what I'm working on.

Here's a chart to give some of the break-even points for Hero given various ranges for Villain's 4bets, flat calls and folds. I've tried to find combinations of parameters that get us Q's about 1/3, 2/5 and 1/2:

Let's talk about a TAGG-reg opening in MP with 14% of all his hands, say something like 22+, AJ+, ATs, KQ, KJs, 76s+ and A2s - A4s, which is spot on 14% and might be reasonable. What will he continue with? Let's say he 4bets QQ+ and AK, flats AQ, AJs, KQ, and 88 - JJ.

So this villain is 14/3/4.5 (that's PFR/4b/flat). That combination isn't on the chart, but it turns out that Hero needs Q = 45% to make the action profitable. Here is the stove for Hero's Squeeze with an sc and Axs, two common light squeeze choices.

Squeeze w/ 98s equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 66.354% 65.98% 00.37% 244044828 1371864.00 { JJ-88, AQs-AJs, KQs, AQo, KQo }
Hand 1: 33.646% 33.27% 00.37% 123069108 1371864.00 { 98s }

Squeeze w/ A4s equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 59.634% 58.65% 00.98% 220947144 3699358.00 { JJ-88, AQs-AJs, KQs, AQo, KQo }
Hand 1: 40.366% 39.38% 00.98% 148361020 3699358.00 { A4s }

In position squeezing with Axs, Hero's equity is only 5% less than Q, so he should be well able to eke some profit. Since this is a hand I don't much flatting with, it's a perfect candidate for squeezing. Even though sc's flop good, we can probably make more with it flatting since it's a more deceptive hand postflop. (I have a big maths posts on the flopability of sc's and Axs, which I'll get to some time this week.) What about squeezing with a hand like K9s which I would normally fold.

Squeeze w/ K9s equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 64.070% 63.24% 00.83% 229576996 3002414.00 { JJ-88, AQs-AJs, KQs, AQo, KQo }
Hand 1: 35.930% 35.10% 00.83% 127426624 3002414.00 { K9s }

This seems to me to be pretty borderline. I probably still fold. You can play around with various combos you typically squeeze, flat or fold and see how they match up playability-wise vs. the needed 45% Q, but remember it's breakeven equity. I'm looking for hands where I can about 50% of the time so the profits take care of the times the original flat caller bombs and when I misjudge Villain's range. So with a PFR of only 14%, I'm squeezing carefully with higher value "light" combos.

The nice thing is that we often face TAGG-reg villains who open more like 18% or 20% but don't adjust their flat calling range (like me, for example, until this post Razz

). What if the PFR range is 22+, 65s+, Axs, AT+, KJ and KTs+? And what if this reg doesn't adjust his 4b/flatting ranges? Then Q = 34.3%, and our equity is much better with various mediocre hands. Here are a few:

Squeeze w/ JTs equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 60.286% 59.90% 00.38% 217450344 1391784.00 { JJ-88, AQs-AJs, KQs, AQo, KQo }
Hand 1: 39.714% 39.33% 00.38% 142774536 1391784.00 { JTs }

Squeeze w/ A8os equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 63.412% 62.32% 01.09% 665873892 11673474.00 { JJ-88, AQs-AJs, KQs, AQo, KQo }
Hand 1: 36.588% 35.50% 01.09% 379256856 11673474.00 { A8o }

So you can see the results, and come to your own conclusions. But I've learned a lot. The next step for me is take this and flip toward Hero getting squeezed, reset the EV equation, recalculate Q and then look at continuation ranges Hero can use to adjust in high squeeze games.

Finally, oop sucks. I think people squeeze too light a lot of time oop. Generally, unless we expect Villain's PFR near 20% and continuation range around 8% or 9%, we're going to be hard pressed to show a profit with sc's and Axs generally speaking. But this analysis shows why squeezing is so profitable. There are lots of players who continue with a good bit LESS than 7% of their hands when squeezed, so some nit who's only gonna continue with 5% is just begging for a squeeze any time PFR ~ 11 or 12 if squeezer has position, and any time PFR ~ 13 or 14 if squeezer is oop.

First glance at adjusting. I tried the stove with AA and AKs included in Villain's flat call range (since I tend to mix up my plans with the premium comobs). By the way, this shifts Hero's Q number. Villain is now 14/2.2/5.3, and Hero's Q ~ 33%. The equity number for Axs only decreases by 2%. So shifting premium hands out of the 4b range into the flat call range WITHOUT shifting some less powerful hands back into the 4b range is HORRIBLE. In squeeze happy games, Hero can probably jam with at least 75% of premium combos, just keeping enough the flat range to mix it up slightly. The reason Hero should jam against most squeezes is that to combat the squeeze, 4b'ing is better than flatting. Since Hero needs an uncomfortably wide 4b range, it's good to leave the big hands in there and probably include some of the top end of the flat calling range I specified, say, JJ/AQ type hands.

*Last edited by Robb on Tue, 11 Aug 2009, 11:46am; edited 1 time in total*

I'm within a couple thousand 50nl hands of having enough FTP's to buy this:

Samsung T240 24-inch LCD Monitor

It costs me M = 81000 * 0.27 * 0.005 ~ $110 worth of rake, but still well over $200 worth of extra poker profits for the month. The max resolution will be about 80% more area than what I'm playing on now with enough pixels to display 4 Full Tilt tables tiled at their DEFAULT size - with room left at the side for HEM's HH window or note-taking windows although they'll be only partly visible.

LoL, my eyes aren't getting any younger, so this HAS to be +++EV.

I'll have to rewrite all my betting scripts, but I'm learning how to program GUI windows in AHK, so I'll probably automate the setup and give them to FTR folks who want to adjust them for their own setups and other poker clients, but who also don't feel like fiddling with learning to program scripts.

I was reading Ben's op thread this morning, and I'm having a worse downswing than his. I don't talk about it a lot online 'cuz I don't like whining. I know Ben's much the same way. We have both learned to own our losses, not talk about variance when there are leaks.

But ya know what? Sometimes I HATE this poker motherf****r!!! I went on a 12 BI downswing over the last 3 sessions, and sure I tilted some (not really bad) and I played bad (not really bad). I just refocused on played again last night, up 2 BI in 1.1k hands. No real changes, so maybe the variance was the issue.

I think the uncertainty is what gets to me. Do I suck at poker? (Yes, probably.) Or is it just variance? And when I win is it just luck? I always find myself questioning myself. And that sucks.

Just consider your 12BI downswing a 10K breakeven stretch
that is when you win those buyins back in 10K hands

Qualified Iron Man Silver in 15 days (minimum possible). Learned about the "Iron Day" and "Iron Month" options where, if you're close to your level, you can use medals to continue. I've never really been where I needed that, but as I try to develop my withdrawals each month those bonuses will become more important.

Up nearly 3 BI today. Switched over 6m, played some 25nl yesterday and then 50nl to warm up. Downswing reached 16 BI's before turning around. That makes two ~ 15 BI downswings and a 20 BI downswing this year, probably 'cuz I suck at poker. But I'm just trying to keep playing as well as I can and learn more about the game.

Poker life is good. Whoever told all the 50nl 6m regs at FTP to "open up," I'm willing to kiss that guy on the mouth. Wow. What happened to the 18/15 6m nits that used to infest these stakes on Tilt? I find it hard to sit down at a table without at least two 40/25 types joining me. I sat with 2 known LAGG's last night, and another joined right away. Then a maniac sat down that made the 40/25 guys seem like nits. I made over 2 BI on that table for the 10 minutes the "everyone plays every hand" fun lasted.

And trust me, I'm not complaining. They aren't good LAGG's. They really suck postflop, so the wide open range is just spew heavy. I don't know what Stox vid pro suggested opening any two as long as they're sooted, but God bless him.

I'm also on the verge of my poker theorem. I've been doing a lot of maths like the Squeeze Maths above, working on 4b'ing light, 3b'ing light. I'm finding like XTR said a few posts up that mathematically and equity-wise, our opponents' range dictates a fairly narrow band of adjustments or counter-ranges. We have some room for creativity, but there is certainly a "best" proportion of raises/calls/folds that makes sense given a certain range from villain. I'm working on the math, trying to simplify into a statement of poker simplicity worthy of the name "poker theorem."

I'm also finding that, since I did the Squeeze Maths posts, I am 200% more effective at squeeze plays than I was. What I find interesting is that I was making a lot more mistakes than I realized. I was actually squeezing too rarely, and also in many of the wrong spots. So I've cleaned up the spewy spots and added a nice percentage of new and profitable spots. And it's really made a difference in my 6m results.

One problem I found is that I was attacking TAGG's in spots where their PFR range was simply too narrow. Now, I estimate their continuing ranges, then calculate back to a PFR needed for the squeeze to be profitable. If the villain's PFR is high enough, I squeeze with any legitimate hand. But I'm staying out of trouble even with "premium" light squeezing hands because I'm very focused on profitable ranges. I found that most LAGG's often possess a very inefficient and exploitable bundle of "play-back" hands relative to their PFR range, even the "maniacal" LAGG's are good candidates for a squeeze if your willing to sufficiently adjust your own ranges.

One break through I realized - finally - is that when we "open up" our stealing percentage in the CO, for example, we're very exploitable if we don't also widen our 4b/call ranges when Villain starts 3b'ing us light. We can't adjust one part of our playing range in isolation, or our proportion gets very unbalanced and exploitable. If we adjust all the pieces of our ranges at once, then we're much more difficult to adjust to and exploit.

I'm doing better now that I start at the top, and think: "against this BB Villain, I would be willing to 4b these hands, and flat the 3b with these hands, so I'll attempt to steal with all these hands." Hero can't let his steal range get too far out ahead of his continuation range (unless the villains really suck and can't adjust at all effectively).

how's the running going? prop-bet time again? At my end I'm up for something along the lines of at least two of:
running (5km++)
Swimming (1.3km++)
Juggling (1hr+)
Climbing (1 session)
almost every day for the next month.

I'm fine if you keep your end as it was last time around

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Operation Winning is a Habit