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Study Night with Gingerwizard

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  1. #1

    Default Study Night with Gingerwizard

    Well I'm in a roughly 50 game breakeven stretch. So easy to blame the boat over boats, the 2 outers, the QQ busted by 42o and all the other things that come and go, and just go quiet about it.

    Not me! Tonight is a night of study. I'm gonna pull all of these histories and look for leaks. I am running bad, but with more leaks plugged I can make the cold streaks warmer and the hot streaks sizzle!

    First I'll check all the shove spots and categorize my mistakes (e.g. button shoving on bubble (too wide/too tight), or SS calling ranges 6+ handed, whatever I find I guess.) Then I'll glance at the spots I got into big pots in first 4 levels and look for patterns. Do I cbet too much, am I keeping pots small enough when I want them small, stuff like that). After posting a few early hands, that I find, i'll set the WIZ quiz to target those weak areas and do a large volume of situations. The quiz can be set to pause and allow you to play around with ranges every hand whether wrong or right so that I get the most out of it.

    I'll post interesting hands/situations and any conclusions from tonights work in this thread. It will help me focus, and who knows I may even inspire someone else to study. And study's gotta be good for the roll right?

    If you're inspired to study tonight, post your plan and your findings in here.
    This is not my signature. I just write this at the bottom of every post.
  2. #2
    I love reviewing my game after a bad run. Whatever does not kill us make us stronger. Nothing is better than finding leaks you did not know you had.

    Bad runs are an excellent opportunity to get better. Reviewing your own game does not only improve your own game, but it also gives us information about villains- both specific and general.
    A foolish man learns nothing from his mistakes.
    A smart man learns only from his own mistakes.
    A wise man learns from his own mistakes, and those of the smart man and the fool.
  3. #3
    The timing of your post is scary. I don't have a ton of games yet, but I did this very thing last night. I am right at 175 games since I started playing these more seriously. I was not looking at the crazy fine tuning, but I wanted to see if there was a pink elephant in the room. I have more analyzing to do with this, but there is are a couple things I did notice. These might be a "NO DUH" from the gallery, but I found a couple generalities so far. This is far from a fine tooth comb evaluation, but just the top level look.

    1. I am in the money when my big hands (>>80%) hold up.
    2. I only bust in the first 3 rounds if a bad beat takes place.
    3. I appear to bust out more when we are down to 5 or 6 players than all other combined. I must have a leak.
    4. Bubble play seems good. I am ITM over 80% if I make the bubble. However, I think this area needs to continuosly improve if I ntend to play higher levels.
    5. I have gotten lucky or got my money in without the best hand more than I thought. I need to evaluate this deeper.

    All in all, my results seem to be about 50/50 as to what I wanted to see or what I thought I would see. I think it was a good excercise for me, but I want to wait until I have about 1000 games an repeat. At that time I want to be more specific as to what I am looking for . Hopefully I can fix some problems that are 80% of my leak now, then fine tune for the small things. If I get to the point where I am trying to figure out a way to increase my ROI from 74.3% to 75%, then, well, that doesn't seem like too bad of a problem.
  4. #4
    Not long into the study session and I've spotted something interesting.

    PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $6.00+$0.50 Tournament, 100/200 Blinds 25 Ante (4 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

    BB (t1600)
    Hero (UTG) (t5735)
    Button (t2610)
    SB (t3555)

    Hero's M: 14.34

    Preflop: Hero is UTG with A, 6
    Hero folds


    Now in WIZ this is basically a fold if button of SB will call with AQ, but becomes a shove if they're as tight as I would be if I were them (QQ+ unless I KNOW it's ATC then 99+.)

    Weird thing is if you set SB to shove 70% if folded to (and fwiw most SBs are in this situation), then it becomes a fold again.

    Everyone talks about pwning bubble, and this seems to prove to me why, (in lower stakes) you just can't in the same way. In a $6.50 i've met about 20 players who'd fold AQs to a shove there, and less fold AK.

    Anyway, to sum up, being tighter than advised as big stack on bubble may be optimal unless you gauge the game to have good or v tight players as mid-stacks.
    This is not my signature. I just write this at the bottom of every post.
  5. #5
    2. I only bust in the first 3 rounds if a bad beat takes place.
    3. I appear to bust out more when we are down to 5 or 6 players than all other combined. I must have a leak.
    2 is only a good thing I guess but only to a point, you should be getting it in bad sometimes early and may not be playing aggressively enough. So then you're short stacked at 5 or 6 because you played hands passively and either did not get max value or got drawn out on, or flat out folded.

    The SNG format is about being tight almost always but based on the posts here most players over do it early on, especially missing value bets vs donks or bluffs vs other people playing tight early.
  6. #6
    It's midnight and I can't review ANYMORE.

    Think I had way more to do than at first thought.

    Main leaks identified:

    Button play:
    I miss too many spots where I'm big and the blinds are under 10bbs
    I miss too many spots with 8-10 bbs
    Too many with 5-8 (I also shove some bad ones)
    Clearly havn't got the feel for how the stack sizes in the blinds change the ranges. This seems to be a major one!
    Should be straightforward to work on though.

    Shortie Play:
    You know you've lost some chips early (often having had to fold TT/JJ), no spots since and it's 5-8 handed and you're looking for spots. I'm missing shoves as wide as 3 off button. Work on short play many handed required.

    Small Blind:
    I've been playing far too conservatively with big stack when opp is <10BBs and when I have junk. Missing too many shoves there and with 8-10BBs too. Guess I always feel I don't need to shove 63o when I'm in ok shape because they'll do whacky things anyway. This will not serve well as I move up and need every bit of $EV!

    Calling Shoves with Big Stack:
    I'm calling too wide

    ITM leaks:

    3 handed I now push slightly wide on button and in SB when deeper, and fold too many SBs when I'm the shorter one. Go figure!

    HU leaks. At 300/600/50 I'm folding my SB way too much. Been working off a shove 10BBs which should be 6500 but I've been doing 6000 (doh)! Need practice here!

    They were the main ICM leaks. Didn't have time to look at other things or even practice. Been 3 hours of review and I've still got a pile of 40 I wanted a look at. ZOMG poker study takes ages.

    I may extend this into tomorrow........
    This is not my signature. I just write this at the bottom of every post.
  7. #7
    Two questions: one related and one non-related.

    How many SnG's did you study over the 3 hour period?

    Do you stack, tile, or cascade your tables and how many do you play at once? ( I think you said 6 ).

    K I lied, it was really 3 questions.
  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by gingerwizard
    PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $6.00+$0.50 Tournament, 100/200 Blinds 25 Ante (4 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

    BB (t1600)
    Hero (UTG) (t5735)
    Button (t2610)
    SB (t3555)

    Hero's M: 14.34

    Preflop: Hero is UTG with A, 6
    Hero folds
    Um, ever thought about standard raising (500 or 600) in this spot rather than shoving or folding? It is read dependent on the remaining players, but if your reads and HUD shows that they are not calltards then that may be a better option
  9. #9
    SB is one of my reg fishies. Total calltard.
    This is not my signature. I just write this at the bottom of every post.
  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by gingerwizard
    SB is one of my reg fishies. Total calltard.
    In that case fold is mandatory - I'd expect opp to call a shove with lots of Ax-type hands that beat you

    FWIW, if I am SB I am insta folding AK in that spot if you as UTG shoves
  11. #11
    ditto.

    even if you KNOW CO shoves ATC, this is still 99+
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  12. #12
    Study night turned into study morning on saturday (no chance to play or study in between) and I worked on the areas I mentioned above. I did loads of Wiz quizing and I think developed a much better feel for the button situations.

    I also looked at a couple of other things I wanted to share. As I mentioned in another thread I'm now folding JJ-99 to a 3bet without a pf read. It turned out that I'd lost a ton with JJ sticking it in to 3bets, and that flatting was a leak, so now I default to fold.

    I'm going to have to keep an eye on 3bet ranges of regs though. If I have enough hands on an opp I see regularly I'll see if I can get a good read on their ranges and then stove JJ vs that range to see if it is profitable to play another way against them.

    Something else I've realised during study is that my bet sizing pf in L1 and L2 was irrational. If I raised, I raised to 4x. It seems obvious to me now that this is just stupid. The goal early is to conserve stack and be ultra tight, and yet whenever I got anything I 4x'd it when 3x does the same job. Fine when I have QQ+, but getting 3 bet with 99-JJ as above hurts more. In particular AK,AQ and in LP, AJ,AT suffer in my old strategy. Missing with AK and cbetting is sooooo much more expensive having raised to 4x, and it can and has led to me being shorter than I'd like in the midgame.

    E.g. You have AK on the button in L2. You raise and the blinds call and the flop comes 844 two tone. They check, you bet 2/3 and BB raises. You fold.

    If you 4x it pre this costs 120 + 240 = 360
    If you 3x it pre this costs 90+180 = 270.

    That's a pretty big difference. Now I thought, ok but when they fold I win more having 4x'd. The thing is, when it's early in SNG time losing 90 extra chips hurts a lot worse than gaining extra when you win. You hit push fold earlier, you lose the ability to standard raise marginal hands quicker (eg KQ OTB. at 12ish BBs you can't really afford 4x or 2.5x but shoving is an ICM mistake), you lose implied odds for limp calling PPs quicker.

    Ideally you'd raise 4x with QQ+ and 3x with everything else, but that is pretty obviously exploitable. Do think many regs would spot this pattern if I did it?

    Anyhoo, the study night (and morning) proved very profitable. I increased the roll by 25% this weekend and I've felt pretty good in general when playing. I shall be doing it again soon.
    This is not my signature. I just write this at the bottom of every post.
  13. #13

    Default Re: Study Night with Gingerwizard

    Quote Originally Posted by gingerwizard
    Well I'm in a roughly 50 game breakeven stretch. So easy to blame the boat over boats, the 2 outers, the QQ busted by 42o and all the other things that come and go, and just go quiet about it.
    GL, I just hit 325 breakeven.
  14. #14
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    You haven't met this guy yet, Gingerwizard.




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  15. #15
    It would have been a downswing if I wasn't playing the $6.50s
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  16. #16
    I never found good software for reviewing, what do you guys use?
  17. #17
    SNGWIZ is all you really need if your looking to improve your push/fold poker skills.
  18. #18
    rong's Avatar
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    Wow! Taipan & Ginger, the posts about how you play hands either on the bubble or ITM are so far from how I play it's shocking (assuming blinds of at least 75/150). I raise all in with any A and lots of K's. Plus any other opportunity I see.

    Perhaps I'm too aggressive, but I go a bit crazy once there are only 4 players left in a 10 man simply because most other players are afraid to call. Sometimes I get busted by a good hand, but if I can get away with it a few times I tend to increase my stack considerably and make people afraid to try and steal my blind.

    I'm sure you guys play optimum strategy from an ICM perspective, and I am going to try relaxing a little in the hope it will increase my ITM%. I really need to play around with ICM a bit more, as it stands I don't use it at all. That and the stupid calls are probably keeping my ROI stuck at 15%.
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  19. #19
    rong's Avatar
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    Or perhaps Pacific just has worse competition than where you play so I can get away with it.
  20. #20
    I play mostly on the Dog where the HHs are pretty much useless I think. Anyone know of a way to do a Wiz-type analysis with the crap Bodog spews?

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