Operation ABC Poker

Welcome to my Operation!

A quick background:
- Started playing poker in late Nov 2010. I did not know how to play any form of poker prior to this date.
- I am a new player but not a young player.
- IRL, I am a professional investor managing mutual funds and pension funds.
- I currently play 5NL on Pokerstars. I have played about 20K hands at this level and PT3 is telling me that my winrate is about 3BB/100.

Main Objective:
I want to put together a solid poker game as I progress through the micros. For each level, I will give myself "Learning Goals" that will need to be achieved prior to moving up. In addition to achieving these goals, I will use proper BRM as I go from one level to the next.

Part of knowing that I have achieved my goals will be qualitative (feeling better about my game, getting lost less often, feeling in control, ...) but I also expect to see improvements in the various stats provided by PT3. As such, prior to moving to the next level, I will post in this thread statistics supporting my conclusions that I have achieve my goals.

This thread should help monitor my progress and keep me honest.

5NL Goals:

1- Pre-flop: Use appropriate ranges for open pots, raise pots, .... that are positionally aware and are modified based on who the villains are. <--- I feel good about this goal as I have made solid improvements to my game.

2- Pre-flop: Use appropriate ranges for 3bet/4bet ... positionally and villain type aware. <--- I am still struggling with this one. My 3bet range is static and I am still unsure about how I should modify it based on my position and villains. Also, I have been 3betting AK and this is one of my biggest losing hand. I need to figure this out.

3- Have a Cbet strategy that take into consideration position/villains/board texture. Better recognize board texture and why Cbetting is appropriate or not. <--- Vastly improved but I still get myself into bad spots when OOP.

4- Incorporate some blind defense and steals into my game. <--- I think I have recently achieved this one. Interestingly, I have dramatically altered the shape of my red line (much flatter now) without affecting the blue line. In terms of blind stealing, I have not included 3betting light in my blind defense strategy yet. I have tried but it turned into a spew fest. I guess I have to leave room for future improvements.

5- Have a better understanding of how to play draws post flop. When to bet/fold/raise ... based on type of draw, board texture and villain. Includes work on pot odds, outs, combos, .... <--- work in progress.

6- Put villain on a range. <--- This has been very difficult but as I get better at figuring out what I should do with my own cards, I am also getting better at putting people on ranges. Work in progress.

Here, I am not talking about "mastering" any of this but only to put the foundation of a solid ABC game of poker together.


If you are still with me, thanks for reading. I welcome any criticism, encouragements, ...

Cheers,

P

P.S. my portfolios are kicking ass today ... Nice!

Great luck! It's always great when newish players have a good head on their shoulders. Will definitely check back for updates!

First off welcome sir. This is no doubt going to be a good OP to follow as you have a clear idea of where you're going and how you plan to get there.

GOGOGO

Good Luck.

"I am a new player but not a young player"

Old dude ITT? We need more old dudes right Harley?

yea with a strong analytical approach like this and plenty of time at the tables you can easily be at 50nl before the snow melts in Canada!

good luck

Originally Posted by Sasquach991

Old dude ITT? We need more old dudes right Harley?

Why yes we do sonny!

Great thread! Stick with it and I think it will benefit alot of us. I'll be following for sure.

Originally Posted by Sasquach991

Old dude ITT? We need more old dudes right Harley?

In.

Guess I'll join in with the "old dudes", if 40 is old enough.

GL, putaforkinit. I'll be following

Does 27 count as old? It should, anyway.

I'm at 0.10/0.25, race me to 1kNL?

Gogogogogogogogo

cool operation. i'll be lurking. also, i wouldn't worry too much about so-called "light" 3-betting at 5nl.

Thanks everyone for the nice words .... appreciated.

AK

As discussed in my original post, AK is a problem starting hand for me. My modus operandi preflop is to open with AK in all positions (ldo) and to 3bet if someone has opened the pot.

I reviewed my database looking at every single AK starting hands. I found the following:

- No significant differences in results between suited and semi-suited AK: both are currently not profitable.
- I have a few "WTH was I thinking hands". If I eliminate these hands, I would be slightly profitable with AK (still crappy result). While it is disappointing to find these badly played hands, I know that they are fewer and far between these days. Most of these hands were early in my database. No big conclusion here other than I need to play my "A" game.
- Losing hands: Prior to the review, I was expecting to find all kinds of spew in these hands but really, I am quite happy wtih how I played them on average. The only thing that I found was related to Cbetting. Improving my Cbetting is one of my other goals. Since I 3bet AK, if I mess up my Cbetting, it is for a larger absolute amount of $ and thus, it hurts more. But this is not a AK specific issue but a Cbetting issue.
- Winning hands. Here, I found spew ... in the form of not getting enough value from my hands. 2 categories of spew:

- If flop goes Kxx, so I have TPTK. I tend to only get 2 streets of value from those. For some reasons, I do not bet on the river. Why? The good thing is that the remedy is obvious. Bet/Bet/Bet.
- If flop goes Axx, once again I have TPTK. Unless the villain also has an A, the Ace on the flop tends to kill the action. I usually bet the flop in this situation. I will now try to check the flop (if not scary from a draw perspective) and hope the villain catches something on the Turn and hopefully get more value from this.


This is probably very obvious to all of you ...

Anyway, like always comments, advice, and free money are always welcome.

Cheers,

P

On gaining experience.

Recognizing our progress helps to keep us going ...

No matter how many books your read, how many videos you watch, how often you discuss poker on forums, ... sitting at the table and playing hands is the best way to gain experience.

I think this is especially important in order to control tilt. You have to live through a string of bad beats, coolers, ... in order to understand the effect the have on you.

As a new players, I initially got frustrated when faced with a bad beat. To deal with this frustration, I develop a little routine around bad beats. Each time someone sucked out on me, I would pause the game, go to PT3 and review the hand. Putting people on ranges, assessing my decisions .... the works. This helped me understand that most of the time I had played the hand fine and that, if faced with the same situation, I should play the exact same way.

I am now realizing that I have built some level of resistance to bad beats. In the past, one beat was enough to get me on mild tilt. Now, bad beats tend to have little effect on me. On the other hand, if I play badly, I get mad at myself and start tilting ... more work needed.

P

Originally Posted by PutAForkInIt

- If flop goes Axx, once again I have TPTK. Unless the villain also has an A, the Ace on the flop tends to kill the action. I usually bet the flop in this situation. I will now try to check the flop (if not scary from a draw perspective) and hope the villain catches something on the Turn and hopefully get more value from this.

bet/bet/bet is definitely going to be the superior default play. the only times I wouldn't cbet AK on an Axx flop would be versus a very aggressive and bluffy opponent who is more likely to fire off three barrels as a bluff or with worse Ax than to call three barrels with worse Ax OR call one/two barrels with other worse made hands. If there is a flush draw/A78r/A9Tr straight draw on the flop I would be even less likely to check. also villains who are that bluff happy are typically few and far between

cliffnotes: don't stop cbetting AK on Axx