Operation Winning is a Habit

Wow, I really havnt kept up on reading others blogs. Self obsessed lately I guess . Shitty to hear you've had even worse downswing issues. Lately seems like half of FTR is. Heres hoping we both push through and come out with just a blip on our long term graphs.

I played some 100nl today, first session. I lost, but felt really good. It really felt like people were just playing straightfoward, like they might as well just show me their hands (then I'd call anyway, but thats another issue).

short version - squeeze work you have done is very nice.

Long version -
I wonder how many people are going to properly read what you have written and work through the implications. Not too many I hope! Anyway, I read the squeeze posts and ran through the math.
I like the post and it has made me think further about a couple of spots...

You may enjoy how I managed to somehow get stuck at Q(P+5)/2 cos i was like hang on it's Q(P-5)/2+5Q.... and then i didn't want to put C in the extension to replace the ....
but i got there!

My comments:

I know you address this in bold earlier in the post, but I'm uncertain on using P = 80, especially as P=contested pot size rather than pot size, meaning that you're assuming a bet and a raise on the flop and/or HU to a turn a lot of the time. Lucky it doesn't make much difference to Q, but for other analysis/spots this may become more important.

Re your notes

1) Q vs short-stacks vs P. I think this needs to be reconsidered (not that it matters until you choose to shortstack). At 20bb a squeeze == All-In, meaning that B=0. Now it becomes a simple matter of villain tendencies re calling/folding and their ranges to do so. Assuming a call range of 88+/KQs/AJs+ from some villains means one thing for your range, other call ranges mean something different. Also need to consider that the flat-caller often has a monster if there are 2 or more short-stacks left to act...

anyway, analysis becomes even simpler at (1/45)*(-8F/C -2.5)+0.5, right?

The maths geek in me wants to shortstack. But... I'll probably open a stars account, tell nobody, and shortstack it while laughing at FTR mid-stakes regs groaning about awful shortstackers


2) here I got interested when i was thinking about full ring application here - basically trying to figure out how easy it is to be breakeven post-flop against a 2% range (i.e. a 13-10 who opened from EP or MP cos otherwise we can't LP squeeze, so his range is like 7-2-2 where calling range=4-bet range about evenly balanced)

And this is where i started to wonder about how post-flop equity was going to be calculated, cos stoving ranges assumes a static state post-flop, and that doesn't happen. 9Ts does just great against AA, unless you have to play a flop with your one pair/gutshot/runner runner FD...

3/4 combined) obvious implication here is how we should deal with a squeeze when we are either the PFR or the flat-caller! more 4-betting. nh.

5) the whole thing has lead me to seriously question some of my earlier (and incorrect) ideas about blind squeeze plays

As above, I switch off at the specific hand analysis a little because of the stove-approach vs multi-street dynamic in HU pots. It's obviously useful, I think it needs to be combined with solid flop and turn range-estimation and understanding of villain's post-flop tendencies

@ BJ & Daven - thx guys I wasn't sure if anyone was still reading this

Originally Posted by bjsaust

Shitty to hear you've had even worse downswing issues. Lately seems like half of FTR is.

Thanks - at its worst, my downswing was 20 BI's, but I rebounded with 7 BI's in a sesh right afterward, so it was more like a 15 BI swong as things leveled out. Hope your swong turns back to the good soon.

Originally Posted by daven

short version - squeeze work you have done is very nice.

thx

Originally Posted by daven

Long version -
I wonder how many people are going to properly read what you have written and work through the implications. Not too many I hope!

Ya know, I wonder about that some days...how much of my best stuff I should share online. But then I realize that very few of the noobies around here who could really use it are willing to work on it very hard anyway. The only guys likely to benefit are those who were already good at pokerz and are working on their own stuff...so I'll post it wtf maybe someone will benefit. I know I benefit from working through it enough to post/share.

Originally Posted by daven

1) Q vs short-stacks vs P. I think this needs to be reconsidered (not that it matters until you choose to shortstack). At 20bb a squeeze == All-In, meaning that B=0. Now it becomes a simple matter of villain tendencies re calling/folding and their ranges to do so. Assuming a call range of 88+/KQs/AJs+ from some villains means one thing for your range, other call ranges mean something different. Also need to consider that the flat-caller often has a monster if there are 2 or more short-stacks left to act...

anyway, analysis becomes even simpler at (1/45)*(-8F/C -2.5)+0.5, right?

I agree - it's a pretty straightforward range/stove exercise against short stacks. What I learned looking at the math was that HERO playing a normal stack still gains all the benefits of a short-stack squeeze when he squeezes the short stack. The short stack's calling range doesn't really matter - a squeeze forces a short stack to commit only with his value range, or fold. If we can assess HIS opinion of his value range accurately, we can pwn him with the sick squeeze in the right spots.

Originally Posted by daven

2) here I got interested when i was thinking about full ring application here - basically trying to figure out how easy it is to be breakeven post-flop against a 2% range (i.e. a 13-10 who opened from EP or MP cos otherwise we can't LP squeeze, so his range is like 7-2-2 where calling range=4-bet range about evenly balanced)

And this is where i started to wonder about how post-flop equity was going to be calculated, cos stoving ranges assumes a static state post-flop, and that doesn't happen. 9Ts does just great against AA, unless you have to play a flop with your one pair/gutshot/runner runner FD...

Squeezing in FR can only happen, like you point out, against the nittiest of villains who fold to the squeeze almost all the time, or some LAGG who got drunk and joined a FR table instead of his normal 6m game.

The postflop isn't equity, per se. It's the percentage of time Hero can manage to win the chips postflop. So we take it on a case by case basis. Knowing we need, say, 40% of the chips postflop to make the squeeze profitable, can we win that much with T9s against his likely calling range. By the way, I like the fact that you put AA in his "flat the squeeze bet" range. You're thinking correctly (which I wasn't not too long ago). Too many people put too many premium combos in their 4b range, but anyone who's squeezing at all "light" is going to fold the squeeze to a 4b. With AA, you're almost always pretty happy (or should be!) to flat the squeeze and pray for the pair of 2's to your left to come along for a flop.

Originally Posted by daven

3/4 combined) obvious implication here is how we should deal with a squeeze when we are either the PFR or the flat-caller! more 4-betting. nh.

This goes with the comment above, we do better to play our premium combos (or many of them) by just calling, rather than raising, someone who squeezes light. We do have to leave some premium combos in the 4b'ing range, tho, just for appearances sake, and then fill up the 4b range with light combos.

That part really worried the TAGG in me, since I don't like getting out of ahead of poor hands in huge pots. But this is the heart of my theorem, or will be when I'm done formulating it. HERO doesn't get to determine his preferred range of "big pot" hands. HERO inherits a pretty narrow "optimal" range of hands based on villain's aggression. When our opponents bet/raise lighter, they force many more of our mediocre combos into our "big pot" range. We can refuse to play those combos in big pots, but only by leaving ourselves very exploitable in very obvious ways.

Originally Posted by daven

5) the whole thing has lead me to seriously question some of my earlier (and incorrect) ideas about blind squeeze plays

As above, I switch off at the specific hand analysis a little because of the stove-approach vs multi-street dynamic in HU pots. It's obviously useful, I think it needs to be combined with solid flop and turn range-estimation and understanding of villain's post-flop tendencies

I do see your point here. To explain further, I was thinking not so much about equity as playability, so that part of the post was probably misleading. At the tables, I to tend to think something like, "yeah, I can take this down 40% or more of the times with A4s and position - I've got blockers and he's pretty weak-tight in big pots, playing lots of fit-or-fold." If I estimate he's got a wide enough calling range to make missing a flop possible, then I feel like I can outplay him and will try the squeeze.

In fact, I'm sorry I'm not explaining things well, because the whole beauty of the analysis from my point of view is that it gives us a very attainable target whenever we squeeze and get called. I used to play as though I had to win 80% of the contested pots, whereas now I just let it go on the rare occasion I get 4b or when I get called and see the world's worst flop for my hand. Mathematically, if I've done my preflop analysis right, I only have to win ~40% (worst case) when I'm flat called. That allows me to get away from bad squeezes cheap knowing I can pick up my 40% when I connect with flops and when the pot is obviously orphaned. I don't have to play "raisy daisy" like durrr to make the squeeze profitable. I just have to win my natural share and few from just being better prepared than my opponent.

The whole reason why noobies won't profit from reading this - and it's the thing you picked up on right away - the whole exercise is useless when left in term of percentages. Until we slot in various combos and ranges based on different types of villain profiles, the numbers aren't helpful. So I've done some work there (but less than I should). I now realize that if someone we have 2k HH's on has a 12% squeeze bet stat, I've gotta be fist-pump excited about how weak most of that range is, and the BETTER he is the WEAKER it is since he will probably put much of his KK+ in his value call-behind-the-caller range especially if he's ip.

But the exercise is pretty helpful if you're good at turning those percentages into real ranges and estimating playability of various hands against that range postflop.

Final comment I'll make is this: I've never seen a post or video that talked about isolating isolators. Is everyone else just that much more aware of it that it doesn't need to be discussed? Or is it being discussed on FTR but not in the BC? It's the one thing about poker I discovered pretty much for myself, but it's such an obvious adjustment (once you see it) that I'm surprised it's not more widely talked about on FTR. We probably don't need to post on it in the BC, tho - it's one of those "have to pick your spots" spots where the picking can be a bit tricky.

I think it's because it's enough like squeezing that it doesn't need too much of its own separate discussion

i haven't sent the bet-sizing math over cos i got sidetracked yesterday by this, another question, a good book, climbing, cooking, and actually playing poker. Today perhaps?

Originally Posted by Robb

I can take this down 40% or more of the times with A4s and position - I've got blockers and he's pretty weak-tight in big pots, playing lots of fit-or-fold.

the guts of this post, nice.

Originally Posted by Robb

I used to play as though I had to win 80% of the contested pots,
Mathematically, if I've done my preflop analysis right, I only have to win ~40% (worst case) when I'm flat called. That allows me to get away from bad squeezes cheap knowing I can pick up my 40% when I connect with flops and when the pot is obviously orphaned.

key - and the real value of Q... implications for c-betting vs checking behind are interesting, and from there the assumption of average contested pot size in squeeze pots - but, like you said, Q doesn't vary with P that much.

Originally Posted by Robb

Final comment I'll make is this: I've never seen a post or video that talked about isolating isolators. Is everyone else just that much more aware of it that it doesn't need to be discussed? Or is it being discussed on FTR but not in the BC? It's the one thing about poker I discovered pretty much for myself, but it's such an obvious adjustment (once you see it) that I'm surprised it's not more widely talked about on FTR. We probably don't need to post on it in the BC, tho - it's one of those "have to pick your spots" spots where the picking can be a bit tricky.

posting it in the BC will get a bunch of them moving back down to 5nl in no time flat.... Umm, I guess I only really figured it out during my 18-15 FR experimentation over the last few months. That, and now that i watch the occasional video means i realise that all FR regs on Full Tilt have watched Fooz' series, which means they're all trying to isolate too frequently/inappropriately (at least until they learn what an iso really is and adjust back to sanity), which means you can take a 15-12 and 55% fold to 3-bet type, note they're iso-ing an MP limp from dead money and bang. I'm not sure if he talked about it in the vids or not? It has also lead to some light 4-betting on my part when I know their 3-bet is cos i was obviously isolating vs opening a decent hand

Originally Posted by daven

i haven't sent the bet-sizing math over cos i got sidetracked yesterday by this, another question, a good book, climbing, cooking, and actually playing poker. Today perhaps?

Seems like you're enjoying life, which is much more important most days than working on pokerz. :P

I was enjoying life by tackling the BEAST 5 MILER this morning and thinking about poker lots during the early parts of the run. The latter parts were more focused on my last will and testament and trying to recall if my various insurance policies were paid up.

Originally Posted by daven

...the real value of Q... implications for c-betting vs checking behind are interesting, and from there the assumption of average contested pot size in squeeze pots - but, like you said, Q doesn't vary with P that much.

One thing I remembered learning while doing the maths is that SMALLER postflop pot sizes actually makes the squeeze MORE profitable. It limits the potential all-in downside. Short-stack squeezers need to be jammed on frequently if we think they're doing it light. On the other hand, Daven, as you point out, it makes the squeeze that much more profitable for the shorties.

The place where we have to be careful is when we squeeze and both our stack and the PFR's are 150 BB or more deep. We can still squeeze light, but we're going to have to be very careful not to jam our way into what rock climbers call the "coffin zone," the place where we're committed to a big pot (or potentially nasty fall) with no value (or protection).

Originally Posted by daven

posting it in the BC will get a bunch of them moving back down to 5nl in no time flat

This has made me lol at least 3 times this morning.

----

Speaking of BEAST 5 MILERS, I'll take you up on the fitness prop bet deal. I'll post something in our old thread from last Spring later today. I wanted to tackle the BEAST for a second time in 5 days to see how my body would hold up. I've been adding some lifting and cardio at the gym 3 days a week to 3 hard running days, but I'm trying to focus on arms, chest and back at the gym to save the legs for distance.

The upshot is that I think after today's run I have a decent measure of my current fitness levels, so I can pose a challenge that will challenge both my character and courage while I'm completing it. I've got an idea for a short bet on a strong finish to August building to a more substantial bet on September's fitness. As I said, I will post later today.

Daven, game on :P

Robb v. Daven Fitness Prop Bets

My name is Robb and I'm an alcoholic. I get drunk on playing too many tables. I get so inebriated that I hurl chips. I turn games I can crush into break-even death swamps just so I can have another 6 pack of tables open.

I go "on the wagon" every few weeks, play better, win more, then get sauced up again with two too many. Then two too many ain't enough, and it takes three too many to feed my habit. Then four. Then a misclick costs me 1/2 BI 'cuz I'm stumbling around too many tables in a drunken auto-piloting stupor.

I have been sober for 3 days now. And counting.

OK, I will only play 6 tables of 6m, and 12 tables of FR. At those amounts, I'm taking notes, watching hands I'm not involved in on a couple key tables, and have time to look at popup stats preflop and adjust my ranges accordingly. Rage's scripts really help by allowing me to have "featured" tables and deal with folding a lot very quickly. But still, if I play more than that amount, my win rate suffers and my learning rate deteriorates even more quickly.

In the past month or so, I've been trying to "max out" on my Iron Man bonuses, but I need to just admit that at 50nl with the hours I have available each month, I'm doing well to focus on Gold, not Iron. I'd like to be back at 100nl 6m next month, but top level Iron Man's just gonna have to wait for the bigger pot sizes. Still, at Gold Level, I can earn ~$25 per month in bonus.

So, I'm saying no to massive volume via mass tabling.

And heck, maybe I'll even play some hands tonight.

When you say isolating isolators, you really mean 3-bet bluffing them? To me its a sign of whos paying attention and thinking about their play. I'll do it a bit and see how they react. Likewise occassionally I'll find someone who does it to me, but the fact the most regs dont is a pretty fair indication that they're weak regs. In fact, thats one of the things I really noticed when I took a shot at 200nl. At 100nl other regs would let me isolate to my hearts content. How easy is poker when the other 'good' players constantly let you play HU against the table money? At 200nl though, I seemed to find it much harder to just isolate from wherever whenever I wanted to.

Got sick, didn't play much for a week. Still on a downswong, but who cares? I got my 24" wide monitor for Full Tilt points in the mail yesterday and spent last night reconfiguring my poker setup to larger tables, fixed the HUD to reposition seat stats and use a different font, and reset all my table management and betting scripts - it's pretty cool.

It's my youngest's 3rd birthday today, so lots of family stuff going on. Maybe I'll bet back to playing and have a better Fall than I did Summer. But I'm still enjoying pokerz whenever I get to play. Hope I can get more time to finish my work on my theorem stuff above. I'll check in to the forums when I get some time later this weekend.

hmmm, if the reason for prop-bet losing is being sick then iou $9.

Monitor with points is cool.
3yo birthday sounds like a recipe for chaos.
Have fun!

Originally Posted by daven

hmmm, if the reason for prop-bet losing is being sick then iou $9.

Nope - I had missed two by the time I got sick and the third was meh. I've got an idea for September I'll post in the other thread soon.

Robb's FTC Theorem (1st draft): When a player bets or raises, he is committed to a rather narrow band of fold-to-continue ratios (FTC's). A player whose FTC is too wide is easily exploitable by raises.

Corollary 1: A player whose FTC is too narrow is playing cards face up.

Corollary 2: Hero avoids unbalanced lines with proper FTC's for his aggression levels.

I guess the most obvious result I could share is something I've been thinking about since Ben said it almost a year ago: "a player who cbet's more than ~70% is probably exploitable." Without equations and such, here's the brief sketch: a player who cbets ~70% REQUIRES that Hero start raising light: I'm looking for boards that shouldn't hit him and leave me at least some kind of draw. When he cbets ~80%, I don't need the draw any more. Ten high will do. And if Hero doesn't adjust, Villain's horribly unbalanced line profits, damn him. So Hero has a certain looseness forced into his game by the unbalanced aggression of others.

The problem for the 80% cbetting villain is that there is a ton of dead money in the pot, and it's pretty cheap (relative to the pot) for me to raise the flop. The dead money and cheap raising price mean that Villain has to fold less than half of his cbets to raises or he's toasty-cooked. And with a decent PFR, say 10% or more, it's almost impossible to continue often enough to sustain an 80% cbet rate. When that PFR gets wider, the situation just deteriorates - for Villain - Hero doesn't mind .

I should probably mention when I say dead money, I mean anything already committed, even by the active players. Those chips are worth a stab if there's decent fold equity, and Villain's wide FTC's are the way I'm finding good places to leverage FE.

Another FTC situation is steals. Most TAGG's have really awkward FTC's for their 35% or greater BTN steals. Since the 3b FTC range is pretty wide, it's easy to attack them. I know most folks KNOW this already. I'm just saying that the maths I've done back it up. Where I'm drawing conclusions based on math, the outcomes seem reasonable based on the theory of adjustments we all know. So now I'm using my FTC's at the tables, searching for exploitable villains and lines.

I've been working on a range of playable FTC's for each aggressive action: 3b's, 4b's, squeezes, cbets, steals, resteals and so forth. I'm finding some interesting results.

First, 3bets have this big wide playable range of FTC's, which is probably why about any 3b% between 4 and 10 works OK given that the player is reasonably skilled.

Second, 4b'ing is extremely brittle. You have to have just the right mixture of 4b bluffs, if any. I guess the best way to say it is that the gap between "cards face up" 4betting and "exploitably loose" 4betting is pretty thin. There's no wiggle room.

Third, as the dead money in the pot increases, FTC's are surprisingly narrow, meaning that many TAGG's will have exploitably unbalanced lines.

I don't know if I'll ever post it anywhere but here. The more I think about it, run the numbers and work with it at the tables, the more I realize it's just my limited understanding of ISF's and Renton's theorems. I do have the maths to back it up, but it's pages and pages of spreadsheets with ranges, equity, combos. Pretty boring stuff.

The problem is that I'm not sure I could teach anyone else to "use" my theorem. I'm looking at a half dozen HUD stats, making some estimates based on stats and any actions I've noted, guessing at ranges and then applying my knowledge of FTC's. The cool thing is that it works pretty well. I can tell when I'm in "thin value" situations (if re-bluffs can be called value) and when I'm home free.

Interesting read. I'll admit I'll have to give it another read or two before I feel like I can mention what I want to say but it seems kind of like something I've noticed recently. Just kind of attacking anything but unbalanced strong ranges. If that makes sense. Just kind of knowing you can start bluffing vs. even balanced ranges to unbalance it and then of course vs. unbalanced-yet-heavily-weak ranges.

I think what I am saying doesn't relate too too much with what you are saying but just thought I'd lay it out there. Tbh, I'd love to see some HHs and stuff. I know you gave examples and I appreciate them and understand them but I think as many examples as possible really helps us all out. Even HHs from players other than you.

P.S. The spreadsheet stuff seems far from boring.

After 3 horrendous months, the end of September was a rebirth. I realized that I'm not reading ranges at all accurately - I'm worse than most 10nl droolers right now.

I am practicing range reading. First session, 8 hands, grade is C. But my best play at the tables followed intensive practicing with range reading early this year. So I'm not posting any poker results here for the next little bit. Just number of hands where I did ALL the work. Start with an explicit range preflop and narrow on each street. Decide on a specific number of combos before I look at showdown (using hands I wasn't involved in so there's little chance of me remembering it).

A - 3 combos or less
B+ - 5 combos or less
B - 8 combos or less
C - 10 to 15 combos
D/F - narrowing too much or missing something - showdown hand is out of consideration - worse than 15 combos

I sort of average the grades. I got an A, B+, B and rest C or worse.

But I got an A+ 'cuz I'm practicing ranges again. Trying for 30 - 35 hands worth of practice each week for the next month or so.

This is a fantastic idea for practicing hand reading, and I think I'll do it myself. I find that reading hands/putting villains on a range is by far the weakest point in my game, and its starting to become critical that I do so, if I want to be a solid, consistent winner at 50nl+. Thanks for this Robb, as usual you come through with another amazing post.

/brown nosing

Originally Posted by dranger7070

This is a fantastic idea for practicing hand reading, and I think I'll do it myself. I find that reading hands/putting villains on a range is by far the weakest point in my game, and its starting to become critical that I do so, if I want to be a solid, consistent winner at 50nl+. Thanks for this Robb, as usual you come through with another amazing post.

/brown nosing

To filter in HEM, I use VPiP = False and ShowDown = True with FinalPot > 50 BB (I think - I'm at work, so I'm guessing a bit). That gets me hands I didn't participate in that typically have 2 or more streets of betting to help narrow things down.

I also use my chunking method for grabbing preflop ranges. I described that method here:

Practicing Ranges

My goal is to use the same method each time I practice so that I can get better and better at EXACT range estimates (knowing the exact number of combos/hands in the estimated range). Each chunk is ~5% of all hands, and I've grouped them according to hands I think play similarly and in groups I can easily work with.

The hope is that several months of practice will lead to estimates like: "180 combos total, he's calling this flop raise with 30 of them, shoving with 20, and folding 130." If the estimates are reasonably accurate, then I'll have a real advantage at the tables.

Not there, yet, by a long shot. Short term, though, I can get reasonably close by cycling through each chunk, dropping "half a chunk" and so forth. Which is tons better than I've been doing, which is not thinking too deeply about ranges at all.

And that, my friends, is the #1 way I've found to really suck at poker. **Bad, Robb - stop that!!**

10 hands for range practice tonight, pretty solid B average. Boy, I'm rusty. While I'm getting the feel again, I'm sooooo sllooooooowwwww.

Oh, well, if I didn't need it, it wouldn't be hard.

Poker life is good. Practiced 8 HH's of range reading. Solid B. I've been working on players with wide preflop stats, so it's hard to give them exact ranges by the end. But I'm getting better. I need to work more on bet sizing and what it means.

Went rock climbing with a bunch of college kids who worked for my Summer Honors program the past few summers. I had a blast and pulled off an undercling, patial lieback move I've never managed before on the crux of a 5.9. I was pretty exposed at the time, so it made me feel great.

Played tonight for a couple of hours, my longest session in almost two months. I lost 3 BI early with decent chances (worst was 60-40 against, best was 55-45). I shoved some draws thin and thought they'd fold the hands they called with. Normally, I go off the rails after that, but I came back and played as well as I have since June. Won 'em back to break even for the night. I did get a couple of nice suckouts to even out the variance overall, but I was happy I didn't tilt.

Maybe had something to do with the climbing. I just love being outdoors, and today was a great day. About 70 degrees, mostly sunny, and low mists over the Smokey Mountains with great views from the top of all the climbs.

Originally Posted by Robb

Went rock climbing with a bunch of college kids who worked for my Summer Honors program the past few summers. I had a blast and pulled off an undercling, patial lieback move I've never managed before on the crux of a 5.9. I was pretty exposed at the time, so it made me feel great.

um, wat??

Seriously, good to hear you're getting back into it Robb. You've been very quiet (esp by your standards) for a while now.

Hey there Robb. Sorry, completly missed the essay comp, congrats on winning. Some comments occurred to me, thought I'd mention them here.

You kind of mention this, and hopefully folks can work it out, but your maths at the beginning of how -EV it is to have a wide FTC ratio when stealing ONLY takes into account the times the light 3-bettor in the blinds 3-bets you. Very few even light 3-bettors will 3-bet 100% of the time no matter how wide you're stealing. So you might lose 2BB per hand the times you get 3-bet, but that ignores the 1.5BB per hand you win when you dont. Maths is a bit beyond me atm, but it would be a mistake to make too many adjustments (i.e., stealing less) until you start getting 3bet a LOT.

Point 3 - hurt but dont alert, I pretty much ignore this these days. In reality I just dont find people can adjust well enough to make a difference. More and more I just pound on TAGs in the blinds when I'm in position.

I guess the point is (and again you make this point, just I think I take it further) unless villains are adjusting enough to make a meaningful difference, being exploitable isnt a bad thing. Obviously the higher you get the more villains will be capable of this, but I'd wait until I see the adjustment before allowing for it.


Really good article. A few things I've been blindly stumbling towards that you outline clearly, and a few things I hadnt considered that I found really useful. I got a lot out of it.

Poker life is good, but I haven't had much time lately to blog, or play or comment on others' stuff. I've been playing mostly HU SNG's and reading Colin Moshman's (sp?) Heads Up book.

I've also been wearing my FTR hoodie to work, stylin' in my Essay Winning poker swag.

My poker playing has been erratic, but mostly good, since I've played so infrequently lately.

I'm likin' HU at the cheap stakes - they suck worse than I do.

I've been playing HU lately. Details for the interested: Noobie HU Learning Curve.

Funny story. I have a 2 to 1 chip lead against this LAGG, and I beat him with a sick all-in call. He limps, I have K5o, and the flop is AA2. He cbets and I'm like "What could he possibly have?" So I call. Turn is Q, river is another 2 and the betting goes check turn, bomb river all-in. He shows down T-high, and my K-high takes it. I was about 75% certain I was ahead when I called and was only worried about 2x, but he just goes off on me in the chat box.

"You donkey! You are horrible!! You play so bad - every bet is SO terrible. You suck at poker and should JUST QUIT!!"

We're done early and it's a 4-man $6.40 HU SnG. I have to wait for the other table to finish anyway, so I pull the ol' "I'm new -- just learnin' poker" level. He actually apologizes, says I have a lot to learn and wishes me gl. So I ask for coaching help which he provides by going through each HH in the replayer, telling me his hole cards and explaining how I should bet/play against him/others.

1. He gave some decent advice, but he totally exposed his entire poker mindset in the 5 hands he critiqued with me. Problem is, he could be an FTR grinder. The advice was at that no-longer-a-noobie level typical of our winning 5nl and 10nl regs in the BC. I felt pretty bad for the guy as I totally set him up for rape and pillage action. Buddy list, amiright?

2. Talk about tapping the fish tank. Jeez. If I was a fish, I wouldn't have been worse than this guy for long.

3. If you're wondering, I lied about my hole cards.

So I'm having fun, making a bit of money and learning tons. Position, position, position. Aggression - why do so many of these guys limp their button all the time? I mean, it's a tourney so it's not horrible, but they still are doing it when they're short stacked, say, 12 BB.

I won 4 of 11 4-man $6 SnG's last night for about $75 in BI's and $96 in payouts.

Cash game is on hold right now. I'm going to try generating some positive returns in HU. I'm rolled for (at least) the $11, and the players seem epically readable at $6. So I'm pretty much just trying learn as much as I can as fast as I can so I can justify moving up with results instead of optimism.

Took a 3-game shot at the $11 4-man SnG's, won 1, lost 2, so I'm positive. But I have certainly found HU players who are as good as I am, and some who are better. So it's back the $6 game to learn more pokerz before I take serious shot.

Been thinking about ICM, and (duh) realizing it doesn't apply in HU. Not even in HU MTT's. Should have been obvious, I know. But there's a skill difference that matters.

I searched for ICM and found a thread about "ICM corrected by skill difference" which I can't find again (dammit - I knew I should have book-marked it). But the theory is simple enough: shift some chips from the less skillful to the more skill players before applying the ICM mathematics. Of course, for more skill difference, more chips are shifted.

And this math result feels worthless, but I'm exhausted. So I think I will post it and see if I can start poking holes in it later. If you're still reading, thanks!! Let me know what value this could have - or not have.

So that works for HU. Suppose I play BJaust HU, and let's just suppose he has a 2 to 1 skill advantage. If we played thirty times, he would win 20. So to perform ICM style calculations taking skill difference into account, we could first shift chips from one stack to the other.

In the BJ vs. Robb 2 to 1 skill difference example, we could compare 1500 chip starting stacks. Shift 500 chips from my stack to his, so the 2k vs. 1k chip stacks reflect the portion of the final prize money BJ is expected to win.

So the math is obvious for starting stacks, but what if BJ is evaluating a all-in call with JTs holding a 2 to 1 chip advantage along with a 2 to 1 skill advantage? We can do ICM style analysis if we can develop a formula for shifting chips to have the resulting stacks reflect percentage chance to win.

Of course, there's no real way to decide if it's useful until we do it. The formula should work at the margins: if BJ has 2900 and I have 100, the formula should still work. And vice versa. And in the end, it should lead to useful analysis. So let me offer this idea.

For the 2 to 1 chip advantage, take a fraction of chips from the worse player's stack and add it to the better player's stack. The fraction is

( 2 - 1 ) / ( 2 + 1 ) = 1 / 3

For the start of a match, it works. I have 1500, so we deduct 1500 * 1/3 = 500 and give them to BJ, so we have the 2k vs 1k stacks like we needed. Now, what if BJ has 1800 and I have 1200? Well, just deduct one third of my stack: 1200 * 1/3 = 400, so BJ's expectation can be based on a 2200 to 800 ratio, so he'd be a 5.5 to 1 favorite with only a 3 to 2 advantage in chips. If I had a 2250 vs 750 chip lead, we'd take 1/3 * 2250 = 1500, so BJ would have break-even chances as long he still had 750 chips in his stack. (This also presumes that the blinds are still small enough that BJ doesn't have to revert to push/fold and can exploit his full skill differential.)

So, back the JTs question. If BJ has a 2 to 1 chip lead and a 2 to 1 skill difference, should he call my all-in? Suppose blinds are 25/50. BJ posts the t50 BB, and I push. If BJ folds, he has 1950 and I have 1050. Adjusting for SD, take 1/3 * 1050 = 350, so BJ's equity advantage is 2300 to 700.

Suppose in this situation, I would push Axs, KJs+, KQ, and any pp (just trying to get a halfway decent range and keep things simple). Then BJ stoves it and finds he's got 40% equity against that range. If he goes all-in then 40% of the time he wins the whole match, and 60% of the times he ends up losing t1,000. Now, the stacks are reversed. So the unadjusted equity is 3,000 * .4 + 1,000 *.6 = 1,200 + 600 = 1,800. Shift a third of my chips over to BJ to find his SD-adjusted equity of 2,200.

So BJ should (by this yet-to-be-validate model) fold JTs and play his 2300 to 700 AD-adjusted equity. If he has AJo, his Stove equity would be 48% against the same range, so the EV for calling would be 3,000 * .48 + 1,000 *.52 = 1,440 + 520 = 1,960. Then adjusting for SD would mean taking 1/3 * 1,040 = 348 chips, and shifting them, which would come out almost identical to folding. So calling vs. folding is breakeven for AJo.

Now, I'm not sure that any of this is meaningful, or will lead anywhere. I just wanted to post it so others could critique as they see fit, and so that I could get the ideas down on "paper" so I can work on some endgame scenarios and see if it can be helpful in assessing calling in push/fold scenarios or, likewise, deciding what range to push/fold ourselves.

I do know this - if I have a skill advantage, I need to be much more conservative about getting all the chips in. Coin flips favor those likely to lose.

I gotta admit, I dont know about the maths, but generally speaking you've got the right conclusion, which is that the less skill advantage, the more willing you should be to take small edges, or conversely the more the skill advantage, the less willing you should be to take small edges.

Of course this applies more to deeper stacks. The skill advantage becomes less relevant the shallower the stacks, and the advantage shifts to the player with the better push/fold game, which is to say if your edge is a better knowledge of when to push and when to call pushes, then giving up an edge becomes a bigger mistake because you're negating your own advantage.

Originally Posted by bjsaust

I gotta admit, I dont know about the maths, but generally speaking you've got the right conclusion, which is that the less skill advantage, the more willing you should be to take small edges, or conversely the more the skill advantage, the less willing you should be to take small edges.

Of course this applies more to deeper stacks. The skill advantage becomes less relevant the shallower the stacks, and the advantage shifts to the player with the better push/fold game, which is to say if your edge is a better knowledge of when to push and when to call pushes, then giving up an edge becomes a bigger mistake because you're negating your own advantage.

Well, one place the maths don't work quite right is that any time you have 50% equity in the hand, this method says call, but you probably shouldn't call an all-in on the first hand unless you're somehow certain your equity advantage > skill difference advantage. Same for early game and mid-game before the stacks get shallow - don't call an all-in for a coin flip and the game when you have a 3 to 2 skill advantage. Wait for a hand that's likely to have his range crushed or have his likely hands dominated.

I set up a spreadsheet to get all the formulas working right, and I realized that the "chip switch SD difference" is based effective stacks, not Hero's stack. And I listed every stack size from t100 to t2900. Generally, the maths have us calling with a 40% equity hand when really short, folding when we have a decent sized stack, and calling with good-sized lead (say 2500 to 500). Which makes a good bit of sense.

I've compared the Hero in the BB, SB open-shoves, just to get the setup right. I plan to work on the Hero SB fpr 3xBB, with opp 3b shoveling. With more chips at risk, of course, I'm expecting the "all-in" call recommendations to be more liberal.

When I get some of the maths test-driven for accuracy and run some scenarios, I will post what I find.

Of course, there are some hurdles to overcome:

1. Does Hero really know his skill difference advantage? I would say "yes, to a point." We can always assumed based on history. For example, I've won 57% of my HU $6 matches over 75 or so attempts, so we could safely guess my SD is 55 to 45 against all be the top tier opponents at $6.

2. Can Hero really gauge his equity accurately enough to run these estimates? Yes, since it's the same process as ICM, and yes again, because most of the various all-in configurations like overcard/undercard (A6 vs QT) have well known probabilities. We can generally get a pretty decent idea of opp's shoveling range by seeing a couple of showdowns.

For example, I had been punishing this guy's limps, but I had just flatted a couple as well and saw he liked to limp Axo. About the 4th time I picked up a hand like AT and saw him limp, I raised him 4x. I could tell he was tilting. He thought about it, and I raced him to the middle with my stack when he shoved. Sure enough, he turns up A4o and my AT holds up. Game, set and match.

I'll post something with details in a few days, and see if y'all think it makes any sense.

I started typing this outside in our front yard, sitting on a bench watching the kids play. I took the leaf blower out this afternoon and made a huge pile (which is easy on our 1 acre fully wooded lot) about a meter tall and 3 meters in diameter. So my kids were diving in, burying each other and having leaf fights. I was stting on our garden bench, enjoying being outside in GA (barefoot!!) in mid-November, wearing shorts and a tee, with a view of the mountains now that some of the leaves are off the trees, and generally enjoying an amazing autumn day.

The only thing that could have made it better is playing poker. I had to come in and start dinner, so it wasn't the best time to fire up a HU tourney. (Sorry, kids, that you're hungry. Daddy needs to concentrate on this match. Just go play and I'll make something when I'm done.)

HU pokerz are going well. I didn't really think of it as building the bankroll, just a way to learn some more about the game. But it's doing both.

Stars is SERIOUSLY weaker competition for the same stakes of HU matches. Daven transferred $75 over there for me from FTP. I was running like 30% ROI in HU at Tilt. I'm more like 90% at Stars. That will probably deteriorate a bit over time, but there's a significantly fishier pool of HU players at Stars.

I've played $11 HU at Tilt, but I'm not rolled for that yet on Stars. Actually, I don't really know any HU BR guidelines except that $90 on Stars probably wasn't enough for $6 HU SnG's. I didn't worry about it since it wasn't my whole roll, but I'm going to wait until I have 25 - 30 BI's for the $11 game before I start moving up at Stars. Can't wait to play their $11 games. Hope they're more of the same.

To those of you who grind cash on Stars - wow. Full Tilt's software is so much faster and more responsive. I only play one match at a time on Tilt, but the games move so much slower on Stars that I'm playing two at a time. It gets a bit hectic when I'm at the end of two matches simultaneously against opp's with different playing styles.

I'm up nearly double my original stake of $90 after 17 4-man HU SnG's (winner takes all $24, if you're not familiar with the payoffs). Another hundred or so and I'll tell you what I think of the $11 games.

Originally Posted by Robb

I've also been wearing my FTR hoodie to work, stylin' in my Essay Winning poker swag.

nice
i'm still waiting for mine to turn up (dictionary entries) = downside of being on the other side of the world I guess...

HU sng, interesting change!

Originally Posted by daven

Originally Posted by Robb

I've also been wearing my FTR hoodie to work, stylin' in my Essay Winning poker swag.

nice
i'm still waiting for mine to turn up (dictionary entries) = downside of being on the other side of the world I guess...

HU sng, interesting change!

I hope to play HU cash eventually, but Spenda says 50+ BI because of the variance, and the lowest limit for HU cash is 50nl.

But we'll see...

I like learning new stuff, and I think the HU experience will help my 6-max when I return to it. I don't have time to split my attention, but I will have to play some 6-max to grind my Full Tilt holiday bonus. One HU SnG at a time is killing my rakeback!! About 10 FTP's per day right now - lulz.

So I spent 6 weeks learning HU SnG's and making a little bit - one at a time, I'm definitely a winning player, but it would take until 2055 to grind up any serious roll. I'm competitive at the $11 HU SnG's, but not dominant. I will probably continue to play them off and on over the next few months, but I'm back to my 6m game, grinding my Christmas bonus, my last Iron Man bonus which will turn into a year-end bonus.

I took spenda's and others advice in Kmind's thread (think it was in the short handed forum). They said the 18/15 TAGG just wasn't going to win much at 50nl and beyond. They suggested opening up. I went down to 10nl for a few thousand hands and began playing a laggier 30/25 style, and now I'm at 25nl doing the same.

I can see how it works, now. Of course, folks are going to attack you and play back, but you make a lot stealing small pots so you can let ease out of pots where you have nothing. And, of course, hitting trip 9's when you open 97s from MP with two nits on your left really crosses them up when they call with AQ and the flop is Q99.

For two years, I've been focused on playing a tight TAGG style. This style gets me into more big pot situations with big hands and big draws. The TAGG's play back at me more, and I get to play more pots with the fish.

I'll probably have to tighten up as I move on up to 50nl or 100nl again, but I'll still be at something like 25/20 when I do with some good experience playing those wide, weak ranges.

Oh, yeah, I haven't been around FTR much 'cuz work has been CRAZY. But it's all good. Hope ya'll have been doing well the past few months.

Originally Posted by Robb

I went down to 10nl for a few thousand hands and began playing a laggier 30/25 style, and now I'm at 50nl doing the same.

fmp

Originally Posted by Robb

I'll probably have to tighten up as I move on up to 50nl...

I've played 9k hands at 50nl w/ 32/25/6 VPiP/PFR/3b. Winrate is 2.5 ptBB/100, EV winrate is double that.

Originally Posted by Robb

Oh, yeah, I haven't been around FTR much 'cuz work has been CRAZY. But it's all good. Hope ya'll have been doing well the past few months.

Still true. Won't change much next few months, but I'm back to grinding which means I'll be back posting.

Some goals for next 3-4 months (year-long goals aren't realistic in my life or my poker right now):

1. Grind $250 worth of Iron Man bonuses
2. Get nicely rolled for 100nl
3. Try new laggy style at 100nl for 10k hands or so, re-eval, tweak game and try to stabilize at 100nl for long run
4. DON'T PLAY TOO MANY TABLES YOU MORON
5. Grind to Silver level in FTP's Iron Man each month, which is basically 1k hands of 50nl 15 days in the month

I think all of that is do-able provided I don't tilt/spew. I've finally realized that most of the downswings in my poker career have been double- or triple-severe because I follow up bad poker luck with a hyperaggressive/station can't-fold tilt/spew/donk asswipe play. My game goes completely off the rails for 15 or 20 hands, or sometimes 100 hands, and I turn a 1.5 BI downswing into 5 BI's down 'cuz of tilt.

I've really been working hard on that, keeping my game ABC basic right after bad beats, probably folding too much in marginal spots. But folding is a small mistake in marginal pots, and I've proven I'm very capable of spewing. So I am working on relaxing, trying out the fold button and thinking very clearly about each decision when the bad beats cluster on me. And taking breaks immediately after any bad play follows a bad beat. Just sit out and steam a minute, then sit right back down and play solid. Two minutes fixes it, usually.

I'm just testing to see if the forum codes for LaTex work at FTR.

[latex] \frac{x^2}{3x+4} [/latex]

Guess not...

Poker life has been good but frustrating. While I've not stacked off like I would have in the past, I've had 6k hands of coolers and bad beats, just running like dog poop. I'm down 2.5 ptBB/100 over that stretch, with a 4.2 ptBB (positive) EV.

Tonight, it started just the same, but then I hit a mini-heater and picked up a couple BI's. I've just gotta convince myself to keep fold, fold, folding. It will turn around eventually. No reason to compound (bad) poker luck by spewing.

Sometimes they really do have it 5 times in row when they 4b your light 3b's. Sometimes they really do have 3 times in a row when they make a big turn raise. Take your read, make your laydown, wait for things to look better.

I withdrew $300 because I was nearing the point would I "have" to play 100nl. I've been working pretty hard on my game and improving a lot at 50nl, but I don't feel quite ready for 100nl. So I made a defensive withdrawal to keep my bankroll marginal enough that I wouldn't be tempted to take a shot. I still have lessons to learn here.

Finished clearing an Iron Man bonus, and I get to turn in Iron Man medals for a $100 bonus 1-Feb. At the end of February, if I don't spew off my roll between now and then, I'll probably be taking my game back to 100nl.

Sort of the quintessential example of implied odds:

Grabbed by Holdem Manager
NL Holdem $0.50(BB) Full Tilt
Hero ($30)
BB ($52.65)
UTG ($53.50)
UTG+1 ($51.85)
CO ($40.70)
BTN ($51)

Dealt to Hero 4 6

fold, UTG+1 raises to $1.50, CO calls $1.50, fold, Hero calls $1.25, fold

FLOP ($5) J 4 7

Hero checks, UTG+1 checks, CO checks

TURN ($5) J 4 7 8

Hero bets $2.50, UTG+1 calls $2.50, CO folds

RIVER ($10) J 4 7 8 5

Hero bets $3.75, UTG+1 raises to $47.85 (AI), Hero calls $22.25 (AI)

UTG+1 shows A 9
(Pre 65%, Flop 27.2%, Turn 34.1%)

Hero shows 4 6
(Pre 35%, Flop 72.8%, Turn 65.9%)

Hero wins $59

lol pwn tanmts

wondering if LaTex code works:

[tex]\int \frac{x^2}{7}dx[\tex]

Originally Posted by Robb

wondering if LaTex code works:

[tex]\int \frac{x^2}{7}dx[\tex]

Was wondering where you were....... Can we forget LaTex and remember Poker, imo.

Originally Posted by PlayToWin

Was wondering where you were....... Can we forget LaTex and remember Poker, imo.

No kidding. That was a misclick.

I'm back to pokerz after nearly 5 months off. Played a bit last night at 2nl, 5nl 6m, then 10nl. God, I really suck at poker.

The reason I left poker was due to Benign Positional Paroxysmal Vertigo. This link to BPPV explains things pretty well. My vertigo is triggered by cold / allergy sinus congestion, which changes the viscosity of the inner ear fluid.

The condition, when I have it, is sheer torture and pretty debilitating. I experienced it for the first time right after Christmas.

On the other hand, I have had a great semester at work, with a couple of scholarly publications that will help with next year's early promotion hearing (full professor). I was also teaching an overload to help offset the salary loss due to furloughs.

Needless to say, with a busier-than-usual semester at work, and missing nearly two weeks due to vertigo plus various time lately with visits to ENT's and audiologists, I have gotten way behind. I didn't have much time for poker, so I withdrew a bit and took a break.

In January, I figured I would be back to pokerz in 4 weeks max, not 4 months. But here I am.

I will be posting some and trying to get back into the groove. I dunno what this blog will be like for the next few weeks. I will probably reread what I've posted in here and update since all my xs.to pics are f***d up.

But I am a total noobie again for a few days, at least. So it should be interesting.

Flame away, haters!! Let me know what's up around FTR and your lives lately.

wb Robb, sorry to hear about your condition. Its only just over 12 months since i took my first tentative steps at cash using your noobies guide. Getting settled in at 25nl now.

Originally Posted by Keith_MM

wb Robb, sorry to hear about your condition. Its only just over 12 months since i took my first tentative steps at cash using your noobies guide. Getting settled in at 25nl now.

Glad to know you're doing well. Do you play on Full Tilt? If so, we may meet up at the 25nl 6m tables in a few weeks.

The vertigo was hateful. I couldn't lie down. Whenever I did, nausea-inducing dizziness set in. So I had to sleep in chair sitting up. Whenever my head fell over to the side, I would wake up.

So the worst part of vertigo was severe sleep deprivation. And when it was really bad, I couldn't drive myself anywhere for a few days. Definitely no state to play pokerz in.

Fortunately, I only teach on MWF's, so I was able to "miss" a day here and there and not cancel too many classes.

Keep on grindin', and I will be back with y'all soon!!

Robb I to have been away from poker for quite sometime although I have not yet reached the level at which you have. I have to say when I first found FTR you were really one of the ones who inspired me. I enjoyed reading your post etc. So welcome back and GL with both poker and your condition.

Originally Posted by HarleyGuy13

Robb I to have been away from poker for quite sometime although I have not yet reached the level at which you have. I have to say when I first found FTR you were really one of the ones who inspired me. I enjoyed reading your post etc. So welcome back and GL with both poker and your condition.

Thanks, Harley. I missed FTR while I was away. A bunch of the regs here are really cool folks to discuss things with.

Are you back to pokerz, yet? Or just FTR?

Robbbbbbbb welcome back! Sorry to hear about your condition. Does you being back mean its getting better or have you found a way to treat it?

I'm dabbling in HU sngs (for like the 3rd time) and I'm playing the 6.25s turbos on stars. I'm running pretty hot atm, but I'm really liking my play as well. I bought Moshman's HU SNG book, and I think its a really good starting point for someone newer to them like you suggested a while back. Any plans on playing these again?

Anyways, welcome back again, glad to have another familiar face around again.

Originally Posted by dranger7070

Robbbbbbbb welcome back! Sorry to hear about your condition. Does you being back mean its getting better or have you found a way to treat it?

I'm dabbling in HU sngs (for like the 3rd time) and I'm playing the 6.25s turbos on stars. I'm running pretty hot atm, but I'm really liking my play as well. I bought Moshman's HU SNG book, and I think its a really good starting point for someone newer to them like you suggested a while back. Any plans on playing these again?

Anyways, welcome back again, glad to have another familiar face around again.

Found a way to treat it and minimize its effects. Since it's sinus stuffiness that triggers it, taking a daily dose of Claritin during allergy season is one way to avoid it. There are some therapy options that "fix" the problem, but only for the short term. But there's no solid definition of what "short term" will be. They can't tell me if the vertigo will return every month or if it will be 10 years of relief before I need the therapy/treatment again.

I may play some HU SnG's again. If I do, it will be on stars. I've experimented with FR and 6m at the 10nl, and I'm feeling pretty good atm. Just need a while to grind to get back to 25nl and above. I will probably dabble in some different things since different aspects of playing reinforce different skills that I used to take for granted but now find myself struggling to apply at the tables.

For example, I struggle to 4-table now w/ FR 10nl tables, when 5 or 6 6m tables used to be no problem. So single-tabling some HU will probably be one of the things I do to get my hand-reading skills back.

Just trying to take it easy and make no real specific goals for myself except to relearn pokerz.

Low key efforts have never been my speciality, but if we're going to succeed in the long term at pokerz, we non-pro-aspiring folks have to find ways to fit poker in around the other chores and duties we have. So I'm still working to find balance (no pun intended).

dude, sounds rough on the health front. Hope you get it well sorted somehow

Originally Posted by Robb

Found a way to treat it and minimize its effects. Since it's sinus stuffiness that triggers it, taking a daily dose of Claritin during allergy season is one way to avoid it. T

a hippie alternative to claratin is taking a herbal miracle pill, dunno if you can get the particular brand state-side though? anyway: Nature's Own - Triple strength garlic+C, horseradish, fenugreek & marshmallow.

nice work on the early prof interview as well, impressive stuff. Anyone would think you were hard working and/or half decent at your job

-----------------------------------------------
you asked for updates!
re poker. Meh. 2010 started out well enough. Had my best week profit wise (about $3k), was up quite a bit (around $9k) early on. Then swings and tilt and madness... anyway, i've been bouncing around in stakes and games quite a bit of late - in preparation for a sick-sick-sick May... long term news is that poker has been my sole source of income for 11 months and 3 1/2 weeks now, and i've saved money over that time. Plus moving to europe, cruising around there some, a couple of weeks in malaysia, moving back to nz, buying a few cool toys back in nz, etc...

re life. I'm 33 now! climbing loads again, i've joined the local co-op bouldering gym which means i can go along anytime. Getting stronger. And riding bikes loads. Getting fitter. Turbine plan didn't work cos i sucked at electricity, back to the drawing board.

Thanks for the update, Daven, sounds like life is still pretty decent for you, hope the poker gods smile at your tables soon.

Since you mentioned it, I was presenting with my colleague Dianna at a conference in San Diego (that's 3 trips to the West Coast for this East Coast, small town, small school prof in one semester), and a journal editor asked us to submit a project we worked on in 2008 for her journal. I had dropped it, since I didn't have time, but this will be easy peer-reviewed publication. She asked for me to send it directly to her, and bypass the normal online submission process, which should speed things up. So, yeah, the job/career thing is just fine.

Update on pokerz: I played some HU SnG's of the 4-man winner-take-all variety, and won $15. Wheeeee!! I also played a round of 8 DON's at the dollar BI level, winning 7 of 8 for a massive $1.45 per hour earn rate.

I know my poker retraining may seem oddly eclectic, and it obviously disregards spoony's well-known "stick to one game until mastery" theory of learning pokerz, but I really am enjoying just relearning tons of stuff. Different games require different poker skills, but reading opponents sets the winners apart from the losers. And you learn that at any game, of any variety, at any stakes.

Of everything I've tried, I REALLY like the new 250 bb deep-stack tables on Starz. Problem is, I only have $80 over there, so I'm not rolled for them. I've played a few tables, just one or two at a time, to see how soft they are. Since the cheapest seats are at the 10nl tables, I need to double my roll before I'm ready to play there with any serious intent.

Originally Posted by Robb

Of everything I've tried, I REALLY like the new 250 bb deep-stack tables on Starz. Problem is, I only have $80 over there, so I'm not rolled for them. I've played a few tables, just one or two at a time, to see how soft they are. Since the cheapest seats are at the 10nl tables, I need to double my roll before I'm ready to play there with any serious intent.

theres an awful lot of 25nl players dropping down to the 10nl 250bb tables and an awful lot of 10 nl players moving up to the 25nl 20bb tables from what i've seen.

played for a coupla tonight

6m 5nl for warmup, up 2 BI in 400 hands

plo h/l rebuy tourney, where I blew $14 and finished ootm on a really good draw in a 4-way pot - oh well

$6.40 HU tourney w/ 4 players, which I won

up about $12 overall for the night

pretty good

i like pokerz, and i hope to be back as a reg by the end of the month

best to all y'all who might still check this thread

oh, yeah, and i'm 4-tabling and sometimes dropping back to fewer tables

there's this idea in my head i'd like to test that one quality hour of 2-tabling with known feesh to your right is better than 10 hours of grinding 8+ tables

so far so good

Welcome back sir! Good to see you posting again.

Good to be back. Thanks dranger. What limits are you playing these days? Still enjoying the pokerz?

I'm playing $11.50 HU sngs atm. I have the BR for the $23s, but I'm still pretty new to the format and a big swing would affect me too much.

I'm def still enjoying poker, I've just been a little lazy lately. Getting back into the swing though.

Originally Posted by dranger7070

I'm playing $11.50 HU sngs atm. I have the BR for the $23s, but I'm still pretty new to the format and a big swing would affect me too much.

I'm def still enjoying poker, I've just been a little lazy lately. Getting back into the swing though.

Where? I'm playing the $6 4-man's at Tilt today.

We should both join a 4-man (for like $2) and see if we could final table vs. each other. If I have the maths right, we would have a 2/3's chance of being seated at different tables for the first round.

Yea, I'm on FTP as well, but what you're describing is teaming and its against TOS at FTP. I think its allowed on Stars though.

Yeah, I saw that thread - but I'm not sharing my winnings with you , so I don't think it's actually collusion like they were talking about. But you're right - no reason to even approximate banned behavior.

Tonight, I played 100 hands of 5nl and I'm up 2.5 BI. Those games seem really fishy right now. Guys were open-shoving J2s, bless them.

I need another 5 - 8 BI's at 5nl to be rolled for 10nl on Tilt. So I'll just play around with HU SNG's and 5nl until I'm rolled for something higher.

Hard to say where my skill set is at. I know the different games have changed, but I'm still able to crush the 5nl on Tilt. We'll see what happens as the rust knocks off and the roll increases. I have withdrawn most of my cash, so I have like $300 total online right now, and no real incentive to add any.

So I'm a micro-grinder for now, not that there's anything wrong with that.

Hell nah, micro's for life yo!!! (Jk )

Some hands from tonight's sesh:

1. Bluff catcher - we had played 45 hands HU and 3-way, so I had some reads on his postflop. Not a big hand but I thought I played it really well. He's 70/35 whether HU or 6m, it appears.

2. Leveling - the other guy we've been playing 3-way with. We've been 6m for about 20 hands now, and he's 40/20/4. I just don't believe this line is almost never strong on this board for him. Again, I have some solid postflop reads from 3-way hands.

3. Unsure of line. Villain is 35/15/1.7 over only 35 hands. No reads except an odd tanking on the flop which I read for weakness.

4. Deep flop shove. Actually, this is an interesting hand, to judge if I got "the money in good." I have 26% equity in the main pot, and 46% in the side pot, so no. Money in bad. By about $2.

5. Wheeee!

6. Probably should have folded.

Arghh!!

I typed in a long update, and then browser froze. Short update: playing HU SNG's $6. I have been tilting hard. Need to get poker mindset back. Rest of game seems easy, reading things well, especially postflop. Need to get my concentration levels back to optimal.

Dranger, I believe I am going to pm you about some HU strategy stuff I'm thinking about. Maybe we could set up a sweat, an exchange of tourney HH's, or even just chat about HU pokers via email.

Originally Posted by Robb

Arghh!!

I typed in a long update, and then browser froze. Short update: playing HU SNG's $6. I have been tilting hard. Need to get poker mindset back. Rest of game seems easy, reading things well, especially postflop. Need to get my concentration levels back to optimal.

Dranger, I believe I am going to pm you about some HU strategy stuff I'm thinking about. Maybe we could set up a sweat, an exchange of tourney HH's, or even just chat about HU pokers via email.

I know it's hard to believe, but Dranger changed his mind, he's back to Full Ring.

Originally Posted by CBAT

I know it's hard to believe, but Dranger changed his mind, he's back to Full Ring.

lulz

I messaged him - heard he's back at FR - be interesting to hear how it's going, since I can't imagine two styles of poker more different than each other:

FR cash vs. HU SnG

Seems like half of what you'd learn at one style would be mistakes at the other.

Lol, it actually isn't that hard to transition anymore, since I've done it like 17 times now. Idk, I'm better postflop, and react better to 3bet pots now at FR and its easier to adjust since HU is all about adjusting. (ldo)

It's really not that hard of a transition as long as you realize that it's FR and not HU and vice versa. It'd be more difficult to transition from HU SNG to 6m cash since more would carry over, but you don't want to carry over TOO much and spew. Not sure if that came across like I'm hoping, but w/e.

Hold your applause, everyone.


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...


I earned $1.47 in rakeback this week.

Originally Posted by Robb

Hold your applause, everyone.


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...


I earned $1.47 in rakeback this week.

Holding applause as requested. Play good, run good Rob.

Originally Posted by PlayToWin

Holding applause as requested. Play good, run good Rob.

Went on a heater right after reading this, so thanks much!

Anyone else having trouble making the "multiquote" option work?

Heater: won 6 HU $6 SnG's in a row, in middle of 13 out of 17 streak. I also picked up a BI Saturday playing 5nl short-handed. I opened tables and played mostly HU and 3- and 4-handed.

The ante tables on Tilt don't seem to fill all the way up, so starting some of them seem to be a nice way to the clueless to join and spew. Trips < boat (both on flop) cost me 1.5 BI, and I spewed another half BI, so it feels profitable - possibly. Also, the ante makes an even looser HU style more appropriate, which puts HU-noobies at even more of a disadvantage.

Still think starting tables is underrated - I have been 2- and 3-tabling the cash games and single tabling the HU SnG's, and playing just a couple tables is enough for a decent hourly (for me).

Just trying to build some roll on Tilt, then hoping to build some on Stars. I haven't opened the Stars software in months, so I don't even know my roll over there. I'd like to get to $300 on Tilt just relearning and playing 5nl and $6 HU. Then reevaluate.

Weird - I never play anyone a 2nd time in FTP HU SnG's. I've been taking notes and putting colored note-tags on everyone I play for the last week or so, which is nearly 50 HU SnG's total (and have the HUD open), but I have yet to play a 2nd match against anyone except the instant rematch option right after the first match ends. Still, the notes (and HUD somewhat) help.

Within 4-5 hands, I try to type at least one word, usually "loose" or "passive" or "can fold." Then, within about 10 hands, some picture starts taking shape. For the trickier players, it might be 20 hands deep before the reads emerge. On average, I have a plan of attack with 15 - 20 that I pretty much stick with until the end of the match, but I do try to note some of the more wild examples of their play.

Just wish it was paying off a bit more in terms of facing known villains. I feel like I could destroy some of these guys on whom I have 6 - 8 sentences/reads worth of notes.

Did some yoga instead of running this morning - seems most of my knee pain when running stems from lack of flexibility and strength in the small stabilizer muscles around the knees and ankles, so yoga really helps, especially poses like warrior 1 and 2. I also do pushups and some stretches that specifically focus on key running muscle groups with my yoga. I can't get consistent with it, but yoga makes me feel better every time I do it.

OK, my concentration leak in long matches seems to be less than before. I'm improving.

Had this match against this horrible player who had the luck box switched on. I got away from two hands: straight < straight both times. His postflop lines were so transparent I ditched what otherwise would have been fist pump jams. But I was pretty short on chips (about 20 BB's, at one point). I chipped away, then doubled through w/ J9 by reading him for second pair or small draw on the flop. I jammed, he called w/ J7, and I dodged his two outs. Still, the game ground on for nearly half an hour. He caught a couple big hands, like turning trip 5's after I flopped two pair and fired two streets of psb's.

Long story longer, I ground it down, staying focused. At one point, I felt the frustration - TILT - start messing with me. He jammed all-in on a flop, and I was moving toward clicking call when I realized what I was doing. I was just mentally tired from hovering near death for so long, and ripping chips away from him on solid reads while his luck box kept turning and rivering miracles.

He went all-in a couple of times when we were nearly even in chips, and I had Ace-rag type hands. But I'm thinking: Robb, you can beat this guy without ever going all-in. You can dominate all the small/medium pots, and why the heck coin flip? You're better than he is, and why would you want to call down a station the one hand out of 30 that he jams?

I also realized something about myself - wonder if it's true for others.

Tilt, in HU, is closely linked to fear. Fear that I'm not good enough. Fear that this guy is better, that he'll soul read me. Fear that if I can't win at HU right freakin' now, I'm not ever gonna be a good poker player. Fear of losing and losing streaks. Fear of whatever.

I tend to shove in desperation, or call the shoves when I'm most closely matched and worried I won't be able to beat the guy on skill alone.

Fear of needing luck to win becomes this self-fulfilling prophecy.

I read once that tennis players experience more stress than most athletes before games/matches. The only athletes that experienced more stress were boxers. (This study was before UFC and other martial arts were popular in the U.S.) The hypothesis was that tennis, like very few other sports, is a HU match. When an athlete depends solely on himself or herself, the stress and fear and adrenaline really spike hard, more so than for, say, basketball players.

HU pokerz certainly key me up more than other styles. Wonder if there's any connection.

I also have another thought random about playing just a couple of tables for a steady hourly earn (maybe $8/hr). Why did I ever try to play 14+ tables of poker at once?

good to see ya back!
hope all is well on the health front, if you're not still dizzy we could do some prop-betting.
and enjoying poker while you're playing is so key...

Poker session was short last night: 30 minutes, 5 HU6's, 3 wins. I won 3 of 4, then fatigue set in and I tilted hard, spewed spectacularly, lost, shut it down and went to bed.

Oddly enough, as bad as the last one was, that's still ~$8/hr.

I like the fact in HU matches that you win or lose something. The painful thing about grinding cash games sometimes is playing well for an hour or two and being up 40 cents.

Skill difference matters so much in HU, too. Sure, luck can be a part of it. But I'm learning to grind out wins even in matches where bad luck causes big chip deficits. Or at least grind my way to a chance .

@Daven, I'm not ready for a prop bet, yet.

I've just started "running" again lately. Lots of walking with some running spurts thrown in. I'm going to miss my annual hometown half marathon this October for the first time in several years - just can't get back into shape by then. There's a half marathon in March that I'm going to start training for.

Within HU6 BI's of $200 on Tilt, plus $11 in rakeback due on Friday.

Ballin' nano!

The more I think about it, the less I am likely to grind on Stars, unless they've added rakeback or something similar. Their rewards program sucks, or it did a year ago, unless you're rolled for and playing 100nl.

Gotta stay patient - wanna have $300 in roll before I step up to HU10's and HU11's. Just slow and steady, $5 to $10 per night for a couple weeks and I'll be there.

Just back into pokerz after several months off. Still playin' the nano's, HU2. Been playin' some chess. I'm lol bad at chess, but I like blitz. If I'm tired and worried I don't have the mental capability to play A game pokerz, I play a 10 minute blitz on Chess.com. If I'm feelin' alert, I know I can handle pokers without crippling my roll with dumbass tired mistakes. If I donk off my Queen-side rook on some stupid oversight mistake, I know to keep my $$ out of poker circulation.

Welcome back sir, you are always missed when you disappear!

Originally Posted by HarleyGuy13

Welcome back sir, you are always missed when you disappear!

Thanks, I miss poker when I don't play, especially the great folks at FTR.

Played HORRIBLE poker after failing the "i suck at chess and shouldn't play poker" test. So I played poker. WTF? Ah, well, I lucked out an won one lost one in HU SnG's, got out after some decent play won me a back from the grave victory, so I'm down the cost of 2 BI's, like 30 cents or something. Cheap lesson, I suppose.

If you're brain ain't active when it's something free like chess, why gamble?

Originally Posted by Robb

Played HORRIBLE poker after failing the "i suck at chess and shouldn't play poker" test. So I played poker. WTF?

haha

Epic failure.

I tried 2-tabling my nano HU SnG's. I lost 4 VERY winnable matches, then had to fight my way back to even for the night. I played 22 total, about 8 in the multi-tabling experiment, overall winning 12 and losing 10, which just about covers all my rake cost. Had to pull out 5 wins from the last 6 to manage break even, tho.

Glad to see Courtiebee in the thread - how's the hottest, thong-wearing chick on FTR doing these days?

Learning about the grind again. I played for 90 minutes straight last night, after working for half an hour to get my HUD set up. We lost a hard drive in late summer, so the 1.2 million hand database is gone. It was dated, but might be a tad useful. I miss my color-coded HUD stats more, since I had things customized for HU, 6m, FR, tourneys, etc.

Oh, yeah, and this week's epic grinding paid off handsomely: $1.04 in rake back, baby. Watch out Daven, the volume's on the way up!!

OK, I'm not complaining about livin' in the sticks. I chose it. I like it. But the power company out here has this generating system that works just about when it wants to, and it doesn't much want to when a cold front heads through. I wish I had insisted on a fireplace. I wonder if you can add one? And how much that costs?

Of course, no internet with no power, so my awesome day yesterday was cut short. I was up about $20 at HU2s, something like 16 and 4 which is a heater, certainly, but I won several of those just by playing the worst players ever and having half clue.

I have this theory. I think we should suggest noobies start with HU. You can be properly rolled for HU1 with about $50, and take a reasonable shot at HU2 with about $80. To be properly rolled for 5nl, you need at least a hundred. I guarantee this - I can earn a good bit more per hour at HU2 than 5nl. The same would surely be true comparing HU1 to 2nl.

The rake is epic, but that's true at nano-ring games, too. The BI is $1.10, so you have to win 5 of 9 to make a dime. The needed win rate eases a bit by HU5 where it's down to 5% or a bit less.

Wonder what y'all think?