I look forward to the day that fear stops me from pulling the trigger in a dumb spot.. if only... :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Da GOAT
Printable View
I look forward to the day that fear stops me from pulling the trigger in a dumb spot.. if only... :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Da GOAT
lol so trueQuote:
Originally Posted by griffey24
and unlike 99% of the poker population. Griffey is made for nosebleeds.
Action vs same villain on different tables: Distinguishing between a bluff or value bet one one of them?
This is a spot that comes up somewhat often. You're playing a villain on multiple tables at once. On table A you get to the river and villain shoves into you and you're trying to decide what to do. On table B I take a line that I hope will try to help me make a decision on table A (ie: I 3b villain or raise villain on the flop and see how villain reacts).
In general from my experience if villain super snap folds on Table B, he's trying not to intentionally frustrate you into stubborn calling him on the other table. Especially if its a spot where villain rarely folds (ie: villain calls tons of 3b, and suddenly super snap folds). Likewise, if villain plays back at you it's more likely that he has a hand on Table A.
Look at it this way: You just bluff shoved vs villain on one table and he's time banking and now he 3b you on another table. Are you really going to 4b him in this spot? Probably not.
This is a hand that came up yesterday.
Table A:
-villain was being a stationy non-believer so I was pretty sure he'd view my double barrel on this card as hearts or some draw and call down any pair
-river is tough cause I rarely have 6x when I check here, and my most common occurrence here is to c/f since he can be v-betting 78/T8/77/TT.
$2/$4 No Limit Holdem
5 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com
Stacks:
Hero (UTG) ($552.40) 138bb
CO ($586.20) 147bb
BTN ($425.50) 106bb
SB ($402) 101bb
BB ($656.90) 164bb
Pre-Flop: ($6, 5 players) Hero is UTG :kd: :kc:
Hero raises to $12, 1 fold, BTN calls $12, 2 folds
Flop: :4s: :8c: :5h: ($30, 2 players)
Hero bets $20, BTN calls $20
Turn: :7h: ($70, 2 players)
Hero bets $50, BTN calls $50
River: :tc: ($170, 2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $135, Hero looks to Table B..
Table B
-villain was the type of player that bets turns after i ck back flops
-this hand happened while I was time banking the above hand
-I intentionally check backed flop to see what he would do and he snap c/f in a spot I expect him to bet or c/c somewhat often
$1/$2 No Limit Holdem
5 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com
Stacks:
Hero (UTG) ($231.55) 116bb
CO ($70) 35bb
BTN ($202) 101bb
SB ($175.55) 88bb
BB ($200) 100bb
Pre-Flop: ($3, 5 players) Hero is UTG :kd: :ah:
Hero raises to $6, 3 folds, BB calls $4
Flop: :8c: :qc: :6d: ($13, 2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks
Turn: :3h: ($13, 2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $9, BB folds
Back to Table A:
-This action on Table B pushed my close decision on table A from a fold to a call
River: :tc: ($170, 2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $135, Hero calls $135
Final Pot: $440
Hero shows
:kd: :kc:
BTN shows
:5d: :ad:
Hero wins $437 (net +$220)
BTN lost $217
No thoughts on this theory?
Surely someone must either agree that it seems reasonable, or really think I'm way over-thinking?
Need to promote some responses going here, boring talking to myself :)
i've never ever thought about anything like this in play but the point you make about folding a profitable 4b vs a villain who is timing down vs my river AI bluff on another table is certainly true. i'd be kind of wary making big calls based on how villain is playing vs us on other tables because it's only one hand worth of information and we could have just ran into the very bottom of villain's range and taken down a 4-5bb pot he was uninterested in anyway, and use that to talk ourselves into calling a 66bb (this is just an example) river shove on another table.
obv take them with a grain of salt but they're my thoughts
I've established that poker is just a tease. You go on an upswing and you feel as though you're playing well but then variance comes in and brings you back to reality. That's pretty much what has happened this month.
The first 9.5 days: up $7k
The next 9.5 days: down $5.5k
I spent a bit of this morning trying to analyze if there were any telling differences in play, or in variance over that time period.
One major difference was:
The first 9.5 days: up $3.5k in NON-showdown winnings
The next 9.5 days: down $2.5k in NON-showdown winnings
Now technically, non-showdown winnings aren't entirely dependent on variance/having hands. Though I think a large part of this has to do with flopping a lot of hands in the first week and a half (two pairs/trips/few more sets) so having more hands to raise/bet/bet which would result in better non-showdown if ppl folded by river.
I'm going to check if this is true. That being said, if it seems that most ppl are calling flop raises but getting to SD less than 50% then it would be +EV barreling my air regardless.
Another difference was my 3b pot tendencies. I'm running on my memory but if I remember correctly:
The first 9.5 days: Fold to 3b 66.3%, call 3b 14.4% and raise 3b 19.3%
The next 9.5 days: Fold to 3b 63%, call 3b 19.9% and raise 3b 17.1%
This is a big jump in calling 3bets. Again part of this is variance I'm sure. People seem to be 3b me small a fair bit, so I'm peeling pockets with more than 15x effective.
The difference in non-showdown is interesting, and I need to look more into if this is a style of play difference, or variance.
This morning I was thinking about some content in a poker book I read a while ago. I'm pretty sure it was a well known book, it might have been mental game of poker though I can't recall.
The primary message was essentially that some hands play themselves, and those hands aren't where the money is made. Winning/losing KK vs AA preflop, QQ vs AK preflop, second nuts vs nuts etc aren't going to vary much from villain to villain. Most hands will end up the same way, so if you ask yourself "Would villain have lost/won as much as I did this hand, if roles were reversed?" - the answer is likely yes.
Poker players really distinguish themselves on all the other hands. The hands where you can legitimately question "would villain have lost/won as much as I did this hand?"
I think a lot of my losses come from losses where I don't think other villains would have lost as much. I 3b/5b jam A6hh, or AJ, or some lower'ish pair and get dominated (whereas I never feel like I catch people jamming this stuff into me). I'm too quick to aggro shove on flops where I'm at least going to have 30-35% equity but really I'm also very likely to mostly only have 35% equity (ie: yest got c/r on 7x8d9d and I jammed J8ss for 70bb or so. Or 3way flop K85hhh, I have AhQx - blinds donks pot into PFR, PFR flats and I raise/call off - when really OOP donker is likely quite strong here)
Dynamic Play - Source of my problem!
As I stated in other posts, I have a tendency to try new things and switch up how I play pretty often. Some stretch of sessions I have a btn/blinds 3b of around 13-14%, others I might be flatting more and have a 3b of 5-7%. Some stretch of sessions I might be raising more flops, others flatting more. Some my 4b may be 10% and others 20%.
Experimenting on a whole is good, and you learn a lot. But the major major downside is: I HAVE NOOOO CLUE HOW I'M PERCEIVED.
This is proving to be very troublesome. Am I being 4b because villain thinks my 3b is 14%, or because villain is mega strong and thinks my 3b is 5%? The ranges I should be jamming here are obv VERY different in each of these two conditions.
I'm reviewing a lot of my hands this month to see how my play has been. I went from up $7k to down $4k on the month, but I think my play has been good overall. I'm going to try and keep my style consistent for a while, to remedy this perception issue!
GTO and Frequencies
Been thinking about/ reading about Game Theory more lately and just frequencies in general.
One spot I think I lack is really using the appropriate frequencies in spots. I tend to go to extremes too often, either not triple barrel bluffing or doing it too much. I've always find it hard to figure out a way to really control frequencies.
Known:
If we bet on the river:
50% of the pot - Villain needs to call and win 25% of the time (ie: We can bluff 25% of the time)
60% of pot - We can bluff 27% of the time
70% of pot -We can bluff 29.6% of the time
80% of pot - We can bluff 30.7% of the time
90% of pot - We can bluff 32.1% of the time
100% of the pot - We can bluff 33% of the time
But how can we control this in practice, and be bluffing with the appropriate number of combos relative to value hands?
After a bit of math I've come up with:
Bluff combos = (%wecanbluff * num_value_hands)/(1-%wecanbluff)
So if we can bluff 27% of the time, this simplifies to:
Bluff combos = 0.37*numvaluehands
If we can bluff 30.7% of the time, this simplifies to:
Bluff combos = 0.44*numvaluehands
So really, the amount that will satisfy most of our betting range on the river (between 0.6-0.8 of the pot) will be:
Bluff combos = 0.4*numvaluehands
**DISCLAIMER** - I don't think content below here in this post is correct, tried fixing it in the subsequent post ***
How to put into practice?
Suppose we're on the turn with :kh: :qh:
The board is :2h: :3d: :7h: :8c:
I'm going to estimate we have 15 outs (so 15 cards on the river we'll be betting for value - 9 hearts, 3 non heart K, 3 non heart Q)
Bluff combos = 0.4*15
Bluff combos = 6 combos
Knowing we can put this into practice, the best way to do this is to decide on the turn which 6 combos you will bluff with. This will work out to picking two cards in the deck to bluff on (3 non-heart cards per selection).
In this case the cards with the most fold equity are likely any Ace and any Jack (6 non heart aces and jacks). If we decide on the turn that we will always bluff any ace and any jack, but also ONLY bluff any ace and any jack, we will be bluffing with 6 combos compared to 15 value combos (28.5% bluffs).
If we bet a little less than 70% on the river, then we are playing GTO vs his calling range. We are indifferent to villain calling or folding to our bet. This is on top of the times he incorrectly folds to our bets on an A or J river.
Common draws:
OESD = 8 value outs, need 3 bluffs
FD = 9 value outs, need about 3 bluffs (3.6 really) - so pick one card in the deck and bet all of those rivers when that card falls
FD+1 over = 12 value outs, need 4.8 bluffs
FD+gutter = 13 value outs, need 5 bluffs
FD+2 overs = 15 value outs, bet 6 combos for bluffs
I'll try to put this into practice. The key here is that you're pre-selecting your bluff cards on the turn and sticking to it. If you just randomly decide on the river, then its tough to really control frequencies.
(Important note: Playing GTO assumes that your opponent is also playing close to GTO. If villain has exploitable tendencies (ie: folds way too much or way too little), this would not be the best gameplan)
I'm starting to wonder if maybe my calculations are a bit off on the above example.
In that example on a Jh river for example, our actual number of value hands on the river should be based on our entire range, so all sets (222,333,777,888,JJJ = 15 combos, 78s 2 combos, and all flushes (A3,A5,A6,A8,A9,AT,AQ,AKhh, KQ, QThh, 89hh = 11 combos) = Total value combos of 32.
So if we have 32 value combos on a Jack of hearts river, then:
bluff combos = 32*0.4 = 11 bluff combos.
We have 17 value combos on a non heart brick, then:
bluff combos = 17*0.4 = 7 bluff combos.
Anyone have any thoughts if this seems more reasonable? I don't claim to be a GTO expert, so just trying to work through this stuff!
fundamental theory of poker plus i remember some book (e-book/blog?) where some poker ego was saying that his edge was being way better at playing things like KJs than most players. I've been thinking about this heaps recently. Going to review this whole thread in early april, cos there is gold in it.Quote:
Originally Posted by griffey24
in absence of notes and/or further info just go with the most likely answer perhaps? i.e.Quote:
Originally Posted by griffey24
vs regs with loads of volume, you're perceived as per running a report on yourself in HEM/PT
vs unknowns, you're perceived as running as per your HUD stats display that show what you've been doing at this table during this session
vs in betweens, figure out how much this session is contributing to your history via the good ol' hud double click
Griff - rooting hard for you obviously. What kind of GTO material are you reading, watching, using (tools), etc? I'm about to go on a 100% GTO study/0% play binge soon and have found a lot of good resources to attempt to study this.
I'm going to try and chime in here more often.
Kmizzle! Are you playing these days?Quote:
Originally Posted by kmind
I don't really have any great resources at the moment, so definitely post whatever you have.
I've been using the poker equity tool on pokerstrategy.com (I think that's the site), so see how many hand combinations for value I have on certain types of boards (from every position). Then assuming I bet around 70% pot on river, how many bluff combos I can reasonably have.
My preliminary conclusion is that I have TONS of value hands on flush cards from the button, so I should be bluffing a lot more than I am on flush cards.
Also just in general I think if people are playing low-stakes, then it is probably much more worthwhile putting in that same time analyzing players and coming up with an exploitive strategy vs them, rather than GTO.
GTO assumes that your villain is also playing close to GTO, which probably is not the case a lot of the time.
Not playing :(
Agree about low stakes playing exploitative poker; however, GTO should still profit and should really help understand what kind of ways in which we can exploit more accurately.
Thought it would be interesting to show a screenshot of my crazy HUD, that has soo many stats on it!
I've definitely been using the popup screens a lot more lately, especially for by position opening, and raise cbet %. But I've always liked having lots of stats in front of me.
The numbers I really focus on are generally bigger font size than the others. Most are also colour coordinated, with red being low, yellow middle-ish, purple higher, green reasonably high and blue very high.
My stats are:
Name / wtsd / won at sd
SB fold steal / BB fold steal / fold flop cb to raise / fold 3b IP
vpip / pfr / AF / Btn steal / SB steal
3b / call 3b / 4b / fold to 4b / cold 4b / squeeze
flop cb / turn cb/ river cb / fold to flop cb / fold to turn cb / fold to river cb
The numbers I've recently made bigger are fold to 3b IP and Btn steal, as I'm making a more concerted effort of loosening up my blind play vs these particular players.
Also with my recent attempt at finding spots to triple, I'm trying to focus on players that fold a lot to triples.
http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/5...screenshot.jpg
Stat-tastic in a quide lidderally HUDmungous way, mateQuote:
Originally Posted by griffey24
you ever use auto-rate or Note-Caddy?
Used note-caddy for like one session a long time ago, but never tried using it much more than that.Quote:
Originally Posted by DoubleJ
Generally speaking you need pretty large samples for note-caddy to be useful I'd imagine. I think it's biggest use over a small sample is probably seeing any sample on occurrences that most regs would rarely do.
Something like limp/raising a big pair, or c/c a turned flush or some weird plays like that. Where you'd prob expect most ppl to have 0/50 chances, but in a small sample you see some ppl have 1/3 or something.
If you table select a decent table (as I'm sure you do) how many players around the table do you expect to see with less than 1,50,250,1000, 1000+ hands in your HUD?
I ask because a lot of the stats you are showing take a looooooong time to converge to meaningful values.
If I'm on 6-8 tables, that's 30-40 potential villains.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pelion
I'd say maybe 4 of these players I have between 1-250 hands, and all the rest have >1000 hands probably. Tons of regs.
ie: 4 of the tables I'm playing, I'm specifically playing because there is some name I don't recognize, and then the other 2-4 I'm playing cause there is some meh reg I want to play against.
why only the one sesh, if u don't mind me asking?Quote:
Originally Posted by griffey24
depends on the stats you want to monitor.Quote:
Originally Posted by griffey24
AFAIK (not a user, BTW), it's strength lies in correlating user-defined sets of stats to trigger the application of tags or 'badges' to your HUD for any opp who fits that particular set of traits. Something that HM2 doesn't do natively beyound the simple stuff you can do with AutoRate.
So as per your e.g. you could have a badge applied to anyone with hi Btn Steal % and hi fold-to-3Bet %
Quote:
Originally Posted by DoubleJ
Hmmm now that you mention those badges that sounds interesting. Can you apply more than one badge to one person?
Also as for why I only used it once. I think at the time I was very focused on my stats on my HUD but really wasn't using the pop-up windows very much so I just wasn't accustomed to looking for the additional note-caddy information in that way.
Maybe it's something I should look into again though?
EDIT: Short answer = YesQuote:
Originally Posted by griffey24
this is useful : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uez_vLYp_fQ
There's also a demo (of sorts) embedded into HM2
Been thinking about getting it meself 4 a while, but short of funzzz :( so be innarested to hear what you think...
Hey guys,
Haven't written a blog post in a while!
Been grinding away the last few months. Overall felt like I've been playing well this year, though the results haven't been coming in. Will strongly have to revisit my future online grind beyond this year if the same persists, or potentially pondering a transfer to grinding live once or twice a month or something on the side.
I'm down about $10.8k on year, and getting rocked at about $6-7k under EV. Even still it's not overly satisfying knowing my EV is still down. I'm pretty sure I'm running bad in terms of variance as well, but that's hard to measure.
Decided to run a few filters yesterday, and some of the results I found were somewhat surprising for the year.
Flatting 4bets:
-I'm down $5.5k when I run the filter -> 3b = true, faced 4b = true, called 4b= true, allin-preflop = false
-This filter was about -1800bb/100 which is HORRIBLE
-Assuming all my 3bets are to around 7-8bb, then 3b and folding all 4b with marginal hands would be about -800bb/100 loss, so much better than my result from flatting
-it's also interesting that these 5.5k in losses represents about 50% in all losses, while only representing 0.07% of all hands in this years sample - although it's known subconsciously it's surprising that flatting 4b is quite THIS bad
-adjustment number 1: STOP FLATTING 4B!
All-in preflop
-Running the filter -> allin preflop = true
-my average preflop allin EV is 48% (but checking other regs stat, they seem to be on average about 50-60% range), I'm not sure if this is bad or not, intuitively it seems ok to be a bit under 50% but this depends on how HEM calculates this. If I'm actually consistently 35% in huge pots, and 60% in small pots, this is obviously bad.
-When I'm allin pre, I'm down $12k! (mind you EV is around -$4k but even still)
-This represented 365 total all-ins, and of these all-ins only 20 or so were NON TT+, AQ+, AK+
-Of these 20 NON TT+,AQ+,AK+, I was down about $16k
-The clear message here is: STOP JAMMING LIGHT
-Given only 20/365 were marginal jams, I don't think my fold to 4b stat will skyrocket if I tighten up either
Although I'm down $11k this year, and only $4-5k EV, there's something satisfying in knowing that I have around $21k in losses due to spew flatting 4b and spew 5b jamming.
Time to right the ship!
Bit of an old post but I just read it. It think it can be true but it's a bit flimsy, not something I would stake everything on. In hand A, I'd c/c turn, and as played it is a call anyway.. not happy with it ofcourse. He won't bet so hard with the many 2p he can have so it's only a 6 or a set he pretends to have.Quote:
Originally Posted by griffey24
Btw your blog here has inspired me to get a poker tracker, I play anonymous tables so no stats but I can get stats from myself and try to analyze leaks. Any tip on what best ones for the moment are to try to get?
Are you asking which specific stats on yourself you should get? What do you think your biggest leaks are?Quote:
Originally Posted by jackvance
My friend uses Poker Copilot but this is for mac, I haven't had any software for hand analysis in a long time.
My biggest leaks are probably being too loose in 3bet+ pots (like you were talking about) and I'd like to have a look at my bluffing frequency (quite high) and if I'm not playing too loose in certain positions.
I can't imagine being where I'm at today, or having had made the progress I made early in my poker career without HH analysis and stat analysis etc. There's just too much information you can get out of it, that you're leaving so much on the table by now doing it imo.
My best advice is that as soon as you get a big enough sample of hands (>150k hands or so), just run filters. A TON of filters, in every type of spot. Figure out if you're more profitable flatting BVB in BB vs 3betting (remove nut hands like AA/KK/AK etc so that you're comparing flatting mediocre hands vs 3betting). Figure out the profitability of flatting SC's IP vs 3betting. Figure out your profitability of flatting mediocre hands in blinds vs 3betting .. etc etc.
I guarantee you will find at least one thing that is very surprising. One spot where your win rate is WAAAAY larger choosing option A) vs option B), which makes you realize that you need to be doing that option A (whatever it is) a lot more.
Nice. I ran analysis in Poker Copilot on my hands after a small sample, and already noticed a few glaring mistakes. Playing too loose in the CO. Playing JTo/JTs too much like the nuts. Calling way too much in the big blind. Attacking the blinds too loose. I also dropped down to a combination of 50NL and 100NL instead of 200NL and it paid off.
Btw my preliminary stats after I did the analysis were:
Total winnings: +$60
Non-showdown winnings: +$410
Showdown winnings: -$350
I don't know what to think about this.
That's fine.. as long as total winnings are good then focus on that.
My winnings are similar to yours and always have been. Non-showdown up, showdown down. It mostly means we are probably either running too many bluffs and/or calling too many rivers where we should be folding.
Woke up this morning and decided to run some "calling 3b" filters while eating breakfast! Might as well be productive at 6:30am :)
This is what I found so far, over the last two years of calling 3b. The baseline of comparison here is that for most of that two yrs I was probably opening to 2.5x-3x depending on that position, and over last few months 2x-3x depending on position. So folding all 3b would probably net on average about -2.4 to -2.6bb per hand. Anything better than this means calling is better than folding, worse than this means folding is better than calling.
The number in the brackets is the number of instances. Will comment more later on any opinions I have on this, gotta go to a meeting at work now.
-calling 3b - pairs 99 and down, -1.96 bb per hand (468)
-calling 3b - JJ/TT -0.84 bb per hand (185)
-calling QQ/KK/AA - up 4.86bb per hand (136)
-RAISING QQ/KK/AA 3b - up 17.81 per hand (269)
-calling AK - down 1.11 bb/per hand
-RAISING AK - up 3.44 bb/per hand (247)
-calling AQ - -2.21 per hand (217)
-RAISING AQ - up 0.75 bb per hand (139)
-calling AJ - down 0.07bb per hand (148)
-calling KQ - down 2.43bb per hand (171)
-calling KJ - down 1.14bb per hand (122)
-calling QJs - down 2.92 per hand (113)
-calling QJo - down 3.57 bb per hand (98)
-calling JTs - down 2.25 bb per hand (113)
-calling JTo - down 3.68 per hand (89)
-calling A7s-ATs - down 3.41 per hand (126)
-calling A2s-A6s - down 3.82 per hand (98)
-calling A2o-ATo - down 4.76 per hand (104)
-calling K2-KTo - down 2.94 per hand (95)
-calling K2-KTs - down 2.31 per hand (110) (WTSD 6% of time)
-calling 89s and T9s - down 5.89 per hand (109)
-calling 45s,56s,67s,78s - do wn 5.17 per hand (124)
-calling 46s,57s,68s,79s,8Ts,9Js - down 4.53 per hand (118)
The above sorted in order of profitability:
"Profitable" call of 3b relative to folding:
-RAISING QQ/KK/AA 3b - up 17.81 per hand (269)
-calling QQ/KK/AA - up 4.86bb per hand (136)
-RAISING AK - up 3.44 bb/per hand (247)
-RAISING AQ - up 0.75 bb per hand (139)
-calling 3b - JJ/TT -0.84 bb per hand (185)
-calling AJ - down 0.07bb per hand (148)
-calling AK - down 1.11 bb/per hand
-calling KJ - down 1.14bb per hand (122)
-calling 3b - pairs 99 and down, -1.96 bb per hand (468)
-calling AQ - -2.21 per hand (217)
-calling JTs - down 2.25 bb per hand (113)
-calling K2-KTs - down 2.31 per hand (110) (WTSD 6% of time)
Not Profitable:
-calling KQ - down 2.43bb per hand (171)
-calling QJs - down 2.92 per hand (113)
-calling K2-KTo - down 2.94 per hand (95)
-calling A7s-ATs - down 3.41 per hand (126)
-calling QJo - down 3.57 bb per hand (98)
-calling JTo - down 3.68 per hand (89)
-calling A2s-A6s - down 3.82 per hand (98)
-calling 46s,57s,68s,79s,8Ts,9Js - down 4.53 per hand (118)
-calling A2o-ATo - down 4.76 per hand (104)
-calling 45s,56s,67s,78s - do wn 5.17 per hand (124)
-calling 89s and T9s - down 5.89 per hand (109)
Comments on the above win/loss rates.
In generaly I don't think the overall order of these is that surprising. It's somewhat surprising that calling KQ/QJs to 3bets is not profitable. Even more surprising is that these hands are less profitable than JTs and K2-KTs.
JTs vs QJs
This could be a sample size issue and variance issue. If not, then I'd imagine JTs performs better than QJs in a 3b pot, due to the ability of making more straights and also less reverse implied odds. Villains are prob 3b AQ/KQ more often than AJ/KJ/QJ in general.
Also on low boards, I think people might be more wary of AQ floating them, so they will be more likely to bluff/bet J/Tx on later streets than maybe Qx hitting.
Calling K2-KTs
In terms of why K2-KTs perform so well. If it's not variance, then it might be the fact that people will often 3b and barrel Kxx boards, but generally only have AK and some KQ in 3b pots. We don't have the reverse implied odds of KQ and hitting the Q and losing to AQ/KK/AA. ALso if we flop our kicker with K2-KTs, and a K hits on the turn or river we're for sure going to catch his bluffs.
Calling Axs
This is in contrast to Axs, where I believe people 3b much wider range of Ax hands than Kx hands, so we can be dominated a lot more often. People also perceive Ax being more in our range than Kx, so they might barrel Axx flops less once we call than Kxx.
KJ
I'm not sure why KJ performs so well, or better than KQ. Could be sample size issue again, or it could be similar reasoning to why K2-KTs does well and why JTs does better than QJs.
AQ sucking?
Just based on gut feel, I'm pretty sure my frequency of hitting an ace when calling AQ is MUCH lower than expectation over the last year or two. This could contribute to the marginal loss rate. Another reason is that I just think AQ is a tempting hand to float low boards, but a hand you will likely fold to barrels later so that could expand the losses. Playing fit or fold with it seems too nitty though. Also again the reverse implied odds of flopping a Qxx here, as we are really never folding, but might be hard to stack worse often, as villain would only have KQ that could really be stacked.
Other thoughts?
If anyone else has any further thoughts let me know. Or if anyone has big samples of hands and wants to post a similar list of win/loss rates for calling 3b I'd love to see that and see how it compares. Maybe I just suck with some hands.
Breaking pairs up a bit more:
-calling 3b - pairs 66 and down, -0.66 bb per hand (255) - profitable
-calling 3b - pairs 77-99, -3.52 bb per hand (243) - not profitable
Clearly I'm peeling the higher mid pairs preflop and then not finding the fold button early enough post-flop, whereas I'm easily playing set or forget with 22-66.
You go really deep into this statistical analysis. How big and how far back is your sample size? I'm wondering how long it can stay valid to look at it, I personally have a feeling my game is evolving and changing quite quickly.
Yah I do agree, my game does change pretty frequently. I'd imagine my playing in 3b pots hasn't change THAT much but yes, this sample is about 220k hands over the last two yrs.Quote:
Originally Posted by jackvance
So yah I'm sure there have been some changes in there.
check the hands over and see what board textures you're peelingQuote:
Originally Posted by griffey24
I see a lot of ppl peel on stuff like 77 on Axx which is a pretty big leak vs almost anyone w/o flopping a set
Yah I'm pretty sure i'm not peeling on Axx. I'm almost guaranteed peeling low boards or T high boards and then finding a fold waaay too late (or just never finding a fold, and stacking off). Or yesterday for example, peeled 88 to hit a set. Preflop cbettor c/r 942ss i call, and jams 7 turn I call and lose to KK. So much for my set plan!Quote:
Originally Posted by Micro2Macro
After checking out some 2p2 posts today, I've started thinking that I might be calling too tight from BB vs BTN on dry boards. Mostly due to the post discussing players c/c Ax on K74 rainbow, and me feeling like I rarely c/c in this spot.
Decided to do some equity calculations vs. 41% btn steal range, assuming most of the range my cbet on dry Kxx, Jxx type boards. Also decided to compare different hands on diff boards to see how some Ax compare.
In a situation where villain cbets once, and checks back turn, our pot odds dictates needing about 29%. In a spot where villain double barrels often, we'll generally need about 42% equity.
Clearly in spots where villain generally fires once and shuts down, Ax should be part of our flop c/c range pretty often.
http://img51.imageshack.us/img51/272...flopequity.jpg
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
I almost never do this, but it's interesting. I do see quite a lot of people doing this.
I'm about to switch sites, cause betfair is moving from ongame to ipoker soon, so hopefully this is a parting gift from betfair and a good omen for whatever the next site ends up being.... stars?
$1/$2 No Limit Holdem
6 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com
Stacks:
UTG ($421.20) 211bb
UTG+1 ($197) 99bb
Hero (CO) ($206.35) 103bb
BTN ($264) 132bb
SB ($200) 100bb
BB ($209.10) 105bb
Pre-Flop: ($3, 6 players) Hero is CO :as: :js:
1 fold, UTG+1 raises to $6, Hero raises to $18, 3 folds, UTG+1 calls $12
Flop: :5c: :ks: :qs: ($39, 2 players)
UTG+1 checks, Hero bets $30, UTG+1 calls $30
Turn: :ts: ($99, 2 players)
UTG+1 checks, Hero bets $25, UTG+1 goes all-in $149, Hero calls $124
River: :2c: ($397, 2 players, 1 all-in)
Final Pot: $397
UTG+1 shows
:th: :qh:
Hero shows
:as: :js:
Hero wins $394 (net +$197)
UTG+1 lost $197
Nice. I've only had two 1-card royals so far. Btw what other sites are you looking at besides stars?
I have no clue.. any suggestions?Quote:
Originally Posted by jackvance
I've only ever played on Interpoker, Pokerstars and Betfair. I'm a very monogamous poker player lol. I can't multi-site like some ppl.
Ideally I'd want good 1/2-2/4 volume and probably try playing some tourneys.
I thought Betfair moved to ipoker a couple of months ago and were running ipoker skin whilst still keeping the ongame skin running.
How do you find traffic living in canada. Most people in your time zone are banned from the euro networks so your evening fish are more likely to be on sites with payout difficuties or do you find that there are enough south americans to compensate or do you find that you play in your afternoons on the euro networks to take advantage of the euro fish .?
oh and next few days ..play stars whilst the 100 billionth hand promo is on . 100k for winning it .
I bet there are people 200-tabling just going for this prize. There are also a lot of milestone hands, which you get $5k for that I saw.
Hmmm I actually didn't realize canadians were banned from any sites?Quote:
Originally Posted by Keith
Betfair traffic has definitely fallen off as of late. Could be due to the half move to Ipoker. Yah they did already move, but the ongame side is closed in a few days. I hadn't moved any money over cause I heard ipoker software is so crappy/tilting.
Yah I think i'll probably give stars a go!
When is this 100 billionth hand supposed to go down?
June 13th 5pm according to Lex Veldhuis. Might as well try bink it :)
My favorite poker player (and a dutchie) after watching his plays on youtube! My friend met him at a live event.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alexos
Hello Alexos - Here we are, halfway through your make-or-break year. How would you say it's going? GL the rest of the way!
FYPQuote:
Originally Posted by PlayToWin
hahah thanks!Quote:
Originally Posted by jyms
But we can hear about alexos too :)
My halfway point is NOT good so far, but been playing well overall. Gonna start playing a bit more live as well (starting tomorrow). Maybe 1-2 5/10 live sessions a month or something.
Played some more live poker yesterday.
Played some 5/5 (max buyin $1k) at Woodbine and demolished the world haha. The play was ok (not as bad as vegas) but still pretty bad. The 5/5 game essentially plays like 5/10 for the most part, because at least for me I was opening to $30 and most ppl were opening in that ball park. The only instance where it doesn't play like 5/10 is when there are a few $5 limps and ppl iso to like $40 which would be like $60-70 in a real 5/10 game.
I was up $4k yesterday in about 5-6 hours of play. My biggest hands were.
1) Won a flip AQo vs JJ for about $500-600
2) Lost $1100 in big pot. I have chip lead at table, effective stack $1100. iso raise 3 limpers to $40 with K2hh on btn, SB calls 3 callers pre. SB donks $150 into $200 on QhTh4x board, all folds I call, turn brick 3x he bets $225 into $500 I jam $800-900 he tank calls AQ and holds. I think I take him off his hand if I raise flop, which I should have done.
3) Won $700 - sq IP AJo IP vs aggro opener and caller $35 to $110, all 3 call. QQ4x board ck ck ck, turn brick aggro leads $100 I float, river K aggro bets $400, I jam for like $500 more and he folds
4) Won $500-600 - I 3b AA ip vs EP raiser, he calls KJo oop and donk bet/jams J9xdd board
5) Won $500 - One guy to two my left sat down, he 3b my utg open from MP like 5 mins into his session after he saw me open a couple times, I 4b bluff him he folds. 5 mins later he opens EP i call 22 in blinds and flop a set, I c/r dry 823 small 35 to 80 knowing he won't believe and will float (given I already seemed v. aggro and I rep nothing). He floats J9o, spikes J turn and calls turn bet and riv shove.
6) Won $1k - Aggro opener btn steal attempt to 35 (same guy I sq earlier), sb call I sq BB to $145 with AKo, he 4b jams btn to $1k with T9o I call and win.
7) Won $500-600 - I iso 2 limpers with 46cc to $40 on btn, 3 callers. I flop the nuts 235dd, MP donks into me $100 with J9dd I raise to 250 he calls, turn brick he donks $200 I jam for $200 more he calls and bricks. Running hot helps haha, especially when ppl play bad.
My 3 casino sessions this year have been pretty good:
1) Woodbine: +2.4k
2) Vegas: +1k
3) Woodbine: +4k
Will probably stick to the plan of going once a month or so!
Also I withdrew my betfair roll and will be making a return to Stars this month.
Do you think these iso's IP with K2hh and 46s are profitable? I doubt it since ppl WILL call and u dominate nothing most of the time. I'd rather do it w/ a linear range than polarized one, agree/disagree?
WP, play live more often obv.
Yah I don't like the K2hh iso cause there were too many limpers. I should probably just call behind all the other callers IP with this hand.
I don't mind 46s iso of only two limpers. One of the limpers had limp folded a fair bit, so iso'ing one player isn't so bad.
Yah more live for sure!
Been reading and studying a lot about GTO poker lately.
Got Matthew Janda's poker book "Applications of No-Limit Hold'em" and been working my way through that so far. Seems decent so far, but I'm not that far into it yet. Also been reading some other online resources.
Been mostly focused on studying lately instead of playing. Feel like I'm better off spending X hours studying now (whatever X is) and then play Y hours of poker after I've done all that studying, rather than intersperse Y playing amongst all of X. At least in the former method I'll be able to implement all I've learned from X hours into my Y hours of play.
My first implementation of GTO will be preflop. Getting GTO ranges for 4betting (based on my opening ranges by position), and also getting GTO 3b and 5b ranges based on villains opening % by position. Once I've got these down I'll turn to postflop which I think will be much more difficult.
My main problem has always been having frequencies that are way out of whack (and thus exploitable). I need to think of a good way to control postflop frequencies (bluffing vs value betting). In practice I can figure this out offline, but IN-game it's tough to estimate how many value combos you have in a spot, and apply this accordingly with appropriate frequencies to your bluffing.
if your default is to bluff way too much... building your 3b ranges so that you're unexploitable to 4betting will NOT be optimal
Care to expand?Quote:
Originally Posted by Micro2Macro
My frequencies should be ok if they are all based on villains opening %?
hit me up on skype
Morning FTR!
Soooo today is my wedding day. Getting Married in about 9.5 hours now.
Gonna test out the wedding day run-hot now and see if I can use some of the good luck, and if not use up any bad luck for later haha.
Heading to Italy on Monday, so I'll be MIA for a couple weeks after that!
Moved to stars a few weeks ago and it's been going very well so far. Grinding up a roll on 200nl, instead of depositing money over and over, via stars restrictions and caps on deposits.
<time lapse: two hours>
Ok just returned from session and the poker gods were not liking that it was my wedding today. At least I got all the bad luck out of the way now :)
Congratulations! Looking forward to the trip report too.
Have a good one :)
Working on your wedding day? You should be drunk by now!
Have a great day man!
Thanks for the good wishes!
Just got back from two weeks away in Italy. Went to Venice, Florence/Tuscany (Siena, Pisa as well), Sorrento (day trips to Positano, Amalfi, Capri) and Rome.
Was pretty amazing, and had some ridiculous weather. Almost too hot really, 37 celsius for a few days in Rome! But no rain is fine by me. Pretty sure every other couple we met there that didn't have any kids was also on their honeymoon.
Wedding day went really well too. Really much smoother than I could have hoped for. Perfect weather for an outdoor wedding, and no drama amongst my parents (who are split up) etc is also a bonus. So that's great. Not used to saying 'wife' yet though.
Hopefully get my first grinding in this weekend, which is a long weekend here!
Say wife as much as you can. She should be the best thing that ever happened to you and the word should reflect that. Drunk btw.
Haha that's ok that's good drunk advice :)
Went to woodbine casino yesterday. I hadn't grinding any online since I got back from my honeymoon (been mostly working on GTO math), so that was my first grind.
My live crushing continues so that's good! Up $4.5k yesterday. I'm definitely running hot, but live players are still very bad which is also helping. I'm up $12k now for my last 4 casino visits.
Notable hands from yesterday:
1) Started playing 2/5 until the 5/5 $1k game opened up.
Table broke to 5 handed. 500 effective
Loose utg opens, bad bad btn calls, and I call :ad::5d: in BB.
Flop is :8c::5c::2d: one diamond. I c/c utg cbet (he had been cb every board).
Turn 5 (luckbox), I c/r utg and he ships (shipping is so bad vs my range here) QQ and I win.
+500ish
2) Early on in the 5/5 $1k table it's only 5 handed. One young asian guy is rampant 3betting me IP (ie: every time I open). One hand I opened 44 to $20, he 3b me IP to $65 and I called 44 OOP $1k effective. c/r KQ5 dry board he called, bet turn 2 he called, riv ck/ck he has KTo.
-400ish
I change seats to get on his left (bad etiquette live?). Next hand I open is 44 UTG, and he 3b me in BB this time. I call and flop QxJh4x. He cbet I call, turn Qh he doubles $300 (leaving $500 behind), I jam he folds. I could call here, that might be better.
+$500ish
3) 5/5 $1k game. $1k effective.
I steal button (I had been stealing often) with :ac::7c:
reasonably active 3bettor 3b me $20 to 65 in sb. I 4b to $185 and he calls very quickly OOP.
Flop comes :kc::ks::th: and he quickly donks $300 into like $390 which made zero sense to me on this board. I put him on air here for sure and expected to face a check often on turn.
Turn comes :3c: and he shoves $500 remaining half pot into $1k. Getting 3:1 I have to call here I think, with assumption of 12 outs.
I call and my read was right, he had air, but his air beat mine, he had :ah::qs: and won, so I got owned haha.
-$1k
4) HUGE cooler hand, $1450 effective. Live pro young asian guy opens CO, aggro guy from hand 2 3bets $35 to $165 in SB. I have AA in BB and re-pop him to $390. PFR folds, SB 5bets to $900 - I shove, and hold vs his KK.
I think I'm VERY polarized in this spot, given these stacks. I really don't think he should be 5b KK here or at least not that huge. I'm never making a move over that.
+1500ish
5) UTG opener just won a big pot, $1800 effective. He opens $25, seems like some live reg/pro type player. I 3b :ad::ts: on btn to $85 (I hadn't been 3b much since I got deep). SB (horrible player, who has been cold calling tons of hands), cold calls my 3b, and UTG calls.
Flop is :2d::4s::5d:, checked to me, I bet $250 into $260. SB folds UTG calls.
Turn :6c: he donks $300 into $760. This donk makes just no sense here, and in my experience is ppl block betting or trying to price their draw cheaply and hope they get a fold. I shove all-in for $1200 more or so he folds (later that session he says he folded AK).
Guy to my right says I knew you knew he didn't have it, I show him my ATo. SB in the hand says 'show one show all', so I tell everyone I had AT offsuit, so everyone knows I ran a big bluff.
+750ish
6) Few mins later, ~$1k effective meh player opens $25 MP.
I 3b on CO to $85 with :ks::th: and same donk cold caller from last hand cold calls again, PFR also calls.
Flop comes :ts::7h::3d:, I bet $140 and only PFR c/c.
Turn :kh: and assuming I have a bad bluffy image I overbet shove like $760 into $520ish.
He tanks and ends up calling pocket 8's and I hold and win.
+1100ish
Nice! I was just wondering how you remembered these hands. Do you take notes at the table?
Naah no notes. I have the worst memory in the world haha, but I can remember hands reasonably well. Or at least the general gist of them.
I'm positive the actual suits in these hands aren't right, or at least the suits on the boards aren't, but the general idea of the hands are right. The cards are right, and whether or not certain streets became suited are right.
I think if you lose $1k in a hand, it sticks in your brain pretty well :)
meh i used to do it ALL the time and come up with bullshit excuses for doing it like "i like sitting next to the dealer" "i hate having my back to the room" (if the table happens to be in somewhat of a corner), "that seat has gone cold", "it's bad luck" etc etc. probably bad etiquette but this was probably the most recreational live 500nl game going around so i got away with it. most of the old guys i was playing against were superstitious about gambling anyway so that made it easier.Quote:
Originally Posted by griffey24
1-2 live, no one really cares / understands , higher up they might. Just give any reason if questioned. "that seat ran bad earlier why would you move there" "It's due now" etc etc. Sure regs know what you are doing. You are trying to exploit people at the poker table. Maybe the fish even notice but its still very ev to hop into good seats.
Yah thanks guys! It just didn't feel right, but I moved anyway cause I knew that guy would be a headache to me haha.
But I do agree, I think tons of ppl just move seats cause "their seat is running bad", and maybe I could even look like a donk that way.
Heading to the casino again this Saturday. I've hardly played online since a month ago before my wedding. It's tough to motivate grinding 1/2 nl online in tough games, 8 tables at a time, when I can grind $1k buyin soft live games and make more in 4 visits than I would make in 5 months online.
So we'll see if my live run good / play good continues!
did you suggest a combined Vegas wedding /honeymoon ?
Haha no I don't think I would want that! bachelor party in Vegas was enough!
Went to the casino again yesterday. Was slower day than previous days. No 5/5 - $1k game was running until the last hour or so I was there, so played only 2/5 - $500 max buyin unlike previous days.
Was up $900 yesterday, so that's $12.9 in my last 5 visits. Still pretty good. I'm feeling good about how I ran yesterday being pretty meh/average, so it's good to see I can still book almost $1k at the lower game when I'm not running hot.
More and more regulars are recognizing me now though, so people might get more reads on my style though soon, so I have to keep this in mind for sure going forward.
My big pots were the following:
1. Like 3 minutes into sitting down at 2/5 one nitty reg I played with before opens MP. I flat TT on CO, SB older guy sq him 15 15 to 45 and has a $240 stack. MP Opener folds, and I shove TT and hold vs his AK. MP says he folded JJ in that spot, WHAT! NITS!
+$250
2. My friend I came to the casino with isolates limpers 5 5 to 35. He had been isolating a TON. I haven't been 3betting him at all the last 4 times we came to the casino, mostly just staying out of his way. He's pretty tight overall. I decide to 3b AKo on the btn 35 to 105, we have like $600 effective. He calls OOP. Flop is KT5, pot is like $230 and I cbet $105 he c/c. Turn brick is $450 and I jam $390 and he folds. When I'm driving him home he says he folded AK... another WHAT. This shows how tight I have been playing against him in previous sessions, cause he's putting me almost solely on KK/AA here.
+$220
3. Later on, EP opener to $20, MP calls, CO huge fish calls, SB calls and I sq KJo to $110 in the BB. Everyone folds but the CO. Flop is like Qh6c4c - pot $270 and I cbet $153 he calls. Turn pot $576, turn is 9d I ck he cks behind, river is Ad I lead $225 and he folds.
+$160
4. Two limpers EP I iso MP to $35 with A8hh, two callers and board is 852dd, one check, fishy player donks into me $35 into like $120. I raise him to $115 he calls. Turn he checks brick 7x I jam like $290 he c/c A9dd and river is Jd.
-$400 or so
Won a bunch of other mid-sized pots, 3b SQ AA and get 2 callers and win on the flop, cbets etc.
Success at the live games is definitely killing my drive to play online though. Which is kind of a shame cause a month ago I did a ton of GTO math / calculations etc etc. So hopefully I play a bit this week.
Went to woodbine again yesterday to grind some live. Once again, I played 2/5 most of the time because the $1k game didnt open until I was about to leave in 2 hours. So it's a tradeoff of 4 hours worth of reads vs moving up for 2 hours. I ended up staying at the 2/5 game, because at the time the avg stack at 2/5 was $990 and avg pot was like $320 (over the previous hour). So not bad!
The game died off after that, so prob should have switched. My mega boom switch is slowing, but still haven't booked a loss at the casino in probably the last several yrs worth of live play. Could be running hot, who knows. up $240 yesterday, and $13.2k in last 6 visits, but lost one huge hand yesterday which was probably bad.
Few big hands.
1. Lost QQ vs AK for $300
-300
2. iso'd AQo hard on button, limps 5 5 I make it $35. Huge whale horrible player calls, $165 effective. Flop is 255cc he checks I bet 45 he c/c. Turn 2, he cks I shove he calls K9o and spikes river K.
-$165
3. I 3b 89ss vs utg bad player open from MP, 25 to 85. Button older guy cold calls (I put him on a big pair, AK/AQ based on how he was playing). bad player calls. Pot is like $260, 2c3x5c flop one ck, I ck, btn cks (I remove big pairs, only AK/AQ left). Turn 8d, one check I bet $135, btn calls, EP folds, pot $530. River Jc , I check, btn bets $240, I c/c and beat his AQ.
+570
4. 4 limps, BB special I have 35s. Flop Q35 rainbow, I lead 13 into 30, MP (180 effective) raises me to 35, I jam he tank calls and I beat his QJ.
+$200ish
5. MP raises, I call QJs on btn, blinds call, EP limper calls. Pot $100. Blinds open jams $140 on Q46 rainbow flop everyone folds to me I call, and beat his 45.
+$200ish
6. This is my BIG loss.
EP two limps, I have been isolating NON STOP (by far most aggro person at table)
I isolate BTN with :7s::7d: to $35
SB 3b me smallish to $85 ($1300 effective) - small 3b is odd, avg 3b size is usualy $100-130ish
I call
Flop is :qs::8s::6d:
Villain bets $100 into 180, I call.
Turn is :5h:
Villain bets $225 into $380, I call
River is brick :3c:
Villain bets $700 into 830, leaving $200 behind.
I really should have folded here. I felt like he was wide based on his sizing preflop, and that he was very narrow here (QQQ,KK/AA) mostly only. Wasn't even sure he'd bet AQ this hard on river.
I called, he was wide as expected pre, but he had 888 for a set. Should fold river for sure. Rest I don't mind.
If I don't donk off that hand, I finish up around $900 again for session which is pretty decent. Will probably head back in a couple weekends.
-$1100
My streak of live casino invincibility has come to an end sadly. Booked a pretty big loss yesterday, -2.8k. After my last seven visits, up $10.4k. We had a 5/5/10 game running (biggest game is 5/5 but we added a mandatory 10 straddle).
I started the day playing pretty high variance and pushing every slight edge I thought I had. Slowed it down for the last few hours.
1. I had been opening a fair bit. I raised to 35 with AQo from MP, I get 3 callers, btn aggro (probably best/most aggro solid player at table) squeezes me to 155. He had squeezed a few ppl already so far. I shove all-in for $1k he calls with AK and wins.
-1k
2. EP limps (this guy has limped a few times, and limped raised already). MP raises to 35, LP calls, I call AJo in BB, EP back raises to 160. Folds to me. I jam for $800, he tanks and eventually calls JJ and wins. (later I see him limp/raise hands like KQ/A9s/AQ). My read was that I had enough fold equity to jam here. In retrospect I think I probably need about 5% better equity or so than AJo vs his calling range, but I don't hate it. High variance though.
-$800
3. I open 35 on btn with AQss. BB calls and straddler calls. TT3dds flop ck to me, I bet small $35 into 105 flop. BB calls, straddler (very aggro guy) c/r me to 120, I 3b to $250ish. Straddler calls. Turn is an Ace, ck ck, river brick he leads around $440ish into $600ish. I tank call, I think this spot is pretty close. He has T8o.
-$800
4. Last hand of day. I open to $40 MP with QQ, solid player 3b me on btn to $155. I jam $1k he calls AA and wins. Size of opening raises and 3b live makes it somewhat hard to 4b smaller than jamming, but I might try to look into a good sizing for spots like this.
-$1k
almost inspired to go sit at the local casino and play some 1-2 mixed nlhe/nlo. I've been there to play only once in over three years of living here....
You should do it for sure! From playing here and in Vegas casinos at 5/10, I'm pretty confident that 1/2 at most casinos would be very soft.Quote:
Originally Posted by daven
Went to the casino last night. Was my first friday night visit and it was RAMMED. All the tables were full and there must have been wait lists of 20ish ppl across the different limits.
I started at 1/2 due to lack of seats at other stakes and was up $200 and then moved to 2/5 and was up $1100 there. I could have moved up to the 5/5 game but it looked a lot more solid than the 2/5 table I was at.
The last 8 visits, up $11.7k. I'm going to estimate an average of about 5 hours per visit, so running at an hourly $292.50/hour. Somehow that seems unsustainable, but we'll see how it goes.
Last night was an interesting session variance wise. I was running VERY cold preflop in hands, so I probably played the tightest I have ever played last night. That being said, I ran hot post-flop in a couple of spots.
1) This was the biggest luckbox hand I played. I'm constantly iso-ing this one awful older player. He limps EP, I iso to $25 on HJ, and this kinda spewtard player (who is straddling every hand, and often raising all the limps from his straddle kinda player), 3b me very small to $62 on btn. EP limper cold calls the 3b (this means nothing IMO, I've seen him cold call pocket 3's etc). I have :kd::9s:, I decide to 4b to $165 (pretty small, I really think 3bettor has bs and will fold most). 3bettor flats and EP limper flats.
Pot is like $500, with $350 behind. Flop is :jc::td::4h: rainbow. EP checks to me, I shove all-in. PF 3-bettor tanks and is like "I know you have AA so sick... I gotta call though" and calls with KINGS lol as if tanking. EP limper folds. I bink the turn Q for my luckbox.
+ 660ish
2. 3 limpers in front of me, I iso :5d::6d: on btn and get 3 callers. Pot is around $110 on flop.
Guy on my right has CONSTANTLY been donking into me. I've seen him donk quite often with top pairs, and some overbet donks into other players with draws. This is the third time he's donking into me, cks to him he donks $55 into $110 on a :qs::2h::4d: board, and we have about $850 behind. I call, the rest fold.
Turn is :3c: for the nuts. He leads $80, I raise him to $210 and he snap calls. Pot is $660.
River is :kh: and he donks $110 into $660. I ponder shoving for the remaining $600 or so, but raise to $405 instead. He calls and goes on a berating "how do you call flop with that?" spree, saying he flopped two pair? (Q4 / Q2? lol who knows)
+700ish
Isn't hand 2 the perfect spot to limp behind?
I don't believe in limping behind. Let these fish pay to see their beloved flops haha.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pelion
I'm RARELYYY limping behind. I might limp behind if I had been very active, or if my hand was weaker (35s or something) but with dynamic and with my reads on these players I'm gonna jack it up with guaranteed position. If anything I might limp EP if I had been getting too carried away with raises or there was a lot of 3betting.
BIG pots IP and small pots OOP seems fine by me.
GTO Implementation
A while ago I started posting about how I've been making an attempt to play GTO, or at least incorporate it into my online game.
I've started playing using a random number generator, with fixed "IP 3b bluffing ranges" and "OOP 3b bluffing ranges", and pending on the random number generated hands in this range would be either folded or 3b. Stuff like Q9dd, J8dd etc. This should ensure, over the long run, that I'm 3b/5b at an appropriate frequency and not folding too many 4b or jamming over too many 4b with bluffs.
That being said, it is MUCH easier to implement an accurate GTO strategy pre-flop than it is post-flop. I haven't yet figured out the best way to implement this post-flop yet (with regards to flop raising ranges being well balanced, or even calling ranges well balanced from street to street). Anyone have any strategies they use? Purely practice and experience?
Well, kinda sorta, but BIP SPR IP and SMALL SPR OOP is really more applicable. [Generalization]OOP you should mostly be playing hands with fat value as quickly as possible to keep you out of tough situations, and IP you can play weaker hands with a fat SPR knowing that your biggest advantage comes with postflop position (especially against bad players).[/Generalization] As such, you should be limping behind on the button a lot at live games.Quote:
Originally Posted by griffey24
I actually think 65s on the button 160bb's deep at a live table behind 3 limpers is an interesting spot. Playing the deepstacks position game is tough because you're mostly gonna get high-RIO two pairs, high-RIO flushes and even your straights are vulnerable sometimes. 65s plays much more comfortably as a semi-bluff hand, but iso'ing 3 players live is mostly gonna get you in a multi-way pot, so unless you have reads on a place where you can expect villains to fold, then you're gonna be bloating the pot with 6-high.
It gets all the more interesting given your reads on one of the limpers that he donks an unsustainable amount. This might be the answer to the question of what part of villains' games are exploitable because you have a great semi-bluffing hand for raising a lot of his donks. You damn-well better be on your A-game if this is your exploitation plan because your plan when putting the first dollars into the pot is to win a pot vs 4+ players by putting 30bb's in the pot a lot of the time with an unmade hand. I know that we'll be playing poker and not just blindly putting a $125 raise 100% of the time or that this will be the only time we win money, but it's still an exploitation plan that's ripe for some spew if there's any reason you think you're not on your A-game.
Anyway, I probably go somewhere in-between in and juice it. Something like 3.5bb's ($17) doesn't usually raise eyebrows that badly, and it puts the SPR in a comfy cozy zone for a baby straight/baby flush/baby two pair type hand, and it makes it so that raising a flop donk is more like a 15-20bb investment.
I'm open to thoughts on this though. This is the fun thing about live. Preflop is sosososo much more interesting. Deeper stacks, worse players, more limpers. Heck, there's even variables like catching people reaching or having people make accidental raises and shit that makes for a lot more interesting spots.
I think my decision to raise or limp behind in that spot is HEAVILY dependent on my image for the day. If I have a good image and think I can get away with making moves post-flop I'm more likely to raise there, because I don't feel my winning is heavily dependent on actually making a decent showdown hand.
If I have a horrible image then I'll probably just limp behind and keep the pot small and wakeup postflop when I hit something.
Agreed 100%. 65s is a tough hand to limp here, though.
Probably making it to Tremblant once or twice during the ski season, but still trying to find a good excuse to make it to Toronto, haha. Glad to see the live play is treating you well! Dont really follow any of the logs but decided to see what you guys were up to and as a GTO nerd, wanted to chime in a bit. Hopefully my stream of consciousness isnt too convoluted.
In a literal sense of the term GTO, this definitely isnt true. The fewer decisions you have remaining, the easier it will be to construct a GTO range for that specific decision. Im probably being overly nitty, but poker players in general love to create 3bet/4bet ranges that CardrunnersEV or whatever tell them are GTO, but unless these ranges are created using some postflop model and all limps and cold calls, they arent going to be accurate. When it comes to any reasonable stack size of HU poker, we cant do that, and when it comes to 6-max or FR, we cant even come close.Quote:
Originally Posted by griffey24
What we can do is come up with realistic ranges for our opponents and then use those to help construct ranges we can use readless, but again the reason I am making this distinction is because we cant forget that we are allowed to call and also that many hands we play are going to go postflop, both of which have significant impacts on our ideal ranges.
For postflop stuff, I would honestly just play around with CardrunnersEV using reasonable ranges and seeing how adding and removing certain hands from their ranges affects your optimal strategy. You have fewer players involved in the pots, more money already in the pot [so smaller stacks behind] and fewer decisions left to make, so they should be easier to figure out once you are confident in the ranges your put your opponents on.
For preflop I am not saying this type of work is unimportant, I am just saying that you shouldnt confuse it with GTO and you shouldnt let contrived 3bet/4bet ranges prevent you from thinking about cold calls. You are a very talented and creative player, so I know you think about these things, I am just speaking from personal experience that it is easy to fall into the trap of defaulting to "GTO" ranges created behind too many abstractions to the game.
Thanks for the post andy!Quote:
Originally Posted by andy-akb
Yah I think I'm focusing on GTO preflop in a few spots:
1. As PFR IP or OOP from 3bettor, making sure I'm defending enough of my opens by either 4b or call (obv calling more IP).
2. AS PFR IP or OOP from 3bettor, making sure I defend enough of my 4bets by calling a shove
3. AS PFR 3bettor, 3betting at an appropriate frequency related to their opening range
4. AS PFR 3bettor, defend at appropriate frequency vs their 4b by 5b shoving (not really assuming much 4b calling)
I think the main spot where the calling a 3b prob comes into play is on the button. If you purely defended a 50% btn open by 4b or folding, I don't think that would be ideal at all.
I guess when I said I was having more trouble implementing is that, I can have fixed 3b/5b ranges for a particular villains open. I can also have approximate open/4b/call of ranges from all my position, since I know what I'm opening with at every spot. So these ranges can mostly be fixed, with obviously some dynamic calling ranges vs diff opponents.
But postflop, where every board has a diff number of combos I might want to call, or raise or fold vs diff villains, it's tough to stay perfectly balanced.
How's your grind these days?
Just a quick update:
I know the title of this blog was "make or break", and I won't say that I've "made" anything, out of fear of jinxing. But really focusing / studying GTO the last 3 months has made me start thinking about poker from different perspectives.
I've been reading GTO online articles. I'm reading Janda's book right now, and I've done a lot of studying just using excel, combonator and lately CREV.
Also once upon a time I had this drive and ambition in poker. A drive to keep moving up as high as possible, and the last year or two I've started getting lazy and just content grinding out whatever stakes. I think with all this studying my ambition is back to move up. Started playing 2/4 again on Stars and will move up to 3/6 when I'm up 50 buyins ($20k). I'm about 13 buyins towards that so far.
I feel like something has just clicked lately. Hard to pin-point exactly what it was, but here's hoping it's legit. Either way I think I'm feeling good enough about my game right now that 2013 won't be a "break" year, so that's something!
How do you like CREV? Do you think there's any value in it for people like me at a more beginner stage? It's not cheap as poker software goes - I use combonator and think that was good value, but I'm not sure whether I'd get enough out of CREV at this stage to make it worth dropping $100 on.
I like CR EV a lot. I have made some pretty big /complex tree's and it's hard to say how accurate their EV estimates are for complex trees. But it is interesting having the ability to run some scenarios over and over again, and just see how often you'll flow down a certain path given certain requirements.
Like if you knew on a certain board, you would ck back flop in certain conditions and call turn leads, to see how often that happens and how often you are actually calling. Or just other generic type spots where it's hard to really know frequencies without running some monte carlo simulation.
It's steep though at $100. I don't think it should be necessary at all at lower stakes, but it does make GTO studying easier.
Been playing around with overbetting on turns and rivers lately in different spots, and specifically in spots where villain is capped. Seems to be going well so far.
Hand 1)
$2/$4 No Limit Holdem
6 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com
Stacks:
UTG ($1,027.29) 257bb
UTG+1 ($400) 100bb
CO ($1,069.48) 267bb
Hero (BTN) ($451.11) 113bb
SB ($87.85) 22bb
BB ($160) 40bb
Pre-Flop: ($6, 6 players) Hero is BTN :qs: :jh:
UTG raises to $8, 2 folds, Hero calls $8, 2 folds
Flop: :ad: :8h: :6d: ($22, 2 players)
UTG checks, Hero checks
Turn: :td: ($22, 2 players)
UTG bets $14.98, Hero raises to $44, UTG calls $29.02
River: :7s: ($110, 2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $154, UTG folds
Final Pot: $110
Hero wins $415.20 (net +$209.20)
UTG lost $52
Hand 2)
$2/$4 No Limit Holdem
5 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com
Stacks:
UTG ($400) 100bb
CO ($814.46) 204bb
Hero (BTN) ($825.96) 206bb
SB ($465.46) 116bb
BB ($420.11) 105bb
Pre-Flop: ($6, 5 players) Hero is BTN :9c: :9d:
UTG raises to $12, 1 fold, Hero calls $12, 2 folds
Flop: :4h: :qd: :jh: ($30, 2 players)
UTG bets $21.49, Hero calls $21.49
Turn: :3c: ($72.98, 2 players)
UTG checks, Hero checks
River: :as: ($72.98, 2 players)
UTG bets $52.64, Hero raises to $190, UTG folds
Final Pot: $178.26
Hero wins $450.18 (net +$226.69)
UTG lost $86.13
Hand 3)
$2/$4 No Limit Holdem
6 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com
Stacks:
UTG ($409.19) 102bb
UTG+1 ($146) 37bb
CO ($408) 102bb
Hero (BTN) ($408) 102bb
SB ($1,052.70) 263bb
BB ($690.75) 173bb
Pre-Flop: ($6, 6 players) Hero is BTN :as: :jh:
UTG raises to $8.88, 2 folds, Hero calls $8.88, 2 folds
Flop: :7h: :ts: :jd: ($23.76, 2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $14, UTG calls $14
Turn: :3s: ($51.76, 2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $60, UTG calls $60
River: :5h: ($171.76, 2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $136, UTG calls $136
Final Pot: $443.76
UTG shows
:9c: :tc:
Hero shows
:as: :jh:
Hero wins $440.96 (net +$222.08)
UTG lost $218.88
Hand 4)
$2/$4 No Limit Holdem
6 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com
Stacks:
UTG ($400) 100bb
UTG+1 ($433.03) 108bb
CO ($656.80) 164bb
BTN ($306.86) 77bb
SB ($645.14) 161bb
Hero (BB) ($905.71) 226bb
Pre-Flop: ($6, 6 players) Hero is BB :6d: :jd:
4 folds, SB raises to $12, Hero calls $8
Flop: :4c: :9c: :6s: ($24, 2 players)
SB bets $11.46, Hero calls $11.46
Turn: :tc: ($46.92, 2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $38, SB calls $38
River: :qs: ($122.92, 2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $184, SB folds
Final Pot: $122.92
Hero wins $488.12 (net +$242.66)
SB lost $61.46
In the second hand with 99, do you think you pushed him off a better hand? His line looks like a fairly normal pot control top pair line. The A is a scare card but it should hit his range too. Given that you might be beat there, do you think it would have been better to call the river and take the showdown? I don't understand that hand, it looks strange.
How often do you overbet bluff? Do you think anyone has twigged to you doing this more? Do you expect regs to start playing back at you in these spots or is it more weaktight or you're just very stealthy about it?
And wow it must be exciting to play 400 nl.
99 hand - Think he can have anything from air to AJ, AK, AT, or maybe some other Axs.
More importantly, I can easily have AQ/AJ/KTs here, while I really don't think he can (think he double barrels all those hands, with AJ potentially checking turn sometimes). So his range has no v strong hands in it, while mine does. It's a gross spot for him on river cause his range is capped, so if I did have AJ+ here I can easily raise.
I've been overbetting in a lot of spots, so I don't think I'm too skewed to bluffs. I probably need about 60% value for GTO, and I'd guess I'm probably a bit less than that at the moment, maybe around 40%.
OK thanks. That makes total sense if he always barrels AQ. I see what you mean by capped range.
Things have been very swingy so far at 2/4. Started on a huge upswing, up $13k and the last 5 days have been a solid downswing of $8k. I haven't been playing too great. Most of my losses though have been in spots where at 1/2 I would almost always expect folds, but ppl at 2/4 definitely have better c/c frequencies than at 1/2.
Here are a few hands at 2/4. I have to re-think about my propensity to turn hands into bluffs at 2/4.
Hand 1)
-villain is an aggro spewtard and I was pretty sure I was ahead of his range on turn, but decided to turn it into bluff on river for good measure, rarely expecting a c/c from such an aggro villain. I pondered jamming turn but ended up just calling clearly.
$2/$4 No Limit Holdem
6 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com
Stacks:
UTG ($429.81) 107bb
UTG+1 ($850.20) 213bb
CO ($418.67) 105bb
Hero (BTN) ($556) 139bb
SB ($400) 100bb
BB ($993.52) 248bb
Pre-Flop: ($6, 6 players) Hero is BTN :9c: :jc:
1 fold, UTG+1 raises to $12, 1 fold, Hero calls $12, 2 folds
Flop: :8s: :5d: :9h: ($30, 2 players)
UTG+1 bets $30, Hero calls $30
Turn: :7h: ($90, 2 players)
UTG+1 bets $110, Hero calls $110
River: :2h: ($310, 2 players)
UTG+1 checks, Hero bets $404, UTG+1 calls $404
Final Pot: $1,118
UTG+1 shows
:ah: :8h:
Hero shows
:9c: :jc:
UTG+1 wins $1,115.20 (net +$559.20)
Hero lost $556
Hand 2)
-Villain 4b often, but I don't like my line. If i'm going to jam I should just jam turn when he checks. Still surprised he c/c here, I have quite a bit of Ax when he 4b so small
$2/$4 No Limit Holdem
6 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com
Stacks:
UTG ($1,026.52) 257bb
UTG+1 ($400) 100bb
CO ($424.47) 106bb
Hero (BTN) ($716.04) 179bb
SB ($513.78) 128bb
BB ($406) 102bb
Pre-Flop: ($6, 6 players) Hero is BTN :8h: :9h:
2 folds, CO raises to $14, Hero raises to $42, 2 folds, CO raises to $76, Hero calls $34
Flop: :ah: :9s: :qc: ($158, 2 players)
CO bets $82, Hero calls $82
Turn: :7s: ($322, 2 players)
CO checks, Hero checks
River: :4h: ($322, 2 players)
CO checks, Hero bets $276, CO calls $266.47
Final Pot: $854.94
CO shows
:qs: :ks:
Hero shows
:8h: :9h:
CO wins $852.14 (net +$427.67)
Hero collects $19.06 (net -$414.94)
Hand 3)
-I don't mind this hand. I assumed villain had a capped range once he c/c the turn, and I have quite a few flushes in my range.
-Lesson to me to not assume passive players have capped ranges
$2/$4 No Limit Holdem
6 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com
Stacks:
UTG ($208.72) 52bb
UTG+1 ($570.19) 143bb
CO ($401.20) 100bb
Hero (BTN) ($477.40) 119bb
SB ($402) 101bb
BB ($404) 101bb
Pre-Flop: ($6, 6 players) Hero is BTN :qs: :ah:
2 folds, CO raises to $12, Hero calls $12, 2 folds
Flop: :8s: :2d: :ts: ($30, 2 players)
CO bets $16, Hero calls $16
Turn: :js: ($62, 2 players)
CO checks, Hero bets $42, CO calls $42
River: :5d: ($146, 2 players)
CO checks, Hero bets $407.40, CO calls $331.20
Final Pot: $808.40
CO shows
:6s: :3s:
Hero shows
:qs: :ah:
CO wins $805.60 (net +$404.40)
Hero collects $152.40 (net -$325)
Hands are interesting and I'm obviously not good enough to understand any of them and the levels of thinking at 2/4! Interested to get your take on the following though:
1) I wouldn't expect villain to fold anything on the river that beats you versus your line (particularly an aggro spewtard). From villain's perspective, I doubt he expects you to flat pot-sized bets on flop and turn with two pair/sets/6x/JT and I think you are pretty much capped at TT/T9s/J9s. Those hands probably can't call a third barrel but may turn those hands into a bluff, so I think villain's river chk looks okay in a vacuum versus an aggresive regular?
2) Your line seems odd from villain's perspective for Ax, unless you would normally check back the turn with Ax and then jam the river for nearly pot when villain looks like he is giving up?
3) I think you get your image used against you here big time (assuming it's as aggressive as it appears to be)? Also, do you really have that many flushes in your range that don't raise the flop against a passive player? And would you then overbet huge on the river with the flush when villain looks capped?
After a few weeks playing at 2/4 the one thing I've started doing more is calling down with strong hands. Villains start ramming on you in spots if they perceive you to be capped, so you have to make sure your call down ranges have some strong hands, even on drawy boards.
Hand 1)
Considering the above, vs a laggy aggro opponent who's already overbetting, I woul definitely call down with JT or 6x here. The only hand that makes sense for villain to c/c on river is 6x, or at least that's what I would have expected. Needless to say vs these regs in my post, I will be checking back a lot more now and they will be losing a lot of value if they start checking such strong hands to induce my bluffs.
Hand 2)
villain doesn't know my range, but I'm not 3b JTs or KJ on the btn so I actually have NO air in this spot. He's putting me on air to c/c me here (KJ/JT). I have a lot of Axs and some AQ that 3b btn and peeled his 4b, so frequency wise I'm ok with this play overall since it will get me action later. This is just one of those spots where you have to know your own range well and how many combos of each you have. As long as I have like 66% or so Ax here I'm ok.
Hand 3)
Once villain takes a c/c line on turn I'm jamming my entire range of bluffs and flushes for sure. I would never expect a flush after he c/c, so if I somehow had top set or something I would even jam that. Again similar to my opening sentence, I'm starting to call down with some strong hands to make sure my call down range is stronger, so I do have some Axss here. Also I don't mind this bluff, since looking at the board I pretty much have NO air getting to the river, except for this exact hand I happen to have.
Reviewing these hands, I dislike Hand 1 because he can c/c 6x and maybe even c/c JT after running flush gets there. Hand 2 I don't mind given my frequency of Ax (weak Ax hands that won't bet turn), and Hand 3 - don't hate it, but a smaller overbet would be fine as well, $170ish instead of $330ish.
Studying... studying... studying.
After my downswing, I spent the entire last week studying (pretty sure I studied 20+ hours and grinded zero). I was mostly focused on doing similar hand combos exercises as Janda's latest book does. Taking my btn range for calling 3bets and ensuring that street by street on each board I'm defending 60% of my range.
This kind of exercise takes FOREVER. I have CREV and also have combonator, but I think each program is missing some functionality that I would like, such that I can't actually automate this in any way. So gotta do it by manually. I'm using combonator, but I'm still selecting continuing hands manually as opposed to using the "top 60% vs hero" feature for example.
I've now shifted to singled raised pots. Currently testing out some ranges for calling down about 60% from BB vs BTN on diff boards, and then I'll do the same for BB vs SB and BTN vs CO.
I think after I focus on that I'll look at my cbetting and checking ranges as PFR. Putting more emphasis on protecting my checking ranges OOP and my check-back ranges IP such that I can at least continue about 30-50% of the time. I'm pretty sure I'm giving up too much in those spots right now.
Just thinking about all the stuff I could conceivably be studying is overwhelming. There's really just SOOO much you can do. This realization is both encouraging (so much room for improvement) but also daunting (takes forever!).
As an extension to my last post:
One realization I made doing this exercise is that I am able to open button 50%, and call 3bets 28% of the time (corresponding to 14% total range), and call down 60% of my range on each street such that my river calling range is actually VERY strong. Stronger than I would have imagined in some instances.
For example, on quite a few run outs I took my final river calling ranges vs diff hero hands (over pairs, TPTK etc) and my range would often have somewhere between 33-45% on river. Compared to needing at most 33% facing a river pot shove, and realistically needing about 30%. Also depending on your preflop calling ranges and how you setup your postflop calling ranges, you can be pretty comfortable call down on most types of boards and most run outs.