My Introduction/TPTK Q&A

Long-time reader, first-time poster. I've noticed there's a mix of people here that either give advice or take it. I'm definitely not qualified to be giving too much advice to anyone other than a complete noob, so I'm here to listen and learn the game from players who are better.

I've been playing poker for around 5-6 years, mostly live and casually, winning my fare share of home games. But then again, live players are absolutely horrible for reasons that I'm sure have been discussed before here at great lengths. I've been playing online for a little over a year now after depositing $50 on Cake. I've since moved over to Stars with a current bankroll of $390, as well as $60 on Tilt. I also have PT3/HUD but I don't get as much out of it as I should (session reviews, note taking after the fact, additional analysis, etc.)

Anyway, where I'm at with poker right now is kind of "shit or get off the pot". I've bounced back and forth from $5NL to $25NL and 25c/50c to 1/2 LHE. There are many factors that are limiting my growth like discipline (most important IMO), tilt, not playing enough, etc. I'm not a complete noob, and over-time I'm a winning player, but I have so much to learn before I even think of sniffing $50NL and above.

So what I've decided to do is start over, so to speak. I created a fresh database in PT3 and began with 2NL full ring. I know, I'm completely over-rolled for it but so what. It was only for a 1,000 hands but a solid 1,000 hands - only playing 4 tables and really concentrating on the action for what seems like the first time in a long time. I took my time with it, finishing the 1k hands in 3 days, ending with a win rate of 10bb/100 where I ran 13/9/2.

My next goal is to do the same at 5NL but for at least 5,000 hands with a win rate of at least 5bb/100 but I'd like to hit 10bb/100. I'm only 257 hands into from an hour session last night where I ran 12/8/2. I'm concentrating on playing tight and positionally-aware, and only stealing blinds against the right players. Post-flop I need to work on hand reading and exploiting player types and tendencies. One thing I've noticed at 2-5NL is that players like to donk bet into me (almost always a bluff), call over-bets with flush draws on the turn, and some even chase to the river with nothing but an over card while getting value-towned (which is great, even if we get sucked out on here or there).

Anyhow, I'm not going into it any further as this is probably already a bore to read, but I just wanted to give everyone here a little info about me and where I'm currently at. I'll be posting some problem hands as soon as I get to 10 posts and I hope some of you rip me a new one and can provide a better line to take.

I'll start with this situation though, which I seem to have had trouble with as of late:

I raise preflop and get on unknown LP caller. I flop TPTK on a dry board. I cbet 3/4 pot, villain calls. Turn is a blank. I fire another bet, villain just calls. (Again, this an unknown. He could be a calling station or he could be letting me bet for him, who knows). Now the obvious thing to do here is to just bet the river again, maybe a 1/2 psb, if no apparent draws complete, right? In this situation and being OOP, I just find it troublesome. Maybe I'm just retarded, who knows.

[Sir Pawnalot]

You can post hands before making 10 posts.

The code is very easy to learn;
Kd= : kd : (without the spaces)

[spoonitnow]

You could always bet the river and fold to a raise if you think he only raises with hands that beat you but calls with a lot that you beat.

You could always bet the river and fold to a raise if you think he only raises with hands that beat you but calls with a lot that you beat.

I suppose that a bet/fold (even to a minraise) is probably the best play against an unknown here. If he didn't raise the flop or turn IP, then we can "assume" we're still ahead on a blank river card.

Oh yeah, emoticons, didn't think about that. I just thought about not being able to post URLs yet. That's alright, I'll add to some other posts here before starting another post with HHs. Thanks though.

Hey also, anyone have some feedback for Grinder School? I was thinking about subscribing.

[Sir Pawnalot]

The strength of tptk is obviously dependant of the board. AK is a much stronger tptk than A6 f.ex.

These hands are generally good, but often we win small and lose big if we are not observant. At 5NL there is a lot of fish which gives you opportunities for getting 3 streets of value with these hands.

1000 hands is nothing in poker and has little statistical value. The guys in the sng forum will tell you all about that. Imagine your luck as a value from 1 to 8 000 000 000. If your luck is only at 1 it doesnt matter if you Daniel Negranu! The long run is much longer than I ever thougth. There is some seriously cool graphs about that in 2+2 somewhere.

GL and GG

[Sir Pawnalot]

3 posts and already learned how to put a picture under your name? That is straight up remarkable!

3 posts and already learned how to put a picture under your name? That is straight up remarkable!

It's not that hard, all you have to do is go into your profile and...

At any rate, I know 1,000 hands is nothing. Some people here probably play that in an hour. But it was 2NL man. Barring any craptacular suckouts, 1k hands should be enough to get a decent win rate if you're halfway intelligent at that level. I'm almost rolled for 25NL but I'm taking it slow and learning (and re-learning) as much as I can along the way. I actually don't want to even think about moving up to 25NL ($750) and above until I have 30 buyins. Call me nitty.

[Sir Pawnalot]

Cool. Its just that poker is do incredibly swingy- unless your edge is huge or you are constant in your luck.

For example; last year I made about 150 buy ins at various stakes in 1000 hours or so, and this year I am down a half buy in after 60 hours. Beat after beat after beat can make you go OMG ITS RIGGED lol! I did, hehe. I have only given one bad beat since jan 1 and I keep track of hands.

I believe its better to track winrates over samples of 50K hands and probably many more is needed to assess it accurately. Anyways, bankroll dictates when you move up.

[Micro2Macro]

I'm grinder school alumni, good place to get started.

I took $50 and turned it into >$2500, you can too.

[Micro2Macro]

I believe its better to track winrates over samples of 50K hands and probably many more is needed to assess it accurately. Anyways, bankroll dictates when you move up.

Oh and this too. Don't aim for a specific win rate, it's the stupidest thing you could do IMO since it's always going to fluctuate and you'll drive yourself nuts when you don't hit your target.

For example I have 40,000 hands played at 25nl and over 20k of those hands my win rate was 4ptbb/100, whereas over the first 20k it was 0ptbb/100. So 20k clumps clearly aren't very accurate, though 50k is getting towards an average, an excess of 100k would likely be ideal.

Cool, thanks for the advice. GS looks like it would help and be well worth the money. I'll check it out soon.

[Erpel]

Against a random unknown at 5nl it's probably reasonable to get three streets of value out of TPTK.

Remember that by "value" we mean that enough hands that are worse than ours call that we gain money when we bet and are called.

One of the ways to get value is to size your betting in such a way that the opponent will continue to call with worse hands.

A dry flop is a classic case where it can be a good idea to bet smaller on the flop. 1/2 pot sized bets on dry boards are frequently seen by people. Of course this recommendation needs to be modified by opponent tendencies and game condittions.

Maybe you decide on the flop that if 4 times the flop pot or less is bet by each player before the showdown you are probably profitable and if 5 times the flop pot or more is bet by the showdown you are likely up against a better hand.

Scenario 1: Assume pot size $1 on flop. $0.75 gives a turn pot of $2.5. $1.5 gives a river pot of $5.5. $3 gives a pot for showdown of $11.5. 5.25 times the flop pot is bet/called by each player by the showdown and by the above assumption that makes it unlikely that we are best.

Scenario 2: Assume pot size $1 on flop. $0.5 gives a turn pot of $2. $1 gives a river pot of $4. $2 gives a showdown pot of $8. 3.5 times the flop pot is bet/called and by the above assumption that makes it likely that we are best.

How does this work?

In scenario 1 hands worse than ours are likely to fold before the showdown because it gets too expensive for them to continue. Hands better than ours are likely happy with the bet size and just letting you bet for him.

In scenario 2 hands worse than ours are more likely to call because it's cheap. Hands better than ours are more likely to have been unhappy with the bet size and fired a raise by the time we get to river and showdown.

In scenario 1 hands worse than ours are likely to fold before the showdown because it gets too expensive for them to continue. Hands better than ours are likely happy with the bet size and just letting you bet for him.

In scenario 2 hands worse than ours are more likely to call because it's cheap. Hands better than ours are more likely to have been unhappy with the bet size and fired a raise by the time we get to river and showdown.

These are two things I've never really thought about. I've always just bet 3/4 pot as a standard, no matter what, but I can see how this would work against an unknown. Thanks for the insight.

[Erpel]

This may often be true, however...

Once it becomes obvious to your opponent that you are following a specific strategy they might choose to adjust (correctly or incorrectly) so never assume that just because you've found one useful perspective to help you make good decisions it will always apply.

I think the best explanation of bet sizes based on flop texture is along these lines:

Consider the types of hands you need to price out. On a dry flop you need to dodge 2 outs (trips/sets from existing under pairs), 3 outs (a single overcard), 5 outs (trips/sets + an overcard) or 6 outs (two clean overcards). You simply don't need to set the price very highly to price out these draws.

Conversely on a wet flop you may be up against anywhere from 8 to 15 outs and you may need to bet full pot in an attempt to price out draws.

It's also another way of saying that the wetter the flop the more hands our opponent can conceivably call with hope of improving to the best hand. If the flop is very dry he is quite likely to both have nothing and also have no hope of improving.

The idea of betting for value is of course to bet as much as will be called. If you have an absolute calling station who both calls to see a flop with any ace and calls any flop bet with a naked ace feel free to ignore flop texture entirely and bet the full pot or more. However, if the opponent is at least trying to determine if his hand has any hope and has a simple understanding of odds and pricing he won't call big hands without his current hand potential is fairly solid. And on dry flops that just often will not be the case.

There are many situations where a PSB is lower ev than 1/2 PSB because the former doesn't allow a typical opponent to stay in the hand. Crucially, this is not always the case. It's important to understand why it is true when it is true, because then you are better able to determine if in the current situation it actually is true.

[kmind]

Welcome. Enjoy this site as well as subscribe to grinderschool. It really is worth it but only if you put an effort into studying which you said you have trouble with

[HarleyGuy13]

Nutty welcome aboard. You sound as if you'll be a decent addition to the group. I'll endorse GS but back that up with saying you have to have the discipline to utilize the tools they will provide you with. I have been a subscriber for several months now but have not used it as much as I should.

nh Erpel.

Welcome. Enjoy this site as well as subscribe to grinderschool. It really is worth it but only if you put an effort into studying which you said you have trouble with.

You sound as if you'll be a decent addition to the group. I'll endorse GS but back that up with saying you have to have the discipline to utilize the tools they will provide you with. I have been a subscriber for several months now but have not used it as much as I should.

Thanks for the warm welcome fellas. I definitely plan to subscribe to GS and take full advantage of the videos and everything else they have to offer. From reading a ton of past posts, it seems like Spenda and Jyms have their shit together and I imagine there's much to learn from merely just watching them play.