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My friend thinks I should always fire a 2nd barrel on gutshots...I don't.
First of all, my friend has a very low opinion of my abilities as a poker player. Extremely low. He thinks of all the poker players he knows in his immediate group of friends, I am the worst, in part because I rarely do much homework on my game despite all the materials at my disposal.
Here's the problem I"m running into. And we're not talking about gut shots with A. dirty outs, or B. dumb end gut shots. Clean gut shots for the most part.
My redline looks atrocious, and my W$WSF is only 40.4 with a 23 VPIP (16.8 PFR) at this moment over an 85,000 hand sample. But IMO this doesn't really matter because I am consistently proving myself over an 85,000 hand sample to have a good win rate that is actually crushing 25nl over the long haul.
AE Jones had a test for your skill as a poker player which was to multiply your W$WSF by your VPIP to get an idea of your skills at a poker player, I'm in probably the low 900's and he's in the 1300's or so. he has a wider PF range than me and wins a lot more pots when he sees a flop.
He plays tables 100nl, 200nl, and occasionally 400nl, and has occasionally (when his bankroll's doing really good) play 1000nl and 2000nl (Not 600nl though because he doesn't like dividing by 6's).
I mostly play 25nl and 50nl. I have a winrate over 85,000 hands in the current sample, that he's not entirely convinced that I'm a truly winning player despite this, of 8.3bb/100.
My red line looks atrocious, but IMO that's ok because people simply don't fold at these stakes. Most of my money comes from hands that go to showdown.
You can't bluff someone if they have an extremely high propensity to call which is a very large proportion of my competition at 25nl and to a lesser extent 50nl. You can bluff at the higher stakes because people are much more easily capable of finding their fold button when their livelihood is on the line as opposed to the mostly recreational players I'm against.
I guess what I'm trying to say is this, bluffing and taking down pots without going to showdown has much more value IMO at 100nl and above, and a closer to "nut peddling" strategy, as simple as it may be, has much more value at 50nl and below, what I play at. He's thinking like a higher stakes player trying to beat the medium and high stakes poker tables, and I'm thinking as a player who's crushing the micros and low stakes poker tables.
He wants me 3/4 potting all OESD's, clean gut shots, Flush draws and TP's on flop as well as turn. I told him I think that my blue line would suffer tremendously if I did that, particularly on the gut shots, and he got angry with me, says I'll always be a shitty poker player and whatnot, I'll always have a shitty W$WSF, my 40.4 W$WSF is evidence that I'm a terrible poker player who will always be stuck in the micros and never be able of playing at my ultimate goal which is 100nl and 200nl.
If I'm putting my opponent on a range (Oh btw he thinks my hand reading skills are absolutely bar none the worst of anyone he knows) and according to his range, play style (which tends to be a lot of Loose-Passive calling stations) and the board texture, if I held my villains range, and I would call close to every time, he thinks I should still semi-bluff double barrel regardless. But if I know ahead of time that my opponents going to call and 9x out of 10 I'll brick the turn or river, why the hell should I be barreling there EVERY TIME?
He judges me based on my red line, not my results over 85,000 hands, claims I'm still not a winning player. I don't know what to do about it really. Appease my friend and let my bankroll suffer, or continue to play how I've been playing which ultimately beats my stake level over the long haul.
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