Just an idea: a different kind of table selection
05-28-2011
, 02:47 PM
This is just something I just started doing in the last couple months before Black Friday. This is basically an alternative to your normal study habits, reviewing and table selection. I found it incredibly useful, and I thought some other people might be able to put it to good use (those...ya know...in other countries).
This generally applies heavily to multitablers...so if you play 16+ tables of FR or 12+ tables of 6max, maybe this is something you could try out.
1. Pick a regular. The most important attribute is that he multitables. The more tables, the better.
2. Instead of sitting games searching for fish, search this regular and sit at all his tables. Get at least a few thousand hands against him (if you multitable with him at all of your tables, this shouldn't take much time). Obviously, gather your regular player notes. Generally, play just as you should. Try to focus on him, adjusting and creating a metagame (if he's capable of doing so). Pay particular attention to your stats during these sessions, and try to figure out how he might adjust to your game.
3. Notice that he is probably table selecting for you. There will be fish at these tables, just like there normally would. You really lose nothing by doing this.
Away from the tables, go into a deep analysis of his game. Open a Word document and take very detailed notes. Below that, start typing adjustments. Start with what you know how to exploit, and try to learn more. Do as much research as you can to find proper adjustments to take against him. There are a lot of little things about all of our games that are exploitable (even if we know they are exploitable, because we assume no one is paying seriously close attention). Like, maybe despite a high polarized 3bet% in a BTN v CO scenario, you have a surprisingly tight stack-off range. Maybe you insta bet-fold TPTK facing a check-raise on a dry board. FIND all of those little leaks in your opponent's game, and find an adjustment to exploit them.
Obviously, don't share these player notes with anyone and don't share stats on anyone. It's generally considered against the spirit of the game and a breach of user license...just sayin.
But it isn't immoral to talk about the player (without using his name or revealing the identity of the player) and possible adjustments with a study group. The research is out there--how DO you exploit someone in the above referenced CO v BTN scenario? You can really learn a lot about poker by doing this, because you're learning in a way that you usually don't get to. Normally, you learn about poker in the smallest microcosm (a hand) or in the greatest macrocosm (fundamental theory). You rarely get the chance to learn about poker from the perspective of picking apart someone's entire game and applying fundamental theory to structure an entire strategy. It's just a very different way to look at poker, which is a good thing for sudden boosts in development.
At first, this will probably take a long time. I started bringing my laptop to work with me to do this during my commute and lunch (about 3 hours a day). The first person I picked apart took a week, I'll use him as an example. Everyone following took about two days (six hours), and by the end of the month, I had at least 16 tables against reg-fish ready to go at almost any time of the day. Let's call the example player "Pokerfun666", for anonymity (and giggles). Obviously, this isn't the person's real screen name.
I noticed Pokerfun666 was playing about 16 tables almost every day from 4am-7am my time. I sat with him on 12 tables and played my standard game as well as I could.
After a few days, I already had over 10k hands on him. I looked up his SharkScope, PTR and OPR. Around 2008, he was playing 5/10 and winning at about 6bb/100. For some reason, he was back down to 200NL. So I extrapolated that he probably fell behind in studying the advances in the game since then. A lot of stuff has generally been figured out during that time period...and if you listen to some Ansky vids you'll probably hear him reference that exact time frame several times (particularly in his vids about him v Durrrrr).
Then I went through my HEM.
Go to the "Players" tab and you'll find pretty much everything you need. I opened up his stats and a Word document and just started looking. I found that he was extremely positionally aware, opening only about 12% UTG and MP, 38% CO and 60% BTN. He had a 3bet% of about 12% on the BTN, but a whopping 20% 3bet% when on the BTN against a CO open. He also had an 80% Cbet% and a 75% DB% on the Button. I also saw that he pot-controlled one-pair hands very frequently in most of these scenarios, and was generally a fairly poor value-better. So, his turn and river ranges were pretty polarized, and obviously heavily weighted toward air.
Just this player note would have been enough to warrant sitting him on a ton of tables. Obviously, I spent a week looking at this multitabler's game, so I gained a lot more information. Not only was I able to structure my ranges against him on the first level, but I was already prepared for his adjustments. In the above example, he eventually began bluffing less and value-betting thinner (which took a surprisingly long time), and I was already prepared to begin tightening my preflop and flop range and raising my turn CR frequency. Again, a very large number of hands passed before he noticed. My guess is that he was relying entirely on his HUD...so for the first 10k hands, he was probably playing correctly. It took over 15k hands for his HUD to catch up with the shift, and again another 15k hands for his HUD to catch up with the re-adjustment.
Obviously, my winrate against this regular was fairly strong for a pretty extended period of time. During this time, he was still obviously a +EV player. There were fish at the tables from whom him and I both made money, just as we normally would. However, I was also able to turn this regular, who would otherwise be a moderately breakeven spot at the table, into another seat leaking money (slower than the fish, but much faster than other mediocre players).
So, basically, you trade several hours of study to:
- Improve your understanding of poker.
- Create a searchable-fish...who is searching fish for you.
- Create an infinite fish...this is a winning player! Fish die out, but multitabling regulars are going to be multitabling for a very long time.
Obviously, this isn't a new concept by any means...at the high stakes, the player pool is so small that the players are looking deeply into one another's games (I assume). However, at the lower stakes, this is probably almost never practiced. The benefit at the lower stakes is that the players are going to have much larger leaks, and are generally playing a massive number of tables. Obviously, if you can search for a fish who is sitting 16 tables for 4 hours a day 5 days of the week, you should do that. Fish are more +EV spots than any regular you'll be able to get. They are the reason we can beat the rake and nail out our 3bb/100 at the FR tables. But even if you only have a marginal edge against the regular, it doesn't take much an edge to turn a 3bb/100 player into a 4bb/100...and that's a pretty vast difference when you're multitabling.
If you continue doing this, within a month you can have a collection of names of multitabling regulars you are +EV against, and have 16 tables ready to fly whenever you want (with the normal number of fish plus your regulars). If you create a color-code player-note for them, you'll actually be astounded at how fewer players there are in your player pool. Make the player-note color your favorite color, because as soon as you have as few as 10 multitablers noted who play in the same time frame, your lobby will be painted with it.
The final benefit is that you now know how to abuse different player types than just fish, stations, donkeys, etc. Whenever you see a player who's game lines up similarly with a regular you've studied, you'll immediately be able to apply the research you've done previously to exploit him. That's an incredible tool, and makes you much more +EV in any game.
Hope this helps guys. Cheers.
This generally applies heavily to multitablers...so if you play 16+ tables of FR or 12+ tables of 6max, maybe this is something you could try out.
1. Pick a regular. The most important attribute is that he multitables. The more tables, the better.
2. Instead of sitting games searching for fish, search this regular and sit at all his tables. Get at least a few thousand hands against him (if you multitable with him at all of your tables, this shouldn't take much time). Obviously, gather your regular player notes. Generally, play just as you should. Try to focus on him, adjusting and creating a metagame (if he's capable of doing so). Pay particular attention to your stats during these sessions, and try to figure out how he might adjust to your game.
3. Notice that he is probably table selecting for you. There will be fish at these tables, just like there normally would. You really lose nothing by doing this.
Away from the tables, go into a deep analysis of his game. Open a Word document and take very detailed notes. Below that, start typing adjustments. Start with what you know how to exploit, and try to learn more. Do as much research as you can to find proper adjustments to take against him. There are a lot of little things about all of our games that are exploitable (even if we know they are exploitable, because we assume no one is paying seriously close attention). Like, maybe despite a high polarized 3bet% in a BTN v CO scenario, you have a surprisingly tight stack-off range. Maybe you insta bet-fold TPTK facing a check-raise on a dry board. FIND all of those little leaks in your opponent's game, and find an adjustment to exploit them.
Obviously, don't share these player notes with anyone and don't share stats on anyone. It's generally considered against the spirit of the game and a breach of user license...just sayin.
But it isn't immoral to talk about the player (without using his name or revealing the identity of the player) and possible adjustments with a study group. The research is out there--how DO you exploit someone in the above referenced CO v BTN scenario? You can really learn a lot about poker by doing this, because you're learning in a way that you usually don't get to. Normally, you learn about poker in the smallest microcosm (a hand) or in the greatest macrocosm (fundamental theory). You rarely get the chance to learn about poker from the perspective of picking apart someone's entire game and applying fundamental theory to structure an entire strategy. It's just a very different way to look at poker, which is a good thing for sudden boosts in development.
At first, this will probably take a long time. I started bringing my laptop to work with me to do this during my commute and lunch (about 3 hours a day). The first person I picked apart took a week, I'll use him as an example. Everyone following took about two days (six hours), and by the end of the month, I had at least 16 tables against reg-fish ready to go at almost any time of the day. Let's call the example player "Pokerfun666", for anonymity (and giggles). Obviously, this isn't the person's real screen name.
I noticed Pokerfun666 was playing about 16 tables almost every day from 4am-7am my time. I sat with him on 12 tables and played my standard game as well as I could.
After a few days, I already had over 10k hands on him. I looked up his SharkScope, PTR and OPR. Around 2008, he was playing 5/10 and winning at about 6bb/100. For some reason, he was back down to 200NL. So I extrapolated that he probably fell behind in studying the advances in the game since then. A lot of stuff has generally been figured out during that time period...and if you listen to some Ansky vids you'll probably hear him reference that exact time frame several times (particularly in his vids about him v Durrrrr).
Then I went through my HEM.
Go to the "Players" tab and you'll find pretty much everything you need. I opened up his stats and a Word document and just started looking. I found that he was extremely positionally aware, opening only about 12% UTG and MP, 38% CO and 60% BTN. He had a 3bet% of about 12% on the BTN, but a whopping 20% 3bet% when on the BTN against a CO open. He also had an 80% Cbet% and a 75% DB% on the Button. I also saw that he pot-controlled one-pair hands very frequently in most of these scenarios, and was generally a fairly poor value-better. So, his turn and river ranges were pretty polarized, and obviously heavily weighted toward air.
Just this player note would have been enough to warrant sitting him on a ton of tables. Obviously, I spent a week looking at this multitabler's game, so I gained a lot more information. Not only was I able to structure my ranges against him on the first level, but I was already prepared for his adjustments. In the above example, he eventually began bluffing less and value-betting thinner (which took a surprisingly long time), and I was already prepared to begin tightening my preflop and flop range and raising my turn CR frequency. Again, a very large number of hands passed before he noticed. My guess is that he was relying entirely on his HUD...so for the first 10k hands, he was probably playing correctly. It took over 15k hands for his HUD to catch up with the shift, and again another 15k hands for his HUD to catch up with the re-adjustment.
Obviously, my winrate against this regular was fairly strong for a pretty extended period of time. During this time, he was still obviously a +EV player. There were fish at the tables from whom him and I both made money, just as we normally would. However, I was also able to turn this regular, who would otherwise be a moderately breakeven spot at the table, into another seat leaking money (slower than the fish, but much faster than other mediocre players).
So, basically, you trade several hours of study to:
- Improve your understanding of poker.
- Create a searchable-fish...who is searching fish for you.
- Create an infinite fish...this is a winning player! Fish die out, but multitabling regulars are going to be multitabling for a very long time.
Obviously, this isn't a new concept by any means...at the high stakes, the player pool is so small that the players are looking deeply into one another's games (I assume). However, at the lower stakes, this is probably almost never practiced. The benefit at the lower stakes is that the players are going to have much larger leaks, and are generally playing a massive number of tables. Obviously, if you can search for a fish who is sitting 16 tables for 4 hours a day 5 days of the week, you should do that. Fish are more +EV spots than any regular you'll be able to get. They are the reason we can beat the rake and nail out our 3bb/100 at the FR tables. But even if you only have a marginal edge against the regular, it doesn't take much an edge to turn a 3bb/100 player into a 4bb/100...and that's a pretty vast difference when you're multitabling.
If you continue doing this, within a month you can have a collection of names of multitabling regulars you are +EV against, and have 16 tables ready to fly whenever you want (with the normal number of fish plus your regulars). If you create a color-code player-note for them, you'll actually be astounded at how fewer players there are in your player pool. Make the player-note color your favorite color, because as soon as you have as few as 10 multitablers noted who play in the same time frame, your lobby will be painted with it.
The final benefit is that you now know how to abuse different player types than just fish, stations, donkeys, etc. Whenever you see a player who's game lines up similarly with a regular you've studied, you'll immediately be able to apply the research you've done previously to exploit him. That's an incredible tool, and makes you much more +EV in any game.
Hope this helps guys. Cheers.
05-29-2011
, 03:39 AM
05-29-2011
, 07:43 AM
07-09-2011
, 11:55 AM
07-09-2011
, 05:56 PM
07-10-2011
, 04:54 AM
can def work in any type of games, its not like multitablers are exclusive to cash games. I personally multitable superturbo sngs and this kind of practice is absolutely necessary, especially when you move to midstakes+ and the fish become more and more rare.
10-16-2011
, 12:40 PM
10-19-2011
, 07:19 AM
bout tree fiddy.
