I posted this in the micros a few hundred hands early but since I mostly play SSNL I thought I'd share it here too. Hope you get something out of it.

My Poobah Post

Good evening 2+2, I decided to take the evening to create this little piece of written experience to give something back to this awesome community that I have been a part of for almost 5 years now.

I'm impulsive in nature so my decision to create this came about 48 seconds ago. Therefore it may lack in structure slightly but I do hope to get my points across with some coherence.

I feel as though I have reached a point in my poker career where the game is finally starting to make sense. I am no longer afraid of certain players I play against. Let's be certain, I do not stick around in a game full of regulars, but if there are four winning players at the table and a huge fish, well, I'm more than happy staying to try to stack the mark. I'm currently a NL200/400 reg FWIW.

Ok so what I'm hoping to do here is to verbalize the ideas that took me forever to internalize. Many of the things that I say will seem trivial, or come as no surprise, but if you are honest with yourself you will see that you likely aren't applying these ideas, or aren't doing it effectively.

A little bit about myself: I'm 26, Canadian, and currently in my 3rd year of medical school. Holy crap I can't believe I'm 26.. time sure flies haha. Anyway, I started playing poker like most people probably did: home games, some tourneys, everyone thought they were awesome, etc. etc. I heard the famous “Poker is like sex, everyone thinks they're good at it, but no one really knows what they are doing.” This statement was probably one of the first things that got me thinking about poker. I realized that other than the hand rankings and the “pretend I'm weak when I'm strong” live bluff, I really didn't know much about poker. So I purchased and read 13, yes 13 poker books. Cover to cover. Literally.
The best of those books included Sklansky's No Limit Hold'em Theory and Practice and The Poker Mindset (read a couple years into my poker 'career').

I found Party Poker, deposited and lost $50 about 9 times, got angry. Went onto the internet to find that formula for winning at poker, and found 2+2 instead. But in reality, this was the formula for winning at poker.

Anyway, years later I find myself a consistently winning player (not without a ton of ups and downs and a lot of self-reflection) and would like to impart some advice on how to become a successful poker player.

There are many fantastic ideas illustrated in other Poobah posts that I am not going to regurgitate here. What I am going to do is get you to think about one concept, and one concept only, since I think it is the absolute most important thing you can do for your game. I like to call it...

Sticking that $$ into the middle

Whenever it is your turn to act, you have an opportunity to make money. The old adage, a penny saved is a penny earned applies equally here. Every time it is your turn to act you should ask yourself “what is the best thing I can do here, given my position, the players that have acted, the players that are left to act and the gameflow? If the answer is to raise you should ask yourself, how much? 2bbs? 3? 4? 5? 15? Just because people claim it is “standard” to raise certain amounts from certain positions, who cares? Does standard mean it is the most profitable thing for you to do? I think I can say with confidence the answer is, no. So don't fall back on “standard” to justify your decisions. This is lazy and often incorrect. (The only time I am an advocate of “standard” is against a total unknown that buys in for a full 100 bbs)
Let's do an example:
6 max
Hero: CO
Button: Reg, full stack 25/20, calls raise on button 9%, 3 bets button 6%
SB: Fish, 78 big blinds, 49/8, 3 bets 0% over 98 hands --> fold to c bet 85%
BB: TAG, 100bbs, 17/15, 3 bet from BB 5%

You are dealt XX
What is your best play here?

Many people will say, “well you are in CO, so your range should be 28% of your hands, so raise with that % since it is standard”
Well I think that is fair advice, but it is lazy and won't make you the most money. I'd be more of an advocate to raise closer to 100% of your hands. Furthermore, I'd be inclined to make my opening raise around 5 big blinds. Even further, my c-bet would likely be in the ½ pot range. Are we seeing why this makes sense here?
What questions are we asking ourselves when it is our turn to act pre flop? Hmm button fairly solid, probably folds to a raise. If I make it big it's less likely he calls/3 bets, SB probably going to call, BB going to fold. So I'll make a big bet pre flop so SB pays me off, then c bet ½ pot so I only need to win this 1/3 of the time to make money.
This isn't anything revolutionary, but how many of you actually think like this each and every time it is your turn to put money in the pot? I'm willing to bet close to 0% of you micro guys and still a small % of the SSNL guys, but not 0%.
Oh and this is only pre flop. The exact same line of thought applies on each street after. Also, you should be making a plan for future streets and, most importantly, sticking to that plan!

Let's say our plan back fires and SB folds but BB calls. Well then we have to ask ourselves one simple question. What is BB's range for calling here? If you have never used the software “poker stove”, well then there is no time like the present. It can be found here: http://www.pokerstove.com Open this software and figure out what a reasonable calling range is for someone who calls X% of hands. Once you have done this you need to look at the board texture and ask yourself “did this board texture hit his range? If so, how hard?” Ex: board is 57T two tone. Is this a good board to C-bet given the opponents pre flop big blind calling range? Is K85tt better? Is A93r better? Given each flop texture how much should we C-bet? ½ pot? ¾ pot? Full pot? 1/5th pot?

If our flop bet is called, which turn cards are we going to give up on? Which are we going to barrel? How much are we going to bet on the turn? Are we considering a 3x barrel if the river is a good card? What is a good river 3x barrel card against this specific opponent? This last point is especially important because while you may be able to get a thinking player off pocket 4's on a T23KA river, a fish may just snap call you the whole way.

So many of you know that this is what you should be doing, but honestly, how many of you do it? Most of you just bet ¾ pot and hope to take it down. When BB check calls you, you likely give up, or maybe fire some random over card when it comes. But again, this is both lazy and not the best way to make money (and often loses you money).

If you would like some practice at doing this, then you can go to this site and try it out: http://flopgenerator.com/
When using this software, pretend as if you are in a certain position, like the button, and go through certain situations: TAG SB calls, flop comes XYZ. LAG SB calls, flop comes XYZ. What are you going to do given your opponent and the board texture? How much will you bet relative to the size of the pot? Does the board texture influence the size of your bet (almost always, yes!)

At this point I assume a lot of you are like “well, no new information here, I can't believe I just read all of this.” But stop. Think. Do you actively do this while you are playing poker?
If you are playing >6 tables are you able to do this? Do you have movies on in the background? Are you on the phone/messenger while you are playing? All of these things will prevent you from making the best decisions while at the poker table. And any time you cannot make the best decision, you lose money. Plain and simple.

Your thought process post flop should be the same as pre flop. “What am I going to do if my opponent bets, given the pre flop action, given the game flow, given the players left to act, given the number of players in the pot, given the board texture? How am I going to react if he bets really small? Really huge?” Or if it is checked to you, you do the same thing.

This whole thing is a very tedious task at first, but just as trying to memorize a starting hand chart given your position at the table was a tedious task that is now first nature, this will become that way over time.

Ok so like I said, no huge revolution here. But I guarantee that only a small small % of you do this, and the ones that do are likely the most winning players.

I hope that made sense, if not drop a reply and I'll clarify things. Any other questions you have about poker let me know, I'd be glad to help out in any way.


As a final note I think I will leave you with my mental cycle that I replay in my head constantly while I am playing poker.

1)Why am I playing at each table? Are there fish here? It not, it's time to leave!
2)Who are the fish at each table?
3)What is my plan of attack on each of these fish? Am I betting big to steal on the flop/turn? Am I betting small with speculative hands since I know they will call a lot and I don't want to invest too much money pre flop?
4)What is my plan of attack on the regs? Am I going to open fold QT on the button because BB 3 bets 18% of the time from the BB? Am I going to start limping buttons to counter act this? Am I going to 4 bet light to counteract this?
5)Who are good opponents to 3 bet?
6)Given the game flow what should I do to this opponent's open raise?

I think that I've given you guys enough to think about for now. If you take my advice to heart, I guarantee you will see a gigantic improvement in your win rate. As a last example, if a pot is 10 big blinds, and you think there is a 50/50 chance your opponent is folding, regardless of the size of your bet (within reason) why would you bet 7.5bbs when 5bbs would do the same thing?
How many times does this happen each 100 hands? Ex: flop is K62r. Do you think calling 7.5 bbs is any different than 5 bbs? No. So if you are bluffing here, why bet 7.5bbs when 5 bbs will accomplish the same thing?

If this situation happened once for each 100 hands I have already improved your win rate by 2.5bb/100.

So you can see how such obvious, simple things can have a huge impact on your winrate. Yet so few players take these things into real consideration.

They are more caught up in, “hmm what is his 3 bet% here. Well we're 120bbs deep so I'm going to call and see what happens.” And their thought process stops there.

I call that burning money.

Anyway, I ended up writing much more than I intended, but I do hope that this hits home to you guys, especially the micro grinders 12 tabling at 0.5bbs/100 and never able to move up.


Hit me up with any questions, good luck at the tables!



TLDR:

My entire post was about not being mentally lazy. So if you wanted a TLDR, well, you aren't getting one.

Nice poohbah post, enligtening

Very nice post. Regarding flop bet sizing, if a fish is folding to cbets 85% time I feel inclined to make it a 'standard' 2/3 bet to make sure he continues to fold 85% time rather than a half pot which is more likely to be called but obv has to work less often.

Nice post

betting 1/2 instead of 2/3 has hardly any effect on their calling range.
nice post keyser

Good read.

"I think that I've given you guys enough to think about for now. If you take my advice to heart, I guarantee you will see a gigantic improvement in your win rate. As a last example, if a pot is 10 big blinds, and you think there is a 50/50 chance your opponent is folding, regardless of the size of your bet (within reason) why would you bet 7.5bbs when 5bbs would do the same thing?
How many times does this happen each 100 hands? Ex: flop is K62r. Do you think calling 7.5 bbs is any different than 5 bbs? No. So if you are bluffing here, why bet 7.5bbs when 5 bbs will accomplish the same thing?"

Do you only do this against the bad/unknown players and only if you want a fold?

Hi, this is an old thread, but I saw that you linked to my website Texas Hold'em Flop Generator.

I have redesigned the entire site, and I think it is much more useful now. You can use it to practice reading flops and to practice grouping starting hands using David Sklansky's method.

haven't checked this thread for a while. you can do things against most opponents until they see what you are doing. sometimes you just bet according to the strength of your hand, nothing wrong with that if it makes you the most money and people don't know what you are doing.

Missed this the first time, good post.

And how would you know that? Just curious.

Good Post Man

Donks generally don't think about pot odds, just about if they have a pair, an overcard, or a draw runner runner gutshot or better, and then they call even if they don't.

Thank you for this very nice Poobah post!

Hey Keyser, Youre a valuable contributor to the forum and congradulate for reaching a large post count.

However, the subject of your article while its interesting, I cannot say I agree with 100 %. Habit forming is not just for the sake of playing as many tables as possible but actively interferes with fellow players' ability to catch on what youre doing. While certainly its important to adjust situationally and deviate from theoretical optimal play when called for, I would caution against too myopic an attitude toward the game.

An example hinges of the last example you cited, that of continuating betting a dry flop and the issue of how large to make it. Whats not good is if a player who reads ur post say to him or herself well 1/2pot is the same as 3/4pot as far as getting them to fold, So might as well be cheap and bluff 1/2pot. And then when they have a set, to think; anything theyre calling a smaller bet with, they'd call a larger, so might as well extract the most value from their range. Lets value bet 3/4pot. Such a myopia has made this player most vulnerable. I myself have noticed this plenty of times happening and even if Im flatting TPWK regardless, my floating, light calling and bluff raising frequencies *do* adjust if I think my opponent suspects me of not paying enough attention to his betsizing tells.

This is hardly to say that you must worry only about the regs! I honestly think that fish tend to pick up on such things *more* than regs, because they are only playing 1 table. Even if their thinking process is as fishy as 'Wow he bet full pot! He didnt to that last hand, Im scarred, I fold.'

The other example of the CO situation where you advocate raising to 5bb with almost 100% of the range, I think its very bad. Regardless of the stats you had on him up to that point Nearly any competent BB is reiso-ing to get rid of you and hopefully grab the fish for himself with a wide range of value hands. If I were BB and at ur table, this range would include any 2 broadway, any suited connector, any pair above 8's, any suited ace. (With the intention of 5bet jamming a large segment of these if you start to 4bet) This is a dynamic Ive encountered over and over again when someone thinks they can hog the fish to themselves, well I very quickly show them whats up,,,

For similar reasons I dont like these following points either
3)What is my plan of attack on each of these fish? Am I betting big to steal on the flop/turn? Am I betting small with speculative hands since I know they will call a lot and I don't want to invest too much money pre flop? <<< I dont know why you would think such a thing?? Heres to me the golden rule of poker; the longer someone sticks around, the more +EV your bluff becomes. (Unless they stick around to the end LOL!)
4)What is my plan of attack on the regs? Am I going to open fold QT on the button because BB 3 bets 18% of the time from the BB? Am I going to start limping buttons to counter act this? Am I going to 4 bet light to counteract this? <<< Why would you ever openfold QT. Why would you ever limp. You cant be serious.

I think we just have quite different perspectives on the game. Foremost to my game is the concept of defence while foremost to your game is the concept of offence. You want to find the fastest route to taking other peoples chips; I want to guard my own money and my own game from exploitation, with the knowledge that when others are not doing the same I automatically come out on top. I just hate even the possibility that others are outplaying me I guess