Yeah, you´re probably right and I really should start building big pots with my sets

One spot I've found where I was losing value w/ sets previously was either c/c or just flatting a Axx or Kxx flop with a set, especially against the more nitty players.

Whenever you're set mining and hit vs an Ax or Kx flop, you should donk out if oop and raise if ip. And bet very close to pot. None of that half-pot stuff. They either have a hand they will call with or one they are not liking very much anymore anyhow. This is usually enough to help insure stacks are in by the river.

A c/r and even a c/c on the flop and a turn donk or raise looks very strong, but a move on the flop represents a wider range, and usually includes more bluffs. People find it harder to fold TPTK when you started aggressive from the flop as opposed to you waking up on the turn with a lot of pent up aggression.

I know this is from an older post, so I apologize for reading this thread in random order.

I have actually been wondering the same thing recently. I generally tend to raise small pocket pairs, from ep, at random. Until just now, I hadn't taken a look to see if it was actually profitable or not. Primarily I have been doing it in order to keep my ep pfr from hovering too close to 6% (this is 100nl fr, btw).

It turns out that I have a vpip/pfr of 54/52 with 22-66 from ep, with a winrate of 100ptbb/100. One plus to these hands is that I've managed not to lose more than 12bb on any one hand will having several where I've won 50+bb. So, once I run into a few set over set hands, maybe this will even out, but at present, it looks like raising small pp from ep is actually doing ok for me at 100nl.

Your total profit/loss for the session - not win or lose in a single hand. If you've been bleeding slowly and then win a stack, you would be at +70 BBs, so you still need 30 more before you can add a table.

I don't think they've discussed. I think the micros tend to be under the radar for the most part.

for you guys who don't have many friends to talk poker with, but are looking for an outlet, the ubbv guys have a msn group (add group098565@groupsim.com) to discuss poker and whatever else comes up. It has been pretty slow lately, but there's usually atleast a couple people on.

I don't know if there are any people playing 5nl, but there are a few 10nl players, quite a few 25-50nl players and a handful of higher stake folks. Anyway it's a good place to discuss a hand or get a sweat session going.

This thread hasnt been discussed on the pokercast. You can suggest it here. But I doubt that Mike and Adam will talk about the thread. The forum static is usually more about entertaining threads (like Cyril the French Businessman) or a big controversy (UB scandal).

That was one of my thoughts

I was going to check this as well.

Wow, this thread is pure gold for a uNL player like myself.

I play at a swedish poker site that have 5 player tables and the option to buy-in with 200 bb. As you can guess this changes the play somewhat from 6max tables with 100bb buy-ins which this poker site doesn´t have. What it does have is a large pool of very loose players at my levels. Much looser and somewhat more aggressive than I have found on Party, Full Tilt or Titan.

I was wondering how to play the different positions at these 5max tables (UTG, CO, BTN, SB and BB) compared to your articles on positions. I guess UTG will be the same, and that I just skip your thoughts on MP and use your CO guidelines for my CO too?

Should I still be skipping a lot of low/mid suited connectors/one gappers and play top pair heavy? Any other thoughts considering that we can play so deep would be appreciated

Leak Finder, Part 2



Usually someone whose red line goes down at a rate that Gsicilano's does isn't stealing enough or barreling enough. Let's examine both of those. Once again, I'll offer my 10NL/25NL stats for comparison.

So, I filtered for "Preflop Action Facing Player" to be "Unopened". Here are the results:

Gsicilano:



Verneer:



Thoughts:

So - he's def stealing his fair share on the button, so that's not an issue. Overall c-bet frequency seems to be the same as mine, but two things jump out from this comparison.

1) He is opening a lot less from the SB when it's folded to him and the BB can have any two cards. When he does, his success is 70%!

Remember: From the SB, if you 3x, you are risking 2.5 BBs (since you already have .5 committed) to win 1.5 BBs. You only need to be successful 63% of the time to show an immediate profit (which means you can c/f every time you miss and still profit JUST from the times they fold).

So - here is the first piece of advice: Open up your SB stealing range when it's folded around and it's just you and the BB. This is why it's so important to have a nit/TAG on your left instead of a LAG/Donk.

2) He seems to be a "one-and-done" type of player where he'll fire a c-bet on the flop and then not fire again on the turn. His DB frequency is less than 30% whereas mine is close to 50%.

Second piece of advice: Have a plan for your hand and don't c-bet just to c-bet. When you decide to c-bet, have specific cards that you are willing to DB and make sure you have a good idea of your opponents range before you do so. Specifically, your mentality should go from "I should c-bet here" to "If I am not willing to barrel tons of cards, I'm better of not c-betting at all."

So now our next step is to look at hands where he c-bet the flop, and had the opportunity to c-bet the turn but didn't.



There are a total of 293 of those hands - let's examine some of them in the next post.

It should play no different than if you were playing at a 6-max table and the UTG player would fold every time (and you never were UTG). So - your UTG would play like MP in 6-max, and then CO, BTN, SB, and BB are all the same.

Just the opposite IMO. Value of those SC and one-gappers goes way up as stacks grow big and the value of hands where you can make a good top pair goes down.

Leak Finder, Part 3

Now let's look at some of the hands that Gsicilano c-bet the flop and then checked the turn. To begin with, here are some hand from UTG:

Hand 1:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5302183

Vs. a 95/11 type player. This should be a textbook check-behind because if you are behind you are drawing to two outs, but if you are ahead, your equity still isn't going to be that great and villain is pretty short and could shove with a really wide range.

Hand 2:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5302187

Vs. a 20/10 touristy-type player. I think c-betting this flop is fine and then c/f the turn is fine, but I have an issue with bet sizing. There is not reason for you to bet 3/4 pot. Are you doing it for value? Are you doing it as a bluff? Are you doing it for balance (say it ain't so ...)?

A 1/2 PSB bet here is much better than a 3/4 PSB.

Hand 3:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5302191

MP is 24/17 and BB is 39/27. I hate betting this into two people and I hate your big bet size. It doesn't accomplish anything. This is already starting to become a pattern - betting too big on flops where it's unclear if you are doing it for value or as a bluff (this will become an important trend later).

Hand 4:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5302194

Vs. a 41/6 type player. If you are c-betting this, you need a plan for later streets. Which cards are you willing to double barrel? If you can't answer that question, just c/f this flop.

Hand 5:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5302196

Vs. a 69/54 type player. C-betting here with very little equity and OOP is just burning 4 BBs.

So - those are just a few of the UTG hands. This is a huge area where Gsicilano really needs to sit down and ask himself the following questions every time before he c-bets:

1) Am I c-betting for value or as a bluff?

2) If called, which cards are good for me to double barrel?

3) What is the optimum bet size for this specific situations.

I believe this area will make a massive difference in both his winrate and his red line. I do want to look at one more area, and that's playing out of the blinds vs. a steal. I'll make a post on that later.

I think the podcast Verneer should go on is the medicre poker radio podcast. EB and Bret are basically two guys trying to move through the micro's. Bret might play a little bigger but EB makes it well know he is stuck at 50NL and can't do anything but BE at 100NL. I think it could be great advertising for Verneers micro vid's on CR and all the good stuff he does in poker.

I'd actually consider trying to double barrell here.
Your opening range is full of strong As and BB knows it if he is paying any attention at all.
His calling range is full of weak A/Qs and draws that he can fold.
He has check called the flop and then checked the turn.
I'd put more pressure on by betting the turn again, probably about 1/2-2/3.

Is this really that bad a line to take?

Isn't this a standard cbet with the intention of barrelling a high card on the turn? Or is it the bet size that's the issue?

Hi Verneer,

I think one of the reasons for my low attempt to steal on the SB is that I was being 3bet pretty much more than what I expected and didn´t know how to handle this. Sometimes it seemed like the BB was only 3betting me when I raised from the SB. I mean, it was probably just poor table selection most of the times, but I had a tough time trying to steal the BB. Got to pay more attention to that.





Ok, about my cbet, that´s something that took me a long time to work on (you surely won´t recall this, but I posted on CR forum, a couple of months ago, a specific question to you about cbet) watching videos (like YTCCTM and CTM s2), reading articles and all of this. I also worked a lot on my turn play, since it was like watching myself in the mirror when you mentioned (on YTCCTM ep 1/8) the 7 deadly leaks on the micros. These two leaks you are just pointing on me are the exact leaks #2 (cbet a lot of flops) and #3 (playing turn passively) which are the hallmark of the "weak-tight-not-thinking" player I´ve become. And I went through all this work just to throw it away by doing something I´m starting to believe is in the core of all my leaks: Playing too many tables. I mean, too many for me. In 90% of the time during this plummet I was playing 4-6 tables, when what I was used to was two tables. I know that´s way too little, but I belive you have to add tables when you´re comfortable and WINNING playing your usual number. I rushed through this process an got myself playing on auto-pilot. But how can you auto-pilot if you cannot PILOT in the first place? I´m definetly going through all those videos, articles and posts again and I´m cutting down to two tables untill my trendline goes up at a steady rate for a sufficient amount of time, than adding one table at a time. Just learn how to pilot... No rush
Watching those hands I can see all these same mistakes you did, some I´ve corrected (or maybe just improved), like cbet sizing, others not yet, like my turn play. But the fact that I can clearly see these mistakes is actually a good thing imo, since it means I probably know what to do, I´m just not doing it (oh yeah, like if this isn´t the most important thing al all...), because of the auto-pilot stuff.
About bet sizing, when it´s just a pure bluff on a good board to cbet I´m going with something like 60% pot and about 80-100% when it´s for value. After all, there´s no need for balance, does it ? (lol). I also think I´m better at identifying both good and bad boards to cbet given villain´s range, and my perceived one (versus some regulars), something that´s definetly not showing on hands 1, 3 and 5, of course, lol. The turn play is a little tougher and I´m working on it but definetly getting better little by little

Milestone 1900, 1900 post read that is. I never thought I would get caught up. I have enjoyed and picked up a lot by reading all this post. Verneer is my hero and all the other contributors can fill in when he is not around. Great stuff. Thanks again to all.

Verneer - while you 2nd barrel almost 50% of the time i.e a lot more than his, you success rate is still only 35%. This isn't very high and I know this is partly because you will sometimes will be betting for value and therefore want a call, but I'm just pointing out that it doesn't seem like you gain a lot from double barrelling because they aren't folding. I'm interested to see what you have to say about this.

What would be the main reason to bet the turn there? To make him fold an ace? Why would he do that?

This player on this board texture is just going to call down any pair and any draw in position. You can't really "rep" anything when he's got any piece of the board. Also, vs. this type of person, you will get 95% of your value from just value betting your made hands three streets.

Yeah - just looking at it now, I think I fire the turn too often, and I believe a balance of around 40% would be optimal. He clearly fires too little though and in sub-optimal spots.

I set two different filters to see something. They were "Flop Continuation Bet Made = True" and "Turn Continuation Bet Possible = True"

The Result:



It's just clear that often when he c-bets the flop he is lost on the turn. Thus, those are the HH's he needs to start examining.

that's because you are often facing a stronger range on the turn. that doesn't make it wrong to double barrel as a bluff; you just need to make sure that these conditions are met:

1) an overcard to the board falls on the turn which doesn't complete draws or turn draws into pair+draws
2) you turn an OESD or flush draw and villain can have a reasonable amount of 2nd pair/draws in his range.
3) you have a plan when your bet is called or raised

I'm sure that greatly contributed to it.

This is key. Cut down the number of tables you play and think more deeply about each decision. I'll plan on making a couple of videos for CR regarding the very issues we are addressing here (the combination of flop play and turn play) since it's pretty clear that this is an area where people struggle. I'll also make a few more posts on this topic in this thread.

Right on. I went ahead and ran a filter for when I c-bet the flop and c-bet the turn:



Winning at 424.84 ptbb/100, so who cares what my success rate is.

yeah but isn't your winrate likely going to be really high when you double barrel because you have big hands a decent proportion of the time? I think it may be more informative to filter based on when you double barrel and don't have , say, TPTK or better.

Can you make a filter for the above, but both IP and OOP?

Right on. I went ahead and ran a filter for when I c-bet the flop and c-bet the turn:
So did I (turncbet ~50%)


That is true!

I think it may be more informative to filter based on when you double barrel and don't have , say, TPTK or better.

-62BB/100 (252 hands) if 2barreld with just highcards and/or draws etc.
Still much more "profitable" than c/folding...