As long as i am not tilted, playing a decent game and is able to continue to put my money in +EV situations the answer is yes i will keep reloading.

When i started out playing i had a stop loss of 3 buyins for the first 2-3 years, but that isnt the case anymore. Instead i am honest with myself in assessing if the game is still good, am i tilting, tired or in some other way unable tocontinue playing good poker. That is the parameters i use to choose to continue playing or not. I have been ****ing sick of poker after losing 1 buyin a certain night and made the decision to drive home, or i can be down 5 buyins and feel fine continue playing.

as someone who wins around 7 bigs at lower blind levels, i'm extremely curious on adjustments that could/should be made to make our chips WMDs. please teach me oh lord of the face squids, harbinger of recreationing, keeper of the thermals

IME, have the whales covered and have position on them, 3! big (preferably with big pairs), b/b/j. Somewhat higher-variance route is to 3! strong but not top 2% hands like 99+/AJ+, which can get dicey post-flop but still profitable. I prefer the former. Oh, and you need to be at their table to begin with, so by all means hunt them down - get a table change.

Squid has more experience in this than me though, would also like to hear what he has to say.

Being able to improve from 7bb to 9bb is probably not as simple as adjustments contained in 2 sentences, or even 2 paragraphs.

If you think it is, good luck.

In the first place, I think the past few posts are in response to LordRiverRat's question about adjusting to a player with a very high PFR and correspondingly wide range.

Secondly, I think it is reasonably likely that a non-crushing winning player could boost their win rate against a typical field from 7bb/hr to 9bb/hr by making a simple adjustment: not paying off as often on the river. This is probably the number one biggest leak in most non-crushing players' games. Hours and hours of slow win can disappear with one bad judgment in a spot that is typically underbluffed.

Perhaps, or perhaps not. I do know, however, that some of my biggest wins (and those of others like me) have come from playing with whales. Surely that boosted my winrate, although by how much is unquantifiable.

"Not paying off as often on the river" is only accomplished by solid metering of ranges. And that's not a "pick it up in a weekend" skill.
So while you're likely not wrong, it's not that simple to implement.

Jots - I dont want to get into a whole strat discussion thing here. Obviously people at 1/2 and 1/3 specifically are doing some good things by winning 7 bigs per hour. However, I think the top of what someone can win is significantly higher. So these guys are missing some critical aspects to their game.

I have found that the last thing players get good at is making accurate reads AND making the appropriate adjustments (this imo is a key to WOMAD).

I have yet to see a middling player (one that is winning decent at 1/3. We are not discussing 2/5 w/r here) do much to really take care of biz when an opportunity occurs. Whether it be in the form of ramped up aggression, or picking off ultralight. However, I have seen stone cold killers do both really really well.

What does WOMAD stand for Squid?

sorry - weapons of mass destruction

Did you learn nothing from the Bush years? We call them WMDs and they don't exist

As many in this forum will attest to I have never claimed to be smart

You short stack 2/5 so I doubt you are using your chips as WMD's.

I was going to guess WOMAD - nomadic woman. Thought it was a dating tip disguised as poker...or maybe to win in poker, one must first master the dating world.

It's deep...very deep.

I take it back. I suppose accurate read and proper adjustment would be sufficient to increase WR from 7bb to 9bb.

But I am sure we all already know that and applying in our game.

So if someone is already applying the secret to increasing WR by 2bb, then why is that person looking to increase from 7bb to 9bb?

Is it because it is complicated? Perhaps.

Regarding a whale's impact on winrate ... it kind of depends on what kind of whale and what kind of 'adjustments' the rest of the table is making.

If the whale is raising huge a lot and playing heads up pots against whoever decides to call him, or just jamming it in and basically playing showdowns, then a rec-grinder is probably not going to see too much of a bump. Most of them fold too much in those spots and wait for a top tier hand to get it in with. This is especially true if they have position on the whale as they get scared of people acting behind them. They're going to do better with the whale on their left so they can close the action.

If it's a situation where the whale makes it $20-30 preflop and the table goes 4-6 handed to the flop, then I'd expect most rec-grinders increase their WR more. Maybe to double or triple their base winrate. You basically end up playing larger pots than normal, but still get to see a street or two. So if they have the guts/stack/balls to play "normally" they'll see a decent bump.

IME you can 3bet LAG whales wide and they'll call then overfold flops big time. It's pretty hilarious to watch. One guy over the course of a session folded the flop to my cbet many times and the last one it was like he woke up and said "wait, I've given you like $200 doing this!"

Oh brother....

Anyway, I play most stakes up to 5/10 these days (NLHE and 5-card PLO), whichever game happens to look the best. If that means I sit at 1/3 with the max buy in (where I play, $500) with a couple known balugas, I do. It's important to play with these mythical creatures while you can because they don't normally last long in the poker ecosystem.

And I don't always ss 2/5 these days, just at average/below average tables. I always buy in deeper in good games.

How are you finding the whales live. Are you getting up and watching games? Tipping floors? Got other reg buddies who will text you?

That's honestly what I should be doing. But unless my table is bad, I just don't wanna constantly creep every other table like a sex offender every session I play. I see a few regs do that and I think it's so bad for the games. Worse than constantly seat changing.

Deep sure. At 100 bb 1/3 games, if you do that sometimes they just shove over your cbet and you just light 1/3 of your stack on fire. At least deeper you can see a turn.

#20sasianproblems

Shouldn't be that difficult. Get up and grab a water and peek over at the stacks and players as you walk by. If the game looks like good action then throw your name on the list.

It depends. In a small room/pool everyone knows the whales. In a home game we're actively inviting them and *everyone* knows them. We'd reserve the seat that one of them liked for a while even after the game started because he's so terrible at poker.

In a larger room/casino ... sometimes you can tell by the action/stacks at a given table. You'll often only get a few seconds to decide between a couple of open seats (if you're lucky enough to even had the option). So it's really handy to be able to tell really quickly.


We have coffee/snack stations in our local casinos, so I'll get up and walk over there, while scanning the room. I'll also stop by and chat with some of the other players that I know to get a read on the other tables. Not a big fan of just creeping on a random game.

Reminds me of one of the cringiest poker moments I've seen.

Early in my poker playing days I was playing the $40NL game at Oceans Eleven and there was this guy walking from table to table scanning all the games(all $40nl tables).

When he passed by my table the dealer says hi and asks how he's doing and he says, "Good, just rounding"

Rounders had just come out on video not too long before this lol.

Once you have played long enough in a particular poker room, you will learn who the whales are. Then you get a table change to play with them whenever you see them in the room. It’s a hunt.