Just to add in hand 1 the stats I had on the original raiser made him look pretty aggro and I was hoping he would come back over the top. Turned out it wernt his stats though so I prefer a 4bet.

Hand 4 - I don't like barreling the turn card here as it's connected to the rest of the board. If we assume he's not calling a flop cbet oop here with anything less than an 8 then hands like 89, 9T, JT and better arent folding.

Hand 1 the main thing that stands out to me is that 9 on the turn doesn't really change much. So it seems like a raise/fold spot. I might also 50% pot raise the flop. (Because I do this with draws and bluffs too.)

4B pre would be my line also, but I don't mind it if you have stats. (Whether right or wrong!

Hand 2: I dont currently have ATs in my utg1 range (not 100% anyway.), but that is preference, and I don't mind how hand was played.

Hand 3: don't mind it. Make sure the range you had him on though hits the river big. Make sure it makes sense, because its a great bluff card.

Hand 4: if the plan is CB/fold, then I would CB more. I'd probably CB more regardless. On the turn, I think it's a fold, but a slightly frustrating one.

I dont really like raising the flop in that spot in hand 1. Its going to be hard to get called by worse especially 3 way. I guess it might work if there were a dynamic going on or maybe against a short stacker who I thought could get it in light. I just think a raise forces everyone to only call with the top of their ranges.

Hand 2 ATs isnt an auto open for me but I do open it quite a bit especially if theres fish at the table which as I remember in this one there were but I still hadnt realized my HUD was playing up so very good chance there wasnt.

Still really unsure with the hand as yes he could have draws in his hand but does he bet them on the river? Im not sure a lot will.

Hand 3 obviously dont like the river card and I think a hand like QQ makes sense along with stuff like QJ etc.

Hand 4 I think Husker makes a very good point and on second thought not so sure that it is a good card to DB barrel on.




So did a little task in trying to add together the amounts of money that I have spewed in the past 7 days. Now Im talking pure and clear spews rather than marginal spots where Im not too sure what to do, Im talking spots where I clearly know what to do and deviate from what is clearly the correct option.

And the grand total is £325.75 or 6 1/2 Buyins which would infact put me in profit this month even though I have been running kind of bad.

The thing is though that I have been using the running bad as an excuse to get spewy and thats really not acceptable.

I wonder if someone could check my math in regards to 3/4betting optimal strategy please as something seems to be amiss.

I think I have the 3bet stuff right but it seems my 4bet working out could be out. I thought the magic number for someone folding to 4bet so we could bluff them was about 60% but it seems by my working out I get it closer to 67%.

Ive done 2 lots of workings outs. We open to 3bb and get 3bet to either 9 or 10bb by a villain not in the blinds. By my reckoning this means we have to defend our opens between 31-34% of the time. We then 4bet to either 21bb or 23bb depending on the size of the 3bet giving me around 66%.

1.5bb from the blinds. Open is 3bb and 3bet is 9bb. Risking 9bb to win 4.5bb (Pot Odds on bluff 4.5:9) Needs to work 9/(4.5+9) = 66.6%

Optimal defence is to defend with 33.4% of our opening range.

1.5bb from the blinds. Open is 3bb and 3bet is 10bb. Risking 10bb to win 4.5bb (Pot Odds on bluff 4.5:10) Needs to work 10/(4.5+10) = 69%

Optimal defence is to defend with 31% of our opening range.

4bet to 21bb risking 18bb to win(1.5bb Blinds+3bb Open+4.5bb 3bet)giving pots odds 9:18. Profitably bluff if the person folds more than 18/(18+9)=66.6%

4bet to 23bb risking 20bb to win(1.5bb Blinds+3bb Open+5bb 3bet) giving pot odds 9.5:20. Profitably bluff if the person folds more than 20/(20+9.5) =67%

If thats right that seems a very high amount to get them to fold when bluffing.

So if thats correct then if we face a 4bet to play optimally 33% of our 3bets need to be for value or ones that we are willing to 5bet bluff all in with so to also defend optimally we can fold the other 67% of the time.

Now that actually sounds more reasonable put like that as we are only ever 5betting with a pretty small range and if we are 3betting about 6% of the time(which I guess is maybe a tad high) then we are 5betting with about 2% of our range which is the very top of our range.

Still not sure where the 60% comes from maybe its from when 3bets and 4bets used to be generally bigger?

I think you're missing some dead bb's in the villain's 3bets here unless I'm misunderstanding your maths. In the previous example villain 3bet to 9bb but here you have him 3betting to 4.5bb and 5bb.

I like this better:
18/(18bb + 3bb open + 1.5bb blinds + 9bb 3bet )
18/31.5 = 57%

If you did mean for villain to be 3betting to only 5bb then my apologies but if he did then you probably wouldn't need to 4bet to 21bb and could just go to something smaller like 15bb.

I think that looking at 'optimal' defense frequencies for 3bet/4bet wars in this way is okay but it really doesn't give you the whole picture and anything we can come up with using such a simple method will likely be far from optimal. At the very least though it can give you an idea of whether or not you are folding too much to 3 or 4bets.

Thanks a lot for that, knew I must have messed up somewhere. You are right about the sizings of the 3bets and I've gone for it in $ rather than BB, must have had a mental block somewhere along the line. Will start again on the math.

Like you say just trying to get a good idea of how much I should be defending because at the moment I have a feeling I'm 4betting in bad spots using bad hands and may be folding a touch too much to 3bets.

Going to try and get in to ranges soon but need to get the math pretty clear in my head first.

Ahh that makes sense I kept thinking that I must be missing something from another post but now I understand.

Once you get into the ranges, Cardrunners EV is really awesome for that kind of stuff. It's a bit difficult to get the hang of the software in the beginning but even I got the hang of it after awhile. Unfortunately for me I used up my free trial and I think it costs like $90. I plan on buying it eventually.

While I was still in the trial I managed to work out some pretty optimal ranges for 3bet/4bet wars vs 40bb effective stacks around the blinds. It really opened my eyes a lot. First, I realized that most of the 40bbers that I face are absolutely horrible and very exploitable but also that if a 40bber actually has a solid 3bet/stackoff strategy there is really nothing you can do against them other than tighten up your opening ranges.

I strongly recommend that software.

Yeah I actually have a license for it but have only really used it sporadically as never completely got the hang of it. I didn't think about using it for this but I guess that makes a lot of sense.

I've used allin expert to do a lot of work with shortstackers but at the moment I am rapidly learning that the ones I see at this level seem to have a 4bet stackoff range that is pretty tight. I have been called light a couple of times but havnt seen much worse than TT+ when calling a 4bet shove.

Is it worth the dosh?

I've got Flopzilla, and use that a load. I don't know if I have the time or patience for CRev. The trial is a bit restrictive.

I think its worth it. One cool thing about these types of software (crev, all-in expert, poker stove etc)is they never break since they aren't effected by changes to poker sites except for maybe importing a specific hand history but even then it's pretty easy to manually put in the info.

I found that you could do quite a bit with the trial. Iirc, there was a limit to the game tree size and a couple of features were restricted but you could still do a lot more with it than you can with flopzilla.

I'm going to plan to get it sometime in February Mart, so maybe then we can plan to get like a crev study group going or something.

Yeah sounds good. As you know the numbers are a big area of my game that I really struggle to get my head around. I think thats one of the reasons I want to do some of this stuff with the 3/4/5 bet ranges and %`s just so I can start to get my head around them.

I probably have a semi grasp on stuff like that while at the tables but I really dont know the math behind stuff and I would think it will help me quite a bit if I did.

Just adding a bit about CREV is that the few times I have used it has been when I have imported a HH to try and work out if my play was +EV which is a pretty cool feature. I think if you had the time then spending half an hour a day just messing with a tool like that has got to help your game.

Ok, I'll consider getting it soon.

One thing I've wanted to work out math wise is what degree of confidence do you need to have where folding KK PF vs an über nits 3B/4B/5B becomes a realistic option.

I've had 2 hands this month where I convinced myself he had AA. The first I called, and he had AA.

The second, there was a shorty already all-in and the nit who reraised had a full stack behind. I felt exactly the same feeling as hand 1, so I folded this time. And it was AA again!

Obv, I don't want to fold KK often. Which led me to wondering what degree of certainty I'd need for it to be ok.

Apologies for ramble. On phone, and going to bed.

I guess its all villain dependant. I dont have a great habit of folding KK pre flop but one thing I started to notice at NL100 was that when I got KK all in pre from EP I was running in to AA a lot. Its not a spot that comes up a great deal and I can only think of about one instance in the last 12 months where I have actually folded KK pre. At NL25 and below I would have to have some soul read on someone I would think to be able to fold it pre simply because some people will occasionally get it in with AK/QQ in spots they probably shouldnt and once we have 4bet and get shoved on folding would be a mistake maths wise unless you could say for sure he always has AA.

Just had a really great session tonight with Klairic discussing a lot of my play over the past week. We talked a lot about the pure spews that I have been doing and also about some of the thin edges that I am pushing that may be fine in a vacuum but given I have a tendancy to get frustrated when I lose hands in some flipping situations they may actually be spots that I might be best avoiding until tilt is totally under control.

The spew is killing me and I really need to cut it out just havnt fathomed a way to do it consistantly yet.

Right trying again with the maths just so I can get it straight and move on to ranges and things.

Facing Or Making A 3bet Not From The Blinds

1.5bb from the blinds. Open is 3bb and 3bet is 9bb. Risking 9bb to win 4.5bb (Pot Odds on bluff 4.5:9) Needs to work 9/(4.5+9) = 66.6%

Optimal defence is to defend with 33.4% of our opening range.

1.5bb from the blinds. Open is 3bb and 3bet is 10bb. Risking 10bb to win 4.5bb (Pot Odds on bluff 4.5:10) Needs to work 10/(4.5+10) = 69%

Optimal defence is to defend with 31% of our opening range.

4bet to 21bb risking 18bb to win(1.5bb Blinds+3bb Open+9bb 3bet)giving pots odds 13.5:18. Profitably bluff if the person folds more than 18/(18+13.5)=57%

4bet to 23bb risking 20bb to win(1.5bb Blinds+3bb Open+10bb 3bet) giving pot odds 14.5:20. Profitably bluff if the person folds more than 20/(20+14.5) =58%

Making Or Facing A 3bet From The BB

1.5bb from the blinds. Open is 3bb and 3bet is 10bb. Risking 9bb to win 4.5bb (Pot Odds on bluff 4.5:9) Needs to work 9/(4.5+9) = 66.6%

Optimal defence is to defend with 33.4% of our opening range.

1.5bb from the blinds. Open is 2.5bb and 3bet is 8bb. Risking 7bb to win 4bb (Pot Odds on bluff 4:7) Needs to work 7/(4+7) = 63.6%

Optimal defence is to defend with 36.4% of our opening range.

4bet to 23bb risking 20bb to win(1.5bb Blinds+3bb Open+10bb 3bet)giving pots odds 14.5:20. Profitably bluff if the person folds more than 20/(20+14.5)=58%

4bet to 19bb risking 16.5bb to win(1.5bb Blinds+2.5bb Open+8bb 3bet) giving pot odds 12:16.5. Profitably bluff if the person folds more than 16.5/(16.5+12) =58%



Again not 100% sure I am doing it correct from the blinds as I wasnt sure if I should include our BB because Im thinking that is already in the pot and is no longer ours.

I have also been thinking a bit about small 3bets and how players react to them after watching a RunItOnce video by James Hudson. I was thinking of playing about with 3bet sizings but at the moment Im not sure its the best idea but I thought if I were to 3bet to say 8bb against a normal open then the % difference may be bigger but its only about 3% which seems minimal and could be problamatic unless I can play really well postflop because I would expect to get a lot more calls by making it cheaper. Again though against the right opponent, prefrably one who plays fit or fold in a 3bet pot, that is the idea to force villains in to having a calling range OOP.

Will be glad when this month is over. Poker is such a strange game, I feel like I have done more work on my game than in any other month of probably the last 3 months yet the results just havnt come to fruition. I know I have run pretty bad, played pretty bad and spewed quite a bit but Im not at just 5 winning sessions out of my last 22.

1 Session played today and feel I play pretty well. I avoided a couple of marginal spots I may have normally gone after and there wasnt a single hand that I can say I spewed at all. Session finished a buy in down after a fish cold called a 3bet with A9s and flopped bottom pair and a FD against my KK and I put him all in on the turn for him to call and hit his ace. Good result getting the call just need to get the actual results to turn.

Anyway this is a hand that I maybe could have played better/differently:-

Villain is 25/10 after a small number of hands. Thinking he might raise a set on the flop or turn and also maybe I should go bigger on the turn but if the FD misses Im still not shoving that big an amount.

I know a few days ago I mentioned about breaking some habits while playing and that I were looking in to ways to try and get out of those habits.

Apparently one of the first things that you can do is to get them down on paper so I can keep checking back and also so they are public so everyone knows about them.

Bad Habits I Need To Break

1.Checking HEM during Sessions- Im not as bad as I were with this but I still do it occasionally. The hope is to get in to a habit eventually where I only check say once a week but that is hard to do while playing on a stake and also going over a lot of HH`s.

2. Playing Back At People Without Good Reason- Im pretty bad with this one. The other day I spewed off half a buy in when a reg limp/called pre and then raised me on a paired board and showed up with AA. I also had another where I had T7s on say a 322 board and get raised in a blind battle and decided to 3bet and have to fold when he shoved. Easily my most expensive bad habit.

3. Folding Weak Hands To River Raises- Im getting better with this one as I seem to be realizing that people are raising the river with only nuttish hands. Tied in with this one is not believing when people only take lines that suggest I am beat. Again though not as bad as I used to be.

4. Not Being As Aggro With Short Stackers- This one is a good/bad habit as a lot of my play against SS`s is probably +EV in a vacuum but as like the other day when I lost 5 all in hands in a row it does affect my mindset. I also need to realize that although the shorties will 3bet light and fold to 4bets, when I 3bet and they shove for the most part I wont see worse than JJ+/AK.

5. Not Being Results Oriented- Again this one is a pretty bad one for me. Im not getting my head around the fact that I need to play each hand separately and play the hand the best I can but in doing that I will also take in to account the result of each hand which will then again determine my mindset. I still need to keep to the first part but need to cut out the second part and just realize that I can actually win a hand by playing it correctly rather than winning money in the hand. Sometimes I can win a hand by folding like I should have done in a couple of examples of hands above.

With regards to 2. I occasionally get into spots where I barrel 3 streets against a tard, and wonder why he never folds. But I think bluffing an entire stack off occasionally is a good sign that you're playing aggressive and looking for spots. Obv, the cant work all the time, but it's important to stay aggro.

AK

I like your line here, I may even half bet flop too, does the same job? Against that villain I am obv looking to get value, but think the double barrel is enough. Reason I may half bet pot is down to how bankroll is at that exact moment and any other villain reads. Also means I am not commited to the shove. Downside is not getting value when we have best hand.

This is what is going on in my mind anyway

I like this post

This is something that I just cannot do. I've managed to do it for a session but I find myself just getting distracted by my own curiosity to the point where I'm trying to make estimates as to how I'm doing. I don't feel the need to look at weekly or monthly graphs though. If you know how you've done daily then you kinda already know in a nutshell what your week or month is looking like.

It's a good idea to either be able to stop looking at your results during sessions or deal with the underlying issue which is usually tilt. If you don't look when you're running bad you might be less likely to tilt but then you still haven't learned to manage that tilt better. You've just learned to find another way to avoid being tilted. Jared Tendler talks a lot about this sort of behavior in his book and basically says that tackling the tilt problem is best for the long run. I mean, if you can look at your session results and see that you are down 2-3 buyins and not feel tilted then great. What about 4-5 or 6+? Probably more challenging but strengthening your mental game is probably going to be better for the long term. Avoiding looking at results to me is more of a band aid solution to a bigger problem.

Couldn't agree more with this paragraph. It's interesting because if you stop playing back at regs when you basically rep nothing they will keep doing it with you. So it kinda starts out as a neutral EV situation like AA vs KK so long as you are not spewing more than the average reg. But once you scale it back and spew less you start winning in that trade off. Dunno if that even makes sense lol but it seems to right now.

Agree with this one too and feel like it sort of falls into the spew category as well, just more passive spew rather than aggro.

I think I am super aggro with short stacks and can probably do better if I relax a bit, however from a mindset point of view I kinda like increasing the variance for the shorties. They like to 3bet me wide so I like to play back super wide too by flatting their 3bets and shoving over flop cbets a lot as well as 4betting them a good amount.

The way I see it, 40bb swings effect a shorty more than they effect me on average since as a full stack 40bb here and there isn't a big deal but to that shorty its a lol full buyin!

I think increasing the variance for them is a good thing as it will more than likely cause them to start spewing against you. Had a shorty call off his stack in a 3bet pot with AJ high the other day where I shoved over a cbet with AQ high

One thing I can't figure out is they never fold top pair post flop but whenever I have something like top pair sorta good kicker they always have me dominated ;(


This part that I bolded is gold man. I feel like I should ship you $$ for this but I probably won't cuz I just cashed out! Putting that statement on a sticky note on your monitor or just keeping it nearby and read it out loud during a session is probably a great idea.

But I think that being results oriented is another example of the existence of underlying issues. Bad results trigger tilt. Consistent run bad can put you off your A game and cause you to play hands differently compared to if you were running good. The other day I had a pretty swingy session where nothing was going right.

Every time I had KK it felt like an A was gonna hit the flop. This one hand came up where I had KK, some fish cold called and a reg squeezed from the blinds. I knew in the back of my mind that flatting to keep the fish in was probably the best play but I was feeling so negative about an A hitting the flop so I went ahead and 4bet and everybody folded.

I think I need to remind myself there that Aces don't flop very often especially in 3bet pots due to card removal.

Now I feel like I'm writing a book in your thread. Hope you don't mind and you are more than welcome to add a chapter to my thread.

Cheers

I struggled for a long time with this one. If you can get to the point where you can do it succesfully, it will add at least a +1-2bb/100 to your winrate, more if you tilt/spew easily.

In today's game's where edges are much smaller than 5 years ago, tilt control is a really big factor in winrate compared to 5 years ago. People know tilt effects winrates but most don't make a concious effort to improve it, they just hope it goes away. Once you can get to the point where you can go 2 weeks or even a month without looking at results, your game becomes so much better.

The best tip I can give you to help you stop looking at results is baby steps. Try to stop looking at results until an hour thru a session, do that for a dozen sessions or so and then extend it to the end of each session. Do that for a dozen or so sessions and change extend it to every other session, then every day and gradually extend it longer and longer. Once you get past that initial hump it really becomes much easier, for me that hump was the 1st 3-4 days. That was the point where I didn't care anymore and was unable to accurately guess my results. Thats how I did it and what I do now is starting balance at the start of each month and look at the balance at the end of the month.

Also get rid of any $$$ figures, bb/100 or ev/100 in Hm2/PT4, whatever you are using, do this in all report tabs so you don't accidentally look.

I stopped updating my SNE thread because I realized updating results daily was tilting me, since I wasn't used to looking at it that often. Also if you have a good relationship with your staker, he shouldn't have any problems allowing you to gradually update your results at longer intervals, especially if it will help with tilt control.

1) I found this to be easy. I just stopped doing it one day and never really had a problem with it. Ive kinda gone the opposite way now where it tilts me if I accidentally click on hem during a session and see my results.

2) I'm pretty sure this is something your coaching will help with.

3) I downloaded all my hands from hem where I was raised on the river and took them into work to look at the results (I knew it was gonna be a slow day ). If you do the same then you'll realise it's 2 pair + most of the time.

4) Meh, fukk the shorties

5) This is something everyone struggles with to some extent. I think it's only a very few people who can get over it. There are times where I've had a losing session and thought I played better than 95% of my winning sessions but the problem is when variance drags on for a bit and then it gets pretty difficult to maintain that sort of thought process.

Keep on writing, it makes for a good read. I always find it strange that in what is an ultimatley results based game that you can win a hand just by making the right decisions. Its something I have never really got my head around.

I will check your thread out when I get a minute.