Hand 2 with AQdd what are stack sizes preflop (i think you should start including them when relevant). I'm peeling flop there or raising. I kinda like havin AQ there cuz we block AK and KQ , add that to his whack sizing and I'm either floating or raising

Thanks!

I was really confused by why he bet so big on such a dry board if he had a strong hand... It's not like there's a manic in the pot

2/5, me and PRFR were about 700. Other caller about 500. Only the villian in question was short

Eff 500 (Will include from now on)

Are you more likely to peel if stacks are deeper?

Yah I was jus askin about stack sizes in the 66 hand bc villain in the hand only had 225 or somethin on flop so thought it might've been 1/3 or somethin. As is its a pretty weird tough spot with 66. I don't mind your fold. Doesn't rly look like a spot someone would bluff. But then again, wouldn't he limp shove his bigger pairs preflop? I would think maybe he got lucky with a 5 and mostly fold unless I felt he was overly nervous/still.

The AQ hand I would call or raise flop like I said. The deeper the better yeah bc we have more maneuverability on later streets but 100bbs is deep enough here.

Oh, btw, ppl generally use the shorthand "PFR" as preflop raisor instead of "PRFR" so you can start usin it if Ya want

Nice fold w the QQ otf lol lame spot too

A couple of weird spots from last night:

HH0

Went to my favorite restaurant Bellagio to eat, and planed on playing some poker while eating. I bought in, hadn't posted, then was told by food runner that Noddles is closed for a couple of days. I went on tilt and racked up right away.

HH1

Went to Aria. 1/3 loose passive table, I have been opening big yet getting action -_-

I open EP 15 with 99, two calls, eff 300

Flop ($45) 78Kss
I bet 25
MP calls
LP folds

Turn ($95) 8o
I check
MP bets 18
I call

River ($131) 7o
I check
He bets 18
I pay to see his hand
He shows K8o

HH2

Same table

Four limps to me in BB with QQ, I make it 25
They all call, five-way eff 300

Flop ($125) 5TJr
I bet 75
EP calls (passive fish)
MP calls (loose fish, over-values hand/bets thin)

Turn ($350) Ao
I check
EP checks
MP bets 100
I tank call
EP calls

River ($550) 7o
I check
EP checks
MP bets 100/puts me and EP AI
I sigh call
EP calls and shows 55 for flopped set
MP turns over KQo for turned straight
Top top of their ranges

HH3

Same table

I open UTG AQ 15
LP calls (tight)
SB calls (tight so far)
eff 300

Flop ($45) Q53
I bet 25
LP folds
SB calls

Turn ($95) 2
SB leads 25
I make it 75
He calls

River ($245) 4
SB insta-shoves 160ish
I tank
I ask him "Do you have a straight or a flush?"
He doesn't hear me at first (far from me), player next to him relays the message to him (cute lol)
He gives no response
I ask "Straight flush?!"
No response, but seems somewhat tense
I call
He unhappily turns over KQ

Mega tilt.

This guy is stacking everyone at the table by calling big bets/raises with dominated hands/draws but somehow managing to get there. Also GII pre with AA vs KK/QQ/etc and all hold up. Basically running like god. I am victim too and have been trying to get him

2/5, he has 3k+, I have 700
He's in BB, one limp I make it 30 with A7, he calls

Flop ($60) KK9
He checks
I pot
He calls

Turn ($180) 5
He checks
I pot
He calls

River ($540) Q
He checks
I hero check because he normally leads when his draw gets there, doubt he is checking a flush two streets

He hit his four outer otr with KQ

Pulled juice on his chair when he was away. Sorry couldn't help

LOL

you should be betting that river and also gum obv. works way better than juice

I'm not sure how this guy was playin preflop as far as if he was reraising a lot or always just calling but in any case i think 30s too big with our hand. 15-20 seems a lot better bc we don't mind multiway action with our hand type (would do that same with small-med pairs) and we don't have a nutted hand (like if he is super loose and we have AJ+/TT+ I wouldn't mind jus raising whatever you think he'll call, so 30-60 in that case seems good). With A7cc here tho i would still make it 15-20 even with the limp.

I don't think potting the flop accomplishes anything useful for us here vs a regular sized bet. We're headsup in a situation where our ace high is often good against (presumably?) a wide big blind loose running good range on KK9cc. I like a bet to get most people off of 22-88 right then and there, to get value from the inferior draws (str8 draws/flush draws), and to start the barrel process to get him off of 9x/stubborn 88-66/better ace highs by river. However, betting like 25-30 handles all these things and is better because 1)the smaller bet size encourages calls from some of his fringe hands that we plan to barrel off by the river anyways 2)he might fold some of his weakest draws like QTo/JTo/JQo to the large bet and we don't want that 3)we really **** ourselves when he actually has a king and decides to check raise large against our pot sized bet where if we jus bet 25-30 the check raise will be a lot easier to maneuver against with lots more money behind

As played we hit 5c turn and he checks again, at this point given that he's a fish and all that I don't mind the pot sized bet for max value and to set up a river shove. When he calls and the river is the Qc im jamming or betting small for value. Def wouldn't check back. But u had a read and you were right, nice one

fyp

gl, subbed

Maybe I should... At least that way I wouldn't have heard him saying "She bluffed into me!" as I make an angry exit. Dang god definitely blesses the ignorant by giving them luck.

Good idea. Will bring gum from now on.

Pre - Almost sure he'd call with any suited hands, preferably two clubs obviously

Flop - Also sure he'd call with any two clubs

Agree I was too hasty to beat him though... Your way sounds more +EV long term

I can't believe neither of you bet that KK95Qcccc hand!?

Both afraid of JcTc?

I don't know why he didn't (prob wasn't thinking)
I didn't bet because of live read

Played the Aria NYE tourney and finished 3rd. Did the NYE countdown at the final table.

Hadn't played a tournament for a while, and I noticed I had significantly tightened up after playing cash games for so long (back in my tournament days I was recklessly aggressive... I had to be unbelievably lucky to ever cash one of those tournaments).

In this tournament I was playing nitty. Could be the first tournament and I didn't made a move at all.

Was card dead and short-stacked (10-30bbs) most of the time. But was lucky in the sense that whenever I needed a life-saving card, it came.

A couple of hands:

168 entries, pay 15.

HH1

Early stage, ~150 left. I have 30bbs, eff ~30bbs

Folds to BTN (loose but has a fold button) who raises to 2.5bb
SB (abc) calls
I am in BB with 68s.
Debated between 3b and flatting, ended up flatting.
My thoughts were:
1) I don't have many chips to make plays;
2) Really not sure whether BTN is more likely to fold or call;
3) My hand is good enough to see a flop.
Missed flop and c/f.

HH2

~120 left, my stack ~20bb

Folds to me in LP with AJs and I raise to 2.5bb, BB (loose player from above) calls

Flop KQ7r
I cbet half pot, he calls

Turn 4o
He checks
Thought about shoving... but decided to give up, conserve my last several bbs and hope for a comeback

River 5
He leads half pot
I fold

HH3

~100 left, I have ~10bb. Have been card dead and looking to shove with any pair or big A

EP raises to 2.5bb
folds to me and I shove with 33
NTA (scared money) tanks forever then folds TT
EP tank folds
I tell scared money I have QQ

Later, folds to me in SB with A9o
Scared money is in BB
I shove ~11bb
He tank folds AQ with ~5bb lol

HH4

Biggest life saver

~100 left, I have ~16bb. Haven't played a hand for a long time, table is tight, a single raise often gets the blinds/ante

I open EP JQo to 2.5bb, one call from a big stack

Flop K98r
I cbet half pot
He puts me AI

I sign call, he shows AA FML
I bink a T otr

HH5

V is young Asian guy, tournament reg, competent, can be loose/tight depends on situation

First time, I sucked out on him:
He is big stack and has been active.
He opens UTG 2.5bb, folds to me in LP and I shove ~10bb with AQ. He calls with AK, Q otf to save me.

Second time, he sucked out on me and knocked me out of the tournament:
Final table, three-handed,
I am the shortest stack with ~15bbs, he has ~25bbs, the third guy monster stack.
He opens OTB to 2.5bb, SB folds, I shove KQo
He calls with JQo and hits a J otr

---

Folded AJo, A7s type of hands a couple of times when someone shoves before me. Felt these hands are good candidates when I am the first to shove, but bad hands to call a shove with.

---

3rd place pay was 3.5k, but I didn't have all my action so only pocketed 2k.

Still was very helpful as I am having a 3k+ downswing from cash. Longest losing streak ever... Barely won a single session in the entire month of Dec 2014

A big news came out of the science world yesterday: Heads-up limit hold’em poker is solved.

A group of scientists at the University of Alberta announced that they have developed a computer program - named Cepheus - that is unbeatable.

Some facts:

- It is only HU, and limit. No-limit and/or multi-way (three players+) poker still remains a challenge.

- The program achieved this by “thinking of all possible decision points, and every possible action [that could take place from those points]," explains Michael Bowling, one of the authors. For example, the program might think: "what if I raise here, instead of playing randomly, how much more money or less money would I win?" If it decides to play randomly, and loses money, then it goes back and computes how much money it would have won if it had raised instead. That amount then gets stored as a regret value, he says. "And so it computes that regret number for every single action, of every single place that it gets to make that decision." So, every time it plays a hand, the program shifts its strategy so that it starts to do what it regretted not doing in past games more often. And, as it updated itself, Cepheus eventually approached what Bowling calls "perfect play."

- The training phase took 70 days, and a cluster of 200 computers, each armed with 32 GB of ram and 24 central processing units. Originally, the authors thought they’d need four petabytes of disk space [1,000,000 gigabytes], just to store the solution after solving the game, but they were able to optimize data storage.

- Authors’ thoughts on three player game: "There’s no strategy in a three player game that can guarantee that it doesn’t lose because it’s actually possible that the other two players in the game might gang up on it." Collusion is illegal in a competitive game, but it’s hard to quantify what that actually means, Bowling says. Some people might do it without even realizing it.

My takes:

- According to the authors, “the computer can’t be losing - it has to be either breaking even or winning”. They didn’t say “winning”, but “not losing”. That means even such a resourceful and powerful computer program could end up breaking even in the long run… Then how about our trivial human brain power? Does that mean some professional poker players may end up breaking even?

- The program statistically proved positional advantage, by demonstrating that the button has an advantage of “.088 of a big blind per game."

Links:

The publication: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/347/6218/145
The project: http://poker.srv.ualberta.ca/