great thread! have read most of it..

where would you say you were, skill wise before you started crushing lolive?

Haha well you can read my thought process on the first page of this thread compared to the last and see what changed I guess but I obviously have learned a lot in a year

St. Louis is fk'ing freezing!!!!!!

IM HOME IN LA. Vacation was awesome!

Let's see, poker stuff...

Played some 1/3 NL with the girlfriend in Tunica. Taught her the rules starting as basic as hand rankings and gave her a strategy to buy in for 70bb, raise 5x preflop with any 2 cards J or higher, then bet pot on every street no matter the texture. She crushed the game.

Back in LA, since I left my car at the Bike and got dropped off there I went in to play for a bit, bought in for $480 (the contents of my wallet), doubled up with AAxx AIPF, then lost with KKxx vs AAxx AIPF in a straddled pot, guy raises to $130, I 3-bet with $900 total with rainbow KKxx.

I think the 3-bet is OK but I'll need to double check... could be confirmation bias but I feel in live PLO people will only continue with AAxx, so it would be better to 3-bet with Axxx instead of KKxx for blocker value.

-$477 in 1 hour.

LA total: $64561, 362 hours.

Teaser: noting this before I forget. I'm going to write a piece on confirmation bias/selective memory, variance, and how players perceive how lucky they are. Talked to multiple players who I think are pretty good but are confused in this area IMO.

On the topic of variance and perceived luck:

This one is pretty TLDR but I think it's one of my better posts.

OK so first off, the vast majority of poker players (I'd say close to 90% of regulars) think they're better than they are, and most of them think they run under EV. Of course some of them are right, but many are wrong... it's basic human nature to feel entitlement, etc. But how do these guys get confused?

Because they think like my imaginary friend Phil. Phil has been playing poker on and off for a couple years, and recently convinced himself that he's the best 2/5 reg in his entire casino and went pro. Over the course of his first 2 months as a professional, Phil played 300 hours and won $9000 total for a winrate of $30/hr. The following hands occurred vs. decent regs at 5/10 NLHE. For the sake of simplicity, let's say they're the only big hands he played:

1) Phil got AA vs. KK all in preflop 5 times for 100bb (total pot of 200bb, or $2000) each time and won 3, lost 2.
2) Phil got all in on the flop with top set vs. a naked OESD 4 times and won all 4 in for $2000 pots.
3) Phil lost a $8000 pot with AK vs JJ on AAJKr all in on the turn. Phil played another similar hand I will describe later.
4) the rest of the Phil's hands in his standard poker routine where he ran at normal EV.

Phil looked back at these 2 months and complained to me, "man Aesah, if I didn't get 1-outered in that AK vs JJ hand and 2-outered in those two AA vs. KK hands, I'd be up $12,000 more for a winrate of $70/hr! I can't believe how bad I run! And even worse I would be up like $30,000 more if Aces full of Kings qualified for the BBJ like it does at my regular casino, so sick!"

I told him, "Phil, you don't run nearly as bad as you think." Phil pondered his AIEV for a bit, then replied, "OK so I had AA vs. KK 5 times and I should expect to lose 1 I guess, so I'm really only down $2000 in AIEV here not $4000 like I previously thought. But the 1-outer on the turn was pretty sick for the $8000 pot so I'm still down $10,000 in AIEV, although not as bad as $12,000 that's still running sick bad!"

I said "Phil dude did you forget about how you won all 4 of those hands with top set vs OESDs?" He snapped back, "well I was supposed to win those, I had the best hand..." after pausing to think about it, he mumbled, "hmmm... actually I guess I'm only supposed to win 3 out of 4 of those, huh? Meaning I ran $2000 above EV in these 4 hands... so that cancels out with the AA vs. KK hands, but I'm still $8000 below EV due to that 1-outer hand in that huge pot!"

Then I reminded him of that hand I alluded to earlier- when he won a $8,000 pot with 88 vs A3 on 833r. At this point Phil got angry with me and walked off shouting, "dude, I got him to put his money in drawing to 1 out, I deserved to win that hand! I run worse than everyone in this casino and you know it!". Sadly, Phil couldn't comprehend that both of these two hands were huge coolers and he could have been on either side. So in the group #3 hands of "massive coolers", he basically ran at neutral EV despite running $8000 below in AIEV. (And that's not even factoring in that Phil hit a 4-outer on the turn in the first place on the AK vs. JJ hand.)

Poor Phil. Still thinks he's cursed with horrendous luck when in reality it seems so far that he's running at neutral EV. But wait, let's revisit the AA vs. KK hands- these are also coolers and Phil just happened to have the Aces every time... so while it's true that he's running below AIEV here, he's actually running $2000 above EV in these AIPF situations!

So taking a step back and reviewing Phil's big hands, he's running at $2000 above EV for groups #1 and #2, and neutral for group #3 so total he's running $4,000 above EV, even though when Phil originally looked back on just these hands, he thought he was running $12,000 below EV.

So... back to Phil's winrate. He actually won $30/hr, but his true winrate would have been $17/hr if he ran at neutral EV for his big hands. Amazingly, Phil deluded himself into thinking it should have been $70/hr!

Very important note: the most dangerous part of Phil deluding himself is not the fact that he gets mad and breaks things. It's that his growth as a poker player will be stagnated since he thinks he doesn't need to improve...

So, despite the fact that Phil ran good in poker *and* good in life (he has 20/20 vision, never broke a bone, a loving family, etc.)... he still refers to himself as the unluckiest guy in the entire casino.

Don't be Phil!

EDIT: OMG JUST SAW MY THREAD IS 5 STARS. THANKS GUYS

Glad your back HOME. On the subject of running bad, yesterday in my seven times dealt A10+(non paired hands) not once did I flop an ace or TPTK. I am running bad.

Nicely written.

Oh I also want to mention that while I do track my LA total winnings, I realize that $27k of that comes from ~10 hours running like god against J so in no way do I consider that my true winrate.

Thanks serio =)

Great post on variance and how it can skew the way you think about how much you "should" be winning or losing. It's easy to think that every time you get AA in preflop you are going to win but there are obviously times it doesn't work out that way.

I catch myself doing this more than I care to mention but normally after a session and I think about the session as a whole it comes into focus how much I won vs how much I am supposed to have won/lost

Easiest thread to vote 5 stars to btw

tyty Turntup.

For another anecdote on that... as you know, there's a HUGE donkament going on at the Bike. If you hang out by in that hallway between the tournament room and everything else, you'll *constantly* overhear people walking by giving their bad beat stories about how they busted the tournament... "Oh I had 140,000 chips, I 4-bet shoved with KK and the only guy at the table who covered me called with QQ and spiked a Q on the river to win, wtf, how can he call with that, I'm never 4-betting JJ so he's always flipping or behind", etc. They never, ever mention how good they had to run to even get 140,000 chips to begin with.

It's actually pretty funny to hang out in that hallway, I definitely suggest trying it in about an hour or two from now for the pure amusement factor.

Yea the 2 guy to my right have been talking about how they got knocked out of all of the tournaments they played for the last 30 minutes....

Don't mind me, just subscribing...

Went to Commerce to finally cash out the chips I won from J... played some shorthanded 10/20 NLHE while I was there and was up $1287 in 2 hours. I think I had zero showdowns the whole time which is kind of incredible considering I won probably around 15 pots.

Then went to Bike and played PLO for 3 hours and was up $2609. If anyone was there and witnessed the insanity of the massive failure of TABLE SELECTION... shame on all the other regs. I even went over and suggested to 3 of my favorite regs (all professionals) that they should play at my table even though it'd be -EV to me just as a favor to them, yet none of them took it.

Basically the situation was there were two full 10-20 PLO games going, and then myself playing 5-handed in the 5-10 game for hours with three 100% VPIP whales and then 1 other guy who was brand new to PLO but was kind of tight and played like he read my PLO guide... so yea he was probably the 2nd best player at the table even though it was his first time playing PLO ever.

To make matters even more of an easy choice, the fish straddled/restraddled to 20 and 40 almost every single hand even from the blinds. So basically I was playing an equally big game if not bigger with infinitely softer players, yet no one took the open seats since technically our game was only 5-10 .

Seriously guys. SHAME on anyone who played those 10-20 games... as you guys know I pretty much sit in any game and don't advocate excessive bumhunting but there was a freaking money-printing-machine 5 feet away from both of those reg-infested games.

Up $3896 in 5 hours.

LA total: $68457, 367 hours.

Funny hand of the day: Some guy straddles $20, shortstack pots it to $70, 2 callers, I jokingly ask "do you have 2 aces in your hand", he smiles and says "no" in a way that I'm like 95% sure he's telling the truth, so I click it back with KK52r and he jams with AKJTds, the two callers fold knowing I'm obviously re-shipping. I probably would have folded if he didn't say anything since AAxx is such a huge portion of many player's ranges there and I have horrible KKxx.

Follow-up funny story: Board runs out AT99Kr, both our hands are tabled. Some guy says "wow you hit the case King on the river, I folded the other one". Another guy is like "what? The other guy has the case King in his hand". First guy insists for about 5 more minutes that he folded a King...

Hey Aesah, whats your name by the way?

Read 1st and last page of this thread and finding it very interesting, subscribing now to read later

Gl sir

Why isn't pot to 75?

As long as you would have played your hand the same way as the villain in any pot, your EV is 0 imo.

I must be one of the 10% of reg poker players who knows their bad at poker. In a weird psychological way I think it helps improve my winrate. Or maybe it's just that even though I am bad, there are still players who are even worse than me (probably the 90% who think they are better than they really are)!

Hey if you thought it was cold in STL, we just picked up 12 inches of snow Sunday. You got out just in time!

Kind of. Let's say you get quads vs. top boat extremely deep all in on the turn and it holds up, you ran at "expected/neutral all-in-EV" but getting into that situation in the first place is running extremely hot.

The game I play has basically a kill (we call it the "rock" because it's 4 chips taped together) where the winner of the last hand puts out a $10 mandatory straddle. If you're in the blinds, it replaces your blind. Sometimes people do an "add-on straddle" when they rock, so opening for pot can be a wide variety of numbers based on whether the rock is in the blinds, etc.

In this particular hand, the player with the rock added on to his straddle to $20 and was not in the blinds.

Solidthought: My name is Don.

GoBlues: Glad to hear I didn't die in St. Louis =)

Thanks for the comments everyone!

Hey Dom

Played pretty spewy today so only stayed 3 hours. No hands really of interest to report, gave limon a hilariously (IMO) bad beat, then played another one where a good pro raised preflop from the blinds after a button straddle, I call, it's HU. He triple barrels on a T6697r board and I folded river. He claims he had TTxx. I had a total airball, went for an ambitious double float.

Eventually busted where I raised to $60 preflop with AQQ8ss, some guy makes it $260, 2 callers including me. Pot is $800, I have $1000 behind. First to act ships it on T32r, PFR folds, I call. He has 6543 and wins. Don't think I can fold flop vs. this guy, but should I just fold pre here (or even ship it?) though? Never know what to do and I think these preflop spots are some of my biggest leaks... yet I'm not sure where to find good material to teach me how to plug them.

Down $840 in 3 hours.

LA total: $67617, 370 hours.

Eventually busted where I raised to $60 preflop with AQQ8ss, some guy makes it $260, 2 callers including me. Pot is $800, I have $1000 behind. First to act ships it on T32r, PFR folds, I call. He has 6543 and wins. Don't think I can fold flop vs. this guy, but should I just fold pre here (or even ship it?) though? Never know what to do and I think these preflop spots are some of my biggest leaks... yet I'm not sure where to find good material to teach me how to plug them.



Personally,I'd fold AQQ8 ss pre, I'd def call if it was AQQ8ds, and sometimes jam, would also jam AKK8 ss if villian is 3bing like more than like 10-15%

Actually the original 3-bettor was really unimaginative and I thought there was almost a 100% chance he has AAxx. Even vs AAxx though, I have ~30% equity so enough to call, and I feel like I have decent playability postflop with SPR = 1? For example I definitely fold on T32r if the PFR bets instead of the other guy.

I feel like I'm basically doing almost the NLHE equivalent of set mining, calling $200 more here to win $1500 total so pretty close based on pure set value, except sometimes I might also hit trip eights, flushes, straights, etc.

God I have no idea. At the same time I feel like that can't be right because I really want my opponents to get into SPR = 1 spots when I have AAxx, especially when they have a pair or an ace (in this case both!) in their hand, so my call definitely can't be good for me here since it's so good for him? Too tired right now, will revisit this topic later.

OK so apparently my preflop play with AQQ8ss is marginally bad HU, but marginally good multiway. Cool.

Had my roughest session ever today. Lost $5200 in 5 hours. Mostly from 1 hand where it's straddled, raised to $80, 3 callers including me with A8dd. Flop J44dd, straddler is first to act and checks blind, PFR bets $250 into $360, I call, fold, straddler looks at his cards and makes it $1000. PFR ships for $3k, I call, straddler calls with $1500 behind. I figured my pair outs are no good but thought multiway flush draw has good equity (PFR always has an overpair here basically) with all 3 players almost equally deep. Straddler laughs and snaps with J4o.

Me and PFR both muck, so no one won the ~$1000 side pot, which someone realized about 30 minutes later. PFR claims to have had KK (which was good I think, I stopped paying attention after the turn). He didn't ask me for anything, it's a rough situation either way. He's also very wealthy so... Meh.

This is easily a fold though, as straddler often has a 4, so that's some dead outs. Bad math on my part in the heat of the moment.

LA total: $62417, 375 hours.