Haha these questions are too good, won't answer them all completely.

1) At higher stakes on most sites I play there are no HUDs so I'm trying quite hard to see showdowns and think about where they show a deviation from what I think is good - and how I can shift to exploit that. Most deviations you see at showdown correlate with others so you can get a lot from one showdown. Obviously trying to pay this attention can also make your head meltdown if not careful, so often I just default to population reads or in the worst case, what I think is equillibrium play. Obviously I am still quite far wrong with my mental picture of what's perfect though too.

2) Yeah I guess I kind of answered this. Pokerambition recently released a good yt video on this, until the conclusion where they were implying you should bluff everything when you think someone overfolds and call everything when you think someone overbluffs. I think there are obvious problems with this approach in smaller pools and it's not something I'd do personally.

3) I am way more positive about future of online poker than I used to be:

1 - still huge divergence in play styles at HSNL, maybe even more than the past from what I hear people saying
2 - more competition amongst sites
3 - American legislation slowly coming
4 - money printers mean 500nl and 1000nl becoming lower and lower stakes
5- Some sites doing a good job at RTA detection
6- Even with 5 bots and a whale I'm pretty sure it's highly possible to win at a decent rate, Linus only - 0.5bb/100 to pluribus and my study implies i am somewhere -5 --- 8bb as a very rough ballpark. And I'm going to win way more vs the whale than the bots.

Gun to my head I guess I'd happily take the over on 5 years on 500/1000nl being beatable for a good clip? Maybe wayyy longer for 500nl since it's just 2/5, fish will wanna play same stakes they play in casinos.


Hmmmm probably not enough. I think 500nl is a mix of long term pros bumhunting who just play kinda clicking strategy, a lot don't even bother trying to have any kind of mental game plan but just have a sense of what's good.

Then there are the new guys who tend to be very MDA focussed and have kind of become 500nl bots, just whole game designed at exploiting population leaks without many solid fundamentals, which might be optimal for 500nl but makes it really hard to move up I think.

Don't play zoom if you wanna move up the stakes quickly Good w/r is like 4bb+ I guess if you are on Stars. Hard to know if you can reach 500z playing part time, I guess so but don't think it should be your goal. If you are good enough to beat 500z you can make 100k a year from poker, tax free in a lot of countries and probably should pursue it full time. If you are rich enough that you don't want the 100k a year then find more fun things to do with your time than play 500z


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Alright guys, some worryingly good questions from sirin so gonna wrap it up. Actually ended up answering a ton on Instagram @gfrogz whilst I was in the airport too if anyone wants to see those.

Glgl.

Haha thanks for the response, good to see I'm thinking along the right lines!

Just thought of one fun question which wouldn't be giving anything away, don't worry if you don't want to answer, just out of curiosity.

If you really went all out studying do you think you could catch up with Linus/Makeboifin, or do they have something extra which makes them the best?

(Same question applied to Psek in case you are too modest to answer for yourself)

Thanks for doing the AMA and love your thread.

Thanks!

Ha I can only speak for myself really. With Makeboifin I genuinely think there is some chance might be the guy who studies the most in the world relative to playing, and is doing it in a really disciplined and smart way. I think he is quite a lot naturally smarter than me particularly WRT games so I'd have to outwork him enough to overcome that gap, think it would be quite difficult so probably no.

Linus is completely different case, haven't spoke to him close to as much as MB about poker, but my feeling is always that he just has an insanely good intuition for why things happen and picked up patterns way quicker than everyone else in all games and formats once he started using PIO. Have definitely had tons of times where I've disagreed with what he's said about an unusual hand, then checked and saw that he is 100% right. Way more inately talented + just has way less fear running through his blood which will always hold me back.

I would say a lot of the EV I gain from study is just slowly by wearing away the natural human fear/ loss aversion, and people who have less of that always gonna do better. Seems like a weak excuse to say there are just people so good that you can't catch them with outworking them, but I think it's maybe true in these cases. Also obviously at the current state I'm not even in the same league even at 6max, so the gap to close is huge.

wtf arent u forgetting someone?????

Really interesting answers, thanks!

Appreciate the AMA a week back. I would happily rail that Bitb cash game if it ever happened, but I’m guessing you guys prefer just hanging out when ya get the chance.
Enjoy the holidays.

Oh, and pass along my appreciation to Dr. Makeboifin for his former PG&C as well if you have nothing better to do. I feel like I’ve learned some interesting tricks that I probably only half understand from watching him play.

2020 graph and summary?��

Does anyone in the bitB team specialize in PLO? Or are you strictly focused on Holdem?

2020 not over yet

No PLO unfortunately

Sup, You mentioned something about Linus having less fear running through him. This is also something that Stefan11222 mentioned in his blog about fear of loss. How do you think we can get past this? or I guess... what are you doing about this?
I read something interesting recently about this, I think the concept is pretty neat. cheers!
https://imgur.com/R5NpxZS

Could you link Stefans blog please?

https://forum.gipsyteam.ru/index.php?viewtopic=85514

Great sensible down to earth answers Plastic.

Yes your appetite for work helps, but as you said the very best have natural attibutes that gives them an edge.
Its similar in sport all the hard work in the world wont necessarily make you the very best, the best are born with more natural ability. The only trouble is, the most gifted have a tendency to come off the rails.

every time u move up to a new stake shove all in blind until u get called 10 times, once u do this u less scared to lose stack

or you can go one step further and go all in with entire bankroll at 40k but that approach bit too extreme for me, takes too long to regrind

I neither endorse or reject this advice ^

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2020



BB



Stakes



Missing GG hands where I played a lot of 5k/10k with not a huge amount of the action. Not sure how many I played there or what my exact results were. Won a lot at 5k, lost a lot at 10k but my records say +$32k total from my original 1k withdrawals then my side of any 5k+ chops, so I'd guess year works out about +$280k total.

Obviously this year was way beyond my wildest expectations. I remember chatting with @D7 after +100k last year and saying I felt I just ran very hot and that my expectation from calculations was something like +60k from playing, so fairly nice to 4x expectations

I think I improved a lot and really went pedal to the metal in the COVID games. Next year it will be an adjustment period I guess to go back to normal and remember what poker used to be like before the world was locked down, but can't regret going hard on the volume this year.

Didn't run the best at highest stakes and maybe played more 500 than I should have chasing the rb, actually had lots of all reg games in there at 500 and 1k I guess and also HU against opponents I surely am not beating.

Technically I think I really started to understand more where the EV comes from and opened my mind a lot. Have really loved seeing the progress bitB guys have made this year too and really makes it easier when things aren't going well to see 15 guys following the same process and crushing.

Reduced in game anger a bit, still a bit to go, sorry to anyone who got the PP chat abuse. (but i would also like to challenge Elliot roe to play lottoismymotto every day for 1 month and not lose his mind)

Made a few sacrifices life wise which didn't really feel like sacrifices given everything was shut down, but no travel edit this year for the first time since I was 22 stings a bit. Next year I'm really keen to enjoy myself more and take time off.

In terms of poker going forward, I guess I'd like to take bigger pieces of myself at higher stakes when I can and just keep improving. Ran insane overall this year I guess with tournament swaps/ biden/ bitcoin timing so really should be able to take all my own action at 10k, but don't think I could quite cope with playing 20x the stake every now and then even if it's optimal EV wise.

Lots to look forward too anyway and the dream is still alive (if you are in an american regulated market and playing midstakes please join bitB and become the best reg on your site ).

Shout out to everyone who helped me this year in one way or another;
FourSixFour, Mayo, Pads, ishter, Psek, D7, youseffahmed, mczhang even LL occasionally tolerating my lateness at breakfast, and special mention to Makeboifin who has genuinely changed my life I guess one hand analysis at a time

Great year,well done..keep up the good work in 2021!

Insane year, seriously impressive.

Congrats boss!

Sick year grats~

great results!
invest wisely

Out of curiosity what br management do you follow for moving up/choosing what stakes to grind?