Well, I took my shot. I ended up plus $12 for a two hour session. I started off bad: losing $8 to a weird donk line. Most of the session was me being card dead and missing all the flops I tried to play and dribbling money. The table was stupidly loose and juicy, but the kind where bluffing probably wasn't too fruitful for most of it.

I recorded game tape and am going to post it to youtube and use the timeline for all the interesting hands and try to discuss them here and on discord. I definitely made some mistakes in the session, but I'm just going to deconstruct the whole session and deconstruct everything.

Here's the game tape video of my 25NL session. I played 125 hands and found 32 interesting spots. I've used the timeline marks and put them as chapter links in the video description (when you fully expand it). I will make some posts on some interesting spots here, and maybe a summary.

I've become aware already that this is going to expose the flaws in my thinking for all to see. I now realize this will be a more humbling process than I expected. I embrace that, hopefully it will make me a stronger poker player, assuming I still want to play at all after doing it, lol. I won 39 bb/100 in this session, but I already think I played pretty badly on multiple levels. I spewed money in spots both for reasons I understood but couldn't stop and for reasons I didn't understand and deluded myself about.

0:00 Session Start
1:22 65s as BTN - faced a donk overbet and was lost. I had no plan if I didn't improve.
9:39 JJ as BTN - flopped a set on a juicy board but didn't get action
17:29 44 as CO - called stupid small bets with no showdown value
19:42 TT as HJ - preflop spot is interesting: responding to an open limp with players to follow
37:34 43s as BB - bottom of BB defending range, bottom pair, missed good turn bluff
41:46 KK as BB - I jammed flop for pot on wet board. Would checking flop be more +EV?
42:49 KQo as SB - My flop call with overcards is fishy. Should I stab or showdown K high?
44:18 88 as BTN - Should I overlimp? Should I call 2 two players with pair below top? Meh.
49:05 K9o as BB - Bad flop call? K-high, overcard, gutshot? Probably should toss it.
50:24 76s as SB - I squeeze light, then fold. What am I doing? Nonsense $3 spew.
1:05:48 KQo as BB - I cbet overcards, miss, and check down and check/fold river.
1:14:05 55 as CO - I raise 55 over a limper and cbet 3-way and get callers. Should I barrel?
1:16:27 55 as LJ - I open limp 55. Meh.
1:20:47 A5s as HJ - I raise a limper and get 3bet. Bad call preflop? I miss and check/fold 4-way.
1:25:34 AKs as BTN - Villian 3bet shoves short stack with T9s. I accept his donation.
1:26:17 TT as CO - UTG open shoves 3bb, I iso raise, get 3bet and flop smacks 3better's range so I fold.
1:27:22 ATo as HJ - I raise a limper, have overcards on 3-way flop, miss, fold.
1:30:41 A4s as BTN - I try to steel vs a nit, get jammed on.
1:31:17 KK as CO - I 3bet, flop top set on dry board. Should I check or bet?
1:34:51 KQo as SB - I squeeze and take it down.
1:35:34 87s as BTN - I raise over limper, bottom pair in 4-way pot. I steal it with turn aggression.
1:38:50 QJs as BB - I 3bet, get called, cbet A-high flop, but surrender after call
1:40:55 KJo as SB - I 3bet tiny stack and we get it in and I win. Am I too light here?
1:44:40 KTo as CO - I flop trip Ts and check raise. Did I extract max value?
1:47:00 K9o as BB - no PFR, I stab A-high flop. Should I check down K-high?
1:47:27 A2o as SB - I raise blind vs blind and take it down.
1:47:50 QJo as BTN - I steal over autoposted blinds. Oddly Snowie folds here.
1:48:16 QJo as CO - I raise over UTG open limp, cbet bluff and check down to lose.
1:49:36 QTo as HJ - I open, both blinds call, I steal the pot on the turn with a bluff.
1:50:41 Q8o as BB - No PFR, I fold when he bets flop on a small paired board
1:53:02 KJo as LJ - I call SB's 3bet, flop trips on dry board, cbet tiny, check to river, raise all-in and win the monies
1:54:54 K8o as BB - I defend vs UTG, flop top pair, get 1 bet of value on turn to win small pot

Some general thoughts and observations after discussing this session with a couple people.

I topped off once, but ended up playing a number of hands well below 100bb. I normally don't do this and top off, but because I'm in a move up stakes situation, I tried to enforce a bankroll based threshold rule to limit what I put at risk. I don't like the way this worked out and think I'll say if I can't be at least 80bb deep that I'll end the session in the future, but I will require a little more "topping off money" to begin.

I 3bet a ton in this session (20%+), which makes sense against people with wide ranges. What I didn't do, though was raise my raise sizes in some spots to try to thin out the field. I could've done this a few times when I raised pairs early.

My postflop aggression was pretty bad in this session. I seemed to either hit some flops so hard I took all the oxygen in the room or I missed them pretty badly or had bottom pair. I didn't double barrel a single time in the session, which is a little odd for me. I missed some spots to try to win pots without cards by making a play.

I remained calm being card dead on a table with easy money flying around, but I calmly engaged in some warped thinking. In a couple spots I made bad/terrible calls with vague references to "implied odds" that was just basically bullshit.

This is an absurd amount of hands, unlikely someone will have the time to go through everything. Maybe you could go through them, and post what you find in the forum? I think that would be really good for you to "learn how to learn".

Two things I did notice in your video:

• You're not buying in for the maximum or automatically topping off your stack when you playing. This means that you can not win as much money when you get a pot all-in and win, which is honestly the goal. If you're not bankrolled to do this all the time at 25NL, maybe move down to 10NL until you're able to move up? Or, you could chuck some more $$$ on the account.
• When a player limps, you want to isolate for a bigger size. Consider maybe using 4.5bb + 1bb per extra limper IP, or 5.5bb + 1bb per extra limper OOP

If you have any hands you take a look at and specifically want to go through, post them in your blog. I also have a study space in my Discord if you want to go through things there, more than happy to give it a crack.

I realize this is in a pretty raw state. I'm still working through it all, and have more work to do to make it digestible here on 2p2. This is the first time I've done this, so bear with me a bit.

I don't imagine anybody besides my closest poker study buddies would go through everything. So far, I've narrowed the 125 hands down to 32 that are big pots or where I made questionable plays. I used poker snowie to identify these. I added a description to each of these 32 and put them here for easy navigation. I think it makes sense to deep dive into individual hands or themes and do posts on them as normal hand histories.

Yeah, I normally do top off. On sites that allow it (ignition doesn't) I auto top-off. I think I did top off once in this session, but I made a rule as part of my BR strategy for moving up that I can't add money to the 25NL table if my account is below a certain value. This was my 25NL shot, or actually my second one. I don't like the way this lead to me playing a lot of the session short stacked. I'll modify this next time I take a shot, as I think it did become a problem here. I probably should allocated two buy-ins for the shot and top off as needed using those two buy-ins, and end the session if when I can't top off to at least 80bb with that money.

I think increasing iso raise sizing makes a lot of sense. Some of the hands where I had pairs come to mind for this. At a loose table like this, the guys I'm trying to isolate are pretty likely to just pay the higher amount, when I am ahead of their range, so it's good for EV. It will also help discourage more callers, so that I thin the field or get ideally get heads up with position and a range advantage.

Will do.

Here's some hands that I think are relevant to this:

Ignition - $0.25 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

MP: $17.12
Hero (CO): $15.45
BTN: $0.00
SB: $24.75
BB: $24.52
UTG: $17.63

SB posts SB $0.10, BB posts BB $0.25

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.35) Hero has 5 5

UTG calls $0.25, fold, Hero raises to $1.00, fold, fold, BB calls $0.75, UTG calls $0.75

Flop: ($3.10, 3 players) 2 8 A
BB checks, UTG checks, Hero bets $1.25, BB calls $1.25, UTG calls $1.25

Turn: ($6.85, 3 players) T
BB checks, UTG checks, Hero checks

River: ($6.85, 3 players) 4
BB checks, UTG bets $3.26, fold, fold

UTG wins $6.51

Ignition - $0.25 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players

UTG: $17.96
Hero (MP): $12.60
CO: $27.91
BTN: $25.25
SB: $24.92
BB: $18.16

SB posts SB $0.10, BB posts BB $0.25

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.35) Hero has 5 A

UTG calls $0.25, Hero raises to $0.75, CO calls $0.75, fold, fold, BB raises to $1.50, UTG calls $1.25, Hero calls $0.75, CO calls $0.75

Flop: ($6.10, 4 players) 6 K 8
BB checks, UTG checks, Hero checks, CO checks

Turn: ($6.10, 4 players) K
BB checks, UTG checks, Hero checks, CO checks

River: ($6.10, 4 players) 4
BB checks, UTG bets $0.50, fold, fold, fold

UTG wins $5.80

Ignition - $0.25 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players

UTG: $19.81
Hero (MP): $16.64
CO: $32.74
BTN: $27.36
SB: $25.49
BB: $2.26

SB posts SB $0.10, BB posts BB $0.25

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.35) UTG has 3 4

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.35) Hero has A T

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.35) BB has T 8

UTG calls $0.25, Hero raises to $1.00, fold, fold, fold, BB calls $0.75, UTG calls $0.75

Flop: ($3.10, 3 players) 9 7 5
BB checks, UTG checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($3.10, 3 players) 6
BB bets $1.26 and is all-in, UTG calls $1.26, fold

River: ($5.62, 2 players) 5

UTG shows 3 4 (Straight, Seven High)
(Pre 34%, Flop 18%, Turn 0%)
BB shows T 8 (Straight, Ten High)
(Pre 66%, Flop 82%, Turn 100%)
BB wins $5.34

Here's the hand I think is one of the more interesting from my session.

Ignition - $0.25 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players

CO: $42.55
Hero (BTN): $24.65
SB: $25.67
BB: $20.00
UTG: $23.27
MP: $43.60

SB posts SB $0.10, BB posts BB $0.25

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.35) Hero has 6 5

fold, MP calls $0.25, CO calls $0.25, Hero raises to $1.25, fold, fold, MP calls $1.00, fold

Flop: ($3.10, 2 players) Q 6 2
MP bets $3.76, Hero calls $3.76

Turn: ($10.62, 2 players) 4
MP bets $2.66, Hero calls $2.66

River: ($15.94, 2 players) J
MP bets $11.36, fold

MP wins $15.15

As a general rule, in poker we prefer things Heads-Up postflop. Things are much, much simpler when we only have to face one player's range. We can bet wider, bluff wider, and in general just win more pots by being more aggressive. So when isolating, we might want to apply a bit of extra pressure, and ensure that we get enough folds to play HU. In my pool, 5bb IP and 6bb OOP work just fine, but you might just want keep increasing your limp sizes until you find the "magic number", when you generally manage to get HU. Sure, sucks more when someone limp/jams, but that's just a tell-tale sign that they're a fish, and that you can win it all back.

I haven't got a sense yet for if this table was typical of 25NL on ignition. I've never seen a 10NL table on this site that was this loose. I think you are definitely right that when we play players who are so eager to call, when we have a good hand we need to be comfortable bumping the price up. This kind of thing is much more common live, say in a loose $1/$2 game, where it's pretty common to open to $10 or $15 over limpers.

I think there are also some spots postflop where I flatted and let the pot remain multiway when I could've raised to thin the field. I am sometimes too hesitant to bluff in loose passive games like this, but I need to get over that. It's bad to bluff calling stations. Being loose passive means you are a calling station preflop, but it doesn't mean you are the same way postflop. Some loose passives are postflop calling stations, but many play with a simple goal: they want to see as many flops as they can to get a big hand, TPTK or better say. If they get it, they go aggro, if they don't, they'll fold. We can exploit this type of loose passive by folding when they go aggro, but bluffing them to fold marginal hands. They will often call with draws, but they play too many hands and don't know how to make balanced bluffing ranges, so if they don't hit, they are generally going to let their hand go.

Other loose passive will call down light to showdown. It's really important to differentiate the two groups and not try to play the same against them in later streets. These guys will call your all in if they have top pair with a 6 kicker. The ones above won't. So we exploit them very differently. This group will have really high WTSD stats and that's how I label "postflop calling stations".

The last 10 days or so I've hit a pretty brutal downswing. I've been mostly playing on ignition, and I've lost about 1/4 of my bankroll. So my main study topic today is how to deal with a downswing. Don't worry, I will not post bad beats.

My first thing to do is to rewatch a video I've found to be very helpful from Nathan "blackrain79" Williams:


He cites some poker lore that I think is just great:

This is attributed to Irieguy here at 2p2. I tried to find the original post, but it seems like it's gone. I found this 2005 thread responding to it from gigabet which is a good read too: https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...17&postcount=1

blackrain79's main point is that you can't control the cards, only how you respond to them. The vast majority of poker players don't handle a string of suckouts, coolers, etc... well. They just don't. They think people care about their bad beat stories. It's like they are desperate for people to say "it's OK, bro, you are a good poker player, you didn't deserve this". The point of the quote above is "yeah, you do deserve it".

I think his main point is that when it happens and you get the unbelievably absurd run bad... you should challenge yourself to handle it better than myriad of whiners who feel entitled to never run bad. He says he makes it a source of pride for how he responds to it because he knows it's a situation where he can separate himself from the masses.

OK, so what to do when you are running bad!? I guess the thing lots of people obsess about is finding some kind of metric that shows "look, you are just unlucky". I don't know what that's supposed to do for you.

You get better in poker when you find your leaks and fix them and in no other way. Proving to yourself that variance is against you is just a distraction from this. So I think when you are running bad you should spend even more time trying to find opportunities to improve your play.

There's also the bankroll risk aspect and the fact that tilt is more likely when you are already in a downswing. So I think it's important to move down, book a win or two, and get to a point where you are confident you can beat some game somewhere.

One thing that I reflect on about some of these losing sessions is that I played when I was tired. I was kind of sleep deprived for most of the week and played sometimes in the late evenings when it would've been much better to just go to be early, get caught up and come back fresh later. This is a meta-leak I've been guilty of several times recently. I think it's a good one to put a stake in the ground on. I don't play as well when I'm tired -- no one does. So if I'm tired, I won't play. It's really that simple.

So in February, I'm going to try to work hard on upping the aggression in my postflop play. I want my redline (winnings without showdown) to be more profitable, without sacrificing my blue line. I think right now I rely too much on just hitting hands to win. In particular, I think it's hard for me to get full value from them against observant players.

I've identified several areas to try to up the aggression:

• preflop squeezing
• check-raising HU flops from the blinds
• barreling turns more, and some triple barrels
• overbetting turns and rivers

Part of studying these spots will also make me look at them from the other side, so I can defend them as well.

In most of these cases, against players who can fold, we should be making these plays with a balanced range of value and bluff/semi-bluff hands. This means we have to know who the players who can fold are. We also need to know how to adjust against players that don't fold enough.

The main idea with all these spots is that our bluffs are there to punish players who overfold to the aggression. Our value hands are there hoping to get called, but if we balance properly, we'll we'll be inflating the pots with our good hands, and profiting from fold equity and realizing drawing equity more fully. All of these plays put our opponents in tough spots where they can make mistakes one way or the other.

The value hands to do these plays with are mostly pretty easy... they are the linear top of our range. We generally want uncapped ranges, so that we have a nut advantage. Then we want to bring along a bluff range. This is where additional profit should come for me. My belief is that in the 5NL-25NL stakes where I play, people will often overfold here because the population underbluffs in our spot. But the two keys, I think are 1) learning to play our whole range, so we find the best hands to bluff with and in the right amounts and 2) that we read our opponents well enough to back off of these plays as bluff against players who call too much.

I think I left out the most important one. I don't want to give it away just yet, but rather come at why it's critical.

A discord friend recently asked a 6max question about how to optimally exploit a particular loose passive player, whose stats are 65/15 with a 5% 3bet who isn't showing positional awareness. This is a super common player type who wants to provide a lot of our profits.

So here's the question: greenfish is at our table. What is the best situation for us to take advantage of their fishiness? How should we handle it when:
A) they've open raised in front of us and we are in the blinds
B) they've open raised in front of us and we are not in the blinds and will have position
C) they've called our open raise from the blinds
D) they've called our open raise, not from the blinds
E) they've called someone else, and we have position
F) they've called someone else, and we are in the blinds
G) they've open limped in front of us

Specifically, which of these are our best opportunities to attack? Let's think in terms of their ranges.

When they open raise, they're doing it with 15% of hands. This is a actually tighter than most TAGs. This is NOT how we beat fish. We should actually play tighter than normal against them in scenarios A and B.

When they call our open raise, now they have a wide range. How wide and what does it look like? They didn't 3bet, so they've capped it. But they only 3bet 5%, so their range is 65% of hands minus their 3 bet hands, which at 5% is top pairs and very strong Aces, maybe 88+ AK and AQs AJs. This should give us a good range advantage if we are in early position and less of one as we move towards the button. If they've called in the blinds we'll have position and this is a great spot. Otherwise, they'll have position and this somewhat offsets our range advantage. The problem with these scenarios is we don't get to choose them in any way. We raise and have to be prepared to play anyone and we have be fortunate to get into the good spot because the fish plays and no one else does.

When they've called someone else, they'll have this same raise, but we have the problem that the other player is still in the hand. We can squeeze, with position or from the blinds, but we have to worry more about the first in player, whose range isn't capped. When this player folds and the fish calls, we'll be in a 3bet pot, but the fish will have the chance to fold some of their hands and we'll have to figure out how wide they really are. We may want to polarize vs the raiser, but we lose our range advantage if the fish will call our lite 3 squeeze 3bets. Vs the fish, we want a linear range if they are calling too much here.

When they've open limped in front of us, their range is their full vpip % minus their 2bet RFI range, so they are really capped much wider here. THIS IS WHERE WE MUST POUNCE. We want to slam them with a raise. Our goal is twofold: get them to call with their terrible range disadvantage and discourage anyone else from calling. If we can get them HU, in position with a good holding and/or perceived range against their weak call minus RFI capped range, we expect many good things. So G) is the answer.

Here's what this limping range might look like:


If the flop has broadway cards, they are in a rough spot, because they barely have any in their range. For middle ranked cards, they will either win a small pot if we miss everything or if we hit a higher pair and win a midsize pot or we dominate them and win a large pot. The Ace-broadway hands they would've RFI'd aren't here and we can be way more confident with our middling Aces. Even when we miss, our broadway overcards are usually outs. So suddenly a middle card flop that gives gutshot with two overs is 10 outs and can bet. A flushdraw with two overs has 15 outs and is a statistical favorite with two cards to come.

So... updated:

I've identified several areas to try to up the aggression:

• isolation raises against limpers, especially vs loose passive players
• preflop squeezing
• check-raising HU flops from the blinds
• barreling turns more, and some triple barrels
• overbetting turns and rivers

Playing against the fish is an important part of the strategy. Each fish is individual and requires a personal approach.
The faster we find the key to the fish, the higher our mathematical expectation from the game at this table.

Nice blog.
GL!

The interesting thing to me is that the source of most profits in poker comes from exploiting fish, but there is relatively little actually written about how to break down how to do it with a "personal approach" as you say.

I've been thinking more about how to play against fish.

I think there are several keys:
1) Don't Pay Off - they pay small costs many times to have double or tripple the number of chances per session to make a big hand. They bet big when they do. Exploit by Overfolding.
2) Isolation Raising - their preflop range is weakest when it's capped by their 2bet range, not their 3bet range, so iso raising is key. Size it to discourage others and tax their calling.
3) Get Reads on Postflop Overcalling - Loose passive means ONLY they overcall preflop. Use fold to cbet, folding stats by street, and WTSD, to model their postflop overcalling behavior.
4) Value Bet Range - on streets when they overcall, bet with a linear range. Better marginal made hands should bet. Semi bluffs need bigger equity.
5) Value Bet Frequency - on streets when they overcall (ONLY!), we build profits via value bets, so we must value bet more thinly because they call more
6) Value Bet Sizing - we still have to hand read and think about the shape of their range and how likely they are to have hands strong enough to call different bet sizes
7) Bluff Carefully - on streets when they do NOT overcall, we can still bluff some.

"Don't Pay Off" is really, really important.

agree 100%

It just doesn't work that way.
Some fish are passive, others are aggressive and will bet with air all day long and it would be a crime to overfold against them.

An important skill is the ability to determine the type of fish in a short time (say for the first 50 hands) and determine your strategy for playing against him.
Usually a couple of SDs are enough to understand what kind of fish is in front of us.
It is also necessary to work out general strategies for playing against different types of fish:

• Fit or Fold
• Calling station
• Monk/Maniac

I don't use the term "fish" for a spewy LAGtard and definitely not for a maniac, though for sure, these bad players are a source of profit. I'm talking about loose passives when I say "fish".

But what you are getting at is that even among loose passive preflop players, there is a great variety in postflop play. This is what I was getting at with the "Get Reads on Postflop Overcalling" point. "Fold to cbet" varies a lot among loose passives. Some are sticky and some fold if they don't hit. WTSD is another great stat that differentiates them. The true calling stations have WTSD at 45% or more. All three "fold to bet"by street stats are pretty useful to see when they shed their junk.

I can think of several different types of loose plassive players, with some fun nicknames I made up:

• Fitter - player "fit or fold" and has to hit the flop with either a pair or a big draw. Has high "Fold to Cbet".
• Floater - hand starts on the turn, they call preflop and call your cbet most of the time. Has low "Fold to Cbet"
• Cracker - the goal of poker is to beat AA. If you have outs to beat beat AA call to the river. If you hit bet big, check/fold junk, check/call top pair.
• Chaser - similar to a cracker, but the goal is to beat sets and two pairs. Their preflop range is connectors and suited hands and they never saw a gutshot they didn't like.

I've been running some filters on my PT4 database, which has about 40k hands. Some findings:
- I'm crushing it when I 3bet.
- I'm super crushing it when I squeeze. I made a filter for "squeeze without a top 20% hand" and even this is super profitable. Squeezing is my new best friend.
- I'm losing money when I call a 2bet. Oddly I lose more when I call in position, which mostly means from the BTN. Perhaps I should be 3betting more instead.
- Raise over a cbet: huge profits
- I open and don't get 3bet: huge profits. When I break this down, in a SRP vs 1 player, I'm crushing it. vs 2 players I'm crushing it. In 4-way or more pots, I'm losing a lot.
- In HU Flops, I'm winning big, but my red line is losing, which seems odd.
- In 3-Way pots, I'm winning.
- In 4+ Way pots (players who saw flop between 4 and 10) I'm losing. My blue line is weakly profitable and my red line straight down.
- When I raise over limpers, I win money. If I get HU, I win money. If I get 3-way I win money.
- If I raise over limpers, and play a 4+ way pot, I'm losing money. My showdown line is losing. My non-showdown line is break even or barely winning. Weird.
- When I 3bet without a top 10% hand, I'm making money

All of these things are my own hand data showing me that aggression makes money in poker.

My two take aways are to figure out why I lose money in 4+ way pots. That's a huge leak I just found. It probably explains why I feel frustrated and think I'm underperforming at live poker. So first of all, I should take more steps to avoid these many way flops, but I'm dumbfounded as to why I lose money there.

Secondly, I need to call less from the button. That means solidifying my call ranges there, and figuring out which hands I'm currently calling with and converting them to 3bets or folds. Or perhaps I need to look at how to take some hands away postflop by taking some aggressive bluff lines on the right textures.

I've been trying to learn how to play better in multiway flops with 4+ players to address the leak I mentioned in the last post.

A little googling found this Upswing article on Multiway Tactics. The short summary of them is:
1) Defend much tighter in the Big Blind - it's harder to realize equity with marginal holdings
2) As the PFR, tighten your cbetting value range - middle pair shouldn't usually cbet
3) As the PFR, tighten your cbetting bluff range.
4) When facing a flop bet, defend tighter if there are more players with position on you
5) When facing a flop bet, defend tighter against bigger bets
6) When facing a flop bet, if you have position over others, defend more liberally
7) When facing a flop bet, assign/require more strength based on how many uncapped ranges are bet into


A question I have regarding #3 is whether we should be keeping the bluff-to-value ratio constant. I generally use 2-to-1 on the flop when I cbet. If I keep this ratio, but shrink my value range per #2, then I'm actually shedding twice as many bluff combos if I keep the bluff-to-value range the same at 2-1. I think we want this same ratio and that #3 is a consequence of #2 because of this.

The above article also links to another Upswing article on Multiway Tips. Their four tips are:
1) Play tighter when facing bets, especially with players to follow
2) Narrow value betting ranges
3) cbet with smaller sizes
4) Be extra selective with bluffs

In both articles, they gave an example of not cbet bluffing with an overcard and a gutshot.

Good preflop play will usually avoid multiway. This probably has several aspects:
- call only rarely: the BTN can call with position some. The BB shouldn't call to create 4-way pots a lot. All others should mostly 3bet or fold.
- don't join limp trains, except maybe with hands that play particularly well in way multiway (pairs, suited connectors)
- isolation raises and squeezes should be larger than normal raises to discourage callers, especially against loose passives who call with worse hands often
- the SB should generally 3bet or fold, especially against two players. Calling 2 players allows the BB to call and give you a 4-way pot in the worst position. Yuck.
- as BB, 3bet and fold more often facing many players, and if you do call, do so with a hand that plays well in multiway pots

I reviewed a bunch of my hands with poker snowie that had 4-way pots. I think I made these mistakes the most:
- bad preflop play to set up the situation: calling as SB, joining call trains as BB, not iso or squeezing with large enough raises
- cbetting too large and letting the pot bloat without strong holdings
- cbetting to liberally. TPWK should check. Gutshot plus overs should check.
- calling flop bets with 2nd pair, especially with players to act
- not realizing two pairs and sets happen a lot more often in multiway pots

I played a 6max session yesterday with about 400 hands on two tables. For the second half of it, one of my tables was 100% loose passives and the other had a couple and a couple loose LAGs (eg one played 51/33). So I had a good situation to practice and review many of the things I've discussed in this journal. I ended up for the session about a buy-in and a half, which worked out to 30 bb/100 . I wasn't particularly running hot, nor was I running bad.

I did a great job, I think, of attacking limps, using squeezes, and using 3bets with strong hands that I was confident the fish would call. I did a pretty good job of getting value when I hit hands, and differentiated fish who were and weren't river calling stations.

I did a lousy job in 4-way pots and lost 300 bb/100 over 24 hands, total of about 72bb. This was really disappointing, given that I put some work into this topic yesterday. It might represent some run bad, but the graph is just steady down and doesn't look like variance. I love looking at the graphs after applying a filter, btw. I can just eyeball a graph and get a sense for signal to noise, which helps me understand if the results in what I'm filtering on are real or dominated by variance.

Anyway, I'm going to have to spend yet more time to figure out why I'm bleeding in 4-way pots so much.

Post some 4 way hands

Here's some of my biggest 4-way pots:

HAND 1

Ignition - $0.10 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players

MP: $9.12
CO: $8.14
BTN: $13.75
SB: $17.13 - 26/21 through 31 hands, but really high WTSD (5 of 8) and stupid high river AF
BB: $11.22
Hero (UTG): $10.35

SB posts SB $0.05, BB posts BB $0.10
Pre Flop: (pot: $0.15) Hero has J K

Hero raises to $0.30, fold, CO calls $0.30, fold, SB calls $0.25, BB calls $0.20

Flop: ($1.20, 4 players) K 7 2
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets $0.30, CO calls $0.30, SB calls $0.30, fold

Turn: ($2.10, 3 players) A
SB bets $0.40, Hero calls $0.40, CO calls $0.40

River: ($3.30, 3 players) J
SB bets $16.13 and is all-in, Hero calls $9.35 and is all-in, fold




HAND 2

Ignition - $0.10 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players

BB: $8.80
UTG: $17.83 - 42/39 over 19 hands. WTSD 71% (5 of 7) and absurd AF on all streets
MP: $7.69
CO: $13.40
BTN: $9.54
Hero (SB): $11.12

Hero posts SB $0.05, BB posts BB $0.10
Pre Flop: (pot: $0.15) Hero has A K

UTG raises to $0.30, MP calls $0.30, fold, BTN calls $0.30, Hero raises to $0.90, BB calls $0.80, UTG calls $0.60, MP calls $0.60, BTN calls $0.60

Flop: ($4.50, 5 players) K 8 4
Hero bets $1.50, fold, UTG raises to $16.93 and is all-in, fold, fold, Hero calls $8.72 and is all-in

Turn: ($24.94, 2 players) Q

River: ($24.94, 2 players) T




HAND 3

Ignition - $0.10 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players

BB: $9.26 - 61/9 over 27 hands
Hero (UTG): $9.00
MP: $14.63
CO: $10.98
BTN: $9.75 - 87/9 super loose over 23 hands WTSD 38% (8 of 21) with low postflop AF
SB: $0.63 - 50/13 over 8 hands with 1/3 3bets

SB posts SB $0.05, BB posts BB $0.10
Pre Flop: (pot: $0.15) Hero has 4 4

Hero raises to $0.30, fold, fold, BTN calls $0.30, SB raises to $0.63 and is all-in, BB calls $0.53, Hero calls $0.33, BTN calls $0.33

Flop: ($2.52, 4 players) 4 T 5
BB checks, Hero bets $0.60, BTN raises to $3.00, fold, Hero raises to $5.40, BTN calls $2.40

Turn: ($13.32, 3 players) 6
Hero bets $2.97 and is all-in, BTN calls $2.97

River: ($19.26, 3 players) Q




HAND 4

Ignition - $0.05 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players

UTG: $4.46 - 22/15 over 29 hands, WTSD 100% (3/3)
MP: $22.56
Hero (CO): $5.13
BTN: $4.15
SB: $8.07
BB: $7.90

SB posts SB $0.02, BB posts BB $0.05

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.07) Hero has A K

UTG raises to $0.15, fold, Hero raises to $0.45, BTN calls $0.45, fold, BB calls $0.40, UTG calls $0.30

Flop: ($1.82, 4 players) J 7 6
BB checks, UTG checks, Hero bets $0.80, fold, fold, UTG calls $0.80

Turn: ($3.42, 2 players) 7
UTG checks, Hero checks

River: ($3.42, 2 players) 8
UTG bets $3.21 and is all-in, Hero calls $3.21

Have not looked at the spoilers yet.

H1: Pre, flop and turn are played well. River is pretty gross but I think for 3x pot effective we can eliminate bluffs and even if it is a bluff we only have 10bb invested but regardless if this is value you have to ask yourself: is he betting worse than KJ? Is he doing this with K7, K2, 72? Probably not. River is a definite fold.

H2: preflop squeeze is excruciatingly too small. My standard is to squeeze around 5x from OOP plus extra if its >3 players I'm squeezing against so in this spot I would just turn it into a 4b pot and squeeze to 20bb. Flop is standard, can't fold at this point.

H3: looks fine although I would just jam the rest in on the flop instead of leaving 30bb on the turn, cooler if you lost.

H4: wow this table looks hard to get a HU pot lol, if this is the way the table is playing feel free to size up your 3b and 4b. Flop I would never cbet here and river you can't fold so if you ran into a boat or a straight flush its just a cooler.