can you clarify on what you mean by " technical exploits"

Sure let me explain a few different categories of exploits.

The level 1 exploit goes something like, based on opponents profile/tells in the hand he never bluffs this river so I massively overfold. Or villain never has good hands and is stationy so we valuebet light. Of course you know how to do this quite well and so every session.

Technical exploits would be understanding more deeply the theory of each texture than your opponent, understanding how they misunderstand it and adjusting all your ranges to best meet that. For example a heads up hand I played yesterday

Open AsAd7h2c3c from the button, bb defends. Flop 4s4h2s, bb checks. So I think a lot of people would mindlessly cbet the hand with the As blocker, bottom pair, a gut shot and an over pair of aces. Which is not bad. From studying this spot I know this is probably going to be somewhat indifferent between betting and checking.

However, from my understanding across various runouts on both lines, it is quite difficult for competent players to mess up facing a cbet. The ranges on future streets after a cbet are fairly intuitive and itÂ’s hard to see people make large mistakes. I elect to check therefor because I also know that this is not the same for the check back line. The turn probing ranges are trickier to construct and you need to be very thoughtful about it.

I check back turn 6d. So 4s4h2s6d. Villain leads half pot. This is a spot where itÂ’s easy for people to lead too many draws. My perceived check back range does not seem very strong and itÂ’s easy to auto bet a hand like qjt73 with weak spades. But there are so many of those hands and only so many value hands my opppnent can have. I decide to raise my hand to capitalise on this, with the added benefit that I also believe this opponent will play too passive and straightforward to the raise.

Villain calls, river bricks and goes check check and I win against shitty kings with no draw.

If you watch the triton series you can see Linus do what I believe to be the same.

On the 5 way multi-way flops, I forgot the exact textures since itÂ’s a while ago but he check raises something like, KJ bdfd on Q24r, and AA on j46ccx. Both spots are like 5 way on the flop and points towards him really opening up his check raising range.

Perhaps IÂ’m just speculating, but I imagine his thought process to be something like:

How many value hands can one really want to bet 5w on such a board? Very very few. Anything less than 2p does not want to go for three streets of value. Even if you have AJ on j46 it would be IÂ’ll advised to bet the flop a high frequency 5 way. It is very easy for these live players to find something like a pair or draw + fd blocker or top pair and bet it too high a frequency. IÂ’m guessing the frequency of such hands should be single digits from early positions and no more than 20% from
later positions.

Jason Koon has 67 with a club blocker in this hand and decides to stab from late position. Def a fine play with some frequency but just so easy to over do. Recognising this Linus shifts his entire range to a check and check raises extremely aggressively both for value/bluffs. Without any read as to weather his opponent has a bluff or value hand in the particular situation.

I label these as technical exploits. Using your deeper understanding of the theory of a spot to see how your opponents misunderstand the situation and shifting your ranges to meet that. Another thing Linus might do in this hand: if these players bet these hands too much on the flop it also means that they have them less if the flop is checked around, and he might adjust his ranges on specific turns based on that interaction.

Another more simple example would be a j46 board, we check back in position, turn 7. We have a read that in this spot villain bluffs too aggressively with equity. Level one exploit is to call him down lighter.

The deeper technical exploits would be: check back more straight draw/gut shot type hands on the flop to meet the situation. Actually bet more weak pairs to avoid that spot. On the turn, when he doesn’t bet, go more aggressively and increasingly so on rivers that interact with equity. Since he bluffs with it too much it’s no longer in the cc range and we can go lighter in that line.

Interesting posts!

DonkOrleone made a video where he talked about two different kinds of exploits: "punish" and "setup".

"Punish" is what you call "level 1" -- we are simply exploiting this particular node.
"Setup" is what you call "technical exploit" -- we are pre-adjusting our range going into the hotspot.

Great thread, good luck!


Would love to see more hhs with your thought process explaining the action.

Thanks appreciate it!

Update:

Played the majority of my volume at 25/50 with a lot of ante games so pretty serious stakes. Dropped around 80k in a few sessions and then won it right back over the next 1k hands. Crazy game. Overall fairly happy about my play. After carefully reviewing each session adding all my errors together I could improve another 40-70bb per roughly 1000 hands. This is not a deviation from gto which is much smaller but rather what I think would be the best plays after having reviewed. Thats 4-7bb/100 so while that is plenty to work on I do estimate I'm already profitable at these games which would be awesome. I still have to prove it though.

What's holding me back is that im still a vegetable half the time and operating at about one third of my brain function. Hence I struggle to put in volume and often start my sessions with a few punts because my brain is foggy. This frustrated me so much I took a few days off and just got back to it today and feeling more refreshed.


HH of the week:

ClubGG Hand #233495877: 5 Card Omaha Pot Limit (¥15/¥30 - Ante ¥15 CNY) - 2023/12/03 6:41:27 UTC
Table 'ClubId:406597,Table:CGG_1408926' 6-max Seat #3 is the button
Seat 3: 36600215 (¥4500 in chips)
Seat 4: 91017093 (¥15699.98 in chips)
Seat 5: 88861982 (¥4159.20 in chips)
91017093: posts small blind ¥15
88861982: posts big blind ¥30
36600215: posts the ante ¥15
91017093: posts the ante ¥15
88861982: posts the ante ¥15
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to 88861982 [As Ad Js Tc 6c]
36600215: raises ¥60 to ¥90
91017093: folds
88861982: raises ¥240 to ¥330
36600215: calls ¥240
*** FLOP *** [5d 3c 3h]
88861982: bets ¥237.60
36600215: calls ¥237.60
*** TURN *** [5d 3c 3h] [5c]
88861982: checks
36600215: checks
*** RIVER *** [5d 3c 3h 5c] [9s]
88861982: checks
36600215: checks
*** SHOW DOWN ***
88861982: shows [As Ad Js Tc 6c] (two pair, Aces and Fives)
36600215: mucks hand
88861982 collected ¥1195.20 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot ¥1195.20 | Rake ¥0
Board [5d 3c 3h 5c 9s]
Seat 3: 36600215 (button) showed [Ks Ts 7c 6s 6h]
Seat 4: 91017093 (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 5: 88861982 (big blind) showed [As Ad Js Tc 6c] and won (¥1195.20) with two pair, Aces and Fives
Hand ended at 2023/12/03 6:42:27


Played this hand too passively. IP range is mainly overpairs +SD kinds of hands, some SD wraps, and actually very little 5x/3x. We have a bit more of 5x/3x OOP allowing us to bet thin with a lot of our AA for equity denial. This hand is the perfect example of a hand that should bet to take it down. With a stronger FD I would have more checking equity and could check it. Its important to note in these kinds of spots that taking the passive line not only allows opponent to realize his actual equity, but also allows him to realize bluffing equity: he can start bluffing us of our hand with holdings that would fold to a small bet.

On paired boards more than any other board you need to be very thoughtful of how you construct your ranges on each street. The majority of your range will be indifferent between several lines and you must decide based on your opponent, which lines are superior, weather balance is important or not. What must be avoided is taking the intuitive line without further thought. For example, many regs would always check all hands like above category, creating too capped of a checking range which our opponents can take advantage of.

Good blog - do you play live at all? Any plans for WSOP, euro stuff? Any guidelines you follow for game selection? What’s the lowest stake you grind?

Hand posted I like xc turn tbh, we should slow down on turns after betting large portion of range ig, and this hand is awkward to bet call. Maybe we have more 5x/3x but we also have some more low equity hands that can fire flop but could not call a flop bet.

No travel plans, hate live poker with a passion, sitting there getting stacked and then having to wait for an hour before playing another hand.

I play 60-70% of my volume at 25/50 currently and the rest at 10/20. As for game selection it is mostly dependant on rake. Some higher rake environments do force you to sit a table only if there’s at least one rec sitting.

As for the hand: it seems so at first sight right? Lets have look:

I couldn’t find 5335, so here is 8558 OOP:



vs IP



So a slight advantage with trips +, which makes sense if you think about it because we cbet all 8x but IP has to fold a bunch of 8x to a cbet, his calling range is more weighted to pocketpairs+straightdraws.


8558 is a bit different then our board. Let’s look at 4224:

OOP



IP



Wild! We have much less trips now than Ip yet we barrel even more! That shows us that AA is much more important on this board than we intuitively think and is often worth a small barrel for value + eq denial vs a range that’s still heavy in weaker pp’s+sd’s. Note that on this board AA does very well vs that range specifically because it’s blocking the straight outs and thus is higher equity.

Interesting spot! Looking forward to getting into the 5c streets in the near future. I definitely would just xc and not think much abt it but small barrel makes sense to get a bit of extra value.

Just to clarify, cc doesnt have to be bad! Its probably quite close. I think the bigger picture here is that if you go on the defense too much you end up opening yourself to getting owned vs tougher opponents. You x/c once on the turn with all your AA and play a guessing game on the river, allowing your opponent to play perfect against a face up range. Instead, merge some AA like this into the betting range, since they are profitable there too, and keep some trips and a lower proportion of AA in your checking range. Now your opponent will have to think twice before bombing off his bluffs and you'll have an easier time defending since you don't have only weak hands in that range to chose from.

Yeah, definitely don’t want to be too face up in this spot I think. My experience in 4c training would lead me to think as you said it’s not a big mistake either way. My intuition was that having the fd would be too much to bf, so we must xc. So I would fire some lower equity AA instead. But doesn’t really matter as mentioned, I agree that more important is how is our opponent going to act, is he actually trying to mess us up etc. Definitely a cool “mistake” that isn’t an ev torch. How do you study? Do you work on pre still? Do you analyze rivers in solver or just logic?

What would be your suggestion to a low/medium stakes player who is willing to study a lot and improve his game drastically?
Should you start with specific spots (e.x. BUvBB SRP Unpaired A-high boards) or take some random interesting hands and dive deep?
What about training videos, is there any good content on 5c?

Pre there’s def some sketchy pre spots in 6card but 5card I’m pretty solid so don’t look at it anymore.

Regarding effective studying, you really want to use the solver to get an understanding of the driving forces for strategy in any given situation: use the tool to get a deep abstract understanding of the game. This will give you the biggest return on study time and will carry over the most if you want to transition to other formats like 6 card, dbl board, hi/lo.

So how to do that specifically: don’t just flip through combos in trainer/solver, but visualise the range interaction, think of what strategies that would lead to and what the effect of your blockers is. Take a moment to visualise how a combo will do vs various buckets of your opponents range and think what line most suits your hand. Then check if you’re correct. But don’t just guess the line, say to yourself how close it is, because ultimately you’re not playing vs a solver you’re playing vs humans (hopefully). So you want to understand also what the ev of each line would be and how you would adjust it to different player types.

If you’re off on a combo/spot, try to understand what the error in your thinking is. Go to the weak points: the areas you understand least and train the hell out of it.

Play a ton. But not too many tables. 4 max, maybe less if you play short handed. Mark 20-30 hands each session (not just bit pots) and go in depth through all before playing again the next day.

Also remember that the theory is just to help you understand the game at a deeper level. Don’t just recreate solver ranges. Use your hand reading/poker skills. Play free poker.

See also above post.

I would spend 1.5hrs each day working through common important spots:

Btn v bb srp
Sb v bb srp
Sb v btn 3bp
Less important but still relevant:
Co vs btn
Multiway

Then spend 1.5hrs reviewing marked hands from your last session.

Then play 3-6hrs

Repeat every day. Consistency is king.

Regarding videos, I think jnandez plo mastermind is probably solid. I didn’t watch their 5c vids but I watched his 4c course a couple years ago and it was a great starting point. His trainer/solver software is also great. I reckon it’s probably a good place to start out.

It’s been a good two weeks. Energy levels recovering further and put in quite a few days of 3-4hrs study plus 5hrs play.

Really getting into it played most my volume at pl5k. Still a few blunders here and there but getting less frequent by the day.

Shot took some pl10 and 15k tables with antes. Played very good, booked a modest win and played about 20-25bbs away from perfect over 1k hands. Also very happy how I handled a game of that size, this easily swings 50k in an hour and I felt quite unaffected by it and played the best plo I have so far.

Also deadlifted 4x160kg this week.

We’re on the rise all together. Life’s starting to get good again.

What do you look for in game selection to avoid cheaters? Are there warning signs in game other than blatant card sharing that will cause you to leave a table? Do you just view cheating as baked into winrate and not much to worry about? Have there ever been situations where you feel a spot is too good to be true? Love this thread btw. GL in the new year!

Thnx dude. So with regards to cheating/collusion, it has actually not been bad at all. I work with an agent that only works with clubs that take game integrity very serious. In consequence we bothstop working immediately with rooms where there are shenanigans going on. Additionally 25/50+ is a small pool where most players are known and all players are very observant/analytical so it actually makes collusion not that easy and the consequences are confiscation of funds so its a risky con to pull. That doesnt mean it never happens and maybe I am somewhat naive but it is a much bigger problem at midstakes I would say.

I played some 5/10 and 10/20 before this on random clubs and there would be obviously sketchy showdowns where two players in multiway pots are clearly card sharing. I have not seen even a single suspicious hand at high stakes in the legit clubs.

What is your core strategy? what and where is your edge?
regards

Happy new year everyone.

2024 gonna be my year! One simple goal: 500k+ in profits.

This week played a lot of 50/100 and some 100/200. Unfortunately ran a bit cold at the big game and lost 2BIs quickly. Will stick to 5k and 10k for now as 20 is a bit too massive.

Overall playing very solid, starting to loosen up more and deviate more in spots when my intuition calls for it.

Im still making an occasional massive blunder in big pots. This is where my inexperience in the format still shows as I have less than 50k hands in total. The other reason is that my brain is still quite inflamed and foggy all the time so I’m always playing while tired. Things are slowly getting better in that regard and I’m just gonna have to accept that I’m not playing my A game much.

As for the inexperience part, as an exercise I will start playing bomb pot sessions to train myself to deal with chaos/non standard spots.

glgl, will follow!

Im sure you are aware of the risks, but be careful at ClubGG. I played a small sample in 4 card $200-$400 equivalent buyin tables and felt like the collusion was rampant.

Seemed like the tables were super soft but big fish very often making the correct decisions, never seen something like this. Weirdest thing was when you sit down the table instantly filled up with very loose guys, was funny, like fish was chasing me.
Couple of friends tried too and felt the same and quit aswell.

I know there are tonns of different clubs, just sayin.

I spoke to crimsonchin and he said I could make a post > I'm his agent that he speaks of a few posts up. Wholeheartedly agree there are some scummy spots (as of the last time I dealt with them) that still have a lot of action (Pokerworld365 union, Israeli Poker Kingdom union, UTG union, whichever union that the club Vdara belongs to). If anyone has any doubts of whether they are playing in one of those unions, as each of them have MANY individual clubs/rooms making up the union, can message me and I'm happy to compare your lobby to mine in one of my inactive accounts.

Anyone that is even remotely interested in app games can send me a PM on here with their Telegram/discord/skype/whatever information or shoot me a message on one of the social media platforms (slayerv1fan on almost all of them).

I myself raked more than $1mil in app games in 2023 and battled all over the place and am super connected with most clubs/unions and have some very nice spots to play and nice deals to offer. My knowing ~ everyone + being known for my high volume + my reputation has paid off nicely since entering the app game world in 2022 after concluding my days of being a $500 spin reg

My partners and I work tirelessly day in and day out to keep ourselves informed and keep our players, whether a top pro like crimsonchin, or a complete fun player, satisifed with the deals + level of service they receive

@OP: I need to catch up on my end of 2023/start of 2024 backlog so we can start studying together! Know you're going to crush it this year and excited to be along for the ride!

Ya, I say this because I love online poker, I don’t get any get any referral money in any way for this.

Apps are here to stay and in these games have far more traffic than mainstream sites.

The way to avoid getting defrauded and cheated on apps is for everyone to stop working with agents that facilitate and profit from it to begin with. Only work with people that seriously care about game integrity.

So far my experience has been great with that, while you still have to be careful, which with the whole moneytaker scandal you have to be on main sites too, overall I my poker is largely free of too much worry over this.

In your poker development at what stakes did you get "stuck"? Or was it mostly smooth sailing up to HS?

I started in 2008 so times were a bit different but overall I still think poker is not as tough and competitive as it may seem. Basically anything under 25/50 is not super tough.

I got stuck initially at like .5:1 or 1/2. Then I met with a brilliant early high stakes player and we got drunk and talked poker all night and that talk inspired me to free myself of all dogmatic thinking and be creative.

I think when you read the forums there is too much emphasis on playing gto and answers in strat threads are given as a black and white thing. For me hands are always contextual to the opponent and many hands I would understand what to do in game but not sure what best is when just reading a hand history.

This is coming from someone who has spent more time studying solvers than 95% of the field. The most effective insight that it should give you is how other regs are going to deviate.

From there smooth up to 10/20, but 25/50 has always been a different animal and that requires very strong poker in all aspects.

Funny story about that high stakes player.

Made 500k in his second year in poker. Super talented, brilliant mind. Then quit to play WoW. Never heard from him again.