[Study material: Hands study]

I wanted to study some hands today, so I studied the following, analyzed by Johnathan Little. I hope to collect more such hands to study.

1. Cash - How to play a premium draw (AKs vs 44): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rdWqHKx6FY
   
2. Tour - Negreanu vs Petrangelo (KTo vs KQo): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjLhjxXk4Vg
   
3. Cash- Brad Owen vs QZ (AQo vs 86s): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dh7AoucZVXY

The first point that I think is important to make is that if you don't think you need to study open shove or rejam spots, then it doesn't make sense that you feel you need to study anything else either. Everything you are trying to study is built on top of solid fundaments. If you feel that your "best guess" game is better than the solid fundamentals, then studying, for example, range morphication is an exercise in futility since you're always going to revert back to feeling that your instinct is the most important thing.

The next point is that you got 30bb in with AK in a pko against K3, A7, and QJ. That's an insane value, to you. That one hand is probably worth as much as laddering 50 spots in the money. What you should take from that hand is "wow, these things are insanely profitable, I should load up 50 more"

Hi Evo,

I did find shoving ranges, although no rejam ranges yet, and that is because, as I wrte, I considered your point critical.

However, you haven't answered my question: Why is my strategy of shoving only from 5xBB not as good as shoving from 20xBB?

That is, especially given that I most often have very little or no fold equity in the Micros.

Also, my strategy has worked well for me this far, so why should I change it?

I mean, yes, I agree that I need to know which hands to shove with from 20xBB down, but I am wondering whether and when I should shove and when not to.

[Study material: How to perform highly steady]

Top 5 reasons why you lose at poker, according to Daniel Negreanu:
1. Tilt
2. Poor Fundamentals
3. Games are tough
4. You've become too predictable
5. Bad luck

https://youtu.be/QTMhuD0XEcY

Math, I guess to be short the answer is math.

But, I think you would be benefited greatly by studying the spots yourself. You have access to equity calculators, and regular calculators, and you have access to a database of hand histories (your own) showing what your opponents call/fold with vs various sized shoves. If you spend a couple of hours working a few spots out using your hands, and crunching the numbers, you'll probably find pool-specific exploits and solidify the concepts and strategy, way more than you would be watching a video.


If people call with bad hands, my question is why are you 2.25x opening with good hands and not open shoving 40bb?


Maximizing your potential, solidifying solid study habits and fundamentals, understanding how other people play and start to learn how to exploit that.

I always like to use a basketball analogy, I'm not sure how familiar you are with the game, but your question is like saying "I'm playing one on one vs a 5 year old and keep shooting fadeaway jumpers, why should I just drive to the hole and lay the ball up every possession?" Well because it's easier and more effective. Just because one thing happens to work, doesn't mean other things won't work better.

Once you know what is correct, you can identify what others are doing incorrectly and be able to understand how to best attack them.

1. Yes, I will indeed be loading up more of these games. However, they tournaments, not like cash games, and once you are out, you are out.

2. I did tilt a bit, if that's what you mean, and felt entitled, and your answer certainly reduces tilt. But at least I stopped playing immediately after.

3. I put the above hand in HoldEQ. I don't recall the exact suits of the hands, so I did it with the combos. I only had 28% equity there.


I think the right play would have been to fold there, unless I wanted to rebuy, and which I didn't. I made a wrong play and I should just have folded, or rebought after, which I didn't do either of.

4. I am not sure if I wanted to ladder up 50 places ITM there, cos it was too early in the tournament, I could take those guys out slowly too.

5. When I am ITM, again I don't think I want to take such gambles eg 4-way. The same reason is why I don't want to go all in, and not because I don't want to study shoving and reshoving ranges. I would rather just take out opponents slower.

[Play considerations: Using a HUD]

To use a HUD or to not use a HUD (for tournaments)?
My HUD is Hand2Note. I am thinking to use it only for VPIP and Aggression Factor, to tell the style and range of each player so I can make reads and adjust my play a little. That would provide a natural continuation to my hand reading study.

However:
1. I have fired up the HUD a couple of times now. It kind of distracts me and I didn't win any tours while having it on.
2. Starting to play with a HUD will be a major change for my game.
3. I could also do it later when I am more ready perhaps.

I am thinking that I shouldn't do it just now, and practice other things first.
What does anybody else think?

I would imagine that if you were only interested in playing $1-3 mtts, you could find 200+ every single day among all the sites. Potential volume isn't an issue.


28% of the time you win the hand, and two bounties, and have what? A 100bb+ stack? That's an insane amount of value. It's likely correct to take that gamble if you only have 10% equity! And that's ignoring the fact that 28>25, which is what you'd need for it to be a breakeven play only considering cEV (which is a mistake because in pkos you have to consider $ev)

I think you missed the point that I was making, I was illustrating how much actual money that move makes you, it's analogous to laddering up 50 spots once you are itm.

I think this may be the bedrock of your issues. You are scared to lose, scared to bust out. You feel that playing winning poker means winning a couple of big blinds off of people by...outplaying?...them. When in reality that's a concept that's antiquated and proven inefficient. You need to figure out how to get yourself mentally to a place where you are completely fine with sticking 40bb in preflop with AJ (for example). Busting out of tournaments doesn't matter. You, and me, and everyone else who plays tournaments is going to bust out of nearly every single tournament we have ever played and will ever played. Making the plays that you need to make in order to maximize your equity is what will win you that one extra tournament out of 100 that brings you from breakeven/small winner to a healthy ROI.

[Session results]

I had one of the worst sessions. I played 9 games, and made it ITM only in 1, although I cashed tiny in 2. Hopefully I am down only about $5.

The good news is I did alright in the $4.40 tournament. I am interested in cashing in these tours, as they pay 4 digits, compared to 3 low digits in the others.

[Session result cont.]

I cashed in my last tour of the day, which I was still in. I could have gone further but I felt tired and something go to me so I called an all in that I shouldn't have. Now it's time to rest.

[Session results: A 4th place]

I played 6 tours, and made it to the final table AGAIN! I finished 4th out of 2609 in the $1.10 Bounty builder, and cashed $84.98. My bankroll is now at $499.88. Luck was not on my side in the end. I lost from 2 hands in a row all in, QQ vs AQo, where the opponent hit an A on the river, and afterwards JJ vs KK.

[Play assessment: Hand reviews]

Today I want to study how I have been playing. I already know of 2 ways to assess my play (Variance calculation, and BB/100). But I want to look at something different, which is about how I play hands. Specifically, I have come up with the following:

1. Hand I win with the most
2. Hands I lose with the most
3. How I play AKs and AKo
4. How I play big pairs (AA,KK,QQ,JJ)
5. How I play medium pairs (TT,99,88,77)
6. How I play small pairs (66,55,44,33,22)

Is this a good way to review my play? Or is it better to review a full winning tournament? Or are those 2 things different? What does anybody else think?

Update:
There are some problems with the above. First, it may refer mostly to cash games and not MTTs as much. Second, I checked out Hand2Note and it doesn't offer an option to sort all hands played in all tournaments so as to do that, so it is impossible. I recall other software like PokerTracker or Holdem Manager are offering this option, but I don't have either (nor intend to buy either). So, it seems I will not do this kind of review.

Seems inefficient. Especially with your sample, if you see that you are losing 10evbb/100 with 77 how do you know that that isn't just one set under set you got into that's massively skewing the numbers?

Reviewing your play yourself likely isn't going to lead to any big informative breakthroughs, because you are looking at hands that you played...of course you are going to think you played them well.

The best way to get better at poker is to study fundamentals. Once you have those down pat, you should attempt to review data from your pool (should be easy if all of your play is on stars) and try to find spots where the pool is derivating from correct play and then figure out how to max exploit that. Once you have all of that analysis done, it's kind of just reviewing to make sure you aren't missing spots and then writing down situations that come up in your play to study later, like what do you do when you 3b AK from the blind and the flop comes monotone in a suit you aren't holding @ 20bb/30bb/40bb/50bb+ stack depths? That's something that's not super common but when it happens you go "hmmmmmm" and feel like you're always making the wrong decision, so it's good to look it up, or run it in a calc when you are studying to see what the optimal play would be.

[Session results]

Today I played a total of 6 games, which included a $3.30 and a $4.40 Bounty builders. I made it low ITM in the $4.40, and cashed small in most of the rest, so I am up $4.88. All in all, a relaxed day. Time to rest.

[Study notes: What I learnt today]

Today I studied:

1. Bankroll management & when to move up and down stakes, and learnt the 15/2 bankroll strategy by James 'SplitSuit' Sweeney (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RC8CuzTcSZk.
2. I estimated my likely monthly profits given my current win frequency
3. Iso raises
4. Iso 3-bets
5. Squeezing
6. Reconsider how I will be playing a short stack ie from 20xBB and below (push/fold or not?)

I now will be practicing the latter in my next games

Here is what Jonathan Little says: In small stakes tournaments you do not need to play a push-fold strategy when you get short-stacked. Instead, you should min-raise/shove/fold even when down to 12xBBs!

age...]

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRT7Ysgp-Wc

[Session results]

It's been a long day. My goal today was to play preflop strategy, and isolation raising by the book. I think I achieved that 85%+ of the time.

I played about 9 tours, which included 1x$11 Sunday Storm (by ticket), 1x$7.50 Bounty builder, 1x$5.50 Bounty builder, 2x$5.50 Mega Sats to the Sunday Million, 1x$4.40 Bounty builder, 1x$2.20 Mega Sats to the Sunday Storm, and 2x$1.10 Sats to the Sunday Storm.

All in all, I didn't do well although I was a little overwhelmed, since I was playing a little above my usual stakes. I won $5 in one tour, $4 in another, and a Sunday Storm ticket. Overall, I spent $32.8, and my bankrolll went down approximately $23.8! That is a lot for me, however I chose the Sunday Million tours because they had great overlays (80 tickets in one, 50 tickets in another), and similar for the Sunday Storm. Also, I had the chance to play some low stakes MTTs which I play less often - the $5.50 and the $4.40 Bounty Builders.



* Note: Today I found out that the Sunday Storm is also played as a Progressive KO tour, which is great because these are the only tours I chose to play.

[Session results]

Today I made 2 cashes in 4 games. The good news is I came back to cashing, but other than that I am having a big downswing. I need to study more, and be more concentrated and motivated.

[Session results]

I played 7 games today. I cashed only in 2. My bankroll is down about $5. All in all an average day.

[Play updates]

I'm on a bad downswing over the last 5 days, having been losing in about 60 games in a row. That's my longest downswing in a while. I've lost about $70. I'm often feeling bored to play, or a bit lost about my strategy.

As a consequence of how I felt, I cashed out a big part of my bankroll, leaving about $150 to play with in total. I feel good about doing that though.

As I run badly, I went down in stakes, and now only play up to $3.30 tours.

[Study progress]

I discovered more about ranges, and it turns out the material I was studying about ranges does not apply to my play at all. The good news is, a lot of the other things I found and was studying do apply (ie pre-flop RFI ranges, isolation play, short stack play & shoving ranges, post-flop strategies, check-raising, bankroll management, and more). I therefore split my material and kept only those things relevant to my play to be studying.

What specifically did you learn, and how/why does it not apply to your play?

What I was trying to learn since the beginning of this blog is how to "play range" ie go from the "my hand vs opp hand" thinking to "my range vs opp range" thinking. You've asked me about this before, so here is an explanation from Daniel Negreanu about it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7rL...q5D-vZrW2e3RHt
(Sorry this is video long-ish. There is a short version of it but I couldn't find it now.)

Topics I have been studying about "playing range", as described above were:

1. The difference between playing "your range vs opp range" and "your hand vs opp hand"
2. Range forms
3. Range morphology (eg capped, uncapped, linear, merged, polarized etc)
4. Categorizing a range by its contents (ie Nuts, Strong, Medium, Weak, Air)
5. Weighing ranges
6. Poker Combinatorics
7. The process of putting an opponent on a range
8. Using player profiling and/or HUD stats to put an opponent on a range
9. Eliminating hands from a range & the Hand range Funnel
10. Constructing your own range
11. Managing your frequencies

and some more.

However, there are a lot gaps in my material, and, mostly, I am not using this thinking in my play at the Micros at the moment, so I have now stopped studying all that.

I think that, eventually, many of the above gaps are filled with this video course here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lj9D...q5D-vZrW2e3RHt
However, that is way too complex for me to study.

It seems like a lot of what you learned was about how to range an opponent, I don't see why you feel that doesn't apply to your play?

"I learned it": I wish! I was trying to learn it is what I was doing! Also, this material overall is not only about how to range an opponent, but also how to construct my own range so I can play "my range vs opp range". So, are you suggesting I should go for "my hand vs opp range" first, and work on learning how to play "my range vs opp range" later?