In, a bit late but in anyway. Very promising start. If you think of any more fun toy games, send me them yeah?

Waffle -
I'll address your reply per bullet point:

"catch up [..] plo [..] dr. fatcat [..] hop on [..]?"

One of the coolest things in poker is getting coaching. Hands down, people really shouldn't share their knowledge as much as they do. Getting coaching is amazing, and a great way of improving, and staying hungry and motivated.

You should learn plo. And i think that you should get a coach to teach you.
For me, plo balances out nlh really well, it makes me realize all kinds of concepts in a greater scope, and it relaxes me when no limit would exhaust me (and the other way round).

Hm apparently there was only one real question, so i guess i am done. I disagree that my perspective is that unique, but you still got an opinion out of me.

FatCat - I'll call you Crowdy from now on.
About your hand:
UTG raises to 4x. Which means that he sucks.

"In the end though I made the right play because I would of missed the flop."
I can't put it any better than this. So your play was OK after all. It was an OK way of playing it. After all. Just sayin. OK.

Magerkwark - Even if nobody had suspected that you're german up to this point, now they know for sure. And this is why:
You seem to totally miss the humour of Crowdy's post. That means that you
- have no sense of humour
or
- have the dryest (driest) humour in the world, and could just keep going like this for years until Crowdy either
- kills himself
or
- has a nervous break down.

That's so german..

blakki - Shut up and come visit.

Thant0s - I hope my reply was up to your expectations.

TheDefiniteThingy - It's kinda hard to find cool toy games nowadays.
Seeing that nobody has replied to this one, we'll see what i do. I also already got a beating for posting strat.

--------------------------------------------------------
POKER

OK. Yesterday. My whole "pre", "sess", "post" routine wouldn't be that credible now, because i played yesterday, and it's today now.
Anyway, yesterday was medium to high stakes day, so i was gonna sit down at some zoom 500 tables, or higher.
Which is what i did.

--------------------------------------------------------
SESSION 1
--------------------------------------------------------
SESSION 2
--------------------------------------------------------

I played two sessions.



I'll just talk about this hand, cause there are so many ways of looking at it.
Notice: This SB is pretty weak, and calls a bit more than a reg would. If that wasn't the case then this spot would work a bit differently.

#1: The "how much do we need to defend" way

The way this spot works is that the CO and the SB have some business in the hand, and the BB (me) just kinda gets dragged into the pot.
So the CO and SB have good equity with their ranges (quite similar equity, with the SB having a higher % of nut hands).
This board is an above average board for the BB.

If SB and BB lazily defend 55-77,4x,8x and a couple of As9s,5d7d type hands, then they call 28% and 24.5% of their respective ranges (not including some bluff raises, which should add at least another 4-5% to SB's range and 2% to the BB's range.)
So we're at 32% and 26.5% respectively without doing anything.
This is slightly lower than the MDF indicates (58.5 vs 66%).
Still, it doesn't include a single off-suit gut shot, and even if we call some of those (where arguably raising would be a great option as well), they really aren't the hands that need to do anything on any turn that's not good for them.

#2: The "how to play turns that are good for our range" way

First, a couple of words about CO's strategy here:

Could/should the CO cbet 100%?
His lowest equity hand is 22 or 5d6d, and that has >21% equity against the SB and BB. The equity drops down to 12-19% once called on average.
The weakest hand that can plausibly bet for protection is something like Q8.
This means that we have a huge number of hands that probablz dont wanna bet: 55,8s9s,AdJd, even KhQh.
No matter how i play around with the cbet range (be it his entire range, or a quite polarized range), the Ad turn is undeniably an above average turn for the CO.
We (the BB) still gained an equity advantage by calling a cbet versus a polarized range.

I did play this hand quite lazily, but i am glad that i didn't make the sauce-bet here, and instead went for the polarized larger bet.
Generally, if you have an advantage on a certain card, then you can split your range a bit more, try and make more good vacuum plays, stuff like that.
So we wanna lead a polarized range, get value from hands that wouldn't bet, deny him the chance to bet for protection/value/cheap showdown with hands like A2 or KK (which might be too thin).

#3: The "vacuum" way

FLOP

We flop a gutshot without any backdoors. Our equity against his cbetting range is between 25.7 (polarized) and 32.5%(entire range).
I think with that kind of equity, we should generally mix raising and folding.
Once we do call, this is the absolute rock-bottom of our range on any turn that doesn't improve our hand.

TURN

Our equity dropped down to a cool 15-17%.
compare that to 77, which has between 33 and 49%, or KdQd which has 47ish.
Let's roll with what i did though:
135/390 or 55/156 hands don't have anything, so we have 35-43.7% FEQ.
This means that most likely, my lead doesn't generate a profit in a vacuum.
On the river, 37.6(polarized cbet)-50%(entire cbet range) of his range is Ax or better.
This means that my bluff is probably around break even, provided he occasionally herofolds an ace.

My conclusion is that i took a hand that should have been looking to call one bet and turned it into a 3.5 bet hand, generating a profit of around 0BB's/100, and a ton of variance for myself.

Spazzy grampa

I forgot one thing about plo, so i'll address that quickly.

PLO is a very different game. People do some stuff that your no-limit brain won't find appealing, and you'll find out much later why they do it, and that it's actually quite good.
There are some really weak regs out there, even playing 500 zoom.
Some people are very loose and spewy, and they play every single day.
Some people are so tight that it hurts, and they also play daily.
I think you can play it and feel quite comfortable fairly quickly, and you might feel that you already have an edge, but some of those things will be based on an illusion that stems from a poor understanding of how you need to approach plo differently from no limit.
It is a challenge though, and there are certain aspects of the game that you'll be strong in from the start if you can beat decent no limit stakes.
Like the levelling game, like deciding whether people (even good players) are bluffing.

then again at no limit its the 21/17 that lose and the "tards" like ngoyya and 1nvoker that win. Same thing.

Another day, another session. Today felt like low stakes day, so that was kinda relaxing. I've been working on flop play, so i need to try out some stuff anyway. I'll restart the Pre - Session - Post routine soonish, bear with me.



I don't have much to say about this hand. Leading turn is reasonable with all kinds of bluffs, so that's what i do. Our size is determined by hands like AQ i'd say. also, bluffing for a really big bet might not be great here.

The river isn't very bluffable, but sometimes you just gotta do it. I have plenty of reason to believe that villain has 22,55,JJ-KK,45s always, and 66-TT sometimes.

Oh, i forgot. A friend talked me into playing some 1knl reg tables yesterday, and apparently it was spew-fest day with the likes of proggrezive and DEX.
Everybody playing tough, a thousand different bet sizes flying around every hand. Seems like i gotta play those games more often and see where i stand, so stay tuned.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
REAL LIFE

Yea, i do have that.
I've been analyzing the **** out of poker the last couple of days, and there's quite a lot to learn.
However, a big topic in our small community here is sleep, and sleep schedules.
We have four fractions:

1) The sleep nerds:
They don't eat for a couple of hours before they go to sleep. They will turn off their computers in time. They won't drink coffee after noon. They listen to white noise and sleep with a sleep mask. They go to bed early and get up early. They meditate after waking up.
You get the idea.

2) The disfunctional sleepers:
They have a 25-26 hour day. They go to sleep at a different time every day, and when they're awake they yawn every 10 minutes. They're generally tired, they hate alarms, and they can't commit to appointments if it's even remotely near their potential wake-up times.

3) The "there's only one approach to sleeping" kinda guys:
They can only fall asleep between 11 and 12 at night, or not at all.
They are convinced that it's humanly impossible to change that time, no matter what you do. They don't sleep extremely well, but it kinda works out.

4) The "i don't give a ****" fraction:
They sleep when they're tired. They drink coffee when there's some left. Sometimes they eat right before they go to bed, sometimes they turn off their laptops and try to sleep 10 minutes later. They can sleep once a day, or twice a day, and they can go to sleep or wake up at any time that's convenient. If there are any rules or patterns, i wouldn't know about them.

All this in one big house. You can imagine what that's like. Basically, we're never awake at the same time. And i mean NEVER.

subbed,

played a lil bit against u yesterday on stars (1k, 3-6handed)

u rly owned me hard in some spots & my mind was rly going crazy, tilted some stacks away, was rly happy that i cud leave after donating like 4k.

I am definitely looking forward to hook some1 like you up on skype and may talk some strategy or exchange hands if you wud be up for that. I have some strategy channels, but all of those guys are more like on the bumhunter side of life and not up for the competition.

Im trying for like a week to get a rly rly badass coach, unfortunatly & def expected nobody of those rly hardcrushing regs like OTB, Katya, forhayley or mr. numbers is up for that, who wud have thought that..

So if u want just let me know & we can exchange skype via PM.

glgl btw i like your writting style, seems like completely random but def a funread.

Problem with 433r is that some regs may be valuebetting flop with AK (though less likely UTG vs MP).

Thoughts?

Why would villain always check back KK-JJ?

because he should :O

I think he assumes that because of the current metagame. There's not a lot of merged valuebetting on boardchanging cards.

I just read the whole blog of yours, which made me realize how much i suck at NLHE/english, probably equaly.

From what i think of your analyses, u can def play higher than u actually do and YES u r under-rated by most regs for sure. In fact i became a fan.

Thank you.

I'm very excited to follow your thread midas. I've always loved hearing your strategy thoughts. Your reasons for donking larger on the 844, A turn are an example of the quality content I've come to expect from you.

I'm having trouble sleeping lately. Would you mind posting a more thorough list of habits of "the sleep nerds?" I've already just ordered a sleep mask and white noise machine.

65o hand, I thought for five minutes on reasons to checkraise flop and reasons to not do it. seeing that you can balance your trips/boats with the call flop donk turn donk river line I like it a lot. Against a weak PFR checkraising flop might still be the better way to make him overfold as he will not defend overcards properly enough, as you would never checkraise your nutrange on this texture. So while saying this, there might still be merit for both and in the end I cannot judge what will show the better ev. Seems close and a bit spazzy.
But saying all that, your 65o defend showing profit even if SB is the weakest cardplayer on the planet, as long as CO knows what he is doing, you will rarely get to realize its equity in order to make it a +ev hand to begin with. But you tried. And it made me think. So thanks for sharing that hand and the idea behind it. I see what you where trying to do and why. That makes me a bit more happy than I was before.

Sleep is important. I would prolly go bonkers like Colonel Kurtz and establish my own voodoo cult if I had to battle the thailand airconditioner and the rambling of other grinders that display activity habits contrary to my own love of schedule. Your room-mates must really not have annoying habits while awake, because you seem to sorely enjoy it, or maybe not, or maybe its masochistic.
I imagine it is the one downside to living with people that share professionalism towards a common pursuit, to not get on each others nerves while a part of the "team" is resting/sleeping and the other part is hyped up for activities.

Elaborate a bit on how it actually is to live in thailand as a poker pro, with other poker pros. What are the biggest misconceptions, what are the surprising things? We want to know.

Totally out of context, how often do you guys play "Simon says"? I had to put in something cheesy to close on...

There we go again. Lot's of amazing stuff to comment on.

____________________________________

Thx for subbing, thx for the offer, and thx for the compliments on my writing style.
Thank you as well for claiming that i owned you, which i definitely didn't perceive that way. I'll just change my perception of that session.

Well. You might as well say that some regs may be valuebetting A3s and AA. It's only a problem if it pushes my equity beyond a certain point, same with AK,AQ.
Rephrase: Frequencies/EV's or gtfo!

There's no checking back in that hand.

Let's say (for the sake of your argument) that my theory is 10/10, my volume is 5/10 and my BRM-aggressiveness is 6/10.
People often pretend that theory is all that matters, but i think we should weight those 3 factors at least equally (In fact, i think volume > BRM > theory, as long as your theory is at least 4/10 or something).
Anyway, my overall rating would be (10+6+6)/3 out of 10.

That's a clean 7.3/10 for Mr. Pokernerd in the left corner.

Now, let's look at you, Dex. I don't really know much about you, but let's just imagine that you grind a lot (you do play tournaments), that have about same BRM as me, and that your theory is weaker (but still good. You do play 1knl).

Theory: 6/10.
Volume: 8/10.
BRM: 6/10.

So your rating would be 6.6/10 based on this, which isn't much lower.

(Yo people. It would be pretty amazing if some of you could chime in and give yourselves a rating based on this method. Feel free to let me know how highly you would rate each of the 3 factors as well).

My point is that people focus too much on a single factor, which might be called "poker knowledge", and don't give themselves enough credit for things that they are doing a lot better than somebody else.
In fact, my biggest problem for a long time was exactly that. I was happily analyzing and thinking, but i didn't put myself into a spot to actually win big.
Little experiment:

Player1 (me):
winrate: 6bb/100 (based on a 10/10 theory score)
volume: 50k hands per month.
BRM: 50 BI's.

Player2 (Dex):
winrate: 2.5bb/100
volume: 90k hands per month.
BRM: 40 BI's.

We both start at nl10 with $200.

Player1 needs to play 175k hands to hit 50 BI's for nl25. That's gonna take him 3.5 months.

Player2 needs to play 320k hands to hit 40 BI's for nl25. That's gonna take him 3.55 months.

new bankrolls: Player1: $1250. Player2: $1000.
NL25: (winrates: Player1: $15/1000, Player2: $6.25/1000)
Player1 needs to play 116k hands to hit $2500 for nl50.
Player2 needs to play 160k hands to hit $2000 for nl50.

Player 1 needs 2.32 months, player 2 needs 1.77 months.

new bankrolls: Player1: $2500. Player2: $2000.
NL50: (winrates: Player1: $30/1000, Player2: $13.5/1000)
Player1 needs to play 83.3k hands to hit $5000 for nl100.
Player2 needs to play 148k hands to hit $4000 for nl100.

Player 1 needs 1.46 months, player 2 needs 1.64 months.

So far, player1 has spent 7.28 months of his life moving up, while player2 has only spent 6.96 months. So even though player2 has less than half of player1's winrate, he's already ahead.

(If you wanna have some fun, try doing the same calc with monthly expenses of $500 and your own winrate, and see how long it would take you to reach nl200).

Dex, you seem like a really nice guy. Thank you for the kind words and for the inspiration to talk about this little mind game. Keep 'em coming!

Ha, sometimes i can't tell whether people wanna troll me (Sry i don't wanna insult you if you're being serious). So apparently you like my reasons, while i am very skeptical of them. Playing non-standard lines is tough, cause you gotta work out everything on your own, and if you make a mistake then that can lose you a lot of money. I'll occasionally post these non-standard plays and outline a potential reasoning, but i wouldn't encourage people to try those plays, rather to think about them (or try them at lower stakes i guess).

Hahaha i am happy that you liked that part. I'll get you a book recommendation, i think that's all you need.

Waffle, i'll reply later, i really gotta go now.

xoxo

volume>theory>brm

15/6/2

volume: 3/10
theory: 7/10
BRM(depends on what you mean?): 9/10

19/3 = 6.333

Agree with what you've said about this though.

theory; 4/10 (this have to be in correlation to the stakes you play no?)
volume; 4/10
brm; 8/10

5,3/10.

in short, overrolled bumhunting nit.
dedication to lurking, worthless time spent online 11/10.

volume: 7/10
theory: 1/10
BRM: 10/10 (if this means that i'm totally spewy and constantly take under rolled shots at limits I probably can't beat anyway)

6/10

Volume : 4

Cba to grade the other two, too complicated

about 6 total though

---

little update, my friend is leaving tonight so back on the grind tomorrow for a week. I actually played a quick session the other day and won like 2bi but didn't have any interesting hands. Hopefully I can poast some tomorrow. Had some awesome sushi today with flatmates and some good chilling. Unfortunately I won't be able to tell you guys about my awesome life in the next week as I won't really be doing anything else besides grinding. I'm not even thinking of showering. In fact, I'm considering setting up a system where I can stay in the pool for a week and grind from there if I can get some prop bet action. The bet would be that I can't leave the pool for one week (inflatable matress is allowed, with food and water brought to me etc...). I would be allowed to grind ofc.

I assume you can leave to go to the toilet, otherwise that will become unpleasant pretty quickly.

Yeah that or some kind of bucket system

Def will be following. U dunno who I am but I know who u are!

Creepy

if i knew how to subscribe to threads i would, ill just bookmark it instead and follow along olddawgstyle