...Yes. My other post was too focused on me posting graphs of results. Way too results oriented and boring. It can be deleted if a mod feels so inclined.

This new post featuring: ACTUAL CONTENT.

Goals:

• Improve mindset.
  • Be more growth mindset focused
  • Less results oriented
  • Value how I am played rather than how I am running
  • Work on meditation and outside of game life as well
• Improve my game.
• Post several hands which I think illustrate interesting concepts here each week.
• Have fun playing again.

As you can hopefully see, none of these goals have anything to do with "earning X amount of money" etc. The last goal is specifically pretty darn important to me. I used to have a ton of fun playing and thinking about strategy, but lately it's been too much about winning and losing.

Of course, as we say, on with the content. Next post will include a hand I played this morning that I thought was interesting.

For parting words of the first post, here is a great picture to remember me.



(As you can see I am pretty disorganized, so hopefully I can keep up with posting here.)

Out of Position Big Club Flop

Effective stacks in this hand ~100BB. Villain is strong reg.

PREFLOP
Dealt to Hero: KT in middle position.
Hero opens to 2.5BB
Button calls

FLOP J K 7


-----------------------

Here are my general strategic thoughts:

• This is a board where we probably have an equity disadvantage against a tight IP calling range
• We're OOP and the SPR is pretty high, so we generally want to play pretty passively here as an overall strategy (getting raised sucks, although with our actual hand it's not that bad).

That makes my generally strategy outline clear.

• Play mostly checks as a default strategy here.
  • Our range as a whole is at an equity disadvantage. So, small "equity push" type bets isn't great here.
• After check, we want to play a mostly call strategy
  • I think we can have a raising strategy, but it should be a HUGE raise. Our goal is to shrink the SPR here so playing OOP is less of a disadvantage. A small raise still forces us to play OOP on many uncomfortable turns and rivers vs calls.
    • Hands list sets really benefit from this type of action as well. So we should focus our huge raise strategy around sets.
    • We want to block villains strongest calls here, so having pair blockers will be very valuable as our bluffs. Something like J9, 67, 78 are probably are best bluffs for the huge size.
  • Our range as a whole is at an equity disadvantage. So polarizing is probably good here.

-----------------------

For the slightly more analytically inclined out there, I went ahead and assigned villain a range that looks something like this:

(AxQx-AxTx,AxQy,AxJy,KxQx-KxTx,KxQy,QxJx,QxTx,JxTx,Tx9x,99-66)@100,(AxQx,Ax9x,Ax8x,AxTy,KxQx,KxQy,JJ,TT)@17

Where as our range is something like this:

AA-22,AxKx-Ax2x,AxKy-AxTy,KxQx-Kx9x,KxQy-KxTy,QxJx-Qx9x,QxJy,JxTx,Jx9x,Tx9x,9x8x,8x7x,7x6x,6x5x,5x4x

Our range is indeed at an equity disadvantage here. It's about 45-55 there.

I assigned a pretty strong betting range (I'm sure PIO will use something more balanced), but something like this is probably not crazy.

((AxQx-AxTx,AxQy,AxJy,KxQx-KxTx,KxQy,QxJx,QxTx,JxTx,Tx9x,99-66)@100,(AxQx,Ax9x,Ax8x,AxTy,KxQx,KxQy,JJ,TT)@17): (77,JJ, KQ,cc,KJ,QT, AQ,AT)

We have a pretty terrible equity against this range, we're about 2:1 dogs. So raising into this doesn't seem particularly appealing for the small size.

-----------------------

Finally, for the PIO heads out there, I did want to check if PIO agreed on a few things.

1. Can we go pure range check on this board without losing much EV?
2. Do we actually prefer the huge raise size OTF?

The large raise size is definitely preferred by PIO here. I gave it 200% pot and 3x and it used 200% pot exclusively. I didn't try putting in even larger sizes, but I wouldn't be surprised to see even larger sizes being used here.

In terms of range check, I was actually a little surprised how much PIO decided to bet here. First, it preferred the smaller bet to the bigger one on the flop and it actually bet about 30% of the time, despite being at a range disadvantage and having a somewhat high SPR.

You actually do lose quite a bit here (like 2%) from a range check here. So finding some bets is going to be valuable. I think the key idea here is that despite being an overall equity dog, we do have a pretty good advantage in very high equity hands. With those hands, it's pretty devastating for the flop to go XX, so building a betting range around a lot of our high equity hands is a good idea.

So, despite having the equity disadvantage, we definitely don't want to go ahead and just simplify to never bet. We need to TAKE ADVANTAGE OF OUR STRONG HANDS.

(My exact hand can go either way, I think when we devise such a strategy, and PIO agrees playing it about 50/50 either way.)

Bluff? What's that?

Effective stacks in this hand ~100BB. Villain is strong reg.

PREFLOP
Dealt to Hero: KJ in early position.
Hero opens to 2.5BB
Small Blind calls
Big Blind Calls

FLOP J Q 6

x x x

TURN J Q 6 T

Small blind donks 1/4 of the pot.
Big Blind folds
Hero calls

RIVER J Q 6 T 3

Small blind bets 1/4 of the pot.
Hero ???

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Here's what I'm wondering: DOES VILLAIN EVER HAVE A BLUFF HERE?

I think the turn donk is probably pretty protection oriented. I'd expect QK type hands to be his most likely "value" hand there. On the river, I think villain presumably recognizes that he has a fairly airless range so he lays us a great price.

We need to be good about a sixth of the time to call this bet. So, are we?

I'm honestly not sure. So I'm going to just put in a rough approximation of ranges I think he could come here with.

Frequent bluffer:

Value bets: TxJx,JQ,TxQx,8x9x,9xKx,66,TT

Bluffs: Ac6c-Ac9c, Ax9x

Given our blockers and the board cards, this actually gives 7 combos of bluffs and 23 combos of value. That actually leads to an easy call if we want to believe this is our opponent.

Occasional bluffer:

I think the occasional bluffer has the same value bets but gives up with the clubs on the river, thinking he has a lot less fold equity now that he blocks some weak calls.

Value bets: TxJx,JQ,TxQx,8x9x,9xKx,66,TT

Bluffs: (Ax9x):75%

This one actually turns into a fold. I lowered the rate of Ax9x that he has too just because I'm not so confident he'll even lead this on the turn.

Rare bluffer:

Bluffs: None

Easy fold. I expect this to be the case for a lot of players on this board honestly. If you're not thinking about it, it's easy to decide to check down Ax for the "showdown value" even though it has none.

-----------------------

This one seems very player dependent to me. Definitely not a slam dunk fold or call. I think my default play here is to fold, expecting people to not construct their range too carefully and bet not bet enough on the turn. I guess I'm basically saying I think the latter two types of players are more common in the player pool than the former, by default.

But if I had a read that this player was the type to bluff a lot, the "natural" bluffs do make up enough to make it a slam dunk call. So easy call against someone who likes bluffings.

Against players I know don't bluff much, obvious slam dunk fold.

Would love to hear other people's opinions here on their default play and thoughts on how others play this spot.

Recently I haven't been disecting hhs in full detail, figured too many decoys in threads messing with my already overburdened thought process but i like this post.
He could have KQ and KT too.
Turn raise seems reasonable.
btw. haven't u made a mistake calculating the frequent bluffer combos/odds? 1/6 7/23? easy call? no?

Thanks for the reply bud.

I hadn't considered turn raise. We definitely are the only one with the nuts and we have decent blockers. Seems like a play we could make sometimes.

Re frequent bluffer: it's 7/30 but yeah easy call either way.

Ah man, now I look like an idiot because the one reply had his post deleted. Oh well, such is life.

It's been a bit since I felt like writing anything, but I figured I'd just catch up on how my goals are going.

I've not been putting in a ton of volume. Doing a lot more studying and enjoying life than playing. Studying has been great though. I feel like I've improved a lot in the past two weeks as a player.

My biggest change has been not thinking about GTO bot style play. I'm trying to think about WHY certain strategies are good more. I think this is extremely valuable to understand. You need to understand what strategies you are countering with your plays so that you can know if they're good.

For each play I make, I want to have a specific reason -- what type of strategy from my opponent am I countering with this play? That can be based on a specific read on the opponent or on a general population read.

I'm also taking more notice of how specific villains play and trying to make use of that in this framework.

• Have fun while playing
  • This one is going great! I've been either playing low stakes for practice on various sites or playing live lately. Playing live tends to be significantly more "fun" in some abstract sense.
• Improve my game
  • Definitely working on this one, and feel pretty good. My new found strategy-counter strategy mindset has led me to think about things very differently than I ever have before.
• Post hands on here
  • Totally failed!
• Improve mindset
  • Been doing pretty well with this so far. Feeling good, playing okay, not worrying about how I am running.

On the spirit of having fun while playing, I also tried playing in a live poker tournament. I made day 2 of a tourney at the Bike here in Los Angeles so I'll be playing again tomorrow.

I'm going in short-stacked, but I'm pretty psyched. Never played a live tournament before and I had a lot of fun on day 1, although it was a bit of a grind by the end of the day.

Hopefully I can run my shortstack up a bit tomorrow, but I'm going in expecting to be knocked out pretty quickly. Still, pretty excited to play again though!

Busted in 21st but it was a good run. An unfortunate cooler exit when I got 6s full on KK6J2 against KJ. Oh well, I had a pretty fun time which is what I hoped for.

Live tournaments are definitely fun, but they are quite a bit of a grind. We played from 1 pm until 2:30 am on day 2 with only a few 10 minute breaks. They definitely need to make that more reasonable. Give us time for dinner, and preferably play a little less time. But I do understand that they want to get the tournament done in as few actual days as possible.

You make quality posts it's just hard to say anything about it, but I'm sure many of us reading. GG on your tournament

Thanks for the kind words, Hot*ShoT. Tournament was fun so glad I played. A little sad about placing 21 but overall that's a good profit to go $250 --> $4400.


Here's a pretty fun hand I played recently. I was told my hand was one of the worst calls villain had ever seen when we showed down. Would love to know what you guys think. Pretty exploitative play though.

Worst call you've ever seen? OVERBET OVERBET OVERBET

Preflop I open MP, get 3bet small by SB and call with 46s.

(This is not super exploitative, but villain does like to 3bet small with pretty much any hand he's going to continue here, for reference.)

FLOP 4c 8s Th

Villain Checks

--- Now here's where I start to play pretty exploitatively. Villain is a guy I've played with a bit, and my general read is that he likes to bet most of his good stuff on the flop. I think he might occasionally trap a set here, but he'll never check back a top pair or an overpair.

I decide to play an overbet strategy on the flop since he has gutted most of his range. My hand seems okay, I'm blocking the very occasional 44 trap. So I go ahead and fire 1.5x pot this time.

Turn 4c 8s Th Td

X X

I don't see any reason to continue betting here. I don't think we get any value and we don't really have too much reason to bluff. Our hand is pretty strong at this point given my read that he basically never has a T (unless he now has quads).

River 4c 8s Th Td Tc

Villain donks for 2x pot.

My thoughts at this point are:

1. He never has a T
2. I think the value hands he does here would bet less than 2x pot by default. You're not really psyched to bet 2x pot with a hand like 77 or an 8.
3. So, he's using a polarizing size and repping Tx but never has a T. I think this size is exclusively bluffs at this point.

So I call.

+1. Great work

Thanks d00ble.zer0, I appreciate the comment.

No interesting hands to report today, as I haven't really played any poker in the last few days. In terms of other goals I have done a nice job getting a little more exercise in. On nights I'm not at the climbing gym this week I've been going for a light jog.

I've always been terrible at running so it's a pretty rough experience.

Anyway, I'll be playing poker again this weekend at Oceans 11 Casino for a very similar tournament to last week $250 buy-in quantum reload thing. (I won't buy in direct on Sunday. If I bust Saturday, oh well.) Hopefully I'll have some interesting hands to report here from that.

Had a lot hands I felt like I was either unsure of, or sure I made a mistake on recently (all hands at $5/5). Here's a bit of a synopsis of them. I'm going to try to think about them more and would like to hear other people's opinion.

wait, why did I raise??

MP who has been playing a lot of hands opens to $30. (Never met him before though)
I call BB with Q9

Flop J 6 5 ($60)

Villain bets $50 and I call

Turn J 6 5 T ($160)

Villain bets $100 and I raise to $400
Villain Jams for 1k
Me... god damn it. I have to call, but I probably should not have raised this turn.

I just saw the open ender with clubs and thought I had a pretty premium hand for equity wise. But I don't really have any value hands that want to raise this turn. Maybe pocket T's exactly? But even then... I don't think I should have a raising range here. Big mistake in my opinion. I'll PIO it later and post results to check it out.

wait, why did I raise...again??

Straddle pot, with a limper. Villain opens CO to $50 and I call from BB with 99, limper folds.

Flop 924 ($115)

Villain bets $120
I raise to $400
Villain folds and flips over KK. I cry. My image is pretty crazy -- he's definitely seen me x/r and blast off with draws today, but I think this is just a clear calling spot against the small overbet on the flop. He's probably going to get most of the money in by the river anyway (we are ~$2.2k effective).

I just don't know what's going on anymore...

limp pot 6 ways. I have 8Ts in the BB. Flop comes 694r. SB leads $25, I call, UTG calls, fold, raise $150, fold.

Me ???

Super gross spot. I honestly just have no idea what I should be doing here. I don't have a good estimate at all. Need to think more.

I'd love to hear opinions on all these. I'll go into deeper analysis of all of them later. I just wanted to type out the HH so I don't forget them.

Q9cc - readless I am snapfolding preflop. If we must play the hand, it's very important that we know what this player is thinking with his AJ/KK/AA when he sees a turn x/r. If we don't know that, then we're outside the realm of professional poker and inside the realm of gambling along with the other live players. This is how online players become recreationals when playing live, you're trying to fit an online-poker-shaped-peg into a live-poker-shaped-hole. In response to "I just don't know what's going on anymore.." it could be that you should question your decisions at a more atomic level than you currently are.

99 - it's not a clear calling OR raising spot (in live poker), and you probably just raised to a size that was $10 too large or small, at the wrong time of day by +/-5min, against the guy who just earlier today lost one pot too many by "getting his overpair cracked." These guys don't really think in ranges remember, but more in terms of how different actions or likely events will make them feel. This is why live winrates are so huge and how the best live professionals RARELY experience downswings with any persistence as long as mental game issues don't enter the arena.

T8s - there are spots to float a nearpot sized flop bet with a nut gutshot but with 4 players still to act behind this is not one of them.

Could you simply be overthinking these spots?