nice to see a volume fish like me
how much does snowie cost ? kind of interested in the " play vs snowie " thing

Hey there,

See you all around the place and I'm impressed about the high amount of studying you do.

Just a quick question, what method of tracking results do you use on unibet. Just excel? After how many hands etc. (The more detail the better)

Secondly do you ever play on I poker.

I'm always thinking about switching to cash but seek comfort in what pt4 can offer me review wise which is why im leaning more towards ipoker.

Thanks

Why don't just play cash on Stars? Besides i think ipoker is one of the bot infested networks, tho i might be wrong

There's a 10-day free trial. The full "pro" version is quite expensive at $230 a year, but there's a basic version (that still allows you to play the challenges) for $35.
I played very similarly to Snowie in my latest batch of 1000 hands in this year's challenge.

I use OpenOffice Calc (Excel clone) and input results after every short session. The Uni client only stores 500 hands at a time anyway, but I usually play less than 200 per session, so I'll get about 12 data points for my silly weekly graphs. At the end of each week, I copy the weekly results into a spreadsheet for the year so far.
I played on Will Hill a couple of years ago and didn't enjoy it much. I think the i-Poker software has changed a bit since I last played on it, but it's probably still quite clunky and annoying. Bots were a problem on i-Poker, but that's the case just about everywhere I think. (888 is apparently full of bots too).

I'm enjoying running filters with HEM while I'm currently back on Stars, to see how I need to alter my game for this format, but my winrate is not good any more. It's pretty amazing how many people are 4-tabling 2NLz and playing 22/16. There has been so few whales when I've been playing that I've hardly been able to colour-code anyone green. Unibet was so much softer, with at least one limper on every table, even at 50NL. Zoom is a different beast, so I don't know how long I'll stick with it before going back to playing an easier game.

I love the game of poker and only play for pure fun/entertainment value but still, gotta say it's quite disheartening to see you seem to be able to play at a rather high skill level yet still kinda struggle in the micros.
I know it's used here a lot in jest but would moving up genuinely help your game do you think?

I'm looking to be staked for the One Drop if you have half a million lying around.
It's a difficult question to answer. I think the "Snowie style" doesn't do very well against very unbalanced players, but it's hard to say to what degree, or at which level a pseudo-GTO style gives you an appreciable edge. By studying and playing against Snowie, and by analysing stats and doing some variance sims, I've come to the conclusion that results in poker (especially over the small samples I play) are so impacted by the 'luck factor', that it's impossible to draw any conclusions about which skill level I "belong" at. I've had better results at 25NL and 50NL than at 2NL, when I played in more or less the same way at each level, but I think it's just that card distribution was on my side at the higher levels. The variance in poker is ridiculous. See below for some "interesting" card distribution facts about the tiny sample of Zoom I played in the last couple of weeks.
First, here are some results:

Week 30 2NL Zoom graph:


[x] Bout 3500 hands
[x] Lost 'bout 350 big blinds.

Costliest mistake:


Easiest Call:


I basically just ran like **** this week, both in terms of card distribution pre-flop, and my (in)ability to actually make a hand. I developed a better idea of what the player pool tendencies were (and this was confirmed by looking at the stats HEM and Snowie gathered post-game). For example, Snowie tells me that 2NLz villains were folding exploitably often to river bets. Did they fold to my river bets, though? Only when I had a value hand. :/ Over this meaningless samplesize, literally 100% of my triple-barrels with air got called and 100% of my value-jams elicited folds.



I obviously had to deviate from "Snowie-style" play in various spots, as villains at 2NLz are horribly unbalanced, so my error rate was worse than when I'm 'training'. The graph for the 5546 hands I played in the last 10 days or so looks pretty horrendous, but now that I've done a HEM+Snowie post mortem, I'm actually quite happy with my play.


[x] "World Class" means losing 1bb/100 at 2NLz.

HEM revealed the extent of my card distribution problems in this little sample:


It's hard to make money when you're not getting your fair share of premiums. I also ran particularly badly with suited aces. There is no "luck bell curve" in HEM, but the 'hand at showdown' report showed a distinct lack of big hands:


5546 hands played, 246 showdowns, and only 1 nut flush and two TPTKs? #WTFvariance

Despite running badly, I quite enjoyed the Zoom experience, as it encouraged me to focus better (and I could play more hands in limited time) than when I'm 3 or 4-tabling and trying to remember the tendencies of various screennames. Nevertheless, I think I have more literal "fun" when I'm playing against droolers, so I'm heading back to Unibet for some 10NL+ this week, and then I'm taking some time off to watch the limpics.

You did run super well with quads though

Thanks for taking the time to give such a detailed and honest response.

You really do seem like a good kid. Tell you what, shoot me your banking details and we'll see about getting you in this one drop huh

In my very, very humble opinion, exploitable > GTO at any game where you can locate, identify and sit next to, fish.

A view shared by a good many pros.

That is qualified by a few assumptions

You have to know and understand what theoretical poker is and how to apply it.
You have to know and understand what exploitable poker is and how to apply it.
You have to know what a "fish" really is and how to find them.

I don't think that is either controversial or widely-contested.

What shapes the debate is the number of players playing Zoom like games or anonymous games, both of which encourage GTO strat as many hands are played versus unknowns (and thus versus player pool assumptions).

Playing reg spd where villain's can be identified and targeted encourages exploitable play.

and now for the argument...

On stars exploitable > GTO up to 25nl 6 max REG SPEED and probably on up to at least 100nl 6 max REG SPEED

This does NOT apply for Zoom.

Should be able to let you know for certain by March 2017

Awesome thread man, I plan to read through the whole thing when I get a chance.

@Fatboy. I agree with all of that. I'm just not very good at adapting to changing dynamics or altering my play in order to exploit known tendencies of individual players. I'm better at learning rules/algorithms for the game as a whole and then sticking with them. But then I get really pissed off when the algorithms don't work due to humans being human! #AutisticRoboPenguin

Meanwhile, it's good to be back on Spewnibet.

[x] Couldn't beat 2NL zoom.
[x] Can win 5bb flips for 40 euros.




[ ] Skill game

Wk 31 review.

Hardly any volume, due to various factors (chess, Olympics, health problems). Just 1800 hands of 10NL. I was crushing it until Saturday, when I got a bit spewy and paid off a whale a couple of times. Finished the week up a lousy 2.45 euros, but I got some rakeback too.
Games were surprisingly good, considering the low traffic at this time of year, with quite a few limpers on my tables. Some were even spewier than me.



True story tweet of the week:


Interesting flop:


I'm still finding poker to be a pretty boring grind and I'm wondering if I should do a tourney challenge to see if I can develop some enthusiasm for a push at the Unibet Open or UK Tour. I've not paid to enter any tourneys on Uni this year, but I've done pretty well with 'rakeback' tickets and freerolls.



I hate timbeys, but 200 euros of free money is nice. I'm off on my travels again this week, so will hardly play at all, but will do some studying/reading if I feel like it. I hope everyone else is having fun.

If you're finding the grind to be getting a bit boring at the moment, find a way to spice it up! Play a different variation, like tourneys as you suggest. Or continue playing cash, but find a way to make it more fun. Maybe try out something and experiment. Or work on your game more in attempt to improve further. Or grind out a BI for nl100 and then have fun playing nl100 for 1 BI. Or something hahaha.

By the way, curious how that TT hand played out.

How about learning different games?

I've started to dabble in the games the feature is the stars 8 game mix and really starting to enjoy poker again.

Just think it would be a really good idea for you since you seem to really enjoy trying to solve games

I agree, although I think eventually you'll (Arty) be drawn back to nlhe. But I think this is something that you would enjoy. Only thing is you might not have a pokersnowie to guide you.

I think I'm just gonna update this thread on a monthly basis from now on, as I don't play enough volume to warrant more frequent posts.

No graphs today. Just some quick notes to summarize the last month.

After taking most of August off, I started playing some poker again last week. I lost 2 stacks pretty quickly at 10NL (I'd kind of forgotten how to play against fish) and it took me 2400 hands to get rostucko. It wasn't a very pleasant experience, but I suppose it could have been worse. 1bb/100 for the week. Now I'm on 6bb/100 for the year, but only 51,000 hands, so I'm on schedule for my lowest annual volume ever.
I also played a handful of timbeys and those provided a nice change of pace and provided a little bit of profit. I've got some satty tickets, so I might try qualifying for the Unibet Open if there happens to be a game about to run when I'm in a tourney mood.

I did 1000 more hands of training with Snowie and got my lowest error rate so far (extra-terrestrial again) and I've beaten it for 6bb/100 over 10k hands this year.

Last month's media
Books wot I read and reviewed:
Once A Gambler (aka The Chuck Bass book) - Highly recommended.
Thinkin' About No Limit - Not recommended.
Mostly watched: The Olympics. I loved the cycling in particular.
Mostly listened to: More old mixtapes (some are 25 years old!) that made me all nostalgic and a bit depressed. #GrumpyOldPenguin

Plans for this month: Play my A-game for more than 10 minutes at a time, and actually win a buy-in or two. Move back to 25NL once everything is clicking, or maybe just give up poker. Again. I hope everyone else is feeling a bit more optimistic about poker than I am at the moment!

Demotivation poster:

You say you're winning at 6bb/100 for the year? Sounds like a decent winrate, so not sure why you're not feeling that optimistic.. Especially if you haven't been playing your "A" game a lot.

Quick update.

My cashgame volume continues to decline, even though I'm winning again (10bb/100 over a tiny sample of 10NL and 25NL last week). I keep making excuses not to play, but the underlying problem is that I no longer get much enjoyment from winning, because that's "expected", but losing sessions seem to hurt more than ever. The 'entitlement tilt' is strong with this one. :/

Snowie had a major AI update a week ago, and some of the changes are quite baffling. The pre-flop ranges I spent two years learning have changed somewhat, so I need to reevaluate my strategy. Snowie now does weird stuff like min-check raising top pair, or betting 1/4 pot with the nuts on the river. Whether it's actually a 'stronger' player now is impossible to say, but I've felt completely lost when training against the new AI, so my error rate is gonna get worse while I adjust to the new style.

I'm continuing to dabble in tournaments and I'm doing quite well. The Unibet Open satties are full of 'ICM lemmings' (credit: Mark T) and I've already turned a free ticket into about 50 euros worth of tickets, so I might try and freeroll my way to a full package. There's often an overlay in the cheapest games too, and they seem to offer better bang for the buck than 10NL cashgames. I'm probably never gonna be healthy enough to travel to some far-flung European destination for a poker tournament, but I guess it's worth trying to satty my way to Bucharest if it's not gonna cost me anything but time.

I also got lured back on to Stars by an instant $25 bonus on a $100 deposit. I'll prolly play a few SpinGos and then cash out, as I expect the superusers will keep disconnecting when I have aces in the BB.

#StoryOfMyLife

Here's my lolvolume Unibet cashgame graph for the year:


BFN.

Always a fan of the graphics you post.

In regards to entitlement tilt I can see why that can be a problem in your case since you're battling snowie and doing a lot of work on poker theory.

Maybe not checking your results for longer periods of time will help with this. Do you get tilted when you lose a pot/session/? At what point does the entitlement set in?

Best of luck

Solid graph for a fun player

Best of luck with your health Arty.

I'm sorry for 3betting you so light
My nick was 'surfinaces'.
Played a long breakeven session at 25NL earlier and decided to mess around a bit at 10NL.

Oh and why do you minopen?

The entitlement usually kicks in the moment I see one badly played hand, so it's usually within 1 minute of sitting in. :/
I have the Hellmuth/Jungleman kind of tilt. Whenever a villain shows up with a hand that shouldn't even be in his range, my head goes into a spin. Because I've spent too long practicing 'optimal' play, I don't deal at all well with playing against LAGfishes, because the random stuff they do confuses the hell out of me. After a big/weird hand, it's like there's a 'WTF???' thought bubble above my head clouding my judgment for the rest of the session.
I actually made a special note on that screenname, because you had position on me on two tables, so the constant 3-betting was very obvious. "Seems to know GTOpenguin, 3-betting light." Of course I was card dead (didn't even have any good 4-bet light hands) and you folded when I 4-bet kings. I remember there was a massive drooler to your left (JAN****) that seemed to have a weird dynamic with you too. I saw them 3-bet/call off with A8s to beat your jacks. That made me bizarrely happy! :P
As for the minopens, it just something that seems to work in the context of my overall strat. I don't think pre-flop raise-sizing has much of an impact on winrate, but I think the smallball strat means I have a lower standard deviation - and pay less rake - than just about everyone.

I've had two bad 10NL sessions this week, but continue to crush the UO satties. I think I should probably stick with tourneys for a while, or move up to 25NL where they respect my minraises.

Cheers for the fb on my thread Arty.

I think we have remember we are playing two different games at the same times these days.

GTO, or balanced optimal, versus the regs.

Exploitive, or unbalanced max EV versus the fish.

To survive you must know both, be able to play both, and to recognise which to play and when.

To profit you must know that EV max versus fishes is the one to be best at, so it follows you must be able to find and exploit fishes, whilst doing enough GTO stuff to fend off the regs.


Tilt is as inevitable, because horrendous variation is inevitable. I believe the best defences against tilt are:

A strong technical game.
A huge bankroll.
Isolation, tranquility and peace of mind whilst playing.

JMO

Seems like you did pay attention
I was pretty sure you had a real hand when you 4bet.
Sizing was kinda small. I nitfolded J9hh.
And yeah, that Jan... dude was a total monkey.
Obviously got my money back from him.

How much do you have in UO tickets now?
GL with that!

Generally you pay more rake with a smaller opening size if you and your opponents play appropriately, and less if either is too tight.