Look man your biggest leak is that you keep trying to force things and you keep trying to think about poker at a different level than basic.

Just play super abc face up poker, be really tight right now, like that is a super easy/standard fold in the KQo bb hand. But I mean like open folding AQo in utg3. Just fold dude. Seriously.

And in actual post flop hands, fold there too. Esp bet/folds. You see spew ALOT in live poker but its selection bias spew. It sticks out bc it's so noticeable. But the fact is these people underbluff and don't value bet thin. The counters to that are to fold medium and even strong hands to increased aggression.

Everyone wants to be the guy that pulls off sick bluffs. Everyone wants to be the guy that makes insane hero calls. No one wants to be the guy that made a few close folds. But that is the guy that prints money in live poker.

Put into the context of a young twenties guy on tinder:

"Hey bro did you nail that blonde last night?"

Guy that bluffs:

"Yea actually I had a 4some with her and her two roommates"

Guy that hero calls:

"Yep sure did she was a freak"

Guy that folds:

"Nah she was pretty drunk so I made sure she got home safe and I made her drink some water and then I went home and watched Stranger Things on Netflix until I fell asleep"

You want to be this guy. Trust me. You do. This guy is not consumed by ego, and he wins in the long run.

That video above, that call is huge spew and is driven by ego. Here are decisions not driven by ego, as folding is the single hardest thing to do in poker:

The above post is one of the most true things Ive ever read on 2+2.

+1000000, most of the micro/mid levels can be crushed with abc poker

Yeah no set no bet type play works especially great in PLO, you can 3bet only AAxx and still can get money in pre vs garbage

Tight is definitely the way to go, that being said you still need to create a table image that will allow you to get paid off

But Avaritia, are you really folding AQo in the Lo Jack? seems a bit extreme to me?

Cheers bruv. That hand ye about a psb left I decided just to rip it but betting small I think is good too. Like your logic in 2nd hand too wp

GgoodtohaveyouherebroG

I don't think that's the case at all tbh. What do you mean by I'm trying to force things? FWIW, when a game gets 4 handed, you can't profitably play the same nitty FR strat you would 10 handed... You can't just fold and sometimes you will be in tough spots.

I agree that our strategy should largely be super ABC and face up poker. I don't agree that folding your BB to a fairly standard sized open vs unk opponent with KQo is super standard or easy.

I am 100% certain however that open folding AQo from ANY position at the table is an absolutely terrible play. Are you serious or being satirical? I apologise if when you said that it was intended as hyperbole to drive your point home. In this thread I'm very very open to receiving advice from a variety of different people but you're going to make it very tough for me to weight anything you say more than a grain of sand if at the same time you're advocating open folding AQo.

Of course. But at the same time, people DO bluff and bluff a lot - the key is identifying whether the particular player you're up against is going to under or over bluff.

Live is a different beast to say Zoom... In Zoom you apply population reads based on the tendencies of your player pool. You can apply a blanket strategy much more easily. In live, the diversity of player types is more polarising so you need to adjust strats largely. My mistake, if I made one, in the KQo hand was a failure to identify the OMC player type - think exploitatively we can just fold pre to him and only him here.

I have no interest in being the guy who pulls off sick bluffs or hero calls. I want to mechanise poker as much as possible and reduce variance where possible as well. I'm the first guy to make the close fold (AA on JJJT board comes to mind). I also don't care if I'm known as the biggest nit at any game I play in. My only interest is maximising winnings.

lmfao. I'm the furthest thing from that guy in RL but obv irrelevant to poker. In poker I'm definitely "the guy that folds".

FWIW, hero folding is effectively the same as hero calling. It's largely based on a read or tell and is really a deviation from your blanket strategy. I'm pretty sure him folding JJ there is borderline a mistake/FPS. It's not really a manifestation of solid poker fundamentals and I don't think this video helps you make your point of "not overthinking it".

Absolutely. Does anyone actually think I'm doing anything other than playing ABC poker ITT lol?

Yup. I'm going to play a bit of rotation tonight actually. Should be a laugh.

Absolutely. And in some of the games I play in, I've found my table image of tightest player at the table makes it tough for me to win a lot of money in spots that aren't coolers. The good news is, generally people don't adjust very well to my tightness which is why it works as a general strat.

That's putting it lightly. Folding AQo from the lojack is a disaster.

Well last night was fairly expensive... One of the unfortunate things about getting back into the gym recently is that none of my clothes fit me! So I had no trousers and no shirts. Obv can't go to a party full of models without these things! New shirt, $200. Pants $170. Haircut $32 (absolute ****ing madness that, haven't found a decent barber here yet and everywhere was closing but fk me, shouldn't pay more than $10 for what I got done). TBH I'm more tilted about paying $32 for a back and sides than $200 for a shirt!

Anyway, gave myself $200 for the night and left my bank card at home. My buddy asked for some cash for the night and said he'd pay me back shortly. So $200 there as well. Poor guy, his mum just died last night actually so probably not the best time to be asking him for my cash lol?

Anyway, me and my bud dust off a bottle of yager (freerolled it cheers m8) and then head to the bar.

I'd love to retell an epic tale of shenanigans in a penthouse with models, but in all honesty, I peaked way too early and didn't make it out of the bar. :') I have absolutely zero recollection of anything past maybe 8pm - bits and pieces I remember of a bouncer denying me entry to a club. Lmao. So not the best night ever in all honesty.

New Tinder date lined up for tomorrow evening. 18 yr old African chick, should be fun. She says she's seen me walking through the city before? Didn't really want to take Monday off but games prob won't be amazing anyway so it's not a huge loss. Besides the Tinder grind is +EV. Tuesday morning catching up with a friend for breakfast. I imagine because of that, this week will be a fairly sleep deprived one. Also because I'm going to fire the Sunday Mills and Storm tomorrow morning. It's half price this week so kind of sick value - should be a big prize pool too. Obv I'm way underrolled to be playing MTTs but it's a one off and I'm looking at it as a salute to online poker in Australia. A parting gift to Stars, if you will.

So in an hour (6pm) I have a 1/2 rotation game. Not overly keen on playing PLO on a small roll but it's 1/2 and I don't think it'll play too big. Will play that til it ends or til whenever the SM starts (I think at like 2-4am it is?). Hoping I won't be too tired and can actually fire that tourny. If I'm wrecked, I'll get some sleep and go to the gym instead. Then back into the swing of things Tuesday.

Idk, that JJ seemed like a pretty easy laydown imo given action and how the guy w/ KK acted, just screamed like a house to me. However that AJ is a pretty amazing fold O_O

JJ still beats some houses though. Like he could be value raising worse boats, although I don't know how many make their way into villain's preflop range - can't tell if it's a SRP or not. But if you have a tell or read of strength, I don't think it's a bad fold.

Good story haha - standard drink far too much out of excitement before you even reach the club lol.

Taking Monday off is fine, you need rest and recovery every now and then and it'll refresh your mind.

I think you should sack off the tournaments personally; if theres anything IMO you don't need right now its more variance. Or at the least sell action!

I sort of understand with Pokerstars shutting doors etc but its up to you. Same with the ROE game, unless the games exceptionally good or you're a decent PLO player would give it a miss IMO.

glgl

Added some more hh comments above

Yeah imo the rotation game will be excellent. These guys are so bad at PLO. My only concern was the lolvariance but I feel it's not too much of a problem if I buy in for 2-300 with it being a 1/2 and all.

You're right re the MTTs though. Still think I'll give it a punt. A 5-fig score would be life changing tbh and $100 won't change my situation much. If it was 200 it'd be a snapfold.

That'll be it though, after that I really wanna batten down the hatches and put more scrutiny on my $500 a week budget. Might let this week slide with the Tinder date and breakfast tomorrow and all but yeah, gotta pull me head in soon!

Cheers for the Hh comments too Pete!

Daily Update - Thur 17 Aug 2017

Hours Played: 7
Profit: $275

Notes: Game ended kinda early tonight. Also the last 1.6 hours was straight PLO 5-6 handed. The players all wanted to play that and I decided to humour the idea even though I should have said no and kept it rotation. Kinda ironic, couldn't win a hand in NLH but during the PLO I was crushing. Ran fairly bad tonight as well.

There's a player in this game who has won his past 16 sessions consecutively. I imagine he's maybe breakeven longrun, possibly slight winner. I simply cannot get my head around how insanely lucky it is to win 16 sessions straight. I have the soul read he's not lying either. He has never had a losing session at this game and there are people who can confirm it. Statistically, it's 0.5^16 or 0.00001525878... That is so incredibly sick.

Anyway, here I am at 3:45am staring at the screen for about 30 minutes figuring out whether I want to fire the half price sundy's or not. I haven't slept in 12 hours and TBH feel like firing them now while tired probably won't end well. You know how it goes, "wanting to bust" just so you can go to bed and get some sleep, until it gets ITM anyway and then the adrenaline takes over. It's obvious that playing the tournies is bad from like every angle you look at it, but man I cannot express how incredible winning $150k would be rn... Had a day dream while dozing off half an hour ago about shipping 150k, finishing up the SM at about 4pm this arvo, and then heading to my Tinder date with a wallet full of hunnets... Would be so perfect :')

I made a decision about 10 minutes ago not to fire the tournies but the more I think about it, the more I want to play... Like how sick would the story be "there I was, the biggest coin flip of them all, whether I even play the damn thing in the first place..." But of course, I'd have to run as good as the bloke who's won the last 16 sessions to ship the damn thing. 99% of the time we brick or effectively brick, end up sleep deprived, look tired as **** for Tinder date, prob miss gym, and end up down $150 and a step in the wrong direction. But man, it's so ****ing enticing.

Still can't decide. Help.

Full Results & Graph: https://1drv.ms/x/s!AkK4doh8PHLEgk6pBpFJrgcokPKM

Decision made, do the +EV thing, sleep now, take myself out for breakfast to make up for not winning $150k. ^_^ Night yall!

The hand where you had KQo vs old man, I think it's ludicrous to fold preflop in that spot and I'm just check-calling the whole way.

As for the AQo hand I like how you played it except I'd go bit bigger preflop and bigger on the flop and I'll probably fold river.

Meale trust me winning the Sunday Million would just change you, and not for the better. A good decision.

Yeah, I certainly don't agree that it's a super standard fold pre either. Re AQ hand, still checking turn right?

I'm curious as to why people are saying to go bigger pre. Like, it's a 6x open to begin with, I 3bet to 17x IP, the SPR is already ****t and it's EZ to get stacks in post. What does going bigger accomplish? Yeah we get more money in the middle with a likely better hand, because he's calling 100%, but I still expect to lose the hand a lot when I can't cbet post etc...

I cannot fathom how it would change me not for the better... Elaborate?

Daily Update - Thur 17 Aug 2017

Hours Played: 8
Profit: -$346

Notes: **** I run so bad it's unreal. Four times tonight I had two pair on the turn, big pot, and then get absolutely ****ed by the one card in the deck that can see me lose the pot. I also made a very close call which I THINK could be a mistake but I think it's fairly close.

I also wanted to ask a question about limping vs isolating on a 9-10 handed table. If there's a limp, and I look down at ATs, am I just overlimping this from say EP/MP? Is there any benefit to attempting to isolate from LP or just overlimp there as well? I feel like I isolate a bit too much, get fkall fold equity, and miss the flop 2/3 of the time...Low variance approach is prob to overlimp but then our iso range is so nut-heavy and we end up limp/calling or limp/folding a lot and folding a lot of flops anyway if we do limp+call...

Hand 1

6 Limpers, hero x's BB w 95o
Flop: 965ss hero leads 30 into 40, 3 callers
Fairly happy with our hand being the best here still, expecting straights and sets to raise flop. Praying for a decent turn.
Turn: 3o
Doesn't get much better than that. Hardly makes any straights. Hero leads again for 100 into 160 (think this is too small and we can bet an extra green chip in future), one caller
River: To
Really not a bad river for us at all. T doesn't improve anyone much. Still I think it's going to be tough to get value now and we should look to check call here... Hero checks, villain fairly quickly bets $120, hero ???

Hand 2

Hero checks J3o in SB, 7 to flop.
Flop: J57ss
Hero leads 25 into 35, 2 callers
Turn: 3o
Hero leads 75 into 105, 1 caller
River: 6o
The river isn't really a terrible card. Villain shouldn't have much in the way of 4x, maybe A4ss is about it. Villain is OMS btw, fairly tight and hasn't got out of line.
Hero checks, villain verbalises $200, hero ???
This is a ****ty spot because in theory villain shouldn't have many hands that beat us at all and he can in theory bluff a ton of missed draws or even be doing something silly with 56 or 67. But at the same time, it's OMS and we don't really expect this player type to bluff right?

Full Results & Graph: https://1drv.ms/x/s!AkK4doh8PHLEgk6pBpFJrgcokPKM

So Tinder date fell through... Girl called me an was like ya meet here in 10 mins, I was like yeah chill, I had almost ordered the uber when I get a text saying soz can't meet today, work friend is with me and I need to go home with her? Kinda tilting, she sounded super cute on the phone too...

So anyway, might reschedule that one IDK. Good news is that I was able to get 8 hours in on a Monday night in a game that, for the most part, wasn't actually horrendous. Guys doing stupid **** like calling $30 isos with 84s, flopping trips and winning $2k pots. I swear this bloke always has like $2-3k in front of him, plays soooooo horrendously bad and just wins every ***** time.

Where is my run good??? It's coming though, I can feel it in me bones! So for the rest of the week, I have booked a seat for Thurs, Fri, and Sat at the Penthouse for NLH, and then Sunday there's a rotation game I'll also play (2 orbits 2/5NLH, 1 orbit 1/2PLO). So just needa figure out what I'm going to do Tues and Wed - obv I'll try avoid the casino at all costs but frankly, there's not much in the way of options. I think I could probably take either Tues or Wed off and still get 40 hours in fairly comfortably (assuming penthouse games don't break early), so I might do that.

================================================

PPPoker Grind An Option?

So IDK how many of you are familiar with this new app but PPPoker is a mobile app that lets you create homegames. It's absolutely HUGE in Brisbane - most homegames I go to half the fkn table is playing on this app while grinding live. It's getting to the point where there's a few clubs running with multiple tables. Everything's max 5% rake capped at 3BBs which is pretty sweet. And ofc, the quality of play is abysmal - 99% of players are recs mucking around on their phones. Most games are PLO but I think there's a decent number of NLH about as well.

It is totally and completely within the realm of possibilities to get on a PC, bang open an emulator, and multitable maybe 5-6 tables at once. Win rate would EASILY be north of 10bb/100 with that rake and level of play. Decent spread of games between 50NL and 200NL with some 500NL stuff about as well. All with the quality of juicy live games. It's literally an app full of whales at your fingertips.

Only issue is to properly grind it, I'd need to have like 4-5 bankrolls on different accounts and it's a bit of a **** around adding funds and whatnot. But even if I just had 4-5 buyins for each club, could make some serious cash outta it I recon. If average game is say 150NL @ 10bb/100 we're looking at $15 per hundred hands and I imagine you could get maybe 300 hands per hour at least.

I'd actually give this a crack if I had maybe an extra 2-3k lying about I could dedicate to it. But atm if I was to pull some of my live BR to do this PPPoker thing, it wouldn't be ideal. And I'd have to go home and get my PC and set that **** up here etc and it'd be a pain. But it's something I'm definitely keeping an eye on.

Sorry it was a spazzy post, I just thought there were parallels between your attitude towards the Milly and the guy in that sketch's towards his lottery ticket.

-

I like over-limping a lot in certain live line ups, if you're worried about unbalancing your raising range too much then just mix in some isos too.

Hand 1 - I like your line a lot provided you called river.

Hand 2 is tricky and I think it depends a lot on the OMC in question. I'm not sure on the exact breakdown but I imagine 70% or so of OMCs will literally never fire off more than $100 as a bluff, whilst the rest will very occasionally spazz out or actually take advantage of their image. I think it's worth taking the time to make a mental note of those OMCs who you have seen fire the odd bluff.

Ava, I'd also be curious if you simply open folded AQo from EP in a full ring game. I fold AJo in these situations, so I doubt open folding AQo could be that horrendous. My guess is there is probably a massive difference between AKo versus the other ATo+ hands, and in the end the only thing that matters is profitability, although without having a live non-lol sample database it's tough too know if AQo really is a winner or not from EP. I'm guessing it is (which is why I currently don't open fold it) but I don't think I'm far off from being convinced otherwise.

Also, if I recall, aren't the Aussie games raked insanely high? If that's the case, my guess is that that tighter/nittier is better (i.e. rake destroys everyone if it eats up a significant portion of the pot which high ones often do at the lower staked / smaller stacked games).

GgoodluckOP!G

At my loose / aggro table, "isolating" is hard, and I usually leave attempting this to LP where I know who / how many are already in the pot so I have a much better idea of what it's going to take to do this plus have position as a backup plan if it fails. In fact, at many of the tables I now play at, I have a 0% raising range in EP/MP. Obviously as stacks become smaller / table tighter / table more ABC, the more I revert back to a more standard ABC approach. But hands like ATs play fine multiway in high SPR multiway pots, so I think open limping them is fine (and even overlimping in position can be fine as well).

ETA: Again should have stated I don't play nosebleed 2/5 NL, so my comments should probably be taken with a grain of salt. Although many I play with state that the 1/3 NL game we play often plays like a 2/5 NL game, although I have zero clue what they mean by that.

GbutI'mpassivelikethatG


I think I find two pair hands the hardest to play. They're sorta good, but they're not exactly monsters either on certain boards. I really try to keep to a "small hand, small pot; big hand, big pot" mentality overall, and two pair in general is near the bottom of the chart.

In the end I have 90 minutes experience at 2/5 NL, so I shouldn't really comment. Although going 4ways to the turn in H1 is a bit of a concern, and I think 7ways I just check/fold H2 on the flop and I'm not thrilled with the size of the pot for the size of our hand in both cases. H2 unless guy is totally non-bluffy I've been trying to convince myself to check/call these as obviously it's a great scare card to rep for busted flush draws and he so rarely actually has the straight as part of his flush draw; but then again, it also comes down to how often he calls a big 3/4 PSB on the turn with just a flush draw.

GgoodluckG

Hand 1 seems fine. I would lead flop and turn as well. The bet on the river is so small I think you're good here enough. I'd call, but I think I'd prefer a small b/f.

Hand 2 flop is terrible betting into 6 players with TPNK is going to get you into terrible spots. Bet turn as played and fold river.

Yeah agree. I kind of got the feeling this omc COULD have some bluffs but at the same time, it's really tough to know and is probably wishful thinking.

I also think in future I'm going to do a lot of overlimping. I feel like it's fairly similar ev to isolating and lower variance. The tough hands though are ATo ND AJo and KJ/KQo - none of which play amazingly mw but probably are -EV limp calls. So I think open fold from EP as painful as that is with AJo and then overlimp in LP on the right table.

Yup! Im going to start folding AJo from UTG on a 9-10 handed table. And doing a lot more overlimping. Hands like offsuit broadways I feel are possibly ***** me a little bit so going to alter my approach.

GtyG

Fwiw I think your preflop comments are bang on and I really appreciate it - sorta confirming what I'd already suspected.

W J3o, I think top pair is basically the nuts on the flop. Like we can bet to protect our equity and get value from draws but if called and don't improve on the turn, we can look to get to showdown. I think check folding top pair in a limped pot is probably too weak but it's quite close. I imagine our flop lead takes it down fairly often too.

H2 turned out he actually called turn with 89o - was super surprised to see that hand so I guess if he's peeling twice with this bs, calling river prob is fine?