But if someone isn't playing a hand, then how would PT4 know what hand isn't being played? At any rate, that's probably beyond my abilities right now lol.

I've made a couple more tweaks to my program (to add a few more bits of info on screen), and then played around with it a bit in an attempt to figure out how I want to go about building my opening ranges.

The "normal" way, which is pretty standard for cash games, is to have one open-raise size for my entire range. This hides information, and protects the weaker hands by having the strongest hands in the range. And probably allows you to play a few more weaker hands as a result. But it probably allows your opponents to lower the EV of your stronger hands, as you're not raising as much as you could with them.

My other idea is to open only with hands that are profitable, assuming my opponent knows my cards/strategy and would try to minimize my profit. And I would open for as large a raise size as is possible while still being profitable (in some cases, that would mean open-limping). This appears to lead to slightly tighter opening ranges than I would have thought. I'd be open-shoving with the strongest hands, and have various raise sizes for different hands (or groups of hands). For the most part, information is not being hidden that well with this strategy.

The thing is, I don't care if my opponent knows what cards I might hold, as they can't do anything about it (assuming I do it correctly). And the further my opponent is from perfect play against my hand, the more extra profit I make, as I already assume my opponent plays perfectly against me. There are places my opponent can auto-profit by shove-raising every hand, as I don't defend as much as MDF suggests with some hands. But I would still win a portion of the pot, and show some profit. And if my opponent made a mistake and did that against the wrong hands, I would really get extra profit.

I'm unsure which way is better, or maybe there's a third option. And not sure how most good Spins regs play. My background is 6-max cash games, and I'm a complete noob when it comes to Spins (or any tournaments really lol). Just trying to work my way from the ground up. I'm not sure if I'm headed in the right direction, although I will most likely use the second strategy to start out my Spins journey.

The plan is to get my basic preflop ranges down, and then start playing. At that point, I will probably play about an hour a day for a little bit, while spending the rest of the time studying (working more on preflop ranges, and then progressing to postflop play). As my strategy comes together more, I will change the study/play ratio more in favor of playing.

It can't, but it gives the frequencies for each move, which allow to estimate the range width.

At the micros, you're not facing good regs. Bad ones tend to defend too narrow, while recs tend to make large postflop mistakes but are more cautious vs a 2.5+ bb open. Both tendencies are exploited by minraising wider than GTO (also, having a limping range in SB vs BB is a good exploit), except, of course, the sizing vs a limper that I (a regfish) think should be 2.5x-3x vs SB in 3-max (depending on the limp/3bet stat) and 3x-3.5x vs BTN because limpers don't really fold to smaller isoraises.

Do you read the 2+2 HU and spin forum?

Edit: I've just realised that the spin beginners thread has been unpinned and fallen off to the 2nd page, so I was supposed to link to it separately.

Thanks for the link again coon74. I was starting to read through that, and it puts doubts into my mind about how feasible it is to go down the spins route. The rake, the insane variance, the (possibly) lower edges I'd potentially have compared to the players in cash games.

The work I've done the last few days has been a revolution in my way of thinking about the game. I'm really wanting to apply this to my 6max game and see how it goes. I'm probably going to go back to 6max for the time being and redevelop my strategies in this manner, using my program to help create a new set of ranges. I've noticed some "strange" things already. Such as, 100bb deep, it's not profitable to get stacks in preflop with KK (UTG) when your opponents only stack off with KK+ and fold everything else. But it is profitable to open for 54bb, and fold to a 3bet shove 50% of the time. Your opponents can auto-profit by 3betting any 2 cards, but you will still win enough of the pot to make it profitable. I would have thought that was terrible play before, but this is the type of thing I'm looking at implementing. Call me a fish, but I think I'm on to something lol.

Managed to get an NES classic last week after not being able to find one the first time it was released a year or two ago. Spent a lot of time the last several days playing Final Fantasy.

As far as poker goes, I've finished figuring out my RFI ranges using the program I created. A lot of my raise sizes are fairly big, but my RFI ranges are a lot nittier. I also found out that there were no hands that were profitable as open-limps that weren't also profitable as open-raises, so I have no limps right now. I think limping could be a strategic exploitative adjustment against a lot of players, but I have no plans to work on any open-limp ranges anymore. For situations that I haven't worked on yet, such as postflop play or facing open-raises, etc., I will just try to play as best I can until I am able to work on those situations.

A New Beginning

I will have daily goals now and will try to post daily updates (including hands), with more detailed updates posted weekly and/or monthly. I think it's easier to keep things more structured if I concentrate one day at a time instead of one week at a time.

At first, I will start by trying to play 1500 hands each day. I will play the 1500 hands first, and then spend whatever time I have left in the day on study, or other non-poker related things. Obviously, 1500 hands isn't a lot. I've chosen this to keep things realistic at the start. Once I get back into the habit of playing every day again, I can start slowly increasing that back up. I also wanted to keep it lower so that I can spend more time studying at the start. I have a lot of stuff in my game that I need to work on before I can move up stakes. At the end of each week, I'll set the daily goals for the next week.

BRM and Cashing Out:

I came across this picture a long time ago, and saved it. I just recently saw it again in another PG&C thread, which reminded me about it. I think this would be something decent to follow. It'll allow me to progress more slowly at the start while I do more work on my game. And it will allow me to cash out periodically. Not only is this a good motivator, but it will let me build a live poker bankroll. All the money I cash out will be put towards a live poker BR so that I can start playing live again. If I need money for life expenses, then obviously I'll need to use the money for that first. But I'd like to start playing live poker again, and do a mixture of both. I may not stick to this forever, but I'll use this as a guideline for now.



It's another fresh start for me lol. I now have a vision of how to build my strategy purely based on profitability. A strategy based on playing hands in a way so that I will profit with those hands no matter what my opponents do. Even if they know my exact cards. A journey into my vision of what GTO is.

BR currently sits at $57.30. Will start playing a session now, and will post my first daily update later.

Ok, first session didn't go so well. Had a lot of rust from lack of playing. Had some mental leaks, and spewed a lot. Got better as the session went on. I think I shook off the rust though, and will play better tomorrow. But I did play well when I RFI, which was the area I worked on.

Hands: 1522
Results: -$9.71

Here are some hands from the session:

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This hand was a disaster. Villain seemed like he was shaping up to be a maniac type player. Didn't have any structure to my strategy yet for facing open-raises. Just badly played. Spew at its finest. Will clean up this type of stuff next session.



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Shove and they will call



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Once again... A rare bright spot from the session lol

H1 is a fold pre, you should know not to flat 4bets with that crap especially oop. as played you have to jam flop with that spr.

I agree mirage, should have been an easy fold preflop. Wasn't well enough prepared coming off a fairly long layoff, and decided to get fancy. Played a lot better today. Made some mistakes for a couple big pots. But nothing compared to the stuff I did yesterday.

Hands: 1509 hands
Results: +$2.70

Some hands from today:

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Best way to play quads... fast



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Probably far from GTO, but I haven't worked on postflop yet. Decided to go smaller this time.




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Meh, flop was probably far from optimal. I don't think I mind donking, but bigger size is probably better. Was hoping someone would raise. As played, should have folded the river.



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This was probably my worst-played hand. Not sure if turn call is ok; thinking maybe that's where I should have folded. Almost sure river is a definite fold.



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Would like to hear opinions on this one. I went with my gut on this one; something just didn't seem right. Too bad I didn't listen to my gut in those last couple hands. But I did here and called the turn shove. Don't know if I should be calling here though.

Hands: 1529

Had good discipline preflop, but was too call-happy postflop. Turned what could have been a winning session into a losing one. Will focus on tightening up postflop tomorrow. Some hands to entertain you:

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Hook, line, and sinker, and... Stars is rigged???



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Fish being fish



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Maybe I'm the fish..

Hands: 1513

Tilted a bit early on, was down 5BIs at one point. Turned it around and left the session 1BI down. Working on coding more functionality into my program to develop further preflop ranges.

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This hand was near the start of the session. Was the start of my early downfall. I don't know if I can raise the flop here. And the river, I think I have a good bluff catcher. I think it's a good call with all the missed draws, but not sure about that.



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88s were lucky today lol

You have an obvious big leak. Playing big hands too passive. 1st hand is a raise on a wet flop. H3 raise flop bigger and gii. Its not rocket science, when you have a big hand just bet/raise big and try and get the money in asap, dont f around with bs. You can't go wrong. Unless you learn to maximize value you not get anywhere.

You clearly are ignoring half my hands, and many that I haven't posted lol. All kidding aside though, you've probably got a point. There are a few hands that I'm most likely not being aggressive enough with postflop. Something to keep in mind until I actually work on my postflop play.

I made a pretty big error in my program. I was trying to find the biggest profitable opening size instead of trying to find the most profitable open size, considering that my opponents will act in a way that is worst for my strategy (and hand). There was a sizeable -EV loss for many hands from opening too large. Still profitable, but not nearly as profitable as they could be. So no playing today for me while I fix that. One thing I noticed is that the value of limping has gone up for the weaker hands. But not sure if limping will be better than raising for any of them. Anyway, will continue working on the program until I fix that issue.

Weekly update (July 4-10):

NL2z:


Ugly start lol, but I am starting from scratch. Only the preflop open-ranges figured out, and even then I did those wrong. I just finished fixing that problem now; the hands to open with are the same, just the open-size and defending frequencies (vs. 3bet shoves) have changed. Next step is figuring out how to defend vs. normal 3bets.

One really surprising thing I discovered was that with the microstakes rake, it is more profitable to open small with aces and fold most of the time to 3bet shoves. This is of course assuming your opponents know that you have aces, know your strategy, and play perfectly against it. I thought it was a bug in the program at first. Took me quite a long time to figure out why (because of the rake). I don't know if I could find the fold button with aces though.

Feeling good about the direction things are going. Plan is to add a little more functionality to the program each day. Slowly build up my ranges and build my gameplan/strategy. Missed the last couple days of playing cause I needed to fix the program and get the preflop open-raise ranges again. Will still aim for 1500 hands per day for next week, as I have a lot of study/programming work to do to continue building my preflop play.

Hands: 1508

Had a great session today. Made back most of last week's losses in 2 hours of play. Bit of a heater session I think; seemed like I got AA quite often, even though I didn't get much value out of them. Playing a 9/6 style (so far).. I think actual GTO is a lot nittier than people think. And because I'm playing so few hands, I'm managing to get almost 800 hands per hour with 2 tables.

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Nice try.



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Oddly played hand.



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Umm, thanks I guess.




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More bluff catching. Seemed to be a habit today.. don't people know not to bluff the nits?

Hands: 1513

Another good session in the books. I think stats were something like 10/6 or 9/6 again. King of the nits here lol. I think this week's graph will be a complete turnaround from last week's.

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Back to bluff catching.



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The secret to winning... have a stronger range and bluff catch lol




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Well, ok, sometimes you gotta bet/raise.



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And sometimes you gotta fold'em. Meh, not sure if this is actually a good fold.

what the hell are you doing playing 9/6? lolz. building a dream machine for something that is common knowledge in 2018. Get serious and stop ***** around with bs dude.

I'm in the pursuit of knowledge of GTO right now. My mind is open to any possibilities, and am building towards that one step at a time. You say there is common knowledge (although I'm not sure what exactly it is you're referring to), but as far as I know, no one knows what GTO really looks like.

To me, GTO means that if you're playing a hand, you're doing so because it will be profitable for that hand no matter what your opponent does with his range. By opening any wider, my opponents could play in a way to make those opens unprofitable (even if it's only accidentally). For example, if I open 66 UTG, if my opponents 3bet shove anything better and fold all worse, then my 66 will lose money. So GTO (or what I believe GTO to be) would suggest folding 66 UTG. That's why my open-ranges are so tight. I haven't looked at 3bet or calling 2bet ranges yet, so my VPIP might be higher once I look at that. But yeah, that's the idea behind my approach.

As for my session today, was so frustrating. Seemed like I couldn't hit anything most of the time. And when I did have a hand with some value, I ran into a slightly better hand. Didn't seem to get a lot of big pairs, and when I did, I kept getting overcards on the board, or bad runouts. Or my opponents outdrew them. It probably affected my play, although I don't think my play was nearly as bad as last week. Hopefully I can finish the week strong. Or I might spend more time the next few days just working on my strategy. Was a really draining session.

Just an update. Continuing work on my solver; going well. Did more work on opening ranges, as I found another error. I think my open ranges are pretty much solved now. I found that there are hands we should be open-limping with, as they are not strong enough to raise, but profitable enough to open. Most open-limps occur from the small blind, but there are a few in the other positions also. RFI range is split into 5 raise sizes (ranging from 2-3bb), but this isn't as complicated as it may seem as I make further decisions based on my hand, and not on my range. Actually, that last point is a big departure from conventional range vs range thinking. I'll be using hand vs range instead, as I believe this is what GTO entails.

Once I get back to playing, was thinking to break apart my goals into smaller chunks. Will probably create a new thread, with the challenge being to move from NL2 to NL5. Will play NL2 until I have 40 or 50 BIs (or something close) for NL5, at which point I will move up permanently. No shots. At that point will create a new thread for NL5 to NL10, and so on. Creates realistic, doable, challenges with more clarity rather than vaguely hoping to go from NL2 to NL50 in a year. The number of buy-ins needed for each level will depend on what I work out with risk of ruin in a variance calculator, using whatever winrates I can achieve.