I didn't come to any great conclusions on this hand but it was still helpful for me to break down some ranges on this texture in this situation. I was also coming up on an hour of reviewing this one hand which seems excessive. Time to play some poker.

Hero: KQ

We 3b KQo from the BB against a CO open, CO calls. CO is 34/20 over a very small sample. He could either be a looser reg or a fish depending on where his stats go.

For the purposes of this HH I'm going to assume villain is a reg playing on the looser side rather than a fish bc that would complicate a lot of assumption.

We'll give villain an opening range of 27%
AA-22,AKo-A8o,KQo-KTo,QJo-QTo,JTo,AKs-A2s,KQs-K8s,QJs-Q8s,JTs-J8s,T9s-T8s,98s-97s,87s-86s,76s-75s,65s-64s,54s

And lets assume that he folds 40% of the time to a 3b. And we'll also assume he 4bets QQ+/AK. We can also assume he 4b bluffs but its impossible to say which holdings he chooses as 4bet bluffs so we won't arbitrarily remove any bluff combos from his range.

So he's going to continue with appx 16% of hands, taking out his value 4bets he continues with appx 11% of hands. I weighted some of the worse hands in this range to 65% of combos.
AA-77,AKo-AQo,KQo,AKs-A8s,KQs-K9s,QJs-Q9s,JTs-J9s,T9s,98s,87s,[65]66-22,AJo,KJo,A7s-A2s,T8s,97s,76s,65s,54s[/65]

There are a lot of ways I could approach this hand. Instead of deciding how I ought to best play THIS holding I'm going to decided how to best play my entire range on this texture.

Because of the overall looseness of villains in these games I 3bet depolarized, pure value when I am OOP. The game are anonymous and balancing my preflop range with bluffs serves no purpose since the do not fold enough to make bluffs +ev preflop. There is a chance that I could make my bluffs +ev or at least nuetral ev by playing better postflop, but I'm unsure if that is true.

My default 3betting range here
AA-TT,AKo-AJo,KQo,AKs-ATs,KQs-KJs

Flop: QJ7

Villain reaches flop with 157 combos. 117 of these combos connect in a way that he would be likely to continue with. Meaning he only folds about 25% of the time.

My range completely crushes his range here. But my perceived range probably includes many SCs and suited Ax that whiff this flop. So i get into a spot where if he knew my range I could bluff a ton on this board, but since he probably expects my range to be wider/weaker here I shouldn't bluff as recklessly. That said, I have very few hands that wight want to bluff that don't have a ton of equity. AK/AT have plenty of equity to bluff. TT is really the only hand that I should probably just totally give up with.

I can easily bet all of my Qx for value, and my AK/AT as bluffs. The question is whether or not AJ/KJ are strong enough to vbet on the flop. My standard is to check these hands but looking at the types of hands he continues with it may be a flop vbet. When I hold AJ, less than 1/3 of his continuing range to my flop bet will be ahead of me. Meaning I can easily vbet flop assuming he doesn't raise often. With KJ, closer to 40% of his range will beat me on this flop, meaning I can still vbet but only if he doesn't raise much at all.

Turn: QJ78

Villain get to turn with 95 combos

This spot gets tricky with AJ/KJ. villain will have a lot of pair+draw hands in his range. 99/TT/89/T8/JT/J9 that will not want to fold to my bet, but they may choose to raise my bet. They may also decide to bluff once I check making c/c attractive bc it can induce a bluff as well as avoids the possibility of facing a tough decision if raised.

Even a hand like KQ faces similar problems. It has the benfit of beating all villains Jx, but the weaker Jx will sometimes raise. We beat appx 62% of villains range for getting here. He is unlikely to fold much of this range at all given that so much of it is pair+ draw. So we can vbet KQ if we assume villain raises only rarely, but we need to c/c if we assume villain raise often.

River: QJ78J

River is a clear check with even AQ. AA or KK could be a bet IF we think villain is unlikely to fold any of his Qx to a bet and we expect him to bluff well when we check. But neither of those seems likely so check seems best with any 1 pair hand.

Our vbetting range here is only boats+ since we don't 3 bet 9T and we dont barrel turn with Jx. To have a balanced bluff range we can only bluff a few AK/AT combos. Tho its possible we may have decided to give up with all of our bluffs on the turn given how rarely villain is folding. If we were deeper we could possible check everything with a plan of c/raising boats and some bluffs as well as c/c some Qx and c/f some other Qx. But stacks here are such that if villain bets his only bet size is to jam. That said, checking boats still might be better if we think he mucks Qx often to the jam but jams bluffs and Jx when checked to.

Thanks!

I'll try to post some from my most recent hike later today.

Mental Midget,

Along for this years journey! Thanks for sharing and GL!

Corporate Clown

Hike to White Pinnacle Peak with a great group. Fast and competent.





Full Imgur album HERE

Can I ask why you appear to use a depol 3b range bb v co? Seems suboptimal to me.

Super low fold to 3b on average from the regs on this site and anonymous games.

pretty sweet that mental midget stuck.

I will be following!

Played for 1 hour today. Last month I had a losing month and I had just gotten back to 'even' yesterday. I was aware of this when I played my session and going into the session I felt a bit anxious. I should have spent some time journaling my thoughts before playing. I also didn't journal during session like I normally do. I felt a little rushed and definitely not nearly as focused as I am when I'm playing my best. I ended up losing about 2k this session and most of it was just standard variance but I likely could have a few hundred by taking my time on decisions more and journaling during session.

Due to some time constraints I decided not to do my HH review warm up today and I think this also put me in a poor spot to perform well. I made several mistakes today both before and during session that are 100% fixable.

I wasn't on full blow tilt but I certainly did not give my self the best chance to succeed today.

Mental Game Rating: 3/10

follow!

Thanks!

Again, not finding anything mind blowing here but enjoying walking through some ranges.

HH Review 1/20

We open MP, SB calls.

Our opening range: 18%
AA-22,AKo-ATo,KQo-KJo,AKs-A2s,KQs-K9s,QJs-QTs,JTs,T9s,98s,87s,76s

SB Flatting Range:
TT-77,KQo,AJs,KQs-KJs,QJs,JTs,[65]JJ,66-22,AQo,AQs[/65],[50]AJo,ATs,T9s,98s[/50],[20]ATo,KJo,A9s-A2s,KTs,QTs,J9s,T8s,97s,87s,76s,65s,54s[/20]
Some of this range is weighted to 65%, 50%, and 20%. I think this is a pretty reasonable range for an unknown but probably reggy SB cold call. It feels too wide, but I definitely see the lower weighted hands from time to time.


Flop: K52

Villain gets to flop with 110 combos. Of which he can easily continue with 61 combos and has an additional 10 or so combos of backdoor flushdraws he may choose to continue with. Let's say on average he continues with 65 combos, this means he continues with almost exactly 60% of his range to a cbet here. This is actually a bit surprising to me as I'd expect more folds than that here. I could probably get away with a half pot cbet here as his range won't change much to the smaller bet. And it being anonymous, I could probably half pot my bluffs and 2/3 my value hands without messing with villains range all that much.

Turn: K525

Villain gets to the turn with 63 combos roughly. He'll likely continue with TP+ and any flushdraw 100% of the time. Which is 29 combos. 66-JJ is 32 combos (JJ and 66 were weighted pre) and its tough to say how often he peels again with these. I'd assume he continues most of the time with the higher pairs and less often with the lower pairs. Let's say he continues 60% of the time with that whole range for 19 combos. This gives us 48 combos that we expect him to continue with, or 76% of his range. Making bluffing very unattractive. KJ would likely be our weakest value bet.

River: K5256

Villain gets to river with 48 combos. He has 4 combos that beat TP. 17 combos of TP. 19 combos of 66-JJ. And 8 combos of worse. Let's say he folds 66-JJ 70% of the time to a 3rd barrel but calls with TP+ 100%. Thats 6 combos of weak pairs, and 21 combos of better. Or 27/48 combos calling our bet, 56%. This would make bluffing thinly profitable. But if he is somewhat likely to bluff catch a bit wider or to c/r bluff with some of the folding hands, bluffing would again not show a profit.

If I hold KQ I block a good amount of villains TPs and chop with his KQ. I'd beat 3 combos of Kx, chop with 6. Lose to about 4 combos of the nuts. And beat 6 combos of his PP bluff catches. So I beat 8 and lose to only 4. Making KQ a solid vbet unless he is going to c/r bluff often. KJ would not be a vbet unless we expect the villain to call much more often with his PP bluffcatchers.

For this hand I didn't include AK in villains range pre. I think I should have weighted it in there. If I weight AK in at 50% preflop (villain 3bets it 50% of the time, flats the other 50%). This adds 4 combos of hands I lose to with KQ making KQ a dead break even vbet assuming villain never c/r bluffs. But we'd also have to weight in QQ which would add maybe another combo of worse that heroes river but that would make KQ super thin and any edge would be eliminated by villain c/r bluffing at all. (Assuming I fold KQ to the c/r)

^ I like this stuff. Really opens up your understanding of the game. Since it is so situational how do you get to a point where you are applying this though in each hand? Just a matter of making more general assumptions in your head since you don't have the time to really work out the math so much at the table right? Reviewing in detail like you are doing here just prepares you to do this better at the table am I right?

After a while this thought process becomes somewhat standard and even to the point where you arent thinking about the numbers of combos but rather have a intuition about it?

I never think about actual combos at the table. I just try to estimate what villains range looks like and how much of it he continues with. Doing things like this helps me estimate a little better at the table.

That is assuming my range estimates are close to real world.

Glgl in 2015 Sean!!

Cheers,
C.

sub gl skraper

Thanks!

Played 2.5 hours this morning. I think I played relatively well. I followed my process. I reviewed a hand and pasted it here and then I did a relatively lengthy pre-session journal. I felt rushed to finish the journal entry. It took a bit of mental effort to finish writing out my thoughts. I can usually tell when I've gotten it all out. It just 'feels' right. I tend to perform much better when I get it 'right' in my journal. Today it took almost 2 pages of writing to get it 'right'.

I think this pre session journaling is possibly the most important part of my warm up and skipping it has very clear effects on my mental game.

during session I wrote down many hands that I would like to review later. (i wrrite these down in the journal rather mark them in HM, i think its better/ more conscious. But i didn't journal about thoughts and feelings during session and I definitely remember being frustrated at a few points. The in session journaling is very helpful for keeping my emotions in check. I need to focus on doing this in game more.

edit: I also should do these cool downs immediately after my session. Going to reduce my grade by one for that.

Mental Game: 6/10

Hi Skraper,

The HH reviews were super helpful, please keep them coming

Have an awesome weekend

Good luck sir!

Good luck sir! Subbed

I enjoyed reading your opening post. The analysis on the roots of mental game problems seemed spot on. Just a question, why are you saying in the thread title you are a "mental midget", isn't it self defeating? humorous, sure.

Will do! They help me too.

Thanks!

In my last thread I made a comment in one of my posts about my new gf being in the apartment watching tv while I was grinding and how I had to be aware that it would be an added distraction and could cause me to tilt easier.

A troll then called me a mental midget and said I must be a terrible coach etc etc.

Turns out Mental Midget is actually a little know comic book hero so I changed my avatar and became the Mental Midget.

HH from WSOP.com
Reg minraises BTN, we flat 67o, we lead flop 3/4, lead turn 2/3, c/c river on T67hhJA

lets come up with a reasonable flop strategy on this board. Should be interesting given how wide my range is preflop.

Preflop Flatting range: 45%
88-22, A9s-A2s, K9s-K2s, QTs-Q2s, J5s+, T5s+, 95s+, 85s+, 74s+, 63s+, 53s+, 43s, ATo-A2o, KTo-K7o, Q7o+, J7o+, T7o+, 97o+, 87o, 76o

3betting range: 9.6%
99+, ATs+, KTs+, QJs, AJo+, KJo+

I'm still advocating a linear 3bet range. WSOP is a HUDless site and I find that most regs will defend a 3bet in this spot very very wide. I could possibly extend this range a bit to include some more offsuit broadways and some hands like A9s,K9s and a few of the better connectors like JTs,9Ts,89s.

Flop: T76

I think this is a board that makes sense to have a leading and a check/continuing range. Villain and I will both have wide ranges and villain will likely not be over-cbetting this flop.

I reach the flop with 516 combos. First I'm going to try to figure out what hands I'm not going to c/f, then try to sort them into the various categories. With it being so many combos, this seems best.

If we defend every gutshot or better, any pair, and any 2 card backdoor FD we'd defend 430 combos or 83% of hands. This is way over defending. If we take out all the naked backdoor FDs and the naked 6x we get down to 363 combos or 70% of hands. This is a bit of an over defend. I think in game I'd probably fold some of the weaker gutshots but it would be tough to get much below 350 combos (68%).

The fact that my range hits in a way that I can defend so many hands re-enforces my hunch that I ought to be leading this board frequently. If i could potentially defend 83% of the time to a cbet then villain should never cbet bluff this spot. So I think My goal should be to lead a lot and try to leave a checking range that is defending right around 60% of the time.

C/R Range: 50 combos
straights: 16 combos
OESD + FD: 45s, 85s 2 combos
FD + 8xGS: A8s,K8s,Q8s,J8s 4 combos
Offsuit Gutshots with highcard backdoor FD (ie Qh9x): A9o,A8o,K9o,K8o,Q9o,Q8o,J9o,J8o 24 combos
Suited 9x Gutshots with BDFD (ie A9dd): A9s,K9s,Q9s,J9s 4 combos

Leading Range: 46
sets: 6 combos
2 pair: 21 combos
OESD (without FD): 85s, 45s 6 combos
NFD (not containing a pair): A2s-A5s 4 combos
Other FDs (not containg pair): K2s-K5s, Q2s-Q5s, J5s 9 combos

C/C Range: 163
TP: 69 combos
MP: 78 combos
Remaining FDs: 16 combos

There are appx 154 remaining gutshots and 2 Card Backdoor flushdraws. 40-50 of them them would go in the leading range. And about 90 of them would go in the c/c range. I would think that the very worst of them get c/f, the slightly better but still low SD value get lead and the better of the them get c/c.

Out of time. Would like to continue with this hand. Potentially sorting out the gutshots in a bit more detail and also figuring out turn/river play.

GL OP! Subbed!

I really like your attitude and humility. I am going to start a new PGnC thread soon and I think I will follow your lead and post my mistakes in real time. Own the mistake, learn from it and move on.