Hey guys, long time no see.

I'm back from my holiday which was really nice. I really liked travelling in Sweden and Finland. It was a bit cold so I didn't walk around much, instead just took Taxi's to move around a lot (Yeah I can pay for taxi's for short distances cuz I'm a ****ing baller).
I met a nice girl in a club in Stockholm. She taught me how to count to 10 in swedish although I only remember 1-5 and 9 and 10. She taught me some other stuff too but I forgot. My doctor once told me I was allowed to have sex with swedish girls without condom's because of some thing that finnish guys can't catch STD's from swedish girls. I'm not so sure it's true though because my balls have been very itchy recently. Hope it's OK, I think I'll just wait till it passes.

Anyway, after my Stockholm adventures I went to Helsinki. I had a little problem on arrival because the finnish authorities told me I'm supposed to be in the army (I thought I had gotten the "E papers" which would of given me 2 more years of freedom before I had to go). Turns out it was a ****up on their part and I'm glad because I got really ****ing scared. Sleeping in a room with 10 other dudes and having to crawl through the finnish forests and **** sounds pretty annoying. If any of you guys know how to avoid the finnish army permanently, let me know please, I may or may not ship you 'bout tree fiddy on Stars.

Anyway I didn't have to go to the Army but I found some old drunk dudes in some farm in the middle of nowhere (I don't know how I got there or how I met these people because I was so sh.ithoused I don't remember half the stuff that happened in Helsinki). Anyway these guys let me shoot an RPG for ****s and giggles which was pretty ****ing awesome. I paid them back in koskenkorva which they seemed to enjoy a lot.

I liked Stockholm so much that I went back for a few days. I met that girl again who taught me how to count and stayed at her place. In April they have this festival in Sweden called "Jag gillar sand i min rumpa" which means something like "Celebrate the snow". Anyway it's a festival where u just throw snowballs at other people and it's a lot of fun ! I tasted some yellow snow by accident though and now my stomach has been hurting since so that kinda sucks.

I'm back now and back on the grind ! In fact I'm up almost 3k already for this month and I'm deciding just stopping already because I'm scared to lose it back. I might just go snowboarding the rest of the time and not play, that would be fun. The thing is I do need to work otherwise I have to move back to my mom's basement and that kinda sucks because the last time I tried to bring a girl back to "my place" she said "Pfff you're a loser I'm not banging you in your mom's basement" so we had to take the train all the way to her place which was a real ball breaker. Worst part of the story is she also lived at her mom's place.

No strategy this time, I'm a bit rusty and been playing kind of bad these last few days and I don't want to spread any bad strategy because that's semi-unethical (lol "semi"). I should have my game sorted in a few days again so I'll post some strat then. Maybe VegasMidas will post an update with some strat, that would be nice, I'm all out of moves at the moment.

Hey guys, long time no see again. It's a little dead in here and Simon is too busy running bad so he can't post any strat at the moment. I will have to post strategy instead. I feel qualified to post strat again because I had a +4k day yesterday.

So today I wanna talk about having problems with certain regulars. You guys know what I'm talking about. You're playing, minding your own business, printing serious cash and rubbing monopoly monies on your tiddiz. Then you got a ****ing ******* of some reg with a stupid avatar who 3b's you. You 4b and he ****ing jams and you have to fold your 23o (it's one of the best hands to 4b with because he can't ever fold worse, and the GTO play is to bluff with the bottom of your range).

People like Jared Tendler say you should use your anger as a fuel to play better vs that person. I happen to concur with that statement. However, he forgot something. You need to play a bit differently vs him, and it's both about being Euro +EV and life +EV. When the ******* reg shoves the river vs you in a 3b pot and you have a bluffcatcher, you should ALWAYS call. That's because it's a win-win situation for you. If you win the hand then nice, you won some euro's but you also get to shout in front of your screen "IN YOUR FACE YOU LITTLE BITCH, I JUST STACKED YOUR FAT ASS".
But if you lose, you will be super ****ing pissed off vs him, and you can use that extra anger to play even better vs him.

Since you had a bluffcatcher and it was probably a GTO type spot where it's about a breakeven call and you should fold half the time, it means folding and calling have the same EV. But there's extra life EV added when you win the pot when you call, and Euro +EV added when you lose since you will be more angry at him which if used properly, will make you play better vs him.

valuable strat ITT

Nice!

Let's analyze this fatcat dude, cause he's creepy as s.hit.

What person of at least average self confidence would need to point out that they have a lot of money in the first paragraph. And what person of at least average intellect would try and prove that statement with the fact that they can take taxis for short distances? We'll keep this in mind for later.

This person seems to be totally oblivious to the fact that this is a public forum. The "doctor" persona comes out of nowhere to validate the fact that Fatcat wants to have sex without condoms. Possible multiple personality disorder?

Fatcat expresses his great fear of having to serve in the army. He repeatedly uses offensive language to describe his fear of it, and he even validates it by describing what (he thinks) he would have to do in the army (alluding to sexual harrassment? 10 other dudes?).
After having said all that, he attaches a value to this fear - 'bout tree fiddy. These two statements (fear and tree fiddy) are controversial in nature, especially considering that he had already pointed out (in the first paragraph) that he can take short taxi rides "cuz I'm a ****ing baller". Even those taxi rides will cost more than tree fiddy, especially in Sweden (or Norway, or wherever this whole sharade is set). We have to assume that he is holding back the true value of not having to go to the army. Insecurity? We will find out.

Again, some validation is given. Fatcat found "old drunk dudes", and proceeds to get drunk. The old drunk dudes validate his getting drunk. He's not alone now. A group of people, you could almost say a group of friends, get drunk together. And now the story gets darker.

I've had trouble finding out what an RPG is, but judging by this description, it's either a weapon, or a metaphor for penis (or both, which is often the case). Either way, "koskenkorva" would be a metaphor for human c.um.
So, Fatcat indirectly says that he's gay, but he puts it both in a business context (using the word "pay"), and uses heavy metaphors. Compare this to his earlier allusion that he wanted to have sex (with a girl) without condoms.
Maybe Fatcat desperately wants to be a person who has sex with girls, and such a manly person at that that he doesn't even use condoms? Instead, he "pays" some "old drunk dudes" with his "koskenkorva".

I just pointed out this paragraph because again, it's related to penisses in a very indirect manner, and it adds an oral aspect. This would indicate that something in Fatcat's childhood is the real issue here.

Oh yes, Fatcat desperately wants to be this person who brings home girls, even if it his to his moms basement. We are encountering profane language again: "banging". This points out his manliness, this time in a very direct manner. "I want to be a real MAN who BANGS girls. And i will BANG them ANYWHERE, even in my MOMs basement". For the first time, Fatcat brings his Mom into the story. This fits what we've been assuming about potential problems in his childhood.

Parting thoughts:
- little self esteem
- a "personal" computer makes it impossibly to classify an internet forum as "public"
- Multiple allusions to sexual organs
- Having sex with girls in a dream world (as a dream person), having real sex in a fake dream world ("drunk"), but in a very real way, potentially without condoms. Not being able to spell any of this out, instead using metaphors of business and weaponry contexts
- Oral aspect added, where before it wasn't mentioned. The idea of "paying" with "koskenkorva" could allude to oral sex.
- In a climactic way, his mother is mentioned. The only 2 persons that are mentioned are a "doctor", validating his wish to have sex without condoms, and his mother. He is afraid of mentioning his mother in a direct manner, she's a bystander in this story.

w
t
f

nice update u were talking about. lold

A+

Actually yeah I used to be a little insecure about my sexuality in my late adolescence. So not quite childhood but later, you're analysis is a little off. I kept thinking that maybe I was gay. I was never really sure, I mean I knew I liked girls, but occasionally i asked myself if I liked dudes. This was never really a major issue but sometimes when I was getting drunk the thoughts would pop into my head and scare me a little.

Then sometime in 2012 when I was in my late teens, I took a lad holiday with my uni flatmates to some Mediterranean island. We got proper ****faced for an entire week. So one night one of them throws up and goes home early, while me and the other 2 guys stay out. Since we started drinking quite early, by the time we went into the club , we were all completely wasted. I started dancing with this girl and before you know it we're making out and got my hands all over here. She had a bit of chub but not too much + I had the beer goggles on so it's all good.

I bring her back to my hotel and she goes in the shower which I thought was kind of weird but whatever, especially since she's still wearing underwear but no brah. She then proceeds to push me on my back on the bed and gives me a beej. After a while I want to **** her so I start removing her panties and go for the fingering. But instead of a soft vagina, I feel a hard dick in my hand. Oops, this is awkward. I kinda gently push "her" away for a bit and she looks back at me like in a weird way. I'm thinking wtf, I just got blown by a dude, this is so ****ed up. I was still occasionally getting the random thoughts of me being gay at this time in my life, so I wanted to settle the doubts once and for all. I decided that the only way to find out if I was gay or not would be to **** a dude.

So I told the guy (lol) to turn around and proceeded to butt**** him. After a while though I couldn't finish because it just felt so weird ****ing a dude. Turns out I didn't really like it that much. I actually felt so relieved at this point because I now knew for sure I wasn't gay and the doubts went away in my brain. Now he goes back in the shower and puts his clothes on and says "You give me 20 darra". I'm like wtf I just ****ed a guy AND he's a hooker, man my life is ****ed up. Anyway I didn't want to make a fuss because I felt so relieved, so I just negotiated the price down to 10$ and gave it to him.

Next day my mates couldn't stop laughing and said "You kissed a dude hahahahaha". They didn't know I actually banged him because they went home earlier but apparently I had the worst case of beer goggles known to mankind and thought a dude was a girl.

Anyway now I feel very confident in my sexual preference and definitely into girls, no ****.

interesting story lolololololollol

hahahahaha, 5stars

the best thread ever , 5 stars !

Hahahaha lol

Simon isn't this your thread?! why r u giving FatCat space to be spoken?! Oh and he is a strange kind of human...

btw nice trolling the tard

When discussing variance, people mostly talk about how often they get outdrawn with hands that "should" win the pot, or about getting bad runouts, or losing coinflips.
Lately, i've encountered a different kind of variance.

Polarized 3betting ranges

I've made it my goal to construct amazing polarized 3betting ranges. Anybody who's ever tried this should know how hard it is. It's a parley between finding hands that work well as bluffs (instead of just 3betting "bluffs" that look nice) and not weakening your range too much (your 3betting range, that is) on certain board textures.

Range vs Range

I've tried quite a simple approach: I've looked at different board textures, and created a system to measure how much the preflop caller hits that board texture. So, for example, an under the gun player hits ace high boards really well. A button who called your 3bet will hit a T96 board extremely hard.
After I've located the textures that a player hits really well, i construct ranges that have two types of hands in them:
type 1: Hands that hit the texture even better
type 2: Hands that don't hit the texture at all

If your opponent hits a board well, then you don't want to have marginal hands. You wanna go with it, or stay out of it. That's my approach.

Boards that get hit pretty well by callers fall into two categories:
category 1: boards that get hit by middling hands
category 2: boards that get hit by high card hands that neither fold nor 4bet.

The approach

Long story short:
When you 3bet against some positions, you really don't wanna hit king high boards, or you wanna totally destroy the board. Against other positions, you don't wanna hit middling boards marginally, or ace high boards.
Naturally, if your philosophy is to either hit "big" or miss, then you'll end up missing more often than hitting big, so you'll end up checking to fold quite often. And this is where variance comes into play.

What the F**K

Since i've made those changes to my gameplan, it seems like i encounter ace high boards and king high boards EVERYWHERE. I run bad in terms of board textures! Think of a big "hit or miss board" for my range, and it's gonna come. The sad thing is, i have so many surprises in store for all the 8high boards out there, and for the Jhigh boards. But no, life throws ace high boards at me, and king high boards, and occasionally a queen high board to mix it up. I swear that all the other boards COMBINED only showed up like 50% of the time at MOST.
So half the time (lol) i either flopped really big (in which case people didn't have anything, obviously) or missed completely.
So far, i've managed not to spew too hard.
But i've never had variance bite me in the *** that hard when trying out a new strat, so hopefully that changes soon.

Let's hope that i am not broke by then.

tell me about it, same same

Whenever I 3b JJ/QQ I get an overcard flop like half the ****ing time

Might want to have a look at preflop folding ranges and inspect those combinations towards how much those are weighted on low/middle card value and what that means when three players in front of you openfolded or a tight UTG player opens.
As this is not stud and we don't see dead cards for our board that does not mean they don't act as blockers towards our community board. We should be concious that a lot of garbage gets openfolded and folded to a raise behind us and what that means for board texture diversity. I think this topic is greatly ignored when people make game plans for certain board textures and the seemingly overwhelming amount of high card boards you encounter in certain spots might not be imaginated but actually explained by folded deadcard blockers. You will encounter a different balance of board textures in a pot where a tight UTG openraises vs a loose BTN openraises and a loose BB defends.

The odds of an A K or Q flopping is very likely close to 50%...

I actually assumed that was a troll given the above. Lol.

Re-trolled.

Ok, now I'm totally lost.

Fwiw I think the actual odds are around 45%.

I'll do this!

Maaaaaaatt Damon

Golden thread

Not sure who I have to thank more, Fatcat or Simonman for the useful strat

There's a time for taking cool posts and turning them into something funny. This isn't the time. Because

Rake based online poker will die

Surprised? No worries. It's good news.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...sd465m-in-2017
Esports is growing at an insane rate. If you feel like poker is bound to die, i suggest you watch some esports-documentaries (there's one by vice), or google some salaries of famous let's players.
Poker's problem isn't that it's not attractive, or that you can't beat the games.
Poker's problem is that while the game itself has transformed itself into something that's very far removed from casino poker, the sites haven't adjusted.

Rake

Or, more precisely, hand based rake. Let's not dwell on the fact that poker isn't even the type of game that should be monopolized by casinos in the first place, or the game that should be played in casinos (I guess a poker table is smaller than a football field, so maybe that's why it happened this way).
Instead, we'll dwell on the fact that casinos take rake per hand.
That actually makes sense. A poker hand in a casino can take quite long, and the dealer will be quite busy. The table takes up space, and it's pretty big.
All in all, especially considering that poker must have made casinos uncomfortable in the first place (cause people can actually win), hand based rake wasn't a bad solution at all.
Notice that even still, some casinos where smart enough to collect time-based rake instead.

RAKE

So, let's move to online poker. Here, hand based rake is not a strategic decision, it's a joke. "So, we'll try this, and if people actually fall for it then we'll be stinking rich within a year". It's that kind of thing.
It costs a poker site money to open a new poker table. That's a reasonable bit of server time, especially because a poker table might not break for hours to come. A poker hand? What would be the appropriate value?
0.00001 cents?
Poker sites have used a trick to deceive us into thinking that we are buying into a proven system. And now, we are reaching a point where that system has to be questioned, and alternatives have to be found.

Moving forward


Once you have set up a big infrastructure, you won't be able to change it.

Pokerstars won't be able to move away from rake based poker. It's comparable to the UK converting to driving on the right. It doesn't sound that hard...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8239048.stm

So, back to our rake problem. Casino poker and online poker are two different beasts. Online poker is very comparable to esports. Esports is growing like clockwork.
...

Rake based online poker will die, and quickly.

The future

There's a peculiar thing that you can see on twitch. Streams that stream high stakes poker aren't that successful. It's all about emotions. It's all about that ONE hand that decides everything. It's about entertainment.

Imagine a poker site where you have a number that reflects your skill level, like in chess. Where there's different rankings, and you can be in the one spot.
A poker site that hosts team matches, whatever those might look like.
Most of those matches would not be for money, but for points. Online poker would become like esports, and the difference between play money games and real money games would become smaller and smaller (in league of legends you just play for "points" for ages, and then suddenly you're sitting there and you can win a million dollars).

Of course there are other alternatives. Rake based on poker tables (so if you sit down at a table, you pay $1 for the right to play for 10 hours). Lower rake and more advertising (so Nike would advertise on Pokerstars. This can actually be done by the big sites).

I think i am trying to make 2 main points:
- rake based online poker (per hand) will die
- the future of online poker is connected to esports