He has his premiums in there, but it's also a good spot for a low suited aces: A2s-A5s, counting on the A as a blocker. Do I think he might have AJs, 98s, 87s, and some medium pairs like 88-JJ? For sure. When you get down into the awkward stacks in the 20-30bb range, it's time to make some moves.

All right. Let's take that post and range it. It's only fair. We'll see if I can get 40% out of it.



If I was DNegs and able to put UTG+1 on exactly AJ, where would I be?

I think that ranges that wide for villain (crunching here btw) are not realistic in practicing. The lower suited connectors and lower connected aces aren’t in villains true range. They ARE in his theoretical range but players at this level rarely have the depth and sophistication much less the experience to put that whole range into play.

I'd call and I'm a nit. Probably not calling with worse though.

The game is getting tougher and players are more commonly using balanced ranges in good spots in both cash games and tournaments, and at increasingly lower stakes. The literature and coaching videos regarding these have been out there for several years, now.

I made a judgement call based on MPs demeanor and prior play and I decided that it was possible that he could be using a wide range in that spot with those stacks. 99 is not exactly a premium hand there. It could have been the very bottom of his range, but I suspect that it wasn't.

As in all cases, I could be wrong about that, but about this particular hand I have

Ex GF?

I don’t personally have any issue with the play and you still had 2 overs vs 99 so we’re more or less flipping.

IRL however, we can discuss the optimal strategy until we’re blue in the face and I’ll bet against villain showing up with those middling connectors and low Ax hands. That’s just me.

Nah, she was picked for her No Ragrets temporary tattoo, based upon the original permanent one commissioned by some fool a few years back.

At first I was going to pick the original, but then I liked the idea of the temporary as an analogy: in that key hands should be treated like temporary tattoos. Mark them down and show them to everyone, and talk about them for a while, and then let them fade away.

I was holding on to old hands going years back until I decided that I didn't want to let them define my identity as a player any more. I want my play style to be defined by the hands that I've just recently played, and more importantly with those that I haven't played yet. As for the latter: will I be good enough to navigate my way through them? Will I have the right mindset when they come up? That's completely up to me and the things that I decide to do right now.

I kid about ex the ex GF, thing I know the source and agree it’s better in that context than the original.

I don’t know if holding on to old hands are bad if you learn from them.

Sorry not to derail but have you ever considered doing a little card counting on the side now that your back in town? Other potential EV non poker stuff? There’s some good signup bonuses for locals at a lot of casinos,run it through some video poker. Or are you done with that grind?

I haven't counted cards for close to 20 years. I estimate that at my age it would take me around 60-80 hours of practice to relearn basic strategy and all the adjustments to it based on the count, plus the main high-low count and added the insurance side count.

The latter side count is a nice addition that tells you when it's profitable to take insurance vs. dealer's blackjacks whenever the dealer shows an A and offers insurance. It's basically the old unbalanced Thorp count (TJQK = -2, all other cards = +1) where you take insurance when that count hits +4 per number of decks used. Pulling off both counts smoothly at the same time (the main high-low count is 23456 = +1, 789 = 0, and TJQKA = -1) is difficult but not impossible. It also helps that players who take insurance occasionally take less heat because it's considered to be a -EV play. Players using only the high-low count don't take insurance because it correlates poorly to insurance EV due to its not adding 789 and its subtracting A instead of adding it.

Anyways, if I get caught, then I get myself into a shared database that might conceivably put my Caesar's rewards status into jeopardy, even if I never count at a Caesar's property, as almost all the properties have access to these databases.

Snap calling with the AQ justice. AJ would be a fold tho

Thanks for the detailed response sj. Doesn’t appear worth the risk to count cards.

i only play tourneys casually and occaisionally, i woulda open shoved the aq. easy to say from here.

what next, suited?

I'd like to get back to work. I didn't actually quit drinking until the 4th; at present I'd like to report that with my new found sobriety I'm feeling great and I have plenty of energy, but that's just not the case.

Though I'm not in the greatest shape, I have been using this downtime to study poker a little and to read a lot and think a lot. Here's something from my man Kurt Vonnegut in Palm Sunday.

Using the Socratic Method, he asked his little class this: "What is it an artist does--a painter, a writer, a sculptor--?"

He already had an answer, which he had put down in the book he was writing, a book which would never be published. But he would not tell us what it was until the end of the hour, and he might discard it entirely if our answers to his question made more sense than his. This was a class composed entirely of veterans of the Second World War in the summertime. The class had been put together in order that we might continue to receive our living expenses from our government when most of the rest of the university was on vacation.

If any of us came up with good answers, I now have no idea what they might have been. His answer was this: "The artist says, 'I can do very little about the chaos around me, but at least I can reduce to perfect order this square of canvas, this piece of paper, this chunk of stone.'"

A few months back, I was going to attempt an essay comparing and contrasting the games and the sports that we play to real life. I had a vague notion of where to start, but I couldn't find the hook on which to hang it. Vonnegut's professor just nailed it up for me. I'd read Palm Sunday once before, at least 25 years ago, and I think it was that passage above which was what I had wanted to use to start my essay, though I'd long since forgotten where I'd seen it. And now here it was again, finding its way back to me.

So his mentor is talking about artists, but I think that we can say similar things about athletes and gamers. Like artists, we can do nothing about the howling chaos of our lives spent with other people, but whenever we are at play, we can know and can reduce to perfect order our desired actions based upon the rules of the game.

I'm not saying that there isn't chaos: the shape of the American football seems to be devised specifically to increase chaos. And I'm not saying that there isn't a random element--some games are nearly completely random--but for all games, their element of randomness is steady and predictable and depends entirely upon their rules, with the singular exception of the actions of referees or umpires.

Now just think about how upset players and fans get about the aforementioned. It's because these officials bring the element of the flawed real world into the idealized world of sports and games.

Now if I have a pair of sixes in hold 'em, assuming that no one else is holding or has discarded a six, my chance of flopping a set is always roughly 12%, every time. Real life doesn't work that way.

In contrast to a game, if I decide to text an old love interest whom I haven't contacted in 10 years, I estimate that her chances of texting me back may run anywhere between 0% and 70%. Does that mean that I should split the difference and call it an even 35% chance that she'll text me back? Absolutely not, because I'm talking about a range of ranges--people are a range of ranges--not just a single range like you'll have most of the time in sports or games.

I have no idea how her life has been going these past 10 years. She could be recently divorced, happily married, or anywhere in between. And me, if I text her, will I be drunk and maudlin, or will I sound funny and upbeat, or will I come across as plain creepy? Or will it be some mixture of all three, the old triple range merge...?

It's much more simple in a game. You make a speech check, the software assigns a certain percentage that you need to hit based upon knowable criteria, and it rolls the random number generator. And if you fail, you load up a previous save and try again, of course, if you're a nitty save whore like myself.

Games and sports bring a comfort to us. If you fail, you do so because you did an inferior job compared to your opponent and/or the designated obstacles, or because you were unlucky within the knowable randomness set by the rules, or due to some combination of the two. Or the refs blew the game for you--in which case you're allowed to become upset.

In the real world, you can fail because someone doesn't like the look of you, or because they really like the look of someone else, or maybe they like the idea of what the other person can offer them. Or you fail for reasons that no one will ever figure out, no matter how deeply they look into it. Or you succeed in spite of all this, due to hard work, or not working at all. So you can see why we like games. They stamp a little order onto things, and give us clear winners and losers (and only the occasional tie-ers).

Speaking of games, I've been playing a lot of Fallout 4 during my extensive downtime. And Subby has grown to be pretty badass.



The sad thing is that I'm going to have to delete her if I want to move on and get back to playing and studying poker like I should. I will. I will. Just a few more quests...

Text me this weekend, it’s part of your jorb.

SUBBY

RIP Subby. She died peacefully today, just shy of level 74, having run out of saves. She did not ask to be thrown into that horror show of a wasteland, but having arrived after 200 years in cold storage, she killed many a super mutant and Institute android assassin. She made the Commonwealth a safer place.

Did you look on her ass all the time while playing?

Nah it was first person view all the way. I can't play FO in third person.

#RIP

Bye subby

Interesting couple of updates. I think most would say you’re going through some type of midlife crisis, a pretty common occupational hazard in your line of work.

I really just think you just need to get laid. Maybe that and a solid win week. Might be over simplifying and maybe you need something more than a quickie. Playing poker seems very lonely. Your surrounded by people but in many ways it’s a lot more lonely than most jobs.

Do you have fellow players in town that you hang out with?

its world series time!! get gosh darn excited !!

subby would tell you to get out there and play some cash games. no drinking with poker. if you have to drink, outside poker only. stop feeling sorry for yourself. its a downward spiral w no satisfying resolution.

you are not alone. i promise. you have many supporting you in spirit. dont quit now. dont give up. you have the power !!

now get out there and do it for subby

I'm not actively interested in hooking up. If it happens, I wouldn't do anything to sabotage it, but I don't feel any real impetus towards make something happen. As far as local friends go, I occasionally get together with 2p2ers who come to town, and 2p2er Natamus and I will hang out from time to time.

Thanks for the pep talk Gambelina! I am not drinking at all. As of today I have some of my IRL mental game sorted, and I believe that I might venture out for a session.