I don't mean hand reading. That part's just logic and it's relatively easy.

It's going with your instincts and the hand reading combined *despite* the math that's a real bitch.

Wow.

First post I've ever printed out.

When is this going to be a good idea? If your hand reading is absolutely top-notch and you know what an opponent has, then all that means is you are no longer putting your opponent on a range, but a single hand. Is it a hand that you can make them fold if it beats you? Is it a hand that you're getting the right price to draw against if you can't get them out? Is it a worse hand that you can get them to pay you with? How sure are you about any of the actions they can take given how you behave? These are the exact same questions that we ask in other situations, we're just doing it with much more specific and narrow information. It becomes much easier to calculate our EV, and we're still going to make plays to maximize this.

Advertising and constructing an image can throw a bit of a monkey wrench in here, but all those things are really doing is setting it up so that in future situations, you have a better idea about what kind of plays your opponent will make, and try to influence them to make plays that you know you can profit by.

The math doesn't go away. It just gets practiced so often that it becomes intuition.

That's never really gonna happen unless you're Gigabet. I'm talking about the situations where the math says you're behind to his whole range but your gut says that if you push he's going to fold.

This by no means implies you can ignore the math - it's still in the background and it forms part of your instincts. But what you're doing at that point isn't really ABC poker anymore.

Man, I have not felt like this much of an intellectual hack in a long time. Thank You.

Then assuming your read is good, pushing becomes a better move than calling or folding. Folding equity calculations that are extremely routine on this forum work just fine here; say you're 90% sure (because, yes, you're never going to be 100% sure) he's going to fold whatever he has, or figure he'll fold all but one specific hand and see what that tells you.

ABC poker doesn't have anything to do with it. The concepts don't lose their usefulness if you take them out of push or fold situations. The inputs become more complex but the general method should remain the same. You seem to be implying that math is good for laying down a simple, utilitarian style that is not to be deviated from, the final all-in fest of SNGs being a good example. But it can be much more flexible.

Can you produce an example of a play that you think is good that you can both explain why you think it is good but also think that "the math" says it is bad?

I'm pretty sure we're speaking past each other here. I know what you're talking about and I think you know what I mean, too. I also don't want to derail this thread so let's take it to PM's.

Gigabet has this amazing ability to say what everyone either knows or should know in a way that clarifies all the confusion that we call this forum (Irie also does a great job of this).

Seriously, how much simpler can it be. You just need to know what your opponent has, and then all the other problems will take care of themselves. The best is that he even tells you how to do it, and I'll bet as I'm writing this that 95% of the people that set out to do what he said have already stopped doing it.

Gigabet must get bored saying the same thing over and over. Last month, he said, "Think about every decision you make at table before you make it."

Geez, that's real revolutionary. I wonder how many people do it.

Great post Gig.

Ok, first part, was awesome.

So true, I sadly quit the $200 sngs after about playing 500-750 in a couple weeks, just because I didnt see the game the way I see it today in my mind. I just wasn't prepared for the swings at the time, and the mind games it can cause.
I mean, I made a insane $## per sng in the 200s, but the swings, were to big on some days, where I just couldnt play my A game. And I guess its what caused me to get burnt out.

I totally respect the way you see the game, and its something I started to use in my games as well, I noticed if I try to block out the bad beats, It doesnt help, as after a lot of them it all comes out at once, and thats prob. worse than taking it out on each bad beat. But trying to see it from a whole different perspective, like what you explained is what really helped me out.

Your part about losing/winning is another important part, as Im sometimes to caught up if Im up for the day or down. Im starting to think of it as a long term game, and results shouldn't matter day by day.

Your 2nd part, is just insane advice which I think a lot of players on here while not be able to grasp right away (obviously, lots of hard work, and it should take time to build up to this level). I think only your the only person who can handle 8 sngs at a time continously playing the "person" and not his cards while continously checking hand histories of different players to see how they play certain hands.

Giga says "learn to read your opponents." Forum falls over. News at 11.

Great post.

eastbay

"The mind is like a clear mirror standing.
Take care to wipe it all the time,
Allow no grain of dust to cling to it."

Shen Hsui


"They asked each other, 'Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?'"

Luke 24:32

Saw this post while my first ever "post" is being printed out. Oh the irony.

i attribute my live results to two things. the first is that the competition is a little bit softer. the second is due to the fact that i am a much more visual person and i can remember a faces hands much better than a screennames. furthermore, i find that the concept of table image is much easier for me to apply in live games, i.e. the second and third level of thinking are easier for me to achieve as i can see someones reactions.

bump -- it's worth a second read

Great post.

All that knowledge and experience and he doesn't know how to post a
link. That is failure.

Anyhow, that's one of the best and most well thought out posts ever
on 2+2. Your thoughts about players classifying themselves as
"losers" are spot on. I think you trying to say that the outcome of
a particular SNG or the balance in your PartyPoker account has
little to do with whether we have succeeded or failed, but growing
up in our society we are trained to think that finishing 1st in an
SNG is success, and OOTM is failure.

So you are saying that losing in poker is not necessarily failing,
and vice versa, yet virtually all poker players categorize things
this way. You say to disconnect failure from evaluation of your own
results, and to not think negatively. To be more objective while
looking at your play. This is mostly due to the fact that we play
this game for money. By now I feel I am more writing this as a
learning experience and thought excerise for myself than a
contribution to the forum. I also have a feeling that you were not
born understanding this and you probably realized it at a time when
you could not be crippled financially by a bad beat. Not being
crippled financially by a bad beat will allow a player to seperate
failure from their daily balance.

Your paragraph about researching other players' tendancies and
habits is revealing. Not everyone has the mental capacity, focus,
and memory to do this. It is not something that can be learned
overnight.

A question to you is how useful is this skill and practice if you
only play with a player for 45 minutes? This is online play, and
more 95% of us we don't see that many repeat players. Sure, I could
learn more about the players I am playing with at mid limit SNGs but
I'm probably not going to play with them again. Does this change for
you as you move up in stakes, when the player pool is smaller? Do
you use any poker software to track opponents' various stats?

Thanks for posting.

Postscript (Hey, this is one of my longest posts)

I'm writing this uder a new name since the last one go banned for censor bypass. I wrote this when there were 2 replies, so I saved it and was going to wait until I got my account back... but I'm impatient. So don't censor bypass.

I love love love this post. This is how I try to think. Just one minor quibble...

"Believe me, it isn't some spiritual science, it is listening and learning without prejudice."

That IS the spiritual science-- learning to be completely open to every experience and using your full powers of perception. That may sound a little crazy but part of the reason I play poker is because it drives me to that mental state.

awesome post. I enjoyed reading it.

Yeah, I hadn't. Thanks.

Are you god?

Part of my problem is learning to trust my read. Sometimes I'll peg someone as a loose passive donkhead. He's gotten lucky and built up a good stack and knocking people out, while I've been throwing away some decent hands but staying alive.

Now comes the bubble and I decide to make an all-in move with a marginal or crap hand, believing that he won't call off 70% of his stack on the bubble unless he has the goods. Given my read, I shouldn't expect that. He'll be calling with anything that looks good, hands that I'd throw away in a heartbeat in this spot like AT (maybe it's ME that's too tight, who knows). Just because I'd throw a hand away doesn't mean someone else would throw that same hand away, right?

On the other hand, I may be missing out on good opportunities to take chips away from too tight players. I'm still learning to play the player not the cards but it could be taking me a while to learn this.

I'm fairly new to this forum and just read this. An amazing post and definitely deserves another bump.

Interestingly enough...good posts certainly don't 'deserve' bumps....and in fact, they shouldn't really get *any* bumps.

Luminous

Interesting.....just have to think......

Best Post I've ever read...That's all I'm saying for now as I have to read it again. WOW