1. What's your standard cbet size ?
2. How often do you cbet ?
3. Which stats do you run in your hud ?
4. Which are the most important stats as a SS ?
5. What are the major differences between good and bad SS ?
6. What do you need to become a good SS ?
7. Is there a huge difference between turbo SNG's and SS ?

MR. Pitbull from Russia seems rough around the edges.

My question after you finish kokolre$'s essay:
Do you prefer railing, parachuting, or eating your amphetamines?

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by EV calculations.. when determining my EV in a particular hand or range of hands I reference the EV calculation provided by Hold'em Manager.

My charts are formulated through the use of various programs such as pokerstove, SNG Wizard (which does account for rake), etc, as well as my own mathematical calculations.


Yes, I wrote a strategy guide that is now available for sale. It includes all of my charts with detailed explanation.

I believe SNG players will be able to make the transition, the only matter in question is how quickly a SNG player can get use to the level of aggression. Cash games are much more aggressive than SNG's. At first you may feel uncomfortable shoving all-in with a hand like 68s in a cash game with 20bb against a BTN stealer, which is fairly standard practice in cash games, but not so much in SNG's.


I'm glad Placemint worked out well for you.

I've never had any bad experiences with Russian players personally. And I'm sorry no one is really coming to mind at the moment. I believe Laegoose is Russian, but I don't recall playing against him much recently.


Hah, yeah.. she took some nice pictures for me for my birthday.


I focus on most hands for 1 second maximum, another table is almost instantly requiring action at all times. To be honest I probably fold out garbage hands a couple times a second. And save the more important hands for 1-3 second decisions.

My range isn't tight and I'm fairly aggressive. As one poster mentioned in this well that he wasn't happy about me stealing the blinds 90% of the time from the BTN.

I think I have enough time to focus on each opponent. I don't think it's necessarily the optimal amount of time, but my goal isn't to have the best possible bb/100 winrate I can achieve, it's to have the highest $/hr.. so I play the number of tables that I believe optimizes this.. and being able to make quick decisions I play to my strengths by loading up a ton of tables.

None of this is meant as a brag, I've just conditioned myself to play the game fast and efficiently over the years. I believe many people have the same potential if they put in the hard work and pushed themselves to their limit day in and day out (within reason, don't push yourself to the point of continuous spew at the tables, but at the same time don't beat yourself up over an occasional misclick or poor decision in the heat of the moment, sometimes it's just the cost of doing business.)

I'm not going to answer any questions specifically directed toward SS'ing strategy. This wouldn't be fair to my students or others that have purchased my SS'ing guide. Sorry about that and I hope you're not upset with my decision.

1. n/a
2. n/a
3. n/a
4. n/a
5. The Good: The ones that are solid day in and day out and are clearly following a set of guidelines that are the basis for all their decision making, and even when you are aware of their criteria for playing particular hands it is so optimal that it's still very difficult to defend. The Bad: The ones who have limited awareness of other players at the table, it's clear they do not have a clear understanding of their opponents ranges and the hands that play the best against that particular opponent.
6. Either spend hours running situations in programs like pokerstove/sng wizard and formulating your own ranges, or pay someone else to do it. And above all else, put the theories in motion whenever possible, practice makes perfect.
7. Yes, quite a big difference. I could go into the specifics but that would take quite a while.


Possible to do all 3 at the same time??

Another question, how many hands do you average per hour when 24tabling?

Oh, and thanks!

2000

Honestly, sorry to hijack, but any fantasy that a chart alone is going to help someone win at short stacking is badly misguided, even at relatively low limits. First off it would have to be a very accurate chart, which is not always the case.

Secondly...anyone who is incapable of coming up with a few basic hand ranges on their own, is almost certainly not going to be a good enough poker mind to figure out the much more complicated parts of play (and believe it or not there are a lot of things to deal with when short stacking). Making a chart is exceptionally easy, and as long as it's not totally off base, which it rarely is (and you should be able to easily tell when it is by comparing your key stats to winning shortstackers), it should be fine.

Maybe it's a matter of style, but to me I have this extremely simple baseline chart, that takes into account almost no specifics whatsoever, and always find that those with the most insanely complicated charts get so bogged down in random noise that it's more of a hindrance than a help. I would not expect anyone who is not already a pretty good poker player, to be able to become a winning short stacker at 1-2 just because they have my chart. There are way too many totally break even or even small losing short stackers who have very accurate and unbelievably complex charts, that for the most part are pretty unhelpful while actually playing.

Forgive this rant, it's just annoying to see so many ill informed people (not just in this thread, it's been going on for years) have this insane fantasy that somehow you can just have a chart and automatically become a real winning short stacker. It's completely absurd.....

PS - also every short stacker in history who has shown me their chart, I have basically disagreed with it in a lot of spots.

You're absolutely right, it takes much more work than just following a few charts.

sorry if this has already been answered, i've just briefly skimmed through this, but do you see yourself playing this much volume for years to come? How do you balance playing this much with studying/reviewing hhs?

If there was one aspect of 100bb poker that would/could be improved upon by playing SS - what do you think it would be?

Or put another way

What do SS understand about poker better than 100bb players?

I am thinking for moderate to expert players.

to russia with love:

reading some of the russian comments since my post, i didn't mean to cause offense to russian players as a whole with my jokey post about the stereotypical russian SS, that was never my intention. there are a couple of players who berate me a lot that come from there, but the fact that they're russian is of course coincidence. most players from there, or anywhere else, seem like decent people.

2Stally: no offence at all.

I know Laegoose, he seems to play SC2 too much last month.

When curtains speaks, smart people listen.

thanks for your quick reply kevin. but things such as ur standard cbet size shouldn't be a big secret, since ppl can see it on the tables. I'll be watching out for you, just added u to my ptr buddies, so I can find you, when u are playing

other questions which came to my mind:

1. There were no real 'how to play SSS in the 6-max games' rule. So, did you created your strategies etc. on your own or was there someone / a group where you got your strategies from? Can you recommend any good SS videos ?

2. What is a good winrate for SSS at 1/2 - 2/4 - 3/6 - 5/10

3. Why don't u play FR tables?

4. How long will online poker be profitable? I feel like the games become more and more tough from day to day. How long will it take until everybody got a solid knowledge of how to play and the edge of the good players will drop to a minimum ?

5. U made a lot of money with this game. Did it changed anything in your behaviour, do you make silly prop bets or other degen things poker players start to do once they earned a ******** of $

Thanks for the well. Interesting stuff.

If that is the case why is your win rate so marginal there? (Don't mean that as an insult.)

Do you think a lot of the marginal winning SS at 1/2 could move up to 3/6 or 5/10 and sustain the same marginal rate without changing their game (because of less rake and increased aggression)

What differentiates the guys with a 1BB+ win rate compared to you. How much of it is because you max out the tables do you think?

The recent ratholing bots that were busted on Stars were winning as high as $200 after millions of hands. And PTR laid out their stats - they weren't exactly sophisticated. They were largely just pustbots preflop and the few times they made it postflop their play was incredibly robotic (shockingly enough) with features such as 0 check raise, etc. Nobody wants to admit what they do for a living could be reasonably approximated by a series of charts a 10 year old could follow, especially somebody who probably considers themselves an otherwise intelligent individual. But come on. This is rat holing, not rocket science.

Got tons of experience in fullstacking and shortstacking- and ss def is not as easy as it sounds lol

Have you looked at the graph of the "1BB+ winning" ratholers only over the time period of the past year or so? The graphs of Curtains, Imsakidd, etc all show a similar trend.

keep on watching and see what happens FWIW I am above 1 BB/100 (BIGBETS) this year overall (I think its 1.2 or so) and about 1.8 BB/100 in the last 3 months. Of course this is referring to equity as I could care less about my actual win/loss figures, so I think I'm running a bit bad this year, but whatever, it makes up for running good last year .

However it is true that the games have gotten a lot harder in the last year or so. I have had to improve my skills quite a bit in order to get back to the 1 BB+ category, as for a few months it was looking like there was a good chance I wasn't a 1 BB+ winner anymore, although I believe I have fixed those issues and am now cleanly well above 1 BB/100. I am much better than I was 1-2 years ago, and I imagine if I was as good as I am now back then, my win rate would have been about .5 BB/100 higher or so.

What does $200 mean in this context?

awwww so sweet 2 see so many ss'ers poasting here

Yes, the top tier still maintain over 1BB

Pretty sure they were full ring bots weren't they?

It would be much easier to be around breakeven/marginal winner with a simple nitty bot strategy at full ring.

what is a good samplesize to know your true winrate ?

$1/$2. Not $5/$10!