Hm. These are two techniques that are new to me. A quick Google shows I have some more reading to do. Where are the best beginner's guides to these techniques? (Best = easy to follow and with lots of examples, ideally.)

We have a whole forum dedicated to single table tournaments. Start with the FAQ sticky.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/forumdisplay.php?f=36

Ok, but for the quick and dirty answer....

what is ICM??

what is pushbotting??

ICM calculates the equity of the prize pool you have. So, if there's 4 people left, with equal chips, and $40 in the prize pool, everyone has $10. It's used to calculate the value of the chips in your stack and see if a move is profitable based on how it affects your equity in prizes.

Pushbotting is when you or your opponent have such a small stack that your only options are to push or fold. So you need to be familiar with what hands are profitable against the % with which the players remaining will call.

Kill Everyone and Collin Moshman's SNG books have good info on this.

Thanks for the info.
while I was looking up ICM, I came across some VERY DISTURBING info.

http://robopoker.blogspot.com/search/label/Poker%20Tips

which lead me to this stuff,

http://www.maxinmontreal.com/forums/index.php?c=34

http://forum.winholdem.net/wbb/

WTF...WTF... BOTS ????????????????

apparently there are forums on forums of people who are in to the destruction of the ethics of online game play, as we here are to the mastery of it.

why doesn't anyone talk about the risk of, or even the fact that there are bot amongst us.

How do we combat this, from what I read, people (smart people, programmer types) take this very serious, and put just as much time in to perfect their hobby as we do.

This is very discouraging to a new trout like myself.

I've been stuck at NL10 for the past long while, and no wonder, I've been getting my ass handed to me by bots.........oh and the fact that I suck is not the point here.

I read that they 'bot farm' the micro limits.....'Bot farmed' ugggg, man I hate being farmed.

Bots have been discussed quite a bit on these forums. It's true that there are programmers that are currently trying to code the perfect poker bot, to my knowledge, no one has had very much success at it.

While bots my become a bigger problem in the future if they ever get any good, currently I highly doubt you're being "bot farmed" out of your bank roll. If you suspect there is a bot on your table, report it to the poker site you play on.

Well respected sites do try keep their sites free from bots.

Yes there is another meaning. If you have seen something like

KK>AA

and you thought that was wrong, you should reinterpret it to mean that KK beat AA in a specific case, for instance when there was a K on the board but no A on the board, or the board was AQJTx.

Thanks Shick,
but after reading some of the post on those links, those guys are doing a LOT of problem solving for specific sites (stars, FTP, etc.). They are not in the lab anymore. I read how one guy is running a certain amount of bots, and he's having problems with something on 'Stars' and one of their 'Carpal \'Tunnel' guys is telling how to overcome it.

So, I guess the fact that they are actually at these tables is what I'm tripped out about.
Ok, time to get over it, just new to me, that's all.

Thanks DoTheMath for the feedback.

I am also a fairly "new trout", but my attitude to bots is this:

(1) Maybe they're out there, and maybe they can beat me, but at the moment, any reasonably skilled and experienced player is well capable of beating me, so what's the difference?

(2) If I can gradually improve to compete profitably alongside skilled and experienced players, then I'm not going to be too bothered about bots. I'll be happy just to be competing profitably at a reasonably high level.

(3) If I fail to reach a level where I can compete profitably alongside skilled and experienced players, then I'll know I'm not a good enough player anyway, so whether or not bots can beat me is beside the point.

(I don't want to simply sweep the bots issue under the carpet, but I do think it's low on the list of things "new trouts" like us need to worry about at this stage! )

Well said, I'm getting served so bad it really doesn't matter who's doing the chopping, I guess.

Combo lazy/dumb question: where's/what is the link to that non-2+2 website that has like a compendium of all the different strategy posts/wells/videos etc??

I don't know about offsite forums but the various forums here do a pretty good job of organizing their relevant strategy posts in sticky threads. Why would you need to go anywhere else?

This?


http://www.pr0crast.com/2+2.NL.Anthology.v1.htm

This is a link to a lot of great 2+2 threads over the years, it's not really off-site, that's why.

Hi Guys,

I am totally new to this, however I wanted to ask one question?

The longer time I play, I loose. So is it safe to play for longer times like a couple of hours or 5 hours. Because sometimes when I play only for 10-15 mins, I win half of the amount which I loose in 5 hours.....

Can anyone guide me on this ?

thanks,

what is reversed implied odds? I have a general sense but I need a true definition

If you play more than 2 hours, gnomes come get you. Buy a gun and shoot them.

It's probably a concentration thing. I don't play any more than 2 hours at a time, just cause I get tired of sitting there, or have to go do something, or wanna look at porn and take a break.

Reverse Implied Odds are where you're risking a lot for a little. Take this example:

You have: A K

on a board of

A T 9

You C-bet 6BB into an 8BB pot and are raised to 20BB.

It's 14BB for you to call into a 32BB pot. You're getting good odds. He could have a range of:

{Ax, QJ, T9, TT, 99, 2 hearts, J8, 87}

If you call, you're getting pretty close to being committed. He could have a weaker A, or a lower pair and making a move, or 2-pair, a set, or a flush draw or straight draw or both. If he hits, and you call, he is getting the implied odds he needed to call a bet with a little worse odds. This is reverse implied odds. Does that make sense?

I wanted to complete a thought here:

If you call the bet on the flop, and he bets/raises again on the turn and river, the pot's big enough you don't want to give it up in the event he has a weaker hand. He stands to win more from you when he hits a draw than you stand to win from him when he doesn't.

I have a theory specific question about Harrington on Hold Em related to my style of play. I play Unl 6 max and am wondering where to post...I am inclined to post it in the beginner forum because I think this is where it would get the most answers. Can I start a thread here? Or should it go in the NL forum, or the Books forum? Should I just have started it and then have mods move it?

Implied odds are the amount you will get paid after you hit your draw (if you hit it). For example, if you are drawing to the nut flush and you know your opponent is a donk who will call big bets if you hit you have good implied odds. If your opponent is a nit and he will fold when you hit your flush, then you do not have good implied odds.

Reverse implied odds are the amount you will pay your opponent off if he hits his draw. For example, if you have a big hand like a set you're going to have a hard time folding even if it looks like he hit his draw on the river. On the other hand, if you have something like bottom pair you're going to have a much easier time folding. Obviously your level of commitment to the pot and the size of the pot is also a factor here as well as your reads on villain (easier to fold when passive players start betting than when aggressive players do).

Depends on the sophistication of the concept. If it's a beginner level question, post it here. If it's a little more complex, post it in Micro Stakes, etc...

If you're unsure, go ahead and post it here. There's not as much traffic here so if it's really specific to the book you might not get as many good responses.

I have realtime HUD up and running, but am having trouble using the stats to help me make decisions because I don't quite know what they mean :P

right now I am 4 tabling sngs, 3 $6.50 turbos and one $12 turbo on full tilt.

Low VPIP and PFR means very tight which means abuse them with marginal cards?

I figured high VPIP and Agg after flop meant that they were very loose, but I had some people > 30% VPIP fold to my reshoves and such...maybe their stats were from before the bubble and they got tight weak like most with 5 or less?

Any tips on how to use these stats to my advantage would be greatly appreciated (or a link to a faq about it...couldn't really find one D

A lot of it is player dependent. Download Poker stove and use it to get an idea of the range a player with a certain vpip or pfr plays. Here's some things to remember:

1) Just because a guy plays 30% of his hands doesn't mean he calls a raise with his whole range.
2) Just because someone PFR's 20% doesn't mean they 3-bet that wide of a range.
3) Seeing a flop with a lot of hands is one thing. How often do they fold to a c-bet? How often do they see the river?
4) Are they positionally aware? Do they open tight in EP and loose in LP?
5) Do they float or donk bet on the flop?

I'd upgrade to holdem manager. It's way better and will give you a lot better idea of what people are doing.

But basically when you're looking at someone's stats, you use all of them to paint a picture of how they play. then, by the river, you can deduce what type of hand he has:

You raise in the cutoff. The Big Blind calls, pot is 8.5BB. BB folds to a steal 85%, so he's calling with about 15% of his hands. He probably 3-bets 5%. So, he has a hand like 88-TT, AT-AJ, KJ-KQ, 87s-QJs, hands along those lines, with some other random hands mixed in. Is he tight PF? Then he probably isn't defending A4o.

The flop comes T-5-2. He leads into you.

If he donk bets (bets into the preflop raiser), 50% or so, he's doing it pretty light. He might have 65, T9, 66, it depends on his range. Let's say it's our 15% defender. What's his aggression factor? 2+ is aggressive. It helps here to have it broken down by street. Usually, agg decreases as it gets further in the hand.

How often does he go to showdown? A player who goes to showdown 35% goes to showdown really weak, but won't let go of marginal hands. So let's say this guy has a 3 AF and WTSD 35%. He probably has a weak one-pair hand. If he's tighter, then you can put him more on a set or two-pair or overpair.

thank you that helps a lot!

Can you tell me if I'm right or wrong with this.

I have 9 outs which makes it 4.22

Playing $2/$4

In order to call on the flop the pot needs to be $8.44
On the turn the pot needs to be $16.88

Is this correct?

2 x 4.22
4 x 4.22

Also what I'm confused on is the turn & river which is at 1.86 & the turn at 4.22 but do I just stick withthe above to get correct odds to call?

The odds for the turn + river are when for when you won't have to call another bet if you miss the turn. i.e. All-in, or think it's highly likely you'll get a free card. Otherwise, the only odds that matter are for the next card and your implied odds to hit.

Just divide the pot by the bet you have to call.