Quote:
Originally Posted by Husker
Would be great if you did bring out another book and if you're unable to the idea of releasing what you've already written as articles on 2+2 would also be pretty damn fine.
Anyway, I have a question that's not really related to your book (Which I bought on release back in the day) but to Pokersnowie so I'll understand if you don't reply. Basically I've just finally got around to downloading the trial of Snowie and before delving deeply into it and making possible adjustments to my game I've been looking around the forum for positive stories about the improvement it has had on others' games. To be honest, I'm struggling to find any. Which area of Snowie do you feel provides the best benefit?
I've been wondering whether to start trying to apply some of the preflop and postflop ranges that Snowie recommends. I've been surprised at some of the ranges it uses, for example it doesn't call much on the button versus a min raise in middle position. During my last couple of sessions I've saved a couple of hands from each session from certain spots and then input them manually into Snowie to see exactly what it does in these spots and have wondered whether it's worthwhile looking to apply the Snowie advice but I'm worried it could have a negative impact on my game. I should add that I only play 25nl (FR) these days with a decent winrate. I understand that some of Snowie's river advice will be bad for these stakes as it seems to advocate calls in spots where villains just aren't bluffing enough for a call to be worthwhile.
Thanks
This is the kind of stuff I'd want to address if I wrote a new book, but I also don't think I could do a good job addressing it unless I've played a bunch of poker at some different limits. Which is why I won't write another book even if I think the content is there unless I've gotten a lot of play time in, and with school (I'm in podiatric medical school studying to be a footsmith) that may not be possible or it may just take several years.
To try to give you some guidance to your Snowie question, I think Snowie is really good at a couple things:
#1) Snowie shows you to emphasize making the pot bigger (i.e. raising) with strong hands, even if calling is profitable. So you may see Snowie raise something like 4h5h on a Jc6h5d board even when calling would be +EV.
#2) Snowie shows you how frequently you should check-call when you're OOP as a CO/MP/UTG opener. People tend to CB hands like KJ on a K73 board way too much when check-calling is superior.
#3) Snowie's really good at grasping how important it is to call expecting to lose since Snowie is a non-emotional robot. In other words, most people struggle to call 1/2 PSB on the river when they expect to lose even when calling is +EV. No one likes calling a $50 bet into a $100 pot on the river expecting to lose 70% of the time, but the call is +EV. But it's hard to do in practice (at least for me, I always feel like I have to force myself to do it) because no one likes calling expecting to be beat. But that's the correct way to play.
#4) Snowie's pre-flop advice I think is overall very good. It seems to still struggle with SB vs BB play (especially post-flop), but for the most part it's advice seems very solid.
The other stuff Snowie is useful for, but requires more work:
#1) Snowie will only use one bet-sizing in a spot, but it will estimate the EV of another bet size. So I'm going to make up a spot (so I'm not sure Snowie says that here, but you'll get the idea). Let's say I open to 2.7BB in the button and the BB calls. The flop comes Qh6c2h. I think the only strong hands the BB can have here are 66, 22, and Q6s as AQ, Q6o, and Q2, aren't in the BB's range.
Here
Snowie might recommend 1/2 PSB if it can only pick one bet sizing with it's whole range. But I'll say to myself "Wtf mate, if BB is like never raising here, wouldn't it be more effective to bet bigger with something 22 since I'll make more money from his flush draws and queens and I'm never behind and basically never getting raised if I bet smaller?" So I'll then check the EV of a bigger bet with 22, and behold Snowie might show me that the EV of betting big with 22 is significantly higher than betting 1/2 PSB.
BUT if Snowie can only either bet 1 PSB or 1/2 PSB with its whole range, it will choose 1/2 PSB because it doesn't want to get too cray cray making 1 PSB with hands like 77-99, Q8s, etc as betting that big with those hands is likely ineffective.
So Snowie is useful IMO for doing this type of exploring, but you have to know what you're looking for and understand why it's likely doing what it's doing. If you just randomly look at spots trying to find patterns I think it's a lot harder than if you already have some grasp of how you think things should work in theory and then looking at Snowie to try to confirm it.
#2) Finding spots post-flop where Snowie is still struggling very hard to play OOP vs raises. If Snowie is folding enough to let a raiser auto-profit ATC, then besides showing you the flaws in Snowie it's likely showing you a spot where in practice you can raise pretty aggressively since playing OOP there is so hard. I've seen this a lot blind vs blind. I'd look to Snowie for help as playing in the SB, find out the BB can profitably raise any two cards against a SB continuation bet, and then say "Well, that didn't really help me learn how to play the small blind here, but it at least it confirmed just how much it sucked to get raised by the big blind on this flop. I guess I'll just raise the big blind more here." I personally find this pretty useful.