I made the decision to publish the new Digest at this point, even though I'm yet to receive a single article. At least one author is due to finish by Monday, but we didn't agree on a deadline. Deadlines are prob not the way to go with this community anyways, so hence the premature launch.

The compilation of this Digest will start now and last until the end of November. During that time, forum members are free to add content to it, although the mods reserve the right to edit/delete some of it. In December, a new Digest will be opened

Poster of the Month will not be crowned this month, as I've only received a single vote and am sure that the recipient would decline the honor under such circumstances

To get the proverbial ball rolling, I decided to write something myself, here goes:


Snapping out of the Zombie-Mode: an Ode to Low Volume


I've been a PLO-grinder since January 09 when I started at PLO25 and have seen my degeneracy grow into dizzy heights since then. I have, for instance, 4-tabled Rush PLO100 for almost a million hands, most of it in 2010. For those who have not played Rush, 4-tabling you can easily put in 700-800 hands per hour. Back then, rakeback represented a significant portion of my winnings and sleep-deprivation wasn't a big obstacle in my pursuit of the highest VIP status.

In January of this year, I took a shot at regular PLO200, as Rush games weren't running that high. Moving up in stakes always made me a bit insecure and my vigilance was particularly high this time since the money started to feel significant. I played only 4 tables at first, getting to know the regs, adjusting to the new dynamic. My new state of mind was rewarded mightily in the form of a tripled winrate from my Rush-days over the first couple months. I also developed an affection towards the deep tables, which most certainly helped my overall game immensely.

Sadly, after a nice heater boosting my bankroll, I quickly succumbed back to the grinding, pursuing high volume by adding tables and playing marathon sessions. I usually started with 6 tables, but often added 2, 3, sometimes 4. Needless to say, my winrate started leveling back. I did keep making money, but my development was stagnant.

Then came Black Friday. I cashed out my bloated roll in panic and started looking for a new poker-home, as so many others did. Over the Summer, I played a lot less poker, trying out new sites, grinding through the occasional sign-up bonus here and there. My lifestyle was about to change even more dramatically come Autumn, as my wife's maternity leave from her teaching job was at an end and I was to stay home with my firstborn over the upcoming schoolyear. No more red-eye sessions during the week, early wake-up calls draining all the energy I used to have for my daily grind. Time to grow up.

However, my new situation also inspired me to grow up pokerwise. The great opening half of the year had encouraged me to pursue poker as a profession seriously, and I wanted to make the transition to midstakes soon, to be able to make good money with less volume. I decided to get coaching for my 2/4 shot, as I felt establishing myself on that level would solidify my decision to become a pro. I started playing little by little, mostly during the weekends.

When my coach started sweating me, he told me what I should have realised months ago during my intial success at PLO200: I had too many std plays, too many spots where I turned my mouse to cruise-control. He told me to "snap out of the zombie-mode", and demanded that I play a maximum of 4 tables at all times. I started putting more effort into my hand reading and range construction, finding the motivation to play optimally in every pot. The results have been awesome, and to an extent I feel a veil has been lifted from my eyes.

The process I've described above could be called maturing, a gradual change in mindset. But for this process to begin, you must decide to allow it for yourself. The lower you play, the more significant rakeback is, and it is tempting to go for volume to beat the rake, which can often feel insurmountable. I urge you all to resist this temptation, as it is an obstacle on your journey through the stakes. The more time you devote to improving your game and allowing more time for optimal decisions at the table, the more ready you are to make the transition to the next level up. At first, your bankroll will grow slowly, but your patience is rewarded handsomely when you leave the micros. You can also start taking shots at higher levels sooner, as playing only a couple of tables will rarely result in significant losses over individual sessions.

Low volume is also a good way to balance your poker with the rest of your life without a burnout, and you can feel the excitement of poker every time you sit down at a table.

Good story. I still miss rush, though it's nice to see so many good regs continue to do well. With only one digest to go on, I'm going to bite the bullet and say I like the direction it's headed in (not that there was anything wrong with the previous one ldo). It's a little more mature, a little more personal and has some solid advice.

I'll try come back and edit this with my story after these exams!

Here goes, what I think is the number 2 leak of all players and what truly separates solid thinking players from the zombie player talked about above.

I could write for pages about this subject so I hope this isn't too TLDR.

Bet Sizing!!!

Alright so let me preface by saying, a little about what I think of "balancing your ranges". I think this is pretty useless at any stake below 2/4 depending on the players of course. Ideally you should be playing super exploitable so you can exploit your opponents.

I am sure a good % of you have heard this before but because excellent players like Phil Galfond and some others preach having balanced ranges, we can get confused what really should be doing. So ultimately the majority of what I am going to say is going to apply towards weaker players specifically, the loose passive weaker player (fish).

In order for someone to exploit you they must be very observant and even more unlikely, they have to understand how to exploit your exploitable actions.

So I am going to talk about one player this time that you can use bet sizing to actively exploit and should be the most obvious.

Loose passive weak player (Fish)

The thing to realize about most fish is that they rarely bet thin for value themselves and do not bluff near as much as you might think, we are assuming this player is very passive and loose, both pre-flop and post-flop for the sake of this discussion.

One of the easiest ways to increase your winrate without really doing much is v-betting very thin, razor thin against fish. Instead of just checking back hoping your good with marginal made hands, you should be getting value from the fish, he will call with worse I promise you. In fact if you are never getting called by a better hand I would guess you missing insane amounts of value when you could be value betting thinner against fish. Another application is to use bet sizing for maximum value against a fish's weak hand range.

This seems fairly obvious, except I see students of mine play hands where they bet really large on a turn or river not remotely thinking of the hand range that could call a bet in that situation. Generally for lack of a better term, fish, are not thinking players. If they like their hand they hate folding but if you bet 3 times into them with a very large sizing you will probably get more folds then you expect unless they are a very special fish.

So generally when a fish gets to the river when he calls a flop on flop and turn, his hand range is very weak, lots of made weak hands and lots of weak draws that might have some SD value. Rarely does he have a very strong hand to call a large bet, this will vary from situation to situation but usually his hand range is very weak.

So why do I see players and students make a huge PSB on the river when they expect to almost never get looked up? Again they are not thinking of what their opponents hand range is or they are worried they will notice you bet small with strong hands and vise versa with bluffs. Also depending on stack sizes if the fish can raise over bets depending on his aggression level you rarely have stack sizes large enough to where there is more than a pot sized raise to call.

However, what if you bet large with your bluffs because you know their hand range is weak and small with your nutty hands?

He would call most if not all weak made hands instead of folding this weak hand range when you bet very large.

Ill end with an example that illustrates this concept of bet sizing against weak passive players.




Play until turn is standard, given this player rarely folds flop I still feel I have the best hand a high % and he cannot raise a worse hand here or a bluff given my history/reads.

So I decide to bet again for a small amount expecting to still be called by worse a really high %.

River, same exact idea, yes we could be crushed by a bunch of 8s but his hand range is much wider than that, and we can surely be called by all worse over pairs and even top pairs if we bet a small amount.

Sure enough I bet 1/5 pot, which is a blocker bet but I know this opponent will not raise this unless he has a better made hand. I could bet slightly larger but I expect to have him call all his weak made hands. If we check, we miss over 20 big blinds on the river which is a great addition to our winrate.

So more or less, instead of thinking about the 10%-15% of hands that are strong and how you want to stack them or being afraid of them when you have a marginal made hand. Think about the other large % of his hand range that is much weaker and how to get max value from it.

not sure if i'm the only one a bit confused....but how exactly is this supposed to work now? comment on similar experiences to OP?

Everyone can add content over the next month, articles, stories and such. Posting comments is also welcomed.

regarding OP...I've been going back and forth the past half a year whether I should play more tables with high rakeback just to give me a nice little cushion for the times when i run bad.

already before your nice article i started thinking about this and cut down the number of tables, but now i'm gonna cut them down even more. also gonna focus on playing only 4 tables and focus on taking notes, constructing ranges and being generally alert.

it lately got too much about money for me, and not so much about "solving the game" as it started....while naturally i like to treat my poker as a business as leatherass says, but i'm also willing the cut the short term (rb) profits in hopes of big gold stash in the future.

Good decision. You can and should think of it as an investment.

Here's mine, it was written for www.dailyvariance.com.



Vodkahaze (Matt Ranger) is a small stakes NLH and PLO player from Montreal, Canada. He is also in all likelihood the only person know of that eats straight salami as a snack.

So you want to learn Pot Limit Omaha. Whether you come from No Limit Hold’em, some other game, or have never played poker before, I’m sure you’ll come to enjoy this game very much. With a bit of luck, you might even make some money. If there is one place to start learning this game in my mind, it would be at the first decision you make each hand; before the flop. In this article, we will discuss hands preflop, their value, and common mistakes players make before the flop.

To play a hand or not is one of the most important decisions you can make in PLO. Many players think that since a great majority of 4 card hands you’re dealt would be somewhere around a coin flip against each other if all in preflop, they can play almost every hand. You can go ahead and try that if you want. Personally, I have better ways of burning my money.


Position

So what are we looking for in a hand when we decide to play it or not? The first thing you should think of is position. Being last to act is an overwhelming advantage in PLO (much bigger than in NLH), especially at the flop and beyond. This is not to say that you should play every single hand when you have the button, but having position can make up for a lot of problems in the structure of your preflop hand.

If you are going to play a hand out of position, make sure it is one that will play simply on the flop and beyond. You should avoid low card hands, even good looking ones, as you will often be stuck with 2nd best draws and wondering if you’re even playing for the best hand. Also avoid hands that have gaps in them. Hands that are well connected hit the flop hard when they hit, as they will mostly hit a hand and a draw at the same time (for example, JT98 on a 982 flop).


Hand Structure

The next thing you will want to look at is the structure of your hand. In PLO, much of the play after the flop is based around the nuts, so you want some nut-making potential in the hands you play. This is why hands like K962 are pretty much unplayable. Not only do you rarely hit the flop, if you do hit, a bunch of turn cards will usually make your hand look pretty bad.

Having danglers (random cards disconnected of your hand) destroy the value of your hand pretty fast. Think of it this way: If you have QJT9, you would have QJ, QT, Q9, JT, J9 and T9 if you were playing NLH. All 6 of those hands are playable. If you have QJT3, you have QJ, QT, JT and then some Qx, Jx and Tx trash. Now you have 3 playable hands and 3 that are trash. This is why you should reserve yourself to playing most hands with dangling cards in position.




Having suits in your hand is good. Obviously, suited Aces are awesome, because they almost guarantee you a nut draw if you flop it. Having 3 or 4 cards of the same suit isn’t so nice, as you will be taking outs out of your own draw, but it is still better than having a hand that is a complete rainbow (remember, you have to use 2 cards from your hand with 3 cards from the board, so you will never make a flush with such a hand).

Even a crappy 7 high flush draw is fun to have on the side of your hand. Once the flop comes, you will either be drawing to it live or you will have killed two outs from your opponent’s draw.

Double suited hands (hands with 2 suits) are obviously very sexy. Here is something to remember: a hand like AsKd8s7d is leagues better than AsKs8d7d. Not only will you have two high flush draws, having both the suited Ace and King in your hand means that your opponent will have at best a Queen high flush against your nut flush, and he won’t be very eager to stack that off.

Pairs

Pairs mostly play poorly in Omaha, for the same reason as danglers (you will have 3 hands and a pair instead of 6 hands). Playing too many crappy paired hands is another big leak new players coming from NLH tend to have in PLO. Let’s look at the different kind of pairs and their playability.

Aces are pretty much always playable (with the exceptional case of AAAx which is another topic altogether). However, AAxx is also the most habitually and grossly overplayed hand by beginners. Aces can go from bad, like AsAd9c2c (which you mostly play hoping to flop top set or getting it all in preflop as a slight favourite) to awesome (any double suited AAxx hand, and single suited hands where the side cards connect with the rest of the hand, like AAJT or AAKQ). Do not get too excited about bad to medium-bad AAxx hands. They rarely hit the flop and are very hard to play well, especially without position. Bad Aces are much like porn stars; they look good at first, but you don’t want to get married.

Obviously, you are usually happy stacking off AAxx before the flop as you should be the favourite. But trying to do so too hard can also cause you to “sell your hand cheap” (announcing you have AAxx to the other players before the flop comes with a lot of money left behind you). A good rule of thumb is that if you are going to announce to everyone you have Aces by your preflop action, get at least 25% of your stack in. This way you won’t have difficult decisions once the flop comes.

Next, we have a big step down to Kings. Kings are pretty good, but nowhere near as strong as Aces. You will mostly want to play a KKxx hand, but the strength of your hand can vary greatly depending on suits and the two side cards. Trash Kings like KcKd8s3h should usually be folded under the gun in a 6 max game, but most of the KKxx hands you’re dealt will be playable, especially with position. Double suited Kings are also very good (usually some of the best hands in Omaha), and nice side cards help too.

Queens are usually pretty bad, unless the side cards blend in well (QsQdJsKc, for example), or they are double suited. You can’t fold a hand like QsQc9s4d fast enough when you’re not guaranteed good position later in the hand. Sometimes you will find spots where you can play queens hoping to setmine, but that is not a reason to regularly open a trashy hand. The same thing applies for a pair of Jacks or Tens, only to a greater extent.


Low pairs (99 and lower) are inherently poor in Omaha. If you are playing a shortstack, they’re useless because you won’t hit the flop as often and you have usually invested a good part of your stack to see the flop. If you are playing a deepstack, they will be treacherous to play. You will almost never flop top set and will often find yourself playing guessing games deciding how to play the flop. This is not to say they are completely unplayable, but know what you’re getting yourself into by playing them.


Rundowns

Rundowns are very strong in PLO, much stronger than suited connectors are in NLH. They hit the flop fairly often, and as was pointed out earlier, they tend to hit the flop hard. Here are a couple of pointers on valuing the quality of your rundown hand.

The gaps in your hand will often determine how well it will play postflop. A single gap at the bottom of your hand (eg. 8764) isn’t too big of a deal, but a gap at the top (8654) kind of is. This is because a gap at the top of your hand, especially in middling rundowns, prevents you from having many nut hands or nut draws.

Having a pair in your rundown isn’t the end of the world, but it does hurt your hand. 9987 isn’t bad, but it is far from 9876. Add a gap and a pair to a rundown, and you soon get a hand that’s pretty questionable (ex: 7554).

Remember, the less you think you will have position in the hand, the better you want your hand to be. You should be happy opening 9s9d7s6c on the Button, but it’s also garbage under the gun in a full game.


Example Hands

Here are a couple of examples to go over the concepts we just went over. Try to answer the question for yourself before reading the answer.

1 – You are Under the Gun in a full 6 max game with 3d4c5d6s. Everyone involved has 100bb effective stacks, with a mix of passive and aggressive players.

You should tend to fold this hand, you’re almost guaranteed not to have position later in the hand, this rundown almost never flops a nutty wrap, and the flush draw is only there to make your hand look better than it really is. A hand like 6633ds would be the same here.
Like that scummy friend you have with the “great business idea” that “just can’t fail, man” who only needs a bit of your money to start up, you’re only going to get yourself into trouble by being liberal here.


2 – An unimaginative tight player opens the CO for 5$ in a 1$/2$ game. Everyone is 200$ deep or more. You are on the Button with JhTs8h6s. What is your plan?

Make a nice, fat 3bet and call if you get 4bet. This hand is very good with position, but you don’t necessarily want to invite more players in, as you will half-hit the flop pretty often. You want to thin the field then hope to flop something or try to take the pot down with a Cbet. A hand that would have similar playability in this situation would be 2345ds (only if you are comfortable enough to play the rock bottom rundowns when you have position).



3 – In a 1$/2$ game, a loose and overaggressive fish opens in MP for 7$ and a reasonable, somewhat tight, player calls on the BTN. Everyone involved is 200bb deep or more. The small blind folds to you on the big blind with Ad8d7h6s. What now?

Most people get excited at the sight of a 3 card rundown with a suited Ace, but this is just a call. Remember that the fish is probably worse postflop than you are, and will probably never fold to a 3bet (which will invite the BTN along for the ride). So 3betting here only multiplies the variance and reduces your skill edge over the fish (by making the pot bigger and the number of bets you can put in after the flop smaller).

I’m not saying that 3betting here is –EV, but it isn’t nearly as profitable as calling.



4 – 100bb effective stacks, 1$/2$ game. Everyone folds to the BTN, a good, tight-aggressive player, who opens for 7$. You have AcAs9d6s in the SB. What is the play?

You’re probably laughing at how easy of a 3bet this is, but for most players it’s actually a simple call. Your hand rarely flops anything and is pretty hard to play OoP against someone who is competent. Think of this: what is the first hand someone puts you on when you make a big reraise preflop?

That’s right, you having Aces will always be in the back of his mind, and since you’re not flopping anything very often and he has position on you, he’s going to have a fun time torturing you once the flop comes.

To profitably 3bet trashy Aces like this, you need to be 3betting very wide from this position, so much so that he will think you’re full of **** most of the time (people who can do this well are rare, by the way). Only then will having the preflop nuts mixed into the really wide reraising range is good, but until you’re playing this way, you should refrain from 3betting these kind of hands.

Try to 3bet hands that play simple postflop when you’re guaranteed to be OoP. Hands like JJ88ss, A765ds or T986ss play much better here than bad AAxx hands.

Starting Hand Chart (6 max)

Here is a basic and conservative hand chart for being the first to open (everyone folds to you) in various positions. Note that “BBB” or “NNN” assumes the random cards are different (unpaired).


UTG

BBBB, NNNNss, ANNNas, AKNNds, AKQxds, AAxx, AKKxss, KKxxss (to the king), KKBBr +, AQQxas +, QQxxds, 9988 +, TT98ss +, T988ss +, JTT9ss +, JJT8ds +, QQ98ss +, QQT8ss +, QJT9r +, A987as +, 9876ss +, T976ss +, T986ss +, QT98ds

MP

All of the above plus QQBBss, QT98ss, QT98ss, J987ds, A876as, 9875ss, 9865ss, JJ98ds, 9987ss, 9877ss, T998ss
Also play any BBBBds hand (paired or not)

CO

All of the above and add BBBxds, KKxx, QQ76ss +, A88xas +, 5566 +, 4567ss +, 5567ss +, 7765ss +, 8776ss +, A456as +, K765ks +, 9765ss +, 8654ds +, 9976ss +,TT86ss +, 9986ss + JT9xss +, T98xds +, QJ9xds +, QT9xds +
Also play any BBBBss hand (paired or not)

BTN

All of the above and add BBBxss, QQxx, A66xas +, A234as +, 2345ss +, 4455 +, 3567ss +, 4456ss +, 6654ss +, 7643ss +, K654ks +, 7754ss+, 8864ss +, J98xds +, 876xss+, 456xds +

SB

Start out same UTG, you then add hands slowly going up the positions in the chart depending on how much the BB reacts (if he 3bets light, uses positional advantage postflop, etc.). Note that you should be doing the same thing for the other position depending on what you know of the people left to act behind you (especially the BTN and CO).

Nomenclature:

B: Broadway card (A, K, Q, J, T) ...ss: Single suited
N: Non-low card (K, Q, J, T, 9) .... ds: Double suited
x: Any card...............................as: Ace suited
r: Rainbow................................ks: King suited

Nice posts guys

Excellent post GGaRJ. Should be inspirational to everyone looking to move up from small stakes. The way you described is the only way.

Thx, really appreciate the encouragement

When I knew the digest was coming back I thought of ways I could try to contribute to it, since I'd gotten so much out of it when I started playing PLO, but I came up blank. After finding myself in a similar situation time and time again though, I thought it was worth writing about. This is the first time I've written a strat post like this so if you think it's no good then feel free to improve/ignore/delete it.

****PLAYING AGAINST ACES- BEYOND PERFECT****

Everyone knows how to play 'perfectly' when that guy who has a 3 bet percentage of <3 reraises you pre. You know he has aces 90%+, and so you're going to call and play fit/fold most of the time and hope that he spews when you hit. This bugs me. If I know he has aces I think then surely I can make him fold. So over the last couple of sessions I've been experimenting, trying to play 'beyond perfect'...

Let's say we call a 3 bet IP from a villain who we 'know' has aces and the board comes xxx. It's a dry board and the aces reckon to be ahead. They bet out $12 into a $16 pot. Or, let's say we call a 3 bet OOP, check and then the villain bets $12 into $16.

I see this sort of sizing and behavior from both regs and fish alike and now I know they have aces as they use that sort of sizing so rarely. Instead of folding then, why not raise?

I've tried this (at PLO20 and 50 at Everleaf) with varied results. Sometimes they fold and sometimes they don't:

This instance isn't exactly like the one I described above as it is a paired board (note that the villain's bet is smaller) but I knew my opponent had aces, and I thought I could get him to fold.


As you can see, although I got lucky (if you're doing it in a low SPR situation it adds equity to the play if you have something, if only a backdoor draw, when called), it didn't work. Perhaps my mistake was doing it on a paired board, as there are less hands in my range that can beat aces up but I figured it was worth it because his bet was so small and I perceived there to be a lot of fold equity. Note I'm not worried too much about my large sizing as maximizing fold equity>saving money when it goes wrong. Maybe I got it wrong though in that a raise less than pot looks super-strong, I'll leave that up for you to decide.

Sometimes though, it does work. Bet/folding aces on the flop is something that many people seem to do very often. So is bet/calling, even when they're only ahead of what would surely be a ridiculous bluff, because you know they have aces Therefore, when deciding to fold when you miss, or go for the bluff raise, you have to decide whether or not your villain is the type to overplay aces. SPR is of course an important consideration as if the SPR is 3 villain is unlikely to fold very often (even if he 'should', I find). If however it's 10+ then some villains might fold all the time.

What's more important though is who you're raising. You can't raise the sort of level 1 players who seem to think HURRDURR MUST RAISE RAISE RAISE, IT'S ACES as they're not gonna fold. Likewise, if you're pretty aggro, you can't raise the sort of players who are gonna know you know they have aces (at least not very often) as then they might not believe you, as I have found out :/ I suppose when the board comes out K42r some villains can guess that my range has more bluffs than value raises.

Some villains will bet like this on wet boards as well. These are better candidates for bluff raising against aces as in your opponent's eyes it's more likely that you have him beat. You still need to find the right opponent though, otherwise you will find yourself horror called. Having said that, as long as you know your opponent, the board is irrelevant, you just need to know that they're capable of folding.

Sometimes they'll call your raise (usually bad players). If this happens, don't hesitate to bet pot OTT no matter what card comes. If you don't then you are essentially giving up as if your opponent bets you can do nothing but fold (as even if there's room for another raise, he's probably not going to fold if he calls your raise and then bets) and if he checks behind then he might fold the river, but only if you bet and so you may as well just go ahead and bet the turn.

As long as you don't get silly and try to attempt this play every time you know your opponent almost always has a bare pair of aces, as even though villains in this spot probably should fold we know they don't, then you can take your play 'beyond perfect', and take even more money off those poor suckers when they should be winning with the best hand.





Also, +1 to jacktensuited13's post. Over the last few weeks I've been bluffing less and going for thinner value against fish and the change has worked wonders.

straight salami is delicious

Also, forgot to add. +1 to GoGetaRealJob's Zombie mode post. I only ever play 4 tables, if I didn't I wouldn't have 'discovered' this play (or not nearly as quickly, or without reading about it somewhere). It's pretty cool being able to book your normal winrate whilst discovering, experimenting with and improving what is for me a new play over the course of a couple of days.

It's always good to experiment when you can put ur opponent on a hand, such as here. Just be careful on dry, polarised flops, AA will often just go with. If you wanna rep really strong, flatting and raising OTT looks scary. Villain may even c/f

Agreed. sometimes when villain has AA. i like to flat even if i had missed the flop completely (no pairs) and raise OTT if stacks are deep enough.

Flops i like to flat on are

378 type flops ones with possible scary turn cards
T9x Flops
any 2 broadway + x flops
Flush flops
Straight flops

then i usually take it away on the turn. But sometimes people cannot seem to let go of their AA. (usually if i do flat, i alawys wanna have some extra type of equity)
and i never try to flat/take it away ott on a paired board i.e

33x cuz fish never fold AA on this flop.

I enjoy your post GGARJ. I think however the problem could have been rectified (to a lesser extent as less tables means watching more when not playing) without lowering the amount of tables. Although a maximum of 4 tables at po200 is well beyond reasonable in terms of $ volume.

Two problems I see with playing alot of tables

1- table size/vision- all tbales need to be tiled so you can watch all tables with no overlap, For me this is huge on my winrate.

2- decision speed, decisions are made too fast, a quick range estimate is made, this rushing is never necessary in reality and if it is- only then you have too many tables, as you have 15 seconds and timebanks, yet the thought process 'raise it, fold it, raise it'develops, instead of waiting for the optimal decision to appear- one makes the first decision that appears and only relative to current street rather than whole hand.

I don't think it's worth playing at stakes where you need to watch and read every opponent to have an edge over playing lower stakes/worse players. Might aswell play heads up.

why have i never seen digest before????????????

anyway thank you all for some very interesting ideas and posts.

i prefer these kind of threads over hand histories , as i always feeel with hands no matter how much information the hero gives , you simply cannot give all of the dynamics of a play in one post.

but with thought you can apply these concepts against villlains a lot better imho.

I love this thread. 5 stars <3

MFN, glad you enjoyed my post. With regard to preferring lower stakes and weaker opposition... I'd take that in a heartbeat if I could come even close to my current hourly, less stressful fosho.

Remember, anyone is free to post an article/story. I'd love to see people from different stakes describing what they're going through in terms of stepping up their game. This is also a good place to post milestone posts, etc, I'll be adding links to earlier digests .

Are you sure though

4 tables plo200 hourly = ?
8 tables plo100 hourly = ?
4 tables plo200 would for sure have the highest hourly swings but total hourly I'm not suo sure, from my understanding general skill level at 200 is alot better than 100, (moreso than 50 compared to 100).... stars that is

It's a fine balance between edge gained from weaker player pool and edge lost through adding a table. The same mechanisms which stop you roboting 4 tables can be applied to 8 or 12. They key is to not jump straight into it, start a session with 4, then add 1 as reads are developed and comfort is built...

I suppose another advantage is getting to be a skill level to play even higher stakes as you learn more with harder opponents and lesser tables... 10 tabling 100 would be such a slow learning process for 2 tables 5/10

Regarding number of tables, you should be mixing it up between 'learning mode' - 2-6 tables, say, where you focus on taking ages over each close decision, delving into your opponents stats/notes/mindset in general or looking over history, and trying out new things - 'grind mode' - 5-10 tables, where you feel your $/hour is at its highest, you don't feel especially rushed, but you're maximizing, you have the chance to try some new things but for the most part you're going to stick with the 'standard' plays - and 'push yourself mode', where you're playing more tables than you're normally comfortable with, partly for the sakes of getting volume in, but more than anything else so that you feel less rushed when you go back to 'grind mode'. use this last mode very sparingly, more when you're trying to increase the number of tables you play; in normal operation i'd say we should be in 'learning mode' ~ 25% of the time, 'grind mode' 65-70% of the time, and 'push yourself mode' the rest. We should be in 'learning mode' when we're taking shots/moving up stakes, or playing good players.

Participation in the community

In many areas in our lives, we learn by ourselves, but in academic disciplines, we are generally taught. No-one, however, is self-taught in the world of sports, for example - knowing the theory isn't enough. You need someone to tell you what you're doing wrong, because we don't yet have the necessary skill to be able to say that what we're doing is good or bad, regardless of how much natural ability we're born with. I kicked a ball around with my friends every day for a whole summer, and I got a lot better, but when my coach told me 'don't lean back when you take the shot' I suddenly started scoring lots of goals.

While poker feels like an academic discipline, it's more like a sport in the way we learn, due to the nature of faulty feedback. We may win the pot, even double up, but we don't know that we fished chasing our set without implied odds until someone points it out to us. It seems obvious now, but then so does the earth being flat - hindsight is very easy. there are very few people with the natural talent and predisposition to find out these things, and it would be arrogant of us to believe that we would have made it.

This happens all the time, and we all have 'soft tilt' leaks of this form. What about a guy that loses the first 50 times he raises jacks in holdem? He quite logically decides that jacks are an unprofitable hand and starts folding them most of the time. What about the guy that hits his flush draws nine times out of ten? Until he does the maths, he's got no way of knowing that he's a fish. It's not just extreme examples like this - we learn by remembering what works and what doesn't, not what would have worked against our opponents' ranges.

We get around this problem by the wonderful, scientific method of 'peer review'. If you have a bunch of friends who are poker superstars - think of Durrrr, Raptor, Galfond etc, lucky bastards - you immediately have a group of great minds available to you to call you out on your bs, remind you when necessary that you made the right play, but just got unlucky, you always seem to raise the turn here in these spots and you know it's awful, right? Etc.

You can read books and watch videos do equity work but without a community that you participate in, you're not going to get that quality, bias-free feedback on the most important leaks - the ones you don't even realize are leaks.

So what does community participation mean? The obvious, easy thing to do is just post. Introduce yourself to the forum, but you don't need to. Respond to a strategy thread, even if it's to say 'I agree with X'. Post your own hands. Post in HSPLO even if you only play SSPLO and get high-stakes players to give you feedback on your thought processes. This is where having a thick skin comes in - let's be honest, the average person on the internet is a massive dick, and 2+2 suffers from that too, so don't pay attention to dicks. Don't be a dick yourself.

However, realize that a lot of people are in the same spot as you. They don't know that what they're saying is correct, but they say it like it is, because they see people they respect being firm and authoritative in their advice, and who the hell wants to be weak and say 'hmm, maybe raising turn might be an option?' The result is that it's difficult to discern who the quality posters are. Your task here is to avoid preference for similarity - just because one poster is advising something you'd tend to do, don't then assume that he's a better than average person to listen to. Remember, the whole point of the game is to disassociate our own faulty thought processes from our game. Keep an open mind and see what the concensus is. Does everyone agree with this guy, or no-one?

Eventually you feel like part of the community. People recognize your screenname when you play, they ask you 'oh hey how's your marathon training going?' 'or 'lol wazz u high again?'. But don't stop there. Pester some high-stakes posters that you respect. PM them and say 'hi, can you comment on this hand for me please? thanks!' Worst comes to worst, they don't reply; sometimes they'll post in your thread, or just say something back in the PM; best case scenario, you strike up a rapport, and all of a sudden you have his skype. As long as you're not a handful, better players will often enjoy educating you.

And that's the game, folks.