Random, but funny now - came across an old Gdoc this week with some notes on a HU video I was making for Leggo in Oct 2010

"WCG, I think he’s played a lot of poker and won a fair amount of money, haven’t really thought of him being a HU player"

Is video the best medium to impart this info?

Seems to me HUNL analysis is pretty simple. Like a color wheel, it can be described with three elements, but with infinite gradations.

Poker's three primary colors are

1) What does the population, or, if you'd like, the default opponent* do? This can be described using two metrics, both with combos as the unit. The first is the range width, that is, how many combos we expect villain to have in that spot. The second, our relative nut combo, or how many combos we expect villain to have that beat us.

2) How do we best exploit villain when he deviates from the default opponent's strategy? Almost always, we want to follow a minimally exploitative approach. This means that we don't anticipate what his moves will be on future branches of the game tree, we only take into account what he's likely to have done so far**. But this involves selecting minimum confidence levels to know when one of villain's stats becomes significant, and to what extent it can be trusted. It might sound a little complicated but its all STAT 101 stuff and is trivially worked out. Lots of people reading this have done it.

3) How could villain be exploiting us. Here is where the majority of the benefit of solvers comes into play. It's also, by far, the least of our concerns. Anything resembling GTO play will give a rational opponent who's paying 13bb/100 in rake to play us sufficient reason to stay away at all costs.

At HU Zoom, number 3 can become an issue, but it's still not much of one and, as stated, anything resembling GTO is typically good enough.



*There are other default opponents, and the population is no where near the best. The default opponent can, of course, be what we would do versus ourselves per a CFRM algorithm.

**Tot riv bet is an exception. It's a fast-converging statistic that gives good information, which, at times, should be taken into account on streets prior to the river.

There's a fourth consideration, which doesn't belong to the game itself. It's kind of like asking which color wheel is prettiest.

4) What's your minimum acceptable win rate, given the rake, and what is villain's estimated loss rate?

Any seasoned hustler will also tell you it's the supreme metric by which all others are subsumed. But poker's like the whore you fall in love with.

^^Cliffs: don't fall in love with a whore

Great explanation, though, Judge!

Could any buyer please take some time to write a review of this course? I am considering buying it but it's very expensive so it would be nice to hear review not only from seller's point of view.

same

Do you really think a reg that learned a lot from this course is going to write a glowing review so the people he daily plays buy the course too?

If you guys have any questions about it I would be more than happy to answer them for you.

I imagine this course is not going to get too many public reviews as its -ev for the people who are in it to do so.

I am planinng to get the course in several days. Can not wait to start learning it!

Hey Doug, HUGE fan here.
I do content of my own that i am not supposed to discuss on here (but it's totally NOT because I am a russian spy recruiting sleepers for the KGB and funding the operation on the bit coin I scam of random scrubs on whatever that strange site is that "the poker guys" are advocating) shhh!!!

Anyway, really big fan. You are one of like 3 or 4 youtubers that gives solid advice and explains strategic concepts correctly. In fact, there was a time I thought you were actually bad because of how far behind you I was in GT terms. Realizing you were not bad but actually so much better than me that it made you seem bad to me was a big moment in my life and inspired a term that I coined and am currently trying to circulate "Lapped". You didn't suck at poker, you had me Lapped. I was so far behind i thought i was ahead because i was being lapped.. get it?

Oh, the point to this message.. hmm.. fan boy, get to communicate with kind of a hero of mine,.. russian bit coin conspiracy.. dammit man I lost it.

In closing I just want to say;

Straightfloooosh: Hey guys, has anyone heard of that Doug Polk guy and his thousand dollar HU course? Do you guys think this is a good idea for poker?
DOUG POLK: Funny you should ask about that Straightfloooosh (wait, maybe I should wait a few days before making this first response, nah.. Fu$K it, it's just a bunch of 2+2'ers. They'll buy this sh$$ all day long) (clears throat) funny you should ask that Straightfloooosh, yea I do think this will be bad for the people who don't but it. Like real bad. REALLY REALLY BAD. I apologize to all of you who don't buy my course ahead of time for all the money that the people who do buy my course will win off of you for sure no matter what. It's an unfortunate thing but it just is what it is, if the people who buy my course didn't win your money like they surely are about to no matter what then someone else would have eventually.

#SICKNESS
You really are the best WCG, I watch exactly 2 poker you tube channels and yours is far and away the best. Thank you a ton for all of the free content you generate and generate often. If i had the extra $1K lying around I would buy your course myself and I hope it does very well.. even better than the 50 copies that Treadlightly hypothesized.

Good "luck" to you sir.
Donovan Doust
aka
Navonod

At least 98 sold so far.

nuts&bluffs email me your skype at f*******007@gmx.com

If I read your website correctly, it seems like you have changed your mind on this and are selling the Libratus analysis separately for $599? Or is it still add-on only?

As stated throughout the NVG thread, I was a little unhappy with how intransparent the entire challenge was set up (again). Unfortunately, I'm also disappointed with the aftermath: none of the researchers came into the thread answering all questions that came up, no youtube videos are uploaded, only little info revealed on how a bot can learn to play new bet size tranches on the first two streets overnight, and finally no public access to hand histories.

I understand that you guys negotiated that the hhs are not to be made public in order to protect the players. I think that's fair game but the downside for the community is that there is no way to research Libratus' play -- other than buy it from you. I'm not here to cry foul, I think you can proceed this way -- but I wonder if you can empathize with how it feels from an outside view to get bombarded by 'Libratus beats World Champion poker players', 'Libratus is the best poker player' sort of headlines as a result of a challenge where we had no say on how it's set up, and now no info and no (free) way to research what actually went down during these 3 weeks that are now marketed in a way that puts another nail into our beloved coffin? #feelsbadman

How about this: Make the first video of the series public. If the first video is too long, or too specific, make a new short video presenting a rough analysis of Libratus' play and the overall challenge as a teaser for the package. Some basic freqencies, graphs, results, and a few interesting mirror hands with a basic analysis should do well. (You could do the same for the HU package to overcome the non-existence of reviews and give potential buyers a better feel of what they can expect.) Will Tipton made 1-2 vids of his series public as a teaser and I believe it worked out well for him. I think the community would greatly appreciate it; just something to think about

agreed with samooth, in the current hu ecosystem people are unlikely to spend 1k$ completely in the dark (myself included), and if they do I don't think there will be many honest reviews - if it's actually good, you don't want others to buy it, and if it's actually bad, you want them to

I know that there was like 1 video for free on the website, but I'm assuming it was just an advert, not representative of actual content.

Doug is able to lay out his thought process extremely well (which lots of people take for granted imo, this is not easy) and he knows his s*it concerning HU. Really difficult to imagine the course is bad.

well, we know that he's able to present simpliest concepts well, we don't know if that ability applies to more advanced ones as well. That being said, I do think that course is actually good, but I'm still gonna need some reviews first.

Hey man, I understand where you are coming from. The ball is totally in CMU's court as far as deciding to release information as far as how the bot plays, that isn't something I have say in or control.

We decided to have it available as a separate purchase if people are soley interested in it, but it is heavily discounted by purchasing it with the hu course. Ultimately we are not sure how much demand there will be in this area, but we wanted people to at least have the option to purchase it if they would like it.

I think that could possibly be a good video, will consider it in the future.

This was quite a creative piece of writing, thank you for the compliments!

Thanks dude. I am proud of what I have created, so far we have not had a single negative review or complaint. I am sure that might change down the road, but I have gotten so much positive feedback that this has been one of the most rewarding things I have done in poker.

I hope some people that purchased the course will step forward and give an honest review of the course, but who knows if that will happen. It is not in their best interest to do so, so I wouldnt ask them to have to do that.

Hey Doug, I'm hooked on your vids...I watch 'em as they come out and am watching most of the old ones too...Big fan of what you're doing. Can you wear a hat in one of your future vids? I'll know it's a silent shout out to me.

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Detailed outside review:

https://spinandgostrategy.com/advanc...astery-review/

So nice of them to include that WORLD CLASS youtube video review.

Purchase the Advanced Heads-Up Mastery course by clicking the link below and we’ll hook you up with the $99 Spin & Go Ranges Pack as well as the Introduction To Mindfulness For Poker Players, free of charge.

Outside review?

Doug, if you dont rematch Libratus your a *****. Will you really die happy knowing you never even tried? Humanity needs you and your just going to ride off into the sunset with your tail between your legs waving your middle finger to HUNL? You said you quit because you cant find opponents.... I guess you meant mere mortals specifically. Get your priorites straight. Issue a challenge and workout a deal... Tell them to pay you 10kk if you win and nothing if you lose.

It depends what kind of heads up you want to play. If you want to 2 to 4 tables against other top players then this course is important. That is what doug did was take on the best on several tables meaning heavy volume ( mainly playing deep stacked). So balance is very important and this course helps a lot in that particular format. If your going to sit one table and take on weak players then balance really has very little importance. You just play basic poker to beat them because they have no idea what balance is and you can profit on their leaks. This course is geared for taking on other top players and putting in heavy volume against those players.

If you don't have the stomach for that then this course is probably not for you. If you do want to sit other regs and sit them several tables then this course is great way of planning for that match. Doesn't mean your going to win or be the next Doug Polk. A lot of the stuff he is teaching other regs already know about in general. Once the match starts its who can apply it better is going to be the long term winner.

“He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.”

Pretty safe to say that when the "best in the world" are teaching, the game is dead.