S
sidgucci
Enthusiast
Silver Level
sidGucci Update:
After 25,849 hands
Stakes: .05/.10
NetWon: <$202.21> in the negative
bb/100 -7.82
However, $EVDIFF shows <$35.92>
Obviously, I'm working on improving my game and trying various new concepts. The $EVDIFF is an indicator that I'm getting the money in good but running bad, correct?
After 25,849 hands
Stakes: .05/.10
NetWon: <$202.21> in the negative
bb/100 -7.82
However, $EVDIFF shows <$35.92>
Obviously, I'm working on improving my game and trying various new concepts. The $EVDIFF is an indicator that I'm getting the money in good but running bad, correct?
Last edited:
John A
Poker Zion Coach
Silver Level
Well, no... it's just an indicator that you're running below expectation. But if you keep getting the money in as a 5% dog, then you'll have a high EVDIFF because eventually you should catch one of those hands and win, swinging the net result back. In PLO it's a much better indicator since the equity difference is rarely very much when the money goes in, but in holdem it's not a great indicator of much imho.
John A
Poker Zion Coach
Silver Level
Here's a couple of HM2 filters for blind play. I'll play with PT and try and get the same filters.
Cold Call from Blinds Overall
Cold Call from Blinds Non-Premium
Right click, and select save as. Then load them into the HM2 filter list.
Anyone have questions about blind play?
Cold Call from Blinds Overall
Cold Call from Blinds Non-Premium
Right click, and select save as. Then load them into the HM2 filter list.
Anyone have questions about blind play?
Matt Vaughan
King of Moody Rants
Bronze Level
Blind play and anonymous poker. I play on Bovada, and often find myself in a spot in the SB or BB, holding a marginal hand, and facing a raise from the CO or BTN. I play 25nl, and find that I am 3betting quite often in that spot, rather than flatting to play a tricky hand OOP without the initiative. Would you say that the reason 3betting is so attractive out of the blinds in an anonymous setting is that our wide 3betting range is unexploitable even though it's unbalanced?
John A
Poker Zion Coach
Silver Level
Well, it's exploitable, but probably at smaller stakes it's not going to be as exploited very much. But in general, I think this would be the thinking. 3-bet instead of play OOP against an unknown how might have a very wide range.
So you said bovada was super simple, how's it going over there?
Matt Vaughan
King of Moody Rants
Bronze Level
Sorry I should have specified Zone at Bovada - so it's not just anonymous session-to-session, but hand-to-hand (assuming no stack size reads, like a guy that's 500+ bb deep).
Bovada's been going pretty well. I've been splitting my time between live and online poker, so not as much volume as ideal, and I've been pretty swingy at 25nl, but I feel I'm playing quite well compared to the field. I've also been playing a pretty loose style in comparison to in the past, partially allowed by my improving hand reading, and partially allowed by the inherent anonymity. I've also mixed in 50nl zone a bit and feel pretty good about it so far, though my sample is quite small. Planning on tightening up a bit though (specifically folding some weaker Ax UTG and in MP since I'm getting pretty sick of having to fold TP on A high boards.)
Differences I've found between 50nl and 25nl zone are basically just that it's easier to narrow ranges at 50nl, but there are also more people taking believable bluff lines.
Bovada's been going pretty well. I've been splitting my time between live and online poker, so not as much volume as ideal, and I've been pretty swingy at 25nl, but I feel I'm playing quite well compared to the field. I've also been playing a pretty loose style in comparison to in the past, partially allowed by my improving hand reading, and partially allowed by the inherent anonymity. I've also mixed in 50nl zone a bit and feel pretty good about it so far, though my sample is quite small. Planning on tightening up a bit though (specifically folding some weaker Ax UTG and in MP since I'm getting pretty sick of having to fold TP on A high boards.)
Differences I've found between 50nl and 25nl zone are basically just that it's easier to narrow ranges at 50nl, but there are also more people taking believable bluff lines.
John A
Poker Zion Coach
Silver Level
Gotcha. Yeah, I actually watched about 20 mins of one of your vids on your blog yesterday. Hopefully this is helpful and will open it up a bit more, but a lot of your assumptions about your opponents motivations and hand ranges were pretty off. You have to understand that on Bovada, a lot of people are on there to gamble. They aren't on there to play poker to win money. They are on there for the thrill of bluffing. The high they get from that feeling (which on most sports books sites, dominates the general non-regular player). So you have to adjust properly to this kind of state of mind. Just didn't seem like you were imho. Perhaps you do in other vids, I was just watching some of the latest on zone. Any ways, GL on there. Maybe we'll be playing the same stakes soon since I'm not planning on playing past 200nl on there until all these laws get worked out.
Matt Vaughan
King of Moody Rants
Bronze Level
I 100% agree with you. I've actually added some more hero-calling into my play semi-recently. I also must admit that my play is nowhere near as consistent as I'd like, so from one video to the next I may play somewhat different. I'm also frankly probably playing more straightforward when I make a video since I know I'll look stupid when I make a mistake that becomes obvious
As for playing the same stakes soon, I wouldn't count on it. I'm not that well-rolled for 25, let alone 50, and without zone running higher than that it's tough to get good volume. But fingers crossed anyway!
A
A9ofHearts
Visionary
Silver Level
So basically do more calling down with TPWK and MP?
A
A9ofHearts
Visionary
Silver Level
Ok. Thanks.
John A
Poker Zion Coach
Silver Level
I 100% agree with you. I've actually added some more hero-calling into my play semi-recently. I also must admit that my play is nowhere near as consistent as I'd like, so from one video to the next I may play somewhat different. I'm also frankly probably playing more straightforward when I make a video since I know I'll look stupid when I make a mistake that becomes obvious
As for playing the same stakes soon, I wouldn't count on it. I'm not that well-rolled for 25, let alone 50, and without zone running higher than that it's tough to get good volume. But fingers crossed anyway!
Yeah, you'll need to hero call quite a bit. Value bet slimmer than normal in a lot of spots, and just look for ways to induce the nutballs to bluff. One of my favorite plays when I'm OOP is to bet 2BB's into 25 BB pots or larger on the river when I clearly have the best hand and they were probably calling with draws, gutshots, A high, whatever. Allow them to spaz out as much as possible. It works well.
Matt Vaughan
King of Moody Rants
Bronze Level
Interesting play. I'll have to experiment with it and some variations - thanks for sharing! I've started developing some bluff lines at Zone because of the anonymous nature. One of the ones that I enjoy (but still usually save for cards with some draw-equity like SC's) is calling in the SB or BB vs. a MP or later open raise. On dry boards I'll check, then following the near-inevitable cbet, I'll raise and take it down at an extremely high rate.
John A
Poker Zion Coach
Silver Level
It works really well, especially if you pick really obvious missed draw spots.
Alright so: Defending from the Big Blind vs Early Openers (pg. 55)
I see a lot of mistakes when I've coached students about what kinds of hands and why they are calling or 3-betting them. There's an example on pages 56-57. Any questions about this example?
I'm going to throw out some hypothetical situations using a similar example. You are in the BB and someone opens UTG 3 - 3.5 BBs. Try answering what you're doing when you pick up these hands, and explain your reasoning when someone is opening 10% of their hands UTG:
1) ATo
2) KQs
3) JJ
4) T9s
5) AQs
Same set of hands, now someone is opening 20% of hands UTG.
Matt Vaughan
King of Moody Rants
Bronze Level
Ha. I meant to do this yesterday and it just slipped my mind. I'm assuming all of these fold around to us?
Against Top 10% UTG Open
1. I'm folding ATo here. I don't think we fold out much when we 3bet, and we're crushed or flipping with most of villain's range, and OOP that will be amplified toward crushed.
2. This one almost feels like a tighter fold but I think I'm still just letting it go, for the same reasons as #1.
3. I don't feel we can realistically 3bet JJ for value. I flat here and am basically just going to be cautious on boards that smash his range like Axx.
4. If we had some type of read here that villain is folding a fair bit of his range to 3bets I might 3bet here sometime, but without that read I'm folding. I think it's unlikely we're getting the right implied odds to try to make a big hand here, and it's going to be tough to outplay villain off his strong range from OOP postflop.
5. I flat AQs here. We're now doing decently against villain's PP range, and we're dominating some of his Ax and KQ.
Against Top 20% UTG Open
I'm probably at least calling with every single one of those hands now, except for perhaps ATo and T9s. Whether I 3b with hands like AQ will have a lot to do with what we expect villain to fold to 3b's IP. If he's opening that wide and folding a decent bit, I will 3bet T9s often as a semibluff. If he's calling 3bets quite wide then I'm probably just folding T9s (unless he's calling wide pre but calling narrow post, in which case I might still 3b, planning to take it down post flop). If he's calling 3b's with almost his whole opening range then I can start 3betting hands like AQs and JJ for value.
Against Top 10% UTG Open
1. I'm folding ATo here. I don't think we fold out much when we 3bet, and we're crushed or flipping with most of villain's range, and OOP that will be amplified toward crushed.
2. This one almost feels like a tighter fold but I think I'm still just letting it go, for the same reasons as #1.
3. I don't feel we can realistically 3bet JJ for value. I flat here and am basically just going to be cautious on boards that smash his range like Axx.
4. If we had some type of read here that villain is folding a fair bit of his range to 3bets I might 3bet here sometime, but without that read I'm folding. I think it's unlikely we're getting the right implied odds to try to make a big hand here, and it's going to be tough to outplay villain off his strong range from OOP postflop.
5. I flat AQs here. We're now doing decently against villain's PP range, and we're dominating some of his Ax and KQ.
Against Top 20% UTG Open
I'm probably at least calling with every single one of those hands now, except for perhaps ATo and T9s. Whether I 3b with hands like AQ will have a lot to do with what we expect villain to fold to 3b's IP. If he's opening that wide and folding a decent bit, I will 3bet T9s often as a semibluff. If he's calling 3bets quite wide then I'm probably just folding T9s (unless he's calling wide pre but calling narrow post, in which case I might still 3b, planning to take it down post flop). If he's calling 3b's with almost his whole opening range then I can start 3betting hands like AQs and JJ for value.
Matt Vaughan
King of Moody Rants
Bronze Level
Just so you're aware, this doesn't count as a quality post, and will not help you get into the freeroll club.
That is all.
dj11
Legend
Silver Level
John, are you fortunate enough to have a live poker room near you and does your book info hold up good for live play? Or, would you want/need to become at least a semi-reg at those tables before you can verify that info works in live poker?
John A
Poker Zion Coach
Silver Level
Correct. This was a little bit of a trick question overall though to see if you were going through the whole section.
What are some of the questions we want to ask? A few of these hands will be swayed slightly based on our opponents tendencies and/or stats.Yes. It's going to be difficult to get value out of this hand OOP, and too many reverse implied odd situations. Unless our opponent was a total post flop fish, we're folding almost always.
This one is narrow, and mostly depends on our opponent. If they are pretty aggressive post flop, we're folding. If they are more passive, or generally not good post flop, we'd call.
We can 3-bet JJ for value, but in most 6-max games you'd get much more value from calling and looking to play a mediumish pot. And clearly if you flop a set, it has a high propensity to be top set, and those rare spots where you're opponent flops or turns a set as well, they will usually have 2nd best set.
I think 3-betting is your worse option here, and I talk about this a lot in terms of 3-betting SC's OOP. If you're 3-betting this OOP and you flop top pair, you're still going to be in a strange spot post flop, among other things.
So calling/folding is going to mainly depend on stack size, and how good/bad our opponent is. If you're against a player that is pretty solid and aggressive, you'd want to fold this. Usually most players that are only opening 10% at 6-max won't fit into this category, but they could. At full ring, you'd want to make sure you're not against one of the better regs for your stakes.
Yeah, you're dominating some of their range, and there are lots of post flop options. So flatting in general is the best option.
Good job.
So again, a little bit of a trick question, but if you run down the list of questions for this section, once you check off some of these, then they could become calls, 3-bets, etc...
E
eBuddy
Enthusiast
Silver Level
I have been transitioning from an online tournament grinder to live games, so this is one of the books I've been reading on how to return to 10-handed live cash games as a winner again. I like it even better than Dynamic Full Ring Poker: Beyond the Basics. A lot of people like to read a book quickly and passively, and this seems to be the case here judging by the low percentage of sign-ups who are still contributing posts.
For me, I learn best by ACTIVELY reading, working through the examples and trying to duplicate the calculations. So far I haven't been able to come up with the same numbers or make the PokerTracker filters work, so I'd be lying if I said that the lessons have sunk in and that I'm able to automatically apply the strategies to dominate the live cash games.
Since reading the book, I'm currently down in 1/2 in live electronic cash games (PokerTek tables), but that could just be normal variance. I am up in 2/5 in both live-dealer and electronic tables. I'll try to post later about a big live leak I've noticed.
For me, I learn best by ACTIVELY reading, working through the examples and trying to duplicate the calculations. So far I haven't been able to come up with the same numbers or make the PokerTracker filters work, so I'd be lying if I said that the lessons have sunk in and that I'm able to automatically apply the strategies to dominate the live cash games.
Since reading the book, I'm currently down in 1/2 in live electronic cash games (PokerTek tables), but that could just be normal variance. I am up in 2/5 in both live-dealer and electronic tables. I'll try to post later about a big live leak I've noticed.
John A
Poker Zion Coach
Silver Level
Yes, I have live rooms around me. I don't play very much live right now. However, I've played a good amount over m career.
The book focuses on decision making processes, which will apply to anything, even tournaments, even though I'm using cash example to illustrate my point. Everything is about making sure you're using a thorough enough thought process to consistently make the best decisions out of the incomplete information you have.
John A
Poker Zion Coach
Silver Level
You're pretty close then. It's always been listed as HB on here though. I've lived in HB for ~ 20 years, but I recently moved to san diego when I got married 6 months ago.