Polished Poker Vol. I Study Group

[John A]

I play mainly fr,i'm going over the equity on different boards(pg94+)
23% of hands would,in most cases be fairly loose.
Will the the equity change much if i use say a 14% opening range?
Also is this based on equity trainer in APD?
Thanks

23% from where though? At FR from the hijack on this is pretty typical. Actually FR players have higher CO opens that 6-max players on average. I've seen way too many stats with Leak Buster in my time that would just blow your head open.

And no, it's not based on APD at all.

 

[John A]

Can someone explain where the .43&.57 comes from in the calculation on pg97.
Is it our equity vs opponents cbetting range?

I explained this on this thread here already. I'll take a look for it, but it's a rough fold estimation considering small% re-bluff and you have to fold. It's a rough calculation in general since we are not including hand equity when called. I debated about adding the entire thing, but that wasn't the point. Just wanted to show it was +EV not including a full range of equity estimates (because it would actually get sloppy and take away from the point).

 

[John A]

Assuming no more questions about this section, we're going to move in to chapter 6. Try and focus on some examples, and talk about specific hands.

 

[aCutAbove]

paired low board and a coordinated low board.

Wooo hooo:beer: I thought so but wasn't quite sure.

 

[Aleksei]

Why is Villain's balanced range stronger than his unbalanced one in pp. 92-93? Wouldn't people normally first x/r their nutty hands like sets and strong 2-pairs, then add their big draws and THEN if they're really aggro add top pairs?

 

[John A]

Why is Villain's balanced range stronger than his unbalanced one in pp. 92-93? Wouldn't people normally first x/r their nutty hands like sets and strong 2-pairs, then add their big draws and THEN if they're really aggro add top pairs?

The equity progression is just showing how balanced and unbalanced effects equity. But yes, x/r sets and 2 pair would be some of the first hands to be x/r.

 

[eBuddy]

But doesn't the equity increase because you're progressively adding stronger hands to the initial x/r range of draws? My understanding of the reason from moving from an unbalanced to a more balanced range is NOT to increase showdown equity, but to avoid being exploited by good players. If I'm unbalanced and only x/r with sets, I have very high equity on the flop, but the observant players can exploit me by bet-folding 100% of flops; if I add draws to my x/r range, I will have lower equity on that flop but those players will find it harder to exploit me and my win-rate will improve against them. Is this the point of Chapter 9 or am I misunderstanding?

The equity progression is just showing how balanced and unbalanced effects equity. But yes, x/r sets and 2 pair would be some of the first hands to be x/r.

 

[Aleksei]

^pretty much what I was about to say.

 

[eBuddy]

I'm re-reading chapter 9 to try to figure out how to actually apply it to my cash games this week. Can you please show how you used Ace Poker Drills Equity Calculator to calculate the equities on page 94? For the second example, did you simply click on T9o and T9s to get hero's new equity of ~45.5% (from ~55%)?

Board: Td 9c 4d
Equity . . . . Win . . . . Tie . . . . Hand Range
46.5596% 46.1899% 0.3697% [ 8c8s ]
53.4404% 53.0707% 0.3697% [ 7d6d(100), AdJd(100), QJs(100), QJo(100), 87o(100), KJs+(100), A9s(100), 87s(100), AQs(100), T9o(100), T9s(100) ]

But wouldn't this be incorrect if villain is check-raising with [ T9o(100), T9s(100) ] with huge equity 50% of the time, and with drawing hands down to 50% of the time?

I think adding an appendix on how you used your products to make the calculations in the examples would be beneficial for both you and students. Or alternatively, if anybody here bothered to try to work through the numbers in the examples and succeeded, please tell me how you did it.

Yes, you calculated it incorrectly. The range I use is in the picture next to it. You can't just take one set of hands, get the equity, and another and then divide them together. The calculation is a little more complex than that. That's why equity calculators are handy.

 

[John A]

But doesn't the equity increase because you're progressively adding stronger hands to the initial x/r range of draws? My understanding of the reason from moving from an unbalanced to a more balanced range is NOT to increase showdown equity, but to avoid being exploited by good players. If I'm unbalanced and only x/r with sets, I have very high equity on the flop, but the observant players can exploit me by bet-folding 100% of flops; if I add draws to my x/r range, I will have lower equity on that flop but those players will find it harder to exploit me and my win-rate will improve against them. Is this the point of Chapter 9 or am I misunderstanding?

Correct. Again, the point of the example was the show how ranges effect equity. The point of the chapter should hopefully be clear though, and that's how to balance your range properly against competent players so you can increase the probability of them making a mistake. If I'm only x/r sets and 2 pairs, then my opponent is only calling with the highest end of their range and folding everything else.

 

[John A]

I'm re-reading chapter 9 to try to figure out how to actually apply it to my cash games this week. Can you please show how you used Ace Poker Drills Equity Calculator to calculate the equities on page 94? For the second example, did you simply click on T9o and T9s to get hero's new equity of ~45.5% (from ~55%)?

Board: Td 9c 4d
Equity . . . . Win . . . . Tie . . . . Hand Range
46.5596% 46.1899% 0.3697% [ 8c8s ]
53.4404% 53.0707% 0.3697% [ 7d6d(100), AdJd(100), QJs(100), QJo(100), 87o(100), KJs+(100), A9s(100), 87s(100), AQs(100), T9o(100), T9s(100) ]

But wouldn't this be incorrect if villain is check-raising with [ T9o(100), T9s(100) ] with huge equity 50% of the time, and with drawing hands down to 50% of the time?

I think adding an appendix on how you used your products to make the calculations in the examples would be beneficial for both you and students. Or alternatively, if anybody here bothered to try to work through the numbers in the examples and succeeded, please tell me how you did it.

It's a bit outside of the scope of what I'm trying to teach or explain about to break down how equity calculations and calculators work. I did post the ranges I'm using. I think what you're asking is, why didn't you put T9o 50% and T9s 50%? If that's your question, it's because if I'm doing all of those roughly 50% of the time, it really won't effect the equity calculation. Depending on which hands are in villains, it may move it .5 - 1%. It's not really relevant to the point I hope.

Maybe someone has a good tutorial video on equity calculators they can post though, and about how equity calculators are used. In the book itself, I put the ranges in the pictures so you can see what I'm using. I don't have a desire to explain that instead of using just A9s, like it shows in the picture, I actually used Ad9d. Unfortunetly the calculator doesn't list the specific suit in the graphic unless you export. Maybe that's something to add to a feature of the calculator though.
Hopefully you'll not be hyper focusing on that, and more on the point I'm trying to make.

 

[John A]

I should add to the above that I mean if I make every range 50%, then the equity difference is just about nothing. Don't think I explained that very well.

Any ways, I will be in Maui this week leaving tomorrow. I was camping earlier this week again, so my time has been a little limited, but my hope is to post some of the coaching sessions with people on here, and go into more specific examples and answer questions.

Since we're going to be moving into chapter 6, I want to make an important note/point. Most people suffer from poor pre-flop decision making. This of course is compounded post flop because you get involved in spots you shouldn't to begin with. If you find yourself with marginal winrates, or losing winrates for any decent sample, the easiest thing you can do is tighten up a little and increase your pre-flop positional awareness stat. Shave a few more hands off from UTG and MP/HJ positions, and add a couple of more from the CO and BTN.

FLAT CALLING
You should really keep an eye on your flat calling profit lines, especially out of position. I'd advise running filters on this every week or two to make sure you aren't making some big mistakes in this area. Use filter 33 if you use Leak Buster from step 7. Leak Buster will let you know from a number of different spots if you're losing money with flat calling as long as you run an complete analysis.

If you have HM2, follow these steps:
1) From Reports tab click on More Reports.
2) Scroll down to pre-flop, and select Hole cards.
3) Click on the hole cards tab.
4) Download, and load this filter:
http://acepokersolutions.com/files/Flat call Overall.filter (right click and select save as)
5) Sort your starting hands by NET WON (looking for biggest loss).
6) Look for some obvious big losses for trouble hands like KJ, AT, offsuite connectors, etc...

Next load this filter for out of position play, and repeat the above:
http://acepokersolutions.com/files/Flat call OOP.filter

Now the easiest part... fix this problem. Review some of your biggest losing hands, and look for spots where you were involved too often with decent players OOP, or perhaps you could have 3-bet, or there were too many good players left to act leaving you vulnerable, etc...

 

[LD1977]

I actually have Leak Buster but never figured out how to use filters will have to look into it.

But I did manually find a massive leak in my game (which is obvious to people on the forum since they told me so ), and that was calling raises and river bets from passive players way too much... I was bleeding more than 5bb/100 with this, horrible.

As for Chapter 6, PTA looks very useful but I am unsure how exactly to adjust on the fly and use all these points quickly while multitabling have been considering only points 1, 2 and 5 while I usually wait to see what happens after I get into the pot to think about the next step. I do take point 6 into consideration but mostly vs steals when I am in the blinds.

 

[John A]

Well, Leak buster is super helpful if you spend a little time with it. There's going to be a major update coming here soon that will add some cool new functions, so I'd get more familiar with it since you already own it.

When I get back I'll make some PT filters for the previous post as well. But hopefully everyone can start looking at this area of their game since it's a major part of playing profitable poker.

 

[John A]

Ok, I'm back. You guys ready to get to it?

 

[A9ofHearts]

Ok, I'm back. You guys ready to get to it?

yep

 

[LD1977]

Exhausted and a bit burned out from 10 straight days of hardcore grinding (promotion), but bring it on

 

[eBuddy]

I've been trying to apply what I've been reading to my cash games, so will John A and study group participants please comment on the JJ hand I played in the small blind with over $1,300 pot?

Ok, I'm back. You guys ready to get to it?

 

[sidgucci]

still standing in front of this fire hydrant with mouth wide open ----can't thank you enough for all this valuable information and insight! The extra days between section 9 to section 6 has helped a great deal and allowed me to catch up.

 

[John A]

I've been trying to apply what I've been reading to my cash games, so will John A and study group participants please comment on the JJ hand I played in the small blind with over $1,300 pot?

Answered.

 

[John A]

Does anyone want the flat calling filters for PT? Did anyone run the ones for HM? Find any leaks here or patterns?

 

[eBuddy]

Yes, please provide the steps on how to use your filters for PokerTracker 3. I bought PT4 but still use PT3 when playing online.

Does anyone want the flat calling filters for PT?

 

[John A]

I can create them in PT4. I don't have PT3 on this system anymore.

 

[eBuddy]

Sounds good. Just like I've been learning how to use Ace Poker Drills Equity Calculator, it will make me learn how to use PT4's features.

I can create them in PT4. I don't have PT3 on this system anymore.

 

[LD1977]

John A - I haven't been analyzing flatting since I have been grinding a bonus (and I have to clear it in the next 9 days) and I wanted to analyze another issue (set-over-set and small pocket pairs in general) that plagued my game in the past month.

Where can I find these filters in HEM2?