The Ten Biggest Keys to Winning at Poker (Day 30 Course Discussion)

[Debi]

In the final chapter we review the Ten Biggest Keys for Winning at Poker that have been covered in the course.

If you have not yet read Day 30 and watched the video for Day 30 - take a few minutes now to do that and then come back here to discuss it:

Ten Biggest Keys for Winning at Poker

Congratulations on completing the CardsChat Poker Course! We hope you did well on the final quiz. Don't forget to request your badge.

We reviewed the top 10 tips and if you have any questions about any of these concepts or the course overall this is the place to ask them.

A huge thanks to Collin and Katie for creating this course for CardsChat - let us know if you would like to see more of these!

 

[Polytarp]

I only had enough time to watch this video in a bite size piece so my comments relate to the beginning portion of this video; I don't get the quiz hand where 72s was "pressuring." If this were a big money event and you were firing at me then I would seriously considering firing back..more so if I was able to assess that you were a skilled player. I understand the need for such plays but the % success against a showdown are awful. This is one concept I will be re-visiting. Of the first four questions posed, the two 2 part questions I think..I was only able to get one part right. I will most likely go over this entire video at least 2X to try to understand what I didn't get on the first try and why.
I did better at the CC poker stars free roll today relative to yesterday's performance despite having the Poker Stars server keep me out of the game for about 15/20 minutes and I had another final table finish somewhere else. During these games I took some screen shots of specific plays to analyse them here but at a later time when I can post them properly.
Again, that play with the 72s seems risky at best. Regarding many of the "weak" bets that you suggest jumping all over, I use these like an angler fish. The weak bet is dangled out there and then I eat up whatever swims up to it.

 

[Polytarp]

Just out of curiosity, as I was looking for tonight's missing CC free roll on ACR, I noticed this free roll. Is this yours? If not, it would be a great idea for everyone who has taken the course to have such a free roll entry as a grand prize. The CC free rolls on the different sites are also great venues to engage the mods and members to "show by example" in their own backyard, how to play better.

 

[Polytarp]

Impressions up to but not including hand #17:
The 96s hand that you won would have been against someone like myself..lurking in the weeds just waiting to pounce after putting out some bait.
The 98s really brought to my attention how important it is to know the numbers that are running through the hand..outs..etc..where I am weak.
For T3s combo, I always reference hands like this to the computer average and ask myself where I stand. As the board texture changes so does my comparative measure between what I hold and what the Q7 becomes. The hand range of the opponent(s) is also assessed.
Regarding the AJ, this can be a money maker or trouble maker and I try to use it in spots I'm familiar with and fold as necessary. I never considered the correlation between rebuys and shoves (relative to the buy-in cost) as a value I could calculate even though in the penny ante buy-in's this is expected. As the hand progressed I expected this person to be holding a straight.
The A7s hand vs the chip bully was an expected move. Had the bully made a larger bet the shove would not have been so clear to me.
With J2u, I preferred Katie's move with the call. In my opinion, you should give the opponent something..which could be perceived as a weakness when you knew you were going to shove all along.
With QJs, I would have just called to bring in more $$ into the pot, the opportunity to improve is great so with every improvement more $$ into the pot..but if the tide goes the other way and another suite or small cards of another suite show then I fold. Your successes speak for themselves and you won the pot so could you please tell me if this is a worthy or unworthy method relative to your approach? I wish there was a way to run simulations to compare..is there? or can this be calculated directly with calculus? One of my favorite books is "The Theory of blackjack" by Griffin..can some poker questions be treated in an analogous manner..like the above?
Regarding the 85s check shove..isn't this risky? What if the opponent completed a flush with the free card (or better stated, what are the odds of an opponent completing a flush or giving them a draw..and hope)? My approach has been to never give a free ride and to do so only if my hand will improve the most if I hit the right cards.
I stopped at hand #17 but up to this point, does my thinking process seem reasonable or am I a disaster in the making? I'll end my feedback at this point and just reference something Katie said regarding internet connections...this happened today during the CC Poker Stars game and I'll caption it as "Is it bad? Yes, it's bad!"

 

[Polytarp]

Well..finished the course but I flunked out (sorry).
About the hands:
22: I agree with the shove because the opponent must make a decision preflop..blind. If this person has stats on me and knows I will play QK, AJ..all-in then they may go all-in if they have a pair. If they know I won't play the above cards hard but will play my pairs (bet size correlated to pair size) and this person has a small pair (this is almost getting graphic now..) like 33, 44..then they may not push with a small pair. Against seasoned players even a pure bluff has a good chance here.
AK: depending upon the stakes I would probably have called. Then based on subsequent bets (if the opponent matched his chances of winning with the board) I probably would have folded because they would have bet out. The worst I could finish is 3rd and I'm still alive and within reach of first place. Shoving with AK is good but it's blind and if anything is known about the other person's bet sizing for bluffs, hand ranges, made hands..etc..then this should be taken advantage of. You can shove all-in at any point. I've been burned by garbage hands many times which could possibly have been avoided. Again a simulation or direct calculation comparing the two scenarios in the long run would help my understanding of such situations based on all available information and plausible inference.

Thank you Katie and Collin (and CC!) for an upbeat and informative course! I've only gone through the video portion and now will use the book to go over the material again. I'll be referencing some of my other texts (I provided HughdHat (mod) with a screen shot of these books) and becoming more adept with the software I have and can access. To close,
if you have access to a copy of Penn Jullette's and Mickey Lynn's book "How to Cheat your Friends at Poker", one of my favorite quotes is on p.64, midway down.."Don't get lulled into thinking the...."

Cheers.

 

[Collin Moshman]

Thanks Polytarp!

And sorry to hear you didn't pass the first time, but we'd definitely encourage you to review any sections you need and try again

We'll definitely check out that book recommendation.

 

[Polytarp]

Just finished this game where the all-in had AKu and flopped an Ace..where I obviously went all-in. Although I didn't do well in the course, I think I must have picked up a few things. I don't know if anyone else from CC was in this game (the visible tagged players were from prior satellite encounters) nor do I know if any of your horses were in this game Collin (I resurrected my dusty account at pokerstrategy.com as part of my resource base) but I know I could have played more intelligently. Is there a way of inferring who is using tracking software and not during a game? I used PT4 sparingly (you'll note I'm using it here) and instead focused on who would tangle with who and their relative bet sizing. Here is a screenshot of my grand exit:

 

[Polytarp]

I don't know where the "attachments icon" exists when a post is edited so I must post anew unfortunately. Here is the post I referred to earlier regarding poker books (and other gambling books which are in closet). I did have your SNG book (and others) Collin but they were lost due to moves from one place to another. Papers by Zadeh, Billings and others did survive. I also have a small online library where your coursebook will find its place with Yardley and company.

 

[magistrant420]

the theme of the "Blind War" is not disclosed?

 

[magistrant420]

thanks for the course. It was very informative.

 

[Collin Moshman]

Awesome bookshelf Polytarp!

Magistrant, Blind-Vs-Blind battles are discussed in different ways in the course like the section on playing the big blind as well as floating. If you have more questions on it, let us know, and glad you enjoyed the course!

 

[magistrant420]

I expected this to be a separate topic. We do not notice the “Blind War” until 3-4 players remain in the SNG. Although this topic is disclosed in your book: Strategy for SNG.

Магистрант, Блайнды против Блайндов обсуждаются по-разному в курсе, как в разделе о том, как играть на большом блайнде и плавать. Если у вас есть дополнительные вопросы, дайте нам знать, и рад, что вам понравился курс!

 

[Polytarp]

Awesome bookshelf Polytarp!

.. If you have more questions on it, let us know, and glad you enjoyed the course!

Thank you .. Epstein's book is my favourite..you may also like Steven Finch's two texts (http://www.mit.edu/~sfinch/)
Your course is the starting point to which I'm adding more material and building a context that I will be drawing from to play in specific games. For example, playing the Poker Stars Sunday Million MTT will not be the same as playing their weekend free rolls.

My question concerns fold equity, in the 3rd video by Kevin Desmond onward from the 50 minute point to about the 60 minute he derives a rule of thumb with calculus and underscores it with clips from a major tournament. This is my approach as well, to distill and simplify then validate from observations in the wild. Could you suggest specific replays from Poker Stars or elsewhere where,in aggregate, fold equity evaluations are validated and where someone at a major final table was completely oblivious to them?

Here is a link to a quick bio of Desmond and why he chose to instruct that course. What were some of your motivations for becoming a coach/teacher?

https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/sloan-s...round-and-motivation-for-teaching-the-course/

 

[MrFladder]

Thank you for the beautiful course.
I made it to the end and passed the first time.

I have learned a lot from this course and now it's on me to bring it in practice.

I definitely have to adjust my playing style so that I play much more aggressively. I also have to make some adjustments to which hands I play so that I don't get stuck halfway through the tournament with too little chips.

 

[Collin Moshman]

That's awesome, congrats MrFladder!

Poly, if you go to the Event Replays section of the Stars lobby, you'll see lots of situations where people mis-estimate fold equity. I think that's definitely an important thing to look out for and I also love the final table replays.

 

[Polytarp]

Poly, if you go to the Event Replays section of the Stars lobby, you'll see lots of situations where people mis-estimate fold equity. I think that's definitely an important thing to look out for and I also love the final table replays.

Which Event Replay's would you suggest I review and which do you think would be beyond my present ability to understand properly? With a $22 ticket that I won via the $4 Spin games I was able to finish 171st in today's SCOOP -43-L from a field of about 20k players; Since I have other things to tend to tomorrow I had to cap it at today's 9hr. mark. Your's and Katie's course is a major reason why this uptick happened.
How would you characterize the difficulty in navigating through this $22 field relative to a $109 field and above?

 

[Debi]

Thank you for the beautiful course.
I made it to the end and passed the first time.

I have learned a lot from this course and now it's on me to bring it in practice.

I definitely have to adjust my playing style so that I play much more aggressively. I also have to make some adjustments to which hands I play so that I don't get stuck halfway through the tournament with too little chips.

It is great to hear you are learning so much! How did you find out about this course?

 

[MrFladder]

It is great to hear you are learning so much! How did you find out about this course?

I saw the course when I was browsing this forum last week.

And because I knew myself that I find it difficult to get beyond the minimum prize money in a tournament, I found this very interesting.

 

[cferdi]

Well, that was a long video! Phew!

But I did it! I passed - yay

Only got a B because one of the two-part questions I got 1 part wrong which, if I had managed both I would have been A :-( Still, I did much better than I thought I would. Was a bit worried about math stuff coming up (lol) but it wasn't too bad, the scariest was the Equity which threw me for a moment and I had a bit of brain freeze, then I remembered that's the list I'd been memorising (odds and percentages)! So I got it after all (but I only got the 25.5%, not the 26.1).

The ranges question I had to do twice. The way you worded it "with how this villain has played up until this point" or something very like that. I thought you meant, before the river! When I started to listen to the answer, I realised you meant including the river pot bet, so I paused again and had to think about it all anew. But I got it, although I did add TT to the list.

But great news! Full of all this new learning and dying to try it out on something a little more exciting than freerolls, I entered a $1 rebuy tournament on 888 and finished 5th!!!!!!!!!!!

I did not have to rebuy and as soon as I reached the top table my internet went down - took me ages and a computer restart to get back in the game expecting not to be there any more despite being in 4th place when I got kicked off. I came back to find I was still in and the short stack, still 7 players (out of 9) but I used a few of the tips I'd learned from your course to build my chips back up and survive till 2 other players eventually went out before me (thank you for those lessons!) then got unlucky on a hand where I called allin (pressured by chip leader of course), but I had the hand - until..... of course, the dreaded river!

Still, I was thrilled with my $20.11 5th place win and am sure lot of it was done with the help of your course and its amazing content. Thank you, thank you, thank you.... I am now on my way to building back up that bankroll that I lost (I've learned that 6-handed cash does not suit me ; I think I'll stick to tournaments for now, it's where my strengths lie).

Here's to more wins the in the future ... I'll keep you posted.

 

[frank174]

Thanks for this awesome course Katie and Colin,I didn't think you could teach this old dog any new tricks but to my surprise you did,I'm a stubborn old goat who needed to be slapped up the side of the head with this,since reading the course I have had great results and I don't think its been by accident,1st at CC SB Mtt,1st at CC intertops Mtt,1st at CC P.S Mtt,2nd at CC P.S Mtt,1st in $1 Omaha zoom Mtt.5th in a $1 6 handed Mtt (800 players)1st in my CC league game,plus a couple of sit n go wins,All I can say is thank you,thank you,thank you,and this from a real old guy who hated school 50 years ago:turtle:

 

[Collin Moshman]

Which Event Replay's would you suggest I review and which do you think would be beyond my present ability to understand properly? With a $22 ticket that I won via the $4 Spin games I was able to finish 171st in today's SCOOP -43-L from a field of about 20k players; Since I have other things to tend to tomorrow I had to cap it at today's 9hr. mark. Your's and Katie's course is a major reason why this uptick happened.
How would you characterize the difficulty in navigating through this $22 field relative to a $109 field and above?

Any replays that interest you The $22's are quite a bit softer than the $109s that have a lot more regs -- there's a significant skill difference between online mid and high-stakes games.

Well, that was a long video! Phew!

But I did it! I passed - yay

Only got a B because one of the two-part questions I got 1 part wrong which, if I had managed both I would have been A :-( Still, I did much better than I thought I would. Was a bit worried about math stuff coming up (lol) but it wasn't too bad, the scariest was the Equity which threw me for a moment and I had a bit of brain freeze, then I remembered that's the list I'd been memorising (odds and percentages)! So I got it after all (but I only got the 25.5%, not the 26.1).

The ranges question I had to do twice. The way you worded it "with how this villain has played up until this point" or something very like that. I thought you meant, before the river! When I started to listen to the answer, I realised you meant including the river pot bet, so I paused again and had to think about it all anew. But I got it, although I did add TT to the list.

But great news! Full of all this new learning and dying to try it out on something a little more exciting than freerolls, I entered a $1 rebuy tournament on 888 and finished 5th!!!!!!!!!!!

I did not have to rebuy and as soon as I reached the top table my internet went down - took me ages and a computer restart to get back in the game expecting not to be there any more despite being in 4th place when I got kicked off. I came back to find I was still in and the short stack, still 7 players (out of 9) but I used a few of the tips I'd learned from your course to build my chips back up and survive till 2 other players eventually went out before me (thank you for those lessons!) then got unlucky on a hand where I called allin (pressured by chip leader of course), but I had the hand - until..... of course, the dreaded river!

Still, I was thrilled with my $20.11 5th place win and am sure lot of it was done with the help of your course and its amazing content. Thank you, thank you, thank you.... I am now on my way to building back up that bankroll that I lost (I've learned that 6-handed cash does not suit me ; I think I'll stick to tournaments for now, it's where my strengths lie).

Here's to more wins the in the future ... I'll keep you posted.

Congrats Cferdi, please keep us posted!

Thanks for this awesome course Katie and Colin,I didn't think you could teach this old dog any new tricks but to my surprise you did,I'm a stubborn old goat who needed to be slapped up the side of the head with this,since reading the course I have had great results and I don't think its been by accident,1st at CC SB Mtt,1st at CC Intertops Mtt,1st at CC P.S Mtt,2nd at CC P.S Mtt,1st in $1 Omaha zoom Mtt.5th in a $1 6 handed Mtt (800 players)1st in my CC league game,plus a couple of sit n go wins,All I can say is thank you,thank you,thank you,and this from a real old guy who hated school 50 years ago:turtle:

Thanks Frank, and congrats! I also didn't like school very much so we are in the same boat there, learning poker is a lot more fun

 

[Edison A]

The biggest key to becoming a good poker player is to be in constant preparation, these types of courses help a lot in preparing a successful player, I really liked everything I have read in this course

 

[Phoenix Wright]

Thank you for the beautiful course.
I made it to the end and passed the first time.

I have learned a lot from this course and now it's on me to bring it in practice.

I definitely have to adjust my playing style so that I play much more aggressively. I also have to make some adjustments to which hands I play so that I don't get stuck halfway through the tournament with too little chips.

+1

This was a good course. By the way, my "final" score was 13 "regular" questions correct, plus the 1 "extra credit" correct (13+1=14) for barely getting into the "A range" with 14 correct. However, I also got "a cookie" for the Stop n' Go answer at 40:30 (yes, I've used this play and it really is THAT satisfying) and on our final question with the pocket deuces, I jokingly said "ship it" before the question came up, then I listened to the question - and said, yup - sticking with my answer

 

[Katie Dozier]

The biggest key to becoming a good poker player is to be in constant preparation, these types of courses help a lot in preparing a successful player, I really liked everything I have read in this course

Glad to hear it thanks!

+1

This was a good course. By the way, my "final" score was 13 "regular" questions correct, plus the 1 "extra credit" correct (13+1=14) for barely getting into the "A range" with 14 correct. However, I also got "a cookie" for the Stop n' Go answer at 40:30 (yes, I've used this play and it really is THAT satisfying) and on our final question with the pocket deuces, I jokingly said "ship it" before the question came up, then I listened to the question - and said, yup - sticking with my answer

Congrats on completing the course! I'm glad to hear that you find Stop n' Gos as satisfying as I do--I swear that the rare instances where I get someone to fold getting like 100-1 it is as exciting to me as winning an MTT

 

[jeanpierre1279]

Day 30- The Ten Biggest Keys to Winning at Poker

I am very happy to have had the opportunity to participate in this excellent beginner course sponsored by Cardschat.com.

I am grateful to the excellent teachers Collin Moshman and Katie Dozier who taught the course with incredible quality and good humor so that we can take this long course to the end (after all there were more than 150 book pages and 30 long videos).

I took the course in the best way, pausing the videos, using the calculator and burning the neurons, because that way the armor of the winners is forged.

I am convinced that this is a first step in a long partnership with this site, because in addition to providing extensive content, it also provides us with free practice with its freerolls.

Thank you and you can count on me in the next missions.:aetsch::aetsch::aetsch::aetsch: