Let's face it, it's tough to play OOP. It's hard to get paid off with big hands, and with marginal hands, you are folding more than your share. It just sucks to play OOP.
But one thing I am working on more is to hand read better OOP. I think that's something that is overlooked in my game because it's definitely not as profitable hand reading in position. Actually, the truth is that it's a lot harder to hand read OOP than in position. A guy calling/raising in position can mean so many things, but a guy checking/betting/calling/raising OOP is pretty revealing.
As I play more, I realize that my OOP play is lacking. I don't feel that I'm getting max value with my big hands enough. This is all due to not maximizing my lines OOP. Sometimes I would put villain in position a good but not great hand, but surely I will get a bet out of him by leading. That's a good situation, I got value from a worse hand. But in many levels, I really believe I'm missing value in those river situations.
Of course, I definitely do not want to make a ton of fancy lines because then my value bets will always be my decent to good hands. But I should open my game so I can do more c/r lines. This will open up the possibilities of making some creditable river c/r bluffs. One thing to keep in mind is that fish are usually either calling too much or folding too much. If you c/r the nuts against the calling type, it's very possible he would be making tons of hero calls because your line makes very little sense. But the folding type, I probably would not c/r bluff much but lead bluff more. This will maximize my edge OOP and use my hand reading abilities to my advantage. As long as I know what I'm representing and I know where the villain's range stands in the hand, these lines should help maximize my expectations.
Here's my last but most important thought, don't play OOP.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Legendary 2+2 Post by fimbulwinter
first off you should never view it as a quantum leap kinda thing. just take little shots when you feel comfortable, have the money and are good enough. here's a hand waving yardstick:
try 50NL when:
- you're confident in your preflop game
- you understand position
- you have a good idea of their hand by the river
- you have an ok feel when to continuation bet
- you have 500 or more
100NL when:
- you're confident playing draws
- you can spot good semibluff opportunities
- you can lay down AA/KK unimproved
- you're attacking the blinds in easy steal situations
- you have 1200+
200NL when:
- you're ok betting your stack on a draw
- a PFR from you doesnt always mean AA-JJ and AQs+
- you're starting to play one hand while holding another
- you have more than one mode
- you have 3000 or more
400NL when:
- you can ID profitable preflop steals
- you know how to pick between b3b and c/r
- position factors heavily into your play
- you're good at manipulating pot size
- you have 6000+
1K NL when
- your lines don't define your hand
- you're good at playing and winning lots of small pots
- your oop opponent must hold a strong hand to win a pot from you
- you understand the real math of the game at least at a basal level
- you have 20000+
fim
Even it was posted like almost 2 years ago, it's still amazing still how good this is. I remember reading this 2+2 post as I was moving up the stakes. I would go back to it probably once every couple months just to see how much I've progressed. It's kind of like a checklist for me until I become a very good player. So it's been months again since I read this, I can say that very soon I wouldn't be reading this ever again. That's great news and it's very good for my confidence.
Over Crediting Your Image
A mistake that I made a lot when I've been playing more LAG is that I make a lot of loose calls when I think people are playing back. The truth is that unless you are a maniac, people don't play back at you that much. Ya, if they have a pair, maybe they'll call you down really really light. But it's unlike they'll shove over you unless the board gets really scary and they need to protect their hand. The mistake is when you think your image justifies a really bad call, in some ways you are shooting yourself on the foot by playing with that type of image. Instead of profiting from it, your chips are going the other way.
The best way to take advantage of a LAG image or just a looser semi-crazy image is by playing more solid and playing good hands fast. For most part, you should be the one doing the shoving, and the fish doing the calling. You want them to call you light, if you are in a tough spot and you have a good hand but not as good as they are representing, a fold is in order. Like I mentioned, the key is still playing very solid and play almost as you were a TAG on the pots that count. A classic adjustment people make against a LAG is by playing even tighter, they are afraid that they might make a play and get played back at. So they think the best adjustment is to play tightly and hit. When they hit a hand, they think the loose player is going to pay them. If you pay them off in those spots, you are going to end up being neutral ev. Just think about it, you are calling him light, he's calling you light. What happens? Shipping money back and forth.
So it's kind of like what cts says, you have to adjust to them before they can properly adjust to you, and always be one level above them. There will be times when the adjustment that a player makes is by playing overly aggressive(tilt), you need to properly identify that and those are the times when you hold like any pair, it's the nuts against them. But for 99% of the time, the best play is definitely just play standard as you were playing a TAG even with a loose crazy image. If you do not do this, even a fish will have an edge on you.
The best way to take advantage of a LAG image or just a looser semi-crazy image is by playing more solid and playing good hands fast. For most part, you should be the one doing the shoving, and the fish doing the calling. You want them to call you light, if you are in a tough spot and you have a good hand but not as good as they are representing, a fold is in order. Like I mentioned, the key is still playing very solid and play almost as you were a TAG on the pots that count. A classic adjustment people make against a LAG is by playing even tighter, they are afraid that they might make a play and get played back at. So they think the best adjustment is to play tightly and hit. When they hit a hand, they think the loose player is going to pay them. If you pay them off in those spots, you are going to end up being neutral ev. Just think about it, you are calling him light, he's calling you light. What happens? Shipping money back and forth.
So it's kind of like what cts says, you have to adjust to them before they can properly adjust to you, and always be one level above them. There will be times when the adjustment that a player makes is by playing overly aggressive(tilt), you need to properly identify that and those are the times when you hold like any pair, it's the nuts against them. But for 99% of the time, the best play is definitely just play standard as you were playing a TAG even with a loose crazy image. If you do not do this, even a fish will have an edge on you.
Poker is easy..
Poker is easy when you hit hands. Poker is hard when you have to fold hands. Oh ya, more importantly, Poker is easy when you have a crazy image AND hit hands. End of story.
Monday, November 12, 2007
40k Hands Review
I'm kind of busy tonight but I decided to do a 2/4 session review. So since August when I moved up to 2/4, I have gotten in 40k hands. I played a lot of hands in 1/2 but still that's pretty weak. Anyways, my results in 2/4 is definitely weak. I am a "winning" 2/4 player but not by much within that sample size.
I decided to look through all the 200bb+ pots, winners and losers. I noticed were when I first stabbed the stake where I made some questionable plays. It was a natural FPS where you are trying to over compensate for the change of stakes. It's kind of interesting doing a bigger session review like this. You can really take a step back and think about the game.
Think about this statement: The pots where I truly made a long term profit are the ones where if I was in villian's shoes, I would NOT make the same mistake.
There are spots where I turned a deceptive strong hand against a flopped strong but weaker hand, and I win the pot. But if I were in villian's shoes, I would have paid me off too. Those are not long term profitable situations. When the fish stacks off calling you down with bottom pair, where you would never make that same mistake, that's a long term profitable situation. Basically those are the spots where you go "OMG, what an idiot!". If you can keep yourself from making a mistake(one that villian would not make in your shoes), then you will be at worst neutral ev.
The game is really as simple as a game of mistakes. Whoever makes more loses, and whoever make less wins. What is interesting is that your style of play can possibly cause others to make more mistakes against you. Obviously a nitty player is going to get folds from good players all the time. So these nitty players really primarily hunt on mistakes of the really bad players.
Anyways, throughout this review session, I noticed that majority of the big pots that I lost, they were mostly cooler situations. And on majority of the pots I won, most of them were really poorly played by villian. I mean I would never make that same mistake by those villians. And not to give myself an excuse, but I have not had one single flopped set over set and I had plenty against me. Other than that, I do notice I have spots where I can improve on. I will definitely work on that, so I'll stop making costly mistakes. All of this is good because it gives me some confidence that I will win in a long run and I'm making some good decisions.
This point is related to the point I made about playing less hands with regulars. It's very possible that your edge against a certain regular is zero in a long run because you'll make some mistakes and he'll make some too. As we know, the short term results might show that one player is winning more than another but long term, this might not be so. It's actually very hard to gain a huge edge against a solid player. And as you move higher and higher in stakes, you will find more and more regulars that are doing things that are trying to gain a small but significant edge. Even in 2/4, there are plenty of fish that will make big mistakes against you. There is no point in targeting regulars because there are easier money out there. You will still need to do enough to let those regulars know that they can't exploit you, which is always involving a small variance. As long as you keep their edge on you close to neutral, you are safe to do your share of fishing.
I think it's very important to keep that as your perspective when sitting on a table. I know many times I see a certain regular on the table and I know a certain exploitable tendencies about them, I have a long term edge against them. But let's really think about this, the knowledge I have against that regular is probably only 0.5ptbb/100 but against a typical fish, you can gain up to 10+ptbb/100 long term because they make so many mistakes against you. So what is the better play? Sit and exploit that regular for that 0.5ptbb or sit with the fish and play more hands there? Simple answer, right?
All this talk is really trying to stress on thinking long term and not short term. Guacho from CR stresses a 100BIs BR, it's definitely not a bad idea for long term success. I mean I don't want to go into this whole argument. My point is that there might be a (extremely slim)chance in your poker career where you are down 50BIs and you are still playing profitable poker. I can't even imagine this downswing myself but even being down 50BIs, one should never let that sway him from playing his A game. You might lose 5 BIs to a really bad player due to suckouts, but as long as you know you are +ev against him, you will be ahead in a long run. So just play and keep making those decisions. Don't worry about being up or down X after one or two sessions, it makes no difference in a long run. If you were told by a god that you will certainly lose your whole BR down to your last bb, but you are promised to make billions climbing back up, would you do it? EV is ultimately a promise by some god out there that in a long term, you will be in the positive, not negative.
Anyways, I'll leave it at that. I think I left some good thoughts here.
I decided to look through all the 200bb+ pots, winners and losers. I noticed were when I first stabbed the stake where I made some questionable plays. It was a natural FPS where you are trying to over compensate for the change of stakes. It's kind of interesting doing a bigger session review like this. You can really take a step back and think about the game.
Think about this statement: The pots where I truly made a long term profit are the ones where if I was in villian's shoes, I would NOT make the same mistake.
There are spots where I turned a deceptive strong hand against a flopped strong but weaker hand, and I win the pot. But if I were in villian's shoes, I would have paid me off too. Those are not long term profitable situations. When the fish stacks off calling you down with bottom pair, where you would never make that same mistake, that's a long term profitable situation. Basically those are the spots where you go "OMG, what an idiot!". If you can keep yourself from making a mistake(one that villian would not make in your shoes), then you will be at worst neutral ev.
The game is really as simple as a game of mistakes. Whoever makes more loses, and whoever make less wins. What is interesting is that your style of play can possibly cause others to make more mistakes against you. Obviously a nitty player is going to get folds from good players all the time. So these nitty players really primarily hunt on mistakes of the really bad players.
Anyways, throughout this review session, I noticed that majority of the big pots that I lost, they were mostly cooler situations. And on majority of the pots I won, most of them were really poorly played by villian. I mean I would never make that same mistake by those villians. And not to give myself an excuse, but I have not had one single flopped set over set and I had plenty against me. Other than that, I do notice I have spots where I can improve on. I will definitely work on that, so I'll stop making costly mistakes. All of this is good because it gives me some confidence that I will win in a long run and I'm making some good decisions.
This point is related to the point I made about playing less hands with regulars. It's very possible that your edge against a certain regular is zero in a long run because you'll make some mistakes and he'll make some too. As we know, the short term results might show that one player is winning more than another but long term, this might not be so. It's actually very hard to gain a huge edge against a solid player. And as you move higher and higher in stakes, you will find more and more regulars that are doing things that are trying to gain a small but significant edge. Even in 2/4, there are plenty of fish that will make big mistakes against you. There is no point in targeting regulars because there are easier money out there. You will still need to do enough to let those regulars know that they can't exploit you, which is always involving a small variance. As long as you keep their edge on you close to neutral, you are safe to do your share of fishing.
I think it's very important to keep that as your perspective when sitting on a table. I know many times I see a certain regular on the table and I know a certain exploitable tendencies about them, I have a long term edge against them. But let's really think about this, the knowledge I have against that regular is probably only 0.5ptbb/100 but against a typical fish, you can gain up to 10+ptbb/100 long term because they make so many mistakes against you. So what is the better play? Sit and exploit that regular for that 0.5ptbb or sit with the fish and play more hands there? Simple answer, right?
All this talk is really trying to stress on thinking long term and not short term. Guacho from CR stresses a 100BIs BR, it's definitely not a bad idea for long term success. I mean I don't want to go into this whole argument. My point is that there might be a (extremely slim)chance in your poker career where you are down 50BIs and you are still playing profitable poker. I can't even imagine this downswing myself but even being down 50BIs, one should never let that sway him from playing his A game. You might lose 5 BIs to a really bad player due to suckouts, but as long as you know you are +ev against him, you will be ahead in a long run. So just play and keep making those decisions. Don't worry about being up or down X after one or two sessions, it makes no difference in a long run. If you were told by a god that you will certainly lose your whole BR down to your last bb, but you are promised to make billions climbing back up, would you do it? EV is ultimately a promise by some god out there that in a long term, you will be in the positive, not negative.
Anyways, I'll leave it at that. I think I left some good thoughts here.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Regulars
Everyone always says to play more hands with the fish and try to avoid the regulars. This used to have a different meaning, and it's such a simple concept.
Every hand you play on a table has value against different types of villians on the table, whether if it's AA or 27o. Depending on the villian, 27o might have more value than AA believe it or not. A trashy hand like that is a good distribution of hand to make certain plays and you will have no trouble folding it if the pressure is back on you. While a hand like AA, against a certain types of player, you are better off folding it to any type of resistance because face it, it's tough to fold AA. So perhaps AA is -ev and 27o is +ev.
Maybe you are playing like 25% of your hands on a given table, distributions of hands is the same for everyone in a long run. You can maximize your value by playing the trashy hands against the good regulars and play your good hands against the fish.
Back to what I was saying about playing more hands with the fish and less with the regulars. Since your good hands have less value against a regular, you should try to play your good hands with fish. If you are going to make a play on a regular, don't do it with a hand that has value. They are good enough to not pay you off with your good hands, and they are willing to make bigger folds. So might as well use a different distribution of hands against them.
But my own lesson is to play more hands against fish and less against regulars. All I need to do is to keep an aggressive image on regulars so they get the hell out of my way.
Every hand you play on a table has value against different types of villians on the table, whether if it's AA or 27o. Depending on the villian, 27o might have more value than AA believe it or not. A trashy hand like that is a good distribution of hand to make certain plays and you will have no trouble folding it if the pressure is back on you. While a hand like AA, against a certain types of player, you are better off folding it to any type of resistance because face it, it's tough to fold AA. So perhaps AA is -ev and 27o is +ev.
Maybe you are playing like 25% of your hands on a given table, distributions of hands is the same for everyone in a long run. You can maximize your value by playing the trashy hands against the good regulars and play your good hands against the fish.
Back to what I was saying about playing more hands with the fish and less with the regulars. Since your good hands have less value against a regular, you should try to play your good hands with fish. If you are going to make a play on a regular, don't do it with a hand that has value. They are good enough to not pay you off with your good hands, and they are willing to make bigger folds. So might as well use a different distribution of hands against them.
But my own lesson is to play more hands against fish and less against regulars. All I need to do is to keep an aggressive image on regulars so they get the hell out of my way.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Being Result Oriented
I definitely have a lot to improve. This last session really put things into perspective. I've totally forgotten how it felt to play really long sessions. You could know all the poker concepts but if you don't apply them, you have nothing. Also, after applying them and the long term results are poor, you need to adjust. That's all part of improving.
I don't think I play poorly or anything in the session. I definitely have a lot to improve on and there are many situations where I really wasn't sure what the right play was. If I was given the time to think about it, I definitely could play it very optimally but since I'm kind of rusty, things did not go so smooth.
Either way, what happened in one session or another matters not to me. Winning is nice, but losing isn't terrible either. If you judge your performance based on the results, then you are being results oriented. There will be sessions where I cooler like 10 pots in a row, and I'm up 10bis. Great, but sooner or later, I will probably lose those 10bis when I am on the other side of the cards. As I always say, you need to just make the decisions and everything will fall into place. I've pretty much beat this concept to death already but that's what I want to get into. I'm currently thinking of a mistake I'm making in a more "micro" situation.
During a hand, there'll be situations where you think it's best to stack off given the player's range. Perhaps you are only 5% favorite against his long term range, then you should still get your money in no matter if you are going to lose the next 10 pots in the same 10 situations. But losing 10 pots really sucks, or does it? That's just part of being result oriented. You had made the best decision in that possible time and in a long run, it's a small edge but still the correct play. So a really great player would realize this and not let that shake him whether the results are good or bad.
I feel I'm getting closer to that mentality but it's difficult. Most of the time when I'm being results oriented, I don't even realize it. I make a great play, but it did not work, I start to question if it was a good play to begin with. It's a valid question but it's a question that spawned from the results. On the same scenario if the play had worked, I would have not questioned profitability of my play. I won the pot, didn't I? That is the problem.
I feel a little idiotic to not realize what's going on in my mind. I desire to combat this and really rid myself of being short term result oriented. Concentrate on the decision and nothing else.
I don't think I play poorly or anything in the session. I definitely have a lot to improve on and there are many situations where I really wasn't sure what the right play was. If I was given the time to think about it, I definitely could play it very optimally but since I'm kind of rusty, things did not go so smooth.
Either way, what happened in one session or another matters not to me. Winning is nice, but losing isn't terrible either. If you judge your performance based on the results, then you are being results oriented. There will be sessions where I cooler like 10 pots in a row, and I'm up 10bis. Great, but sooner or later, I will probably lose those 10bis when I am on the other side of the cards. As I always say, you need to just make the decisions and everything will fall into place. I've pretty much beat this concept to death already but that's what I want to get into. I'm currently thinking of a mistake I'm making in a more "micro" situation.
During a hand, there'll be situations where you think it's best to stack off given the player's range. Perhaps you are only 5% favorite against his long term range, then you should still get your money in no matter if you are going to lose the next 10 pots in the same 10 situations. But losing 10 pots really sucks, or does it? That's just part of being result oriented. You had made the best decision in that possible time and in a long run, it's a small edge but still the correct play. So a really great player would realize this and not let that shake him whether the results are good or bad.
I feel I'm getting closer to that mentality but it's difficult. Most of the time when I'm being results oriented, I don't even realize it. I make a great play, but it did not work, I start to question if it was a good play to begin with. It's a valid question but it's a question that spawned from the results. On the same scenario if the play had worked, I would have not questioned profitability of my play. I won the pot, didn't I? That is the problem.
I feel a little idiotic to not realize what's going on in my mind. I desire to combat this and really rid myself of being short term result oriented. Concentrate on the decision and nothing else.
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