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linuxrocks
old hand
Reged: 10/28/05
Posts: 1014
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A summary of The Well: El Diablo
08/23/06 07:00 PM
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A summary of the thread. Thanks, El D, we all  you
I was going to read all the responses to find those little nuggets of wisdom any way, so I thought I would make a summary, if it is of any help for others. I just chose a bunch of question that I think are interesting and put them here.
I made slight changes to the questions to make them easily readable, but didn't change anything in El D's responses.
General
How did you get your start playing online?
After playing live poker for about a year, I put $500 in PartyPoker in late 2003. I lost it playing SNGs. I then put $500 more in and started playing $1/2 LHE (I was playing $15/30 LHE and $5/5 NLH live then) and jumped up a level about every week until I was playing Party $15/30.
Please list your attributes and accomplishments in regards to advanced no limit hold'em play such that you are allowed to post this
After playing LHE for a year or so, I started playing live $1/2/2 NLHE (started playing w/ $300-500 buyin, after I became a regular in that game we played with stacks up to about $5,000) and $5/5 in late 2003. I did well in those games and for about a year or two played a decent amount of live poker in the biggest regular games at the time - $10/20 at Commerce, $10/10/20 in SF, and $10/20 in Bellagio. I won in all those games. I started playing online NL in 2004, in Party $200 and UB/Stars $1000 games. I played a good amount of $10/25 on UB (crushed the game) and a good amount of $25/50 (beat the game, but didn't make a ton), and a little $50/100 (good record, but played very little). I then hit a sick downswing (thread called Dammit in BBV has my sickest night) in the $25/50 at the start of this year and got super busy with work and didn't play for a few months. I started playing a little again in June/July,, putting a few K into Party. I do this just for fun right now. I don't think my edge is big enough in the bigger games to play the way I am able to right now - I can only play for fixed periods of times at specific times with no game selection.
I'm pretty confident about my edge in those games based on the time I've put in those games playing myself and real-time sweating/coaching guys like bruiser/strassa/etc (see General thread "2+2 Coaching" for my roster of "students") so when I have more time and more flexibility, I'll probably play them again.
What's the most memorable hand you've ever played?
Hmmmm... Maybe when I river 3-bet bluffed a guy w/ like 5-high in a huge HU 15-30 LHE pot. This hand is in the archives somewhere. It was a guy who was a big talker. We ended up HU and were rumbling a lot. In this hand I had something like 45 for a straight draw. Lot of action. On the river, I ended up w/ 5-high or something. I thought he had a pair. I knew if I checkraised him on the river, he would just call w/ any pair. So I bet out, expecting him to bluff-raise me w/ many mediocre holdings, which he did. I then 3-bet him, knowing he at this point would probably throw away all but top pair. He flashed me a middle pair and mucked. I flashed him my 5-high and psychologically owned him forever.
How did you learn to write such incisive forum posts and polls?
1: Smart.
2: Practice.
Biggest tourney cash?
About $10k in some online tourney. I barely ever play tourneys. (My overall record / ROI in trounaments is sick good, though, I just generally find them to be dumb.)
Why don't you play poker full time?
I think it's pretty boring and can make more money and have more fun doing things I find more interesting.
General Strategy
What primary thing(s) does a small-stakes player need to keep in mind to make it over the long haul? If we want to still be playing and winning in 10, 20 years
Play tight. Don't tilt. Be patient. Try to play every hand the best you can.
What was the biggest hurdle for you when moving from small --> mid --> high stakes?
Being comfortable with the size of wagers and dealing with far more aggressive players.
For someone trying to improve their game, what's the single best thing you can do? (e.g. post hands, read through old classic posts, etc.)
Post hands, respond to hands and discuss hands w/ friends.
Is there any more to picking up this skill than, just work on doing it, focus on remembering details?
Not really, though as you get better, you start to intuitively work more feel-oriented things into your process.
Do you feel one has to have had a great deal of personal experience playing poker to be good, or ar there individuals that can understand things very fast and get very, very good just by logic and a great talent for the game
I think you can get to a very high level by being smart, but I don't think you can be a top player without putting in a lot of hours becasue so much of the game is feel and game/player dependent. That is why a lot of authors suck in terms of their specific hand advice and would get torn up in many games.
If you can name one poker concept or revelation that once you grasped it it allowed you to take your game from average to good or from good to great
Focus more.
What do you think are the most important assets in beating SSNL games online?
Being tight and staying in control.
Do you play LAG because you think you maximize profit, or just for the fun?
At low limits, a combo. At high-limits I only play LAG if I'm playing in a really good game, otherwise I'm generally more on the TAG side.
What would you suggest I do to improve and move up the levels in the best way possible? Bank roll is currently $4000 for reference.
Post hands. Find a smart friend at the same level and discuss strategy and sessions. Sweat each other.
What are some plays that you think can be profitably used at SSNL that generally aren't?
River checkraise bluff. Third barrel.
What kinds of adjustments do you make when there is a good lag at the table, assuming that for whatever reason you cannot or will not change tables?
I'll generally play more trappy against him.
What kinds of things do you take in to consideration when deciding how to play a draw?
How often my opponents will fold. How often the will pay off if I hit. How often they will give me free cards.
Is there any consistantly bad advice you see on these forums you would like to identify & correct? Is there any particularly good advice you think should be more strongly advocated?
A lot of advice is too aggro.
What are your thoughts on slowplaying? The general SSNL consensus seems to be that slowplaying is very rarely correct
The more aggro and tough the game, the better slowplaying is. The more guys who just call you down but play passively themselves, the worse it is. That's why I think it's often bad at SSNL but as you get higher becomes more important.
When moving up what was the hardest level transition to make?
10/25 to 25/50. When I did that, 25/50 was where all the top guys played. Things are a little different now. I suspect the toughest level jump in today's game is probably 5/10 to 10/20.
Having made the switch from mid-high stakes limit to high stakes no-limit successfully, can you describe what the most important changes in thought process and decision making you had to make were?
Well, I think limit is a lot easier. Whenever I play limit now, it seems trivially easy. I think the only thing most NL players need to do is remember that each of those little bets does count, so think through the hand and save a bet here and there when you can. Also, call down more.
How do you deal with stretches where you are just playing really really poorly or playing your C game? Your reads are off, you are splashing around in too many pots without the goods, whatever. I mean both on and off the table, like running through whole session histories or going for a run or something
I quit as soon as I start playing bad. And I always run through key hands after sessions I'm not happy with.
On a related note, how do you deal with a table that has just seen you pull some donktastic move and come out shiny clean? Tighten up? Less aggro with draws? More willing to felt TPTK?
Tighten up a little, no, no. People rarely adjust all that much very quickly. If I've been caught a few times, I'll then slow down a little and be more willing to rumble light.
[coolor:blue]How do you stop tilting BEFORE you've blown multiple buy-ins? How do I keep my A game on the table? What can you suggest? What do you do besides play tighter?
I think about every hand after I play it and whether I made any mistakes in the hand. If I make a mistake, I focus and concentrate on fixing it and not making any more mistakes. If I still make mistakes, I stop playing.
At what limits (if any) do you believe (innate) intelligence begins to play the dominant role? Do you think their is an intelligence threshold such that someone who falls below it would never ben a winning player try as they might?
Around 25/50 or so I think it becomes pretty important. Yes.
What is your view of showing your hand when you don't have to?
I very rarely do it. I do it in two specific reasons. When I have a guy who I'm way, way better than and I need/want to manipulate for some specific reason. Like, he never ever pays me off. I might show a bluff. Or I've bluff raised 8 times in a row and he's folded. I bluff raise a ninth with the nuts and he folds. I might show here as well. Most players though are losing far more than they gain by ever showing, though
Do you work on optimal frequencies away from the table? (as outlined in the chapter "Game Theory and Bluffing" in TOP)
I've never read TOP, but not in any sort of active manner, though I'll definitely talk w/ friends who are regulars in the same games and talk about frequencies and what we think of the game/lines/freqs etc. So, I guess, "sorta" would be my answer.
Can you give some examples of ways in which smart SSNL players don't really seem to understand the game?
#1 example is realistic understanding of hand equities in different situation and fold equities. Put these things together and that's how much your hand/line is "worth." That's a fundamental key to success.
Have you ever read anything on here and said "wow, that's super insightful. I'm surprised that the poster didn't hold it back?" If so, what was it?
rbk, lapoker have posted a few things like that. Mainly having to do w/ some really screwy live game lines that not many players use, but are highly successful. Just calling in some multi-way spots w/ huge hands and checking behind w/ some huge draws on the flop are two examples. Both of these are risky moves that can lead to huge action on the turn that more traditional flop lines can't achieve.
Do you think it's important for a poker player to be well-rounded? Or for a more basic question, if I've only played No Limit my entire poker career, should I consider learning limit?"
Depends on what your goals are. If you are just playing to make the most money, I don't think it's important at all. If you're playing to be the best, I think it's important. I feel like I can hang w/ anyone at LHE, PL/NLH, O8, PLO, PLO8 and most at 2-7 and other lowball games, both limit and big-bet. Stud is the only game where I think I can be outmatched, but not enough to stop me from sitting in any game. For me, the main challenge is sort of "figuring out" the game as opposed to making the most money, so this is kinda important to me.
Do you ever vary your preflop bet sizes?
Yeah, but there's little rhyme or reason here. I generally make pot-ish raises preflop, but occassionally I'll f around and toss in some random raises or min-raises. Against real idiots I'll make huge, committing overbets w/ big pairs.
Hand Reading
Could you expand on how you read hands.
One thing I do is try to put players on exact hands. I try to do this in every single hand I play. After a while, you pick up things that help you realize that he has to have exactly J8c or whatever. It's a combination of pattern matching, deductive reasoning, and feel/instinct. It also helps that I can remember details of just about every significant hand I've ever played.
Everyone always tells us to improve our hand reading by trying to 'think visually' each hand regardless of if we are in it or not. Do you have any other advice to improve hand reading in general?
As I said above, work on putting players on EXACT hands. Sweating hands together with a friend and talking through how you read the hand definitely helps refine the process.
Are you saying that you use this technique as an heuristic, or is it the actual method you use for hand reading? Don't you base your decisions on your opponents' range of hands?
When I am playing an opponent, I try to figure out the exact two cards he has. I of course take into account a certain range around that in terms of making my decisions.
When you talk about handreading, do you use the way a particular player played another hand to infer anything? Like if someone just calls with a strong hand on the river rather than raise it, do you ever use that to infer other things? If so, could you maybe tell us some clues to watch for?
Of course. I am constantly looking at hand histories in realtime to see what the unshown hands were in hands. Knowing what sort of strong hands people get passive w/ is a huge key.
Do you have any good examples of putting people on an exact hand that you can share, maybe from memory, maybe from a PM? Preferably, ones where you were helping someone and they had an "AHA" moment.
Bruiser and daryn are two guys who I have sweated and in real-time helped them do that. Maybe they have some stories. There are many HSNL threads where I put people on exact hands and explain why.
About his games, players played
What is the toughest NLHE game you have ever played in? Can you name and/or describe some of the players
UB 25/50 w/ Mahatma (Prahlad), GiftofGab, DaWiz (Bobby Hoff), GoinBroke (Gabe Thaler), purplesomething (Patri Friedman), MagicPitch when not tilting (David Benyamine) - some of those games I used to play in regularly sucked super hard.
2) Who is the toughest HSNL poster to play against (that you've played)?
Of guys who post nowadays, KKF probably. durrr and BBuddy are also a pain in the ass to play against when they are playing well.
What poker players have you learned the most (about poker) from?
GiftofGab. He and I started moving up NL ranks around the same time and in a lot of ways learned together and from each other.
Player you would least want to play HU?
Eh, I don't really mind playing anyone. Of the players I've played, Prahlad prob gives me the most trouble HU.
a while back, you commented to bbuddy that you NEVER like to talk about the specific probabilities you assign to a villians hand range. We're you being sarcastic? Or very serious?"
Bbuddy is among a small group of very tough opponents. I have played against him a lot. I would never outline to a tough regular opponent like that exactly how I assess their frequencies. In general, I am very open about my play and thoughst about how others play because I don't care about telling anything to most players.
How aggressively do you bankroll @ ur limit(s)?
As a recreational player who plays well below limits he can afford, I don't really give this much thought. I'm generally pretty conservative when it comes to this type of gambling, though. All of my risks come in business and investing.
Strassa saying ... What do I have to do to get to that level?
Just focus a little more, be a tad more patient, and play your A-game longer.
or have I reached my ceiling based on factors like intelligence or work ethic?
No, you can be as good as anyone.
"Durr, KKF, bruiser, Alex jacob, strassa"
KKF I feel has the best understanding of the group and I would put him a slight notch higher than the rest. Since I haven't played in these games for a few months, I can't really evaluate the relative position of the other four, you are all very close and solidly in the tough, solid player camp now. I'd probably give AJ and bruiser the edge over you and durrr because I think they adjust to different games slightly better. durrrr I probably give the edge sh. Like I said, all of you are in the same group and I'd have to play with you now to rank you. It's probably largely a function of who is able to keep their A-game on most. Hmmmm, based on that, I think I probably put bruiser up there w/ KKF overall above the rest of you right now, since he tends to be very consistent and disciplined (though I think he has slightly less gears than the rest of you - but disipline/control is more important).
Do you multitable, or have you in the past? If so, how many tables? How do you/did you find it?
I 4-tabled 10/20-6 max LHE on party for about a year and did very well. That was sorta my start w/ online poker. For most of my NLH online, I've 2-tabled or 3-tabled bigger games. I'm trying to learn to multitable so I can make more money with less variance and stress (not having stress in poker is probably the #1 thing for me, since I do it as a thing to relax and have fun). I've been 4-tabling the Party 600 and that has been easy. I've recently tried 6-tabling and have not done quite as well, but I think that's going to be about where I settle in terms of fun and profit without feeling frazzled. My goal is to be comfortably six-tabling at 3-6 and 5-10, then move up to the 10-20 and 25-50.
How do you rate the best 10/20 players on party (i.e dragons et al) compared to the better 10/25/25/50 UB-players?
Some are the same, of course. I've played very minimal and sweated very minimal amounts w/ a lot of the more well-known ones like Bld, lolo, samo, etc. Based on my limited knowledge, I think they are a notch below the UB 25/50 and 50/100 top players, but this is very hard to accurately evaluate without real gametime experience. Overall, though, guys I know and talk to who have a ton of experience in both games make me think that is correct, though.
How do you feel, lets say, the 5-8 best players/posters in the league of 5/10 and 10/20-players (in your opinion) on HSNL would fare against the better 50/100 (and upwards)-players that is not posting here, like mahatma, pkrbt/tiltmenot (bengt sonnert), bad_ip, green plastic and Thuritz?
I think they would get destroyed right now, but given bankroll, experience at those limits, and practice, I think they could all be at that level. However, they do not have experience with the stakes and aggression of those levels as well as being out of their comfort level. I don't think it's an issue of improving any specific thing, it's just about getting in those games and getting real gametime experience against those players. I never could have learned to play reasonably well against Mahatma until I spent many hours playing in the same games as him.
How do you think you would fare yourself, in your current state, against player of this caliber, would you need some more playing time to give them a run for the money or would you play adequately well right of the bat?
I don't have enough gamble in me to play well against those guys. If I had an extra 10M right now and decided to devote 5M of it to poker, I think I would match up fine with those guys. I probably need about 10x the bankroll that many of these kids do to play w/ the same level of gamb0000l.
I remember railing the 25/50 NL games a while back and seeing you buy in for half the buy-in. What were your reasons for doing this?
When I first started playing those games, there were a lot of guys who would give insane action to half stacks but play more cautiously against full stacks. This made buying shorter insanely profitable, plus it was convenient for me as I got used to the stakes. However, soon after I started playing, the games started to get insanely aggro w/ people stacking left and right for 100bb w/ draws and one pair, so I played full stack from then on.
Have you ever played with LirarErik (Erik Friberg, who final tabled at the WSOP ME) and if so, what are your opinions about him?"
Yes. When I played him (at 5/10 to 25/50) he wasn't that great, but he was super aggro. I've heard he's much better now. I've also played with Michael Binger a fair amount. He sucks at cash but is a solid tourney player. I've also played w/ Thorsson and Thuritz and Friedman, who all went deep, and they are all very tough.
In your experience at NL600 how much would you stress the importance of having a wide reraising range? I feel like most players try to do too much
Not important at all at this level.
At the higher levels, what does having a tricky or wide reraising range do for you (other than maybe allowing to you stack ppl more often when you have AA, KK). Prolly gonna be an obvious answer, but that's a concept that I don't fully understand
It just makes it tougher to read your hands. Good players at these levels can define hands very well from players who are too straightforward. If they know what you have better than you know what they have, they have a big advantage.
About Continuation Bets
Could you give your point of view on continuation bet
Most people do it too much.
How does being in position or oop influence your decision
I probably do it more OOP because I am more likely to want to take it down there. But my decision is mainly based on my opponent(s).
What villain do you cb more/less
All of my frequencies are very fluid and largely based on what has happened recently. This I think is one of the most important things in NLHE, being very fluid based on how you have been playing and what you think opponent is going to do at that moment.
Do you cb as much in multiway pot?
A lot of times, more, because your actions are a lot more believable.
Could you maybe give us some brief thoughts on cbetting in high stakes poker? And also about how to and the importance of varying your lines?
See abore re: cbetting. I think varying lines and being fluid with your frequencies are the most critical things in big games.
You said "I think varying lines and being fluid with your frequencies are the most critical things in the big games" in an earlier post. Can you give some general thoughts and some general trends that are both obvious and non-obvious as well as an example or two?
Some days I will jam draws, other days I will play them very passively. Some days I will trap a lot, other times never. The tougher the game, the more frequently I'm flip-flopping around w/ this kind of stuff.
Specific situations/hands
How do you normally play AK in the BB from a CO raise?
The smarter and tougher, the more often I call.
Do you raise A6s utg 5-handed?
Usually.
5-5 w/ kill. MP kills it, making it $20 to go.
Decent player opens for $20 in EP/MP. Average player also limps for $20. Folded to you on the button w/ AQo. Everybody involved has stacks around $1000. Nobody still involved (the two limpers, the blinds, the killer) are particulary tricky or tough - in short, none of them worry you. $60 in the pot (two limpers + $20 in blinds/kill).
Call or raise w/ your AQo on the button, and if raise, how much?
I probably make it $100 to go. Generally, the more I think they are pussies, the more often I will raise.
do you think it's a good investment for a relative beginner (little cash experience, but a solid track record beating low-buyin SnGs over a large sample) to play perhaps too agressively preflop, say open-raising hands like 76o and Q8o in the CO, in order to see more flops and gain postflop experience?
I like the 76o play there just fine, don't like the Q8o. I think a good way to get more postflop experience for cheap is to flat call a reasonably wide range of hands both in position and in the blinds.
How do you handle getting 3bet by the PFR when you raise the flop with a draw? e.g. you cold-call a PFR with 89h. flop comes AhTd6h. He leads for 2/3 pot you raise and he makes a small 3bet, giving you direct odds to draw. Do you take the odds or shove it in to ensure you get more action those times you have a set or 2pair?
Well, a monster draw like this I'm gonna almost always push. If my draw is not quite as strong, I'll call/push I dunno 50/50ish.
What are you cold-calling standards in the SB and BB when you have good relative position on the raiser? Say an EP/MP player raises and one or two players call behind him. I presume you would call with any small pair in the SB, but would you also play hands like 76s or A8s? Are you more likely to call against an EP than an MP raiser?
I definitely call both raisers there w/ both of those hands and a lot more. I cold-call more pre-flop than most because I like playing lots of hands post-flop and feel like the more post-flop play the bigger my edge.
Say you've been raising a lot preflop and betting a lot of flops but between missing most of the flops hard and getting floated/raised, you haven't been taking down many pots. how do you adjust to having developed this kind of weak image?
I'll tighten up a little and turn more passive, doing more check-calling w/ made hands. I'll also get a little more aggressive post-flop with my draws, since my fold equity w/ strong moves is increased. I make lots of changes based on how I think opponents perceive me based on the cards I've been dealt. That's why some people in 3/6 lately consider me a LAGtard while others consider me a set-mining nit. The correct answer is probably somewhere in the middle.
How do you handle missing the flop with AK on rag/paired rag flops? say you raise UTG and get a CO caller and the BB also calls. the flop is 852 and the BB checks. or the flop is 883 and the BB checks. what if you're HU OOP? It seems strange to cbet when few/no better hands will fold and observant players may use worse hands to put a move on us, cos really no matter how wide our open-raising range is we're likely to have missed the flop. And even if they don't the worse hands that fold often have few/dominated outs
I try to mix this one up between c-bet, check-call, check-fold, and check-raise, probably about 25% each.
I think it's better not to use PAHUD when starting out. do you agree?
I don't use one and think it makes you a better handreader and player, but I think it's likely more profitable to use one if you're playing smaller games and/or multitabling a lot.
Do you think about things systematically or is it more of a random thing?
The first half of things is very systematic - narrowing down hand ranges and potential lines. The second half is more feel, trying to decide exactly what they have and how they'll react.
For example, do you think: Okay, he's bet into me on the turn, my pot odds are xxx, he has yyy in his stack, i think my implied odds are zzz
Yes. I actually try to have multiple complete lines in my head for every street based on a variety of hand ranges and lines. What I do on the flop is largely dependent on where I want things to be in terms of pot-size and money left on the turn and river.
Also, whats the best way to get max value from AK after 3 betting preflop in position on Axx flop? What about KK/QQ here, and if you cbet, do you give up on the turn if they call flop?"
Completely game-dependent and I really don't have a default line for this. Sometimes I'll check-fold that KK, for example, other times I'll fire three barrels.
Why do you make what is usually a huge overbet c/r when you want a call?
After a raise pre and a bet-call on the flop, a turn checkraise AI is rarely all that big an overbet in a lot of online games. The general answer is that I'll overbet big in spots where I want a call when I think my opponent has a worse hand that will call the overbet.
How do you generally react to minraises?
Generally reraise w/ good hands and draw cheap and stack people w/ draws. If I missed, it's totally based on opponent. Some guys this is reliably a probe that they will 100% fold, other guys this is always a set.
If you had to start from scratch with $2,000 bankroll, and wanted to climb the ladder into the $10/$20NL games as soon as you could, what bankroll plan would you take to get there? What level would you start at and when would you suggest to move up etc?
Asssuming NL only. I would play $200 NL. If I dropped to $1000 I would drop to $100NL. At $5,000 I would move to $400NL. At $9,000 600NL. At $15,000 1000NL. At $30,000 2000NL. Something like that. For someone who is moving up the levels for the first time, you should probably be a little more conservative than this.
Edited by varlog (08/23/06 07:09 PM)
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