A bluff 400NL - Page 7

PurpleLight · #61 07-19-2006, 03:18 PM

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I love it. Problem is, no one at 2/4 folds here ever.

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This is true and it isn't. The thing to remember is that a tight passive player isn't a strong player.

He may call you with an unimproved pair on the river if you only bet $120-150 whereas he may get scared off by the $$ risk if you bet big or push.

He may also just not pay off any big bet on the river without a straight or boat because he's nitty and is farming money and he may just "pay you off" anyways because he's got an LOL OVERPAIR which = nuts.

But MDMA is right, among all the things in poker to care about getting a fold this time and only thing time isn't a primary concern. Even if you dont play with this guy again you're prob going to play with the 4 other guys at the table relatively soon if your 2/4 PP tables are anything like mine.

Tuff_Fish · #62 07-19-2006, 04:46 PM

Tuff Fish speaks.....

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Preflop: Hero is MP with Q[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], K[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]. SB posts a blind of $2.
1 fold, Hero raises to $14, 1 fold, Button calls $14, SB (poster) calls $12, 1 fold.

Flop: ($46) 5[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], 6[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], 3[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] (3 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $37, Button calls $37, SB folds.

Villian called because he had overcards/middle overpair

Turn: ($120) 9[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] (2 players)
Hero bets $95, Button calls $95.

Villian still has pair, overpair greater than 9, or A9s. Probably hopes you on a draw, but is wary of bigger overpair.

River: ($310) 3[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] (2 players)
Hero bets $294.

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Villian figures you would bet for value if you had overpair. He thinks the all in is a little suspicious, but is supremely worried about your overpair/two pair/set. However, the all in really gets him to thinking you were on a draw the whole way.

Villian makes crying (praying) call with TT or something equivilent.

Villian does not understand game theory. He does understand he doesn't want to lay down the best hand. And this, by damm, looks like a bluff.

I recommend a half pot bet. NOBODY bluffs with a half pot bet. Villian will still call with stronger pair, but he was gonna call anyway. But he will give up his weaker pairs because NOBODY bluffs with a half pot bet.

Tony.. the foremost fish authority [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

Hindsight2020 · #63 07-19-2006, 05:18 PM

C/f River

jlkrusty · #64 07-19-2006, 06:42 PM

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Krusty: chess is not a good analogy because the pieces are not randomly distributed like cards, so a chess master could hypothetically wait for mistakes and be assured of victory. Also, a win is a win, there is no equivalent to pot size.

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You are right. Any analogy will fall short at some point. And there are, as you pointed out, marked differences between chess and poker. Please realize that I included the chess analogy to try to illustrate or explain a concept and was not included to actually prove the concept. The chess analogy was included to help me (and possibly others) understand a concept. Sometimes analogy can help people do that. Now proving the concept to be true, as opposed to understanding it, is different. I tried to prove why it was better to play optimally by talking about poker directly. And, I have further tried to prove that bluffing by betting the same amount as when you have a monster is the correct game theory strategy.

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As applied to poker, your reasoning is directly contradictory to the idea of "trading mistakes" in which you play suboptimally in order to take greater advantage of your opponent's suboptimal play.

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At this level (and especially as you go higher in limits), I completely disagree with the idea of playing suboptimally to make your opponent play worse. This strategy might be good on lower limit tables. For example, on a very low limit table, with very loose players, you might decide that bluffing is never a good idea since your opponents call down everything. This would be an example of playing suboptimally (never bluffing is suboptimal) to gain an even greater advantage over your opponents who are making even more serioius blunders by calling everything down. However, the higher limits you go, the more you need to get rid of the idea of playing suboptimally. This is especially true if you want to eventually become a HSNL player instead of just a MSNL player.

Betting less on your bluffs than when you have a monster is suboptimal play. If you do this, opponents may capitalize on this leak. I believe your opponents even at the $2/$4 level are capable of exploiting this leak. And, certainly the higher the limits you go, the more your opponents will capitalize. As such, at the very least, you should be aware of this leak when you play and be saying to yourself, "Are my opponents sophisticated enough to recognize that I am constantly betting less on a bluff as opposed to my monster hands?"

Poker is a game of mistakes. The player who makes the fewest mistakes will win. Quoting from David Sklansky's latest work, No Limit Hold 'Em, Theory and Practice:

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Good no limit players try to win the battle of mistakes. Winning the battle of mistakes means making sure that your opponents make more frequent and more costly mistakes than you do.

You do this by creating difficult situations for your opponents. You set traps for them. You recognize how to put the most pressure on them.

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You make money off of your opponents by putting extreme pressure on them and waiting for their mistakes. I contend that the way to put more pressure on your opponent in this hand, and the way to cause him to make more mistakes, is by going all in.

An all in bet better disguises your bluffing and monster hands. As I have said before, if your opponent were playing optimally, he would ultimately be forced to fold any conceivable holding he could have. If he were willing to make heroic calls here, then he is going to, on the average, be making a more serious mistake--since your will more often have the monster. That's what we want him to do, and that is why the all in bet is the better move here. Betting $150 puts some pressure on him, but going all in puts extreme pressure on him. Get courageous and just move all in.

Imagine that he does make the heroic call. He and all your other opponents would then see that you are willing to go all in with a bluff. Heck, a couple of your opponents may even make notes on your screen name. Then, later when you do have a monster and go all in, your opponents are left in a quandry. They wonder if you are again bluffing.

If you had just bet $150 and got called, then your opponents would see that you are willing to put some serious money into the pot with a bluff, but probably not all in. Later, when you have a monster and go all in, your opponents may recognize your earlier hand and think, "the difference here is that he has gone all in. I have seen him bet heavy on a bluff ($150 on the river), but I have yet to see him go all in. Therefore, his all in bet this time must be real."

Now as some people have pointed out, some people don't go all in with their monsters. Now, if this is the case, then perhaps your $150 bluff is okay too. However, I would contend you are making a mistake if you don't go all in when you have a monster. However, that is a whole new discussion.

punter11235 · #65 07-19-2006, 07:12 PM

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This would be an example of playing suboptimally (never bluffing is suboptimal) to gain an even greater advantage over your opponents who are making even more serioius blunders by calling everything down. However, the higher limits you go, the more you need to get rid of the idea of playing suboptimally. This is especially true if you want to eventually become a HSNL player instead of just a MSNL player.

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Excuse me but you have no idea what you are talking about. Good players win because they dont use optimal plays but plays that are optimal vs particular opponent and its basic fact of game theory that vs any particular opponnet (or any betting strategy mixed or not) there exists one optimal play which DOES NOT include any mixing.

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"Are my opponents sophisticated enough to recognize that I am constantly betting less on a bluff as opposed to my monster hands?"

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But you wont constantly do this when they "realize" you will switch and if you are better at realizing when they realize you will win vs them its called "playing poker".

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You make money off of your opponents by putting extreme pressure on them and waiting for their mistakes.

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You realize that by using optimal bluffing strategy you dont put any pressure on anybody , right ?

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then your opponents would see that you are willing to put some serious money into the pot with a bluff, but probably not all in. Later, when you have a monster and go all in, your opponents may recognize your earlier hand and think, "the difference here is that he has gone all in. I have seen him bet heavy on a bluff ($150 on the river), but I have yet to see him go all in. Therefore, his all in bet this time must be real."

Now as some people have pointed out, some people don't go all in with their monsters. Now, if this is the

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Wow this way of thinkign is so bad. If they "realize" that you dont bluff when going allin you will and if they "realize" that you wont value bet 1/2 pot you will too. And if they "realize" that you switch your stratgy you will switch again and outplay them again. This is similair to someone saying "I cant raise preflop to 8BB with AA because they will "know" that I have it" every time I see such a sentence I want to ask " why not do it with 72o" then ? Usually the silence follow...

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Now as some people have pointed out, some people don't go all in with their monsters. Now, if this is the case, then perhaps your $150 bluff is okay too. However, I would contend you are making a mistake if you don't go all in when you have a monster. However, that is a whole new discussion.

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Great going allin with monsters is cool I agree. Bluffing with allin bets is cool too but it doesnt change the fact that if your opponent in this particular hand in this particular moment will call 150$ as often as he will 300$ bet you should bet 150 with your bluffs and 300 with your value bets. If there will be another hand and this time he wont use that strategy because he saw your bluff you will sue diffrent strategy this is how you use "history" and "metagame" you create image and stuff to make +EV plays vs particular opponents if you are to use optimal strategy you dont need any image and history at all because they wouldnt matter then...

jlkrusty · #66 07-19-2006, 08:13 PM

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Excuse me but you have no idea what you are talking about. Good players win because they dont use optimal plays but plays that are optimal vs particular opponent and its basic fact of game theory that vs any particular opponnet (or any betting strategy mixed or not) there exists one optimal play which DOES NOT include any mixing.

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I don't know why so many people on this forum have to start insulting others in their posts. I have not insulted a single person in my posts, but you do it to me. I mean, come on, do you really believe that I don't have even an idea of what I am talking about? Instead of making a blanket statement that I have no idea what I am talking about, how about a comment like, "I disagree with some of what you are saying." If you can't do that and need to attack me, then that is okay too. It's just a little annoying.

As for me, I am going to try to avoid attacking anyone else, and I'll also try not to take offense if you choose to attack for me. As long as someone is winning (which I believe most people on this forum are), I believe they have valuable contribution. If nothing else, I am seriously trying to understand the perspective of each post so that I can become a better player myself. I don't always agree with other posts, but I do try to understand them. And, I would never tell another poster that they have no idea what they are talking about. If they are winning, they must at least have some idea of what they are talking about.

Now, I do recognize that there are some additional points that I did not include here--deeper metagaming in particular. Thank you for pointing those out. That helps.

Metagaming well is an important asset of a skilled player. If you can get into the minds of all your opponents and make those changes immediate, then yeah, that's a better way to play.

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But you wont constantly do this when they "realize" you will switch and if you are better at realizing when they realize you will win vs them its called "playing poker".

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So now you are metagaming their metagame. I suppose, they will then metagamge your metagamed metagamed, which you will then in turn metagame back. I'm not psychic, and you are probably better at metagaming at such deep levels. I mean, you not only have to metagame against this opponent, but you have to metagame against the other players at the table as well. You have to change your game for one player who might remember your previous bet, and not for another player who doesn't. It can become a complicated mess, but I admire you if you can do it successfully. Now, I am not trying to discount metagaming. I am simply saying that as a base strategy, it is better to make your bluffs look the same as your monster bets, and metagame out of that mode if need be, rather than the other way around.

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You realize that by using optimal bluffing strategy you dont put any pressure on anybody , right ?

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I don't follow. Of course you put pressure on them by moving all in with a bluff. How is that not putting pressure on them? By moving all in with a bluff you snag a pot that you otherwise did not deserve. In addition, when you do have a monster, it makes it less easy for them to fold your all in bet. How is that not putting pressure on them?

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Wow this way of thinkign is so bad. If they "realize" that you dont bluff when going allin you will and if they "realize" that you wont value bet 1/2 pot you will too. And if they "realize" that you switch your stratgy you will switch again and outplay them again. This is similair to someone saying "I cant raise preflop to 8BB with AA because they will "know" that I have it" every time I see such a sentence I want to ask " why not do it with 72o" then ? Usually the silence follow...

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Again, if you can get into the mind of these people that well, and know for certain that they are thinking that way, then my hat goes off to you. You are above the game if you can really metagame that well.

As for raising 8bb with 72o, I agree that you may want to do this every once in a while. If you have concluded that your opponents will know you have AA if you bet 8BB, then I absolutely believe that you should make an 8bb bet with 72o. And, in fact I have bet 8bb with 72o before--not often, but I have done it. If I am somewhat bluffing with a 8bb bet, I'll usually want something at least like 65s so that I will have a bit more equity in the rare chance that I do get called down. That being said, once in a while I will also bet 8BB with AA. As long as you are mixing your game up like that, there is nothing wrong with betting 8BB with AA.

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Great going allin with monsters is cool I agree. Bluffing with allin bets is cool too but it doesnt change the fact that if your opponent in this particular hand in this particular moment will call 150$ as often as he will 300$ bet you should bet 150 with your bluffs and 300 with your value bets. If there will be another hand and this time he wont use that strategy because he saw your bluff you will sue diffrent strategy this is how you use "history" and "metagame" you create image and stuff to make +EV plays vs particular opponents if you are to use optimal strategy you dont need any image and history at all because they wouldnt matter then...

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There is a non-zero difference between the chance of him calling your $150 bet as opposed to your all in bet. I doubt anyone would argue with that. Now, the difference might be very small, but I doubt it. People seem far more likely to fold to an all in bet than they do a $150 bet. Still, even if you concluded (based on EV calculation solely for this hand) that the $150 has more +EV, I am simply saying that that is not the only consideration. You should also consider how it affects getting action on your monsters, metagaming, future bluffing opportunities, etc.

MDMA · #67 07-19-2006, 09:06 PM

I'm getting bored to death by this thread and have no intention of saying much more.

Punter, I don't really think you fully comprehend what I'm saying; making the "optimal" play against one TYPE of opponent (do notice the word TYPE, I'm not saying a SPECIFIC opponent; if we had a SPECIFIC opponent that would, FOR EXAMPLE, like TWP said, fold to a 150-bet because in his mind that is a value-bet, whereas a push (300) is a bluff, then you would OBVIOUSLY bet 150 w/ a bluff and push only for value, without even bothering balancing stuff; there would be no need since he's bad enough that we dont NEED to balance it until he catches on, and at that point he's not, in the same sense, a "bad" static player anymore and not as exploitable as before.)

But, against the broad majority of players, without knowing any on of these SPECIFICALLY (and provided that they are neither calling too much, nor folding too much, since if they did the "optimal" bluffing frequency wouldn't be correct since you would simply make more by bluffing less often if they call too much and vice versa), then HOW do you punish people the most here? Well, by making their mistakes as costly as possible. First of all, in the unlikely event that they would be calling both bets as often (but you don't exactly HOW often) (which ISN'T realistical against the broad majority of players just because of simple betsize and psychological reasons), then you of course should go with the bigger bet and a lower bluffing frequency (simply because knowing a lesser bluffing frequency is correct makes it easier to not make big mistakes; when a small amount of bluffing is optimal, then you'd be making a smaller mistake if you didn't bluff at all, than if you knew you should be bluffing a lot. This of course because while knowing he calls as much for both sizes, but not knowing exactly HOW often this is, you can still be sure that you should be bluffing less when making the bigger bet, and thus minimize your marginal for mistake.)

In the case that they would call the small bet more often (and of course obviously with weaker hands), then it doesnt matter if you bet big, or bet less (in which case you need to valuebet MORE hands, or bluff less often). What does change, however, is that since you'd need to valuebet MORE hands to achieve the same value, or bluff less often, you will also face the problem where you will think you are valuebetting but instead are betting into a better hand, which makes matters more difficult for you.

The key to the idea here is that basically every hand your opponent will call with here will only beat a bluff, and with betting the smaller amount, since you'd naturally need to value bet more hands to achive the same ev+, that issue will become a problem for you. If you bluff less often and still valuebet the same few hands, then you'd get paid of less (but more often), and wouldn't be able to bluff as much. Also

Obviously, if their calling frequency would be proportional to the betsizes here, then the decision won't really matter, since it doesn't matter if you're getting called twice as often for the smaller bet. You would just adjust your frequency of bluffing to that and you'd turn out with the same ev.

Theoretically it would be no difference; practically, however, this is simply never true for anyone, and also, people actually have minds. They will CHANGE their frequencies, and so would you. Of course their is always, for every specific player, a perfect betsize and a perfect bluffing frequency at which they will make the most costly mistake; problem is that we of course can never know where that line is drawn.

Then, how does going allin figure to be the best play? Well, basically because players aren't linear in the sense I explained above; they do not call half the bet twice as much, it's not as simple as that. And if that isn't the case, then you will very likely have to start valuebetting MORE hands out of your range, and, as I said above, that gets much more trickier than just using hands that will either be a good or will be a bluff, instead of trying to valuebet hands that will often be called by a better hand, which IS harder.

Also, I can almost guarantee that the vast majority of bad players are not simply thinking of proportional bets and frequencies; they are thinking of the simple size in terms of $ for a bet. Although some, as TWP said, will start to think that a $150 is a valuebet and a push is much more likely to be a bluff, and vice versa, I'm almost positive that the guys intimidated not by the bet size in proportion to the pot, but rather by the sheer size of the bet not correlated to anything else, will make the costliest error simply because they will fold so much more to that bet (maybe even hands that might have beaten hands we were SURE we were valuebeting with), and still not call proportionally twice as often for half the size of the bet, to the extent that they just might be making so big mistakes that they would fold hands we never thought they'd fold and that would actually have beaten us some of our very limited range of "value hands" if we hade bet the exact same hands but for half the price. Obviously, thats very unlikely, but just the possibility of it, and peoples tendencies to make mistakes when facing big bets in general should just tip it over ever so slightly. This basically means that against most players, you will, in most cases, have to start valuebet more hands if you go for half the price, with the added difficulty of getting called by better hands when you thought you were betting for value.

Also, as described above, the smaller percentage you need to bluff (in most games), the lesser your marginal of error likely becomes. This put together with reality, e.g people changing their frequncies, will make you realize that if people would call both bets equally often, then you'd need to up your bluffing frequency should you decide to value bet the same hands as with the big bet, and, at least for me, that constitutes a possibility for a larger mistake simply because bluffing less is more simple than when theory calls for me to make much more bluffs and when I've might miscalcuated his calling range.

This last two paragraphs aren't entirely theoretically correct since if games we're instead ultratight in general, then bluffing just a little bit to less might cost as much, this of course because in an ultratight game, most of your value wouldn't be coming from your valuebets, but from your bluffs.

Instead, I said this knowing that bad players are just generally making bad calls more often than bad folds.

You made some good points punter, but you are falling into the trap of "infinite levels of thinking", one can go on and on and always be one step ahead of your opposition/outplay him, but at what point will you go ahead one step further while he may not, resulting in that your "brilliant" play against the next level of thinking instead becomes wrong. Your "if they realize that we change again and if they realize that we change again and again and so on and so forth" illustrates this perfectly. If one were to discuss poker like that, every hand would turn out to be that of samoleus KK; that was one example were, even if felt right to him, it's still going to be to go one step to far. I know you defended yourself against this argument by saying that you have to be better at realizing when to change than your opponent, but I'm not only speaking of playing against a player THAT much worse, but also against the slightly worse of two brilliant players; it's hard to distungish at which level you should "end up" before it gets unrealistical to go further. Generally, that point is quite early in the "levels of thinking".

You are, however, in fact right that between two perfect players, the optimal play between these players will constantly shift due to both of them adapting to every action taken by the other, and thus, the perfect play will change after every action. E.g, they will shift their frequencies constantly to find what they believe is the "optimal" frequency against the opponent at the point of the next decision.

Well, theoretically that isn't true either, just because of guys like John Nash and game theory, a "perfect" strategy that wouldn't need mixing up and/or changing of frequencies regardless of what you opponent did to try to counter it, but although we can accept that is exists, it's basically impossible for us, at this point, to understand HOW it would look like, with all factors coming into play in poker.

People have to understand that general tendencies, and the general metagame of a current level, of players are also very important to your decisions. You have to think about what a lot of other players somewhat like you have done against your one particular opponent, what the popular plays currently are etc (that is what metagame is all about), and adjust to that as well. That is why you just cannot disregard everything and believe you can find a perfect play against this opponent WITHOUT taking balancing and stuff like that into consideration; it's not just balancing against this specific player, it's balancing against ALL players that resemble him, and how they would react in this spot, and how they have reacted at players of your skill before.

I can very well agree with a bluff being bad, if the general concensus is that people like this one call too much at these levels, like TWP said. If that is the case, then bluffing is bad, and you should STILL push your aces and kings; balancing isn't an issue at that point, and it is in no way contradictory. You use their most basic mistake against them at the most primitive level of all. They call too much, you bet it all with good hands, and you NEVER bluff. As soon as they start changing, that's a whole new area, but at that point, their arent as fundamentally flawed as they were when you made your initial decision, and at this point, the metagame has surely changed as well.

A lot of guys made some good points here, for example, punters observations wasn't bad all, just a bit oversimplified/non-realistic in some ways, but they are still definately pertinent to the situation/problem at hand, and I recommend that people read them. I am in no way perfect and might very well be wrong regarding a lot of things here. The only person I felt did not contribute at all is "FeltBelt", who also happens to be the sole reason I'm even writing all of this.

A guy coming in with 50 posts feeling like he knows all there is to know about poker after reading about potodds, feeling that everyone else is just stupid and doesn't understand [censored] and definately makes this known to all of "lost souls" who needs enlightenment is just sad. There is a reason most people who starts to post have been lurking for a while. They simply KNOW that a lot of guys knows more than they do, and accordingly, they read up before the go about acting like Mr KnowItAll and just makes fools out of themselves.

I am in no way near the best poster at this forum, and there are probably a lot of concepts the best guys here would never wan't to explain on an open board, things I probably have no idea of, at least not yet. I'm just trying to actually contribute with what I can, and when I get that kind of [censored] from people that are so clearly clueless to anyone but themselves, I just feel like giving up posting altogether.

Now, I'm done with this thread, and this text might very well be FULL of irregularities, faults and non-logical deductions, but frankly, I dont care. Do what you will with it, I haven't corrected it and I don't intend to. I am, as I've stated before, not native american/english, and english has never been my first language, hence a lot of what I wrote will most likely be misinterpreted just because of my limited knowledge of the english language.

Heh, kind of ironic; I started out saying "..and have no intention of saying much more". I guess I was wrong. Now, however, I am done.

That is all.

punter11235 · #68 07-19-2006, 09:13 PM

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I don't know why so many people on this forum have to start insulting others in their posts.

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I am sorry bud I have bad day and I am **** up. Sorry again.

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So now you are metagaming their metagame. I suppose, they will then metagamge your metagamed metagamed, which you will then in turn metagame back. I'm not psychic

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No no. There is only one level you assess how they will play and they will. The better person win.

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don't follow. Of course you put pressure on them by moving all in with a bluff

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No you dont because it doesnt matter what they do. You only put pressure on them if you bluff too much or to little. They have to guess what you are doing and if they are wrong they lose. Of course they can *try* to use optimal strategy but they wont because its too difficult in practice. They will reason something like "hey he doesnt bluff in an hour but he went allin and didnt show last time.. hmm what to do about it?" If you use optimal bluffing frequency they will be no pressure because they cant go wrong.

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Again, if you can get into the mind of these people that well, and know for certain that they are thinking that way, then my hat goes off to you. You are above the game if you can really metagame that well.

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I dont follow your multilevel metagame stuff. You just simple evaluate your opponent and his state of mind. If the conclusion is "he will fold p% of the time if I bet 100" and "he will fold q% of the time if I bet 500" you just choose the better option. If you think about why do you want to bet always the pot for example the answer is probably "because I dont want him to know if its bluff or value bet" but you dont gain anything if he "doesnt know" you only gain if he "knows" wrong. You can go allin now as a bluff got called and then next time go allin and hope that he will call again isnt that the very same thing as your "multistep metagaming" ? Ddecent opponent will realize that you dont always bluff if you bluffed just once and you dont gain anything by being able to go allin with the nuts next time. You only gain if your opponent is naive enough to think you always do the same.

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you are probably better at metagaming at such deep levels

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Nope. I suck bad at it. I just understand some basic theory points which are not too important to practical play anyway. Many great players dont understand basic game theory things but they are so good at actually evaluating their opponents that they crush the game. Its because understanding of game theory is relatively unimportant in today poker. Try to read analysis of the hands by some great players like Green Plastic and Samoleus for example. They dont think "I have to go allin now so I can go allin in the future with the nuts" they think as this : "I think he will call now because I am doing it second time in a row and he is upset" or "he thinks I will go allin now as last time I checked behind so I will checked behind again and fool him". This is how you win not by some abstract optimal strategy.

maddog2030 · #69 07-19-2006, 10:34 PM

MDMA,

Amazing post that details some things that are rarely (if ever) spelled out explicitly and took me some time to realize throughout my poker career. Understanding that post is crucial to playing high stakes poker profitably.

ahnuld · #70 07-19-2006, 11:07 PM

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MDMA is right, feltbelt you are retarded, and mdma, only like 1/3 of the posters in midstakes understand poker.

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Ahnuld,

The problem is that many of us midstakes players understand the game well enough to beat the stakes we are playing, but probably not well enough to beat the higher limit games. So, if I am missing something in my posts, please help me understand. For the record, I agree with MDMA, but my reasoning for agreeing with him might be off. If it is, please help me know where I am wrong in my thinking.

I for one am constantly trying to improve my game, and I appreciate the advice that players like you and MDMA have to offer.

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eh sorry for sounding like a dick. I was exagrating cuase the other guy was being ridiculous. Most posters here are good and beat the game, which puts them ahead of 90% of the player base. Playing too many tables now, but I can go through this tread properly and explain things after.