Bryce is \"In the Well\"
 

Alright, so I'm next up "In the Well." I'll answer your questions as candidly as possible, but I may not answer quite everything (though everything will receive some sort of an answer). The one thing off the top of my head that I will not discuss is specific edges against people I play, but other than that everything else should be fair game.

Re: Bryce is \"In the Well\"
 

first....etc.

poker story?

Re: Bryce is \"In the Well\"
 

what is your game you prfer the most as in stakes and amt of players?? Do you prefer one site over the other?? Who have you taken poker lessons from in the past?? Will you be coming out with a book or dvd's?? Thanks Bryce

Re: Bryce is \"In the Well\"
 

1) Do you feel that you are approaching a place in the limit game where one could be described as virtually unexploitable?

2) I imagine you feel as though your intellectual approach to limit poker is the optimal one, however are there ways of thinking about/playing the game that you have not taken the time, or at least enough time, to explore?

Re: Bryce is \"In the Well\"
 

What adjustments do you make preflop (HU) vs a tough player who is 3 betting out of the BB with a bit too wide a range (or do you think there is no such thing as too wide if you tailor your game around that style) - an 80/60 type guy who plays fairly well postflop.

There are a ton of HU pros who bounce between like 10/20 and 50/100 on Full Tilt. What are they doing wrong or what is exploitable in their play that is keeping them from HU superstardom. (if that's too broad I'm trying to categorize the player type who is clearly decent at HU, winning for the most part, but not quite able to be the next Freedom25 - what's holding them back?)

Thanks,
DeathDonkey

Re: Bryce is \"In the Well\"
 

Is your foray into HU NL going to have any chance of being your main game at some point, or are you going to stick with limit primarily and just make this your "project"?

Re: Bryce is \"In the Well\"
 

Hi The Bryce. Thanks for going into The Well.

What are the biggest BB downswings you have had at a couple limits? How did you feel about them?

Who do you think are the best limit hold 'em players in the world? HU and in longer versions of the game. Online and live.

What do you believe are the best poker books ever written? Which helped your game the most? Have you read Mathematics of Poker? If so, what did you think of it? Did it improve your game?

Do high stakes players take advantage of reload bonuses at the online sites? For example, do they bother with the Stars or FTP 125 dollar bonus every 5 months or whatever? If yes, and they don't appear to have received their bonus, do they bother e-mailing support to find out why?

You are hosting a poker game. You may pick the number of seats and the stakes. You can choose to invite absolutely any person ever living or deceased and they will accept. Who do you invite and what stakes will you play?

Re: Bryce is \"In the Well\"
 

What do you charge for coaching?

If you had to start over what would your bankroll plan be?

Re: Bryce is \"In the Well\"
 

What do you think has helped you improve your game the most?

Re: Bryce is \"In the Well\"
 

Did you tilt vs. schnibl0r when you played him a few days ago?

In the Classroom 108 you give us a brief glimpse into solving hands w/ PokerStove). How many different cases did you do before you had a general sense of how to approach each flop given your holding? Also, are you going to continue this particular aspect of the classroom? It seems vital in improving one's game.

Imagine you are in a game where your opponent is raising at every opportunity preflop, bet/calling every flop, calling or raising the turn, and folding the river 60% he does not have the betting lead, calling 25% of the time with a pair, and bluff-raising 15% of the time. How does this affect your PF hand range, and what postflop look like?

What factors into finding:
1) optimal re-bluffing % on a dry board (e.g. J44r)
2) whether or not to free SD on the turn

How many hands did it take for you see your edge vs. a player in your:
1) 5/10 to 30/60 days
2) 50/100 to 200/400 days
3) current games

Re: Bryce is \"In the Well\"
 

[ QUOTE ]
first....etc.

poker story?

[/ QUOTE ]

Uh, this would be kind of a long one to answer in full, so I'll have to give you the cliff notes version [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img] I started playing online poker in early '05 (had a roomate who dealt at a local casino and at that point a lot of MTG players were jumping over to poker) read the basic literature and got a good start on the basics through a Vancouver-based website (www.604poker.com). By late summer I was propping 5/10 LHE on prima and making a fair bit more money doing that than at my dayjob, and since I didn't care for my dayjob much (was a tedious machining job I took when I was 18 with the idea of banking money for university) I decided to drop it in favor of taking on poker full time (this was done a few months prematurely in retrospect). That sort of went on for about a year of propping on Prima, Crypto and AP, and while I was making something like 1.5BB/100 in rakeback over that period I was always frustrated that I wasn't actually producing a pokertracker winrate in these tougher games (despite having made just over 100k on the year). Towards I began to run some 20/40 (or equivalent in GPB) stuff and in the summer of '06 I decided that AP 5/10 was harder that party-poker 20/40 and pulled the majority of my funds off the propping sites and ran PP 15/30-30/60 for a few months (there was a 3 week period or so in here where I would often 5 or 6 table these games, which was a good lesson in just how expensive common, inattentive mistakes can be).

At this point "black October" jumped in with the UIGEA and PP imploded, and in the week before the legislation became effective I spent some time datamining and surfing around the other major sites. One of the things you do a lot as a prop is wait around trying to start up empty tables, and I had always played a bit of HU here and there as a result (and had enjoyed it). When I noticed that FT had heads-up cash games I thought I would give it a go, and thought it would be interesting to see what sort of money, if any, could be made by playing these games on a regular basis. I found the HU play to be much more engaging that 6handed. By the end of the year I was running 50/100 and spending at least a half hour each day watching recordings of my own play, taking notes and doing whatever I could to break things down mathematically (I had earlier come to the conclusion that the ability to get an accurate idea of what your opponent's are doing is just something you build up through experience, so the mathematics was the important stuff to focus on). The stuff between that point and now was largely much of the same: state assumptions about opponent, find best line based off assumptions, repeat.

[ QUOTE ]
what is your game you prfer the most as in stakes and amt of players?? Do you prefer one site over the other?? Who have you taken poker lessons from in the past?? Will you be coming out with a book or dvd's?? Thanks Bryce

[/ QUOTE ]

HU LHE. I just play wherever I can get action (wiring some money into Stars shortly) though I do like the FT interface and they've always been good about processing wires. I summer '06 I asked Nate tha' Great to coach me for a bit when I was playing mid-limits, he agreed and I was extremely happy with the experience. I've actually been compiling a lot of data in the powerpoint presentations I've been doing at Stoxpoker, so producing a book at some point is not out of the question, though unlikely.

[ QUOTE ]
1) Do you feel that you are approaching a place in the limit game where one could be described as virtually unexploitable?

2) I imagine you feel as though your intellectual approach to limit poker is the optimal one, however are there ways of thinking about/playing the game that you have not taken the time, or at least enough time, to explore?

[/ QUOTE ]

1) The thing with playing with perfect balance is that you don't win any money by doing it. I do spend a lot of time figuring out the balancing points for different situations, though, just so that I understand how much I have to let my opponents get away with, when I need to key up defense etc, or so that I can engage balanced EV neutral play in areas where my opponents play extremely well.

2) That's kind of a catch 22 in that if I thought there was something very important that I was not doing I probably would be doing it. That being said, there probably is something [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] When I was getting started with watching a lot of my own play and doing more pen and paper work I had a lot of surplus time to leverage, but these days I'm quite a bit busier with poker / stoxpoker / other projects and just the daily non-table poker stuff that I already do. You can always do more, but now I do have to be somewhat economical about how I use my time.

Re: Bryce is \"In the Well\"
 

[ QUOTE ]
What adjustments do you make preflop (HU) vs a tough player who is 3 betting out of the BB with a bit too wide a range (or do you think there is no such thing as too wide if you tailor your game around that style) - an 80/60 type guy who plays fairly well postflop.

There are a ton of HU pros who bounce between like 10/20 and 50/100 on Full Tilt. What are they doing wrong or what is exploitable in their play that is keeping them from HU superstardom. (if that's too broad I'm trying to categorize the player type who is clearly decent at HU, winning for the most part, but not quite able to be the next Freedom25 - what's holding them back?)

Thanks,
DeathDonkey

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, backing down and contesting less pots isn't the right answer. It's important to remember that you can really leverage your position to bump up your implied the times you do flop a hand, and it's basically impossible for your opponent to "exploit" you by 3 betting a lot unless you roll over and die. Keep an eye open for spots where you can win pots UI post-flop start capping light as a semi-bluff if you think that's an appropriate counter.

Don't have an concrete answer to your second question, since I'm not really familiar with those players. One thing that I find is pretty common with a lot of players, however, is that their ideas of how poker works basically amount to educated guessing. You can always use mathematics to find the best possible line based off what you assume your opponent will do, so if you can't draw a straight line from your assumptions to the best possible actions you're going to want to seek out those gaps in your thinking and fill them in to make sure you have accurate data.

[ QUOTE ]
Is your foray into HU NL going to have any chance of being your main game at some point, or are you going to stick with limit primarily and just make this your "project"?

[/ QUOTE ]

It's a largely academic project at this point, but I do find it quite interesting. One thing that is interesting is that after you get over that first bit of the learning curve where you have to take things like implied odds and bet-sizing into account NL is in many ways a much simpler game than limit, since there are generally far fewer actions per hand.

[ QUOTE ]
Hi The Bryce. Thanks for going into The Well.

What are the biggest BB downswings you have had at a couple limits? How did you feel about them?

Who do you think are the best limit hold 'em players in the world? HU and in longer versions of the game. Online and live.

What do you believe are the best poker books ever written? Which helped your game the most? Have you read Mathematics of Poker? If so, what did you think of it? Did it improve your game?

Do high stakes players take advantage of reload bonuses at the online sites? For example, do they bother with the Stars or FTP 125 dollar bonus every 5 months or whatever? If yes, and they don't appear to have received their bonus, do they bother e-mailing support to find out why?

You are hosting a poker game. You may pick the number of seats and the stakes. You can choose to invite absolutely any person ever living or deceased and they will accept. Who do you invite and what stakes will you play?


[/ QUOTE ]

I know when I was propping I had a downswing of something like 700BB (note that dollar-wise it would have been a pretty marginal loss) and playing HU I don't think I've ever had a swing of more than 250BB. In the case of the first one I had a pretty depreciating attitude about it, but in the case of more recent swings swinging one way or the other is kind of low-impact psychologically. Not just because the downswings are smaller, but because at this point my mathematical fundamentals are strong enough that I can more or less see where the money is going, and am just happy to get it in good / worry about the quality of my play.

Live I can't say. Online I can't say out of everyone, but out of the people who play regularly and who I have experience with I would say either Hoss or myself for HU (note that I haven't had a chance to play against TLK). For 6max I play so seldom these days that I can't really say.

I recently bought The Mathematics of Poker, but have yet to sit down and give it some attention. In terms of other poker books the issue I have with them is that they mostly focus on teaching exploitative strategy based off certain assumptions of what people are likely to do. When the game conditions change most of the advice given in them isn't all that useful, and even though they usually do include information on under what conditions you might vary your play they don't really do a very good job of teaching the student how to understand how the game actually works. These sorts of books are still necessary material for beginner and amateur players, however, since a more mathematical approach to poker would be an extremely steep learning curve to conquer at the beginning. When reading "Theory and Practice" however, I did think that David did a much better job of focusing on fundamentals and the mechanics of the game than in any other book I'd read to date.

I just settle for rakeback.

Well, I think one of the important parts of gaming is being able to decline action, so grabbing a guy off the street and having him play 3000/6000 HU isn't really something I'd be up for, but basically I'd want a HU LHE game with huge stakes and the softest opponent possible.

[ QUOTE ]
What do you charge for coaching?

If you had to start over what would your bankroll plan be?

[/ QUOTE ]

Currently I charge $600/hr and give Stoxpoker members a $500/hr discount. Note that I am currently not accepting new students due to increasing demands on my time (no PMs, please).

At micro-limits I would probably start with ring LHE and then would switch it over to HU LHE around the 2/4 level.

Re: Bryce is \"In the Well\"
 

Ive been told you like to calculate the best strategy in a lot of sitautions away from the table.

Do you find by putting in this work youve come to a lot of valuable insights that couldn't have been found any other way?

I did a calculation for an article im currently writing for the two plus two magazine. I was blown away by how long it took to do the math. The math consisted of enumerating all hand combinations for every possible turn card.. About 7 pages of work in total. The time invested didnt seem worth the result.

Is there any techinques/methods youve been using to speed up the calculation process?

Re: Bryce is \"In the Well\"
 

Limit holdem

Suppose you defend the BB agaisnt a raise from BTN. If you miss and rags fall you need to try to steal some of the time by CR? How do you decide how often you need to do this?

Re: Bryce is \"In the Well\"
 

[ QUOTE ]
Ive been told you like to calculate the best strategy in a lot of sitautions away from the table.

Do you find by putting in this work youve come to a lot of valuable insights that couldn't have been found any other way?

I did a calculation for an article im currently writing for the two plus two magazine. I was blown away by how long it took to do the math. The math consisted of enumerating all hand combinations for every possible turn card.. About 7 pages of work in total. The time invested didnt seem worth the result.

Is there any techinques/methods youve been using to speed up the calculation process?

[/ QUOTE ]

While I'm sure a lot of the stuff I've come up with isn't unique to just myself I would say I've discovered a lot of uncommon points / methods I can leverage for "solving" hands (based on what I assume my opponent is likely to do).

Sometimes the math can take a long time. One thing I've started doing a lot of, however (particularly as I fiddle more and more with HU NL) is to just input common calculations into an excel spredsheet, so that in the future I can just fill in a few fields and get the question answered in no time flat. I've also figured out a few ways to tinker with pokerstove and get it to output data types that it normally isn't used for (like weighting my opponent's range on the flop) and am currently looking at having a program written that will do a faster / more accurate job of this.

[ QUOTE ]
Limit holdem

Suppose you defend the BB agaisnt a raise from BTN. If you miss and rags fall you need to try to steal some of the time by CR? How do you decide how often you need to do this?

[/ QUOTE ]

One thing that comes up a lot in limit hold'em is that there are a lot of flops where your opponent won't have a "made" (including things like ace high) hand often enough to prevent you from showing a profit by bluffing if he just calls down. What happens, then, is that the constraint on how often you can bluff is (% make same action with "made" hand)x(opponent's price to re-bluff in relation to the pot size).

So let's say you have a 665 flop and you check-raise this with a hand that is going to showdown 30% of the time. Say on the turn your opponent's price to raise as a re-bluff is 5:2, meaning that it will need to succeed 28% (2/7) of the time to show a profit. What this basically means is that if your ratio of made hands to bluffs is 5:2 it doesn't matter whether your opponent calls or raises. If you're bluffing less he should fold, and if you're bluffing more he should raise, and if he fails to get it right it's money in your pocket. Another way to look at it is you should be bluffing the flop 9% of the time [30x(2/7)]. The more often you check-raise the flop with a made hand the more often you can bluff.

Note that all of that is about how things work in the theoretical sense, and when you're at the table it's important to tailor your play somewhat to how you expect your opponent to react, on average. It's often handy to know how these sorts of spots work, however, and to know at what point you have to start fighting back, how much "invincible" bluffing you can do, etc.

Re: Bryce is \"In the Well\"
 

What is your opinion of how well a person who is not as apparently intellectual or mathematically proficient can succeed at HU limit? Is a person of average intellect somewhat doomed to fail?

Re: Bryce is \"In the Well\"
 

Hey bryce, how many lessons does your avg student take from you and whats the highest your students or student plays now..again thanks

Re: Bryce is \"In the Well\"
 

[ QUOTE ]
What is your opinion of how well a person who is not as apparently intellectual or mathematically proficient can succeed at HU limit? Is a person of average intellect somewhat doomed to fail?

[/ QUOTE ]

Not at all. I'm not mathematician myself, and am strictly a + - / x guy when it comes to breaking the game down mathematically (no sigmas, please). Like most things with poker being able to do that sort of stuff in a quick and easy manner is a skill that you develop by using it. If people spent half as much time and energy trying to figure out how poker worked mathematically as they did worrying about what other people thought their opponent was likely to do or how well/bad they're running they would likely be very well off for it.

Also, some people who have played a ton of poker just have a freaky sense of how often certain things happen, and can combine that with a very strong sense what people are likely to do to produce a very strong game. Taking the mathematical route, however, is often quite a bit faster and much more powerful, which more or less explains a lot of the pros running around with extremely tough games that have a smattering of very weird leaks.

[ QUOTE ]
Hey bryce, how many lessons does your avg student take from you and whats the highest your students or student plays now..again thanks

[/ QUOTE ]

When I opened up for coaching for like a month I only worked with three students, all of who played in and around the mid-limits (about 10/20 to 50/100). I usually say that for any review I want a minimum hour of footage (I use recorded footage with commentary so that I can pause it and write up my points in full rather than do a live sweat session). Usually a review on an hour of video takes about 4. I also did a little bit of work with Fatal Fog a while back, but he's mostly developed his game independently of me. Who is FF is I won't say [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

Re: Bryce is \"In the Well\"
 

*grunch*

whenever i watch stox videos (which are great btw) i hear you guys talking about "having to work out the math of it" and what not, and i was just wondering what that means. like when you talk about doing stuff on excel, what exactly are you doing?

also whenever you guys say "it's close, but i think i'm going to fold" what is close? how do you figure out the right thing?

also, congrats on the awesome year LHE REPRESENT.

Re: Bryce is \"In the Well\"
 

[ QUOTE ]
whenever i watch stox videos (which are great btw) i hear you guys talking about "having to work out the math of it" and what not, and i was just wondering what that means. like when you talk about doing stuff on excel, what exactly are you doing?

also whenever you guys say "it's close, but i think i'm going to fold" what is close? how do you figure out the right thing?

[/ QUOTE ]

The excel stuff is usually just having formulas written into excel so that you don't have to spend all that much time computing them yourself. When solving a hand mathematically you can always figure out what actions have what rate of return based on what you assume people will do, and can therefor find the best line (though in some situations like big multiway pots this can sometimes be a pretty big task).

A close decision is one where the expectation between two different decisions isn't drastically different.

Re: Bryce is \"In the Well\"
 

Bryce, at what limits do think a solid HU LHE player can show a profit without the rake being too oppressive? I guess it comes down to estimating expected winrate versus effective rake paid, but do you have some ballpark numbers?

Re: Bryce is \"In the Well\"
 

[ QUOTE ]
Bryce, at what limits do think a solid HU LHE player can show a profit without the rake being too oppressive? I guess it comes down to estimating expected winrate versus effective rake paid, but do you have some ballpark numbers?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not 100% sure this is the right answer to your question, but I remember that at 5/10 rake was something like 2.2BB/100 and at 10/20 it was something like 1.2BB/100. At the lower limits it exceeds 3BB/100. Where you're going to make the most money will always depend on the players at the limits and your own skill level. If you were rolled for either and 10/20 players weren't much better than 5/10 players you'd certainly want to run the higher limit, if you could beat the 5/10 players for three times as much as the 10/20 players you might want to run that instead, etc. The important thing to note is that as you move up through the lower limits, even though you may find the action gets quite a bit tougher higher up, you do get a pretty substantial rake subsidy, so you don't need to beat 10/20 as "hard" as 5/10 to show the same winrate.

Re: Bryce is \"In the Well\"
 

Bryce,

You mentioned that you need to know opponent tendencies in order to get a good grasp of the math. Did you find that getting this information cost you money in the short-run because you were playing against tough opponents?

Re: Bryce is \"In the Well\"
 

[ QUOTE ]
Bryce,

You mentioned that you need to know opponent tendencies in order to get a good grasp of the math. Did you find that getting this information cost you money in the short-run because you were playing against tough opponents?

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't usually do this but . . . Really good question!

Re: Bryce is \"In the Well\"
 

[ QUOTE ]
Bryce,

You mentioned that you need to know opponent tendencies in order to get a good grasp of the math. Did you find that getting this information cost you money in the short-run because you were playing against tough opponents?

[/ QUOTE ]

Getting a good grasp of mathematics and finding the best line based on assumptions is something completely independently of what you assume your opponents are doing, but the thing is if your assumptions are wildly inaccurate then having the best lines based on those assumptions still won't be very valuable. The opposite is true, too, wherein if you have very accurate assumptions about what your opponents are likely to do but sub-optimal lines you'll leave a lot of money on the table.

So the math does nothing to determining what people are likely to do, but if I were to go and play a game where I could often easily find the best line based on my assumptions but my assumptions about what people would do were inaccurate due to lack of experience I wouldn't be terribly proficient at that game. For example, even if my NL game were as mathematically developed as my LHE game I still wouldn't be able to play it at as high of a level due to the lack of experience.

Re: Bryce is \"In the Well\"
 

Thank you for your reply to my queries. I must confess in my haste to post at having the good fortune of having your attention, I butchered the first question, rather than "virtually unexploitable", I should have written are you approaching "perfect poker". Although asking the question probably unnecessary, really I am convinced that you are, that it is in fact possible if one masters the math and excels at making correct assumptions to play 'perfect poker'.

I would like to ask just one more question, and will not abuse this 'well' privilege again, no worries [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]. Grasping the math consumes me, to the point that it is what I think about when I wake up and keeps me awake at night. Unfortunately I am poorly educated, and although your insights on Stoxpoker have improved my game immeasurably and given me the wherewithal to conceptualize what needs to be done, I am at a loss as to how to proceed.

For example, your 'Open Source Notebook' thread on Stoxpoker was eye opening, yet I am at a loss as to how to make the necessary calculations given the assumptions you make(let's say your not checkraising a 569 flop when having defended the big blind, per your AIM conversation with Stox). I understand your thought processes, but am clueless as to how to derive the numbers. Being uneducated, would you recommend hiring a mathematician to crunch numbers/give me the proper equations to use/become adept with Excel/ etc? Or can we at Stoxpoker expect you to further expand on your applying math in some common situations given accurate assumptions? Thank you for your time Bryce, this subject is all consuming and quite frustrating for me, I feel as though I am on the cusp of great things yet clueless as to how to take that first step.

Re: Bryce is \"In the Well\"
 

firstly (to settle an argument i had with another ap midstakes guy), what is your vpip on the button and in the big blind? clearly it varies, so let's say against an opponent who plays well preflop and mediocre postflop. just a rough figure will do.

second, have you ever negotiated a handicap for heads up matches? i have seen a few people do this; usually both sides are competent players. if you have, how do you gauge the competence of the other person or negotiate what the handicap should be set at ie: 5 bet payment for a 50 bet freezeout.

Re: Bryce is \"In the Well\"
 

I find that playing AA in EP (UTG or UTG+1) can be pretty tricky.

Let say in 100nl Full ring play that you have AA UTG and raise it 3xbb. It is possible to get 4 or more callers to see a flop. (No one 3 bet) Lets say that 2 of them called with lower pairs like 44 and 77 and the other two called with hands like KQo and JTs.

There is a decent chance that your AA is not the best hand after the flop, whatever it is. What do you think about this situation? Based on the texture of the flop, do you just go ahead and fire 3/4 pot? And if you get 3 bet by a late position player, do you shut down? (Depending upon your previous reads of the player)

I know you can raise 4x, 5x+ w/AA UTG, but that starts to telegraph your hand. Most observant players will definetly put you on QQ+ or AK.

At 100nl, a lot of players will call $3 to see a flop and hope to hit 2 pair +. You see LAG's doing this w/76s (basically any suited connector over 56), one gappers, two gappers, Ax, Ax(s), Kx(s))

I've laid down AA post flop before, and it's tough to do. You would think that having AA in EP is easy, but I'm sure it's a hand that a lot of people have been stacked quite a few times with it.

Re: Bryce is \"In the Well\"
 

[ QUOTE ]
Thank you for your reply to my queries. I must confess in my haste to post at having the good fortune of having your attention, I butchered the first question, rather than "virtually unexploitable", I should have written are you approaching "perfect poker". Although asking the question probably unnecessary, really I am convinced that you are, that it is in fact possible if one masters the math and excels at making correct assumptions to play 'perfect poker'.

I would like to ask just one more question, and will not abuse this 'well' privilege again, no worries [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]. Grasping the math consumes me, to the point that it is what I think about when I wake up and keeps me awake at night. Unfortunately I am poorly educated, and although your insights on Stoxpoker have improved my game immeasurably and given me the wherewithal to conceptualize what needs to be done, I am at a loss as to how to proceed.

For example, your 'Open Source Notebook' thread on Stoxpoker was eye opening, yet I am at a loss as to how to make the necessary calculations given the assumptions you make(let's say your not checkraising a 569 flop when having defended the big blind, per your AIM conversation with Stox). I understand your thought processes, but am clueless as to how to derive the numbers. Being uneducated, would you recommend hiring a mathematician to crunch numbers/give me the proper equations to use/become adept with Excel/ etc? Or can we at Stoxpoker expect you to further expand on your applying math in some common situations given accurate assumptions? Thank you for your time Bryce, this subject is all consuming and quite frustrating for me, I feel as though I am on the cusp of great things yet clueless as to how to take that first step.

[/ QUOTE ]

Again, with the math it's just something you need to start working with and eventually it becomes much easier to handle. One thing that I would note is that if you're unsure on how to solve a question you have mathematically that might be something you'd really want to get on a message board and ask other players about, and I've been saying for a while now that this sort of discussion would be much more valuable than the ones based in the typical "what do you think my opponent has here?" angle.

[ QUOTE ]
firstly (to settle an argument i had with another ap midstakes guy), what is your vpip on the button and in the big blind? clearly it varies, so let's say against an opponent who plays well preflop and mediocre postflop. just a rough figure will do.

second, have you ever negotiated a handicap for heads up matches? i have seen a few people do this; usually both sides are competent players. if you have, how do you gauge the competence of the other person or negotiate what the handicap should be set at ie: 5 bet payment for a 50 bet freezeout.

[/ QUOTE ]

Firstly, assuming that you mean for HU, I typically run around 90-100% of my hands in the SB, and typically defend about 90% of my hands in the BB, though occasionally more.

I've never done a handicapped match, though it has come to mind. Right now there's enough indiscriminate action running around the high stakes that I don't need to offer this sort of thing to get action.

[ QUOTE ]
I find that playing AA in EP (UTG or UTG+1) can be pretty tricky.

Let say in 100nl Full ring play that you have AA UTG and raise it 3xbb. It is possible to get 4 or more callers to see a flop. (No one 3 bet) Lets say that 2 of them called with lower pairs like 44 and 77 and the other two called with hands like KQo and JTs.

There is a decent chance that your AA is not the best hand after the flop, whatever it is. What do you think about this situation? Based on the texture of the flop, do you just go ahead and fire 3/4 pot? And if you get 3 bet by a late position player, do you shut down? (Depending upon your previous reads of the player)

I know you can raise 4x, 5x+ w/AA UTG, but that starts to telegraph your hand. Most observant players will definetly put you on QQ+ or AK.

At 100nl, a lot of players will call $3 to see a flop and hope to hit 2 pair +. You see LAG's doing this w/76s (basically any suited connector over 56), one gappers, two gappers, Ax, Ax(s), Kx(s))

I've laid down AA post flop before, and it's tough to do. You would think that having AA in EP is easy, but I'm sure it's a hand that a lot of people have been stacked quite a few times with it.


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I do play a bit of HU NL, but ring NL is certainly not my specialty. Whether or not it's correct to lay a hand down postflop will always depend on context, but if you find that a lot of people in these games are cold-calling EP raises I think you may want to consider bumping up your EP raise size.

Re: Bryce is \"In the Well\"
 

I have to queestions regarding HU limit holdem.

1. In which situations and under what circumstances do you find donking the flop after having called the preflop raise to be a good play.

2. In which situations and under what circumstances do you find checking behind on the flop after having raised preflop from the sb to be a good play.

Re: Bryce is \"In the Well\"
 

[ QUOTE ]
I have to queestions regarding HU limit holdem.

1. In which situations and under what circumstances do you find donking the flop after having called the preflop raise to be a good play.

2. In which situations and under what circumstances do you find checking behind on the flop after having raised preflop from the sb to be a good play.

[/ QUOTE ]

I kind of have to give the cliff notes version here, but:

1. When I have a made hand and leading is likely to induce action / to mess with my opponents. Note that in small pots in LHE bluffs have to succeed quite often and in a situation where a bluff succeeds 50% a check-raise is no more expensive than a lead, since the times your bluff fails you win an additional bet and the times your bluff fails you loose an additional bet. Even in situations where your bluff succeeds less often what often happens is people are much more likely to retaliate against a lead than a c/r, so a c/r ends up being the much more profitable play.

2. Checking behind is often only a good idea if you have a weak hand and are quite likely to induce action with a check, if you have a hand that you cannot bet for value (eg. JJ on a KQ2 flop) or if you cannot win the pot unimproved (eg. opponent is a maniac).

Re: Bryce is \"In the Well\"
 

yay,

my question is,

can you tell me everything you know about TexasLimitKing. he crushed the biggest limit games on ftp for a few million i think. did you ever play him? why was he so successful? did u ever talk to him outside of poker? what was so different about his style that made him such a big deal? any idea what he does now?

also - where do you see the big limit games going within the next few years? do you think they will dry up completely?

thanks

Re: Bryce is \"In the Well\"
 

[ QUOTE ]
yay,

my question is,

can you tell me everything you know about TexasLimitKing. he crushed the biggest limit games on ftp for a few million i think. did you ever play him? why was he so successful? did u ever talk to him outside of poker? what was so different about his style that made him such a big deal? any idea what he does now?

also - where do you see the big limit games going within the next few years? do you think they will dry up completely?

thanks

[/ QUOTE ]

TLK's nosebleed play preceded me by about a year, so I never had any experience playing with him.

Hard to say about where high stakes LHE goes in the future. I doubt you'll ever see much 6max action at bleeder levels. Right now we have about 5-6 players playing bleeders HU a couple days a week, so it's actually a pretty healthy environment, but obviously that's a pretty volatile field. Right now David is stimulating a lot of the high stakes action in that he's encouraging a lot of other players to come out and take shots (many of which, ironically, are weaker players than David), so if he packs it in things may slow down.

Re: Bryce is \"In the Well\"
 

1- Were you " Ifustigateyou " at Party ?

2- Why dont you play Hoss hu ?

Re: Bryce is \"In the Well\"
 

[ QUOTE ]
1- Were you " Ifustigateyou " at Party ?

2- Why dont you play Hoss hu ?

[/ QUOTE ]

1. No.
2. Well, I should maybe take a poke at him sometime here to get an idea of what he's like (I haven't played much against him). That being said, even if I turned out to be a small favorite I likely wouldn't play if the edge was very thin.

Re: Bryce is \"In the Well\"
 

The Bryce,

Just a comment. Your approach of asking for an hour-long video from your students with commentary and then your coaching sessions consisting of you watching that video and writing your comments down to send back to your student make me want to seriously reconsider coaching again. That sounds like a good way for someone to learn.

Re: Bryce is \"In the Well\"
 

Hello Bryce,

One of the top Go players in the world once remarked that if there were a "perfect" (i.e., game theoretically optimal) Go player, he would estimate that he'd need a 4-stone handicap to play against him.

My question is, if you were pitted against optimal LHE opponents (either a table full of them in full ring or just one in a HU match), what would you estimate your EV to be? In other words, how far off from an optimal player do you think your current knowledge places you?

Thanks.

Re: Bryce is \"In the Well\"
 

[ QUOTE ]
Hello Bryce,

One of the top Go players in the world once remarked that if there were a "perfect" (i.e., game theoretically optimal) Go player, he would estimate that he'd need a 4-stone handicap to play against him.

[/ QUOTE ]

I was actually having a similar discussion with a friend of mine tonight.

Bryce correct me if I am wrong here but doesn't a GT optimal line yield an EV of 0? i.e it keeps you from being exploited but also keeps you from exploiting another player?

So if the above statement is correct then wouldn't +EV play always be exploitative?

Re: Bryce is \"In the Well\"
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Hello Bryce,

One of the top Go players in the world once remarked that if there were a "perfect" (i.e., game theoretically optimal) Go player, he would estimate that he'd need a 4-stone handicap to play against him.

[/ QUOTE ]

I was actually having a similar discussion with a friend of mine tonight.

Bryce correct me if I am wrong here but doesn't a GT optimal line yield an EV of 0? i.e it keeps you from being exploited but also keeps you from exploiting another player?

So if the above statement is correct then wouldn't +EV play always be exploitative?

[/ QUOTE ]

Regarding the last statement, that's correct. "Optimal play" is sometimes used as two different terms. Some people use it to describe game theory perfect play which is EV neutral (I usually refer to this as game theory optimal, or GTO play, which can be good for shutting opponents down in areas where they are strong). Usually when I use the term optimal play I mean applying the best possible line to the most accurate assumptions possible (always a tricky point to define this, since it's a non-deductive process, so it's never 100%) yielding the highest average rate of return.

Now, to answer the first question, I'm not entirely sure. I'm familiar with what balanced play looks like in a lot of areas and can shut a lot of spots down, but my understanding of many of the larger areas is far from comprehensive. The reason it's hard to give a solid answer on this is that, since all this isn't quantified yet, there's always the potential for some stuff I don't know I don't know (as opposed to stuff I know I don't know) that could throw things way out of whack.

To give you an idea, though, I'm still learning new stuff every day.

Re: Bryce is \"In the Well\"
 

hmm i'm not sure i get the using game theory to shut a spot down thing.

Maybe you could for example explain how to use game theory to shut down an opponent that is 3 betting a lot preflop?