My Thoughts on Poker (long but good)

[Eagles]

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eagles,

stats and history with villain are v important here imo.

also....do you always call pf there?

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K I'll expand a bit

1. I'm basically readless like I've been at the table for like 10 hands. I have like 100 hands on villain where we was like 18/12 or something but nothing that specific.

I think regardless I like betting this flop. I mean c/r is pretty bad IMO because if he shoves you can't call and you let yourself get blown off a strongish draw and betting is definetely better than c/c because it gives you the initiative and you have FE. I will float when people donk out of the blinds a lot but this is a pretty awful flop to float because it's so drawy.

Ya I pretty much always call pf here. There are a lot of people in MSNL and SSNL who are like fold PF or 3bet you don't want to play OOP. Well I disagree I have kjs it's too strong to fold here it's ahead of the buttons raising range. I'll 3bet sometimes which is fine but if you can play decently oop why would you fold?

Obviously I'd rather be in position than OOP but that doesn't mean you shouldn't play pots OOP especially if you have a decent OOP game.

[billxo1b]

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So I bet and he called.


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what would you do if the turn is a brick? C/F, C/C, C/R(allin), B/C, B/F, B/R(allin)?

If you bet and get called on the turn, river is another brick, C/F? B/F?

and, on the flop, if you bet and get raised, call or reraise/allin?

[Eagles]

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So I bet and he called.


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what would you do if the turn is a brick? C/F, C/C, C/R(allin), B/C, B/F, B/R(allin)?

If you bet and get called on the turn, river is another brick, C/F? B/F?

and, on the flop, if you bet and get raised, call or reraise/allin?

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If he raises the flop I probably call.... With history I'd shove here but I mean readless he's not bluff raising such a drawy board.

Betting has the same problem as c/r the flop. I can't call if he shoves and if if it's a blank he shouldn't really be folding anything he called the flop with. So I check and wait to see if he bets. I might crai or call depending on how big his bet is I doubt I fold unless he makes a huge bet so I feel I have no fe and I'm not getting proper odds.

[Eagles]

I figured I haven't bumped this in a while but I have seen a lot of strategy stuff lately that's really bothered me so I figured I'd post it about it here.

For example I see things in strat threads where someone says your hand is really underrepresented so I call. Often this is irrelevant though. It only becomes relevant if he begins to value bet worse hands. Just because your hand is stronger than it appears does not mean you should call because if villain is vbetting almost always better hands it doesn't matter that your hand is underrepresented.

Another stupid thing I see a lot is people talking about certain plays being exploitable but it only matters if someone is exploiting you. Frequently 2p2ers post "folding here is so exploitable." But it only matters if you are being exploited. If someone starts exploiting your plays than you should adjust so you can play better vs him. But you should never make bad plays in order to avoid being exploited. I'll give an example of a hand I played the other day.

3/6NL $600 Deep

Folded to me in the CO I raise t21 with Q8s BB calls. The flop is Q89r

BB bets 36 I call.

Sometimes I raise here but I felt he would fold a lot and if I waited until the turn I could get more value.

Turn K

He bets 84 I call.

I was going to raise the turn but this is a bad card it makes my hand a lot weaker because hands like KQ and K9 are ahead and it makes it difficult for him to put in a lot of money with something like AQ/QJ/QT.

River 5

He bets 180 I call.

Now this is a bad river call. I am almost always behind basically the only hand I'm beating is a complete bluff or maybe something like KJ. Now on the river Q8 is basically the best hand I ever get to the river with without raising. In theory folding this river is "exploitable" because if I fold the best hand in my range on the river than he can profitably bluff here with 100% because I will almost always fold. That said I should still fold the river here because villain is not exploiting me. He is far more likely to have value bets than 3 barrel bluffs here so I should fold. In order to be good here villain would need to either be betting a very wide range of complete air on the flop or be betting something like 9T as a bluff.

Going back to my first point even though my hand is "underrepresented" I don't think villain will vbet worse hands here. The only worse hands I think he can vbet here are maybe KJ KT or AQ but that would be very thin and is a very small portion of his range so it doesn't matter that my hand is underrepresented.

A lot of 2p2ers are far too concerned with playing "unexploitably" instead of playing to make money or they think they are the same thing when it could not be further from the truth.

Another thing that bothers me when people say I would call x% raise y% and fold z%. I am not suggesting you do the same thing every time but you should have a reason for it. A lot of times these numbers are just arbitrary and I certainly will not do the same thing every time with KQ on a JT9 board every time but you must vary depending on table dynamics, the villain you are against, pot size, stacks, position, timing and a whole host of other things but just saying bet x% check y% without a reason is stupid and doesn't help anyone.

I think I'm done with this but I might add some stuff later. Feel free to ask any questions/ make criticisms.

[blackize]

Nice post. I especially love this and have always thought the same thing:

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Another thing that bothers me when people say I would call x% raise y% and fold z%. I am not suggesting you do the same thing every time but you should have a reason for it. A lot of times these numbers are just arbitrary and I certainly will not do the same thing every time with KQ on a JT9 board every time but you must vary depending on table dynamics, the villain you are against, pot size, stacks, position, timing and a whole host of other things but just saying bet x% check y% without a reason is stupid and doesn't help anyone.

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[Hand_Crasher]

Wow, great post!!
Thanks for the words, I often find myself playing like a robot and not thinking at all. I hope now I start to think a little more before each decision.

[checkmate36]

Thanks Eagles for taking the time to make this post. I agree with the other posters who said its a great post. I have much respect for your posts and know I can take the info you put out to the bank.

Here are a few parts that hit home for me...

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I know personally I cannot play cash for much longer than an hour before my mind starts to wander or I check my account to see how much I’m up or down and at this point I almost always quit all my tables.


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I have been wrestling with this since day one and Im slowly getting better.

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There is no shame in moving down or staying at a lower limit as long as you are constantly working on improving your game and expanding your comfort zone even if it is only baby steps.

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This really hit home as I have stayed at the nano NL games for what seems like a longer period than what it should have been. I was in my comfort zone and just worked through it but always kind of felt like I was failing at improving my game since I wasn't "rising through the limits" like others who play/post seem to do. Im always working on improving my game, even if its at the micro levels. Im finally starting to put things together and I'm challenging myself at, what to my game, are the higher levels. Im not going to worry anymore about it taking too long to get it going.

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Anyways I’m not sure how much of this makes sense.

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Its funny how posts like this one help tie various things together.

[Eagles]

I haven't bumped this in a while so Here I go Again (BTW Whitesnake Pwns). This will be a bit more advanced than my previous posts so I hope it generates some good discussion.

Anyways I was talking to unarmed about this hand where I folded a set. Here it is.

Poker Stars - No Limit Hold'em Cash Game - $3/$6 Blinds - 6 Players - (LegoPoker Hand History Converter)

SB: $282.60
BB: $642.00
Hero (UTG): $1,042.75
MP: $468.20
CO: $88.85
BTN: $1,737.35

Preflop: Hero is dealt 5[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 5[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] (6 Players)
<font color="red">Hero raises to $24.00</font>, 2 folds, BTN calls $24.00, SB folds, BB calls $18.00

Flop: ($75) 5[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 3[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 8[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] (3 Players)
BB checks, <font color="red">Hero bets $54.00</font>, BTN calls $54.00, BB folds

Turn: ($183) 6[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] (2 Players)
Hero checks, <font color="red">BTN bets $114.00</font>, Hero calls $114.00

River: ($411) Q[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] (2 Players)
Hero checks, <font color="red">BTN bets $300.00</font>, Hero folds

Pot Size: $711.00 ($3 Rake)

This was a good fold by me, villain will vbet worse sometimes but more often than not I'm beat so I folded. However one thing I noted is shania doesn't like this fold.

For those of you who do not know what shania is basically it is metagame. The idea behind it is if there were three scenarios.

Scenario A: you only play AA
Scenario B: You only play AA and 23o
Scenario C: You play 100% of hands

In scenario C you will make the most money with pocket aces because your range is much wider and more often you will have weaker holdings.

Anyways the reason why Shania does not like this fold is because 55 is basically the top of my range so if I'm folding here it makes villain's bluff profitable with 100% of his range. However this is completely irrelevant.

Now you might be asking why did I spend 2 paragraphs on something and than say that its irrelevant but it actually is very important.

Too often 2p2ers overemphasize Shania and stuff like that and justify suboptimal plays because of it but that is a huge mistake. The thing is poker is the goal is only to make as much money as possible. So even if you are playing an exploitable style that is not game theory optimal it does not matter. Because the goal of poker is not playing game theory correct it is to make money.

[pineapple888]

[ QUOTE ]
I haven't bumped this in a while so Here I go Again (BTW Whitesnake Pwns). This will be a bit more advanced than my previous posts so I hope it generates some good discussion.

Anyways I was talking to unarmed about this hand where I folded a set. Here it is.

Poker Stars - No Limit Hold'em Cash Game - $3/$6 Blinds - 6 Players - (LegoPoker Hand History Converter)

SB: $282.60
BB: $642.00
Hero (UTG): $1,042.75
MP: $468.20
CO: $88.85
BTN: $1,737.35

Preflop: Hero is dealt 5[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 5[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] (6 Players)
<font color="red">Hero raises to $24.00</font>, 2 folds, BTN calls $24.00, SB folds, BB calls $18.00

Flop: ($75) 5[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 3[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 8[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] (3 Players)
BB checks, <font color="red">Hero bets $54.00</font>, BTN calls $54.00, BB folds

Turn: ($183) 6[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] (2 Players)
Hero checks, <font color="red">BTN bets $114.00</font>, Hero calls $114.00

River: ($411) Q[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] (2 Players)
Hero checks, <font color="red">BTN bets $300.00</font>, Hero folds

Pot Size: $711.00 ($3 Rake)

This was a good fold by me, villain will vbet worse sometimes but more often than not I'm beat so I folded. However one thing I noted is shania doesn't like this fold.

For those of you who do not know what shania is basically it is metagame. The idea behind it is if there were three scenarios.

Scenario A: you only play AA
Scenario B: You only play AA and 23o
Scenario C: You play 100% of hands

In scenario C you will make the most money with pocket aces because your range is much wider and more often you will have weaker holdings.

Anyways the reason why Shania does not like this fold is because 55 is basically the top of my range so if I'm folding here it makes villain's bluff profitable with 100% of his range. However this is completely irrelevant.

Now you might be asking why did I spend 2 paragraphs on something and than say that its irrelevant but it actually is very important.

Too often 2p2ers overemphasize Shania and stuff like that and justify suboptimal plays because of it but that is a huge mistake. The thing is poker is the goal is only to make as much money as possible. So even if you are playing an exploitable style that is not game theory optimal it does not matter. Because the goal of poker is not playing game theory correct it is to make money.

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Reminds me of the situation where some idiot calls you without set odds, then it's obvious he has a set. You can't just go broke on principle because ZOMG he called without set odds.

[LearnedfromTV]

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Well this is how I have played a lot of cash games, 2/4 and 3/6 and I am up a lot of money in them and this is where most of my profits are coming from. However most of these profits have been lost in the following three things. HU sngs, MTTS, and PLO. Now I do not consider myself to be a bad player at any of these. MTTS I have proven over a fairly large sample I am a good player and HU sngs I have not played that many of but I have a made a lot of money in HU cash and am probably +ev in them. PLO I am just learning but I still feel like I am probably decent at the game and am a marginal winner/ break even.

Now how could I lose so much in money these games when I am probably +ev or neutral ev in all of them. The answer has nothing to do with variance but it has a lot to do with my mindset when playing them. Frequently I'll be bored and I don't feel like starting up a session so I'll just open up some of these and donk around without really much care and end up losing. Basically I'm just gambling, like a gambler who goes to the casion with hopes of beating roulette but more often than not he comes home down money.

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I don't do this much but:

QFT

I can't count the number of bad or mediocre sessions I've had after I thought I was done, got bored, and said wtf I'll just play some ____________. It's usually either sit and goes where I try too hard to get chips early, or something like triple draw or stud 8 where I play one or two tables and play wayyy too many hands.