The Well: Dazarath

[Dazarath]

There was a request for a well, so here it is.

[ QUOTE ]
A stranger is being shown around a village that he has just become part of. He is shown a well and his guide says "On any day except Wednesday, you can shout any question down that well and you'll be told the answer" .

The man seems pretty impressed, and so he shouts down: Why not on Wednesday? and the voice from in the well shouts back: Because on Wednesday, it’s your day in the well .

Well this is my Wednesday in The Well which will consist of Wednesday and Thursday of this week.

You may ask me any question about whatever you like. I will answer to the best of my abilities if I choose to answer your question.

[/ QUOTE ]

For those of you who don't know what this is, you just ask questions, and I'll try to answer them to the best of my ability. They can be poker questions, semi-poker questions, random questions that are completely irrelevant to anything, etc.

[Allday Everyday]

What an excellent idea. Thanks a lot for doing this.

Here are some questions I can think of:

(1) How long have you been playing poker?
(2) What poker games do you play besides hold 'em?
(3) What limits do you currently play?
(4) How long did you spend (how many hands did you play) at each limit before going up a limit?
(5) What are the biggest BB downswings you have had at each limit?
(6) How often do you play your 'A' game?
(7) What do you think are the five best poker books on the market?
(8) Who is your favourite famous poker player?
(9) Who do you think is the most physically attractive famous person in the world?
(10) If you could be any other person in the world, who would it be?

I hope 10 isn't too many questions. Thankyou for your time.

[BenA]

In your opinion, is it possible to value raise and semi-bluff raise at the same time? For instance, there seems to be a general misunderstanding about WHY you raise a flush draw on the flop. Sklanky, Miller, Malmuth, and Feeney say that its essentially for 3 reasons 1) value 2) semi-bluff 3) free card. The thing is, they are talking about lots of different situations against different numbers of opponents at different stakes with different types.

This is actually a poker theory question. Do you actually get to add your pot equity + your fold equity to a good flop raise? I personally am confused about the math here, and whether or not the two concepts overlap quite a bit in your overall EV, or just a little? The reason I ask is that situations often don't seem favorable to both 'values.' If its really multiway and loose, its primarily value, if HU or 3-way, its a good semi-bluff... but are these things mutually exclusive? In other words, do you get to add the fold equity of winning a pot whether you would or would not have drawn out... to your odds of drawing out (minus the times you would have but won the pot before that happened)?

Thanks in advance.

P.S. The reason I ask is that its common to hear "you could win the pot right there, get a free card later, or when you hit your hand, the pot will be a lot bigger." Makes perfect sense, but you can't have all those values at once, but you must be able to combine them into a bigger value at least over your implied odds. Sigh... poker idiot needs help getting this. I guess that's what makes a good poker play really profitable. The ABC pot odds version doesn't cut it, but how much extra value IS there in these multi-reason raises?

PPS. Just to complicate the issue, it just occured to me that a pure bluff on the river against the right opponent in the right spot has value even when your pot equity is exactly squat (zero friggin percent). But if there was even a tiny chance you could win IF HE CALLED, how much do the two value possibilities subtract from eachother (in other words, your fold equity and tiny pot equity).

[Dazarath]

First customer, awesome!

[ QUOTE ]
(1) How long have you been playing poker?

[/ QUOTE ]
I started out playing small tournaments with friends when I was in the dorms. That was maybe 2.5 years ago or so. I started playing semi-seriously (for income) about 1.5 years ago.

[ QUOTE ]
(2) What poker games do you play besides hold 'em?

[/ QUOTE ]
None. I think it'd be kind of fun to learn other games, but I figure that, in terms of $$ EV, I'd be better off just focusing on hold'em.

[ QUOTE ]
(3) What limits do you currently play?

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I consider my main game to be 30/60 full. I occasionally play a little higher or a little lower, depending on the games at that point in time. This summer, though, I started trying out some NL, and I'm currently playing 2/4 NL 6-max.

[ QUOTE ]
(4) How long did you spend (how many hands did you play) at each limit before going up a limit?

[/ QUOTE ]
I don't have my old databases anymore. I lost them. But I think I played at least 30k hands of 2/4 and 5/10 and somewhere between 10-30k hands of 3/6. I spent a lot of time at 15/30 before all the new tables were opened up at Party.

[ QUOTE ]
(5) What are the biggest BB downswings you have had at each limit?

[/ QUOTE ]
From my graphs, this is what it looks like:
- 15/30: 170 BBs
- 20/40: 160 BBs
- 30/60: 200 BBs
These are peak to valley measurements.

[ QUOTE ]
(6) How often do you play your 'A' game?

[/ QUOTE ]
Not as often as I should. It still amazes me how some of the high stakes 2+2ers claim to only make a couple mistakes per week (or insert some amount of time here). It's hard for me to keep up my best A game always. This isn't to say my game falls to crap after 30 minutes of playing. But after every session, I can usually think of a few mistakes I made.

[ QUOTE ]
(7) What do you think are the five best poker books on the market?

[/ QUOTE ]
I don't think I've even read enough that I could list five good ones. My opinion is probably pretty biased, since I'm a 2+2er, and I tend to read a lot of 2+2 books, but here goes.

I thought Small Stakes Hold'em was a very good limit book. It may not be the most beginner of beginner books, but assuming the reader has some basic understanding of the game, it should really help build one's fundamental strategy.

I enjoyed Hold'em for Advanced Players, but I agree with most 2+2ers that it's too weak/tight of a book, especially for today's online games. The assumption that your opponents are thinking just isn't true a lot of the time. Some of the concepts in the book are useful, though. So I think it's a good read, but it shouldn't be treated as the bible, especially for SS LHE.

I liked Theory of Poker a lot too. I like to discuss poker in a theoretical way, so this book fits perfectly with that. A little side note. As much as I like discussing poker theory, I don't think it's everything. Hand reading is much more important. I think the NL book says something to the effect of, a player who's a good hand reader will beat a player who understands all of the theory, but can't read hands. I sometimes see people on the forums get too much into the theory aspect of the game, and I wonder if they actually ever play and try to practice what they learned, if they just prefer to discuss it all day.

There's other books I've read that I enjoyed, too.

[ QUOTE ]
(8) Who is your favourite famous poker player?

[/ QUOTE ]
I don't really keep up to date with all the poker happenings, nor do I know that many of the big name pros, but I'd have to say probably Phil Ivey with Barry Greenstein coming in second. I have a lot of respect for level-headed people who have a good attitude about things, or in this case, poker. I've seen some quotes from those players, and I like the way they view the game.

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(9) Who do you think is the most physically attractive famous person in the world?

[/ QUOTE ]
Damn, this is a hard one. I'm thinking maybe Carmen Electra. Though, I think she just looks really good when photoshopped and whatnot, as I've seen her (not in person, obviously) without all the makeup and stuff and she's not quite as amazing. Or.. maybe one of those K-pop stars that I don't know the name of, haha.

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(10) If you could be any other person in the world, who would it be?

[/ QUOTE ]
Probably Bill Gates, with Warren Buffett coming in second. I have a lot of respect for people who are business savvy, or have an ability to make money. I know a lot of people hate Microsoft, yadda yadda yadda, but I wouldn't say that Bill Gates lucked his way into being the richest man in the world.

[Dazarath]

[ QUOTE ]
In your opinion, is it possible to value raise and semi-bluff raise at the same time? For instance, there seems to be a general misunderstanding about WHY you raise a flush draw on the flop. Sklanky, Miller, Malmuth, and Feeney say that its essentially for 3 reasons 1) value 2) semi-bluff 3) free card. The thing is, they are talking about lots of different situations against different numbers of opponents at different stakes with different types.

[/ QUOTE ]
In my personal opinion, I'd say no. I've always thought of a value bet as a bet where you expect to get called by a worse hand more times than you expect to get called by a better hand. And I think of a semi-bluff as a bet where you think that the opponent will fold part of the time, but you still have a decent number of outs if he doesn't. This is just a simplistic view.

I think that value betting entails you thinking that you have the best hand a lot of the time, whereas semi-bluffing entails you thinking that you're drawing.

I guess you could actually think of some situation like, you have AKs on some JTx board with a flush draw or something, where you actually have a decent chance of having the best hand, but you've also got a billion outs if you're behind. In this case, you don't really know if you're ahead or not, but I think if you were to assign an exact range to your opponent's holding, you would be able to categorize it as one or the other.

It all comes down to how you define a semi-bluff raise. In the end, it's not really the categorization that matters. You just need to know the purpose of your raise, and whether or not it will achieve that purpose. I hope this answered your question.

[ QUOTE ]
This is actually a poker theory question. Do you actually get to add your pot equity + your fold equity to a good flop raise? I personally am confused about the math here, and whether or not the two concepts overlap quite a bit in your overall EV, or just a little? The reason I ask is that situations often don't seem favorable to both 'values.' If its really multiway and loose, its primarily value, if HU or 3-way, its a good semi-bluff... but are these things mutually exclusive? In other words, do you get to add the fold equity of winning a pot whether you would or would not have drawn out... to your odds of drawing out (minus the times you would have but won the pot before that happened)?

[/ QUOTE ]
You don't get to arithmetically add the two equities, but they do stack. For example, if you have 50% fold equity and 50% pot equity, you're not winning 100% of the time, but you're definitely winning more than 50% of the pot on average.

Let's take the above scenario. Let's say you make a bet and your fold equity is 50%, and your pot equity is 50% when called. When you bet, half the time you immediately win the pot because your opponent folds, so you can think of it as immediately winning half the pot, if that suits you. The other half of the time, when you are called, you win half the pot anyways, because of your pot equity. So on average, you're winning 3/4 of the pot. I ignored the bet itself, but I was just trying to explain the idea.

It's true that when the pot is 5-way, you almost never have any fold equity, so all your bets should be for value. But when it's 2-3 way, bets can be for either or. A flush draw isn't going to be betting for value against a calling station, but a good pair would be.

I hope I was able to answer your question. Let me know if I misunderstood it, or if you need any clarification.

[ QUOTE ]
Thanks in advance.

[/ QUOTE ]
No problem. That's what the well is for. Let me know if you have any other questions.

[ QUOTE ]
P.S. The reason I ask is that its common to hear "you could win the pot right there, get a free card later, or when you hit your hand, the pot will be a lot bigger." Makes perfect sense, but you can't have all those values at once, but you must be able to combine them into a bigger value at least over your implied odds. Sigh... poker idiot needs help getting this. I guess that's what makes a good poker play really profitable. The ABC pot odds version doesn't cut it, but how much extra value IS there in these multi-reason raises?

[/ QUOTE ]
That quote sounds good when people say it, but there's one mistake I see with it. If we assume that we have some type of draw with less than 50% equity, maybe a flush draw or something, and we're heads up, what we want is the fold equity and the free card. We would like (though it's not possible) is to not have to put in that extra bet. I mean, sure, it sounds cool to say we're winning a bigger pot, but we're losing money on the bet we have to put in. We have to put in a bet, and we win around 1/3 of our bet plus our opponent's bet (on average), so we're losing 1/3 of the bet we put in.

[ QUOTE ]
PPS. Just to complicate the issue, it just occured to me that a pure bluff on the river against the right opponent in the right spot has value even when your pot equity is exactly squat (zero friggin percent). But if there was even a tiny chance you could win IF HE CALLED, how much do the two value possibilities subtract from eachother (in other words, your fold equity and tiny pot equity).

[/ QUOTE ]
A pure bluff has value as long as you have enough fold equity, yes. Assuming you have some chance of winning when called, then out of the "remaining" pot (that which is left after you've accounted for your fold equity), a portion of that is yours as well.

[Ron Burgundy]

Why did you start playing NL? Do you think there's more money to be made (for a player of equal skill at limit and NL), or just for something different?

You mentioned that you think you make more mistakes than most 2+2ers at your level. About what % of these mistakes are brought upon by tilt, by theoretical/mathematical errors, or by misclicks? I define "tilt" as any decision that was made based more on emotion than any other factor.

Do you have ambitions to be a higher stakes pro, or are you comfortable at your level?

[James.]

hey daz,

what is the biggest change you have found in playing NL vs. limit? there are quite a few interesting strategical situations that come up on all streets that counter what we learn to do as limit players and i was curious as to what you have found to be the biggest difference. pf flop play we do things differently for various reason(i.e. reraising pf to protect a stack postflop, etc.) and value betting on the end is more tricky. i have found it is soooo much easier to induce mistakes in NL and it is one of my favorite aspects.

[Guruman]

have you ever given or recieved coaching?

what in your opinion is the best methodology for the administration of coaching and who is the best coaching value you know of?

if you were forced to learn a non holdem game starting tomorrow, what would it be and what stakes would you strive to play for?

how far up in limit holdem do you think you'll go before deciding to quit climing and start spreading out?

assume you're learning a new form of poker (say razz). Would you learn the game quicker with a book of fundamentals and a lot of headsup play plus coaching, or a book of fundamentals and a lot of full ring play plus posting?

[Guruman]

a couple more:

what kinds of boards and reads do you look at when deciding to give up while headsup and in position. Specifically, what factors could cause you to take a line that looks like this:

you raise pf, bb calls
bb checks, you bet, bb calls.
bb checks, you check.
bb bets, you fold.

I ask this because the turn and river decisions are always difficult for me, espcially when I have something that I can showdown like an A or K on a low paired board. I'm sure I still lose money by calling the river bet too much though.

----

One other generalization:

what kinds of air do you want to see when you decide to make a loose peel of a flop checkraise? I tend to peel a lot when very shorthanded if both of my hole cards are higher in rank than two of the flop cards.

for example, I'll raise pf from the button with something like J9. the bb will call and checkraise the flop.

If the flop is something like Q58 I'm more likely to peel and look at the turn than if its something like AT8 - specifically because I'm waaaay more alive when bb is checkraising middle pair on board 1 than on board 2. Drawyness of the flop also influences my decision, but probably in the opposite direction of where it needs to go.

-------

can you give any examples of times where you've run a pure bluff into more than two people? IOW you have a hand that won't win at showdown and has no legit draw.

[Dazarath]

[ QUOTE ]
Why did you start playing NL? Do you think there's more money to be made (for a player of equal skill at limit and NL), or just for something different?

[/ QUOTE ]
I think most 2+2ers agree that the best NL players make more money than the best limit players. I don't think a single limit player on Party can match loloTRICKEDu's hourly.

I started playing NL for a few reasons:
- I've been wanting to learn NL for awhile now, and since it's the summer, I have a lot of free time.
- It's nice for a change, plus, the 30/60 full isn't always juicy, so it's good to have something else to play.
- If the possible hourly rates are much higher, why not try it out?

[ QUOTE ]
You mentioned that you think you make more mistakes than most 2+2ers at your level. About what % of these mistakes are brought upon by tilt, by theoretical/mathematical errors, or by misclicks? I define "tilt" as any decision that was made based more on emotion than any other factor.

[/ QUOTE ]
I meant that I make more mistakes than the high stakes 2+2ers. I'm not sure if I really make that many more mistakes than the mid-stakes ones. I just recall seeing in a post something like (I think this was James282, or maybe Schneids), "I do make a one or two bad calldowns in a week". Considering how much a professional player plays in a week, that's a really low amount of mistakes. I think it's amazing that some people can keep the amount of mistakes they make that low. Of course, that's why they're playing 100/200+ and I'm not.

I'm bad at estimating percents for things I don't know, but I'll try. I'm thinking out of my mistakes, it'd be something like 60% tilt, 30% theoretical/mathematical errors, and 10% misclicks. But tilt can come in all forms. I haven't yet gone on full blown monkey tilt and tilted off half my bankroll or anything extreme like that. But sometimes I make a bad calldown here and there, because I'm getting played back at too much. I factored bad hand reading into the second category, because I didn't know where else it should go. Sometimes I don't stop and take enough time to think about an action.

[ QUOTE ]
Do you have ambitions to be a higher stakes pro, or are you comfortable at your level?

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I don't need to end up playing the 1000/2000 on Full Tilt someday, or anything like that, but I have been taking shots at the 50 and 100 games on Party. I don't have any plans of become a professional, though.