How to win at poker, and some hands- TL:DR

So I keep winning at the moment. More than that, I can feel that I'm winning even when I'm not, if you know what I mean. So, in Feb I won $8k but could tell throughout that I was playing terribly and actually ran super hot for the entire month to claw myself up to this amount.

I'm $7.2k at the moment, which is a nice tonic considering I've got Vegas coming up and want to play the ME.

So anyway, the way I feel right now is the way I felt all the way through last year's $168k success. Somewhere along the way though, I 'forgot' how to play. As I struggled through Jan-April, I tried to recreate the feeling that I once had of predicting every move of my opponents, of knowing what hands they had, and whether they planned to fold or call.

Trying to recreate this feeling, I watched all my old videos. In them, I was super successful and I just sat there thinking wow nice call, nice bluff etc. What I didn't have is the rationale behind what I was doing.

I don't want to forget again, but if I do I need a better reminder of the way I thought through my successful times. So, in this blog post, for the benefit of future struggling Dan, I will outline 'how' I currently win at poker.

Mindset: No light headedness at all. Despite the odd variance spike, you are definitely a losing player when light headed. Don't have any distractions around you, and constantly ask yourself what you are thinking. Has your mind drifted? Then get it back on the tables, or else quit.

Tilt: Any hands where you tilt make you a worthless degenerate loser, who is frankly kidding himself that his days spent gambling on a computer are any kind of 'profession'. Have some pride in yourself, have some competiveness. If tilt is a problem for you, then play sessions with the sole aim of not tilting and grade yourself.

PF: Raise to 4x utg, utg+1. 3.5x in CO, 3x OTB, 4x SB. This will minimise the times that you are playing OOP. Open your usual 80% OTB, but UTG and UTG+1 open much much tighter. ATo is out, 86s is out.

Don't flat much except on the button, or where you can squash or where the players behind you are definitely not squeeze happy. Co with AJo to an UTG+1 18% raiser, then 3bet it! 3bet a ton of stuff on the button, you are trying to generate history and piss off the guys to your right with the anticipation that they will eventually snap. At first they're going to fold, then they'll 4bet you. At this point 3bet/5bet 77 and other pairs. Once they've seen this, keep 3betting them and they'll be forced to fold, 4bet bluffing is not an option once you've shown you can 3bet/5bet this light.

If guy to your right flats 3bets and also opens a lot, then for gods sake 3bet everything. Q9o is fine. Our plan on the flop is usually to bet around 36 into 84. When peeled, we'll follow up on the turn.

Flatting 4bets is an option. Deep, 3bet/call TT OTB to a normal size 4bet is fine. A little shallower, then we can peel all sorts of hands to small 4bets.

In terms of flatting 3bets, then 100bbs we don't want to be doing it too much. We're not flatting OOP much at all, except with PPs that you can peel on low boards and expect him to play straightforwardly. Usually we'll be 4betting those 10% 3bettors s when deep whenever you have Ax or Kx.

Don't spaz 4bet AK ip > 125bbs deep without some decent history. It's an incredibly playable hand, especially IP where you can peel low boards, raise Kx and Ax flops for value and look totally FOS, and you can keep in weaker Ax that otherwise you blow out.

Always be aware of the stack sizes when 4betting for value or 3bet/5bet jamming. The shallower that an opponent will 4bet fold obviously the better, but I guess I'm saying don't 3bet/5bet TT in the BB $40/$94/ $586. Risk reward is everything!

Constantly check the 3bet stats in different positions when making decisions when facing 3bets.

Flop: We're cbetting IP and OOP around 80%. The times we check IP are the times that the board is super wet, or the times that we have something like a GS + overcard that we don't want to give up, or 2nd pair on a very dry board, or ace hi on a dry board VS a Mr Honest. Otherwise, bet once and give up. Or, bet again when you turn some equity. Be very aware of opponent's peeling tendencies and how they perceive your range (did you open UTG or OTB).

OOP, we can give up more often on wet boards with no equity. We're still betting most of the time though.

Flop to be continued.......


River: You have more success bluffing rivers IP than OOP, given you get to see if he checks. Make random bluffs when you get represent something. In terms of calling, constantly ask this very important question. 'Does he expect me to fold here'. So for example, we flat AQ OTB. Villain bets the KQ3r flop and follows up on the 6 turn. River brings a K- a good card for us? Yes, but villain never expects us to fold here given we most likely have a K, or at worse some Q that 'wouldnt fold this card'. The 'would villain expect us to' question is the crucial one on all postflop streets, it's the question that puts us just one level ahead of them.

Would villain expect you to be able to value bet a wide range on the river including 2nd pairs? The bluff. Does villain expect you to bluff a lot? Then value bet extremely wide or don't bluff. You're currently something like 0/8 for your last 8 bluff shoves on the river. You know why? Because everyone expects you to be capable of bluff shoving.

That's it for now, hopefully that will jog my memory.

Some hands.


http://weaktight.com/2373937 - oh but dude you don't have any Kc in your range based on your flop and PF action!

http://weaktight.com/2373940 - hand is completely face up as AK, and he expects me to know this and yet I bet anyway, so there *should* be no value. I should probably have bet more to better rep a bluff.

http://weaktight.com/2373944 - bleh at this, he'd been folding to every 3bet which is why I 3bet J8s. I have 2 pair, but I honestly don't think he has AQ here. KQ, AT, AJ, JT, A8, TT, there's a ton of hands and he doesn't expect me to fold a mon avis once I call twice.

http://weaktight.com/2373949 - beat!

http://weaktight.com/2373958 = HU vs Lrd. River 3bet? I personally think so......

dan