How to get better at poker

I feel like I've had a major-ish mental epiphany today. I've been struggling getting any sort of narrative going of late. My tilt at the downswing seemingly clouding any narrative..... leaving me staring blankly at flops and turns and sometimes having zero semblance of what the goal of poker even is.

A conversation with my GF today, not to do with poker, got me on this thought train. Essentially, she was having extreme difficulty coming up with marketing ideas for her business because she had no tangible direction from which to start. So, she'd be trying to come up with an idea of something interesting to put on her business Facebook page, and despite having tons of natural creativity her mind would return a complete blank. Having talked with a marketing expert today, she realised that the reason for the blankness was the lack of having something concrete from which ideas then arise.

So once she came up with a few starting ideas for brand image, out of that solid base came all sorts of ideas.

I realised that a very similar thing happens to me when I'm slightly on tilt. When I'm not on tilt, and I'm extremely relaxed, then a strategy 'narrative' will present itself to me. By narrative, I mean the internal voice similar to that of a video producer that tells us what buttons to press.

So the problem when I'm slightly on tilt is that this voice more or less disappears. I flat JTs on the button VS EP, the flop comes AKTddd. I have no clue what to do. And no internal voice giving me any sort of idea.

In playing the last session, I'd just been watching a Gogol's nose vid, and his play in standard spots is extremely tangible and simple. He might say something along the lines of 'we're behind our opponent's range once he bets, and we don't have good bluffing possibilities, so this is a fold'.

So, straight way there, he's insta homed in on some very simple stuff.

What's our opponent's range once he bets?
How does our range fair VS that?
If we're ahead, does it play better as a call or a raise?
If we're behind, can we bluff?
If we can't, then fold.

This stuff is very easy to remember and thus cement in your mind. Rather like knowing your own name, it will be available even when we're on a bit of tilt. I've read about this concept tons of times in MGOP 1 and 2, but this is the first time that the power of it has really dawned on me.

Someone posted a hand the other day, facing a river raise on the river we had a very good hand, but we'd bet a large size in a spot where we're either outright bluffing or have close to the nuts. I suck at these spots usually........ but when in the zone feel very confident in picking off bluffs and the like. The trouble is, I don't know why I knew, and can't repeat it unless playing A* game.

Another poster in the skype group really simplified it, and said 'he's got no incentive to bluff, because you're betting a polarised range, so it's an easy fold'.

'Betting a polarised range, so no incentive to bluff raise'

Man, that sentence, or something similar, probably went through my mind whenever I was in the zone and playing well in those spots..... but afterwards it'd be gone forever, never to be utilised again. In being able to simply and tangibly explain what seemed like such a complex and intangible spot, we basically get to 'own' this spot from now on, no matter what level of tilt or tiredness might afflict us.

So in MGOP, Jared talks about reviewing hands played in the zone, to try to reverse engineer why we were able to play hands in such a terrific way. I never really understood why, or perhaps didn't believe in it, but the above example is exactly why. It's so we add it, lock stock and barrel, to our arsenal of poker skills learned to unconscious competence.


Today I've still been on a bit of tilt, but I've picked off a couple of river bluff raises here and here. The skill to do so came to me clear as day, it was tangible, it meant that I instantly knew the right question to ask when deciding whether to call. 'Are we betting a depolarised range, and thus does he have an incentive to bluff raise?' (Granted, the K7 was tougher, but the same concept applies given that trips is far from the nuts there.)

So, what I need to do now is to continue to build up a concrete store of knowledge, especially for common spots. As well as that, when I find myself playing well and make some sick read, I need to analyse why on earth my instinct lead me to that conclusion. Only then can I take that kick of inspiration, bottle it, and use it again and again for ever more.

So I'm quite excited right now. I have a list of topics to write about, and I just know that it's going to eliminate tilt problems whilst also making me much sicker in several technical departments.

I'll give one last example before I finish.

When in the zone, I often make decent and exploitative river folds that game theory would say never to make. When on tilt, I'm still sorta aware that my gut says to fold, but without something solid to go on I often click call. Witness this morning, making a very bad call..........

Now the call isn't bad from a GTO point of view. Indeed, we need to be calling close to 50% of our range on the river, and having KQo as the bottom of our range only gets us to 33%. If we fold here, he has a profitable bluff with 42o, no blocker.

So why is it so obviously still a fold? Well, it took some thought, but I really wanted to get to the bottom of it, and the answer I came up with is that it's because we can exploit a fundamental imbalance present in 99% of regs, and that imbalance is this:

'In spots where a decent % of our bluffcatchers are strong in absolute terms, regs will bet big with the nuts and smaller as a bluff.'

So say our bluffcatching range is obviously like 3rd pairs and stuff, then regs will bet small for value. But as soon as we play a hand like the one above, checking back a scary turn, leaving top pairs and trips and overpairs as our bluffcatchers, then there's no reason at all for someone to bluff big. If they have a rando JThh there, then 1/2 pot is all that's required 'cos we have a polarised range of air, or top pair plus to call. The big bet there is just always a very good hand because in a vacuum it thinks it wants to maximise VS a bluffcatching range that isn't folding to most sizes.

This spot is actually most common when we check back a weak ace IP, call turn, then face a river bomb. In the zone, fold but just go with feeling. Not in the zone- 'game theory says call, let's call'. Sorry bro, always 2pair+, ur bluffcatching range is top pair+.

Anyway, that's where I'm at atm. If you're reading this, maybe struggling a bit at poker, please take all on this board because it's important!

bye

Bloggety blog blog

Hello........

I've been somewhat resistant to writing a technical blog for a while now. I basically felt like doing so, and trying to 'force' myself into certain ways of thinking is bad for my overall concentration, and I was instead better off just getting into as relaxed as state as possible, and then seeing what happens.

Unfortunately, what is happening at the moment is that I'm making too many bad calls, too many rando bluffs, and not seeing things purely in terms of my range. So I just need a reminder of a few basic things.

1) Getting bluffed: lately I've been calling far wider than is GTO, mainly on the strength of extremely tenuous ideas and reads that evidently don't warrant the credit I'm giving them. The odd call like this is fine, but it has become a bad habit, and this is leading to mental problems whereby I cannot justify the call to myself in any sort of fashion......... also, if I'm slightly on tilt, it means I can find any old reason to make a call.

Whereas, if I'm just applying pure game theory then there is always solid reasoning behind it and I can at least be confident that the call is 'good' and makes money. So, this will be a key goal (though I hate calling it that, I'm just going to do it) in upcoming sessions. Plenty of close river decisions just have to get filed under 'getting bluffed sometimes, but not enough to call', instead of 'he has bluffs = must call'.

2) Our range, balance, defending enough, thinking ahead: There's not been enough of all this stuff, and it feels as though I've been playing way too vacuumy in general. Bluff spots, I've been going for 100% instead of only bottom of my range, again leading to tilt issues when they don't come off. By balance, I don't mean 'do the same thing all the time' or whatever, because virtually every situation is different from any other. That's why it's so important to be considering your balanced range in each and every hand, basically developing a strategy such that we can't be beaten. That's all that matters, not being beaten! Once you can't be beaten, winning takes care of itself. So, I need to stop 'trying' to win.

3) Getting 3bet: My 'raise, face 3bet and fold OOP' is now at 38%. I think this was fine for several months when my strategy wasn't so well known, but I feel at present a couple of things are happening. One is that I'm getting 3bet a whole lot more by players IP, which is a very standard adjustment to a player flatting 3bets a lot OOP. Secondly, I'm no longer getting the credit postflop that was once due to me, so people are barrelling lighter, bluffing more, and not folding to my bluff lines. As well they shouldn't, I usually don't have anything :-)

So a gear change is needed there. I'm going to shift to a very 4bet heavy strategy. At present, my 4bet success rate is certainly higher than optimal, but I've been loathe to exploit it with extra bluffs as I've been so balance obsessed pre. At this point a current trend makes its way into my thoughts, which is that more 4bets are getting flatted. People are just aware of the good odds they get and know they don't have to realise a ton of equity post-flop.

So I'm going to start 4betting a very depolarised range. Suited broadways, some pairs, AQ and the like. Some of these will have the benefit of being decent 6bet bluff jam candidates if we're a bit deeper, but I shouldn't be doing too much of that at present as my stats are just going to look like 'lol never 4bets' for a good while. It just means I'm going to print money in the short term VS all the folds I'll be getting, and when flatted I'm going to have decent playability.

4) Checking OOP. As I've said above, I don't like to overgeneralise, but I will be checking OOP as the PFR a lot more. Again, this is somewhat of a gear change, but also has benefits of making me extremely hard to 'beat' when we're OOP. The adjustment would basically be to check back a lot and realise more equity, as well as flat more VS me as they're going to see more turns. Both these adjustments are probably lost on most regs though, and it opens up many possibilities regarding delay bomb bomb lines, and flop and turn check raises.

So man, that's a lot of stuff, and this is usually where the problem comes in- remembering it all and being unable to apply everything. It's all fairly standard stuff though, and I'll play a couple of short sessions first to bed in the new approach.

Is all, say hello on skype if you haven't for a while. Byeeee