I feel much happier in my hand to hand mindset at the moment. Originally when I looked to be more creative this was putting a strain on my mental bandwidth as I was probably over considering everything starting from preflop when I'm deciding whether to cold call/ 3bet etc. Instead now I'm just sorta autopiloting that stage until I face a 3bet or am considering a 3bet. Similarly postflop, some late position turn spots are just auto stabs OOP and don't need a ton of creative thinking.
I'm barely cbetting at all OOP, but occasionally I see a wide enough range and a villain who won't fight back enough that I just cbet and look to barrel off. Cold call and fold to cbet stats are so important and compliment each other massively. Not cbetting OOP has been a massive help in killing off those hundreds of 'one and done' size pots that add up and bleed your winrate. Not only that, but we end up making more credible bluffs with a higher success rate than if simply barrelled off.
One adjustment I made last session is to cbet more IP though. I was checking back almost as a default, and I think that's OK still in a lot of spots, but some spots on a wet board where we have overs and a weakish reg we have to just start betting, and we can have complete faith in his 100% commitment to check raising anything strong and leaving his CC range pretty terrible by the turn and river.
Another thing I need to incorporate more is to raise in 3bet pots........ so often the vacuum play is to call, but doing that makes it difficult to (cheaply) win all those wide range/ boards that hit no-one type pots where our opponent has the initiative and an uncapped range. I have been raising much more in single raised pots for value/ protection and to cap ranges and I love the control over the hand it gives.
Mentally, I am completely hopeless between the hours of like 1pm and 7pm for some reason. My brain has this fog that just stops me from thinking........ rather than fight through it, the plan for this month is just to accept it and just not play during those hours. It's possibly due to lack of water, or lack of fitness since my ankles been sprained/ broke for almost 6 months now, but whatever it is I can't play when it's there so I just need to accept that.
Saturday, 1 March 2014
Friday, 28 February 2014
Session #5 Review
Only real interesting losing hand was this:
http://weaktight.com/6523835 - guy had 90% btn range and high cbet and I'm basically just looking to exploit his likely lack of fightback-ability on the flop. He's slightlllllly on the play-happy side though and capable of floating, hence the turn cc. River, I just felt I looked exactly like Jx that wasn't folding, so even though I kinda hated folding to a 90% range, not all of which will value bet the river, his likely respect for my turn cc meant I chose a close fold.
And a winning one........
http://weaktight.com/6523846 - pretty interesting one this, and river is imo close between fold call and shove. Fold is of course completely standard, but he just doesn't really have any Kxs in his range other than KJss and KTss....... these were my thoughts in real time, but looking back at the hand now he has 22% open from that position and so in fact does have KsJx as well, so like 6 combos that can call the river. AxKs and QxKs, KsKx would all cc the turn, and it's probably this secret bit of info that he doesn't realise about his own range that enables me to make a credible shove. Call is attractive too, but felt like he might vbet random Jxs and also bet Ax rather than check and have me win the pot like 90% of the time. Flop is standard float, turn may seem light but he cbets way too much with too wide of a range, and this turn card just increased his bluffs at least as much as it improved him, and I still had the option to bluff certain rivers.
http://weaktight.com/6523835 - guy had 90% btn range and high cbet and I'm basically just looking to exploit his likely lack of fightback-ability on the flop. He's slightlllllly on the play-happy side though and capable of floating, hence the turn cc. River, I just felt I looked exactly like Jx that wasn't folding, so even though I kinda hated folding to a 90% range, not all of which will value bet the river, his likely respect for my turn cc meant I chose a close fold.
And a winning one........
http://weaktight.com/6523846 - pretty interesting one this, and river is imo close between fold call and shove. Fold is of course completely standard, but he just doesn't really have any Kxs in his range other than KJss and KTss....... these were my thoughts in real time, but looking back at the hand now he has 22% open from that position and so in fact does have KsJx as well, so like 6 combos that can call the river. AxKs and QxKs, KsKx would all cc the turn, and it's probably this secret bit of info that he doesn't realise about his own range that enables me to make a credible shove. Call is attractive too, but felt like he might vbet random Jxs and also bet Ax rather than check and have me win the pot like 90% of the time. Flop is standard float, turn may seem light but he cbets way too much with too wide of a range, and this turn card just increased his bluffs at least as much as it improved him, and I still had the option to bluff certain rivers.
Thursday, 27 February 2014
Session #3 Review
Happy again with how it turned out, and I'm finding poker interesting again which always helps.
http://weaktight.com/6519801 - a non standard turn shove, but I think it's a million times better than cc for a few reasons. We're going broke to AT etc anyway on a blank, he isn't bluffing blanks (which might make river on a blank theory fold but still we're going to call expecting to see AQ sometimes) and cc just alows him to bink his draws, check back his weaker ace x that felt obliged to bet because of the need to be balanced or whatever.
http://weaktight.com/6519808 - again just remembering to handread here rather than be slave to a random 'rule'. Checked back flop as my default at the moment as I discussed in an earlier blog. Turn, not thrilled but he's not betting Tx and he picked up several draws. River is really close, as people don't *usually* bluff into a perceived range of top pairs and trips. Most just aren't capable- they want a really really high success % on their bluffs. This guy is capable though, and doesn't rep anything at all on the river because even though he might bluff he'd also just check Ax to my perceived Tx and bluffcatch it.
http://weaktight.com/6519822 - same villain, couldn't find a fold given the absolute strength of my hand relative to my range. Preflop, I'm currently flatting premiums when the first card is black, and 3betting the red ones. Might seem retarded to some but I'm happy with the randomisation it gives me.
http://weaktight.com/6519801 - a non standard turn shove, but I think it's a million times better than cc for a few reasons. We're going broke to AT etc anyway on a blank, he isn't bluffing blanks (which might make river on a blank theory fold but still we're going to call expecting to see AQ sometimes) and cc just alows him to bink his draws, check back his weaker ace x that felt obliged to bet because of the need to be balanced or whatever.
http://weaktight.com/6519808 - again just remembering to handread here rather than be slave to a random 'rule'. Checked back flop as my default at the moment as I discussed in an earlier blog. Turn, not thrilled but he's not betting Tx and he picked up several draws. River is really close, as people don't *usually* bluff into a perceived range of top pairs and trips. Most just aren't capable- they want a really really high success % on their bluffs. This guy is capable though, and doesn't rep anything at all on the river because even though he might bluff he'd also just check Ax to my perceived Tx and bluffcatch it.
http://weaktight.com/6519822 - same villain, couldn't find a fold given the absolute strength of my hand relative to my range. Preflop, I'm currently flatting premiums when the first card is black, and 3betting the red ones. Might seem retarded to some but I'm happy with the randomisation it gives me.
Wednesday, 26 February 2014
Session #2 Review
I was playing well and enjoying that session, then a couple of tilting hands meant that I should probably take a break and come write this blog. Probably a decent habit to get into. I wish I'd kept my tables up though as I was deep on all and I can do so much more stuff.
http://weaktight.com/6518663 - first tilting hand, I think because my instinct was saying call the river but that just goes against all the evidence and everything I know about random fishes. If I had AKhh then it would've meant half the combos of A5s and so maybe I'd have called. Flop might seem like a 'wtf dude it's a fish just bet', but his range is wide and I feel I do better having him bluff or improve. Back in the day fish were different and it was like just go bet bet bet and they might cr bluff and spaz anyway, but yeh feel it's an ok played hand, with the caveat that if I were truly trusting my instinct I would've called river... but then it's probably a good fold anyway.
http://weaktight.com/6518673 - happy with this, if only because I didn't a) just autocbet the flop (dude it's standard wtf) and that I also didn't just rando jam or check the river, both of which allow him to play pretty well.
http://weaktight.com/6518679 - this was the 2nd tilting hand. Man it's probably just a fold but he was a total rando fish with wide stats. 43cc one time!
Not cbetting seems to be going well, just opens up so many more creative options for me. Back to it!
http://weaktight.com/6518663 - first tilting hand, I think because my instinct was saying call the river but that just goes against all the evidence and everything I know about random fishes. If I had AKhh then it would've meant half the combos of A5s and so maybe I'd have called. Flop might seem like a 'wtf dude it's a fish just bet', but his range is wide and I feel I do better having him bluff or improve. Back in the day fish were different and it was like just go bet bet bet and they might cr bluff and spaz anyway, but yeh feel it's an ok played hand, with the caveat that if I were truly trusting my instinct I would've called river... but then it's probably a good fold anyway.
http://weaktight.com/6518673 - happy with this, if only because I didn't a) just autocbet the flop (dude it's standard wtf) and that I also didn't just rando jam or check the river, both of which allow him to play pretty well.
http://weaktight.com/6518679 - this was the 2nd tilting hand. Man it's probably just a fold but he was a total rando fish with wide stats. 43cc one time!
Not cbetting seems to be going well, just opens up so many more creative options for me. Back to it!
Session #1 Review
Very pleased with that session, I felt like looking for creative options everywhere really opened my mind and got it out of 'grind mode'. I had a few decent coolers totalling 2 BIs, and didn't win a whole BI myself in any pot but still finished 0.5 a BI up.
http://weaktight.com/6517912- I probably would've folded this river this morning to be honest, because it went against some of my 'rules', basically the ones pointing me towards no needless spew. The thing about rules is that they can take you out of thinking, but here I was able to realise how wide his turn stabbing range is, how the 3flush river increases his bluffing frequency way more than it makes him a flush, and the in-congruency of his turn stab and his river overbet. Preflop is one of those things to change up my ranges a bit, and I'd probably have AK close to 100% here had I not decided to stop being so predictable.
http://weaktight.com/6517938- preflop I really like squeezing at the moment, PSR is often difficult for anyone to do anything about it, and picking the right spots can generate a much higher success % frequency. Flop and turn again were just about a little thinking rather than blanket 'zomg reverse equity', guy was a semi fish and had wideish stats in this spot, was 3betting a decent amount so didn't have AK, wouldn't play KJ like this, we block KQ, yada.
http://weaktight.com/6517944- couldn't quite get away from this. I know the guy from a skype group and I hated it when he shoved, but then it is quite an attractive spot to jam a flushdraw given guy in the middle stabbing a ton, I have QQ a lot, etc.
http://weaktight.com/6517950- proud of this one! Passive fish and the timing and sizing just had my instinct screaming AA. Probably can't describe just how certain I was, and resisted the urge to play on anyway and 'see'.
http://weaktight.com/6517958- unsure on this one. The guy is a decent 1-2 reg, and therefore the best bluffs VS such guys are those where the villain has an uncapped range and it's therefore perceived suicidal to be bluffing them. The ace river in his shoes I would've snapped off with Kx, simply because of what it does to my bluffing frequency (up) while keeping my value range steady. Again though, he's thinking that he has AK, 9x, therefore I can't be bluffing.
http://weaktight.com/6517971- creatively played hand where again on the river I get snapped off by Ad sometimes, but I have zero perceived bluffs in my range and it's a good spot. Flop is a raise, just because I think call loses money and it keeps my options open.
So yeah, decently happy with how it turned out. The hard part may be keeping this mindset up, but so long as I keep thinking and looking for creative options I should be able to get into good habits.
http://weaktight.com/6517912- I probably would've folded this river this morning to be honest, because it went against some of my 'rules', basically the ones pointing me towards no needless spew. The thing about rules is that they can take you out of thinking, but here I was able to realise how wide his turn stabbing range is, how the 3flush river increases his bluffing frequency way more than it makes him a flush, and the in-congruency of his turn stab and his river overbet. Preflop is one of those things to change up my ranges a bit, and I'd probably have AK close to 100% here had I not decided to stop being so predictable.
http://weaktight.com/6517938- preflop I really like squeezing at the moment, PSR is often difficult for anyone to do anything about it, and picking the right spots can generate a much higher success % frequency. Flop and turn again were just about a little thinking rather than blanket 'zomg reverse equity', guy was a semi fish and had wideish stats in this spot, was 3betting a decent amount so didn't have AK, wouldn't play KJ like this, we block KQ, yada.
http://weaktight.com/6517944- couldn't quite get away from this. I know the guy from a skype group and I hated it when he shoved, but then it is quite an attractive spot to jam a flushdraw given guy in the middle stabbing a ton, I have QQ a lot, etc.
http://weaktight.com/6517950- proud of this one! Passive fish and the timing and sizing just had my instinct screaming AA. Probably can't describe just how certain I was, and resisted the urge to play on anyway and 'see'.
http://weaktight.com/6517958- unsure on this one. The guy is a decent 1-2 reg, and therefore the best bluffs VS such guys are those where the villain has an uncapped range and it's therefore perceived suicidal to be bluffing them. The ace river in his shoes I would've snapped off with Kx, simply because of what it does to my bluffing frequency (up) while keeping my value range steady. Again though, he's thinking that he has AK, 9x, therefore I can't be bluffing.
http://weaktight.com/6517971- creatively played hand where again on the river I get snapped off by Ad sometimes, but I have zero perceived bluffs in my range and it's a good spot. Flop is a raise, just because I think call loses money and it keeps my options open.
So yeah, decently happy with how it turned out. The hard part may be keeping this mindset up, but so long as I keep thinking and looking for creative options I should be able to get into good habits.
I'm Back......
Haven't posted in this blog for a while. I made another new blog with no readers just so that I could write without writing 'to' an audience, but I've decided I need the increased accountability and also sometimes just want to feel like I'm not talking to myself the whole time.
After buying a house, getting a business on an even keel, vet bills, massive expenditure, downswing yada yada I'm at a place financially where I'm basically starting again. I still think I have decent skills, certainly enough to do ok at 2-5 (last 400k hands are at 2bb) but I'm going to play and play and play 1-2, stop spending money and hopefully rocket back up.
Down the years, excessive posting in this blog and others has been a tried and tested way of getting me focussed and playing well. I have so many strategic thoughts whizzing around my head all the time that I really need to get them all down and sorted, and I need to start having accountability for my sessions and HHs whereby I post the worst ones here and stop having terribly played hands as sort of 'guilty secret' that stops me achieving my goals. I also miss talking hands with people, so if anyone reading wants to add on skype and send hands then please do so, and/ or comment on the hands I post here.
I have some strategic things I'd like to write about..... I feel I'm playing a little too predictably in a lot of spots and there's some recent reg traits that have come in that I haven't adjusted to well enough.
Firstly, I'm not doing nearly enough checking as the PFR. I'm talking OOP more than IP, although when ranges are very tight IP then checking should be decent there as well. VS wide ranges, cbets often just minimise our EV by getting insta folds from air a lot. This might seem OK when we ourselves have air, but we rep a much wider and better range by checking and end up winning the pot just as often VS air, probably more often in fact, and also more money as we allow villain to stab his air/ fold river etc.
Closely linked to this is the fact that when regs check as the PFR oop at the moment, the number of insta folds we get from stabbing has gone wayyyy down. It used to just be basically printing money to go 1/2 pot, but at the moment we're faced with a CC a lot, or a CR. VS the CC I often have a wide flatting range and can't credibly barrel off or whatever, and the CR just fucks with my range even more. As a default, I'm going to start checking behind more and then looking to raise turns/ float turns/ ob river etc, all that creative stuff.
Playing in a 'standard' manner just doesn't cut it all any more. Anything approaching what 2p2 would call a well played hand is just gobbled up by any half competent reg. I knew this in the second half of last year and raped 2-5 quite hard........ and there's enough incredibly random regs at 2-5 so play seemingly 'bad' who are also raping. In a nutshell, I think the value in having a 'different' strategy is so massively high. This doesn't mean we just stop adjusting to our opponent etc, but having a default game in a lot of spots that is designed to confuse our opponent rather than play into their seasoned hands is something that gets me inspired and excited to start doing.
Throwing some random stuff out there, I'm talking about things like the following;
No 4betting preflop, flat everything and raise.
No 3betting preflop, flat everything and raise.
Very little cbetting oop, cc everything and look to cr turns/ bomb rivers, etc.
No stabbing IP, check back and play turns and rivers.
More 5bet jamming preflop..... get it in ranges at zoom are so incredibly tight and there's certainly going to be viable strategies that incorporate a lot of 3betting and also jamming pocket pairs a ton. We can usually manipulate the situation by stack depth/ recent history/ position/ our sizing to increase the likelihood of getting 4bet bluffed.
River overbets.
Turning stuff into a bluff A LOT.
Smaller bets and raises in certain spots to cap ranges, then barrel off, etc.
Just pure attacking of wide ranges, and challenge opponent to fight back. CR xx on 922r etc.
So yeah, above is just a flavour of the stuff I'm talking about and the reason I want to start posting again. By being more creative, poker will seem more fun. When it's more fun I'm more interested, when it's more interesting I'm more alert and pay more attention and this helps with my mental game.
I'll make references to mental game occasionally too, but this blog will be mostly about getting into a creative mindset again.
Going to have a shower, eat food, then play for an hour and review the hands here.
After buying a house, getting a business on an even keel, vet bills, massive expenditure, downswing yada yada I'm at a place financially where I'm basically starting again. I still think I have decent skills, certainly enough to do ok at 2-5 (last 400k hands are at 2bb) but I'm going to play and play and play 1-2, stop spending money and hopefully rocket back up.
Down the years, excessive posting in this blog and others has been a tried and tested way of getting me focussed and playing well. I have so many strategic thoughts whizzing around my head all the time that I really need to get them all down and sorted, and I need to start having accountability for my sessions and HHs whereby I post the worst ones here and stop having terribly played hands as sort of 'guilty secret' that stops me achieving my goals. I also miss talking hands with people, so if anyone reading wants to add on skype and send hands then please do so, and/ or comment on the hands I post here.
I have some strategic things I'd like to write about..... I feel I'm playing a little too predictably in a lot of spots and there's some recent reg traits that have come in that I haven't adjusted to well enough.
Firstly, I'm not doing nearly enough checking as the PFR. I'm talking OOP more than IP, although when ranges are very tight IP then checking should be decent there as well. VS wide ranges, cbets often just minimise our EV by getting insta folds from air a lot. This might seem OK when we ourselves have air, but we rep a much wider and better range by checking and end up winning the pot just as often VS air, probably more often in fact, and also more money as we allow villain to stab his air/ fold river etc.
Closely linked to this is the fact that when regs check as the PFR oop at the moment, the number of insta folds we get from stabbing has gone wayyyy down. It used to just be basically printing money to go 1/2 pot, but at the moment we're faced with a CC a lot, or a CR. VS the CC I often have a wide flatting range and can't credibly barrel off or whatever, and the CR just fucks with my range even more. As a default, I'm going to start checking behind more and then looking to raise turns/ float turns/ ob river etc, all that creative stuff.
Playing in a 'standard' manner just doesn't cut it all any more. Anything approaching what 2p2 would call a well played hand is just gobbled up by any half competent reg. I knew this in the second half of last year and raped 2-5 quite hard........ and there's enough incredibly random regs at 2-5 so play seemingly 'bad' who are also raping. In a nutshell, I think the value in having a 'different' strategy is so massively high. This doesn't mean we just stop adjusting to our opponent etc, but having a default game in a lot of spots that is designed to confuse our opponent rather than play into their seasoned hands is something that gets me inspired and excited to start doing.
Throwing some random stuff out there, I'm talking about things like the following;
No 4betting preflop, flat everything and raise.
No 3betting preflop, flat everything and raise.
Very little cbetting oop, cc everything and look to cr turns/ bomb rivers, etc.
No stabbing IP, check back and play turns and rivers.
More 5bet jamming preflop..... get it in ranges at zoom are so incredibly tight and there's certainly going to be viable strategies that incorporate a lot of 3betting and also jamming pocket pairs a ton. We can usually manipulate the situation by stack depth/ recent history/ position/ our sizing to increase the likelihood of getting 4bet bluffed.
River overbets.
Turning stuff into a bluff A LOT.
Smaller bets and raises in certain spots to cap ranges, then barrel off, etc.
Just pure attacking of wide ranges, and challenge opponent to fight back. CR xx on 922r etc.
So yeah, above is just a flavour of the stuff I'm talking about and the reason I want to start posting again. By being more creative, poker will seem more fun. When it's more fun I'm more interested, when it's more interesting I'm more alert and pay more attention and this helps with my mental game.
I'll make references to mental game occasionally too, but this blog will be mostly about getting into a creative mindset again.
Going to have a shower, eat food, then play for an hour and review the hands here.
Wednesday, 11 December 2013
General Strategy Blog
I feel as though I've gotten very very stale at the moment. My mental game has been pretty good; I don't care about beats, coolers, or even mistakes. I quit when I'm a little tilted very easily, have a decent warmup routine, have my narrative present a lot and am decent at trusting my instinct. Strategy wise though, I feel in a bit of a slump.
There's part of me that feels it's a bad idea to have a 'general strategy', and that if we're truly present in each and every hand then the correct decision will come to us. Nevertheless, some decisions within poker are almost preprogrammed. I mean, it's certainly a good thing that these pre-programs exist, so as to free up mental space for other and bigger decisions, but sometimes this programming needs freshening up.
I feel at the moment as if I'm 'worked out' and not really surprising anybody. In addition, I've become very conscious of how poor my late position game has been, particularly BTN-BB where ranges are exceedingly wide. This situation is basically a HU situation and feels very unique from almost every other situation at 6max, but compared to HU we're at the disadvantage of not getting into a rhythm of playing the same guy, seeing how often he folds/ CRs/ calls one street to fold the next, etc. Occasionally I feel I have some strong ideas on the subject, but overall I don't think I'm doing as amazing there as I perhaps could be.
So I'm going to go over some areas of my game and get some thoughts down.
Late position, BTN-BB
What my instincts really want in this spot is a unique strategy, probably one considered quintessentially 'bad' in a game theory sense but which nevertheless has people confused a lot. At the moment, I sorta make it up as I go along. I'll cbet air sometimes, check it others, cbet top pair sometimes, check it others, cbet 2nd pair on a wet board sometimes, check it others yada yada. This leads to a rather split range whereby I'm not wholly confident in whichever option I choose because my range in that spot is not as strong as it could be.
To elaborate on what I'm talking about, I always feel like I want to choose a general strategy and load my whole range into it. For example, say I want to raise flops, then I feel it's best to be raising tons of stuff; sets on dry boards, top pairs, gutshots, overpairs, overcards etc. In BTN-BB, my heart wants me to be doing something like checking back 100%, or cbetting small a lot then 2xing turn, etc.
I can't really see anything that works as an 'all in one' strategy other than planning to check back the flop a lot, including top pairs and nutted hands. I think this probably has the most merit...... it means I can happily post oak bluff certain runouts, delay cbet, call turn and river leads, etc. Yeah. I like this.
STOP PRESS
After speaking to a very good player, I've decided to instead go the other way. This was in fact the way I was preaching to Stefan earlier, and that is just to be very aggressive but also super thin with value bets. I think the main reason swinging me the other way is the fact that in villain's shoes in the BB, I'd much rather face a passive btn than a fucking mental one. As the dude I was speaking to said, the trick is not to wuss out of value bets........ people generally want their value bets to be good a huge proportion of the time (same with bluffs) but some value bets should be made even if you feel you're only good say like 40-45% when called. Example might be A6 on 652 QK etc, it's just gotta be trebled.
So yeah, give up total airballs a lot, then 2 and 3 barrel a lot of stuff. I feel I've gotten much better at certain types of bluffs lately......... the kind of higher level bluff that doesn't work 100% but is more credible with a certain level of player.
Calls OOP/ Reverse Equity Spots
Caught myself playing this hand earlier today:
and as soon as I called flop I had a sudden realisation that I'd be doing far too much of this, calling OOP in horrendously bad positions. Often it's decent to CC more playable stuff when you know exactly what cards are getting barrelled, when you can pick up on betsizes etc, but in a spot like this we should be talking about either a preflop fold, flop CR, or flop fold. Really used to pride myself in not getting myself into such spots, but it's definitely crept back in. So I'm going to be really big on that from now on...... flop CR in the above spot doesn't rep a ton, but it's still going to get a lot of raw folds from most, or a float with Ax that then checks down. CC flop just makes everything so easy for our opponent, and overall I'm probably going to look to getting my flop CR back to around 20%.
Flatting 3bets and raising flop
A while ago, I started to minraise a ton in 3bet pots and it just raped the fuck out of all the meh regs. People just play very ABC to it, flat AKhi oop, 3bet small with overpairs and tptks, cap their range in obv spots and leave themselves open to a PSR bluff, etc. I think I stopped doing it as I felt I repped less, but basically I feel we need an aggro strategy in 3bet pots, as call call call might protect a bluffcatcher and value range, but doesn't leave a ton of room open for bluffs. When we go call call shove we get looked up a decent amount, etc. So yeah, I'm not going to 4bet anything so have all strong hands in my range, and look to do very well postflop.
Other Stuff
I'm going to stick with my general strategy of being very very solid preflop at 100bbs, and then 3bet like a 20% range or something IP when deeper. People play extremely straightforwardly deep at Zoom, and if anyone doubts this they should go play the regular Stars deep ante tables for a bit where the dynamic is somewhere near the moon and cold 4bets 5bets 7bets, postflop moves and light stackoffs happen seemingly every other hand. Checked out my results by stack depth the other day, over a very decent sample my winrate at stacks of 100-125bbs was only 1.3bb/100, while my winrate at deeper stackdepths (though about 1/3 as many hands) was much better. I have the pic actually:
So basically I do a lot better when deep, where the PF lagness is exponentially more effective. At 100bbs, the change to a more solid style is a recent one and one I'm happy with when there's so much less room to maneovere and really apply pressure postflop.
So yeah that's it for now. Hopefully this gets me back on track. Just need to not lose sight of the mental side, but I'll leave that for another blog.
Blog saver:
There's part of me that feels it's a bad idea to have a 'general strategy', and that if we're truly present in each and every hand then the correct decision will come to us. Nevertheless, some decisions within poker are almost preprogrammed. I mean, it's certainly a good thing that these pre-programs exist, so as to free up mental space for other and bigger decisions, but sometimes this programming needs freshening up.
I feel at the moment as if I'm 'worked out' and not really surprising anybody. In addition, I've become very conscious of how poor my late position game has been, particularly BTN-BB where ranges are exceedingly wide. This situation is basically a HU situation and feels very unique from almost every other situation at 6max, but compared to HU we're at the disadvantage of not getting into a rhythm of playing the same guy, seeing how often he folds/ CRs/ calls one street to fold the next, etc. Occasionally I feel I have some strong ideas on the subject, but overall I don't think I'm doing as amazing there as I perhaps could be.
So I'm going to go over some areas of my game and get some thoughts down.
Late position, BTN-BB
What my instincts really want in this spot is a unique strategy, probably one considered quintessentially 'bad' in a game theory sense but which nevertheless has people confused a lot. At the moment, I sorta make it up as I go along. I'll cbet air sometimes, check it others, cbet top pair sometimes, check it others, cbet 2nd pair on a wet board sometimes, check it others yada yada. This leads to a rather split range whereby I'm not wholly confident in whichever option I choose because my range in that spot is not as strong as it could be.
To elaborate on what I'm talking about, I always feel like I want to choose a general strategy and load my whole range into it. For example, say I want to raise flops, then I feel it's best to be raising tons of stuff; sets on dry boards, top pairs, gutshots, overpairs, overcards etc. In BTN-BB, my heart wants me to be doing something like checking back 100%, or cbetting small a lot then 2xing turn, etc.
I can't really see anything that works as an 'all in one' strategy other than planning to check back the flop a lot, including top pairs and nutted hands. I think this probably has the most merit...... it means I can happily post oak bluff certain runouts, delay cbet, call turn and river leads, etc. Yeah. I like this.
STOP PRESS
After speaking to a very good player, I've decided to instead go the other way. This was in fact the way I was preaching to Stefan earlier, and that is just to be very aggressive but also super thin with value bets. I think the main reason swinging me the other way is the fact that in villain's shoes in the BB, I'd much rather face a passive btn than a fucking mental one. As the dude I was speaking to said, the trick is not to wuss out of value bets........ people generally want their value bets to be good a huge proportion of the time (same with bluffs) but some value bets should be made even if you feel you're only good say like 40-45% when called. Example might be A6 on 652 QK etc, it's just gotta be trebled.
So yeah, give up total airballs a lot, then 2 and 3 barrel a lot of stuff. I feel I've gotten much better at certain types of bluffs lately......... the kind of higher level bluff that doesn't work 100% but is more credible with a certain level of player.
Calls OOP/ Reverse Equity Spots
Caught myself playing this hand earlier today:
$2.50/$5 Zoom No Limit Holdem • 6 Players • PokerStars
Generated by weaktight.com.
| UTG | hamanof | $901.16 | |
| UTG+1 | visjeatwater | $769.24 | |
| CO | mustanggino | $447.50 | |
| BTN | TeamLeader29 | $508.99 | |
| SB | RUNITSRANN | $599.61 | |
| BB | hero | $601.39 | |
- Pre-Flop ($7.50, 6 players)Hero is BB
1 fold, visjeatwater raises to $12.50, 3 folds, hero calls $7.50
- Flop ($27.50, 2 players)
-
hero checks, visjeatwater bets $18.64, hero calls $18.64
- Turn ($64.78, 2 players)
hero checks, visjeatwater bets $45.87, hero folds
- Final Pot: $64.78
- visjeatwater wins $107.85 (net +$30.84)
- hero lost $31.14
and as soon as I called flop I had a sudden realisation that I'd be doing far too much of this, calling OOP in horrendously bad positions. Often it's decent to CC more playable stuff when you know exactly what cards are getting barrelled, when you can pick up on betsizes etc, but in a spot like this we should be talking about either a preflop fold, flop CR, or flop fold. Really used to pride myself in not getting myself into such spots, but it's definitely crept back in. So I'm going to be really big on that from now on...... flop CR in the above spot doesn't rep a ton, but it's still going to get a lot of raw folds from most, or a float with Ax that then checks down. CC flop just makes everything so easy for our opponent, and overall I'm probably going to look to getting my flop CR back to around 20%.
Flatting 3bets and raising flop
A while ago, I started to minraise a ton in 3bet pots and it just raped the fuck out of all the meh regs. People just play very ABC to it, flat AKhi oop, 3bet small with overpairs and tptks, cap their range in obv spots and leave themselves open to a PSR bluff, etc. I think I stopped doing it as I felt I repped less, but basically I feel we need an aggro strategy in 3bet pots, as call call call might protect a bluffcatcher and value range, but doesn't leave a ton of room open for bluffs. When we go call call shove we get looked up a decent amount, etc. So yeah, I'm not going to 4bet anything so have all strong hands in my range, and look to do very well postflop.
Other Stuff
I'm going to stick with my general strategy of being very very solid preflop at 100bbs, and then 3bet like a 20% range or something IP when deeper. People play extremely straightforwardly deep at Zoom, and if anyone doubts this they should go play the regular Stars deep ante tables for a bit where the dynamic is somewhere near the moon and cold 4bets 5bets 7bets, postflop moves and light stackoffs happen seemingly every other hand. Checked out my results by stack depth the other day, over a very decent sample my winrate at stacks of 100-125bbs was only 1.3bb/100, while my winrate at deeper stackdepths (though about 1/3 as many hands) was much better. I have the pic actually:
So basically I do a lot better when deep, where the PF lagness is exponentially more effective. At 100bbs, the change to a more solid style is a recent one and one I'm happy with when there's so much less room to maneovere and really apply pressure postflop.
So yeah that's it for now. Hopefully this gets me back on track. Just need to not lose sight of the mental side, but I'll leave that for another blog.
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