[Closed] Elertar

Question 1: What is your motivation for playing poker? (Be as vague or specific as you want with this one, but try to think of all the reasons and elaborate on them.)

I play poker because it's a rich and complex game and I love to learn. When I have a hobby I always like to study it and learn it as much as possible (until I finally get bored).

Question 2: What are your weaknesses when playing poker? (What are the mistakes you know you are doing during your games? Are you playing while tired? Are you tilting easily? Want to see the showdown too much? Write as many as you think are affecting you.)

My main weakness is almost everything, as I'm quite a beginner. In general, I think I play well when I have a good hand and want to extract value, but I think I am too aggressive when protecting made hands and I don't feel very comfortable when playing a speculative hand, a medium made hand or trash.

About abstract issues, I tend to think that my opponents are bluffing when they bet or raise on me. Then I feel the urge to prove it and sometimes I can't control it and end up doing bad calls or raises.

Question 3: What does it mean to play tight-aggressive? (Describe in your own words what playing tight aggressive is, and why does it work.)

Playing tight means to select carefully what hands you play. This works because in the long term playing better hands gives better expected value.

Playing aggressive means taking the initiative very often and favoring bet/raise/fold over call. Playing aggressive forces your opponents to make decisions and, therefore, mistakes.

Good job! Homework #1 Done!

Guess if you also think that opponents are bluffing to often then it as well puts you into marginal situations which will cost you a lot money. Plus it will have the affect of tilting which will make you lose even more money. To avoid tilt for example:
Easiest wait to fight against tilt is to set up stop-loss technique. Which means if you for example have lost more than 3BIs for a session then you just stop the session for some time. The BI amount is set up from your own wanting. Some may put it higher, some lower. And after the stop you can easily just spend some time with evaluating your play.

Most of the other weakness you wrote can easily be fixed with you posting hands. We will start writing feedback to your play. Usually negative feedback will put you into thinking phase and trying to fix all those leaks. It's almost the same as you loose money, you will remember it more than winning part.

Welcome to the Course and Best of luck! First points earned.

Question 1: What do you think you could play differently than how it is in the BSS Starting Hands Chart, and why? (Are there any hands you would play differently? Do you have a problem or question about how a specific hand or hands are to be played?)

I'd like to loosen my range when blind stealing, as well as when re-stealing. Also, I'd like to raise more frequently on limpers, similarly as it is advised in the MSS strategy.

Question 2: Post a hand for evaluation where you have a question regarding your pre-flop play. ( Post your hand in the Handevaluation forums, and provide a link to your hand in your private thread in the Locker Room.)

[NL2 FR BSS] Blind-defense
[NL2 FR BSS] AK preflop

Question 3: What is the equity of AKo against the top 5% range? 5% means: 88+, AJs+, KQs, AKo? ( You can either calculate this yourself or use an equity calculator such as the PokerStrategy.com Equilab)

46.32%

Good job! Homework #2 Done!

Totally agree with you about the stealing ranges. They can be very easily be balanced with even wider range. Depending on the opponent you can as well put a wider stealing range. Against some shorties you can even steal with smaller raise. But don't overdo the stealing situations. Sometimes you might just put yourself into too many difficult spots if opening with marginal hands.

Hopefully you enjoy the School so far. Some more points earned.

Question 0: Download and install the Equilab. (You can download the Equilab for free from here: PokerStrategy.com Equilab)

Done.

Question 1: You are holding KQ. What is your preflop equity against an opponent who has 33? How does the equity change on the following flop: J53? (Tip: you can use the Equilab to help you with this task)

a) Preflop equity: 48.75%
b) It changes to 3.72%

Question 2: What would you do in the following hand? (Remember that it is important to explain your reasons, simply posting "Fold" or "Call" is not sufficient)
No-Limit hold'em $2 (9 handed)
Players and stacks:
UTG: $2.00
UTG+1: $2.08
MP1: $1.92
MP2: $1.00
MP3: $3.06
CO: (Hero) $2.08
BU: $2.00
SB: $2.00
BB: $1.24
Preflop: Hero is CO with AJ.
5 folds, Hero raises to $0.08, BU calls $0.08, SB folds, BB calls $0.06.
Flop: ($0.25) 263 (3 players)
BB checks, Hero checks, BU checks.
Turn: ($0.25) 5 (3 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $0.22, BU raises to $0.44, BB folds, Hero...?

Pot odds are about 20%. We have 9 outs, so we make a flush in 1 out of 5 cases. That's 20% too. Therefore I think we can call thanks to the implicit odds, because we can expect to get paid at least another bet since it looks like the villain has hit a straight.

Question 3: Post a hand for evaluation where you have a question regarding your post-flop play. (Post your hand in the hand evaluation board, and provide a link to your hand in your private thread in the Locker Room)

[NL2 FR BSS] TPTK protection on the turn

Good job! Homework #3 Done!

About the 1st question I guess you did something wrong. They ain't correct. Could you try again? Did you use the Equilab?

About Question #3:
There are few situations on turn:
a) If we take just odds for the FD and we take into account that all our odds are clean. There which means:
Total Pot = $0,91 ; We have to Call = $0,22 -> According to that it means we are getting ~4,16:1 odds. For flushdraw we would need 4:1. Which tells us that we are getting perfect odds.
b) If we consider the opponent having sets here:
Which means we have to discount outs, for example 6:c and also 3:c. Which means we have 7 clean outs. Which means that we need 6:1 odds. That tells us that we need ~$0,41 on river to make it profitable. If we expect the opponent being loose enough and being able to pay us no-matter what then we can do the Call here properly.
c) We might even have overcards as outs or even 4 as a out:
Although this kind of situation ain't that likely. I'd rather discount that one and either pick a) or b). Most likely towards Call.

You are doing great progress! Some more points earned.

Originally posted by veriz
About the 1st question I guess you did something wrong. They ain't correct. Could you try again? Did you use the Equilab?

It looks like I missed the suits information when copy-pasting the wording of the homework. I'll do it again properly.

Preflop: 50.78%
Postflop: 26.46%

I hope this time it's right. Thank you!

Yep, they are now correct.

Question 1: Post a hand for evaluation where you have the initiative post-flop. (Post your hand in the Hand evaluation board, and provide a link to your hand in your private thread.)

[NL2 FR BSS] River play with strong made hand

Question 2: Evaluate one of the hands submitted by other members. (Choose a hand from the Hand evaluation board and post your own evaluation in the thread. Post a link to the hand you have evaluated in your private thread. You can evaluate as many hands as you want, but try to choose hands not yet evaluated by other users first.)

At the time I'm making this homework there is no NL2 FR hand yet to be evaluated so I'm choose an older one. I haven't read veriz's evaluation, of course.

NL2 - FR - QJs - Homework 4

Question 3: You are on the flop with KQ. The board cards are J, 9, 8, and your opponent holds 77. What is your equity in this spot?

41.41%

Good job! Homework #4 Done!

This weeks homework was a bit easier. But the idea of that is to help you go through last weeks stuff if you didn't go through everything. Or either way maybe even read some more articles, watch some videos and of course attend in the coaching. What will also help for your game is the evaluation part of other members hands and of course posting your own hands.

If you have interests you could try calculating the equity with a formula which you can use even on tables(either playing online or live poker):
(Amount of outs x 4) – (Amount of outs – 8) = Your Equity

Hopefully this wasn't too easy homework for you. Some more points earned.