New challenge - From 500 to 10k

Originally posted by getdotacom
Sunday grind

Today played a lot but with no results - almost braking even for a day. Still running above EV, feels like I owe some money ... Anyways here's the graph and cool hand

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $2.00 BB (6 handed) -

Hero (Button) ($433.88)
SB ($79.50)
BB ($218.84)
UTG ($207.48)
MP ($448.16)
CO ($594.18)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 3♥, A♥
2 folds, CO bets $6, Hero raises to $19, 2 folds, CO calls $13

Flop: ($41) 5♣, 4♣, J♦ (2 players)
CO checks, Hero bets $23.50, CO calls $23.50

Turn: ($88) 7♦ (2 players)
CO checks, Hero bets $63.90, CO calls $63.90

River: ($215.80) 2♣ (2 players)
CO checks, Hero bets $127.80, CO calls $127.80

Total pot: $471.40 | Rake: $2.80

Results:
Hero had 3♥, A♥ (straight, five high).
CO mucked 4♠, 4♥ (three of a kind, fours).
Outcome: Hero won $468.60

This happens when you slowplay:) I was really shocked when he showed that hand. I was thinking about checking back that river coz I didn't believe he can call with 1pair and didn't expect anything else there besides flush. Knowing this, it's a clear bet ofc. Makes no sense for me to c/c turn with 2FDs and many other draws on board.

I'm going to drink beer and play Sunday storm now. GL @tables and if I ship something, you will hear about it

actually you're the donk not the guy with the set
but is really nice you see otherwise

Lesson 1 - Betsizing when trying to get stacks in

This is one of the simplest concepts, but I see people screwing this up even at nl200, so I will start with it. I will try to cover here postflop betsizing, maybe I will talk about preflop some other time.

Every time you start betting check out the PSR (pot to stack ratio) !!!!! This is very important because you don't wanna find yourselves in a spot where you have 1/5 potsize bet on the river. If we usually bet 75% of the pot, on the flop PSR should be something like 1:10 to get stacks in by the river. On the turn it should be something like 1:3 (not 100% sure about these, if some one calculates exact numbers, please post them here). If we get higher ratio, we really shouldn't care, but if it's below this, we should consider how much to bet. I like betting all 3 streets for same sizing when we're going to get stacks in, but in some cases we wanna bet 2 streets to do that. It's possible to calculate how much % of the pot to bet each street to get stacks in, but formula for that is very complicated, I'm not going to post it here because u won't be able to use it at the tables, unless u can calculate logarithms in your head ♦ It's pretty easy to calculate the pot on the next street when villain calls and we can calculate how much to bet. But when we're on the flop, we really can't do that for 2 more streets. I don't know a good way how to do that, I kinda just know how much to bet depending on stacksizes, this comes with experience. I think you can just calculate it off the tables for many PSRs below 10 and you will know it approximately in every situation, definitely sizing shouldn't be perfect. Now lets see some examples.

$1/$2 No Limit Holdem
6 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG ($173) 87bb
HERO (UTG+1) ($358.96) 179bb
CO ($191.23) 96bb
BTN ($117.10) 59bb
SB ($475.88) 238bb
BB ($428.63) 214bb

Pre-Flop: ($3, 6 players) HERO is UTG+1 A♣ A♦
1 fold, HERO raises to $5.30 ($353.66), 3 folds, BB raises to $18 ($408.63), HERO raises to $40 ($313.66), BB calls $22 ($388.63)

Flop: 9♠ 5♠ J♥ ($81, 2 players)
BB checks ($388.63), HERO bets $40 ($278.96), BB calls $40 ($348.63)

Turn: 5♥ ($161, 2 players)
BB checks ($348.63), HERO bets $100 ($178.96), BB calls $100 ($248.63)

River: 3♣ ($361, 2 players)
BB checks ($248.63), HERO goes all-in $178.96 ($0.00), BB calls $178.96 ($69.67)

After action we can see stacksize left after that action, dunno any better converter which shows our stacksize before action, so actually we have to look to our flop stacksize in preflop action etc.

As we can see PSR is something like 1:4 on the flop. This definitely means we can't bet our standard 0.75% pot every street. This looks very close to 1/2 pot all streets. On the turn we can easily make it something like 55% of the pot which leaves same for the river, but I decided to leave 50% on the river because the're 2 flushdraws and we want to bet a little bit more. Leaving less than 1/2 pot on the river would be silly.

$1/$2 No Limit Holdem
6 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG ($99.78) 50bb
UTG+1 ($197) 99bb
CO ($1,056.15) 528bb
BTN ($224.75) 112bb
SB ($214.14) 107bb
HERO (BB) ($237.40) 119bb

Pre-Flop: ($3, 6 players) HERO is BB A♣ A♦
UTG calls $2 ($97.78), UTG+1 raises to $9 ($188.00), CO calls $9 ($1047.15), 2 folds, HERO raises to $28 ($207.40), UTG calls $26 ($71.78), UTG+1 calls $19 ($169.00), CO folds ($1047.15)

Flop: Q♥ 4♦ 9♣ ($94, 3 players)
HERO bets $35 ($174.40), UTG folds ($71.78), UTG+1 calls $35 ($134.00)

Turn: 4♠ ($164, 2 players)
HERO bets $50 ($124.40), UTG+1 calls $50 ($84.00)

River: 7♥ ($264, 2 players)
HERO goes all-in $124.40 ($0.00), UTG+1 folds ($84.00)

Final Pot: $264

HERO wins $385.60 (net +$148.20)

UTG lost $28
UTG+1 lost $113
CO lost $9

This hand is more complicated because we're 3ways on the flop, we can't know who is going to call and they both have different stacksizes. This could be a spot where we wanna bet only 2 streets, so we could have made it 55 and then if guy with deeper stack calls, it's something around half pot shove. We really don't care about shorter guy because we're not folding vs him ever when betting. If we wanna bet 3streets, we have to bet smaller. I decided to go for that $35, that's a cool trick in a spot where we're deep with one guy, but shallow with other. We can scare deeper guy away sometimes when we bet half of the shortstackers stack because, if he goes allin, we will have an option to raise if other guy comes along. We really don't want it to happen this time, but we can't do it only with marginal hands for some balance purposes. e.g. if we had KQ here, it would be a cool play because other guy could fold AQ sometimes.
Now on the turn we can easily calculate how much to bet, this time it's less than 1/3 pot. We still can shove it and it would be less than a pot, but as I said, I prefer betting 3streets even for 1/3 pot or less.

OK, that's all for now, probably I'm going to continue betsizing topic and next time will explain how much to bet on each board where we aren't going allin on the river. Please leave some comments about this, was there anything useful etc.

P.S. In the end I decided to share that formula, maybe it's not that horrible, I found a good way how to calculate in head. I will explain the formula first (don't read this if u hate math) :

p - pot
r - ratio of pot each street

So pot on the next street after villain calls should be p + 2*r*p or p(1+2r). We don't care about the pot on next street, but after 3 streets of betting, so we have to multiply 3 times, that gives us p(1+2r)^3.
To get an equation we have to set it equal to the final pot which usually will be 200bbs. When we know the pot on the flop, assume it's 20bb, we can write 20*(1+2r)^3=200. Now we can divide it by 20 and get (1+2r)^3 = 10. After that we can find approximate number which is 10 in a power of 3 (our gaps), it will be something around 2.2 I think. Now just distract 1 from it and divide by 2. We get r=0.6. This means we have to bet 60% of the pot each street. Maybe you can rewrite this somehow to do it more easily, but if u wanna get r from that equation, GL with that

Originally posted by CRI4BRA

Originally posted by getdotacom
Sunday grind

Today played a lot but with no results - almost braking even for a day. Still running above EV, feels like I owe some money ... Anyways here's the graph and cool hand

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $2.00 BB (6 handed) -

Hero (Button) ($433.88)
SB ($79.50)
BB ($218.84)
UTG ($207.48)
MP ($448.16)
CO ($594.18)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 3♥, A♥
2 folds, CO bets $6, Hero raises to $19, 2 folds, CO calls $13

Flop: ($41) 5♣, 4♣, J♦ (2 players)
CO checks, Hero bets $23.50, CO calls $23.50

Turn: ($88) 7♦ (2 players)
CO checks, Hero bets $63.90, CO calls $63.90

River: ($215.80) 2♣ (2 players)
CO checks, Hero bets $127.80, CO calls $127.80

Total pot: $471.40 | Rake: $2.80

Results:
Hero had 3♥, A♥ (straight, five high).
CO mucked 4♠, 4♥ (three of a kind, fours).
Outcome: Hero won $468.60

This happens when you slowplay:) I was really shocked when he showed that hand. I was thinking about checking back that river coz I didn't believe he can call with 1pair and didn't expect anything else there besides flush. Knowing this, it's a clear bet ofc. Makes no sense for me to c/c turn with 2FDs and many other draws on board.

I'm going to drink beer and play Sunday storm now. GL @tables and if I ship something, you will hear about it

actually you're the donk not the guy with the set
but is really nice you see otherwise

actualy ur the donk not the guy with set or getdotacom

Well, I didn't get any comments on this, so most likely no one is interested in this. I assume I should start posting pictures of naked bitches to get some comments, at least it works out for many other blogs

Oh, it's interesting, and I'm sure there's plenty of people reading..

It was rather well thought out and well explained, so wasn't sure exactly what to comment with that'd be good enough though! ♦

Good stuff Janka! Thanks for doing this for us.
I have couple of questions for you:

In play do you actually think in terms of "PSR" when determining your sizing. i.e PSR is 1:10 I need to bet x% to get the stacks in by the river. Or do you use the formula or do you calculate roughly if I bet x then stacks are y and I bet z (with help of experience it also helps) etc...
I personally do the latter.

One thing I am interested in is when I have to decide to get stacks in or not. i.e I have a monster and I have to decide whether to bet 3 streets "smallish" or to bomb 3 streets with the risk of having him to fold.
This should depend on villain and his range. If his range is inelastic we can bomb 3 streets if it is not we should go for 3 normal bets.

However it is not often easy enough to determine if villain's range is elastic or inelastic (or let's say part of his range is elastic and part of his range is inelastic). And it is not super straight forward because bombing might be better even if his inelastic part rep only 20% of his range since we will get a lot more value.

Sometimes I find myself bombing vs a fish to get stacks in and he folds OTT and I am like hmmm maybe I missed value there if I had bet smaller.
ok I found a hand to illustarte that:

Thanks!

Originally posted by Dublimax

In play do you actually think in terms of "PSR" when determining your sizing. i.e PSR is 1:10 I need to bet x% to get the stacks in by the river. Or do you use the formula or do you calculate roughly if I bet x then stacks are y and I bet z (with help of experience it also helps) etc...
I personally do the latter.

+1

I think it's like with many other things in poker ...
Doing drills with more elaborate (equity) calculations etc off the tables is good so you can estimate such things relatively quickly and intuitively while at the tables.

@Dublimax

When I play I really don't think about PSR and never did that I used it only to explain. I just know how much to bet in most cases because it's usually 100 or 40bb deep and open/3bet/4bet sizings usually are the same. In general when it's single raised pot (only openraise preflop) we can get 40-50bb stacks in by betting something around 3/4 all streets. When it's 100bb it has to be double raised pot (at least once preflop, doesn't matter which street second time) to get stacks in by betting something around 60-70% of the pot. As I said before, we can calculate how much to bet on the turn very easy, but it's pretty hard to do that on the flop.

I think u have to decide when to get stacks in or not only when u can't bet 3 streets with sizing you want. When you have the nuts, you can bomb all streets on specif board textures, but it's more board dependent, not your hand strength. I will explain this a little bit more in my next lesson, probably tomorrow.

About your hand - I like betting super small there because fish isn't going to call these big bets even with Kx IMO. I might consider even checking the flop because I think we will get 3 streets very rarely, but fish might catch something when we check or start bluffing. Also we can get more value if he has a Kx and he starts betting, then we raise the river and it's unlikely he's folding, but he can fold on the turn his Kx if we bet big, like you did.

Originally posted by getdotacom
I think u have to decide when to get stacks in or not only when u can't bet 3 streets with sizing you want.

Can you explain this again, not sure I got what you meant

Originally posted by getdotacom
When you have the nuts, you can bomb all streets on specif board textures, but it's more board dependent, not your hand strength. I will explain this a little bit more in my next lesson, probably tomorrow.

Agreed

I meant u don't have to try to get stacks in always. For example u have to bet 90% of the pot all streets to do so. But if u were 500bb deep u would have bet like 75% all streets, so u should do that there as well.

Mmmmm, beeeeer,

Janka: mmm, more Brewer

That is all

'I can squeeze 2k/h'
how?? i get much less 8-tabling even if i play as fast as i can. do you use some scripts?
i did get 2k on rush though.

frukt, are u still alive ?♦ That whiskey was awesome

Originally posted by Kruppe
'I can squeeze 2k/h'
how?? i get much less 8-tabling even if i play as fast as i can. do you use some scripts?
i did get 2k on rush though.

I have a fold button on my keyboard, that's all.

Originally posted by getdotacom
frukt, are u still alive ?♦ That whiskey was awesome

Alive, but not enjoying work today .. .. ...

The whisky WAS awesome though!

Thanks for a great night, it was fun ♦

Thanks for blogging - I like your thoughts about PSR, I'm not to good at adjusting bet-sizing to the opponents stack, especially if I play more than two tables.

No clever comments, just wanted to let you know I'm reading :-)

Lesson 2 - how much to bet on each board

This is pretty complicated stuff and probably you can find books written only about this, but I will do the shorter version

So, general rule is - bet big on drawy boards, bet small on dry boards. I'm pretty sure most of you have heard this somewhere. It's easy to answer to the question why should we bet big on drawy boards, but why should we bet small on dry ones ? I will answer to this later, now lets see what betting big and small accomplishes.

When we bet big, we force our opponent fold more, so he's going to call down with a stronger range. For that reason our valubetting range should be pretty strong. Most important thing - bigger we bet, more we can bluff. When we're betting small, our value range usually isn't that strong, but we have less bluffs in our range. Also villain is going to call much wider. Remember this isn't always true, because sometimes it makes sense to bet small with a super strong range, but it almost never makes sense to bet big with a weak range. Now lets go back to our question.

Assume we open UTG, BU calls and the flop comes 974r. When we start betting big here, our villain will fold very very often (not only on the flop, but on all streets combined). So his river calling range will be super strong, something like overpairs+. For that reason our range should be even stronger to valuebet. When we bet smaller, our villain is going to call wider and he's definitely calling the river with a top pair or sometimes even worse. This way we also lose less money when villain has slowplayed something and it's super easy on this board. This actually is the most important reason. Betting big is bad when villain can have the nuts very often !!!!

When the board is super wet, something like 9 :spade:8 :spade:J we wanna start betting big, something close to the pot. I wouldn't recommend overbetting the flop, you can do that on the turn sometimes, but overbetting the river is pretty common nowadays. We're betting big here because our villain is never folding any reasonable draw on the flop and very rarely on the turn. It's super hard for him to slowplay something, so our overpair will be the nuts on the river when draws misses. Overbet on the river in similar cases is my standard bet and I think people miss value not doing that. When the draw hits, we're most likely going to bet again if we had it. This time we don't wanna bet big because it's unlikely villain is calling with a weak hand. Also he can have a better hand if our draw wasn't to the nuts. Now some hands :

$0.50/$1 No Limit Holdem
6 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG ($100) 100bb
HERO (UTG+1) ($404.61) 405bb
CO ($178) 178bb
BTN ($47.28) 47bb
SB ($201.56) 202bb
BB ($283.18) 283bb

Pre-Flop: ($1.50, 6 players) HERO is UTG+1 7♣ 7♥
1 fold, HERO raises to $2.65, 2 folds, SB calls $2.15, 1 fold

Flop: A♠ 7♦ 2♠ ($6.30, 2 players)
SB checks, HERO bets $4.51, SB calls $4.51

Turn: 3♦ ($15.32, 2 players)
SB checks, HERO bets $13.16, SB calls $13.16

River: K♥ ($41.64, 2 players)
SB checks, HERO bets $59.65, SB folds

Final Pot: $41.64

HERO wins $99.42 (net +$19.45)

SB lost $20.32

Here the flop isn't that scary, so I'm making my standard 3/4 pot bet. The turn brings 2nd fd, so we're going to bet close to the pot. Villain can easily have many Axdd hands, we kinda wanna get max value and it's unlikely he's folding any Ax as well. River is super std overbet because he can have only some 1pair hands and missed draws. He's never folding Ax IMO, so we wanna bet as big as possible.

$0.50/$1 No Limit Holdem
6 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG ($51) 51bb
HERO (UTG+1) ($258.49) 258bb
CO ($283.74) 284bb
BTN ($134.29) 134bb
SB ($150.76) 151bb
BB ($169.12) 169bb

Pre-Flop: ($1.50, 6 players) HERO is UTG+1 A♥ A♠
1 fold, HERO raises to $2.65, 1 fold, BTN calls $2.65, 1 fold, BB calls $1.65

Flop: 8♣ 5♠ J♥ ($8.45, 3 players)
BB checks, HERO bets $4.84, BTN folds, BB calls $4.84

Turn: 4♦ ($18.13, 2 players)
BB checks, HERO bets $10.39, BB calls $10.39

River: 10:club: ($38.91, 2 players)
BB checks, HERO bets $22.30, BB calls $22.30

In this hand we're betting smallish all streets because we want villain to call down with some weak hands. He can have only weak hands or the nuts. He can easily slowplay the set or maybe hit 2pair on the river, so betting big doesn't accomplish much, he's folding his Jx more often and we're going to lose much more when he has the nuts.

$0.50/$1 No Limit Holdem
6 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG ($77.31) 77bb
UTG+1 ($178.74) 179bb
CO ($100) 100bb
HERO (BTN) ($390.03) 390bb
SB ($114.62) 115bb
BB ($102.21) 102bb

Pre-Flop: ($1.50, 6 players) HERO is BTN J♦ 9♦
UTG raises to $2.50, 2 folds, HERO calls $2.50, 1 fold, BB calls $1.50

Flop: 5♥ 9♠ K♠ ($8, 3 players)
BB checks, UTG bets $3.50, HERO calls $3.50, BB folds

Turn: 3♠ ($15, 2 players)
UTG checks, HERO checks

River: 9♣ ($15, 2 players)
UTG checks, HERO bets $8.59, UTG folds

Final Pot: $15

HERO wins $22.91 (net +$8.32)

BB lost $2.50
UTG lost $6

And this hand shows when we have a pretty strong range, but we're still betting small (comparing to our villains range, not absolute hand strength). Most likely our villain can have something like KQ at best here, he's betting any better on the turn or river. Usually we will have 9x and some good Kx for a valuebet that beats all our villains hands. Problem with betting big here - we can't have many bluffs, but we need them for our villain to call. FD got there, we're betting most of our floats on the turn, basically checking back only hands with a showdown value. If our villain knows that, he shouldn't be calling very often here and he's not calling a big bet ever IMO. So we're betting smallish and hope for him to make a call with some weak hands.

That's it for this time, please leave some feedback and I'm waiting for your ideas about a topic for the next time.

good read

I enjoyed reading this. I'll go try it out now

thanks for the lesson janka, rly enjoyed reading it, ur writing like some pro article writer lol, easy to read and not complicated at all, unlike others when they write its math math and one more time math and other shit that doesn't rly make sense to avg joe

kepe up the good work and keep posting new lessons ♠_cool: