Love & Hate Poker

Beautiful! Hoping to see you at $10k bankrol and some nice NL100 updates!

So I moved up and decided to switch from rush to normal tables, just to see how it goes... And to be really honest, games feel like nl10 rush, maybe softer/different, people feel super weak. I didnt even bother table selecting, I took every game there was and always had fish in there. I know I ended up losing, but man, games feel soooo soft. I dont know, maybe just feeling.

Also, I do enjoy more relaxed approach, not having 2587723 decisions every second is kind of relief. Bit then again, maybe will get bored and play rush again. For now I want to give reg tables a try...

Originally posted by taavi1337
Beautiful! Hoping to see you at $10k bankrol and some nice NL100 updates!
Thanks brother, working on it Despite being rolled for nl100 I want to deal little bit with nl50 first, not a big fan of skipping stakes only because of $$$... Also I stayed at 25 for longer than I wanted cuz forgot to move up

Calling it early today, I dont feel like playing anymore. Mondays are just weird, not sure if gonna play tomorrow, as mentioned before, mondays and tuesdays are just weird for me for some reason.

Now I remember why I hate normal tables. Because when one fish busts, four other fishes sit out and are affraid to play. Sometimes only four fishes sit out and one 12 VPIP idiot keeps on folding every hand for little while... So annoying

Also got only 6$ from leaderboard, was hoping for little bit more but well, only 2,5k hands yesterday. Hard to get used to after playing 8k hands a day

Anyway, good luck at the tables

Well I couldnt help myself, ofcourse, and jumped into the action It hurts so much to lose vs idiots but thats poker. Harder pill to swallow on normal tables, thats for sure. Made couple of questionable plays, saw many of questionable plays, you know the drill...

Got some hands...

1. So here I believe my opponent made pretty retarded slowplay? I mean, if you wanna slowplay here then do it with aces, why with kings. I think it is so bad, just why?
Oh I know, because 23% of the time there will be an ace on the flop so you can go f*ck yourself having kings! And when there is no ace on the flop, UTG player will miss with his AK so you wont get anything, and if UTG has QQ you would stack them anyway once he decided to 4b that (well thats true for me) or give utg player chance to see Axx or Kxx board so he can get away, that makes a lot of sense right? So bad, I think its one of worst hands to slowplay preflop, but that might be just me. What do you guys think?

2. So here, hero sh*t his pants on the turn... I am not sure, for 100bbs I get stacked probably. I decided to check behind because bottom set is bottom set, meaning, if he has QT then I wont get three streets from him anyway so I might just wait for that big bet on the river, and only other hand that I beat is 1 combo of Q3s so... If he has KJ he should bluff river so turn check behind. On the river, well not much else to do.

3. this is the spot where you slowplay as UTG player! Or just shove, what the f*ck is this super idiotic play I did not get it lol... Congratz donk, you win cause I have KK...

4. and the spot where I got lucky... Not sure what to say, standard I guess, and of course superdonk had to have Q so I got lucky lucky, omfg so tilted

so yep, given it was my favorite day of the week to play I can almost call it a win... Will come back tomorrow and go after it again
GL at the tables

"Harder pill to swallow on normal tables, thats for sure."

you tried, you played, you tried to get better, you put in effort. this is important. in poker, stuff like that happens. but you put in real effort. this is important. not all dare to do that or go there or are lazy.

Hello Wednesday, another day in the office. Smooth day, didnt start well, ended up well, so yay...

Had maybe one "interesting" hand, but not really, just got rekt I mean I expected him to never have AK+ due to preflop (I explicitly 3bet smaller for that reason...), so AQ is kind of nuts? and then postflop... I mean I couldve bet quarter only OTF, doesnt matter too much at baby stakes. Turn got weird because it was completely rainbow, so I thought I might just maximize vs AT,AJ. Hands like QT/QJ folds to smaller bet anyway and if he has A5s or A7s, so be it... But this?

Thats it for me, see ya tomorrow at the tables. Maybe. GL

Originally posted by taavi1337
in poker, stuff like that happens. but you put in real effort. this is important.

I know taavi_leet, I used to play higher (actually way higher) few years back, so I know how painful swings can be I tend to get pissed but dont tilt (well I hope), too many hands under my belt to do that. I just get mad when I see retarded plays by stupid "regs" being rewarded. I dont mind if fish does that but those half-assed 0,1bb/100 regs thinking how good they are not even realizing...

...I couldnt sleep, so I decided to do some studying. Like, looking at my overall stats, evaluating gameplan, looking into spots where nl50 pool might be doing something "better" than previous pools, you know, all that fun stuff.

These are my stats overall for the challenge (almost 200k hands):

I feel like a nit and I still play twice as many hands as most of the field... Something to think about, now I get it why all "regs" have no winrate, cuz with 15 VPIP it is hard to get action. Nobody plays poker here. NOBODY. They fold fold fold, then get blinds with aces, keep on folding again and circle repeats. For half a million hands. And they never get it, they keep on clicking that fold button and wonder why...
Oh, and did I mention that some of those suckers even look into solvers (Ive seen even nl2 players justifying gay plays with solvers, wtf) and then they feel like they are "studying" and "getting better", without ever trying to even think for themselves, trying to figure out spots, trying to think why they do what they do, why solver is doing what it is doing...

Anyway, I need some sleep, too much rant...

It is the worst when that one reg in the table wins... i always root for the fish to take their money. But then still i ran flush vs flush vs him... 🤦‍♂️

Wow great results! And at rush even ... pretty amazing. Makes me want to play cash again ...

Did you have the same kind of stats at rush? This is regular tables right?

Originally posted by taavi1337
It is the worst when that one reg in the table wins... i always root for the fish to take their money. But then still i ran flush vs flush vs him... 🤦‍♂️

I root for fishes too all the time. But then again, nits are fishes too, just think about them in opposite direction

Originally posted by Stackoffski
Did you have the same kind of stats at rush? This is regular tables right?

This is 170k hands of rush and 8.8k hands of reg tables... If you scroll throughout my blog, you will see I played rush only up to nl50 recently

Did you have a call-range in late position at rush next to your 3betting range or is the 30% VPIP coming from big blind defends? I played something like 24/21/9 myself, so I am curious about your play (which makes good money :f_biggrin:)

...had one of those days, where you wake up late due to not sleeping properly night before (went to bed at 4am and woke up at 9 so...), and as a gift you run bellow ev. But still ok. I like being bellow ev and still win, despite winning like pennies

Originally posted by Stackoffski
Did you have a call-range in late position at rush next to your 3betting range or is the 30% VPIP coming from big blind defends? I played something like 24/21/9 myself, so I am curious about your play (which makes good money :f_biggrin:)

That is a good question, however I am not sure I can give you answer you are looking for. Let me put it this way - I try to look for situations in which I have edge over my opponent (or I believe I do have an edge). If its in a 3bet line, then I 3bet. If I want to outplay villain postflop, I want to have more maneuverability, so I want to keep stacks deeper, so I cold call. It also depends on who is sitting in the blinds... There is more variables to it, than just "I call these hands and I 3bet these". Sometimes I do both, sometimes not.

Let me put it this way, or answer with couple of hands, that might make it more clear:

1. So here I go pretty wide... I opened UTG hand that some players do not even open on the BTN. But table conditions were really good for that. They were so good, I decided that opening such a weak holding made sense. I know I have to fold vs every aggression, but if there is no aggressive player, then why not (and couple other things were going on...)

2. So here, our hand is shit, but, if we have villain that is super passive, always folds when misses, never 4bet bluffs, then why not. You can say that hero got lucky (and he did, in this particular instance), but again, if villain is super weak, it doesnt matter too much what we are holding, as long as we know, where are we making money from the villain. Cards have very little to do with it, play the player first

3. Little bit wild one, so this hand is more of a question for you - why did hero play in this way? Can you explain this hand to me? (opened question btw, if you dare and I hope you do, that way you will get most out of it)

You see, when I play, I usually have good idea about what is "correct" and what people should do. But I also study my opponents, cards have very little to do with it.
When I see a showdown, I do not go to solver and "check if I played correctly". I ask myself very, very simple question. Can you figure out question? (Hint is in hand No. 3) That is the key to my whole gameplan. Not what hands do I 3bet. That is irrelevant in a sense...

Hopefully that helps. GL at the tables

Hello, I played from early morning to quit early, going to th gym now and taking girly out in the evening, so very likely saturdays grind is in danger. Hopefully wont get too smashed... Anyway, here are results:

I felt like I lost every pot, so I am happy with results in the end. I mean its barely beer money but it is what it is. Got a nice gift in the end so that kind of saved the day hah

Good luck at the tables guys

Hi N3bojsa,

Thanks for the elaborate answer!

So I see your play is really based on specific reads and general tendencies. To play the way you do you have to study your opponents and your own game a lot, something that I failed to do at rush back then (also because no playernames are exported in handhistories). But a good idea would be to record your play and make notes on players.

I do not know what question you ask yourself when you see a showdown ... "Well, something like what did my opponent think?" maybe, among other things ...

For the 3rd hand, there is no extra info about reads about specific opponent, so to 3bet there, you must have come to the conclusion it's always profitable (or you did have opponent-based reads...). You must indeed heavily rely on fold-equity, playing your position rather than cards.
I like the turn bet, I learned from that! Would you have bluffed this river if you didn't hit that Jack?? (I think you would).

Good luck! nice blog ♠_thumbsup:

Had fantastic evening yesterday, some culture involved, some heavy, heavy drinking involved too...
So I woke up late, hangover af, took lots of time to be able to even get out of bed. And then it took really long timefor my girly to finally leave (lol). So Im going to play, but most of the day is gone so, not sure how it will go. I do not like to miss weekends but well, thats life

Originally posted by Stackoffski
Hi N3bojsa,
Thanks for the elaborate answer!
...
Good luck! nice blog ♠_thumbsup:

Hello Stackoffski and thank you as well! No, no, no you got it completely wrong
But you weren't afraid, shared your thoughts and put yourself out there, that requires some balls and I highly respect that! For that I believe you deserve more detailed answer, so let me break it down for you, both your answer and my hand.

Just as a reminder, we are talking about third hand from this post...

Originally posted by Stackoffski
So I see your play is really based on specific reads and general tendencies. To play the way you do you have to study your opponents and your own game a lot, something that I failed to do at rush back then (also because no playernames are exported in handhistories). But a good idea would be to record your play and make notes on players.

Well, I DO have a default game plan. Generally I try to stay reasonably balanced preflop and kind of follow gto ranges. Once I know more, then its time adjust. But the higher I play the less I deviate, because people know how to punish such simple deviations (reverse is also true - lesser the stakes, worse my competition is and people simply either do not care, or do not know how to deal with players that are out of line - simply because they are too afraid or lazy to learn how to deal with such deviations). Once I collect some reads, I either loosen or tighten up, depending on what I know about my opponents.

Sometimes deviations can get pretty severe... For example, let's say you open UTG and you face 3bet from player in the BTN who has 3bet range of 1%... What will you do? Well, answer is not to fold everything, obviously, but rather change your defend strategy. In this example, I never 4bet bluff and I just fold very good hands, like AQo, AJs, ATs and so on. BUT what about hands like low pocket pairs? Vs normal 3bet range, those hands will not perform that great, but in this situation I always defend them, because when I hit, I always get paid. Always. So EV distribution just shifts, based on my opponents strategy.

Posflop is similar... Once I spot mistakes in certain lines, I just tunnel my opponents into those spots and kind of try to force the mistakes, make their lives hell. Also, once I know what types of mistakes my opponents are making postflop - I am allowed to play more hands vs them preflop, because I will win more often than I should. EV that I lose preflop will be returned by me postflop, multiplied...
To learn this, you have to think about spots for yourself, try to figure your own ways how to deal with opponents mistakes. It is usually binary decision (up until mid-high stakes and even there its like, well, will see once I play there again).

With that in mind, I just take notes right away during the game, simply because I know what to look for. With every action I take, I expect certain outcome. I note weird sh*t only, stuff that was not expected from my opponent. Everything else is irrelevant.

Originally posted by Stackoffski
I do not know what question you ask yourself when you see a showdown ... "Well, something like what did my opponent think?" maybe, among other things ...

Yes, you are on the right track, but you got it only half right. Lets keep this as a mystery for now With consistent offtable studying and efforts, you will get it, alongside with overall logic to play good poker. In other words, being the player, instead of being played...

Originally posted by Stackoffski
For the 3rd hand, there is no extra info about reads about specific opponent, so to 3bet there, you must have come to the conclusion it's always profitable (or you did have opponent-based reads...). You must indeed heavily rely on fold-equity, playing your position rather than cards.

Okay. I had no info on my opponent prior to the hand. So let's start with the most obvious one - why the hell did I 3bet J4o, right? Was it a spew? Or just this "one time and got lucky" thing? Let's break it down:

This is gtoWizard, BvB range:

if we look at 3bet range, which is roughly 18% wide (red one, just in case...), we can see that it has couple of properties:
- there is obvious value region, big pairs TT+, big picture cards like AK...
- there is "bluff" region, that will continue vs villains potential 4bet, given its equity - hands like 56s, K8s, low suited aces...
- and there is pure bluff region, hands that will fold vs potential 4bet - solver likes to use low suited Tx and Jx and then offsuit garbage, that is not good enough to call. We can see that solver 3bets (mixes) J8o as the worst offsuit Jx hand.

But, villain opened 2.1x, not 3x as suggested by GTO wiz. From this we got a lot of information! Firstly we know that villain is a fish (cause reg would open 3x). So we can adjust right away - firstly we expand our value 3bet range and secondly, we 3bet bluff less. Not zero bluffs, just bit less. So my actual 3bet range might look something like this (just for imagination, not saying I 3bet this range vs fish...):

- we expanded our value 3bets, now we have all big picture cars in there
- we still have some bluffs, like J8o, low suited Tx... Hands like J3s I believer we are capable of playing profitably as a call...

But wait, villain opened only 2x (or something like 2,1 doesnt matter too much)! So because of that, we can defend way more hands, since we have very good odds. That being said, our cold call range expands. Like, a lot, we can almost defend any2, almost... And following the logic, that we 3bet polarized, we still 3bet wider value range and given expanded cold call range, our weakest hands will now become garbage like J4o, K2o and these hands, so we might 3bet them. Again, I still like to have some bluffs even vs fish and I want my bluffs to come from hands that I do not mind folding vs 4bet...

For nerds, if you run this spot in HRC, actual strategy will look something like this:

- I didn't know this during the time hand was played, but that should just give you an idea, how far can simple logic take you....

Originally posted by Stackoffski
I like the turn bet, I learned from that! Would you have bluffed this river if you didn't hit that Jack?? (I think you would).

Sorry buddy , I don't know what you mean by this. I flopped Jack and villain donked into me. We can talk postflop too, I just don't understand your question, so I donnow what to tell you...

Hope this helps, good luck at the tables and happy studying

I am too dead, going to bed, waking up early and grind whole sunday hopefully...

Hi, I read it, have to read it again soon ... later on after posting I thought about the small 2.2x SB open

Originally posted by N3bojsa
Had fantastic evening yesterday, some culture involved, some heavy, heavy drinking involved too...
So I woke up late, hangover af, took lots of time to be able to even get out of bed. And then it took really long timefor my girly to finally leave (lol). So Im going to play, but most of the day is gone so, not sure how it will go. I do not like to miss weekends but well, thats life

Originally posted by Stackoffski
Hi N3bojsa,
Thanks for the elaborate answer!
...
Good luck! nice blog ♠_thumbsup:

Hello Stackoffski and thank you as well! No, no, no you got it completely wrong
But you weren't afraid, shared your thoughts and put yourself out there, that requires some balls and I highly respect that! For that I believe you deserve more detailed answer, so let me break it down for you, both your answer and my hand.

Just as a reminder, we are talking about third hand from this post...

Originally posted by Stackoffski
So I see your play is really based on specific reads and general tendencies. To play the way you do you have to study your opponents and your own game a lot, something that I failed to do at rush back then (also because no playernames are exported in handhistories). But a good idea would be to record your play and make notes on players.

Well, I DO have a default game plan. Generally I try to stay reasonably balanced preflop and kind of follow gto ranges. Once I know more, then its time adjust. But the higher I play the less I deviate, because people know how to punish such simple deviations (reverse is also true - lesser the stakes, worse my competition is and people simply either do not care, or do not know how to deal with players that are out of line - simply because they are too afraid or lazy to learn how to deal with such deviations). Once I collect some reads, I either loosen or tighten up, depending on what I know about my opponents.

Sometimes deviations can get pretty severe... For example, let's say you open UTG and you face 3bet from player in the BTN who has 3bet range of 1%... What will you do? Well, answer is not to fold everything, obviously, but rather change your defend strategy. In this example, I never 4bet bluff and I just fold very good hands, like AQo, AJs, ATs and so on. BUT what about hands like low pocket pairs? Vs normal 3bet range, those hands will not perform that great, but in this situation I always defend them, because when I hit, I always get paid. Always. So EV distribution just shifts, based on my opponents strategy.

Posflop is similar... Once I spot mistakes in certain lines, I just tunnel my opponents into those spots and kind of try to force the mistakes, make their lives hell. Also, once I know what types of mistakes my opponents are making postflop - I am allowed to play more hands vs them preflop, because I will win more often than I should. EV that I lose preflop will be returned by me postflop, multiplied...
To learn this, you have to think about spots for yourself, try to figure your own ways how to deal with opponents mistakes. It is usually binary decision (up until mid-high stakes and even there its like, well, will see once I play there again).

With that in mind, I just take notes right away during the game, simply because I know what to look for. With every action I take, I expect certain outcome. I note weird sh*t only, stuff that was not expected from my opponent. Everything else is irrelevant.

Originally posted by Stackoffski
I do not know what question you ask yourself when you see a showdown ... "Well, something like what did my opponent think?" maybe, among other things ...

Yes, you are on the right track, but you got it only half right. Lets keep this as a mystery for now With consistent offtable studying and efforts, you will get it, alongside with overall logic to play good poker. In other words, being the player, instead of being played...

Originally posted by Stackoffski
For the 3rd hand, there is no extra info about reads about specific opponent, so to 3bet there, you must have come to the conclusion it's always profitable (or you did have opponent-based reads...). You must indeed heavily rely on fold-equity, playing your position rather than cards.

Okay. I had no info on my opponent prior to the hand. So let's start with the most obvious one - why the hell did I 3bet J4o, right? Was it a spew? Or just this "one time and got lucky" thing? Let's break it down:

This is gtoWizard, BvB range:

Spoiler

if we look at 3bet range, which is roughly 18% wide (red one, just in case...), we can see that it has couple of properties:
- there is obvious value region, big pairs TT+, big picture cards like AK...
- there is "bluff" region, that will continue vs villains potential 4bet, given its equity - hands like 56s, K8s, low suited aces...
- and there is pure bluff region, hands that will fold vs potential 4bet - solver likes to use low suited Tx and Jx and then offsuit garbage, that is not good enough to call. We can see that solver 3bets (mixes) J8o as the worst offsuit Jx hand.

But, villain opened 2.1x, not 3x as suggested by GTO wiz. From this we got a lot of information! Firstly we know that villain is a fish (cause reg would open 3x). So we can adjust right away - firstly we expand our value 3bet range and secondly, we 3bet bluff less. Not zero bluffs, just bit less. So my actual 3bet range might look something like this (just for imagination, not saying I 3bet this range vs fish...):

Spoiler

- we expanded our value 3bets, now we have all big picture cars in there
- we still have some bluffs, like J8o, low suited Tx... Hands like J3s I believer we are capable of playing profitably as a call...

But wait, villain opened only 2x (or something like 2,1 doesnt matter too much)! So because of that, we can defend way more hands, since we have very good odds. That being said, our cold call range expands. Like, a lot, we can almost defend any2, almost... And following the logic, that we 3bet polarized, we still 3bet wider value range and given expanded cold call range, our weakest hands will now become garbage like J4o, K2o and these hands, so we might 3bet them. Again, I still like to have some bluffs even vs fish and I want my bluffs to come from hands that I do not mind folding vs 4bet...

For nerds, if you run this spot in HRC, actual strategy will look something like this:

Spoiler

- I didn't know this during the time hand was played, but that should just give you an idea, how far can simple logic take you....

Originally posted by Stackoffski
I like the turn bet, I learned from that! Would you have bluffed this river if you didn't hit that Jack?? (I think you would).

Sorry buddy , I don't know what you mean by this. I flopped Jack and villain donked into me. We can talk postflop too, I just don't understand your question, so I donnow what to tell you...

Hope this helps, good luck at the tables and happy studying

Nice one mate. Looks like you have good idea how to get where you want to go. Will follow this! GL with BR builder.

Hello Sunday, how is life? I grinded whole day, accomplishing astonishing 3$ hourly

so yep, luck was not the name of the game, still ok with results. I mean kind of... One thing I am noticing is that rake might be real thing. I am used to play fairly loose and aggressive, however it really seems like with GG rake, lots of close decisions should actually be weighted more towards folds (question is, what is "close" decision - my evaluation of spot being close is probably snapfold for most of the players around).

Still, not big enough sample to tighten up a little and become more boring player. It is just that, I cannot help it. I see good spot, I take it xD! I have real trouble thinking "oh look, good spot! But pass because GG rake (+preflop rake also?!!) will take all ev away..." I just have to move up, where they both respect my raises and take less rake.

Originally posted by Stackoffski
Hi, I read it, have to read it again soon ... later on after posting I thought about the small 2.2x SB open
Hope I helped a little, GL sir!

Originally posted by Fredjen
Nice one mate. Looks like you have good idea how to get where you want to go. Will follow this! GL with BR builder.

Hi Fredjen, haha ye, idea is one thing, realization is different story, but working on it... Thanks for support , appreciate it and glad to see other old timer around

GL at the tables guys!

Impressive results. I am sure everyone noticed your blog just not commenting. Not that i am playing poker enymore but what i noticed Regarding GG rake is terrible there yes. (Once they will update your PVI index you will get close to 0 rakeback). There is that weird affiliate trick everyones taking (3rd party gives up to 30% RB + whatever RB is on GG site) but that is possible for new members or the ones who didnt play for long long time (18months inactive) and are eligible for retag. This is plain stupid imo. it just means affiliate will get like 2.5-3% out of your RB aswell.

But then.. if this is possible in GG, it is in every other site. Every reg should create their own affiliation and retag their accounts to themselves. give biggest rakebacks and + affiliate rakeback will flow into own pocket.

GL at the tables. I enjoy reading it.