American in America

Hi, verneer!

have read your materials on moving through micros. Great thought process explanation and way to think about game.

I'm currently on NL10, hoping to reach NL200 as soon as possible. Got to NL10 pretty quickly, jumping through NL2 - NL5, but am facing some resistance on NL10 (I play on Stars) atm. So I guess I need to work more on some c-bet, call other's ppl bets things I assume, cause mu non show down winnings sometimes are too high imo.

Great You have here, and welcome!!!

miljons

Originally posted by ragney
I think I have that kind of problem. I don't know what I'm doing wrong at the tables and I really hope you can tell me more about it. I recently moved from SHNL25 to HUNL50

Don't worry - you're not the only one. You're not doing anything wrong at the tables. Your brain works differently at the tables. Step one is to accept that. Then there are little things you can start doing which helps to keep your brain working in a way that's +EV for your game.

Originally posted by doctorkgb
Your new book- is it SH or FR? Where can I see preview and price of it?

All the examples are Full Ring, but both players can benefit from it. I wrote a blog post called "What Value Does My Book Offer a 6-max/HU Player" (Cliff notes: Lots to 6-max, not much to HU).

The price is $49.95 (about the cost of a private 1-hour lesson from a small stakes player) and you can check out a preview here.

I don't know where I am and am not allowed to link to (I'm still new), so if you're a mod and I did something I'm not supposed to, let me know and I'll fix it.

Originally posted by michel2311
Hopes that it will be shipped to the Netherlands don't like to swim to the UK. If I look to pre-order it gives me $11 shipping costs but don't know if this is good???

Originally posted by bjela
Amazon.com ships to Serbia, and if it ships here, it will ship anywhere ♦

As for the shipping costs, I'm not sure, but lets say it was ~10$ per book, somewhere in that region.

Sounds like $11 is ok for shipping. It actually costs me $16 to do is so I'm subsidizing the European shipping a bit atm. I hope to figure all that stuff out in the next few weeks.

Any feedback that you guys give me on what to do and not do is golden and I really appreciate it.

lanopano - I like a lot of what you wrote - it definitely seems like you are thinking about the game on multiple levels.

Originally posted by lanopano
I'd say the merit of checking is that it is automatically balanced.

Can you elaborate on what you mean by this a little more? Specifically - what does it mean to balanced and why is that something you want?

I read a short story by Tommy Angelo a while back ago which relates to this topic and is pretty funny. Here is the link.

Originally posted by miljonszalie
I'm currently on NL10, hoping to reach NL200 as soon as possible. Got to NL10 pretty quickly, jumping through NL2 - NL5, but am facing some resistance on NL10 (I play on Stars) atm. So I guess I need to work more on some c-bet, call other's ppl bets things I assume, cause mu non show down winnings sometimes are too high imo.

What's the hurry? How would you define "reaching 200NL"? Chances are, you can probably sit at a 200NL table right now Good luck with your learning though.

Great You have here, and welcome!!!

miljons

Thanks!

Honoured to have you bringing value to us here, sir. I didn't see much of your stuff, saw the free 13 biggest beginner mistakes (halloween edition) a while back and while laughing my ass off I also learned a lot.

The few materials I saw from u got me hooked (not many do) so I love it that you're around here now, where I / we can interact with you and hopefully ask you questions.

Cya around!

Daniel

Originally posted by verneer
What's the hurry?

Yeah, probs just gonna keep studying the game and playing optimal.

How would you define "reaching 200NL"?

I wanna reach and stabilize myself at least @ NL200 by the end of this year!
I want poker as great profitable hobby I have after work.

Originally posted by verneer
Unlearning Poker

"One thing that I read is when a competent TAG raises on the button, it's not profitable to call with small pocket pairs. We should either three-bet or fold them."

This is what he had learned. In general, the advice has some merit. For a large chunk of the rest of the session, we discussed the following:

1. Why do people give that advice?
2. When should you deviate from the advice?

Late to the part on this, but here goes:

1. It greatly simplifies what is a very complex dynamic (BTN-SB-BB interplay). Especially as a beginner, it can be overwhelming when trying to cope with all the factors to be considered, so advice like this is given. It also ensures you will never be playing OOP in a marginal spot with an aggressive post flop player, so it keeps you out of trouble.

2. Tricky question, so this probably highlights that I am a beginner myself! My main consideration with calling in the SB with a small PP is how loose/passive the BB is. If he is 50/5 with 0% 3b I will call hoping to play a 3 way pot with someone I feel I can make money from when I hit.

Originally posted by verneer

Originally posted by michel2311
Hopes that it will be shipped to the Netherlands don't like to swim to the UK. If I look to pre-order it gives me $11 shipping costs but don't know if this is good???

Originally posted by bjela
Amazon.com ships to Serbia, and if it ships here, it will ship anywhere ♦

As for the shipping costs, I'm not sure, but lets say it was ~10$ per book, somewhere in that region.

Sounds like $11 is ok for shipping. It actually costs me $16 to do is so I'm subsidizing the European shipping a bit atm. I hope to figure all that stuff out in the next few weeks.

Any feedback that you guys give me on what to do and not do is golden and I really appreciate it.

What would you say are the pros and cons of self publishing as opposed to finding a traditional publisher like 2+2 to market, print, edit and distribute your book? We haven't signed a contract with our publisher, and I'm starting to wonder whether you approach might not be better. You're a lot better known than me (obv) and TT, so maybe that's the key difference. I think avoiding ebook versions, at least to begin with, is a good idea given the number of hacked ebooks that people have sent me.

Originally posted by Chargemore

Originally posted by verneer
Unlearning Poker

"One thing that I read is when a competent TAG raises on the button, it's not profitable to call with small pocket pairs. We should either three-bet or fold them."

This is what he had learned. In general, the advice has some merit. For a large chunk of the rest of the session, we discussed the following:

1. Why do people give that advice?
2. When should you deviate from the advice?

Late to the part on this, but here goes:

1. It greatly simplifies what is a very complex dynamic (BTN-SB-BB interplay). Especially as a beginner, it can be overwhelming when trying to cope with all the factors to be considered, so advice like this is given. It also ensures you will never be playing OOP in a marginal spot with an aggressive post flop player, so it keeps you out of trouble.

2. Tricky question, so this probably highlights that I am a beginner myself! My main consideration with calling in the SB with a small PP is how loose/passive the BB is. If he is 50/5 with 0% 3b I will call hoping to play a 3 way pot with someone I feel I can make money from when I hit.

Really good stuff here.

1. "It also ensures you will never be playing OOP" ... unless you go the three-bet route

2. Textbook example.

Originally posted by jbpatzer
What would you say are the pros and cons of self publishing as opposed to finding a traditional publisher like 2+2 to market, print, edit and distribute your book? We haven't signed a contract with our publisher, and I'm starting to wonder whether you approach might not be better. You're a lot better known than me (obv) and TT, so maybe that's the key difference.

I guess I didn't really consider traditional publishing because both Tommy and Jared both decided to self-publish. I think Jared got advice from Leatherass and I'm sure Dusty looked into all his options before self-publishing. I also heard that 2+2 takes a big chunk of the sales (80-90%), but I never talked to them about the book so I can't say this with certainty. I know I could buy an ad on 2+2 for a few grand to advertise the book, but right now that's not worth it to me. I'm happy staying small and working out the kinks in the whole system (publishing/shipping/evaluating).

I also figured that enough people would know me to at least get a critical mass of books out there. After that, if the product is good, the word will spread. If not, I don't really want my name on something that's marginal but everywhere.

The big issue right now is how I want to handle U.S. and non-U.S. distribution via Amazon. Amazon does this thing called Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA). If I choose to go that route, I would ship a bunch of books over to an Amazon warehouse and they take care of the process from there. They then take a cut (obv). On the other hand, I can still list my book on their site (as well as Amazon.co.uk) and ship it myself. They take a smaller cut from that.

I think right now, the most +EV thing for me is to ship my own books to American, African, and Asian customers and ship a mass of books to the U.K. and have Amazon.co.uk take care of the Europe region for me. The whole situation is very fluent though, so two weeks from now I might be doing something very different. That's where I stand atm though.

I would love to hear your thoughts and advice on the matter. You've clearly been through the process and have experience with all the stages.

I think avoiding ebook versions, at least to begin with, is a good idea given the number of hacked ebooks that people have sent me.

That's my thinking. I did send a few of them out to get some initial reviews, but I did it to people that I thought were trustworthy and had no reason to spread my book around. I know that as soon as I start getting into my groove of distributing the print version, I'll re-evalute my options on the ebook.

FWIW, I think the feel and educational version of this print book is superior to the e-version.

Originally posted by verneer
lanopano - I like a lot of what you wrote - it definitely seems like you are thinking about the game on multiple levels.

Originally posted by lanopano
I'd say the merit of checking is that it is automatically balanced.

Can you elaborate on what you mean by this a little more? Specifically - what does it mean to balanced and why is that something you want?

I read a short story by Tommy Angelo a while back ago which relates to this topic and is pretty funny. Here is the link.

Tommy Angelo haha. I wanna play against him.. would be fun, even when I get owned pretty badly for sure

To be balanced: hmmm..... I was just trying to use fancy words tbh:)

No, in my understanding it's important to have a balanced range not to get easily exploited.
In the checking example: We often check when we're weak because it's just natural to do that (eg. when we check fold). Therefore, when we start checking as well when we're strong the opponent can't really know what we have since we're balanced (weak and strong holdings).

The thing is, that the thinking player knows that we're either strong or weak but can't predict our strenght in a specific hand (if our lines are consistent). So he can't exploit us since his bluffs will get called or stay uncalled roughly the same amount of time (if we're balanced really good). So it's kind of a 0EV situation for him to bluff (as far as I understand).

The check when we're strong becomes then really important since our weak check is already given by nature (c/f). So we have to have a 'strong check' because if we don't check to induce ever, a good opponent could just bluff every time we check to him, since we would always fold then. On the other hand, if we suddenly start betting weirdly small amounts with a strong holding, we would also have to create the weird bet with weaker hands, so that villain doesn't just fold every time we bet. In other words, the bet to induce strategy makes us create a whole new range, which would be automatically there if we used the check strategy. So betting to induce would just involve a lot of unnecessary work against good players.

Obv. balanced ranges don't apply to fish. But because fish interpreted a check weaker than a small bet (in my opinon), a check would be better to induce a bluffbet with their hands they wouldn't call with our bet.

Sorry it's kind of boring and tl;dr :f_zZz:. I've heard a lot about balanced ranges lately, but it's still quite difficult to grasp ♠_confused:. But that's about what I believe I understand so far about it..

Originally posted by lanopano
To be balanced: hmmm..... I was just trying to use fancy words tbh:)

No, in my understanding it's important to have a balanced range not to get easily exploited.

I think having balanced ranges at micro and small stakes is both unnecessary and impossible to pull off due to the math involved.

First of all, what does it mean to play unexploitably? It means using a strategy against which there is no good counter-strategy. For example, if you are playing paper-rock-scissors, an unexploitable strategy would be pick paper, rock, and scissors at random with equal frequencies. There is no strategy that you can come up with that gives you an edge against the strategy I just laid out.

On the other hand, what if you notice that your opponent is picking paper : rock : scissors in a 5:6:3 ratio over the long term? I would hope that you would increase your own frequency of going with paper.

Same way in poker. The focus of your strategy should not be on your own frequencies but on your opponents. Figure out what about their strategy seems sub-optimal and then develop tactics to attack that.

I flew into Denver, CO and plan on skiing for the next three days. Last time I went skiing was in 2002 - my first year of graduate school. For the last few months I've been dealing with a stress fracture I got from running and it's only gotten better in the last two weeks. I am curious to see how it effects me. One thing that is effecting me for sure is the air - just walking up and down the stairs is enough for me to get short of breath. At least that's what I'm telling myself

Poker-wise, I am planning to write two in-depth articles in the next few weeks. Any topic suggestions?

Originally posted by verneer

Originally posted by jbpatzer
What would you say are the pros and cons of self publishing as opposed to finding a traditional publisher like 2+2 to market, print, edit and distribute your book? We haven't signed a contract with our publisher, and I'm starting to wonder whether you approach might not be better. You're a lot better known than me (obv) and TT, so maybe that's the key difference.

I guess I didn't really consider traditional publishing because both Tommy and Jared both decided to self-publish. I think Jared got advice from Leatherass and I'm sure Dusty looked into all his options before self-publishing. I also heard that 2+2 takes a big chunk of the sales (80-90%), but I never talked to them about the book so I can't say this with certainty. I know I could buy an ad on 2+2 for a few grand to advertise the book, but right now that's not worth it to me. I'm happy staying small and working out the kinks in the whole system (publishing/shipping/evaluating).

I also figured that enough people would know me to at least get a critical mass of books out there. After that, if the product is good, the word will spread. If not, I don't really want my name on something that's marginal but everywhere.

The big issue right now is how I want to handle U.S. and non-U.S. distribution via Amazon. Amazon does this thing called Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA). If I choose to go that route, I would ship a bunch of books over to an Amazon warehouse and they take care of the process from there. They then take a cut (obv). On the other hand, I can still list my book on their site (as well as Amazon.co.uk) and ship it myself. They take a smaller cut from that.

I think right now, the most +EV thing for me is to ship my own books to American, African, and Asian customers and ship a mass of books to the U.K. and have Amazon.co.uk take care of the Europe region for me. The whole situation is very fluent though, so two weeks from now I might be doing something very different. That's where I stand atm though.

I would love to hear your thoughts and advice on the matter. You've clearly been through the process and have experience with all the stages.

I finished my second textbook nearly ten years ago, and self-publishing really wasn't an option then, because the technology just wasn't in place, and distribution was impossible (and ofc for maths textbooks, you really need a reputable publisher, or nobody will buy it......not that anybody buys them anyway, in spite of the great reviews ).

Self-publishing clearly is a viable option now, but we concluded that TT just isn't well-known enough to be able to persuade people to part with their $$$ unless we had a reputable publisher. Maybe he'll bink something at the WSOP this year, marry Paris Hilton or something. Then we might be able to self-publish. Fingers crossed.

making you win at poker will make me more famous than shipping wsop me ...

Originally posted by TwiceT
making you win at poker will make me more famous than shipping wsop me ...

Definitely harder. The temptation to keep losing just to make you angrier and angrier is very strong, but I will try to resist.

Hi verneer,

Like many others, as a microstakes player u are a huge example for me.
Loved your and mdorand vids.

Concerning the book I wonder why you don't publish a ebook version.

First I only wanted to buy paperback versions cause I like the aspect of collecting them and 50$ for a pdf file just seemed like a lot of money to me back then.

However, the last time I decided to buy the ebook. Mainly because I realised you are paying for the content and not to collect them.
I've printed the pdf out and put it in a map like my school courses.

I most say i find this far better than a paperback version. The problem with the paperbakcs in my opinion is that the format isn't really contributing to the aspect of learning and studying the content.

When you print a pdf out it is in a a4 format and you can mark and take notes. With a paperback version you want to keep it in a perfect state and so on.

If the main reason is to prevent piracy i fully understand it.

PS: First post in the English community, i'm not that great in English so excuse me for major grammatical mistakes and stuff :-).

Ow yeah i will buy your book for sure!

Originally posted by verneer

Poker-wise, I am planning to write two in-depth articles in the next few weeks. Any topic suggestions?

is this for ps? hope so, cant wait

I have been thinking a lot about how some players are winners and some players( im in this bracket) are losers/breakeven players.
I know this answer maybe a bit all encompassing (and has a question mark again!!) but are good players better at gathering information and then using this information to their advantage?

Roo