How to be a Poker player

Nice introduction, im following you! Im finally reading Jared's book after one and a half year I bought it

you play SH or FR?

Hi mikelito85! Nice to see you in my blog.

I play SH but funny thing is that recently, during one session, I didn't have enough tables and decided to add FR tables to put some volume in. I noticed that there are a lot of weak players and some lines are more profitable on FR than on SH. Of course I didn't play a large sample and my opinion can be biased. But still, maybe I will start exploring FR to find some juicy tables, especially at higher stakes.

As for Jared's book, it is totally worth it. Well, both of them actually.

Originally posted by elpsycho
Hi Ivica! Nice to see you here.

The book I was talking about is Haseeb Qureshi’s “How to Be a Poker Player: The Philosophy of Poker”.

While Jared’s “Mental Game of Poker” deals with mental game issues and offers strategies to combat them, this book explores the concept of being a poker player. Attitude towards poker itself, learning, living as a pro etc. There are, of course, some similarities between these books and even cross-references but for me Haseeb’s book was more inspirational than a how-to guide.

Hi elpsycho! Happy to be here man

I have googled a bit for the book, haven't found the whole copy yet anywhere.
Any chance that you can send me a link for it via PM?

Appreciate it man !

Originally posted by IvicaIliev77

Hi elpsycho! Happy to be here man

I have googled a bit for the book, haven't found the whole copy yet anywhere.
Any chance that you can send me a link for it via PM?

Appreciate it man !

I don't think there is a copy on the internet, I never found one anyway.

I bought mine for Kindle on Amazon.

Hope that helps

So, here is my first week of the challenge:

Hands: 11,279
Net Won: -$56.07 (-$55.32 according to HM)
Rakeback: $21.27
Result: -$34.8
Bankroll: $752.98

The results are meh, but that was my first week fully dedicated to NL25. I'm a little anxious on NL25 after playing a lot of NL10, and the $100 swings are a bit frustrating.

The good news is that I started writing a mental hand history during sessions, and I feel like it’s helping me understand some underlying mental game problems in my game. I hope this will become a habit.

As for strategy/technical side of study, it was quite random during this week and I feel a bit disappointed with it. However, I made the conclusion that the weakest part of my game are 3-bet pots. In general, I’m using w34z3l’s ranges from his 6-max walkthrough, but I feel that on nl25 there are regs who are too aggressive, and I need to make some adjustments if I want to improve my game.

Here is my plan for improving my game in 3-bet pots as a part of my studying routine:

Make pop-ups for calling a 3-bet from different positions
Make polarized/linear 3-betting ranges vs different types of opponents
Analyze aggressive regulars’ 3betting ranges and flatting vs 3bet ranges
Do Janda’s range vs range analysis, which is basically comparing how given ranges play against each other and writing out what would hero do with every hand in his range on random flops

And of course I will continue to work on my mental game and other aspects that I listed earlier.

I’m feeling very determined and that’s a good thing

Thank you for the advice once more.
I see great plan that you lay out here. I wish you to go through with it, I am positive it will improve your ROI in future games!

All the best

Second week of the challenge started quite roughly on NL25, so I decided to move down to NL10 for a couple of weeks, or maybe longer if necessary, to build a more comfortable bankroll.

Hands: 6,285
Net Won: -$104.65
Rakeback: $26.92
Result: -$77.73
Bankroll: $675.25

This setback screwed a bit with my plan to analyze NL25 regs, but what the heck, they aren’t going anywhere. ♠_evil:

By the way, is it me or NL25 is MUCH harder, than NL10? I noticed it on Stars and now on Full Tilt. Every coach says that those stakes are pretty much the same, but I just don't see them as such. Maybe it's just me.

My plan for this week pretty much stays the same – continue working on my technical and mental game, but I think it would be nice to select some tough hands, analyze them here in my blog and also post them in the hand evaluation forums, and then compare the results. Should be fun!

Today I had a very interesting spot and wasn’t quite sure what to do on the river. So I decided to play with Flopzilla a bit and try to figure this one out. This is a 3 barrel bluff spot BTN vs BB.

Full Tilt, $0.05/$0.10 No Limit Hold'em Cash, 6 Players
Poker Tools by CardRunners - Hand Details

SB: $14.06 (140.6 bb)
BB: $9.85 (98.5 bb)
UTG: $11.71 (117.1 bb)
MP: $12.58 (125.8 bb)
CO: $10.15 (101.5 bb)
Hero (BTN): $10.15 (101.5 bb)

Preflop: Hero is BTN with 9 7
MP posts BB OOP, UTG folds, MP checks, CO folds, Hero raises to $0.40, SB folds, BB calls $0.30, MP folds

Flop: ($1) T 2 J (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $0.55, BB calls $0.55

Turn: ($2.10) A (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $1.35, BB calls $1.35

River: ($4.80) 2 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero ???

Preflop we are on the button with 97s and there is a fish posting from MP. Of course we would open-raise this hand if everyone had folded to us, but even with one poster in the pot I think the best play for us is to isolate and try to play this pot heads-up against a fish. There is also a possibility of limping behind and trying to play a multi-way pot in position, but I think isolation is a bit better.
We get a cold call from BB who is unknown but given that he doesn’t have auto-rebuy on he could be a weaker player.

Let’s think about our opponents range. I think he would definitely 3-bet hands like AQ+ and JJ+, and his cold calling range vs my 4 bb raise might be a bit wider than a regular’s cold calling range because he doesn’t have a full stack and can be a weaker player.

Overall I think his calling range could look something like this:

On the flop we are heads-up and we flop a gutshot with a backdoor flush dro. I think it’s a reasonable hand to cbet with, especially against wide range in position. We can hit some additional equity, barrel some scare cards or hit our draw.

So I decided to bet, but I think my sizing is too small. The board is not super drawy, but the are some gutshots and straight draws out there, and it might be easier for him to call me with some 3rd pair. I don't now if it matters that much, but I suppose a bet of 0.65 or 0.70 could be a bit better.

I don’t think he will fold a gutshot or a pocket pair on the flop, especially to my sizing, so I believe he will continue with this range and we have almost no fold equity:

I suppose he would raise sets and two pairs on the flop, so when he calls, we can discount them on the turn.

Ace is one of the best cards for us and given how bad our fold equity was on the flop I think we should almost always make a 2nd barrel here. As we can see in Flopzilla, he can’t have a top pair and he will fold to our bet more than 50% of his flop calling range. And then again, our plan on the flop was to bet scare cards.

But he called and the river came a total blank. Which is also the best word to describe my state of mind at that moment.
I tanked a little and for some reason thought he wouldn’t fold much. So I checked, but now I see that this was clearly a mistake. He had a lot of draws on the turn and on the river he will fold around 56% of his calling range on the turn!

If I haven’t made some significant mistakes in my analysis then a 2/3 pot 3rd barrel on the river would be super profitable in this spot. And I missed it!

And now I will post this hand in hand evaluation forums and see what judges will say about it!

del

subscribed! gl

Originally posted by vonki
subscribed! gl

Hey vonki! Nice to see you here!

:spade::club::diamond::heart:

So, I posted this hand and hand judge kinda disagreed with my analysis, but then again, maybe ranges that I gave him were reg-ish and against a fishy player it is a give up on the river. I guess this makes my play correct, but for some reason I wish it wasn't

Originally posted by BogdanPS
Hi elp,

Preflop: looks fine

Postflop: BB is a fish and I doubt you get a fish to fold much on that river... thus for me it's an easy give up.

Vs a reg type player you can consider a bigger bet to try to get to fold some pairs.

Had another losing week, but OMG, so many promotions in December! November was the most losing month for me so far, but I hope to do better in December. I will post my plans and goals for December later, but for now here is my graph for the week:

Hands: 6,103
Net Won: -$100.94
Rakeback: $9.13 + $15 Instant cash bonus
Result: -$76.81
Bankroll: $598.44

My bankroll keeps dwindling, but not my desire to grind. Looking forward to grinding a lot more in December.

There are a lot of promotions in December on PokerStars, so I decided to grind there. Also there is the PokerStrategy Sidekick promotion, which was awesome in 2013, so I just can’t miss it this year. It’s just too much fun. I spent a whole day trying to get the Sidekick working, and after hours of swearing and tilting it finally started to grab my hand history.

Also I like the milestone promotion (the final stake share part), so that’s another little bonus. But the main goal of my grinding will be to get Gold on PokerStars and clear the current milestone, which incidentally also requires 2500 VPPs.

I will also continue studying and improving my game which will be the main focus along with getting Gold and milestone.
So my goals for December are:

Get Gold on PokerStars/clear the milestone
Study at least 6 hours a week
Complete all 4 weeks of Sidekick promotion
Stay positive

Awesome blog!
Going to read the Qureshi-book and will be following your blog
GL!