[Closed] Firefly52

I forgot to mention in first post, I started on 1 table, then went 2 table, then 3 and now I'm comfortable 4tabling. I think I could take on 8+ but prefer to keep it relaxed especially as long as I am not making too much.

I admit haven't read the articles / watched the video / attended the coaching session, it looks like it's the basic stuff I already know about. If I'm incorrect please tell me and I will read/ watch them,.

I did make the homework though:

Question 1: What is your motivation for playing poker?
I have been playing pc games for a long time, I enjoy maths and psychology, got lots of free time and am easily bored. I love competition and going for becoming the best.

Question 2: What are your weaknesses when playing poker?
If I knew I wouldn't be here

I tend to make a loss in the mornings / afternoons and a huge profit in the evenings. I don't know whether that is because of me or because of the other players online or because of variance.

I sometimes get bored and look a bit around at this site / chatting a bit in the meanwhile, I don't think it affects me much, but it could be a weakness.
I do have a tendency to chase after bad odds / overvalue implied odds. I already progressed a bit on that one.

EDIT: Preflop I only raise 3bb, low amount of reraised i think, postflop skills are mainly just what i feel like :(. I hate lower pocket pairs on EP. Even worse the lower pocket pairs are the 88-JJ. I got no clue what to do with them. Usually I go aggresive preflop but flop will most likely bring a scare card.I can get a bit emotional / wasting time looking at board hoping for the right cards instead of just focussing on making the right decisions and not caring about outcomes.

EDIT2: Over the course of the day I keep on finding possible weaknesses, another possible weakness is that I am bluffing rather often while I have read multiple times that bluffing on NL2 should be avoided as much as possible. I think I am making money off my bluffs, but I don't know how to check whether that is true or not. Holdem manager is pretty much a program with a load of buttons that I do not understand (yet).

EDIT3: After messing with all sorts of cool buttons for a while, I got the following stats:

position ---- hands played ---- EV adjusted$ won
SB ----------------- 766 ------------------ -0.14
BB ----------------- 745 ----------------- -18.17
EP --------------- 1560 ------------------- 7.98
MP -------------- 1223 ------------------- 5.88
CO ---------------- 754 ------------------- 0.77
BU ---------------- 765 ------------------- 7.17

This surprises me a lot, I always wait for BB before joining so I don't understand why I got more SB and BU hands then BB hands. Might be because of lost hands due to lagg / people leaving in middle of game.

I don't know how significant a 745 hand sample is, but my BB losses look like total disaster to me. On the other hand I have no clue what I do different on CO / BU / MP and there is kind of a huge gap there as well. Individual hand reviewing did not show much, except for the 6 biggest pots all being all-ins with 32%- equity. I don't know what conclusions I have to draw from this, because I don't recall the situation / reason to go all-in. I will watch my play a bit on BB though. :).

Holdem manager is another piece of shitware, in less then a day it is bugging already:
BB winnings: -$18.42 BB EV adjusted winnings: -$18.17 EV$Diff $1.05.
SB winnings: $2.66 SB EV adjusted winnings: -$0.14 EV$Diff -$2.70.
EDIT: another discrepancy between reports EV$ won and the graph EV$ won line.

All the others do add up correctly, but how am I supposed to trust this software that is messing up the most basic things already?

Question 3: What does it mean to play tight aggressive?
Playing only the better starting hands and raising a lot with them. It works because if one plays tighter then his opponents he will have a starting hand advantage. Playing aggressive results in both more fold equity and more value from the best hands you play if done correctly. I think :P.

Hello Firefly52!

Firstly, welcome to the course! Great to see such detailed posts from you

In regards to your homework and most of your stats, I'll leave that to our wonderful coach Veriz. But what player max are you playing with cash games? 25VPIP isn't far off the mark if you're playing 6max (6 people), but if you're playing FR (9 player) you will certainly want to tighten up! The rest of your stats actually look ok, so for now I wouldn't change much according to that (obviously I don't know how you actually play! ♦) But remember in the grand scheme of things 5k hands is a veery small sample!

Veriz will comment on your homework and some better analysis on the rest!

Good luck on the course, enjoy it!

Jim

Thanks a lot for your post Jim,

I play indeed 9 player FR games. I know my VPIP is considered too high but I keep on getting pushed back to the 25ish after playing 20- VPIP for a while. I think this is caused by me blindstealing a lot because tend to have 10-VPIP guys on my left. Also the tables aren't full all the time, average amount of players is 7.8, whenever there are a couple of players gone I start playing looser (and more aggresive).

My only 3 sessions with a VPIP of 20- are all profitable and add up together to 573 hands, $9.96 EV won. A great number but a too small sample, My most profitable session was 227 hands with $6.17EV won with a VPIP of 29.3.

Having not enough hands for a decent sample means I can't draw any conclusions from this. I will try to play a bit tighter again, I don't really know where I should be folding more often though.

EDIT: playing now, dropped all A2o-A9o except from obvious blindsteals, dropped KTo and other lolhands from EP-MP (occasionally played them)

EDIT2: Going to try to post a hand here:

Hand converted with online PokerStrategy.com hand converter:

Play hand

$0.01/$0.02 No-Limit Hold'em (9 handed)

Known players:
[tg]CO$2.09:///////;BU$1.00:///////;SB$3.68:///////;BB$2.18:///////;UTG1$2.72:///////;UTG2$2.06:///////;MP1$2.24:///////;MP2$1.71:///////;MP3 (Hero)$1.97:///////;[/tg]

Preflop: Hero is MP3 with T:d, T:s.
UTG1 calls $0.02, 3 folds, Hero raises to $0.08, 2 folds, SB calls $0.07, BB folds, UTG1 calls $0.06.

Flop: ($0.26) 2:h, T:h, 3:h (3 players)
SB checks, UTG1 bets $0.02, Hero raises to $0.23, SB folds, UTG1 raises to $2.64, Hero calls $1.66(All-In).

Turn: ($4.79) 7:c (2 players)

River: ($4.79) 6:s (2 players)

Final Pot: $4.79.

Results follow:

UTG1 shows a flush, ace high(A:h J:h).
Hero shows three of a kind, tens(T:d T:s).

UTG1 wins with a flush, ace high(A:h J:h).

------------------

What do you guys think? I really hate playing medium pocket pairs, and I have never been in this situation before. I might get in it again though. what I know about villain: 50 hands, lost 2.50$, 14 VPIP 4 PFR, 100%cbet and 71.4% flop agg%.

I raised on flop to give bad odds to anyone drawing with Ah+x/ bluff a flush myself. Besides that I was hoping that in case there would be a flush he might fold because not having an ace / if someone would have an ace high flush already he might slowplay it due to my aggresive image giving me huge implied odds.

I called because I already moved some cash to the middle, seem to have quite some outs and he might be bluffing with any Ah+random nonheart. For some reason it won't show cool equity boxes, I put mine on roughly 33%, turns out to be 34.4%, I'm a lucky guesser

I just calculated it out, I was paying 34.6% of the final pot for at least 34.4% equity. Which means he has to be bluffing more then 0.2% of the time to make this a good call, which people do on NL2 :).

I wonder if his all-in move on flop was correct, I think that with 2 streets to go to get more money in / negative fold equity he would been better off putting in a smaller raise / calling. This might have looked more suspicious on NL2 though.

Even though I extremely rarely slowplay on NL2, I managed to find a hand where I am slowplaying in the flopped A-high flush situation:

Hand converted with online PokerStrategy.com hand converter:

Play hand

$0.01/$0.02 No-Limit Hold'em (9 handed)

Known players:
[tg]SB$2.00:///////;BB (Hero)$2.93:///////;UTG1$2.25:///////;UTG2$1.06:///////;MP1$0.92:///////;MP2$3.94:///////;MP3$2.51:///////;CO$0.94:///////;BU$2.35:///////;[/tg]

Preflop: Hero is BB with 7:d, A:d.
5 folds, CO raises to $0.08, 2 folds, Hero calls $0.06.

Flop: ($0.17) 6:d, 4:d, 5:d (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $0.08, Hero calls $0.08.

Turn: ($0.33) 3:d (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $0.16, Hero calls $0.16.

River: ($0.65) 3:c (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $0.62(All-In), Hero calls $0.62.

Final Pot: $1.89.

---------------

He mucked his hand but for some reason in my HH it says "XXXXXXX doesn't show [Jd, Kh]"

I am a bit surprised with my call preflop, if done again I would probably re-raise / fold. For the remainder of the hand, I am happy with how I played it except that I might want to put a value bet on river next time.

I got bored a bit, I decided to cut out most of my playing since starting this course, to be able to learn better. Since then I have been messing a bit around with holdem manager, it has a lot of cool stats that are all worthless with my 6k sample :(. Right now I am in doubt on whether I should go grind 1k+ hands a day again or keep it low till I've learned more.

I don't know if I am allowed to work a bit ahead, forgive me my impatience.

Homework 2:

Question 1: What do you think you could play differently than how it is in the BSS Starting Hands Chart, and why?
I tend to play hands differently based on players on my table / their history. If someone just went all-in for 6 hands straight, I won't be raising my AJ, just limping in to make nothing look suspicious. If he moves all-in I will call.

There are also a lot of hands I always play differently, I play pretty much all hands on the chart way more aggressive. For example I could see myself re-raising on LP / blinds with ATs+ while the chart says fold AQs to any raise. I re-raise with JJ and possibly TT as well.

Suited connectors, I used to fold them all, lately I have been limping / raising a bit from MP with them.

KQo put on fold in late position facing one limper, I might even re-raise a raise with it.

I play a lot more aggressive because I like the style, I think it fits NL2 quite well. I have read multiple times to only value-bet and never bluff, but from my own experience (in a statistically insignificant sample) I prefer to play more aggressive, most opponents are either total nits (VPIP 10-) or fishes (VPIP 30+). I often find people folding to my Cbets, there even is a guy (39/1 VPIP/PFR) that has called me preflop dozens of times and always folded to my Cbet.

I have thought about playing more nitty as well, even tried it for a while with good results (over a small sample). Somehow I ended up playing my loose self after a while again. Haven't worked much on it since then because of the following reasons:

I have no clue which hands I should be folding more often if playing more nitty

I think I get more post-flop experience playing loose

I also get to try out playing all kind of hands a bit since I am still new to poker

I got a question on how I am supposed to play 88-JJ postflop in case I don't hit a set, am stuck vs 1-2 players with a flush/straight draw board with no overcards / a board with 1/2 overcards.

Question 2: Post a hand for evaluation where you have a question regarding your pre-flop play.
EDIT: Just got into a a K9s steal resteal situation with a nit calling in the middle, decided to fold, here is a link to the hand:

NL2 K9s steal, resteal

It turned out to be a marginal situation, I tend to attempt a steal with a way higher range, K9 even is in the silver article about open raising advised as a raise from the button. But the hard part is of course whether to call or not call the minraise from the BB. Re steals seem to be extremely rare at nl2, so I think it is safe to assume he had a top range / monster. A bluffy fish is unlikely to minraise after all.

Question 3: What is the equity of AKo against the top 5% range? 5% means: 88+, AJs+, KQs, AKo?
46.324% according to pokerstove.

I made some screenshots of my progress and session stats:

Right now I am (according to session stats, not the graph) at 6666 hands with $7.77 winnings and EV$7.00 won.

My huge failure / bad beats at SnG's:

Winnings and EV winnings, the huge run-good (8BI over EV) really motivated me to go on with poker:

Showdown and nonshowdown winnings, illustrates how I tightened up at the beginning, started making money and lately got overly aggressive:

And finally, most importantly the individual session stats, I am way too lazy to type them all over:

That about it, if you need to know anything, please ask me, I am still not aware of most features and I would like to know what else important stats I can get out of HM.

EDIT: I just got a bonus offer from PP, 25$ for 100 points in 15 days, 4 times a 6.25$ release for 25 points. I already know there is no way I am reaching that 100 points, but I might give 25 points a try, would be a very nice bankroll boost! (50% rakeback!)
Nevermind that, I can't get any bonuses because the "pokerstrategy bonus" is still active, explaining to them that there is no "pokerstrategy bonus", just a mere lifting of restrictions did not help.

EDIT2: Despite seriously trying to tighten up a lot I find myself playing with my average VPIP but more aggressive then ever before, last session VPIP 25.2%, PFR 23.6%, Agg factor 10.00. Not sure what I should do about it / if I should de something about it.

Hi there! I'm also playing the FR tables at PartyPoker (I'm at NL4 now) and the things I think look a bit high is:
82.7 SB fold to steal
70.9 BB fold to steal
43.3% call vs 3bet
48.2 turn cbet% (if that means you secondbarrel)

You need to find the fold buttom!

If you wanna talk some strategy or something we could talk on skype/msn if you have that.

I would absolutely love to, I will send you a PM with my skype. I am indeed secondbarreling roughly 80% lately, because it seems to work ;). call vs 3bet is a nice leak you spotted there, I definitely need to tighten up a lot in that spot. About the fold to steal ranges, should i call/resteal, and if so, with what range? I think I am currently restealing with EP range, and calling with some SC.

EDIT: Can't pm people that aren't accepted as friends, so I send you a friend request and a skype friend request to someone called moneymaker19 on skype. I hope it's you

------------------

Over the last 3750 hands I am running 13 BI under EV, which equals 26$ at NL2. Suddenly the $50 starting capital doesn't seem much of a "capital" anymore. I am really lucky I had a huge upswing before this, otherwise I would be stuck with a really unhealthy bankroll by now.

If it works then it's fine
Yeah, it's really hard to play those hands when you call a 3bet (especially OOP) and hit top par with a medioker kicker. When I'm in the blinds I almost only 3bet and mostly T+/AJs+. I don't just call because 1, you only hit the flop 1 out of 3 times. 2, you have to play OOP most of the times. This might not be the most EV+ but it's a starting ground so you can add more 3bet hands like JTs or something later.

Do you wanna do a sweat? I have mikogo but no mic

EDIT: I sent you my skype name.

Good job! Homework #1 Done!

Well, stats thing is that there is not much to comment. You only have 5k hands which is the worst sample for stats. They will change so much with every next 5k or even more. That it's kinda hard to say either you play correctly or not. I'd advice to wait for some more hands.

I admit haven't read the articles / watched the video / attended the coaching session, it looks like it's the basic stuff I already know about. If I'm incorrect please tell me and I will read/ watch them,.

I would strongly recommend still reading some of the articles. Even if you think that it's basic stuff for you. Also the videos... well I am pretty sure you will find something new in the videos and more likely in coachings. If you are saying that it's a basic stuff for you then you should just stop right here. Have seen so many people who saying same words and then when asking a simple equity calculation or any simple hand they don't know the answer for it. Don't overrate yourself! That's a huge leak in poker, when you just thinking you already know everything or already know that you did play everything perfectly while actually it's the opposite.

2nd thing I'd like to ask you is that if you have any hands to analyze or discuss then please keep them into Hand Evaluation forums. The blog will be just overwhelmed with hands.

About the winnings I doubt that there is a big difference. ♦ Most likely you just haven't played enough of hands.

Lack of concentration is a common leak for beginners. They just play with music, watching TV, reading forums. But those kind of distractions really will just make you loose more money. Ain't ya there for win money? So act like that and force yourself always close all kind of distractions and try to stay concentrated on the tables. Everyone will find their own way how they are able to concentrate more.

About raising just 3BB I'd still keep it on lower limits 4BB. Since you mostly will raise anyways with strong hands and no need to do it smaller. You will be able to protect your hand a lot more.

Most of other the weakness you wrote can easily be fixed with you posting hands (analyzing your session). 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. By this situation it's gonna be that negative feedback you gonna remember and try to avoid them next time.

All the others do add up correctly, but how am I supposed to trust this software that is messing up the most basic things already?

Well, I doubt that it's messed up. But rather you might not understand the things correctly. I would just ignore those EV things and wouldn't take them very seriously.

Welcome to the Course and Best of Luck. Some more points earned.

Good job! Homework #2 Done!

Well, you can grind easily 1k hands per day if you are capable of? Although is it worth? I mean I would still concentrate on the learning part and definitely in the posting/analyzing part a lot time.

As I understand you play way too aggressively on the tables. Which I doubt that you are going to play very profitable in long run. Your postflop skills ain't gonna be strong enough and therefore you are gonna do too many mistakes. You have to find a way how to play tighter. Or unless you gonna continue like that you ain't gonna play good poker. Most of the hands you describe you are just playing way too aggressively.

As you said you played nitty style or more tighter style and even did play it with good results. Why don't you continue then? You are still to learn there and earn money in poker, ain't ya?

I got a question on how I am supposed to play 88-JJ postflop in case I don't hit a set, am stuck vs 1-2 players with a flush/straight draw board with no overcards / a board with 1/2 overcards.

Well, read the sentence below:

Most of other the weakness you wrote can easily be fixed with you posting hands (analyzing your session). 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. By this situation it's gonna be that negative feedback you gonna remember and try to avoid them next time.

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

About the stats analyze or graphs. I wouldn't really take a closer look into it. Since I doubt that there is much to do. While you are just playing way too loose for FR. You are practically playing with stats which you should have in SH. ♦

Originally posted by veriz
About the stats analyze or graphs. I wouldn't really take a closer look into it. Since I doubt that there is much to do. While you are just playing way too loose for FR. You are practically playing with stats which you should have in SH. ♦

Thanks a lot for your replies, It's a shame there is no NL2 SH on partypoker.

I will look into everything, but I already worked a bit on my loosiness, even though I seem to be steadily winning with it, I tightened up a lot preflop, I seem to be a bit more aggressive postflop though. For example over the last 3 days:

4108 hands
18.5 VPIP
14.0 PFR
6.1 3bet
36.4% call3bet
38.2 agg%

10.2 early UO PFR
16.7 middle UO PFR
28.5 CO UO PFR
30.8 BU UO PFR
50.0 SB UO PFR

78.3% flop cbet
71.2% turn cbet

I don't know the "perfect" numbers for VPIP / PFR yet, And even if I were close I know I am undervaluing suited connectors and overvaluing hands like QTs and KTs a bit.

I will work with leakbuster a bit more, and post some more hands :).

Well, from first view what I can say is that you are Calling too many 3bets. They are definitely costing you a lot money. We had a topic last week about stats, where I held a coaching:
Week #5 Coaching

In the end you will see what kind of stats are profitable and stuff.

Question 0: Download and install the Equilab.
I got PokerStove and HEM already, is equilab going to add anything new to that?

Question 1: You are holding KQ. What is your preflop equity against an opponent who has 33? How does the equity change on this flop: J53?
50.780% preflop
26.465% postflop

Question 2: What would you do in the following hand?
Depends a lot on the reads on the guy, Pot odds are good enough to make a call because of our flushdraw. If he is a bluffy opponent that folds to someone playing back on the turn it might be better to put in a reraise.

Question 3: Do you have questions about your postflop play? Post your hand for evaluation.
What to do if I flop a monster? slowplay or bet and try to get money in. I tend to slowplay them a lot, which sometimes works, and sometimes doesn't.

NL2 AQs - Hitting a monster on flop.

TT hand is standard, ul

A7s hand, fold pre but as played raise flop for value. Obv u cant really raise turn because u have the super nuts + 2nd nuts (kinda effectively nuts) blocker, so i think calling that spot is ok to let him bluff/thin valuebet river.

Question 1: Post a hand for evaluation where you have the initiative post-flop.
The flopped royal counts as one I guess, will copy another one in as soon as I have one that isn't too ridicilous

Question 2: Evaluate one of the hands submitted by other members.
NL5 - KK on a drawheavy board

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?
41.414%

Hey veriz, fancy explaining to Firefly why open limping is pretty bad, he would profit more by either open folding or open raising pairs.

Thanks

Originally posted by fusionpk
Hey veriz, fancy explaining to Firefly why open limping is pretty bad, he would profit more by either open folding or open raising pairs.

Thanks

Argument is about what to do with 22-66 EP if UO.

Raising = risk 3bet, risk shortstacks, fold equity?, initiative postflop.

Limping = BB might get free play, lower pot on flop (means higher implied odds according to me, lower implied odds according to fusionpk), no initiative postflop.

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Showdown vs non-showdown winnings, you can read in the non-showdown winnings whether I am playing maniac, LAG or TAG style.

EV$ winnings :f_love: even though I change playing style often and am experimenting with weird plays, the EV$ line seems to be pretty stable

My days so far (not individual sessions!) with VPIP and the whole stat shet.

any thoughts welcome!

---------

EDIT: Just got rolled for NL4

Good job! Homework #3 Done!

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.