LemOn's Big Strategy thread

P9 - HU Championship Final hands recap
- see below, cant do spoiler within spoiler


P10 Uri Peleg's NL Laboratory review 1 May 14

Im adding my random ramble from 2 months back that I need to contantly go to
here goes:
I've been very results oriented recently not feeling like I'm moving forward, always got tilted by bad beats and took plays v players so personally. And I was bored/frustrated.

Since my long break I forgot one totally fundamental part of my thought process. When I was at my best I was influenced by "where the buffalo roam" series and my thought process was very much like that. Basically I'd think about the spot and consider what I want to do here with all my range ignoring my holding (in that series they have cards covered completely) and when I decided the cards just fell into that range, and I could move on when I made the decision
I guess that's totally standard for you guys but I somehow forgot or got lazier and lazier until I stopped doing that completely and just played my hands, putting more thought process on the villain his range, dynamic and how to play it with these two cards.

=>CONSIDER WHAT RANGE YOU WANT TO PLAY WITH, not the hand. Hand just falls into that range. Im not necessarily talking about GTO or balance, but simply creating a plan in a hand against specific opponent and then just let the hand fall into that plan.


The time flies by when I think like this. No
time to think about beating bastards, when I go all in I made my decision and it's nor good or bad when I lose. When I do this, when the spot comes but I have different cards, I have already thought about it before which takes a lot of pressure of my brain

2 hands being evaluated now:
[NL16 SH] BB v BU Turn and river ranges

hand:

coach response:



[NL16 SH] CO v BU vs 3bet ranges
hand:
Coach response:

Here's the video: http://www.pokerstrategy.com/video/31713/

My notes with commentary, enjoy.

1) On exploiting leaks:
If someone has an obvious leak, you don't want to make exploiting it too obvious.
E.g. someone folds to 3bets too much you don't want to bet him every orbit in order not to make it obvious and force him to adjust quickly.

2) Regs widen their ranges with fish behind, but continue with same ranges vs 3bets. So when a reg opens with a fish in blinds you can widen your 3b range IP.

3) Theoretically when you are folding 50%+ vs cbets against regs they'd have to pot bet 0 equity hands for that to be correct.
Likewise when someone folds to cbet >50% you can cbet any2 cards with standard sizing.

In order to stop you from making autoprofit cbetting:

with 85% sizing they need to continue 54% of the time
with 75% sizing they need to continue 57% of the time
with 65% sizing they need to continue 61 % of the time

If villain doesn't, you can cbet any2 cards. Uri prefers semi-bluffing hands in our range preflop range over high card value hands vs regs that allow you to make autoprofit on flop when you cbet in normal and 3b pots.
E.g. better to 3b K5s than KJo vs people that allow you to make autoprofit on the flop.

Note though: just like with autoprofit preflop e.g. against people that fold huge 80% pre and stuff, as his fold to cbet goes higher it is
important to remember that their next street ranges are stronger - i.e. theyll hit hands more often and it's important you dont autocbet/barrel against people that are exploitably tight on earlier streets.
If you do so you can turn a hand that shows autoprofit on one street into a -ev hand.


My note on micros: I believe on Micros it's optimal to have an exploitably high folding frequency on one street and allow villains to make autoprofit on one street, especially when we have position, as an average opponent at micros will pay you off
way too often on future streets, failing to account for your strong range, which allows you to "make up" for the equity you are giving up on earlier streets.

4) When you are considering a squeeze on CO or BU, Uri looks if the caller in MP has 3betting range vs UTG. If he does he likely 3bets AA KK etc. and we can squeeze in that spot lighter than if he's one of the people that flat everything.

5) Adjusting ranges vs villains with leaks: Finding leaks in someone's game and knowing what you can exploit can translate into your preflop ranges as well. i.e. you'd widen your range with certain hand groupings vs a player with leaks as their EV increases.
Say you have KJs against one player, as the players have worse and worse leaks you can add KTs, K9s [...]K2s in your preflop range and it plays rge same as KJs vs a person without a leak.
Finding leaks means you can widen your range, so you can play more hands profitably. One of the side benefits is that other players will make mistakes vs you as you appear looser than you really are against them => This is why cutting tables and focusing hard
on others and finding leaks in their game is so important whenever you are struggling at a limit.

6) 3betting low pairs is good vs nits that fold too much preflop and flop - guarantee +ev and you cooler them when they flat a good amount too.

7) Vs a reg C/R as preflop raiser 3way with fish: Most regs these days know they look like FOS so first time Sirry gives these random lines credit the first time

8) on a TTXs board when Uri called in the blinds v BU: against a reg that folds too much to raises and/or cbets too much uri just raises hands with backdoors to see what happens. I usually stay away from that as it's hard to rep value hands but guess people just look at their air and muck a lot.
=> if someone seems exploitable you don't need to rigidly try to rep a wide value range in order to bluff them.

9) Uri likes to take the good ol' minbet call line vs fish that hardly can have a better hands than us when we have e.g. TPNK, Midpair etc.

10) You can also see this in my video, but with fish behind with >80VPIP they are often insensitive to sizing so you can just 4x-8x preflop and theyll call theyr air anyway

theory copied from my spewcember thread:

I recently listened to first 47mins of Mental game (Tendler, 2011) and an interesting concept came up - the performance bell curve.

basically the frequency of your play can be summed as this:
you have a range of game quality, most often you play B game etc.


Watching new vids, leaning new concepts= you expand your A game
Improving how you play when tilted, tired, under adverse conditions=working on C game.

Theory is that you should strive to shift your performance bell curve up as a whole by working on your A AND C game so you play good quality game way more often.

As when you only focus on your A game your play like a superstar in the rare times when you are at your peak, and as a retard on steroids when tilted, but on average your game is all over the place but on average worse than if your A game was worse but C game closer to it as you can see in the following diagrams.


However, improving your C game is infinitely harder than working on your A game.
When you are 100% focused and play low amounts of tables you can use the rational part of your brain which is slow, doesnt multitask well tires out very very fast but works with pure logic and can change in an instant.

When your rational part of the brain gets tired (and it does that real fast) however, your unconscious mind takes over. It thinks instantly, can multitask infinitely, never gets tired, hell it manifests itself even stronger when your rational thinking is tired. It does so with almost no logic, but instead uses emotion and long engraved instincts and habits (Kahneman, 2001). Needless to say it's very hard to re-program and can only be reprogrammed with endless repetition you read about in books such as Mastery (Leonad, 1991)

References
Leonard, G. (1991) Mastery. Available at: http://swq.es/business-management/Social%20Interactions/Mastery%20-%20The%20Keys%20To%20Success%20And%20Long-Term%20Fulfillment%20-%20George%20Leonard.pdf

Kahneman D. (2001) MAPS OF BOUNDED RATIONALITY:
A PERSPECTIVE ON INTUITIVE JUDGMENT
AND CHOICE. Available at: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic-sciences/laureates/2002/kahnemann-lecture.pdf

Tendler, J; Carter, B. (2011) The mental game of poker. Available at:
[URLhttp://www.amazon.co.uk/Mental-Game-Poker-Jared-Tendler/dp/0615436137/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1387095608&sr=8-1&keywords=mental+game+of+poker[/URL]

Internet NL500
Here: http://www.pokerstrategy.com/video/31754/
NL500 vid, wanted to watch while eating breakfast but it had some good concepts applicable everywhere

Will update if internet answers for 1&2


1) Q: T9s on undercard You cbet slightly bigger than pot?
you did say you'd bet 75% but didn't seem like a miss click - you most likely have this tendency in your autopilot.
How do you determine your cbet sizings? Do you change them based on:
- flop wetness/dryness
- your preflop position/how wide your range is/how likely it is to hit this board
- IP/OOP
ANSWER: TBC

2) Internet cc as PFR with QJ no flush draw on T8Xs BvB
- this seems good as villain should barrel pretty much all our outs, if he checks we dont mind and when we do bet we have our life on the turn.
It also makes us harder to play against and protects our 8x cc range etc with which you turn your hand face up.

My Q:
QJs on T8Xs - you raised BvB pre then Check called flop. I guess you take this line with weakish made hands too right so having QJ kinda makes your range harder to play against. What do you do with made hands like A8 K8 77 etc. without backdoors - would they be in your check calling range too or do you bet flop to "protect". And what's the turn play when we either cc or bet these hands?

ANSWER:TBC

3) A concept that Oblioo mentioned in my QQ hand in P1 was repeated here. If villain is extremely unlikely to bluff next street, and you are never folding your made hand, just bet/raise
Situation: when you have a made hand that's likely the best/near the top of your range, villain has a lot of bluffs/some draws his range
AND he is very likely to give up and not bluff on future streets, you should raise even tho flatting seems more logical.

Hand in Internet example:
KQ BvB v halfstacker
Villain barrel big turn QX22s. Internet doesn't expect him to ever bluff river, there are some flush draws some worse Qx he can call so he just shoved the turn.
Or
when you flat good AX, flat 3bet OOP and flop AXX - if you don't think villain will barrel the turn much you should just raise the flop.

In these situations when villain has likely close to no bluffing range on the next street and you are never folding yoru hand you might as well raise to protect/get value no matter how infrequently as you don't lose anything when villain wont bluff next street.

4) His hand reminded me of the Rock Paper Scissors concept.
When a player includes a hand in one range he removes it from the other
i.e. in the vid a reg raises a nut flush draw on the flop IP. Now we know doesn't have nutfd in his flatting ranges IP and can barrel way more on boards that complete flush when he just flats.

It's the same as when you find out someone rigidly 3bets linear range that includes all AT+ etc hands in the blinds, when the board comes AXX when he flats you can 3 barrel the shit out of him as he removes most of combos that can call 3streets by 3betting them preflop.

5) Against small 3bets from midstacks it's better to have hands like A9o than drawing hands and vs against bigger stacks (well, DUH ;P)
Internet flatted a 7bb 3bet with A9o and shove raised T97s vs a 50bb stack+got called by AJo. He shoved because he can get calls from hands like those, folds, and he hates pretty much any turn spot where shove should be always +ev.

6) Internet cold 4bet AQs OOP vs 3bet and cold call and got 2 callers
on Q28s flop he didn't even consider cbetting and checked 2x bet river. The lesson I guess is that I shouldn't valuebet just because I hit one of the best flops for my hand, but always think about what we are getting value from
it's true that against 2 villains it's very hard to have >50% equity against their combined continuing ranges hence we can't really value bet there, and AQ on QXX might seem strong but when we cold 4bet 2 people and cbet OOP that board they put us on a super strong range AQ is actually quite weak and wont get much value

Stars released coaching vids from Kanu7
http://www.highstakesdb.com/profiles/pokerstars/Kanu7.aspx

Pokercast with Kanu:
http://pokercast.twoplustwo.com/pokercast.php?pokercast=294

Vid:
Video link

1) against players that bet too much when checked to it's way better to check a lot of your hands, especially made hands. Think about it - why do you cbet to fold out their air when you could get at least one bet from them when you check.
E.g. QQ on 547s OOP vs a guy that bets a lot vs cbet Kany would check every time. He'd also check flush draws etc.
CC and CR is both fine. I actually listened to Kanu's podcast and against very good players where he has to play balanced he doesn't want to have a hand 100% in one range, so he'd say 50% of the time check call 50% of the time check raise.

Using your judgement will lead to biases so he likes to use either random number generator, or look at clock, if it's odd number cr even number cc etc.

2) Against good players you want to look at your range and come up with reasonable frequencies. Makes sure that when you are checking you don't check call every street with every hand -which would make never bluffing correct for the villain. Vice versa if you fold way too much of your range he can just always bluff and be correct.

Basically you try to determine a reasonable frequency, then look at your range and call with the top of it, fold bottom etc.

The same way you can exploit villains - as you could see in 1) betting too much when checked to is easily exploitable by checking everything.

At micros people almost never fold enough % of their range so rarely bluffing is correct.

A lot of coaches say that at small stakes people then fold too much and are too tight - so again you can tilt your ranges towards bluffing.

When playing a very good player that's just better than you you feel like you are owned/you play a lot with him it's important to watch your own frequencies and never tilt your ranges too much towards one side.


And when playing bad players, look for the tendencies where they rarely fold, always bet when checked to etc. Basically where their range/actions are is tilted too much to one side, you can usually exploit them by going the other way.

3) timing tell:If someone 3 barrels and snap bets river it probably means he will never have a thin value hand

4) Nobody really knows what the best preflop sizes are - it's good to try different things out and see what works for you, a lot of highstakes players still have different sizings PF and Kanu changes it around too.


5) When you move up in stakes it's best to play your normal game, use normal sizing, play the same game as you would at the lower stake at least for the first few session. When Kanu moved to 3/6 he saw everyone playing aggressively and he tried to artificially adjust and and he started spewing.

It's best to play as you know, get some sample sizes, sit down with holdem manager and look at opponents and how well your game works and then reasonably adjust your game based on evidence.

So a Q was asked on liquidpoker:

Being on the computer at home doesn't exactly help me improve as a person. What are things I can do to improve myself/better my life?

think my response is strategy thread worthy:

1) Lift
- Poker's the very best profession for that. It gives you freedom to go whenever you feel like it, and to fuck yourself up then sleep for four hours when you want to.
- You can go whenever you go, best is daily in the morning really. You can regenerate in pool, go for yoga etc, accommodate your friends and get a gym buddy whenever you want. You can hire personal trainers too to make it easier.
Benefits for poker:
Stamina
other goals to work on
clears your head
you can focus more
you get healthier
get confidence
can get laid by doing one arm pushups on the dacefloor

2) Competitive teamsports
- yeah so you lack routine? Get into a competitive sports. Poker's the very best profession for that - you always have time for scheduled training. You can always rest up/warm up before competition.
benefits of competitive sports
no effort motivation
no effort friends
no effort social contact
confidence, fame if you good enough
goals besides poker
no effort schedule in chaotic lifestyle
shit that lifting gives you too

3) Nutrition
- when you get to that level of earnings from poker, you can have an invincible diet, hire a personal nutrition coach or even a chef.
benefits of focusing on correct nutrition
increased energy levels
balanced weight
daily routine divided by frequent meals
balanced body sugar means less mood swings, longer focus, balanced mood


4) Studying psychology, self-help, personal development etc.
- these teach you how to understand yourself and others. How to live a good life, importance of goals, how the brain and body works, how to interact with other people, how to understand and accept yourself, forgive, maintain positive attitude.
Benefits of studying and applying psychology and self development resources
mental strength
happier life
increased motivation
understanding of others and how to interact with them
enjoying the grind
know how to set goals and how to reach them

5) A productive hobby
- whatever you like poker gives you time, you can do a few hours in a local charity, go hiking with family every week.
benefits
something else to focus on
increased mood
social contact with the right hobbies



OR scrap all that and get this one:
Needy girlfriend
benefits
you get laid
no time to think about what to do with your time

Pre-Flop: ($0.75, 6 players) DocLemoN is SB Q Q
1 fold, Player2 raises to $1.50, 2 folds, DocLemoN raises to $5, 1 fold, Player2 calls $3.50

Flop: 8 4 6 ($10.50, 2 players)
DocLemoN checks and calls 3 streets without a spade




Addition to P1:
In 1st video review this spot Oblioo didnt like the check and liked it more with a spade
"-We have to bet flop for protection, and when we get raised we are folding."


Tonight I was watching a video to make me sleep from Zazano (one of the best 1knl zoom regs) and here was his take on this vs a good opponent:

What is pretty cool about check calling is once that check call the flop, very often you are representing a spade. Zaza thinks that it's good to check QQ-AA without the spade, because once you check call people usually put you on a hand that has a flush draw in it.
So when that's very likely what you are going to be put on and when a spade rolls off you are much less likely to be bluffed, rather than when you cbet and then turn is a spade you will be in a much tougher spot.

Obviously you should still have some hands with a spade in your check call range.

Ill expand on these zazano concepts later, have lunch with family
1) folding or calling your entire range means you think you are a wizard
Some people don't think in terms of bottom of their range, middle of their range top of their range...They just think in terms of: "Ok, do I think He's bluffing or not?"basically. They basically play a leveling game and try to win at it.

Zaza told to many of his students: Don't try to do magic. Sure there is spots where villain's range is geared super heavy only towards value or bluffs, problem is that people translate that into too many spots and they start to play the leveling game, and when you're playing somebody who's pretty competent its gonna be hard. When Zazano bluffs it was because he thought it was +ev and he had blockers etc. and he will keep bluffing in good spots. People will think too much into that, and think this guy is a bluffer or try to be magician mind readers.
But unless you're pretty good at it and have a lot of reads and notes on certain people it's going to be hard, and people that think like that don't have as good results as they should have.

So instead of trying to be a magician and start the leveling yourself, look at the range you have, the blockers you might have etc. and play your range accordingly.

-this is consistent with Kanu and Ike's thought process, and also with Uri Peleg's as I've seen in his coachings.


2) Evolution of check raising strategies
1) people that never check raise
- only cr when they are deep, sometimes random bluffs/value
2) 8-10% cr
- they do it based on board texture
3) 16-20%
less regs use that strategy these days. It used to be much more common, but with ranges being much wider, and people defend much wider in BB dont fold 70% like in the past. And given your range is so much wider means your range will be a lot weaker


3) Importance of blockers postflop
Zazano gives priority on bluffing and bluff catching with hands that block part of villain's range

example:
Poker Stars, $5/$10 No Limit Hold'em Cash, 5 Players
MP: $1,000 (100 bb)
CO: $2,324.50 (232.5 bb)
BTN: $1,442.02 (144.2 bb)
Zaza (SB): $1,005 (100.5 bb)
BB: $1,799.50 (180 bb)

Preflop: Zaza is SB with A Q
MP raises to $25, 2 folds, Zaza raises to $100, BB folds, MP calls $75

Flop: ($210) 8 5 Q (2 players)
Zaza bets $105, MP calls $105

Turn: ($420) K (2 players)
Zaza bets $210, MP calls $210

River: ($840) 2 (2 players)
Zaza checks, MP bets $585 and is all-in, Zaza calls $585

Results: $2,010 pot ($3 rake)
Final Board: 8 5 Q K 2
MP showed 6 7 and lost (-$1,000 net)
Zaza showed A Q and won $2,007 ($1,007 net)

Also a rio video on defending vs small 3bets oop

EDIT: There was concerns about his strategy from elite member, im not gonna take it as gospel and it wont go in my strat thread.


If anyone has a good video on playing vs small 3bets oop across any site please reply here

P8 "bad" blockers for 3 barreling range
concept from James Hudson (Run It Once latest vid) Zazano(Latest vid). Hudson says he will expand on the 89 hand so not pasting to OP yet, might be expanded


When we decide to 3x barrel, we should control our frequency based on blockers, and strenght of our draw.

One thing that's a bit counter intuitive thought - when a good villain is in position we bet and we flop or turn a strong (backdoor) flush draw ourselves we should be less inclined to barrel the river now as we have "bad blockers".
Good villains put emphasis on floating with draws and good backdoors, when we block a lot of backdoor combos ourselves he will have less hands he will call turn fold river with.

Example1
E.g. KXXr 3bet pot BB v BU, we have AQs, turn a backdoor flush draw and bet it - this should not be base of our river barreling range because we block a big chunk of villains range that calls turn, folds river.

Example2
8 9
we open MP get called CO
on 7 4 j 3
we shouldn't barrel a rag river like 2 very often because we block
- flush draws that call 2x fold river
- 88 99 that call 2x fold river

In this example hands that should be the basis of our river barreling hands are hands that block overpairs and good kickers like AK, KQ etc.
Also having heart hands like A K should be less harmful in this hand because he should have less heart draws to float with than if it were e.g. BU v CO or BvB

Sorry for delay boys. I have been looking at relationship between playing exploitive and optimal, stalked a lot of high stakes guys, and worked on static preflop ranges in good aggro reg games (used janda as base put all of em in equilab keep tweaking based on database, feel, how top regs I stalk play, pals on skype etc.), don't really plan on sharing those since I spent so much time with em and even tho they are pretty balanced I still hit some boards less than I should as some hands feel more natural than others to me and are more profitable in my database than some of the more "optimal" ones.

Anyway had a few beers didnt wanna watch anything serious so here goes a few points from a rio microstakes vid just so my thread doesn't fall into the ashes of history ;p


P8 F. Boyanovski NL25 zoom vid
1) when regs call in position and their VPIP to PFR Gap is really small, it means their calling range is very pocket pair heavy, they call for setmine value so we can cbet a lot against them on flops containing broadway cards
2) preflop sizing in SB
- minraising sb v bb is only good if you have reads on villain and know he folds too much and doesn't adjust (AKA Nits). As when you minraise a wide range he can call literally any2 profitably. 3Xing the SB is still standard and probably best.
3) SB call range v UTG often contains a lot of pocket pairs so on e.g. Td 6c 2d flop your plan should be to barrel twice a lot and expect profit.
Best cbetting hands are hands are hands with backdoor potential like Kd Qc you are better off checking hands that can't barrel many turns on the flop, cbet hands with backdoor but when you do cbet you should do it with the plan of firing at least 2x
4) in SB v BU with QJo
- if you are facing a button raise with a hand like that and you think its close between folding and calling, consider 3betting as an option instead use the hand for blocker value
5) with small pocket pairs oop on paired boards when villain check backs flop
e.g. 4h 4d on Tc: 2h Td 5h you should always bet the turn to get value out of hands like AQ etc. that always call once (plus you protect your hand as well). Even when he's giving up with hands like KQ we don't get any extra value but don't let him realize his equity with his 6 outs for free.
My note: one of the things at micros and why it's rly easy to play them - tons of people turn their ranges face up a lot, when they check they have weakbluffcatchers, when they bet they have strong hands, and those that do try "deception" do it in a totally imbalanced obvious way like checking QQ on QXX to check call flop check raise turn etc.

Hey guys, long time since I've updated this thread
2 reason
1) I've worked on my ranges shitloads preflop etc, and didn't feel like sharing them - well it'd be pointless. They are kinda similar to Weazel's but are kinda funky here and there with a lot of Janda influence and I use them blindly in zoom games.
2) I started to play exploitively again after seeing Uri Peleg's videos and his exploitive note taking play at NL100 with great success and seeing my results drop - I take notes try to own people again and guess what again- winrate's higher and it's more fun. So I cut down on videos and I review my hands instead and think at the tables a lot.


Anyways to the point
- HU CHAMPIONSHIP FINAL REVIEW
I never play SnGs except hyper turbo sats. But I do start 6max tables and play HU there - I actually spent quite a lot of time watching high stakes HU including about 5hrs analyzing Jungleman's HU match vs Asianflushie so I'm pretty good in deep setting with the tourney players having an advantage in shallow stacks. Nothing a HU SnG Push fold chart didn't fix tho.
HU SnGs are fun and I love this format, but I would't grind these day to day - I like to get reads on people and own them after they stack me etc. and it would take me ages to get into a cartel at higher stakes where I get to play the same people.

So I'm hoping I can get a cash HU or 6M coaching instead for my prize


Hands go mostly chronologically
We went for 1x 1500 stacks 1x2000 stacks that was the deepest I could negotiate with Variance Killer. He was tough ;p

Tourney1
1.1
-standard flop float here
OTT I hit 56s, 33m have all sets in my range ofc J3s J4s J2s etc.
I block A5, my range wise this is pretty much the best hand ever to raise turn shove pretty much any river



1.2 Well this was really weird
this hand is a snap 3 barrel for me - I block QT 9T have a gutter+2overs, don't block any flush draws and on the river block 9J.

the lead out was rly weird there and I though it did look like I'd 3 barrel quite a bit there. but T9 87 (56dd56cc ?) J9 got there and him bluffing looked weird - if I had a bluffcatcher I'd call wide but raising is just too expensive here


1.3
pre can be a 3b sometimes but I've been passive so far so prefer a flat there
flop and turn are super standard
River I bet close to pot to make my range look more polarized


1.4
Right again pre is standard
on the flop I was actually really torn between a check raise and a check call
when I check raise I can barrel any Q K J A thing is I have to fold to a re-raise as well and I rly rep a narrow value range here. Second thing was that he should barrel pretty much all my outs here and with the KJ high I can safely call almost any turn

The turn is a clear cc really, I can rep A2 A9 but I'd flat those anyway.

The thing about turn+river range is that he shouldn't cbet many Ax, he might cbet high ones for value but I block AJ AK some and also his KT JT hands that will surely bet again - think he'd X behind a weak ten some as I have quite a few aces in my range, 9 prolly too. Same thought process is for river really - I have such a great blocker hand and there is QJ 78 35s 45s 68 etc...shitloads of hands that can bet and barrel again so figured it should be a call here.

I don't mind Variance killer's play vs unknown - but vs me it seems too loose. I've been known for not liking to fold to cbets with A high and he's got so many good barreling hands. Still in a vacuum a lot of people will fold my hand and also a lot of pairs OTR so it's fine early in he match
[spoiler]
PokerStars - $1+$0.10|20/40 NL (2 max) - Holdem - 2 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

DoC.LemOn (BB): 1,468
Psyrgoh (SB): 1,532 (VPIP: 66.67, PFR: 51.85, 3Bet Preflop: 18.18, Hands: 33)

Psyrgoh posts SB 20, DoC.LemOn posts BB 40

Pre Flop: (pot: 60) DoC.LemOn has J K:club:

Psyrgoh raises to 80, DoC.LemOn calls 40

Flop: (160, 2 players) 2 T:club: 9
DoC.LemOn checks, Psyrgoh bets 73, DoC.LemOn calls 73

Turn: (306, 2 players) A
DoC.LemOn checks, Psyrgoh bets 146, DoC.LemOn calls 146

River: (598, 2 players) 3
DoC.LemOn checks, Psyrgoh bets 365, DoC.LemOn calls 365

Psyrgoh shows 7:diamond: 5:club: (High Card, Ace) (Pre 36%, Flop 21%, Turn 14%)
DoC.LemOn shows J:diamond: K:club: (High Card, Ace) (Pre 64%, Flop 79%, Turn 86%)
DoC.LemOn wins 1,328
[spoiler]

1.5
not much to say about this one - I'll be expected to raise JT and strong draws on the flop most likely. Range wise this is a call on the turn really by raising I weaken my cc range too much

But because of the A8s hand where I check raised the turn already and got a fold I wanted to show a hand this time and expected to get less credit - the 5x looks almost too obvious and he can put me on KT 89 and hands turned into a bluff etc.



Tourney 2
2.1
Last one I had like 5% 3bet so I decided to 3b wider in teh 2nd one with deeper stacks
I don't think I have to bet bigger there to fold out his air - I have way more AX hands than he does and also clubs.

The check down I don't mind I guess? variance killer's got *some *sd value and on a paired board he probably expected me to snap any pair on the T/River which is true - I'd play them the same way


2.2
Same spot pretty much here. Normally I'd cbet bigger but he literally just saw me cb 33% with that hand. I'd also re-raise against 90% people as raising into me is kinda suicidal and this board hits the shit out of a 3bet calling range but I decided to represent a weak hand like JT Kx QQ etc. and play the hand consistently with that Q3s.

Turn is a very easy decision - he will bet straight on the river for sure and I pick up his bluffs, nothing I would do differently I keep repping 2pair hands etc.
I made sure I gave away a long timing there as I would with stuff like AT that's deciding what to do and reluctantly calls - and VK even told me he was sure I had some sort of a 2pair hand there



Tourney 3
3.1
Pretty standard 3 barrel here - vs someone that 3bets 10%+ my range is so much stronger than his and he has loads of pair+draw hands.
I just close eyes 3 barrel huge these with anything as I've done against frankkiiee with 29o because of such a huge range advantage. the paired board saved me I guess pretty sure VK would call me on rag river as this is pretty much the top of his range besides 2pair and KJ


3.2
very standard mindfuck - as Galfond says when you play poker, you are telling a story. And the story I was trying to shove VK's throat was that of the most air heavy range. Again make myself look way more polarized than I really am - pretty sure in a longer match this is just terrible, but in a short one I just put into my head that I have air and see how to best represent my air
[SPOILER]
PokerStars - $1+$0.10|15/30 NL (2 max) - Holdem - 2 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

Psyrgoh (SB): 1,937 (VPIP: 69.70, PFR: 51.52, 3Bet Preflop: 14.81, Hands: 78)
DoC.LemOn (BB): 1,063

Psyrgoh posts SB 15, DoC.LemOn posts BB 30

Pre Flop: (pot: 45) DoC.LemOn has J:diamond: Q:club:

Psyrgoh raises to 60, DoC.LemOn calls 30

Flop: (120, 2 players) 5 Q:diamond: T
DoC.LemOn checks, Psyrgoh bets 56, DoC.LemOn raises to 169, Psyrgoh calls 113

Turn: (458, 2 players) 6
DoC.LemOn checks, Psyrgoh checks

River: (458, 2 players) 6:diamond:
DoC.LemOn bets 834 and is all-in, Psyrgoh calls 834

DoC.LemOn shows J:diamond: Q:club: (Two Pair, Queens and Sixes) (Pre 73%, Flop 86%, Turn 93%)
Psyrgoh shows Q 8:diamond: (Two Pair, Queens and Sixes) (Pre 27%, Flop 14%, Turn 7%)
DoC.LemOn wins 2,126
[/spoiler]

3.3
boring AI hand


3.4
setup - one thing I was considering is flatting, but I've showed down the nuts a couple times like that AQ hand where I flatted so with stack depth this was a clear shove


3.5
standard AI


Tourney 4
4.1 open with a 3bet
this time VK decides to punish me and doesn't let me see the howdown.
that card sucks balls because I pretty much have to 3x barrel when I bet as he has shitloads of backdoor clubs, QJ 78 etc etc. and I don't have the balls to do that. Plus VK was pretty good at picking up my bluffs.


4.2 I try to rep A high thin value with my sizing
VK owned the hell out of me


4.3 standard cooler


at this point I called "GG" all excited. My boner was quickly put down by VK's wtf you talking about - I didn't realize our stacks weren't even.
I knew right there that I'm in deep shit and Karma will get me

4.4
one down


4.5 2 down



4.6 AAAAND 3 down - well deserved, Karma for early GG

I bet large in similar spot with value hands before so I decided to go for a small sizing to induce a raise. Little did I know



Tourney 5
Cooler (ish) - I've been 3betting tight all match/running hot on big pairs but it's not too bad rly.


endword
GG Variance Killer, thanks a lot to Pokerstrategy for doing this -it was lots of fun and I got to know people in the community like Frankie Boomer and others, everyone is really nice. And thanks to Boomer who had so much work with this event and allowed me to reschedule semi final where I burned out and was close to collapsing mentally on the day when I was supposed to play. Cheers and I hope we'll see more stuff like this

Uri Peleg Video Review
Sup dudes. I'm hangover, play preety bad so decided to do something productive and watch Uri's coaching. Watch out for podcasts, it was really good and I assume it'll be released.

1) Small stakes regs cbet too much with midpairs
e.g. QT KTX
KK AXX oop etc.


2) Small samples
-uri doesn't pay attention to them if they are close to average at the stake
e.g. a reg has 4-7/10 fold to 3bet Uri would pretty much ignore that, but the closer it's to 0 or 10 the more he'd tend to skew his ranges.

3)cold 4betting
-in steal situations e.g. BUvSB in BB we can cold 4bet any 2 blockers at SSNL and expect it to be +ev

4) sizing vs fish on river
-when his range has a lot of air or bluffcatchers
- bet small target air OR
- bet large target bluffcatchers


5) calling BBvCO 2.5X open
Deciding what hands we can defend vs a raise

0=-A+P*R*EQ where
A=amount to call
P=final pot
R=%equity we realize
EQ=minumum equity needed

i.e. in BB vs 2.5bb CO open where we estimate we realize 70% equity
it'd be like this
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=0%3D%28-1.5%2B5.5*.7*X%29&dataset=
So any hand with >39% equity we should defend. make it a bit higher adjusted for rake. You can use the equilab range calculator to decide these.
note that R will be lower for offsuit hands generally



Equilab magic I had no clue about
You can select a whole row in equilab using a ctrl key
behold


*there's a range calculator
Say your villain has a 26% range - you input that into equilab
Use this: w34z3l's 6max walkthrough - (microstakes edition)
or this: http://www.pokerstrategy.com/strategy/bss/2252/1/

you call BB v CO and want to know what hands have at least 40% equity, you click on that green arrow, put in 40 and click calculate and it gives you all hands with 40% equity vs his range
Behold