[Closed] Getting It Right - A learner's approach to Poker. (Monthly review ITT, need new poker site.)

Had a very lucky and good session, and unlocked 10 more dollars of my bonus. I'd forgotten about my bonus, I should probably stick to Full Tilt until it's released, as I essentially have 67% rakeback while it's active. (27% normally, and 40% from the bonus.) That beats Stars any day! Once my bonus is cleared I can move.

Playing 4 tables was way more fun than playing 16. I was getting used to my new HUD, I can see all the tables, which I like, and I was able to play far better. Turns out there is an AG in TAG. I was able to find some great spots for semi-bluffs, for example. One hand I played in had 2 limpers, including myself with 66 in the BB. The flop came up KK9, and the guy OOP immediately made a standard 2/3 c-bet. I thought: "The odds of either of them having a king are very low, but if I re-raise, that's exactly what they'll think I have." So I fired off a 3x re-raise, and immediately took down the pot. I guess this is an example of that level 1 thinking I've been trying to apply.

For those that don't know, the theory goes:

Level 0: What do I have in my hand? This level is about how best to play your hand, regardless of what the opponent has. You obey rules of thumb, like "be willing to stack off with top pair".

Level 1: What do my opponents have? This level is about adjusting based on possible holdings of your opponent. It includes ranges and such which I haven't learnt yet, however.

Level 2: What does my opponent think I have? If you're going to bluff well, you need to be on this level. This is the level of credibly representing non-obvious hands.

But here's the kicker. If I'm at level 0, and you're at level 2, you're playing wrong. If you try and represent top pair by your bet sizing, I'm not going to know about it. I'm just gonna play my hand, as I don't care what's in yours. You have to play one level above your opponent to beat them.

I assume most people at NL5 will play level 0, and a few will play level 1, so I don't need to try and learn level 2 yet.

In the end, today's session was about everything BUT position awareness (Although I suppose blind stealing is part of positional awareness) but I still consider it a success. I didn't take much away from the positional awareness article, but I do know when to leave a table based on my HUD now.

Next session I should be working on blind stealing. I actually read ahead and have been applying those concepts already, but tomorrow I shall read it again and see if I haven't been applying certain parts of it, in which case I shall focus on that.

I'm only gonna post my BR every week or two, or when a milestone is reached (Goal hands for a month, moving up limits, etc.) because of how swingy Poker is.

Lastly, I'm also participating in Take 2. I'm at 4 days of 5, and intending not to miss another day, so I could win 25 bucks. If I win solidly and earn the 25 bucks I might be able to move up to NL10 next week. The real question is, should I, if I don't have a sample indicating I can beat NL5? That's something to think about I suppose, I won't move up until I'm ready.

Thanks for reading, and any advice on moving up limits would be appreciated.

I really like how you describe in detail everything you learn and where you learnt it

Do you play Fullring or Shorthanded?

I will follow this thread, Good Luck!

"I might be able to move up to NL10 next week. The real question is, should I, if I don't have a sample indicating I can beat NL5?"

If you are confident in your game and you have a minimum bankroll for the next level, try to take shots when the games are looser. Like Sunday afternoons. Even if you play a bit tighter than usual, you can win against the masses of weekend players.

@p0rkus: Yeah, that was the main 'hook' of this blog. Thanks for noticing, and I'm glad you like it!

@kenthmp: I play Full Ring exclusively.

@yakuzamoon That makes a lot of sense. If I can beat the weekend players, I can take on the weekday players. Thanks!

As for my hand, I posted it on PokerStrategy.com and 2+2. Apparently I should have raised pre-flop, and my re-raise was actually for value, not a bluff. After all, the idea of a bluff is to take out better hands, and what better hands fold to a re-raise here? TT and JJ, maybe. So whether or not I played the hand correctly, I played it for all the wrong reasons. So I clearly have a lot more to learn. I mean, I already knew that, but seeing how I totally mis-judged a hand I thought I absolutely nailed really made me realise, not only do I have a lot to learn that I haven't learnt yet, but I need to get better at stuff I already know.

This was just a mini-update: I shall do another session tonight, focusing on learning blind stealing. Thanks for reading!

NOTE: I was originally gonna put images up, but Photobucket is down, so text ranges shall have to do.

Learning Blind Stealing

Today, I spent about an hour reading up on blind stealing, and constructing some ranges. Are these ranges wrong? Almost certainly, but I'm gonna try them out anyway. I studied the following:

Concept of the Week #4 - Blind Stealing

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/78/micro-stakes-full-ring/concept-week-4-blind-stealing-419666/

Pokey's Incredibly Awesome Guide to Blind Stealing (Seriously, props to this guy)

http://archives1.twoplustwo.com/showflat.phpCat=0&Number=5348855&page=0&fpart=1&vc=1

So, with all this information in mind, I set out to create some ranges for different situations. I have pictures, so you may cringe at the inaccuracy of my spread all the more.

This is the blind stealing range recommended by PokerStrategy.com for beginners to BSS. (naturally weighted towards hands that are easy to play postflop)

Any pair, any broadway, any suited ace, T9s-54s.

This 22% range is any broadway, any pair, any suited ace, and 54s+ suited connectors. I decided this would be my minimum stealing range, as it's obviously conservative.

I got my ranges mostly from Pokey's guide. His first rule of blind stealing can be summarised as:

"Blind steals rely heavily on folding equity. The more frequently you try to steal the blinds, the weaker the average hand you’ll have when you attempt a steal. That means that for the frequent blind thief, you’re hoping NOT to get to a showdown. The good news is that the odds of your remaining opponents having a decent hand are slim – there are only two or three players left to act, and they have random hands. "

So, according to maths, I raise to 3xBB in late position, to try and win 1.5BB's. So if my opponents fold 2 times in 3, I win. Instantly. Without even considering post-flop options. When you consider that this would mean they'd have to call with some pretty marginal options, that means against two blinds with VPIP's of less than, say, 20, I can steal ATC until they wise up, which in NL5, I imagine could take a while, and may never happen. However, in the CO, I decided I couldn't steal with ATC. Against 3 opponents, it was a lot more unlikely to work.

My Stealing Ranges

So here's my range against blinds of <20 VPIP:

CO: 40%.
BTN: ATC
SB: ATC

My 40% range is the following:

Any pair, any broadway, any ace, any suited king, T9s-54s, J9s-53s, T9o-65o

I've added unsuited aces, suited kings, suited one-gappers, and off-suit connectors to the range here: Anything with a half-decent postflop potential. I also add K8o and K9o for their flop potential.

Against loose opponents, I'm forced to play differently, and steal less. If one of the blinds has a 30+ VPIP over a decent amount of hands, I'll use this range:

CO: 22% (Default PS range)
BTN: 40%
SB: 49%.

My 49% range is:

Any pair, any broadway, any ace, any king, Q6s+, Q8o+, T9s-54s, J9s-53s, T9o-65o.

I add in the rest of the unsuited kings, and extend the broadways to get some additional hands. As mentioned in the CotW:

"Against a loose-passive fish, you can play hands like K8o and Q9o profitably, since you will flop top or middle pair pretty often, and you can get a couple of streets of value out of them. Domination just isn't as much of an issue against someone who is playing 60% of their hands."

Thus, I have taken that into consideration. Finally, I have a range for when the blinds are within 21-29 VPIP:

CO: 24%
BTN: 43%
SB: 54%

Generally these are slightly extended versions of previous ranges. The CO is PokerStrategy's default, including A9o and A8o. The BTN is my 40% range with some extra off-suit kings, and my SB range is the following:

Any pair, any broadway, any ace, any king, Q4s+, Q6o+, J6s+, J8o+, T7s, T9s-54s, J9s-53s, T9o-65o.

I'm going to try these out and see how I go. I already know blind stealing is good, as when we got down to 4 or less handed play in SNG's, I'd start blind stealing like a LAGtard, abusing my tight image up to that point, and people basically never punished me for it. Let's see how it goes in cash games.

Well, that's my pre-session post. I wish I could say I was kidding, but I'm not. Warning: If you don't like long, detailed posts, I would suggest skipping this blog. Personally, I find nothing wrong with long posts as long as they aren't just made long for no other reason than to pad the length.

And because of that, I shall now end the post.

Thanks for reading, and I shall be back in a few hours with my session results.

Had another pretty lucky session, though I didn't actually stack many people. Mostly I played small-ball Poker this time. I was able to make a couple of double-barrel bluffs in spots I thought were appropriate, and also had a nice bluffcatcher hand.

$0.02/$0.05 No-Limit Hold'em (7 handed)

Known players:
SB = ($1.57)
BB = ($4.80)
MP1 = ($5.00)
MP2 = ($3.71)
MP3 = ($1.82)
CO (Hero) = ($7.41)
BU = ($1.75)

Preflop: Hero is CO with 5, 5.
MP1 folds, MP2 calls $0.05, MP3 folds, Hero raises to $0.20, BU folds, SB raises to $0.35, 2 folds, Hero calls $0.15.

Flop: ($0.8) A, 6, A (2 players)
SB bets $1.22, Hero calls $1.22.

Turn: ($3.24) 8 (2 players)

River: ($3.24) 9 (2 players)

Final Pot: $3.24.
Results follow:

Hero shows two pairs, aces and fives(5 5).
SB shows a pair of aces(J K).

Hero wins with two pairs, aces and fives(5 5).

I figured if he really had an Ace, he'd have thought about it (He immediately shoved on the flop) and thought how to best extract money from me, then do so. I called the re-raise pre-flop as I had pot odds of like 4:1 at that point, and an 8.5:1 chance of hitting a set, so it was worth it.

So essentially I figured he had nothing, and wanted to use that uber-scary flop to make me fold. It was a risk, but I took it. I'm not sure if I made the right play, even though I won, however.

Anyway, my BR is shooting up rapidly, in a naturally unsustainable way, but more importantly, I'm learning plenty of new concepts and how to apply them. Because of the fact that I'm on an upswing, I'm thinking if I hit 200 bucks, I could withdraw 55 bucks to buy HEM Micro...but my life roll can easily handle that expense, too.

I just read another concept of the week: "Moving Up/Down Stakes". (Man, 2+2 has EVERYTHING). Here's a quote from it that's inspired me to try NL10 as soon as I have 200 bucks, even if I'm on an upswing at the time:

"The big thing is that I encourage people to try to move up. Even if you lose, the worst that happens (if you follow the above advice) is that you move back down again. You’ll learn some things that you hadn’t seen before. Your leaks will get exposed and you can correct them. Since all you need is $40 (20BIs for 2nl), there’s little reason not to try to move up. Don’t let fear beat you. I believe that people move up too slowly rather than too quickly."

I'm not going to let fear beat me. I'll try NL10 when I have the roll for it. Worst case, I lose 50 bucks and move back down to NL5. Now there's just one more thing to find out, and that's something I'll ask on the cash game forums: How the HECK do I have an EV-adjusted win of 21.02 over 1,030 hands at NL5? Surely nobody could keep up a win-rate like that (my EV adjusted winnings are like, 40bb/100 or something), so the EV calculation mustn't be 100% accurate in some way. Maybe I'm just getting an abundance of good cards and using them well...

Well, next time I'll be looking at Basic Cold Calling, and I'm excited to learn how best to react to enemy c-bets. This concept of the week thing is great, anyone playing NL50 or below should definitely check it out.

Well, thanks for reading, and I shall see you tomorrow!

Concept of the Week 5 is Basic Cold Calling, where you give up initiative to try and press a positional and skill edge. I don't feel good enough to try that kind of thing yet, so I moved on to CotW 6, intending to come back to cold calling later on.

Concept of the Week 6 - Isolating Limpers (5th post)

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/78/micro-stakes-full-ring/concept-week-6-isolating-limpers-431379/

This post is amazing. The thread opens up with a semi-joke:

"Limpers suck at poker and have a hand they are unsure about: NEVER LET 'EM LIMP!

Discuss..."

This is the concept of the week. 10 minutes later, the real one is posted, with the caveat:

"To be honest, the mass of knowledge that may (or may not) be contained in this post is mostly summed up and contained in that single sentence. The basic jist of this is going to be: abuse limpers at every opportunity. I'll get into some reasoning, some math, some examples, but I want you to keep in mind that basic premise: limpers suck at poker and have hands they are unsure about."

He then proceeded to logically and mathematically convince me that I should do the same to limpers as I do to blinds now: mercilessly steal their money at every half-decent opportunity. People limp constantly at micro-stakes, and apart from certain loose-passive fish, I wasn't aware they were saying "Oh, take my 5 cents, I don't want it." with the exception of set miners, whom I never pay off anyway. (They limp, I raise, they call, I c-bet on the flop. If they call, I give it up.)

So I need to be more willing to raise in a pot with limpers, not less. Poker is such a non-intuitive game. (Which is good, that way you make money by following the correct, non-intuitive strategies) Essentially, I think the point that's being made is that limps are like blinds: most of the time, they're easy money, ponied up by players who usually don't want to commit a lot of money to their hands. Ergo, I should treat limps like blinds. (Naturally, if in MP I still can't raise with a 50% range or something, as one of the four or five people left to act might still have a hand)

Well, I'm gonna go do that. I'm not gonna try and make ranges this time, I just need to know that I should loosen up my ranges if someone limps. After all, it's fairly simple to loosen one's range, and I don't want to make up ranges for all kinds of positions and no. of limpers, so I'll play it by ear.

Thanks for reading, and my session results shall be posted in a few hours.

P.S: Am I putting too much detail into these posts? I'm not sure how much detail people actually want, and this blog is meant to share my journey after all, else I'd just keep a journal.

Was tired, so the session didn't go too well. Lost a couple of bucks, then said "Fuck it" and loaded up Rush tables instead. I won 3 bucks from a calling station in like 5 minutes, got the FTP I needed for Take 2, and then logged off having managed to turn a profit against all odds.

When you run good...

Anyway, shall have more sleep tomorrow, and will continue to focus on isolating limpers in my next session. I think I've been doing it too much now, overcompensating to try and learn the material. And after that, I shall learn about 3-Betting. Pff, I already know how to 3-bet. (5 bucks says I'm doing it completely wrong right now.)

Well, sorry about the short-ass post, but thanks for reading!

We haven't always gotten along, but I'm enjoying your blog and getting a lot of good information from it. You're doing poker the way it's supposed to be done! I only wish I had your drive and energy. Best of success to you and keep them posts coming.

Thanks for the compliment! Of course, you wouldn't say you wish you had my drive and energy if you could witness last night's events:

8 pm: Look up the Concept of the Week for today.
8:15 pm: Decide the concept of calling a bet on the flop is too much for my feeble brain. Read the next concept.
8:20 pm: Read the concept twice more, to get it through my head.
8:30 pm: Try to come up with some ranges for isolating limpers.
8:40 pm "Forget it. I don't need ranges."
8:45 pm: Write a blog post. Get distracted repeatedly.

9:30 pm: Post blog post. Resolve to get a drink and then play my session.
9:35 pm: Barter with my sister to obtain some of her soft drink, because I've run out.
9:40 pm: Get in conversation with aforementioned sister about World of Warcraft.
10:00 pm: Remark loudly at how it's 10 pm and I haven't started my session yet.
10:30 pm: Start session of Poker.
11:15 pm: "God, so tired. Why did I only get 3 hours sleep?"

11:20 pm: Donk off 25 BB's for some reason. Part of me thought he was bluffing, but the bigger part of my brain said "No, don't do it." I really thought I was going to do it, but the dumbass part of me took over my brain and decided to make the move anyway. I believe this is known as tilt, the phenomenon I feel slightly righteous about every time I read about tilt/spew, because I don't tilt. Nope, not me.
11:21 pm: Immediately close all tables.

12:00 am: Realise that I have 4.4 FTP's out of 5 for the Take 2 promotion. Load up three Rush Tables.
12:05 am: Valuetown 3 bucks out of a calling station, somehow managing to get in the black against all odds.
1:45 am: Finally feel up to writing a blog post.
2:15 am: Finish two paragraph blog post.
2:30 am: Spend two hours reading jbpatzer's blog. (Kudos to him though, I've never laughed so hard at anything on this site in my life.)
4:30 am: Sleep. Get up at 4 pm the next day. Decide my sleep schedule has jumped the shark.

So I think I could use a little more of that drive and energy, but I'm glad you're learning from and enjoying the blog, belayd! This was originally gonna be a throwaway joke and managed to turn into an entire schedule of half my day, played for laughs occasionally. It kinda went to a weird place.

Well, enjoy!

Can definitely tell your from teamliquid, the massive posts and well constructed information is something i miss, keep at this dude i hope we can grind up the stakes together.

@foulkezboyz I'd rather learn my way up the stakes Seriously though, it's good to meet another person from Team Liquid, even though I don't go there now as I don't play SC2 or BW any more.

So I had another sick session. With the help of rakeback and bonuses, I am now rolled for NL10. However, I'm going to stay at NL5 until the Take 2 promotion concludes. Ideally, I'd prefer not to have to move back down, but I know that's never a certainty. Just to show how sick my run has been, I have a graph, because a picture is worth a thousand words:

Yeah, I've obviously on a bit of a heater. I'm very happy with my redline though, since a lot of people seem to have constantly negative redlines from what I've seen, so I guess I'm being aggressive enough.

I also had the pleasure of playing my biggest pot so far today:

$0.02/$0.05 No-Limit Hold'em (8 handed)

Known players:
MP2 (Hero) = ($9.90)
MP3 = ($6.57)
CO = ($3.43)
BU = ($7.65)
SB = ($5.00)
BB = ($6.86)
UTG2 = ($6.64)
MP1 = ($5.48)

Preflop: Hero is MP2 with A, A.
UTG2 raises to $0.13, MP1 folds, Hero raises to $0.39, 4 folds, BB raises to $0.65, UTG2 folds, Hero raises to $1.30, BB raises to $6.91, Hero calls $5.56.

Flop: ($13.87) K, 2, 7 (2 players)

Turn: ($13.87) Q (2 players)

River: ($13.87) 5 (2 players)

Final Pot: $13.87.
Results follow:

Hero shows a pair of aces(A A).
BB shows a pair of kings(A K).

Hero wins with a pair of aces(A A).

This led to the following stack:

It's good to be on an upswing, I guess. I wonder how long it can last though...

I believe I've now learnt to isolate limpers, so it's on to 3-Betting next. I look forward to learning to do a simple bread-and-butter technique that I've probably been doing wrong every time I do it.

Well, that's about it for today: Only 2 days left in the Take 2 promotion, and then (unless I manage to lose several buy-ins in those 2 days) we shall see how NL10 treats us! I'll probably be staying there for quite a while though, after all, I only needed to win 10 BI to move up from NL5 to NL10. I'll need 3 times that much to move up to NL25, and I doubt my heater will continue for that long.

However, NL10 should be a fine place to continue to hone my game and learn the concepts I need to learn to eventually take my game past the micros. Whatever happens, I'm having heaps of fun, and that's what matters.

Thanks for reading, and I shall return with more tomorrow!

Curious: why choose to display avatars? I've always kept avatars turned off everywhere I've played.

Why not? I never really thought about it, I guess.

EDIT: No, I'm not some sad bastard who refreshes his blog every 30 seconds, I just had very lucky timing.

Originally posted by Salivanth
EDIT: No, I'm not some sad bastard who refreshes his blog every 30 seconds, I just had very lucky timing.

Sure, sure, keep telling yourself that.

Or is this perhaps another low-motivation day? Serious question.

Well, when I posted the reply it was 2 am, an hour after completing my target hands for the session and ending it. So I don't think it was a motivation issue. I genuinely did get lucky with my refresh timing

Btw, I am very motivated, however, I am also a born procrastinator and easily distracted. In Poker's case, it's usually a distraction issue, not a procrastination issue. I am motivated to play and learn Poker: I love this game.

really great thread!!!! good work

Originally posted by Salivanth
Well, when I posted the reply it was 2 am, an hour after completing my target hands for the session and ending it. So I don't think it was a motivation issue. I genuinely did get lucky with my refresh timing

Btw, I am very motivated, however, I am also a born procrastinator and easily distracted. In Poker's case, it's usually a distraction issue, not a procrastination issue. I am motivated to play and learn Poker: I love this game.

I need to learn from you because I am generally a minimalist (read: a guy who has always done the least amount he could get away with). Comes from having learned to read and write at age 4 and breezing through the first three years of school while the other kids were busting their humps. Only when I started flunking third-grade math did I clue in that something more than coasting was required, but although I got a lot of severe talkings-to to shape up, I didn't get any real guidance on how to do it. This was in 1970s east Europe, after all.