[Closed] Esuohdla

Hi esuohdla !
I think you did the right thing when you left the computer games for poker.They were a waste of time !
In poker,if you study enough,you can become a winner ! Even an insane one. ♠_biggrin:

Good luck!

hi esuodhla,

welcome to our beginner's course!
haha i like the "insane winner" part. i hope you will get there too! ♦

gl and have fun! keep studying, keep improving

smiles,
wendy

Thanks for the replies all and yeah, im glad I began playing poker instead of other online games I was playing before, I have as much fun as before and now I might even earn a bit to help my income. Hell, I think elky used to be a Starcraft player and then he goes on to become a poker millionaire ♠_biggrin:

Homework 1:

Question 1: What is your motivation for playing poker?
It really comes in two parts, my motivation to play and my motivation to study. My motivation to play comes from the enjoyment of the analytical and mathematical nature of the game, working out what the best +EV move is in each specific situation, working out what my opponents do that is a mistake I can take advantage of and then executing the moves to gain the best value I can. I also extremely enjoy what some people call "owning the nubz", basically the feeling I get when exploiting a poor player and winning big pots from him simply out of pure skill and not some kind of suckout is brilliant, and motivates me to play more for that feeling.

My motivation to study actually comes from different sources. As I have been playing many games over the years, I know that putting the effort in to study the game will show serious improvement within the game and allow you to move up the ranks as quickly as you can. Another part of my motivation to study is that I know it is possible to make large amounts of money by playing the game if you are willing to put the time and effort in to learn and to play high volumes, and who wouldnt like that :)?

Question 2: What are your weaknesses when playing poker?
I make a lot of mistakes in my game, I c-bet far too much, like 90% of the time. I vastly overplay top pair type hands and sometimes end up getting stacked by sets. I sometimes slowplay in innapropriate situations which leds to me being drawn out on, or winning the hand but gaining less money than I could have. I dont think tilt is an insane issue for me, as it takes a lot to get me tilting, but when I do I normally lose well over a stack to it, for example one session every single raise I made was 3bet, and I was never holding a hand nor had enough stats/reads to be able to justify a call, I ended up getting really annoyed and 4bet shoved JJ into AA and had to cut the session very short, for fear of my bankrolls health. I also think I raise too much from certain table positions, but too little from others (6% early position, 50% button, 63% SB). The last leak I can think of is that I rely too much upon stats, like assuming an opponent is 3betting light because he has 11% 3bet over 100 hands, even though I know that isnt enough of a sample to give a good idea of his actual 3betting range I still find it difficult to get away from a hand like AJ/AT/TT. I also find it very hard to put opponents on specific hand ranges, particularly postflop, so I find it hard to estimate my equity in a situation and thus work out the correct move to make.

Question 3: What does it mean to play tight-aggressive?
Playing tight means that you select your postflop hands carefully, only playing those that have a very good chance to win unimproved or those which stand a good chance at becoming the best hand postflop. Postflop you only keep playing with hands that stand a high chance of being or becoming the best hand on the table.

Playing aggressive means that you play your hands with a raise much more often than you call or check.

This style works because your range of hands generally has a much higher chance to win than the range of hands your opponent will be willing to play. As you are aggressive, you will force the opponent to make mistakes by making him incorrectly call with drawing hands or hands that dont have a good chance to be the best at showdown. It also works because you will be getting more money into the pot than passive players, meaning that the pots you win will be much larger than your opponents.

Playing tight aggressive also forces your opponent to think and make decisions when under pressure, which can cause them to make the incorrect descision, especially on turbo tables where they have less time to accurately work out the correct decision to make and adds to the pressure. Adding as much pressure as possible to your opponent causes the more primitive part of the brain to take over, which is much less capable of making rational and accurate decisions.

This style also means you use position as much as possible, meaning that you will act after your opponents as much as you can. This is good as acting after them gives you valuable information on their actions, which can aid you in judging the strength of their hand, and provides valuable opportunities to take down the pot with a bluff when checked to.

Apologies for wall of text

Hello esuohdla,

Easiest wait to fight against tilt is to set up stop-loss technique. Which means if you for example have lost more than 3BIs for a session then you just stop the session for some time. The BI amount is set up from your own wanting. Some may put it higher, some lower. And after the stop you can easily just spend some time with evaluating your play.

Most of the other weakness you wrote can easily be fixed with you posting hands. We will start writing feedback to your play. And 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.

Welcome to the Course and Good luck! First points earned.

Homework 2

Question 1: What do you think you could play differently than how it is in the BSS Starting Hands Chart, and why?
Awkward question, because it really depends. From the CO or BTN I would raise many more hands but only if the blinds are folding so much that it is profitable for me to raise with much weaker holdings, just to steal preflop or on the flop with a c-bet bluff. I would also treat pocket pairs much differently, for example pocket 9s I normally raise from any position, and raise with lower pocket pairs as my position improves. This is for a few reasons, such as I have a good chance to take the blinds down preflop, or a reasonable chance to take down the pot postflop. It also allows me to already start building a bigger pot preflop, so that should I hit my set, I will be able to obtain an all in as soon as possible, which is what you want the majority of the time you have a set.

I also treat the call20 rule as a rule of thumb rather than an always enforced rule. If for example, I knew my opponent was able to stack off on a flop with only a top pair type hand, I would call his raise even if he had as little as 15x the amount left in his stack, because I have a 12% chance to hit my set, and if I hit I am very likely to get paid off enough for it to be profitable.

I also raise AQs from any position, something the chart advises against. I raise AJs and AQo starting at UTG2, also something the chart advises against. I have had very good results with these hands though, and feel it is currently working in my favor.

Question 2: Post a hand for evaluation where you have a question regarding your pre-flop play.
2Nl Jj

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

Good job! Homework #2 Done!

Totally agree with you about the stealing ranges. They can be very easily be balanced with even wider range. Depending on the opponent you can as well put a wider stealing range. Against some shorties you can even steal with smaller raise. But don't overdo the stealing situations. Sometimes you might just put yourself into too many difficult spots if opening with marginal hands.

Playing PPs can be in long run actually be very profitable, we could even say that you earn the most money with them. You can always try out either you play them profitable or not by check the programs either you are doing great on early position with PPs or not and base according to that.

Call20 rule ain't a must and in 3bet pots you can even easily use Call15 rule. But it just gives a small overview you should actually play with sets.

About AQs-ATs & KQs-JTs. It's actually totally fine even to play with those hands whatever position you want. The chart is mainly made for beginners and try to avoid them playing OOP and having marginal situations. The better you get the wider your range goes. Also you can always track your abilities either you earn money with the hands or not.

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

Thanks enjoying the school so far, learning quite a bit that is of use to me on the tables. Glad to see my deviations from the starting hands chart should be profitable assuming my post flop play is up to standard

Homework 3

Question 0: Download and install the Equilab: Done

Question 1: You are holding KQ. What is your preflop equity against an opponent who has 33? How does the equity change on the following flop: J53? Preflop my equity is 50.78%, postflop it is 26.465%

Question 2: What would you do in the following hand? (Remember that it is important to explain your reasons, simply posting "Fold" or "Call" is not sufficient)

No-Limit hold'em $2 (9 handed)

Players and stacks:
UTG: $2.00
UTG+1: $2.08
MP1: $1.92
MP2: $1.00
MP3: $3.06
CO: (Hero) $2.08
BU: $2.00
SB: $2.00
BB: $1.24

Preflop: Hero is CO with AJ.
5 folds, Hero raises to $0.08, BU calls $0.08, SB folds, BB calls $0.06.

Flop: ($0.25) 263 (3 players)
BB checks, Hero checks, BU checks.

Turn: ($0.25) 5 (3 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $0.22, BU raises to $0.44, BB folds, Hero...?

I agree with all the play until the turn, where I would lead out for potsize. Facing the raise, I would put my opponent on a range of A4, 44, 45s, 65s, 55, 22, 66, 33, though I feel 22, 66 and 33 are less likely as the flop is horrible to slowplay, particularly multiway. Against this range we have 21.104% equity. We need 19.47% equity to make this a breakeven play so I am happy to call here, with the intention of gaining an all in should we hit a river. I would not reraise the opponent as we are getting such good odds, and after his initial reraise I dont believe we have much, if any fold equity here.

Question 3: Post a hand for evaluation where you have a question regarding your post-flop play.
2Nl Aa

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.