PlasmaLine

Homework - Lesson 1:

Question 1: What is your motivation for playing poker?
I regard poker as a challenge to master something that is not entirely based on luck but includes some essential skills, like making the right decisions at the right time, being disciplined all the way through and also to try to exploit other peoples mistakes.

Question 2: What are your weaknesses when playing poker?
At this stage, after having played a few hands, I feel that my weakness lies in the post flop play. Of course there is this post flop chart which I use for the Mid Stack Strategy, but nevertheless there are some situations that are difficult to classify, which eventually lead to mistakes committed by myself instead of the opponent.
Especially when playing aggressive it seems like sometimes overdoing the aggression and not reacting to calls/raises from the opponent accordingly.

Question 3: What does it mean to play tight aggressive?
Tight-agressive play means that you do select your cards carefully and do not play everything and that you have to force your opponents to make decisions which should put them under pressure and hopefully lead to mistakes.

Welcome to the Course and Best of Luck. Good job! Homework #1 Done!

Most of the weakness you wrote can easily be fixed by 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 lose 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.

It's pretty common to feel in BSS such a feeling as "don't know what to do". That's why hand post is good for. What about your tilting? Do you adjust to it?

Tight style is usually called playing selected hands. Like following the Starting Hand Chart. Aggressive should be also pretty clear that already the word says how you should be playing. But the problem playing aggressively is that you have to watch that you don't play too aggressive. Find good spots, find good targets. About The tight-aggressive strategy you can read in this article: "What is the Big Stack Strategy?"

Hopefully you will enjoy the Course. Some points earned.

Thanks for the feedback - I'll definitely start using the hand evaluation forum.
Is it actually also alright to post hands with which I have won, but where I'm not sure if the raise or call was a good move (in terms of +/-EV)?

Anyway, here's the HOMEWORK - LESSON 2:

Question 1: What do you think you could play differently than suggested in the BSS Starting Hands Chart and why?

There are many opportunities to play differently than suggested by the BSS or any SHC because the SHC is only a recommendation for either neutral or positive EV. However, the SHC usually neglects that in certain situations the EV can be higher by playing differently. This of course depends on several factors like the players type/stats available/stack size or history - so for example if a player in front of me is very tight, than raising a bigger hands range might bring higher EV than suggested by the SHC, especially in situations of Blind Stealing.
Also, for situations where one can Isolate or Dominate another player the SHC can be adjusted to gain maximum EV.

Question 2: Do you have questions about your preflop play? Post your hand for evaluation.

Posted one hand in the evaluation forum:
KK - too aggressive on turn?

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

Using Equilab the equity of AKo against the top 5% range is 46.32%. So, a looser in the long run against the top 5% range.

Good job! Homework #2 Done!

Is it actually also alright to post hands with which I have won, but where I'm not sure if the raise or call was a good move (in terms of +/-EV)?

Well, one of the leaks what some people do is that they don't post their winning hands. While winning hands can very easily also have a lot of leaks and I would recommend even also posting winning hands.

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 tight opponents who give up their blinds either preflop or postflop, why not to adjust? Against some shorties you can even steal with smaller raise, for example 3xBB. But don't overdo the stealing situations. Sometimes you might just put yourself into too many difficult spots if opening with marginal hands.

Isolating can be very profitable actually since people on lower stakes take the fast and easy line by just Fit/Folding too much. With that you will earn in long run a lot profit. Which means you can isolate with even wider range, sometimes even with the all range which you planned to limp.

About Question #3:

       Equity     Win     Tie
UTG    46.32%  37.92%   8.41% { AKo }
UTG+1  53.68%  45.27%   8.41% { 88+, AJs+, KQs, AKo }

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

Question 0: Download and install the Equilab.
Done

Question 1: You are holding K :spade:Q :spade:. What is your preflop equity against an opponent who has 3 :diamond:3 :club:? How does the equity change on this flop: J :spade:5 :diamond:3 :spade:?
Preflop:
       Equity     Win     Tie
MP2    50.78%  50.40%   0.38% { KsQs }
MP3    49.22%  48.84%   0.38% { 3d3c }

Postflop:
Board: J♠3♠5♦
       Equity     Win     Tie
MP2    26.46%  26.46%   0.00% { KsQs }
MP3    73.54%  73.54%   0.00% { 3d3c }

So just looking at the equity against the opponents made hand, does this mean that since the equity is 26% postflop we win approx. 1 out of 4 situations - thus we need at least 3:1 pot odds to make the next call to be profitable in the long run?

Question 2: What would you do in the following hand?

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 A :club:J
5 folds, Hero raises to $0.08, BU calls $0.08, SB folds, BB calls $0.06.
Flop: ($0.25) 2 :club:6 :diamond:3 (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...?

The pot after BU raise is $0.91 and we need to call $0.22 to se the next card, which gives us pot odds of 4.1:1. Since the BU check/raised it signals a very good hand and I would put him on a pocketpair since he called our pre flop raise and shows such aggression on this kind of flop. Might also be an uncompleted FD and he wants to protect his hand against another higher FD. So, I would rather put him on a made hand and therefore no A or J will give us the best hand only a card, which gives us 9 outs and odds of approx 4:1.
So my action here is CALL and if FD completes BET, if it does not complete check/fold.

Question 3: Do you have questions about your postflop play? Post your hand for evaluation.
NL4 QQ
NL4 AQ
NL2 - good pot control on scary board?

Good job! Homework #3 Done!

About Question #1:
Preflop Equity:

Equity Win Tie
UTG 50.78% 50.40% 0.38% { KsQs }
UTG+1 49.22% 48.84% 0.38% { 3d3c }

Postflop Equity:

Board: J♠5♦3♠
Equity Win Tie
UTG 26.46% 26.46% 0.00% { KsQs }
UTG+1 73.54% 73.54% 0.00% { 3d3c }

About Question #2:
There are several occasions on turn:
a) If we take just odds for the FD and we take into account that all our odds are clean. 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 so that means 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, keep going!

Question 1: Post a hand for evaluation in which you have the initiative postflop.

NL2 - T6 freeplay turns to big pot

Question 2: Evaluate one of the hands submitted by other members.

nl10 sh KQs
nl10 sh A6 blind defense

Question 3: You are on the flop with K :spade:Q :diamond:. The board cards are J :spade:, 9 :club:, 8 :heart:, and your opponent holds 7 :club:7 :heart:. What is your equity in this spot?
Since we have 10 clean outs to win against 77, I would estimate the equity to be 38 % ( Equity ≈ outs*4 - (outs-8)) - is this formula applicable in this situation?

Calculated in Equilab:

Board: 8♥J♠9♣
       Equity     Win     Tie
MP2    41.41%  41.41%   0.00% { KsQd }
MP3    58.59%  58.59%   0.00% { 7h7c }

Good job! Homework #4 Done!

This weeks homework was a bit easier. But the idea of that is to help you go through last weeks stuff if you didn't go through everything. Or either way maybe even read some more articles, watch some videos and of course attend in the coaching. What will also help for your game is the evaluation part of other members hands and of course posting your own hands.

If you have interests you could try calculating the equity with a formula which you can use even on tables(either playing online or live poker):
(Amount of outs x 4) – (Amount of outs – 8) = Your Equity

About Question #3:

Board: J♠9♣8♥
       Equity     Win     Tie
UTG    41.41%  41.41%   0.00% { KsQd }
UTG+1  58.59%  58.59%   0.00% { 7h7c }

Hopefully this wasn't too easy homework for you. Some more points earned.