BaggerSmurf

ARTICLES

I did not need to read the first one and had already read the second and third ones. Read through the fourth one yesterday and like the tips in there, though I probably will not follow them as I'm not such an organised person ^^.

♠ The rules of Texas Hold'em
♠ What is the Big Stack Strategy?
♠ 7 tips on How to Become a Successful NL Player
♠ BONUS: Putting theory into practice

VIDEOS

The video was a nice for beginners, giving a tour around the PokerStrategy site. I completely agree with the part on motivation for the homework. People really should be doing this for themselves. Also, a good introduction to the course.

♥ Lesson 1: About the course and PokerStrategy.com

COACHING

I checked out the coaching last night (17th of January 2012), which was informative in a way, but mostly personal questions directed at the person playing. It kind of disappointed me that the supposed topics of the coaching weren't covered much at all.

QUESTIONS

♦ Question 1: What is your motivation for playing poker?
I like to play poker as a hobby. It interests me, motivates me to become better at it and provides me with fun and excitement (though not always excitement in a good sense, like tilting).

The best thing about this hobby is that it makes me a bit of money. It does not provide me with the money I would get from a job, but I have been able to pay for a nice HD monitor, a PS3, some speakers, some good nights out and groceries at the end of a rough month (living the student's life ♦).

♦ Question 2: What are your weaknesses when playing poker?
I still tend to swear a lot when on a big suckout spree, which kind of makes me disappointed in myself. Tilting does not nearly affect my game as much as it did a year ago, but I'm sure it still does. It's not keeping me from stopping and picking up again a few days later, so I'm sure that with the right mindset I will see so, so many of these suckouts and bad beats that I won't be able to care much anymore.

Another thing is that I tend to underestimate unknowns on the microstakes. However fishy they may be, it is not OK to call all-in on a dry flop with just AKo as overcards.

♦ Question 3: What does it mean to play tight aggressive?
To play tight means that you carefully select which hands to play preflop, according to your position, the playstyle of your enemies, your own table image and the action of the people that had to make a move before you in this hand.

To play aggressive means that you make use of your well-chosen hands and extract as much value as possible from them. Be the one in control of the action instead of being controlled.

This is where the progress of Homework #2 used to be.
The finished work has been posted below.

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

I checked out the coaching last night (17th of January 2012), which was informative in a way, but mostly personal questions directed at the person playing. It kind of disappointed me that the supposed topics of the coaching weren't covered much at all.

The coachings are a bit different, mainly the videos are made towards topics which we cover in specific homework. In coaching I tried to balance the level of every student, some students are oldies there and some are really new, so I kind of take the average in between that and talk about what's needed for both. Every coaching is unique since we have always something new there.

But I would still advice to try to fight against tilt for example:
Easiest way 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 results. Some may put it higher, some lower. Also after the stop you can spend some time with evaluation part to become better.

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.

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.

Oh, and could you post something into your thread that you finished your homework, so I will see. Because I don't see when you just edit the post.

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

Thank you!

Easiest way to fight against tilt is to set up stop-loss technique.

When playing SnG's I would often still have quite a few tournaments opened when starting to feel tilty, but I would just stop registering new ones. I'll definitely put in a stop-loss limit for my cash game sessions :).

Also after the stop you can spend some time with evaluation part to become better.

This is something I really should start doing.

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.

I will soon start posting some hands. Should I post them in this thread or in the hand evaluation part of the forum, or both? Having exams the coming two weeks, so it might take a while ^^.

Aggressive should be also pretty clear that already the word says how you should be playing.

I kind of left the part of being aggressive out, because it seemed obvious from the word ^^. But the aggression is mostly about getting value from your good hands, making opponents fold better hands and being the one in control, right?

Hopefully you will enjoy the Course.

I'm pretty sure I will! I really like the initiative.
Thank you for your evaluation.

When playing SnG's I would often still have quite a few tournaments opened when starting to feel tilty

Usually people start to tilt their money away because of that, so watch out.

I will soon start posting some hands. Should I post them in this thread or in the hand evaluation part of the forum, or both?

Into Hand Evaluation Forum. Thanks!

But the aggression is mostly about getting value from your good hands, making opponents fold better hands and being the one in control, right?

Correct.

ARTICLES

Up until now I have been marking my opponents as Complete Idiot, Fish, Seemingly Solid and Winning Reg. Though this does give some kind of indication on whom to avoid confrontation with, it gives absolutely no information on how to adapt to their playstyle. From now on I will try to mark opponents as nits, maniacs, TAGs, calling stations and leave in the Complete Idiot mark :).

I just reread the articles for this lesson. I do play a bit differently from the SHC, but I will explain these later since it's a question for the homework. Odds and outs was something I was already familiar with. Isoraising is something I rarely do, and I think this is one thing to expand my game with.

♠ The 8 Player Types - How to Get Their Money
♠ How to Play Before the Flop
♠ Mathematics of Poker: Odds and Outs
♠ Crushing NL 50 (1) - The Preflop Play

VIDEOS

I do wonder about playing postflop after isolating. If Villain calls our cbet, they might have hit their set. Or when the board is drawy, they might be chasing a draw.
Against a raise it will be an obvious fold, even with something like TPGK right?
In what kind of situations is it profitable to second barrel on the turn as a bluff?

♥ Lesson 2: Preflop Play and Poker Maths Basics
♥ Hasenbraten's Crushing NL50 - Part 1

COACHING
Followed the coaching of 24th of January, though I did not finish watching it because I was really tired.

QUESTIONS

♦ Question 1: What do you think you could play differently than suggested in the BSS Starting Hands Chart and why?
♣ In the SHC, you open about 22% of the starting hands from late position. I think it is profitable to steal the blinds with a lot more hands, especially versus tight opponents in the blinds.

♣ According to the SHC, we should fold AQ to a blindsteal. This is something I'm not ever planning on doing. With this hand is often profitable to resteal, or even just call to keep the weaker hands in Villain's range (if we have position). With hands like KQo it is nice to 3bet-bluff against steals.

♣ I don't like playing a hand like 54s, unless 2 or 3 people have limped before me and I'm in late position.

♣ A lot of my choices depend on the Villain(s) I'm up against, so I do not simply play every starting hand the same from the same position.

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

♣ Is it a good idea to open with 3bb from late position, to make steals cheaper?

♣ I see a lot of players open low PP's instead of limping them, in what way is this better?

• [NL2 FR] AJs, call pf ip
• [NL2 FR] Responding to opencomplete
• [NL2 FR] AJo, resteal
• [NL2 FR] 77 raise pf

♦ Question 3: What is the equity of AKo against the top 5% range? 5% means 88+, AJs+, KQs, AKo.
Equity Win Tie Loss Hand
Player 1: 45,792 % 35,909 % 19,766 % 44,325 % AKo
Player 2: 54,208 % 44,325 % 19,766 % 35,909 % 88+, AJs+, KQs, AKo

Good job! Homework #2 Done!

Against a raise it will be an obvious fold, even with something like TPGK right?

There is no default line to take since it depends a lot on the opponent, on his stack, on his stats, previous actions. Against some we going broke, against some we ain't.

In what kind of situations is it profitable to second barrel on the turn as a bluff?

Do you really think there is a default answer for that. If poker would be that easy then don't you think everyone would be winning in that by just following few easy steps.

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.

About the re-steal situation it mainly depends on the opponent as well but I do agree that AQo is kind of too strong to fold directly vs BTN steal or LP steal.

Is it a good idea to open with 3bb from late position, to make steals cheaper?

What do you mean by good? Depends a lot, what's your stealing range, what kind of opponent is on blinds, what's opponents stack. But of course it's possible.

I see a lot of players open low PP's instead of limping them, in what way is this better?

On higher limits people will easily understand with what you limping, isn't it so? And you wont play your hand profitable this way. Which is different in those low limits.

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.

Thanks for the response!

In what kind of situations is it profitable to second barrel on the turn as a bluff?

Do you really think there is a default answer for that. If poker would be that easy then don't you think everyone would be winning in that by just following few easy steps.

That is why I asked in what kind of situation. Against what type of opponent, on whom we have what kind of reads, and what kind of board can we consider this?

Is it a good idea to open with 3bb from late position, to make steals cheaper?

What do you mean by good? Depends a lot, what's your stealing range, what kind of opponent is on blinds, what's opponents stack. But of course it's possible.

Would it be a better move than opening 4bb against short stacks? Would it be a better move if my stealing range is rather large because tight opponents to my left?

Hopefully you enjoy the School so far.

I do! It's nice to have each of your questions answered by someone with a lot of experience :).

That is why I asked in what kind of situation. Against what type of opponent, on whom we have what kind of reads, and what kind of board can we consider this?

Unfortunately I can't answer that either since I would have to write you few articles about it. There are couple of good articles around Pokerstrategy and you have access to them, read them and you will find a lot new stuff around.

Would it be a better move than opening 4bb against short stacks?

Against shorties I would usually raise smaller.

Would it be a better move if my stealing range is rather large because tight opponents to my left?

If they are tight then you can as well widen up your stealing range.

Thanks for the quick reply!
I'll be moving on to the next homework assignment this week.
Unfortunately I can't make it to the coaching tonight because of kickbox training.

Originally posted by BaggerSmurf
Thanks for the quick reply!
I'll be moving on to the next homework assignment this week.
Unfortunately I can't make it to the coaching tonight because of kickbox training.

No worries about that. They ain't forced, keeping yourself healthy is also an important part of poker player.

goodluck with the course ♠_biggrin:

maybe i will step in in March

Thanks, good luck in March then ^^!

I'd like to post a graph and my stats of the hands I played since I started this course. I know it is far from a decent sample size, but it might already show some nasty habits to my game.

As long as the red line (non-showdown) goes up steeper than the blue line (showdown), it's profitable. The red line going up so steeply might indicate me being too loose or aggressive, but it does not seem so to me when I play ^^.

Any tips?

Well, practically you are playing another style which is loose-aggressive style. You are trying to make your profits from going to showdowns mainly or either winning by being aggressively. Like CB a lot, raise at some points. That kind of style isn't the easiest to play and most likely overall it ain't even standard. Why not to use standard ABC for the beginning for example? But of course if your style suits you and you think you still win money with it then why not to use it.

Myself on those smaller stakes I wouldn't play very agro style cause you will rarely get people off the hand. They are too loose to fold hands. ♦

Well, I've just finished my 180's staking (50% ROI, yay ♦) so I've now got a $400 BR again and wanted to start playing at NL10. I noticed those tables are a lot tighter (most of them around 15% vpip average).

I agree that playing ABC poker and following the charts will be +EV, but I find it very hard not to deviate in situations like holding KQo on the BB and 3-betting to an openraise from BU.

I will try to c-bet less in 3-way pots (still will do on a paired board) and go a little more easy on the steal + cbet.

The best way for me to check whether my deviations are acceptable would be to post a lot of hands in the hand judging forum ^^. So that is what I plan to do while I make a start on homework #3 (just started a hard semester at school, so things will be slow ^^).

ARTICLES

Implied pot odds weren't anything new to me.
Neither was the postflop article, but I must say that I really like it since it teaches beginners why they are betting. Does your bet make a better hand fold or does it make worse hands call? If neither, don't make the darn bet! ♦
I found it rather weird to have an article about posting hands in this homework assignment, while we already had to post a hand in the previous assignment ^^.
It might be good for me to take a more systematic approach on evaluating my hands. I usually recheck them myself, post them in a Skypegroup and sometimes on the hand evaluation forums. I should mark questionable hands every session and take my time for them the next day.

♠ Mathematics of Poker: Implied Pot Odds
♠ How to Play After The Flop
♠ Patterns in Poker
♠ BONUS: Professional Hand Evaluation in 4 Easy Steps

VIDEOS

I really liked the amount of examples handled in the video. Made the whole thing a little more interactive and me a little less sleepy ^^.

♥ Lesson 3: Poker Maths and Hand Analysis

COACHING
Haven't been able to follow any coachings, since they coincide with my training :(.

QUESTIONS

♦ Question 0: Download and install the Equilab.
Equilator has been installed in my laptop for about a year now, I'll check out any differences with Equilab.

♦ Question 1: You are holding K:sQ:s. What is your preflop equity against an opponent who has 3:d3:c? How does the equity change on this flop: J:s5:d3:s?

------------Equity-------Win--------Tie--------Loss-----Hand
Player 1: 50,768 % 50,391 % 0,754 % 48,855 % KsQs
Player 2: 49,232 % 48,855 % 0,754 % 50,391 % 3d3c

------------Equity-------Win--------Tie--------Loss-----Hand
Player 1: 26,469 % 26,469 % 0,000 % 73,531 % KsQs
Player 2: 73,531 % 73,531 % 0,000 % 26,469 % 3d3c

♦ Question 2: What would you do in the following hand? (Remember that it is important to explain your reasons, simply posting "Fold" or "Call" isn't enough!)

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:cJ:c
5 folds, Hero raises to $0.08, BU calls $0.08, SB folds, BB calls $0.06.

Hero makes a standard openraise, and BU and BB call.
Calling a raise preflop usually means people have a pocket pair or suited connector (or maybe suited one-gapper). Sometimes they play AT, AJ or AQ this way to keep hands they dominate in the pot, though I don't see BB doing this often since they don't play very well in multiway pots. Perhaps we could add in some suited Ax or low broadway hands as well.

So ranges:
BU: {22-99, 54s-KQs, 64s-KJs, AT-AQ, A2s-A9s, KQo}
BB: {22-99, 54s-KQs, 64s-KJs, AT-AQ, A2s-A9s, KQo}

Flop: ($0.25) 2:c6:d3:d (3 players)
BB checks, Hero checks, BU checks.

BB might check, waiting for the preflop aggressor to make a move. But BU checking behind on such a drawy board means he has probably missed the flop or is hoping to complete his draw on the turn.

Ranges:
BU: {44-55, 65s-KQs, 64s-KJs, AT-AQ (probably not ♦), A2s-A9s (probably not ♦), KQo}
BB: {22-99, 54s-KQs, 64s-KJs, AT-AQ, A2s-A9s, KQo}

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

BU is minraising the turn here. Unless he is bluffing because he thinks the range for a preflop openraise does not hit this board, he will hardly ever have less than a set, straight or strong draw here.

Range:
BU: {44-55, 64s, A:d6:d, A:d5:d, A4s}

If we want to call here, we need to pay $0.22 for a pot of $1.13. So we would need $0.22 / $1.13 = 0.19 = 19% equity here.

Board: 6:d 5:c 3:d 2:c
-------------Equity-------Win--------Tie----------Loss-------Hand
Player 1: 21,378 % 19,034 % 4,689 % 76,277 % AcJc
Player 2: 78,622 % 76,277 % 4,689 % 19,034 % 55-44, Ad6d, Ad5d, A4s, 64s

So even without implied pot odds, we can make this call here.

♦ Question 3: Do you have questions about your postflop play? Post your hand for evaluation.

• [NL10 FR] 66, turnbet
• [NL10 FR] Folding straight vs rivershove

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!