elda420

Question 1: What is your motivation for playing poker?
Basically, to become the best player I can possibly be by pushing my abilities to their limits. I have plenty of free time and I'm not afraid to commit many hours into poker. Money is a nice bonus too, I guess.

Question 2: What are your weaknesses when playing poker?
I tend to be too agressive post-flop with average hands like top pair and lose what I had earned in half an hour in just a few hands. I also feel like I'm also not getting enough out of very good hands like AA or KK (as in, only 8-10 BBs).

Question 3: What does it mean to play tight aggressive?
When you play tight aggressive, you'll most of the time only play a very select amount of profitable hands pre-flop. You mainly raise pre-flop when you hit these hands with the goal of having the initiative once you're engaged into the pot and keeping the aggression going post-flop by betting/raising to induce mistakes from your opponents.

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

Wow, great to also have new guys on board. I really hope we will do some progress with your game but prepare yourself for good and bad days, cause poker can be sometimes really rough!

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.

What about tilt? Do you adjust something against it? 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.

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.

Here's homework #2. Had a very time hard finding any free time to do this because of how much constant grinding I'm doing. I'm still 4-tabling as I type this.

I had a pretty rough week during which I ended up losing my entire bankroll and had to inject more money to keep playing, but that helped me improve a lot mindset-wise and I made all the lost money back fairly quickly and am now a much better player albeit still trash.
Exactly what I wanted from poker really, thus I am enjoying it a lot right now and grinding 3k hands/day effortlessly.

I don't tilt so much and when I lose a lot it's usually because of exhaustion leading to making stupid decisions. I make sure I stop playing when I start losing too much.

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

The chart is a nice starting point that guarantees that you play safe enough when you get started in poker, but it obviously dismisses a lot of important data, such as the position of the raisers/limpers, it doesn't differentiate MP1 from MP3, doesn't take player types into account, and so on.

There are a few hands you can call a raise with against some opponents if you happen to have relative position on them, such as suited connectors or 2 face cards.

I'm now following the advanced chart from the silver level open-raising guide.

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

NL2 AKo
NL2 nut flush draw
NL2 AA vs flushdraw
KJs FD + TPHK
NL2 AJo
NL2 AKs
Nl2 Kk
NL2 straight flush

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

AKo has an equity of 46.32% against the top 5% range.

you sound like a grinding machine. that's scary

when i was playing nl10- i made 30k~40k hands a month which now in retrospect i think is a fair volume for micro players. spend more time in hand discussions and such and don't grind while doing homework

Haha, yeah I think that might be a little too much sometimes, but coming from starcraft not grinding all day feels very unnatural. I've been reading your blog and it's quite inspirational I've gotta say

yeah, i can understand you. ♦

thanks for the kind words, i've been lazy with the updating

Still playing a lot and feeling really good about it, I think I average around +10€/day or something.
Actually started at 82€ today and ended up with 100+ ♦.
NL5 is so close now...

Also I'm about to make silverstar on pokerstars (189.30/750 VPP missing). It's a shame my account isn't tracked by pokerstrategy or I could be trying to hit gold status, meh.

Anyway here's homework #3 ~!

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?

We have a pre-flop equity of 50.78% against 3:d3:c.
Our equity becomes way worse on this flop (26.46%) because 3:d3:c hits the set and also has a few outs for full house / 4 of a kind. This means our hand only has a probability of 26.46% of hitting the right cards to win at the showdown against 3:d3:c.

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

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

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

We hit a flush draw and a gutshot on the turn and bet for value, but we end up facing a minraise from villain.

We have 9 outs for the nut flush, and since our opponent's play makes it appear like he has hit his straight on the turn, a 4 would possibly create us a tie situation.

Our opponent gives us pot odds of (0.25+0.22+0.44):0.22 ~= 4:1 which is just amazing for us even without any implied odds and there's no way we're gonna fold the hand, thus we definitely at least call, and a reraise might even be arguable (?)

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

NL2 A5s nut flush draw
Nl2 Qq
NL2 KK on paired board
NL2 AQo TPTK
Nl2 Jj
NL2 AKo
NL2 2pair
NL2 QJo
NL2 AQo
NL2 AKo TPTK
NL2 AKo TP
Nl2 33
Nl2 Qq

By the sounds of things doesn't look like you have had to redeposit again! Are you still doing four tables or are have you increased this number?

Good job! Homework #2 Done!

Chart is anyways for mainly to get the understanding of the game as preflop play, postflop play and tries to avoid beginners to make a lot of mistakes which often happens. Though I'd say if you are more advanced then start with more advanced start and especially for SH the chart is pretty decent.

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 Course so far.

Good job! Homework #3 Done!

Congrats mate, keep it up and grind it out but don't forget about studying and analyzing your sessions.

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!

Hi, thank you very much veriz for checking my homework and analyzing all my hands in the hand evaluation thread !
I'll try not too wait to much until I do homework #4, and hopefully I'll be playing NL5 by then.

Originally posted by DrRaab
By the sounds of things doesn't look like you have had to redeposit again! Are you still doing four tables or are have you increased this number?

I'm still 4-tabling, even though I feel like I could increase the number without hurting my winrate. If I ever have to go down to NL2 to rebuild my BR I'll probably be 6-tabling at least.

My winrate's nothing special though, something around 35BB/100h if I'm not mistaken.

Silverstar...check !
NL5...check !
6-tabling...check !

Also please check out this hilarious bad beat that got me bursting out laughing (thankfully on NL2) :

Hand converted with online PokerStrategy.com hand converter:

Play hand

€0.01/€0.02 No-Limit Hold'em (8 handed)

Known players:
BB = (€3.34)
UTG2 (Hero) = (€2.10)
MP1 = (€5.25)
MP2 = (€3.73)
MP3 = (€1.09)
CO = (€1.60)
BU = (€5.56)
SB = (€1.92)

Preflop: Hero is UTG2 with 7:d, 7:h.
Hero raises to €0.08, MP1 folds, MP2 calls €0.08, MP3 folds, CO calls €0.08, 3 folds, 2 folds, BB folds.

Flop: (€0.27) 2:c, K:d, 7:s (3 players)
Hero bets €0.13, MP2 folds, CO raises to €0.26, Hero raises to €2.02, CO calls €1.26(All-In).

Turn: (€3.81) K:h (2 players)

River: (€3.81) K:c (2 players)

Final Pot: €3.81.
Results follow:

CO shows four of a kind, kings(K:s A:d).
Hero shows a full-house, kings full of sevens(7:d 7:h).

CO wins with four of a kind, kings(K:s A:d).

Hey,

Such a winrate is sick, prepare yourself to see it going down. Cause it's not really possible to keep such a winrate. If you can keep it up to ~5 it's already very good. But so far you are doing really good job, hope you will move up the limits fast.

Try also posting hands and analyzing them, it's very important part of poker. Do you have any questions so far?

Those beats come time to time but you have to get over them, just don't start to tilt.

Hi ~

Well I'm doing quite good so far, I had my worst downswing followed by my best upswing so far (went down 50€ in a single day and made everything back the following day lol). I don't have a specific question to ask but I'll remember to ask if I'm ever confused about anything :).

Here's Homework #4 :

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

NL5 KTs
NL5 AA overpair
Nl5 99
NL5 AQo
NL5 87s
Nl5 77

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

I feel bad about giving trash advice to people but here it is ~

nl2 hero QJ
nl2 hero 66
nl2 hero KQo

Question 3: You are on the flop with K:sQ:d. The board cards are J:s, 9:c, 8:h, and your opponent holds 7:c7:h. What is your equity in this spot?

K:sQ:d has an equity of 41.41% against 7:c7:h on a J:s9:c8:h board.

Edit : I actually do have a question !
Whenever you c-bet bluff the flop out of position, get called and hit nothing on the turn, are there ways you can mix up checking and calling ? Checking every single time that happens makes it disgustingly easy to read and I get bluffed off pots by weaker pocket pairs for example.

Edit 2 : Running amazing today, +30€ in 3.5k hands (considering that I started off throwing 20€ away by messing around in NL2 >_>) and I'm not even done yet ! NL10 feels closer than ever.

Edit 3 : Can I ever run bad ? Here's my biggest win since I started playing ~

Alright making another post for today's session because that was pretty insane :

- Played 6 tables on NL5 from 11:00 am to 2:40 am
- 5795 hands played in 15 hours and 40 minutes
- About +50€ of overall profit
- 132 VPP earned
- ALMOST unlocked my first VIP stellar reward but with the tables emptying and me getting really tired I'm not gonna make it today, but it's gonnna be a breeze tomorrow ~

Now here are some screenshots :

I don't have a tracker yet so that's all I have as far as stats go, it's very close to what I usually have and maybe you can tell me a few things from it.

VPPs :

And obviously my current bankroll !

I'm off for a good night of sleep ~!

get a tracker, it's worth it ♦

otherwise congratulations on massive volume, i understand you ♦

Thanks man !
Gratz on getting platinum status

Any advice on which tracker I should experiment with and why ?

Sorry for delayed answer, I have been moving to new country so it did take me to set up everything at my place, now I am back and starting to evaluate the homeworks.

Good job! Homework #4 Done!

Whenever you c-bet bluff the flop out of position, get called and hit nothing on the turn, are there ways you can mix up checking and calling ? Checking every single time that happens makes it disgustingly easy to read and I get bluffed off pots by weaker pocket pairs for example.

2nd barrel instead of Checking? Check/Calling wouldn't really make sense cause you never even know where you stand with your hand.

Congrats on your run-good! Doing really amazing. If you don't use a tracked then buy one, a low-stakes tracker doesn't even cost that much. Test them out and see which one you like the most.

You have to choose between HM2 or PT4. Both are great tools, you have to test them out yourself and then decide. I am using for example HM2.

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.

Hi ~

Sorry for the late reply, I was a little busy and I took a week break from poker altogether because I ran awful the week before and had to rethink my approach of the game.

Anyway, I'm back and I've been playing for a few days now. Actually demolished NL5 this time and I ended up with a nice enough bankroll to be playing NL10 and everything's going great there aswell !

I really wanted to get to NL10 before starting to use a tracker so I need to get one now, set it up and get used to it before completing the next homework