Task-Force Zoom

NL500 zoom ♠_thumbsup:. This is going to be a nice thread.

In February I had my first private coaching with "lnternet"

Awesome! Was it worth the investment? Any chance you wanna share some things you learned?

Originally posted by Farmarchist
NL500 zoom ♠_thumbsup:. This is going to be a nice thread.

In February I had my first private coaching with "lnternet"

Awesome! Was it worth the investment? Any chance you wanna share some things you learned?

Thanks for the fast comment, but keep in mind that any idiot can buyin with a few k$ and play 500zoom;)

Just playing it doesn't make u a better player:D

I was running EV-BE in Jan and Feb was like 3bb/100, but just 50k hands.

I think I mentioned in the last part of my threadopener, that I want to continue the work with lnternet. It's definitely worth the investment (easy to say... I made 1k during the coaching and just gave him a small part of it:D).
But just talking to him gives you the feeling that he would crush you at the tables, which means nothing else but him having the capability to improving your game pretty to a far better level.

Off-Topic: If you need a Karmaboy, go for someone else... Even if the session was good, I lost AA vs 55 (pre AI^^).

Will be following this one.

GL sir!

Looks like a really fun blog. I played some 500 as well as 200 on Zoom.

Few questions from me:

1- Have you played much 200 as well? Whats the biggest differences that you see
2- Are you still looking to game select mid stakes tables too?
3- You get deep a lot quicker in Zoom, are you sitting out when you get to a certain stack depth?
4- If not, what studying are you doing for playing deep?

:club:1)
I've actually played a lot of 200. After restarting with poker in March 2012 I climbed up the limits pretty fast and reached NL200zoom in June.
First month was a great upswing there but afterwards I was autopiloting too much, didn't do anything for my game and expected to be winning by just sitting at the tables. I played more or less EV-bb or slightly winnings but ran something between 10k and 15k under EV.
It seems as if I needed this kind of downswing to do thing properly again. Learning/Grinding in a not 0/100 ratio and playing less but A-game instead of massgrinding.
In October I had the motivation like never before, played some zoom100 for confidence and started 200 again. During Christmas Time I played mainly NL400 on the "normal" tables due to the fishiness. I made shitloads of $$ in the Christmas Week and startet Zoom 500 afterwards cause my BR was big enough^^.
I think that I'm a good winner as long as I play A-game and I'm not moneyscared at all.Goal must be to establish some routines to make A-game more and more possible
But coming back to your question:

The 200zoom playerpool are a lot of Regs playing high volume (there are a lot of 8tabling 200/100zoom players to make SNE I think). Most of the regs are either weak or have common multitable leaks. If you have a closer look at them (in HM or pt)you will always find some things to exploit them.
Adding some fish to the pool makes it good beatable imo. I don't think that high winrates are possible (as they're on normal tables) because most of times you just have regs on you tables (they have leaks, but it's not like moneyprinting)

The 500zoom playerpool contains
1. Regs who play for a living. They are better than on 200, just have less leaks. It's just difficult to make money against them cause they try to play really balanced. But on the other side they won't make a lot of money against you as well. They take the money of the fish and don't lose to other regs

2. Crushing Regs: There's a group of players who play pretty fancy lines. They don't masstable and try to play hyperexploitive. Facing massive overbet-barrels when you seem to be capped or weak is absolutely standard against them. They make money both against other regs and fish. If you play ABC they crush you (I got a huge database with a couple of guys with 8-10bb about 100k hands. not a megasample, but just shows that winrates >5bb should still be possible)
Took me some time to stop them focussing me. They're exploitive in the way they play. After you owned them a couple of times they seem to shut down the action against you...

3. Montenegro Guys:
Don't want to insult anyone. But there's a group of players located in Montenegro. 90% of them play exact same stats. Even if they aren't I treat them like a bot. They play pretty balanced in small pots but get pretty bad as soon as the pot gets bigger (or if they play slightly deep..). There's good money to make.

4. Highstakes Regs:
Sometimes you see some NL5k+ players entering the pool (some known names). They play solid but I'm never frightened of them. They are not used to zoom...
For example nanonoko play one evening there... 2,5k hands with 35/30. 13,x% 3bet. fto3bet >80%
It was like an aggrofish donating money...
I don't know what he did there but I'm up 4 digits against him (OH YEAH ♠_love:)

highstakes guys just play there cause it's the highest zoom level imo...

5. a couple of fish. Not too many. But if there are some, they can be huge whales. You can feel SA/ SU evening imo. The pools get better these times.

Hope it's not too much to read. It's just what came to my mind^^
Putting things together this means: Regs get slightly better in 500zoom ( you can expect they beat 200, otherwise they wouldn't play 500...)
There comes another group along which is pretty terrible to play against in the beginning.
You face names you know from higher stakes/vids/whatever
But there are still huge whales sometimes:)
One big thing is that the pool gets really small in 500. I think I know all the regs and got huge sample on them... which wasn't true for 200.

There's one guy mixing MSS/BSS which could be gr8 for creating stats for villains which are always wrong. Haven't thought about this too long. But I think there could be some value in it

:spade:2)
Since there's no higher zoom level and I don't need the money atm, I'd like to take the risk to play higher stakes as well in the nearer future.
This leads me to the "normal" tables. At the moment I got the problem of 2 domiciles. I got a nice for poker designed Computer in my flat in Unitown. There's my huge database. In my hometown I just got my laptop (which is not really a high-end product) with a smaller database. I think about playing 400/600 on the laptop (which means creating a database with only hands from these limits: I fight always against performance problems when playing on laptop)
and having still all possibilities on my computer...
As long as the Zoompool is too small (60players or less) you often play 4 or 5 handed. There's still a Hud Problem with HM2. I would be forced to play without stats sometimes which just suxx...
So to answer your question:
Yes, I do play midstakes as well at normal tables, but my game selection doesn't really exist:D ( I join any waitlist and am rarely leaving tables...)

:heart:3)
I did sitout in the beginning when doubling due to BankrollManagement. Now I start to stay sitting there as long as I feel comfortable (this points is anywhere between 1k and 1,5k if you'd ask me)

:diamond:4)
Something I need to start... haven't much done yet about deep play

I feel bit sorry for this wall of text. But as long as things come to my mind I keep writing them down. I hope you'll understand what I try to tell you, even if it's sometimes a weird German-English;)

Nice post

Hey there Steffen,

It's so awesome that the guide is finally being translated into german language :).

I see that you're going to invest more time into poker in April.

Until then, the best advice that I can give you is:

1. Write a very detailed vision + mission, and review it daily in March + hold yourself accountable. This is the most important part of the guide by far imo :).
2. You can try optimizing your nutrition/sleep/exercising. Improvements in those areas will give you huge benefits in poker!

If you have any questions, please do let me know. I'll definitely follow your thread closely and make sure that you are progressing fast :).

Looking forward to hearing from you soon!

-Primož

ACTION STEP: If you have a blog, write your goals there

Waited for having some time to start dealing with your guide seriously and made it to the quoted Line:)

I worked through point "1.1Vision" and tried to do the action steps properly. One thing I learned already is the fact that this part must be the most difficult one of the whole guide.

Writing a vision statement as you said in less than 10minutes seemed impossible. but well, I took some more time.

Later on I downloaded your "Goals and Habits-Spreadsheet" and filled in some habits I want to start with and set some goals for the next week

Habits to start with
1)jogging before breakfast (as soon as I feel well again)

Got a bad cold at the moment which makes things more difficult. Due to the two different places I live making daily habits is not the easiest thing.
In my unitown where I live from MO-FR (most of the time..) I got a bakery approximately 5 jogging minutes away from my flat.-> easy plan: go there in the morning. As long as I have this bad cold I can just walk there and get some nice stuff to eat:)

2) Set the alarm clock in the evening:

Yes, I am one of these guys who sleep as long as they want. 10h+ is no problem. But if you think about it it's just a lot of wasted time.
During school time I had no prob at all getting up at 6:30 everyday. It's just something u need to get used to again. I just want "setting the alarm clock" being a normal thing again.
As long as I'm not feeling good I'll set it but allow myself to stay longer in bed after alarm clock rang. depending on how I feel.

->Goals
I made some goals for next week as well.
1st Area: UNI
-monday: getting an overview about the whole script, divide it into smaller pieces and make some kind of learning plan!

-TUE-SU: Follow this learning plan:)

This one will take most of my time, so there isn't much time left for other goals

2nd area: Poker
-play 5 Sessions (just 45min each) NL500 Zoom this week regarding the following:
1.WARM UP (usually I review big hands from last session and think about them again)
2. Close Skype
3. Don't Open Browsers
4. Cooldown: Mark interesting hands. note some thoughts to them. Those will be the hands for the next Warm UP

-review viseon/mission statements daily

should be pretty easy to do:)

3rd area: Health and Fitness
-find good threads/good book about nutrition

This is the thing I want to start right now:D. I'm a nutrition noob. I eat whatever I want and have no idea whatever is good for me or not (well, I know that McD is not the best. But I've no idea whether subway is alright sometimes^^).
Whenever I cook for myself it looks like steak+anything.
So if you know a good guide/thread/book to start with please let me know.
Good thing is I love all kind of random healthy snacks. I love all kinds of fruit/nuts/yoghurts, whatever.
With 1,90 and something between 75 and 80kg overweight isn't a problem at all. I do lots of sports as mentioned in openpost (I think...).
I hope you get my point and can help me to reach this goal

That's it so far. If you find any leaks in what I did there please let me know. If you want to add anything/have good advice please let me know

One last thing

Small rewards can be a good motivator for forming habits as well

Because I can't do anything properly right now (playing a session/learning/whatever) and the only thing I want to do is getting well again I'll reward myself for dealing with the guide right now and watch a random film in TV (and if there is only crap at TV, I'll even watch this shit^^)
Keep in mind: One film, just one. Not the whole night^^

Na alder, dich kennt man doch

Interesting to read your comparison of the limits.
Currently Im playing zoom200. Good advice to look up who is grinding more than 4 tables. How did you mainly exploit those type of players? A lot of aggression?

You nearly played the same style on 200 like now on 500?

Gl @tables!

greetz

Interesting to read your comparison of the limits. Currently Im playing zoom200. Good advice to look up who is grinding more than 4 tables. How did you mainly exploit those type of players? A lot of aggression?

Well, they like to play a lot of hands and therefore they make their decisions really fast.
This works as long as they are in spots they've been in thousands of times. Their ranges are okay, they don't make many mistakes in normal spots I think.

So the solution is to bring those guys in spots they don't know.
The standard 8tablezoom-reg I know got a WTSD of approx. 24. So you won't make shitloads of money by valuetowning them. But you can make them fold a lot.

standardspot for me to exploit them is
Bl vs BU single raised pot: PFR checks back some kind of JT5 flop (or whatever)^^
Overbet Turn against this guy and he'll fold all his QT type of hands. And trust me, he won't take a note and adapt by checking back his TT next time. He'll still play the same ranges next time you play against him.

Another thing is to make some ridiculous moves like minraising A72r flop ip. You don't need a lot of foldequity to make this play profitable...

I hopefully gave you an idea. Obviously there are a lot more spots you can exploit there buttonclicking-nonthinking-game.

Making a detailed HM2 review of those guys does help you to find a few more spots. They just won't adapt...:)

Very, very interesting analysis.

Why don't we pick one of those guys and make a comparison?

One thing we could do is find all NL500 regs that you have more than 10,000 hands on and VPIP is 19-20 and PRF 16-18, you can put all of their names into one alias.

Once you have the alias you will have a big sample size and we can start looking at how they play "generally" and then change our game plan to crush them.

Thoughts?

Very interesting points, thx a lot.
I think i burned some money by bluffing too much against check-back-ranges, but overbetting could be a nice trick, I'll definitely try it.

I already thought about minraising flops, because I honestly have some problems on my own when facing those minraises. I really like the fact it doesnt have to work that often.

Originally posted by pleno1
Very, very interesting analysis.

Why don't we pick one of those guys and make a comparison?

One thing we could do is find all NL500 regs that you have more than 10,000 hands on and VPIP is 19-20 and PRF 16-18, you can put all of their names into one alias.

Once you have the alias you will have a big sample size and we can start looking at how they play "generally" and then change our game plan to crush them.

Thoughts?

Just tried this out. Unfortunately there aren't many guys who are as nitty as you were looking for. So I made the boarders vpip 19-22 + PFR 16-19.
I found 23 players with more than 10k hands.

It's pretty difficult to really analyze this alias, because all my nice popups don't work for aliases. Having all the interesting things in HM2-Reports is just so much work to do.
I got some overall stats for you right here

But there is more value in having a look at more specific spots. So let me know which spots you are interested in and I'll work something out.

One more thing: There are more 8tablers playing zoom200+zoom100. I don't have a database about those guys on this computer here. But if anyone has and is playing these there should be a huge exploit-potential

Hey again!

Love the long post :).

As for waking up with the alarm clock, it might be a bit harder if you don't have some activities scheduled which you really need to attend. In case you will have problems with that, take a look at this article, which will enable you to train yourself to wake up with the alarm clock :).

Nutrition-wise, you can take a look at the book called The paleo solution, it will provide you with some basic understanding of nutrition, and you can move on from there :).

Other than that, everything looks great ;).

Let me know how you progress with your plans!

-Primož

Hi there Steffen, I hope you are well and enjoying the course?

I can understand how busy you might be, but it would be great if you could update your thread to keep it moving forward.

Regards,

Mal.

Originally posted by gadget51
Hi there Steffen, I hope you are well and enjoying the course?

I can understand how busy you might be, but it would be great if you could update your thread to keep it moving forward.

Regards,

Mal.

Hey guys, such an interest always motivates for keep on writing:)
I just wrote my biggest exam this semester (exam was pretty tough actually... just the wrong answers, have the feeling as if I didn't have the chance to tell them all the stuff I know/I learned).

For obvious reasons I postponed my "weekly habits and goals" -review from sunday noon to just a few seconds ago.
I'm a little bit proud to have managed setting the alarm clock everyday:)
I had no problems getting up actually but am still very weak due to my illness. I couldn't do real jogging in the morning and replaced it through "walk to bakery/tidying up kitchen", just anything where I was forced to move my body instead of sitting down and switching on the computer.
my Pokersession goal was the easiest to manage^^. Played much more than I actually should and wanted, but okay...

Next week my first goal will be to go to the doctor (they all have a huge lunch break, so I'll call there asap), because the main thing must be to get well again (feeling bad for a pretty long time just suxx hard)

Moreover I have to choose whether I have enough motivation to write another exam or not (21.03.).
I want to play at least one top A-game session with warmup/cooldown and want to watch 2vids (with a pen in my hand!!) and want to work through two more points in SF's productivity guide.

I'm not sure yet whether I want to write this last exam or not. Anyways, I'll have some more time for looking around here in the forum and work some more with you guys:) (starting right now)

Cause I know you all like graphs I'll post one for you^^. Maybe I'll find some thing this month to manage getting a BE-redline:)

And for those who think I feel sad cause of the "bad" exam... Don't worry. Last 3k hands of the graphs I played yesterday evening/night:):)

Wow, a student who can set the alarm, how can you fail! ♦

I do hope you get better soon, but I can't really advise on your exam motivation dilemma, perhaps Schnitzelfisch can help there?

Have fun,

Mal.

Originally posted by gadget51
Wow, a student who can set the alarm, how can you fail! ♦

I do hope you get better soon, but I can't really advise on your exam motivation dilemma, perhaps Schnitzelfisch can help there?

Have fun,

Mal.

I didn't fail, no worries. I always pass the exams I write;) . It just haven't been as good as I thougt it could be after having worked through the exams of last years.

And there isn't actually some kind of motivation dilemma. It's just a choice I have... I've never been in this lecture, but I could still write it to have less to do in Summer.
As you might know, I follow two "career options" at the moment.
1st: getting university done for having all possibilities in economy
2nd: getting a pretty good poker player

Putting effort in one of them makes the other one lacking a bit. So I just have the choice:
Do I want to put effort in university stuff now?(if y->prepare well and go for exam)
Do I want to put effort in my pokerskills (if y->don't register for exam and rock this freaking awesome bootcamp^^).

I've had exams since end of January, so it was a long time of learning and learning again. I feel okay with stopping now, but I feel okay with learning one more week as well.

It just seems to be difficult to evaluate pro's and con's. Tomorrow is the last day to sign in for the exam. I'll decide spontaneously I think (but right now, everyone know which option I'd choose:D)

Hey again,

nice report, and really nice goal setting man! Congratulation on passing the exams and waking with the alarm clock as well ;).

As for the exam, well, you'll most likely decide by yourself. Maybe think about having to write the exam in the summer when you should be at the beach... :). Although this boot camp really is awesome as well, so I can understand that it's a tough a decision.

Well, do what your gut feeling says is right and you won't be disappointed ;).

Looking forward to more updates from you!

-Primož