American in America

Originally posted by verneer
Poker-wise, I am planning to write two in-depth articles in the next few weeks. Any topic suggestions?

1. Table and seat selection methods:

We all know those lobby sellection methods, that are not so accurate and good. I don't know for Stars, but at FT you had in lobby at at the right side with players at the selected table and notes/marks with their names. So basicaly, you scroll down, look at the marked players, and choose position you like. Many sites don't have that.
Do you use any kind of legal software for that? How to use it?
Since this topic is crutial for beating micros and rake, I would be thrilled to see great and complete article about that topic. It is written already, but I don't think in wright way.

2. Bet sizing preflop and postflop:

Underbetting, overbetting, limping vs aggressive 3bettors, never limping...

I play 6max almost exclusively, so I would appreciate if you give examples wor SH also, whatever you choose to write about.

Originally posted by verneer

Poker-wise, I am planning to write two in-depth articles in the next few weeks. Any topic suggestions?

I have one interesting which makes me a lot of trouble. Defending against aggresive 3bets from regs (CO vs BTN, BTN vs Blinds). Which hands to defend? How to play them? How to play draws (don't know if i should show aggresion on flop or turn or nowhere:D)
I think that I'm folding too much (~80%) so people start expliting it.

Originally posted by wnbMG

Originally posted by verneer

Poker-wise, I am planning to write two in-depth articles in the next few weeks. Any topic suggestions?

I have one interesting which makes me a lot of trouble. Defending against aggresive 3bets from regs (CO vs BTN, BTN vs Blinds). Which hands to defend? How to play them? How to play draws (don't know if i should show aggresion on flop or turn or nowhere:D)
I think that I'm folding too much (~80%) so people start expliting it.

+1
Defending vs regs(not just winning but also BE and loosing ones) that just seem to abuse u when u are oop. I know the ideal option would be to sit out and leave the table, but there has got to be a way to deal at least w thos BE ones

Start to 4 bet with a wider range, as people who 3 bets alot have problems to make the 5 bet jam as a bluff. and therefore you will pick up the pot alot of the times with a 4 bet, against tight opponents you mainly want to 3 bet with SC and vs aggro players Highcards.

Originally posted by Saren113
Start to 4 bet with a wider range, as people who 3 bets alot have problems to make the 5 bet jam as a bluff. and therefore you will pick up the pot alot of the times with a 4 bet, against tight opponents you mainly want to 3 bet with SC and vs aggro players Highcards.

I know that and do it. People will slowly adopt to that and start 5bet shoving.
The most problems I have with calling IP or OOP against loose 3bets (>8%) and playing postflop. I think It's probably great value in good playing postflop in 3bet pots vs. (too) aggro regs.

Wow, I can't believe I've missed this thread! Sure glad I found it.

Yet again a warm welcome to Pokerstrategy.com! Definitely very happy to have you around

Amazing posts, it's almost scary how spot on you are sometimes. Looking forward to reading more from you!

Pozdrowienia z Polski Panie Pawle

Really nice blog. I was your huge fan both on cardrunners and 2+2. I am really unhapppy you wrote the book. There is enough competent regs already .
Hopefully people will missunderstand/missaply concepts from the book..

Originally posted by verneer
Poker-wise, I am planning to write two in-depth articles in the next few weeks. Any topic suggestion

How about new version of this.
For each level from NL10 to NL100. I think you are the only ones who capable to write it.

Originally posted by roopopper
I have been thinking a lot about how some players are winners and some players( im in this bracket) are losers/breakeven players.
I know this answer maybe a bit all encompassing (and has a question mark again!!) but are good players better at gathering information and then using this information to their advantage?

Oh yeah. And the difference is night and day. I want to write more about this in the future, but I'll give you the abbreviated version here.

Your brain has two ways of processing information. One is logical, linear, takes a lot of effort and is slow (Daniel Kahneman, a Noble Prize winning psychologist, calls this "System 2"). The other is intuitive, simultaneous, mostly effortless, and fast (Kahneman's "System 1").

Here is an example of System 2 in action:

"I have a little black dog that is laying down on my couch."

Here is an example of System 1 in action:

There was very little you had to do in order to process the picture - lots of information hit you at once and you instantly had a general idea of what's going on. The downside to this is that System 1 is a bit lazy and likes to takes shortcuts. Sometimes you need to bring in System 2 to re-examine the answer that System 1 gave you.

So ... how does this apply to poker, and specifically, your question?

Experienced poker players are able to process a high amount of information about a specific situation using their intuitive System 1 - quickly and effortlessly. They are then left with lots of time and mental energy to zero in on the particular detail in that given situation and to make optimal decisions.

For example, when an experienced online player opens his or her HUD, they absorb and synthesize lots of information very quickly. To a beginner, this information has to be analyzed one stat at a time and there are few connections between how those bits of information interact with one another.

There is lots more to this, but I hope that this begins to address your question

Originally posted by wnbMG
I have one interesting which makes me a lot of trouble. Defending against aggresive 3bets from regs (CO vs BTN, BTN vs Blinds). Which hands to defend? How to play them? How to play draws (don't know if i should show aggresion on flop or turn or nowhere:D)
I think that I'm folding too much (~80%) so people start expliting it.

The two areas where most of intermediate players ask me for help with are:

1. Playing vs. three-bets.
2. Playing out of the blinds vs. a steal

I definitely want to address both topics at some point. Both are very complex once you start breaking them down . The fascinating thing about both is the psychological factor to them. In both situations, some people take the situation personally ("How dare he three-bet me?!?!"). This means that we cannot talk about the issue without addressing the psychology of it.

Originally posted by verneer

Poker-wise, I am planning to write two in-depth articles in the next few weeks. Any topic suggestions?

How about: Thirty minutes into a session - what you should know about your opponents (from HUDs and observation)

A lot of assumptions would have to be made for the purpose of the article; but it could give us an insight into how the best players have processed information that is available to most of us and how they plan to use it.

Originally posted by FingersMalone
How about: Thirty minutes into a session - what you should know about your opponents (from HUDs and observation)

A lot of assumptions would have to be made for the purpose of the article; but it could give us an insight into how the best players have processed information that is available to most of us and how they plan to use it.

Very interesting topic. I think to make it even better, one could write about the progression of insight.

So - I JUST sat down ... what do I think of the table before HUD stats come up or any hand is dealt.

First orbit - what do I think after six hands?

What do I think after 20 hands?

How quickly does it take for me to feel comfortable with the table dynamics and what adjustments do I make to my game based on those reads?

(I have a whole section related to this very topic in the book, but I think a specific example involving a single table would make for an interesting topic).

Originally posted by verneer

Originally posted by roopopper
I have been thinking a lot about how some players are winners and some players( im in this bracket) are losers/breakeven players.
I know this answer maybe a bit all encompassing (and has a question mark again!!) but are good players better at gathering information and then using this information to their advantage?

Experienced poker players are able to process a high amount of information about a specific situation using their intuitive System 1 - quickly and effortlessly. They are then left with lots of time and mental energy to zero in on the particular detail in that given situation and to make optimal decisions.

For example, when an experienced online player opens his or her HUD, they absorb and synthesize lots of information very quickly. To a beginner, this information has to be analyzed one stat at a time and there are few connections between how those bits of information interact with one another.

There is lots more to this, but I hope that this begins to address your question

Chess is similar.

In 1944 de Groot, a chessmaster and psychologist, conceived a seminal test known as board reconstruction, which tests not only the power of memory of a chessplayer but also the means by which information is stored. A group of players, ranging from Grandmaster to beginner, was shown a set of positions very briefly and was asked to reconstruct them as accurately as possible. It was found that the ability to remember the position corresponded almost directly to the individual's playing strength. Moreover, the stronger players tended to perceive the position in terms of clusters; a castled king with three pawns in front of it and a knight in front of the pawns might constitute one cluster, for instance, while an isolated pawn blockaded by a bishop might constitute another. The weaker players, on the other hand, tended to memorise the position piece by piece; thus, one could hypothesise that their efforts at reconstruction would inevitably be much worse, because they did not have the master's shorthand method of storing information by means of clusters.

An important follow-up to this experiment took place in 1973, in an experiment conducted by Chase and Simon. Again, a range of players had to try and reconstruct positions which they glimpsed only for a few seconds. Yet unlike the de Groot experiment, they were also shown positions on the chessboard which were completely random: positions which would never occur in an actual game and which had been created simply by sticking the pieces onto random squares. Significantly, it was found that strong players were no better at remembering these positions than weak players. Thus, their normal memory was shown to be no better at all; the fact was that when they could not make use of their shorthand method of looking at positions in terms of familiar clusters or groups of activity, their powers of memory were the same as everybody else's.

A question that troubles me is to what extent people are born with these sorts of abilities, and how much is the result of hard work and experience. I'm in the 1% talent, 99% hard work camp, but fear that personally I am stuck with 0.1% talent, 99.9% hard work.

Originally posted by verneer

Originally posted by FingersMalone
How about: Thirty minutes into a session - what you should know about your opponents (from HUDs and observation)

A lot of assumptions would have to be made for the purpose of the article; but it could give us an insight into how the best players have processed information that is available to most of us and how they plan to use it.

Very interesting topic. I think to make it even better, one could write about the progression of insight.

So - I JUST sat down ... what do I think of the table before HUD stats come up or any hand is dealt.

First orbit - what do I think after six hands?

What do I think after 20 hands?

How quickly does it take for me to feel comfortable with the table dynamics and what adjustments do I make to my game based on those reads?

(I have a whole section related to this very topic in the book, but I think a specific example involving a single table would make for an interesting topic).

Just for learning purpose I think I gonna do this tonigt and afterwards put my thougts in my blog.

Originally posted by verneer
Your brain has two ways of processing information. One is logical, linear, takes a lot of effort and is slow (Daniel Kahneman, a Noble Prize winning psychologist, calls this "System 2"). The other is intuitive, simultaneous, mostly effortless, and fast (Kahneman's "System 1").

Sounds a lot like left brain, right brain. So does this mean artists's mind are suitable for playing poker? System 1 looks a lot more like right brain.

While we're still talking about this what do you think about photographic/eidetic memory? Surely there has some benefit having one of these. Though I think eidetic memory is more suitable for live poker. I wonder if anyone have ever researched about this. Do you think having one of those = winning players? Any pro player having one of these?

Originally posted by michel2311
Just for learning purpose I think I gonna do this tonigt and afterwards put my thougts in my blog.

Great idea! Developing good metacognitive strategies is insanely +EV in anything you are trying to master.

Originally posted by jbpatzer
Chess is similar.

In 1944 de Groot, a chessmaster and psychologist, conceived a seminal test known as board reconstruction, which tests not only the power of memory of a chessplayer but also the means by which information is stored. A group of players, ranging from Grandmaster to beginner, was shown a set of positions very briefly and was asked to reconstruct them as accurately as possible. It was found that the ability to remember the position corresponded almost directly to the individual's playing strength. Moreover, the stronger players tended to perceive the position in terms of clusters; a castled king with three pawns in front of it and a knight in front of the pawns might constitute one cluster, for instance, while an isolated pawn blockaded by a bishop might constitute another. The weaker players, on the other hand, tended to memorise the position piece by piece; thus, one could hypothesise that their efforts at reconstruction would inevitably be much worse, because they did not have the master's shorthand method of storing information by means of clusters.

An important follow-up to this experiment took place in 1973, in an experiment conducted by Chase and Simon. Again, a range of players had to try and reconstruct positions which they glimpsed only for a few seconds. Yet unlike the de Groot experiment, they were also shown positions on the chessboard which were completely random: positions which would never occur in an actual game and which had been created simply by sticking the pieces onto random squares. Significantly, it was found that strong players were no better at remembering these positions than weak players. Thus, their normal memory was shown to be no better at all; the fact was that when they could not make use of their shorthand method of looking at positions in terms of familiar clusters or groups of activity, their powers of memory were the same as everybody else's.

A question that troubles me is to what extent people are born with these sorts of abilities, and how much is the result of hard work and experience. I'm in the 1% talent, 99% hard work camp, but fear that personally I am stuck with 0.1% talent, 99.9% hard work.

I didn't realize that they were two different studies. The 1st one without the 2nd one does more harm than good in terms of misapplication.

There have been many studies looking at the role of talent in long-term success. Two of the books I've read on the topic are "The Talent Code" and "Blink". What I took away was in the long run, motivation and hard work trump any initial talent difference between individuals. That said, people that are not talented at something might be less motivated to put in the necessary work and energy to achieve mastery.

To me, the bottom line is that if you want something bad enough (few people really do), you will put yourself in the best possible position to be successful. There is a lot of luck involved in the process, but that's not something you can control.

Originally posted by cpers
While we're still talking about this what do you think about photographic/eidetic memory? Surely there has some benefit having one of these. Though I think eidetic memory is more suitable for live poker. I wonder if anyone have ever researched about this. Do you think having one of those = winning players? Any pro player having one of these?

Stu Ungar supposedly had a photographic memory and many people said he was in a whole other league. But, my gut says that it's more of a gimmick and fun thing to think about than something which would give a player a big edge over another.

That said, I'd take it if someone offered it to me

Originally posted by cpers

Originally posted by verneer
Your brain has two ways of processing information. One is logical, linear, takes a lot of effort and is slow (Daniel Kahneman, a Noble Prize winning psychologist, calls this "System 2"). The other is intuitive, simultaneous, mostly effortless, and fast (Kahneman's "System 1").

Sounds a lot like left brain, right brain. So does this mean artists's mind are suitable for playing poker? System 1 looks a lot more like right brain.

I know this concept fairly well, have spent some time learning to draw like this.

Now you have mentioned it, last night I was playing well looking at the table gathering reads and finding spots to get my chips in and the results were positive, but for some reason a little while later I lost the plot and lost a buyin, its almost as if I was on auto pilot and not thinking, i lost the buyin then it was like I woke up and screamed at myself "what the f$%k was I thinking"

It was very like when I really concentrate on looking at what im drawing and I lose track of time if you know what I mean, I was really wrapped up in the game but not in a logical thinking way.

Verneer - I've watched some vids of your Mt. Micro series and I'd just like to say GREAT WORK. Caps intended.

Max