EV generator blog

In the trend of my last posts, I played a total of 544 hands and a bb of 30.28/100. For me that is amazing, but it does not feel right.
I won because I of some lucky hands, but overall my play was pretty bad.

I can fold KK with two AA on the board, but I cannot fold my 9J on a straight/flushdraw. Also, my redline is dropping more than the last week.
maybe I've had a bad run. 544 hands don't have to say anything, but it doesn't feel right. Study can't harm

Just a day or two into the cave for study

Cheers

Everyone follows patterns. Whether you want to or not; often you do not even realise it. Yet you often react in the same way. We have learned to behave in a certain way through video examples and study.

With poker, this also happens by playing. You start to recognise patterns that you have seen, read or heard.

What I have noticed in my game is that I can exploit fish and whales on stats quite well. However, I have trouble with the regs, which is logical.

The next milestone is coming, the 25buy-ins are almost achieved for NL10. So a shot at that stake is realistic. But is this useful if I have so much trouble with the regs?

Isn't it better to improve your game first? Or is it useful, so that you get used to regs and do go to NL10?

Move up. Take shots. Always.

Like most things in poker, there really isn't a definitive answer to how long a poker session should take. There are many things to take into consideration.
A flaw for me is playing too long sessions, with that I mean playing more than 2 hours at once.

For me, if you want to get the best results in poker then you need to approach this game as a professional poker player would.

There are a few big steps like, Good sleep, healthy nutrition and enough exercice that is very important. I got those topics covered.
Yesterday I was streaming on Discord for a few other players, When one of the players said, aren't you playing too long?

By then, more than 3 hours had passed. I fall into a kind of flow where I feel I am playing well, but I play on autopilot without thinking logically.

When I start a session I am very much into positions, cards, ranges and statistics. This helps me to make good profits. So playing longer sessions is a big leak for me. That's why I'm going to be tough and set a timer of 55 minutes where I stop until I reach the big blind, even if it's a lucrative table I'm going to take a break.

Originally posted by jawoftheox
Move up. Take shots. Always.

Thanks, man! I can at least try it of course.

It has been a while since I posted. A lot has happened in the meantime. In the meantime, I am fully working again and my knee is recovering well.

The group coaching session has now ended! It was great where a lot of new information can be obtained and applied at the tables.
My game itself has been a bit turbulent in recent weeks, but positive with the PokerStars challenge being completed! So be able to add $ 20.00 to my bankroll.

With that, I did a shot at NL10 and that goes reasonably well.

Still a lot of bad players at this limit, but also more sticky players. It takes some getting used to but I expect to be able to beat this limit.

One of my biggest losses has come from playing during lunch breaks. so work / play / work. No rest, don't clear your mind. Play and give your money to the fish by simply calling when they go all-in.

Noticing leaks through self-reflection helps enormously. Why am I giving away my money? what am I doing wrong? Why do I play well at other times?

These are questions that are relevant to all poker players.

For me, the answer is relaxed and right mindset.

Ill post an update of my stats soon.

Originally posted by Zaratras
Still a lot of bad players at this limit, but also more sticky players. It takes some getting used to but I expect to be able to beat this limit.

One of my biggest losses has come from playing during lunch breaks. so work / play / work. No rest, don't clear your mind. Play and give your money to the fish by simply calling when they go all-in.

Sticky players -- if you mean calling stations -- are easy.
 Never bluff. They won't fold.
 Bet your big hands big. They won't fold.
 Make sure you take notes

I never tried playing during a lunch break, but I dislike playing when I cannot have an open-ended session.
There is enough pressure playing poker, and adding time pressure won't go well.

Cheers,
VS

Originally posted by VorpalF2F

Originally posted by Zaratras
Still a lot of bad players at this limit, but also more sticky players. It takes some getting used to but I expect to be able to beat this limit.

One of my biggest losses has come from playing during lunch breaks. so work / play / work. No rest, don't clear your mind. Play and give your money to the fish by simply calling when they go all-in.

Sticky players -- if you mean calling stations -- are easy.
 Never bluff. They won't fold.
 Bet your big hands big. They won't fold.
 Make sure you take notes

I never tried playing during a lunch break, but I dislike playing when I cannot have an open-ended session.
There is enough pressure playing poker, and adding time pressure won't go well.

Cheers,
VS

Exactly, well spoken!

Thanks for the tips on sticky players, always good to have a reminder. I write a lot of notes on players.
Haha sometimes struggling to keep the notes really short.

So I have just finished the W34z3l walkthrough session. Good value for silver status! I hope one day his masterclass will be available for silver status too!

I am wondering how do other players train ranges?
Do you use equilab/ flopzilla or just memorize ranges?
And how do you apply it and take advantage while playing?

Hope to get some answers! Because I really need to work on that.

I hope it's allowed to post, else please delete it.
But there are a free 90 days @ Pokerforge

Some nice material for beginners!
Just google: pokerforge free 90 days

Originally posted by Zaratras
I am wondering how do other players train ranges?
Do you use equilab/ flopzilla or just memorize ranges?
And how do you apply it and take advantage while playing?

Hope to get some answers! Because I really need to work on that.

I use Equilab and some other tools to check my range after the hand.
I use the ranges from the Gameplan series of articles as a basis, but I vary quite a ways from those ranges.
I open much wider from the button if there are two tight players behind me, and I tighten way up with maniacs at the table.
That way, I can auto-profit from the nits, and with the maniac, folding to their spew gets them cocky, and costs nothing, but when you have the hand you need you can 3Bet them and take their bucks.

As for the Pokerforge link, it is OK to mention other poker sites, but our forum principles say not to link to competitors. I don't know if they are competitors or not, so I just hid the link

I have to be honest, I don't calculate all these things. I just try to go with my feeling and make an estimation of the equity very roughly. I don't think that's a problem on these low stakes...
When you move up, I'm assuming your edge will be smallers so knowing equity exactly will be more necessary then.

But then again, learning now, might help you out in the long run...

Originally posted by KoningAlbert
I have to be honest, I don't calculate all these things. I just try to go with my feeling and make an estimation of the equity very roughly. I don't think that's a problem on these low stakes...
When you move up, I'm assuming your edge will be smallers so knowing equity exactly will be more necessary then.

But then again, learning now, might help you out in the long run...

Exactly your last sentence, I want to learn now and not to learn in the future.
My thought is that you have to be prepared and used to these things.

Originally posted by VorpalF2F

Originally posted by Zaratras
I am wondering how do other players train ranges?
Do you use equilab/ flopzilla or just memorize ranges?
And how do you apply it and take advantage while playing?

Hope to get some answers! Because I really need to work on that.

I use Equilab and some other tools to check my range after the hand.
I use the ranges from the Gameplan series of articles as a basis, but I vary quite a ways from those ranges.
I open much wider from the button if there are two tight players behind me, and I tighten way up with maniacs at the table.
That way, I can auto-profit from the nits, and with the maniac, folding to their spew gets them cocky, and costs nothing, but when you have the hand you need you can 3Bet them and take their bucks.

As for the Pokerforge link, it is OK to mention other poker sites, but our forum principles say not to link to competitors. I don't know if they are competitors or not, so I just hid the link

broadly speaking, that is also my approach.

I think I'll figure out how to take it to the next level. I don't have GTO solvers, so I'll skip that.

Originally posted by KoningAlbert
I don't think that's a problem on these low stakes...

when youre not interested in learning the game, you will probably not get to those stakes anyway.

Continuing with the next course is BLUFF THE SPOT BTS SCRIMITZU MICROSTAKES SYSTEM. A few times, I have seen Scrimitzu playing on twitch and like the approach on the microstakes. Therefore I decided to follow his course.

Got some extra not for myself to consider playing

• 3bet and squeeze are less likely on the micros unless the have really good hands.
• Make notes if the opponent overvalues his overcards

  For example: MP open can you call on the CO with A♦:T♦:

  The flop comes 3♠:T♠:8♦:

  MP checks and you bet 60% pot

  Turn card 8♠:

  MP checks and you bet 80% pot

  River card 2♦:

  MP checks and you bet 80% and he call with A♠:Q♥:

  Good to make a note on that

• Consider betsizes and ranges more.
  Do I have backdoors? draws? medium pair with any backdoors? What will I do if he bets 1/3 or 1/2 pot?

With these small lists, I am trying to improve my thought process.

Anyone other than me also use list (things you wrote down? or in your head?)
Let me know! I am very curious how you approach things on the tables.

I don't really write things down, but I do follow some rules of thumb.

I will call raises preflop very seldom. I will probably 3bet most of the time. When a person 4bets I will only continue with premium hands at these stakes, because they do not play back vs; 3bets very often.

When I do get called on a 3bet, I cbet quite a lot, even if some boards look wet, since I only need to win the pot 1/3 to be break even. My experience tells me that I win the pot more often than 1/3, so this on itself (disregarding the hand you're holding) is a profitable play.

You can 3bet and squeeze pots fairly wide.

I tend to be the aggressive player most of the time, since you can win pots by betting, or by having the best hand. If you are passive, you can only win pots with having the best hand. So you miss out on a lot of uncontested pots.

At this point, I'm also trying to avoid difficult spots to play, because a lot of the players do not think their hands through thoroughly enough. I think I would be levelling myself way too much then. So avoiding these spots is - to me personally - a massive profit.

Originally posted by KoningAlbert

When I do get called on a 3bet, I cbet quite a lot, even if some boards look wet, since I only need to win the pot 1/3 to be break even. My experience tells me that I win the pot more often than 1/3, so this on itself (disregarding the hand you're holding) is a profitable play.

Is this a feeling or did you find a way in a tracker (PT4 or HM3) to calculate this?
You don't compare ranges if you cbet?

It's a feeling, I haven't calculated this.... I might need to check that to be absolutely certain. Would be an interesting exercise. If I get my holdem manager working again, I'll try to give you an answer.

I play the game mostly based on the action happening preflop + my position at the table. I try to be IP as often as possible, and be aggressive.
Of course I do have some ranges in my mind, but like I said before, I'm just trying to play the tendencies you see at these tables all the time.

Now when I come to think of it. I think zoomtables play a bit differently than regular tables, since people don't really have reads on people. I think that players are quite tight at these tables which is very exploitable, and I think that's where I get some benefit from. (my massive heater aside, because I'm running godlike, so my view might be a bit tainted here)

Goooooooooooodmorning poker players!!!

The past weeks have been turbulent ... I took a step back and lowered a limit to NL5.
I did this because I have a lot of trouble with NL10. I play fairly evenly, my buy-ins are stuck between 24 and 28.
The feeling where you are not so confident at the table was minimal, it makes you insecure.
If you then start playing your hands badly, calling too much or bluffing where you shouldn't be bluffing, it will only make that uncertainty worse.
As I write it, it is very much like a downward spiral.

The way I have / am going to solve it is by playing less, studying more.
My postflop in particular will have to be better, on advice I downloaded the leak buster trial ( https://forums.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?postid=3232413#post3232413)

Here are a number of leaks that my coach has also mentioned.
Yes, I started private coaching

A small overview of a number of points for improvement:

• 3bet vs CO needs to be higher overall, SB 3bet vs BTN needs to be higher (Study Ranges)
• Defend BB vs BTN RFI more often, Defend BB vs SB RFI more often (Study Ranges)
• Fold more vs 3bet OOP & 4bet more aggressively (Study Ranges)
• Turn delay cbet needs to be higher
• Turn cbet frequency far to high - (Filter Sample for better understanding, session in future)
• more OOP vs IP CC. MP vs BTN, CO vs BTN etc.
• Def defend more vs cbets OOP. Whether thats with x / c or x / r. Base decision on flop cbet size. Smaller cbet call more and x / r more. Bigger cbet size, call less and x / r less.

This is just one part I should focus on. But the most important.

The coaching was three days ago and I start losing less money, it feels like burning less money.
Now I have to find the spots to beat the opponent in strategy, position and ranges.

Step-by-step

Cheers

Perfect runout

PokerStars - $0.05 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 97.2 BB
SB: 188.2 BB
BB: 100.6 BB
UTG: 189.4 BB
MP: 253.8 BB
Hero (CO): 109.2 BB

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has K:spade: Q:spade:

fold, fold, Hero raises to 2.4 BB, BTN raises to 8.6 BB, fold, fold, Hero calls 6.2 BB

Flop: (18.6 BB, 2 players) A:spade: J:spade: 2:spade:
Hero checks, BTN bets 17.8 BB, Hero calls 17.8 BB

Turn: (54.2 BB, 2 players) T:spade:
Hero checks, BTN bets 70.8 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 70.8 BB

River: (195.8 BB, 2 players) 7:heart:

Nice one

Niceeee, keep going mate