FishTastic: I see dead money

ok on some reflection i've noticed a couple of significant leaks in my game. i may have a hand and bet for value, get called and a draw-completing card pops on the turn or river. deep down i don't want to let go of my hand, and if i bet and get raised i often think they might have it but i might also say to myself they could be trying to represent it so i end up calling a raise or bet when their play changes from passive to aggressive in the hopes of busting a bluff! i need to work on being less suspicious and accept when i'm beaten.

i believe i'm losing a lot of pots this way. i'm also going to showdown waay too often, my WtSd = 30 so i'm gunna work on halving this..... although i dont know an acceptable value for that... but i'm sure these two leaks go hand in hand; the first one means i sometimes don't fold when i know i'm beaten and as a result i'm going to showdown much more often than i should be. hopefully working on sorting these problems out i can make at least a slight improvement. i know for a fact my postflop play is a little problematic..

i'm gunna try and start overbetting for value. i have seen some players making 'proper' sized bets but most of them are all over the place betting 2c into a pot of 50c etc so they clearly don't understand bet sizing. hopefully if i overbet for value i will get paid off a little extra than i would otherwise by the worse hands that people can't fold. i want people to call with worse made hands than my own, so by overbetting they will just pay me off more when i have them dominated. i understand that this will mean i MIGHT lose more to suckouts but most of the time if i'm really betting for value it's because i'm trying to get paid off the most which also means i will be trying to get my money in the middle to maximise value. so im gunna give this overbetting a bash when i DO have a really good hand. if this is about exploiting players' weaknesses then surely one of the weeknesses of most players at 2nl (and at other microlimits) is that they don't understand bet sizing so it's irrelevant whether i overbet or not.

if anyone has any opinions about this please share because i'm just trying some different stuff out, i don't actually know if this will work out.

I totally agree with the opening statement there,
In the micros people don't really "get" betsizing, so you can easily vary your sizing slightly when it comes to vbets.

Try only to overbet the pot silghtly though, not like 3x the pot, it stands out a bit too much.

Regards,
Richard

I see your signature is still pinky ♦

bah, and wonderful mods are ITT

Hey DrDunne,

How come you chose to go to Leicster (almost defintiely spelt wrong) uni? Whats it like? Have you been to visit any friends in other uni's? Favourite place you've been so far?

Few of my friends did pychology degrees and are abit in limbo about what they want to do next.You have a plan or just going to crush the pokers?

To the strategy questiosn that your raised previously, basically at the micros you should just decrease (or even take away) your bluffing range and increase (widen) your value range. Players really do find it hard to fold, but overbetting like you say may give them enough of a reason to get away.

Just really play the basics, raise for value, if somebody min raises the river, dont pay them off, they have it and they have told you and you have gotten away cheap. Thank them and move onto the next hand.

People really try to over complicate poker, especially at the micro stakes, you really should just be looking for nut hands and getting as much money in the pot as possible. Are you currently using a HUD? And how many tables are you playing?

Best,
Patrick

yep it's gunna be pink for a while yet!

i'm not actually at leicester uni, i'm at de montfort in leicester (it's the shitter of the two). i chose it cos i went up and visited and it looked awesome ♦ i haven't actually been to visit any other friends in uni i meant to but never got round to it. mine was always too fun lol! i couldn't possibly tell you my favourite place so far other than stating leicester

yea i really won't know where i stand afterwards. i'm really interested in a few things like i could (if i do well enough) go on and do a masters somewhere and either get a job/go on and do a phd but that is a mission. my cushion was if i really don't know what to do i'll try and get some boring 9-5 and teach guitar in between work hours for some extra moneyz then once i have enough together i'll buy some property with my dad and brother. but.... i would love to crush teh pokers and make money that way just need to get out of 2nl.

about the strategy, the only time i'm bluffing is with the c-bet or (very rarely) when i have the perfect opportunity like when i know i'm beaten then a third flush card rolls out and the guy slows right down. but i don't make a habit of it so i'm not losing my money with bluffing i don't think. my problem is i seem to go for an eternity not getting a hand and waiting for that nut hand and then i think i overplay it because it's the first hand i get in a long time. either that or i bet out and don't get paid off. i was told i was being too nitty but im just following the articles as best i can.

i was playing 6 tables the other week, then i moved down to 4 and now i'm down to 2. it's not like i can't handle 4-6 tables, its just i want to be able to beat the limit not play lots of tables and i don't think i was playing as well with 6.

one of the problems is i'm not getting enough value for my strong hands so if it gets to the point where i've got a straight and someone's got a set, they probably won't lay that down so i can get away with betting more and get more out of them (if they arent shoving). or even top 2pair, i just feel that if they are going to call a 2/3 size pot bet then they will probably call between 1 and 1.5 times the pot bet as well if they don't care for bet sizing.

i am using the elephant's HUD with the values.......
VP$IP; PFR; open raise LP; on3bet fold average
Raise EP; Handcount

Cbet flop; Fold to cbet flop; fold to cbet turn; wtsd when seen flop
AF average; w$asd

i wasn't too sure about what stats to include so it may seem a bit random - i just selected the values i thought would give me the best info.

why not post a few examples mate?

ok this is me overplaying my hand...

Known players:
[tg]Position_Stack:hands/vp$ip/RaisePreflop/AF/WTS/ORL/BBvsSteal/W$SD;SB$1.56:10/20/0/-/33/-/-/0;Hero$2.03:///////;MP1$2.18:58/24/14/5.0/38/50/100/60;CO$2.03:22/14/0/4.0/50/0/-/50;[/tg]
0.01/0.02 No-Limit Hold'em (9 handed)
Hand recorder used for this poker hand: PokerStrategy.com Elephant 0.102 by www.pokerstrategy.com.

Preflop: Hero is BB with J♦, 9♣
2 folds, MP1 calls $0.02, 2 folds, CO calls $0.02, BU folds, SB calls $0.01, Hero checks.

Flop: ($0.08) A♥, J♠, 9♠ (4 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $0.06, MP1 folds, CO raises to $0.26, SB folds, Hero calls $0.20.

Turn: ($0.60) 7♦ (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $0.57, Hero raises to $1.75 (All-In), CO calls $1.18 (All-In).

River: ($4.10) T♠ (2 players)

Final Pot: $4.10

Results follow (highlight to see):
CO shows two-pair, aces and jacks (Ad Jh)
Hero shows (Jd 9c)

CO wins with two-pair, aces and jacks (Ad Jh)

here it is again:

Known players:
[tg]Position_Stack:hands/vp$ip/RaisePreflop/AF/WTS/ORL/BBvsSteal/W$SD;Hero$2:///////;CO$1.29:06/17/0/0.0/100/-/-/100;[/tg]
0.01/0.02 No-Limit Hold'em (8 handed)
Hand recorder used for this poker hand: PokerStrategy.com Elephant 0.102 by www.pokerstrategy.com.

Preflop: Hero is MP3 with Q♥, J♥
3 folds, Hero raises to $0.08, CO calls $0.08, 3 folds.

Flop: ($0.19) K♥, 5♦, 4♥ (2 players)
Hero bets $0.14, CO calls $0.14.

Turn: ($0.47) 5♥ (2 players)
Hero bets $0.45, CO calls $0.45.

River: ($1.37) 6♥ (2 players)
Hero bets $0.65, CO calls $0.62 (All-In), Hero gets uncalled bet back.

Final Pot: $2.61

Results follow (highlight to see):
Hero shows (Qh Jh)
CO shows a full-house, fours full of fives (4s 4c)

CO wins with a full-house, fours full of fives (4s 4c)

that last one was today so i was trying to get extra value for the hand and it backfired. regardless of his stack size i would have still bet about 50% of the pot so that any worse flush would call... but yea this is one of my problems. because it's so rare that i actually hit a decent hand i try and get all my chips in with it. i would have had a very hard time folding the above 2 hands. maybe i shouldn't have been in the last hand in the first place...

the hands are fine mate, id maybe make bet size slightly smaller in hand 2, but its fine how u played both. 3betting the flop in hand 1 is fine too.

Keep plugging away Dr Dunne!! I'm still racing to beat you mss versus bss lol

Good luck

Roo

Hey DrDunne,

You say you have some leaks in your game, maybe if you post some of your stats people can help you a bit. Also in my opinion, you should add foldVsSteal stats to your HUD and maybe remove raise from EP as PFR at NL2 is usually enough. Anyway, nice blog, if you wanna sweat some time let me know, I play NL2 too

well i had the first hand analysed and veriz said i was overplaying it and i think he was right given the fact that i havent got top 2 pair yet he was playing back at me and a big pot was looming so im pretty sure that was a mistake but i am faaaairly happy how i played the flush although maybe i shouldn't have open raised with that hand i dont know.

thanks for the recommendation about the stats i'll change that and see how things go. how would i go about getting a sweat session going with you jdnismo? never done one before so i dont know how it would work ♦ but i am interested. i think it would help immensely!

Originally posted by roopopper
Keep plugging away Dr Dunne!! I'm still racing to beat you mss versus bss lol

Good luck

Roo

hey roo don't be going on a hot streak and beating me too soon lol!

lol im running at around 15bb/ 100 at the mo so you had better up the game!!!

Roo

lol im trying im trying! been away up in leicester for the last 2 days with no internet/NO POKER. AAAAH! luckily managed to print off a ton of articles for the long journey there and back tho ♦

good good, time spent studying is like money in the bank!!!

weyhey hand of the day...
Known players:
[tg]Position_Stack:hands/vp$ip/RaisePreflop/AF/WTS/ORL/BBvsSteal/W$SD;Hero$2.13:///////;UTG1$1.19:11/82/55/-/0/100/-/-;UTG2$1.72:18/17/6/3.0/0/0/-/-;MP1$2.13:07/29/0/0.7/50/-/-/0;[/tg]
0.01/0.02 No-Limit Hold'em (9 handed)
Hand recorder used for this poker hand: PokerStrategy.com Elephant 0.102 by www.pokerstrategy.com.

Preflop: Hero is BB with K♦, 5♦
UTG1 calls $0.02, UTG2 calls $0.02, MP1 calls $0.02, 5 folds, Hero checks.

Flop: ($0.09) Q♦, 9♠, 6♦ (4 players)
Hero bets $0.06, UTG1 folds, UTG2 calls $0.06, MP1 calls $0.06.

Turn: ($0.27) 9♦ (3 players)
Hero bets $0.2, UTG2 folds, MP1 calls $0.20.

River: ($0.67) J♠ (2 players)
Hero bets $0.64, MP1 raises to $1.28, Hero raises to $1.85 (All-In), MP1 calls $0.57 (All-In).

Final Pot: $4.37

Results follow (highlight to see):
MP1 shows (Ac 9c)
Hero shows a flush, king high (Kd 5d)

Hero wins with a flush, king high (Kd 5d)

i really didn't want to see the reraise on the river because this guy was pretty unknown and so far his stats read passive but i'd already decided to go broke with the hand. i think it's tough shit if he has the full house cos there are quite a few weaker hands that he may consider that play with...

i seem to run extremely well while i play on my brothers computer but whenever i play on my laptop i fail miserably! i have no idea why, im sure it's because his setup is awesome - a nice 20 inch flat screen monitor... a chair, a desk and a mouse. i think i need to work on not letting my environment affect my play. 10,000 hands on this computer looks so much different to the 10,000 on my laptop.. although still small samples ♦

anyways, last night i ran well and was up $6.90 over 1000 hands. played this morning on my laptop and lost 3.5BIs and now over the last 1000 hands on my bro's comp im up 5BI over 960 hands! here is a nice hand from today.

Known players:
[tg]Position_Stack:hands/vp$ip/RaisePreflop/AF/WTS/ORL/BBvsSteal/W$SD;Hero$2.95:///////;MP3$1.98:06/83/33/1.5/40/0/-/0;[/tg]
0.01/0.02 No-Limit Hold'em (9 handed)
Hand recorder used for this poker hand: PokerStrategy.com Elephant 0.102 by www.pokerstrategy.com.

Preflop: Hero is SB with T♠, T♣
4 folds, MP3 raises to $0.08, 2 folds, Hero calls $0.07, BB folds.

Flop: ($0.18) T♦, 7♠, 7♣ (2 players)
Hero checks, MP3 bets $0.22, Hero calls $0.22.

Turn: ($0.62) 6♦ (2 players)
Hero checks, MP3 bets $0.3, Hero raises to $0.90, MP3 calls $0.60.

River: ($2.42) 5♦ (2 players)
Hero bets $1.75 (All-In), MP3 calls $0.78 (All-In), Hero gets uncalled bet back (All-In).

Final Pot: $3.98

Results follow (highlight to see):
MP3 shows (Kc Qs)
Hero shows a full-house, tens full of sevens (Ts Tc)

Hero wins with a full-house, tens full of sevens (Ts Tc)

i love what the guy was calling me down with! ♦

last 2 days i feel like something might have clicked with my game and i feel like im playing as best as i can. i've been trying to select tables where there are at least 30%ppf and as high an average pot as i can possibly get. and i realised i wasn't value betting my TPTK hard enough as well so i think that's getting me a little more moneys. anyway i know it's a tiny sample size but the last 2 days look pretty nice on the graph so i thought i would post today's one here ♦ and it means i'm back up to where i was before i pissed away my money while on tilt.

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Originally posted by DrDunne
last 2 days i feel like something might have clicked with my game and i feel like im playing as best as i can. i've been trying to select tables where there are at least 30%ppf and as high an average pot as i can possibly get. and i realised i wasn't value betting my TPTK hard enough as well so i think that's getting me a little more moneys. anyway i know it's a tiny sample size but the last 2 days look pretty nice on the graph so i thought i would post today's one here ♦ and it means i'm back up to where i was before i pissed away my money while on tilt.

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last time I checked you were playing NL2 weren't you? and the graph does say that you made $450 in 1661 hands!! what is best WR I have ever seen for sure!!! ♠_cool:

haa i wish! nah thats the big blinds the dollars are on the left and bbs on the right. if only i made that much!