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How to be a Poker player

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elpsycho Topic starter
elpsycho
Joined: 08.06.2008
Oldschool Grinder
:spade: :club: :diamond: :heart:

It’s curious how our past experiences with poker, the way we play the game, downswings, upswings and current beliefs in poker community shape our perspective and understanding of what poker really is. One moment you feel like you figured out something and then poker smashes you in the face. You can be sure of something, but another player may have a completely different perspective on it. You can have an “eureka!” moment that completely changes your understanding of the game and make you think that you got to a new level, but after a while the next “eureka!” moment or your coach will open your eyes to how wrong you were. Our perception of poker constantly changes while underneath it all poker stays the same.

It’s quite fascinating really.

Poker always stays the same, it never changes at its core, but we as human beings are so diverse and constantly changing and adapting, and it makes such a struggle for us to understand this seemingly simple game. That’s what makes poker a lifetime journey for those who are willing to take this path.

As a poker player, you doubtless want to think of yourself as a student of logic and mathematics. You imagine rationality to be the mortar with which you build your castle of poker. You may be correct that poker is governed by mathematics and logic. But you yourself are not.

Poker is played by humans. It is experienced and learned by humans. Humans are not rational machines. The operations of their brains are not a chess match. And yet, I am not saying that mathematics and logic will get you nowhere, and I don’t mean to suggest that you abandon them!

Build your castle. You have to , even if the only materials you have are the sand and mud beneath you. That’s the path you’ve chosen, after all. Go on constructing your poker game. But know that your castle must collapse again and again. Know that your strongest and most steadfast reasoning will eventually fall. It is your fate; at best, you are a creature that only approximates rationality, and that’s as far as your brain can go. But so it is; the building must go on.

Qureshi, Haseeb. How to Be a Poker Player: The Philosophy of Poker.


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elpsycho Topic starter
elpsycho
Joined: 08.06.2008
Oldschool Grinder

Week 4

The December started pretty awesome. I didn’t grind as much as I’d like, but this week turned out to be the first winning week of my bankroll challenge. I also managed to win some money in stake share part of Milestone hands promotion. By the way during one session I was opening up some tables and, while I was waiting for my bb, the milestone dropped on one of my tables. Man, that awkward feeling of sitting out, while everyone else at your table is winning some serious money. :f_biggrin:

But still it was a lucky week, and it fueled my motivation to grind even more.

Hands: 7,094
Net Won: $159.65
Bonus: $87.40 Milestone Stake Share
Result: $247.05
Bankroll: $845.49

If I want to hit that Gold by the end of the month I really need to step it up. I will try to play at least 10k hands during next week and see how many VPPs it'll get me.


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elpsycho Topic starter
elpsycho
Joined: 08.06.2008
Oldschool Grinder
:spade: :club: :diamond: :heart:

This week I've been studying a lot a situation in which BTN opens and BB defends by calling. It is one of the situations in which players' ranges are at their widest and it makes for a very interesting range vs range analysis, which to be honest is my favorite type of studying. Maybe it's not the most efficient way to learn at microstakes, but combined with other methods of learning, I think it can greatly improve one's understanding of poker and will be very useful down the line on the higher stakes. Let's take BTN vs BB situation and break down players' ranges on a random flop.

Preflop

BTN’s opening range to 2.5bb: AA-22,AKo-A2o,KQo-K7o,QJo-Q9o,JTo-J9o,T9o-T8o,98o,87o,AKs-A2s,KQs-K2s,QJs-Q2s,JTs-J5s,T9s-T6s,98s-96s,87s-85s,76s-74s,65s-64s,54s-53s,43s (47.5%)

BB’s calling range: TT-22,AJo-A2o,KQo-K9o,QJo-Q9o,JTo-J9o,T9o,ATs-A2s,KQs-K5s,QJs-Q7s,JTs-J7s,T9s-T8s,98s,87s (31.2%)

Flop

A♥:8♥:7♣:

BTN

Has a slight range disadvantage (~1%). Has more nutty combos, but less in % because his range is much wider. Still, it shouldn’t be too difficult to play on this board in position, he should be able to make a cbet very often on such a board and bluff quite frequently. In fact I think it is one of the easiest boards to play.

Total combos: {533}

• Strong bets: 88(3), 77(3), A8(9), A7(9), 87(9), A9-AK (60) {93}
• Medium bets (for protection): 99-TT (12), 8x(48), 7x(33), 22-66(30) {123}
• Draw bets: FD(37), OESD(24) {61}
• Weak bets (bluffs): GS(44), backdoor clubs(47), KhQ-8x(15), QhJ-9x(9) {115}
• Checks: AA(3), A2-A6(60), JJ-KK(18), air(60) {141} – 26.4%

Summary: Turns out that BTN has less bluffs in his range than I expected. Given that he is in position, I figured he would have at least 2 bluffs for every value hand, but taking into account strong draws he has about 1 bluff for every value hand. He is also checking back only 26.4% of hands, majority of which are hands that can call 2 bets on later streets. I would bet with weak pairs, 8x, 7x and also 99-TT because these hands are pretty vulnerable and don’t want to see any overcards on the turn and we would like to fold out hands like KQ, KJ, QJ etc, denying our opponent free shot at outdrawing us. Overall I think it is a pretty easy board to play on the button.

BB

On the first glance this board shouldn’t be too difficult to play on the BB. BTN gave us pretty good pot odds preflop, so we shouldn’t be too crazy about defending too wide to prevent him from getting auto-profit with his worst hands. We shouldn’t check-call with our strong hands on this board because it is quite drawy and if some draw completes on the turn we may lose our ability to check-raise for value and would have to check-call instead. But we also should consider that if we check-raise with our strong hands, they will be outdrawn quite often on the turn or river, so we shouldn’t have too many bluffs in our check-raising range. Maybe about 1.5 bluffs for every strong value hand. But it’s hard to say.

Total combos: {353}

• Strong check-raises: 88(3), 77(3), A8(9), A7(9), 87s(2) {26}
• Weak check-raises (bluffs): JT(15), J9(15), Kc9c(1), Kc6c(1), Kc5c(1), QcJc(1), QcTc(1), Qc9c(1), Kh9x(3) {39}
• Draw check-raises: FD(6) {6}
• Check-calls: FD(9), A2-A6(60), A9-AT(24), AJo(9), 99-TT(12), T9(15), 8x(15), 7x(9) {153}
• Check-folds: 22-66(30), air(99) {129} – 36.5%

Summary: We are check-folding to BTN’s cbet about 36% of the time, which I find pretty reasonable. I wouldn’t worry too much about the fact that we don’t slowplay any monsters on this flop, because we have a lot of top pairs and draws that can improve in our range, which will allow us to calldown against an aggressive opponent if necessary. We don’t fold too many hands and our check-raising range is pretty balanced. This game plan for BB’s range seems good and on the first glance I can’t find any serious ways how our opponent on the BTN can exploit us.

:spade: :club: :heart: :diamond:

I would like to add that those are mainly my thoughts and I can be completely wrong about these ranges and how to play them :f_grin: But for the most part I got a big chunk of theory, for example value to bluff ratios, from Matthew Janda, who I respect a lot.

And here is a quote from Haseeb's book, which I find very appropriate:

Some players, especially ones who are mathematically inclined, have a rosy conception of how poker works. In their minds, poker is just a mathematical construct— a puzzle, with a definite solution. They imagine that, if locked in a room for 20 years with a calculator, they could develop a poker game so robust that it could take down the best player in the world.

These players imagine poker consists merely of figuring out a set of strategies, as though writing them out on a note card—“ how to play poker”— and having the right stuff written on your note card will make your game impregnable. Of course, that’s not how poker works. Poker must be learned; you must absorb that learning into your bones. Your brain must get conditioned into the right network, which takes many hundreds of thousands of hands. You needn’t worry about mapping out all of your strategies, or obsessing over the mathematics. Focus on getting the learning into your fingers.

Qureshi, Haseeb. How to Be a Poker Player: The Philosophy of Poker.


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elpsycho Topic starter
elpsycho
Joined: 08.06.2008
Oldschool Grinder

Week 5

This week was a roller coaster, but I am happy with the amount of hands I played. Now I think I can safely say that I will manage to hit my goal for December if I keep it up.

Hands: 11,910
Net Won: -$82.19
Bankroll: $763.30

Also this past week I have been studying a lot and I have found some problems in my game. There are so many things to learn and so little time! Well, I guess I’ll tackle it one thing at the time. For the time being my priority will remain on playing the flop in BTN vs SB vs BB situations. The good thing is that I found a way to study regularly, so I'll try to keep it up.

This week I will be playing a lot of zoom, because of the Zoom & Boom promotion, but I will see if it's worth it.


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Just keep working and eventually you will get there! :)


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vonki
Joined: 18.03.2008
Oldschool Grinder

Where did you find the info on zoom and boom? I looked around but see nothing in the news on pokerstars nor when I search the web :(


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elpsycho Topic starter
elpsycho
Joined: 08.06.2008
Oldschool Grinder

Originally posted by gAsheks
Just keep working and eventually you will get there! :)

Thanks!

Originally posted by vonki
Where did you find the info on zoom and boom? I looked around but see nothing in the news on pokerstars nor when I search the web :(

It's in the December Festival section on pokerstars :f_grin:

Here is the link:
Zoom Week


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gadget51
Joined: 23.06.2008
Oldschool Grinder

Also, I suggest you take a look at BU min raise and BU 3x, which change both BU and BB ranges. I've actually only just started looking into this myself so lots of work to do yet.

Good luck,

Mal.


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vonki
Joined: 18.03.2008
Oldschool Grinder

Originally posted by elpsycho

Originally posted by gAsheks
Just keep working and eventually you will get there! :)

Thanks!

Originally posted by vonki
Where did you find the info on zoom and boom? I looked around but see nothing in the news on pokerstars nor when I search the web :(

It's in the December Festival section on pokerstars :f_grin:

Here is the link:
Zoom Week

Oh awesome! thanks! So, now we start limping red aces? xD minimum you win is 50bb... would be a shame if it got raised and everyone folded as you have to win it postflop :f_biggrin:


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elpsycho Topic starter
elpsycho
Joined: 08.06.2008
Oldschool Grinder

Originally posted by gadget51
Also, I suggest you take a look at BU min raise and BU 3x, which change both BU and BB ranges. I've actually only just started looking into this myself so lots of work to do yet.

Good luck,

Mal.

Yeah, my study list is growing every day. It's definitely one of those things that the more you learn the more there is to learn. The things you didn't know or didn't think about just keep popping out. :f_ugly:


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elpsycho Topic starter
elpsycho
Joined: 08.06.2008
Oldschool Grinder

Originally posted by vonki
Oh awesome! thanks! So, now we start limping red aces? xD minimum you win is 50bb... would be a shame if it got raised and everyone folded as you have to win it postflop :f_biggrin:

My first thought exactly :f_biggrin: I'm totally down with limping aces for a 50bb win!

By the way I missed the part that you just need to win with them postflop and not on the showdown as in SideKick winter promotion. So just now I was checking down with red AA on a scary board and on the river the straight came on the board and we split with a guy who had 33! What a waste! :nh:


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vonki
Joined: 18.03.2008
Oldschool Grinder

hahah what a badbeat I had aces 5 times and not once they were red :f_frown:


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elpsycho Topic starter
elpsycho
Joined: 08.06.2008
Oldschool Grinder
:spade: :club: :diamond: :heart:

Do work.
Be prepared.
Be consistent.
It gets easier.

-one poker coach

Nowadays there is so much information available about poker. The best players and coaches are offering their knowledge in form of coaching videos, articles, forum posts, etc. A lot of players are constantly absorbing that information and still, when it comes to climbing the limits and becoming better and better at poker, for many, something is missing. Most people are stuck at microstakes and having trouble to reach their poker dreams. Why is that? After all, after watching so many videos and reading so many articles, they should have a decent understanding how to beat this game.
So what is that missing ingredient for poker success?

Hard, consistent work.

It’s not enough to just grind hundreds of thousands of hands, thinking that you understand all the necessary concepts to beat your limit. Gained experience from playing the hands will improve your game to some degree, but after a while your game will stagnate. Many players, myself included, think that they are better at poker than they really are and not willing to accept, that there are a lot of areas that need fixing. I don’t know why that is, maybe it’s our ego, or just a poker thing.

Applying a concept during a grind is much more difficult than simply understanding it. You can know a theory behind a concept, but when it comes to putting it to green felt your knowledge fails you, often times even without you realizing it, especially when playing on auto-pilot or tilting.
When analyzing a hand in a vacuum you can know what is the best play, and you can understand how the concept works, but what if we change some variables? For example, the same play on the same board, using the same concept, can be bad or good, depending on our opponent. Of course it’s very important to understand and grasp a concept, but it’s also very important to understand, that there are many variable in poker that can change. Within one concept there will always be some differences and nuances that can change your play.

So it’s crucial not to memorize and understand a concept, but to know how it works and how to use it in practice. In this regard poker is not that different from any other activity. Watching football on your couch and talking about it with your friends doesn’t make you a football player. You have to go out and kick that ball. And keep kicking until you get decent at it.

And in poker, we should take a concept and find as many examples of it as we can and study it. We have to put a lot of deliberate practice, before a concept will feel like a part of our game. A part that will never fail us no matter what. Until it becomes what Jared Tendler calls Unconscious Competence.

During past few weeks I have found some mistakes that show up in my game here and there, and I decided to make a list of all the concepts that can use some work one way or another. And as it grew it turned into something like an overall poker study plan, which I will be following from now on, to improve my game. I will be studying each concept for a couple of weeks or more, returning to it if necessary.

Study program

Building preflop ranges

:spade: Preflop opening ranges
:spade: Cold-calling ranges
:spade: Isolation ranges
:spade: Preflop betsizing
:spade: 3-betting ranges
:spade: Ranges for calling 3-bets
:spade: 4-betting ranges
:spade: 5-betting ranges

Playing postlfop

:spade: Game plan
:spade: Flop textures
:spade: C-betting ranges
:spade: Checking ranges as a PFR
:spade: Check-raising
:spade: Donking
:spade: Multi-way pots
:spade: How can future cards impact ranges
:spade: Postflop betsizing
:spade: Playing polarized ranges
:spade: Playing linear/condensed/merged ranges
:spade: Perceived ranges

General concepts

:spade: Using stats
:spade: Taking notes
:spade: Exploiting weak players
:spade: Playing GTO
:spade: Bluffing frequencies vs different opponents
:spade: Variables (stats, position, dynamics, history, stack sizes) and how they change our strategy


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elpsycho Topic starter
elpsycho
Joined: 08.06.2008
Oldschool Grinder
Preflop opening ranges

It's the most essential part of preflop play, so for the next couple of weeks I will be focusing on opening ranges in different situations and table dynamics. For the most part I have been using ranges from w34z3l’s 6-max walkthrough, but in order to be successful in poker you have to understand how to construct your range for different situations, when and how to play various hands.

Poker is never static and there are always spots for including/excluding some hands in/from your range. For example, everyone knows, that when there is a fish in the blinds, we should widen our range from early position. But how does this fish play? Does he often fold to cbets? Or is he a massive calling station? In which case maybe it’s better to exclude suited connectors, which heavily rely on fold equity postflop, and add a lot of aces and high cards to our range.

I think a lot of players overlook preflop ranges because it seems like such a simple concept, which may or may not be true, but it is definitely required as a foundation for every other concept in poker.


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elpsycho Topic starter
elpsycho
Joined: 08.06.2008
Oldschool Grinder

Week 6

The start of this week was promising, but it ended in cooler infested donation spree.

Hands: 10,526
Net Won: -$56.03 (including promo bonuses)
Bankroll: $707.27

I started this week playing zoom, but after a couple of days I returned to regular tables, because I wasn’t enjoying zoom, and waiting for 1 combo out of 1326 to have a chance at $5 didn’t seem promising enough. Also my VPP pace was much slower on NL10 (I play NL16 on regular tables, which is not available in zoom).

I didn’t study as much as I would like this week, but now that I have a structure to my studying, it feels like the study is more productive. I will continue with the conceptual study, which I described earlier, and see where it gets me.


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krasops
Joined: 02.02.2014
Poker Player

I m not an active guy here in the poker blogs , but man i like your style ..
Keep happily crushing ;)


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elpsycho Topic starter
elpsycho
Joined: 08.06.2008
Oldschool Grinder

Originally posted by krasops
I m not an active guy here in the poker blogs , but man i like your style ..
Keep happily crushing ;)

Thanks, man!

Nice to see you in my blog :f_thumbsup:


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elpsycho Topic starter
elpsycho
Joined: 08.06.2008
Oldschool Grinder

Week 7

This week I totally forgot how it started and thought that in the end I’m up a bunch, but it turned out that this whole week was dedicated to climbing out of the pit.

Hands: 15,494
Result: -$6.85
Milestone: +$50
Profit: +$43.15
Bankroll: $750.42

The good news is that I finally managed to get Gold on Poker Stars and also cleared the last milestone this year.


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Ramble
Joined: 17.11.2008
PokerStrategist

Originally posted by elpsycho
... waiting for 1 combo out of 1326 to have a chance at $5 didn’t seem promising enough.

Not sure you are looking at that quite right - There are 1326 possible starting hands, with the odds of hitting pocket Aces being 220:1. Even with those odds though - still not promising. :f_drink:


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elpsycho Topic starter
elpsycho
Joined: 08.06.2008
Oldschool Grinder

Originally posted by Ramble

Not sure you are looking at that quite right - There are 1326 possible starting hands, with the odds of hitting pocket Aces being 220:1. Even with those odds though - still not promising. :f_drink:

The rules were to win with the A♥:A♦: exactly :f_biggrin:


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