Making a living with STT SNGs

Hi Ivi.

I have a quick question (actually I have loads of course but I was just studying this hand so I thought I would this post to you, hope that's ok).

Its a spot that I encounter fairly often. We are at Low Jack or 1 pos to the right of Low jack, we have 20bb ish and hold AQo at BB80 level, a reasonable player mins or 2.2x from our right. ICMIZER suggests most of these spots are a fold, or very close. What I wonder about however is, is a flat call okay here? Of course I worry about a jam behind, and more generally, is calling for 10% of our stack here okay?

Thanks for any help you can give whenever you have time.

Originally posted by mostlyfolding
Hi Ivi.

I have a quick question (actually I have loads of course but I was just studying this hand so I thought I would this post to you, hope that's ok).

Its a spot that I encounter fairly often. We are at Low Jack or 1 pos to the right of Low jack, we have 20bb ish and hold AQo at BB80 level, a reasonable player mins or 2.2x from our right. ICMIZER suggests most of these spots are a fold, or very close. What I wonder about however is, is a flat call okay here? Of course I worry about a jam behind, and more generally, is calling for 10% of our stack here okay?

Thanks for any help you can give whenever you have time.

Hi Mostly!

I will try to help you the best way I can and that is getting you to understand right questions you need to find answers for.

My strategy would vary a lot based on opponents tendency or overall limit tendency for such spots as well as aim to be balanced not to be exploited.
The way I would play this spot can and probably is different the way you would play it. The only clear plays are following:
- If opponent opens super tight (say just QQ+ - extreme example) you should fold
- If opponent opens wide and has gap between r/c and r/f then you should 3bs

Now, when it comes to my strategy, I would likely include AQo in 4 categories:
- Fold. This is super nitty fold but works if opponent is tight passive who always has pairs there and is will crush us post with JJ+
- Cold call. If I feel opponent is not aggro enough but still has bluff in his MR range, I want to call and play IP vs him post flop. This CC depends purely on how you see your edge post flop. If you feel you don't have it post flop, I advise you to get into uncomfortable situations and learn how to play AQo in those spots. AQo will beat weaker Ax hands post flop, + if he opens wider pairs BDWS and such you still can hit Qxx textures Axx texutres or even JTx KJx KTx where your hand increases in equity a lot and you will then play easier.
- 3 bet shove. If opponent has enough fold equity, I would take in shallow stack play this as default because its +EV and brings money in.
- 3 bet nai with idea to call off 4 bet shove. This line is profitable because with 3 bet nai you likely isolate just initial raiser and play post flop in 3bnai pot vs him. You will get fold equity some times and win post flop. When you get 4 bet showed on you need to evaluate how wide or tight initial raiser does it with. If he includes all his PPs you will have easy call off to 4bet shoves. If he 4 bet shoves only QQ+ for example, you can easily even 3bet nai and fold to 4bet here.
Most people make this mistake by always calling AQo when they 3 bet it nai, not thinking about 4bs range from opponents and equity they are getting ( I have seen this as a leak on pretty much all spins limits, even on 60s couple of hands).

In general, folding is the worst option from all 4. 3 bet shoving is likely in vacuum profitable play - I have to know tendency for opening range for opponents position to be more specific then this and also consider format you are playing - if you play with ICM formats your pure equity is not enough, you need additional % to add to it due to bubble factor/ICM and stack setups, pay out structure etc. 3 bet nai is great play if you know how to play post flop once called - not to spew basically and do strong hand reading. Cold calling is similar to 3 bet nai, it will likely show profit but you need to materialize your equity and edge post flop when you call this hand.

My strategy would likely be mixture of all 4 above, depending on game format, opening range tendency, specific reads, evaluating my edge in that given game etc.
If I play all regs and my edge decreases but in vacuum this play of 3bs shows profit, I will always take 3bs there. If it shows -EV 3bs I would start to CC and 3bn to get my opponents to make mistakes post flop OOP vs me.

Hope that helps!

Hi Ivi,

Thank you for taking the time to reply at such length. Your insight is very helpful. Sorry, I did not mention the format/stakes - this was a $1.50 9 man turbo sng. Also, I looked more closely at his stats and he is 23/21/12 (3bet) over 50 hands.

At these stakes, I am unsure if there are many MR bluffs in this players range at this position. Regarding option 2, Cold Call: what bothers me with this is that I believe this player is unlikely to give much value with a weaker Ax. So I invest just over 10% of my stack with minimal 'implied odds'. Post flop I am comfortable combo counting versus his Ax range. I have a cheat sheet that I fill in quickly in game to tot these up.

And option 4, 3bet nai: again i hesitate to commit 30% of my stack with a 3 bet here if I am not entirely committed to taking this hand to showdown.

Are my thoughts logical here, bearing in mind the 'poker level' at these stakes?

Also on the 3bet nai option: I have been watching Moshman's video with etd.poker and hero does a lot of 3 bet nai plays at similar stack depths. It may be that I have to incorporate this more into my game.

Originally posted by mostlyfolding
Hi Ivi,

Thank you for taking the time to reply at such length. Your insight is very helpful. Sorry, I did not mention the format/stakes - this was a $1.50 9 man turbo sng. Also, I looked more closely at his stats and he is 23/21/12 (3bet) over 50 hands.

At these stakes, I am unsure if there are many MR bluffs in this players range at this position. Regarding option 2, Cold Call: what bothers me with this is that I believe this player is unlikely to give much value with a weaker Ax. So I invest just over 10% of my stack with minimal 'implied odds'. Post flop I am comfortable combo counting versus his Ax range. I have a cheat sheet that I fill in quickly in game to tot these up.

And option 4, 3bet nai: again i hesitate to commit 30% of my stack with a 3 bet here if I am not entirely committed to taking this hand to showdown.

Are my thoughts logical here, bearing in mind the 'poker level' at these stakes?

Also on the 3bet nai option: I have been watching Moshman's video with etd.poker and hero does a lot of 3 bet nai plays at similar stack depths. It may be that I have to incorporate this more into my game.

Hi once again Mostly,

I would advice you to take opponents MR range, put it in equilab and put your whole CC range vs it. Check what the equity of range vs range is. After that, visualize yours and then his range. Memorize how ranges look in Ax, pairs, BDWS, connectors. After all this start putting random flops and see how your CC range looks vs his MR range on them. It will teach you a lot about post flop.

You keep telling me reasons why not to CC AQo. I keep telling you that in poker CC AQo is negative only if opponent has AA KK QQ JJ TT and even vs this range you will beat most of the hands when Axx texture comes and you will beat 40% of his range when Qxx textures come.
I think the main problem is that you consider MR range to be super nitty. Check DB and see what hands opponents MR from such position as well as if they ever RF from such position. 20bb Effective, there will be RF. Its 2017, don't expect just value there.

.

Originally posted by IvicaIliev77
I would advice you to take opponents MR range, put it in equilab and put your whole CC range vs it. Check what the equity of range vs range is. After that, visualize yours and then his range. Memorize how ranges look in Ax, pairs, BDWS, connectors. After all this start putting random flops and see how your CC range looks vs his MR range on them. It will teach you a lot about post flop.

You keep telling me reasons why not to CC AQo. I keep telling you that in poker CC AQo is negative only if opponent has AA KK QQ JJ TT and even vs this range you will beat most of the hands when Axx texture comes and you will beat 40% of his range when Qxx textures come.
I think the main problem is that you consider MR range to be super nitty. Check DB and see what hands opponents MR from such position as well as if they ever RF from such position. 20bb Effective, there will be RF. Its 2017, don't expect just value there.

I will get to work on these suggestions for analysing this spot. Thanks man!

In regards to today

Played a bit over 6 hours
No guitar lesson (student asked to reschedule for Saturday)
Meet with my landlord
Spent with my best friend earlier part of the day playing 100s taking shots in our favorite coffee shop

When it comes to my actual game, in some areas I feel 100% confident for both turn and river run outs how to play my range both IP and OOP whether 3 way or HU regardless of positions.
However, there are textures, and hands, that I am still miss playing and finding myself in semi troubling spots.
Since I made already 3.6k out of 5k set by 15th of May as target, I have been thinking tonight strongly about investing into one of the GTO tools. My friend runs texture and then in session we cover it but there is practical problem. My friend uses same computer for grinding, sessions and for GTO solutions running but since GTO solutions take time he doesn't have every day to run multiple textures. Since our deal will last for a limited time, I will in it ask for as many as possible flops that cause me trouble + potential turn and river run outs.

So, what I have been thinking about strongly tonight is following:
- Make a list of textures that keep popping out during game play that I keep marking in hand review
- Send these textures to my friend to run them when he has time
- When they are done, he can send me screen shots of range vs range on flop
- I can give him turn and river run outs a lot which take very fast to load anyways (most complex strategy calculations are on flop from solvers - easiest on river)
- Make a list of hand types in MY RANGE and MY GAME PLAN that I have trouble playing on those selected textures on various run outs. Check what Optimal/GTO solution suggests and apply it in my game.
- Send my betting, raising, calling, donking sizings to get optimal plays in such spots and check them with my ranges
- My friend can take all this without any pressure and as he gets results, in our Google Drive upload texture screen shots and I can download them and study them outside of sessions

So a lot of work awaits me like a said. Even tonight I took 2 buy ins shot on 100s and almost made it again. Lost on 6x as favorite with r/c where opponent hit 3 outer. Another 100s game I was in HU believe 4x, I was bluff catching on texture where I was on top of my bluff catching range right after value hands (trips) and of course opponent had over pairs that he 2 barrel showed. I am very happy with my call there but I am right now not 100% sure how wide is optimal bluff catch there facing bet shove shallow stack, so that I can add that to my game and play it read less vs strong opponents. Because in future, I definitely see myself in higher stakes and such calls are needed to exploit opponents leaks on such texture and turn run out since most of opponents (in general) will 2 barrel shove fairly wide, so I need to prepare myself for such spots. It happened on 100$ game and I like what I called but if I had lower holding I would be in doubt - and I want to clear every doubt that I have in my game.

15s today felt like a fair where people are just shoving wide or calling me light. There was a lot of buy ins where card distribution set me up to run with strong shove into stronger hand or to be in 3 outer spots or when I had stronger hands they got cracked. I didn't check EV of any sort but it felt like welcome back to variance spins, enjoy your stay with us

I did miss play hands on 15s as well today. That was when I initially planned to bet bet bet but instead did bet x bet and got lighter called. Of course, the reason why I did this is because the hand that I had (or the hand type) I was around 50-60% sure how to play it on turn and river and that caused me to suck with it, give up EV or miss profitable play etc

So tomorrow I have session with my friend 10:30am. Before that session with my best friend 9:30am. 9am got maid coming in. 10:30am I will notify my friend of plan for future PIO work and in the meanwhile I will discuss my marked hands with him while he gets optimal plays.
I will consider strongly to get PIO myself as soon as I get my won BR , for my best friend and right after it get it. Plan is to use it for both myself and my best friend to clear any given doubt for any texture and run out. I was telling my best friend today in coffee place every single hand range vs range, tendency, sizing, how and why I would do something and what I expect them to do readless + with stats. BUT! I also told him: "I can show you a lot of textures and tell you about a lot of different run outs but I STILL HAVE TEXTURES AND RUN OUTS WHERE I AM WEAK AND VERY LIKELY MISS PLAYING AND GETTING OWNED!"
So in order to get over this feeling, extra work needs to be done. I am very happy and great full to be working with my friend crusher and thanks to him having PIO, before I get my own, he can do all these calculations for me + use them for himself as well.

So plan looks like this now:
- Make 1.4k$ + whatever make up is from today (at least 200$ taking shots on 100s) by 15th of May latest
- After that start playing on my own 15s 3 tabling
- From 1st month of solid profit (3k+) take out additional 1.5k$ to use for additional BR of mine (to have over 300 buy ins) and take 1.5k$+ to use for best friends BR for 7s
- If I make in the 1st month of playing with my own money in 2017 something like 4k+, I will besides BR investing right away invest in PIO.
- Will consider getting version with 2 vs 1 license so that I can give 1 to my best friend as daily study tool and 1 for me to use at home or on my laptop
- With friend crusher focus on most difficult textures for him to run through PIO and in the meanwhile discuss a lot of hands that are marked where I miss played them or simply wasn't sure how to proceed on some street
- By the end of the year, roll up to mix 30s with 15s, then move to 30s full time and keep taking shots at 60s and 100s

As a side story for today, I saw Coffeeyay on 4x game on 100$, we played it together, I said hi and he didn't recognize me ♦ I busted that game with KJo on J97 2tone vs BB who squeezed nai pre flop who had AA in that spot (I x flop and he over bet showed). I was on top of my CC range for such texture, if I fold KJ there what am I calling besides QJ

So yeah, that is the plan and I very much look forward to morning session with my friend.

AS far as grind goes, I am doing well putting the volume, I feel much better about it in comparison to 2016 for example. I eliminated a lot of distractions and I plan to continue to do so in the future a tiny bit more. My goal in 2017 is to eat breathe and sleep poker so everything outside that besides teaching people music and guitar is not priority period. Inside I get this feeling that I will reach some sick hourly in this year as soon as I clear those doubts that I am having. My pre flop game plan for both 3/3 and HU feels very solid and in control for me. I rarely encounter pre flop situation to wonder what I should do with such hand and what would be more +EV play. But, post flop, slightly different story because there are textures I never did in depth (only scratched the surface) and when those happen in games I tend to suck hard at them on later streets - because I did some work for flop but haven't continued with turn and river run outs. Once I sort these out, I will feel even more in control which will put most doubts aside and grinding will be such smooth sailing where it literally will become important to just clock in hours and clock out for pay check - whatever it ends up being. I do expect by end of the year that hourly will surpass 30$ and even 35$. A lot of time left, its middle of March, 9 months to fix those post flop things and to go from 25$ to 30 then 35 and up $ hourly.

Last but not least, 3 tabling is looking solid. Red line is positive which makes me very happy. This is something that if I got offered to have just that as improvement in 2017 I would have gladly taken it because I know that solid red line comes from very good pre and post flop adjusting - it is not just 1 area of play nor 1 specific blind depth nor position. So overall that is looking great on 1335 games on my desktop (with results messed up due to PT4 acting up with 6x games etc) with red line having +12772 chips on 27390 hands played in March. Looking good baby, lets keep going, fix those post flop leaks and crush hard!

Tomorrows plan:
- Welcoming maid 9am (waking up 8:30am)
- Session with my best friend 9:30am (going over 1 hand and recording session for him to have it as reference how to do complete range vs range analysis and determine sizings to use on different turns and rivers)
- Session with my friend 10:30am (going over PIO texture for turns and rivers, half session, remaining half check 1 to 3 hands and send him list of textures for future sessions)
- Coffee with my best friend, 3 tabling 15s in coffee place 1 to 2 hours.
- Cinema with my female friend, watching beauty and the beast cartoon/movie
- Grinding after cinema, going for 3 more hours
- Updating blog in the evening
- Going over marked hands and checking out miss plays or lack of knowledge for certain texture(s) or run outs

Enjoy your 2nd half of the March on and off the tables!

Master Doug continues to share his knowledge, experience and wisdom. Super useful video.

Originally posted by IvicaIliev77
My friend uses same computer for grinding, sessions and for GTO solutions running but since GTO solutions take time he doesn't have every day to run multiple textures.

Why hasn't he bought or built a computer specifically for GTO or rented a server or some space in a cloud?

When I finish my move, I'll definitely buy a powerful desktop computer for advanced calculations, as its price isn't going to be much bigger than the prices of the tools themselves, let alone the extra winnings that the tools are going to produce in the long run.

Originally posted by tonypmm

Originally posted by IvicaIliev77
My friend uses same computer for grinding, sessions and for GTO solutions running but since GTO solutions take time he doesn't have every day to run multiple textures.

Why hasn't he bought or built a computer specifically for GTO or rented a server or some space in a cloud?

When I finish my move, I'll definitely buy a powerful desktop computer for advanced calculations, as its price isn't going to be much bigger than the prices of the tools themselves, let alone the extra winnings that the tools are going to produce in the long run.

You and me are thinking the same Tony.

I am now considering 2 things about PIO Solver that add 2 doubts also:
- To get cheaper license with 1 key
- To get pro version with 2 keys

If I get 1 key license I need to decide where to use it. My laptop is weaker vs my desktop but I grind on my desktop. Getting 3rd computer is not needed at this point so I will likely install it on my LAPTOP and have textures run on it daily to get range vs range for troubling spots.
If I get 2 keys I would give 1 to my best friend to use and load textures that I run + for him to learn to use it and practice outside of our sessions daily. 1 of the keys I would likely use for my laptop again.

The only thing holding me back for laptop is fact that I don't have SSD there, that my processor is OK and ram of 6gb is OK but I would likely need to reinstall and format my whole laptop and to clean it just for that. That is the main doubt.

Money wise, even 1 license is a big stretch now that I am saving up for my BR but this is a must investment for me in 2017 and to work with it daily ASAP. The faster I clear my doubts I will increase my EV, hourly and be able to move up and keep improving vs better opponents as well.

Another option besides PIO is Simple post flop. I like simple post flop because it saves things on server but its more expensive and I will with my best friend and my friend crusher share our flop scenarios for starters via some online server as well so that is not a huge investment money wise (dropbox 15-20$ per month for probably 1tb of space or more - have to check this of course).

But yeah, definitely with you Tony on this, separate computer just for running calculations and if possible not doing anything else on that computer to make process as smooth as possible.

I am at crossroads now deciding whether to invest right away in single license and get started on my laptop right away with textures or wait to make my own roll then have positive month and then invest. This could mean that I continue to 3 table 15s with leaks and doubts for 1-2 more months and time is money. The sooner I uncover the leaks, faster I can increase my future hourly. So 249$ investment will pay off instantly for me which is why I am leaning towards buying PIO today and starting to work with it daily.

I'd understand your doubts if you had to load a ton of tables like full-ring tourney grinders do, but when playing spins, you're OK with loading 2-4 tables at a time, and PT4 requires only a couple GB of RAM, so you don't need a powerful desktop for the grind if your laptop is modern enough and its screen isn't tiny. I'd rather get a single Pio license on the desktop, as there's always an option of contacting Pio's support to transfer that license to another computer if needed (thus cancelling it on the current one), afaik.

If you choose to continue 3-4-tabling, then you can drag Windows' task bar to the left or right side of the screen so that it's vertical. That will free up some space for the 4 tables, which you can place in a 2x2 grid with partial vertical overlap (but so that the board and the stack sizes are still visible, not closed by the other table).

I'm biased here because I was able to spend a few years grinding at 6 quasi-tiled 6-max PLO tables with a 1024x600 screen and 1 GB RAM with PT4 running

Originally posted by tonypmm
If you choose to continue 3-4-tabling, then you can drag Windows' task bar to the left or right side of the screen so that it's vertical. That will free up some space for the 4 tables, which you can place in a 2x2 grid with partial vertical overlap (but so that the board and the stack sizes are still visible, not closed by the other table).

I'm biased here because I was able to spend a few years grinding at 6 quasi-tiled 6-max PLO tables with a 1024x600 screen and 1 GB RAM with PT4 running

You lost me there Tony. Any screen shot of how that would end up looking?
Are you saying using PIO on desktop while grinding?
As far as I know that is prohibited and not cool at the same time

I can install it on desktop but would need to run it in the late evening before bed and then in the morning check 7 hours later what it did for flop. That is always a good option with my current setups.

Originally posted by IvicaIliev77
As far as I know that is prohibited and not cool at the same time

Theoretically, it is, but in practice, how are Stars going to find this out if you study spots that are unrelated to your current games and change the timestamps on the files?

And as you want to have Pio running only when you're not playing, then there's indeed no problem with running Pio on the desktop while you're not grinding.

If the desktop is too noisy, just buy personalised earplugs.

Originally posted by tonypmm

Originally posted by IvicaIliev77
As far as I know that is prohibited and not cool at the same time

Theoretically, it is, but in practice, how are Stars going to find this out if you study spots that are unrelated to your current games and change the timestamps on the files?

And as you want to have Pio running only when you're not playing, then you can run Pio on the desktop while you're not grinding there, can't you?

If the desktop is too noisy, just buy personalised earplugs.

Desktop is strongish with I7 processor, 8gigs of ram and SSD hard drive + regular drive attached.
I have windows, stars, equilab and PT4 on it right now and nothing else installed. So I think it would do great with calculation running. Even 1 flop per day in the evening would give me 30 textures per month for 249$ initially invested.

I plan to use the tool to study outside of tables of course. Don't even want to know if someone is cheating with it how they are doing. That is like using bots just cheating in real time with GTO solver type of playing. Besides, even if someone was doing this in real time, they would have to have open dozen folders for tons of textures and then play 1 table and then click right away to see the strategy and then check for the turn and river... Its too many variables and takes tons of work. I see no reason to do this ever in real time. I find value in this software to help me become more balanced player, unexploitable in spots where I am exploited now and also thanks to ranges that I will load (expected ranges, not GTO ranges) I will get EV strategies for both initial aggressor and defender - which is exactly what I am looking for when learning.

Yeah, I will very likely get that 249$ single license for my PC and start learning how to use it ASAP through tutorials and some sweat sessions for PIO with my friend crusher.

Originally posted by IvicaIliev77
You lost me there Tony. Any screen shot of how that would end up looking?

That laptop is no longer working and I believe I've lost the screenshots from there, however, here's one of me tiling 10 tables (with the capability of fitting 2 more) on a 1920x1080 screen :f_biggrin::

That was the exact session when I realised that I'm not capable of grinding at 10 full ring tables despite being able to handle four 3-max ones (and even six on slower software like iPoker's).

Originally posted by tonypmm

Originally posted by IvicaIliev77
You lost me there Tony. Any screen shot of how that would end up looking?

That laptop is no longer working and I believe I've lost the screenshots from there, however, here's one of me tiling 10 tables (with the capability of fitting 2 more) on a 1920x1080 screen :f_biggrin::

Spoiler

The tiny strip of blank space on the left was reserved for the task bar sliding in and out.

Ah I see!
So you were suggesting to make for example left part of the monitor just with 2-4 tables that way and then fit PIO on the right side?
Again, isn't Stars going to detect PIO running like it detects equilab, flopzilla, crev and such software???

Originally posted by IvicaIliev77
So you were suggesting to make for example left part of the monitor just with 2-4 tables that way and then fit PIO on the right side?

No, I was suggesting to fit 4 tables of a much bigger size (2 times bigger than the tables in that screenshot) on the entire screen.

Again, isn't Stars going to detect PIO running like it detects equilab, flopzilla, crev and such software???

Of course it is, if the client is running on the same computer as the tool. I was talking about running the tool on a different (disconnected) computer than the one that you're grinding on. Stars might be able to detect such a setup too but I'm not 100% sure about it. Anyway, as you said, it's formally a violation of T&C anyway.

The tiling that I had in mind for spins (for a screen with a 16:9 aspect ratio) is something like this:

But of course Stars isn't the only poker site out there so there's no need to play cat and mouse with its security service. If I were to play highest stake lottery SNGs, I'd rather mix 888's $30 Blast (which is more like $60-100 spins in terms of variance and profit because it's much faster) and Party's new $100 Sam Trickett SNG Hero - those two formats alone would provide me with enough action already. At lower stakes, of course either of the two sites is enough, there's no need to mix the two.