Xavier Fok Adventures

Wp sir!

Im not sure about his play tho. He is going for complete baller mode without equity. And his line is weird.

What you think about his river betsizing?

Im calling station ♠_cry:

Almost layed it down on river

Still having some problems with finding interest in playing. Not sure what could i do to change it.

hi gasheks,

i think the more important issue here is your one liner on not finding interest in playing. i notice most people who developed an interest in some kind of business, are usually desperate at some point in time. and i happen to be one of them. i am desperate to pay the bills or risk getting kicked out of the house and 100 other bad things.

seldom i see people who just believe in a cause and then go ahead for it and then make it work. there might be a few, or maybe they do not want to share that "desperation"

one major issue that is identified among people who did not have that interest, and then later developed it and became successful, is the ENVIRONMENT. please allow me to explain.

imagine you are in an environment where everyday people tell you how crappy your job as a poker player is, how the poker rooms are going to steal your money away. and as a matter of fact it might just have happened to your poker room and maybe your funds were frozen. and how people cheat at poker. and then how people went broke, and then how others found a job. and then the people themselves are doing a normal 8-5 job. you get the idea, if you listen to them everyday, you become more and more like them. this is natural human learning behavior, no willpower is strong enough to overcome this. your willpower can help u to MOVE to a different environment, but unlikely to change the existing environment you are in. the problem here is that all the concerns that are being raised are REAL AND VALID.

next imagine you are in an environment with aspiring poker players. they may or may not be profitable or making money. obviously everything that is mentioned in the previous case still holds here. except that instead of talking about how bad the siutation is, they actually focus on making it work. ok fine, your poker room did really steal your money, and your funds did really get frozen. but how can u unfreeze it? maybe change a poker room? how do you defend yourself against the cheats? how do you prevent yourself from going broke? there are also a few successful poker players out there. how did they do it? whats their strategy? and these questions dominate the daily discussion. and then once in a while someone dreams about buying a nice car, a nice condo, something you actually would like to have. you see, NONE of you actually have it, in fact maybe you dont get the condo at all. and maybe no one gets the condo for the first 2 years. but then because you put all your energy into exploring, your results start to improve. when you decide to slack and play games and complain, your other friends interrupt with how this amazing poker player just won a 1m tournament and then he speaks about his strategy on running bluffs on the river or something like that. and then when you are demotivated, you see 2-3 friends grinding at the tables, and you are left crying on the couch. they come to encourage you for maybe 5mins, and then go back to their grind. are you going to go upstairs and cry? or would you sit beside them at your computer? maybe you browse facebook. and then you see a friend winning a big pot. would you open up your poker client and maybe play a few hands? or would you switch the discussion to how sucky your life is? the idea here is that the environment influences your every single action towards working for something that actually matters.

next on the hand.

Thanks for such reply. You're really inspiring me! I guess i might have some type of "winners tilt" (im not sure thats the right name for it) type thing. What i mean i become a bit too overconfident at some point and don't give enough credit to people.

What relates to people around me... I'm basically doing the thing solo right now, because my best poker buddy went for "his things" to America and he is not able to discuss the stuff with me at the moment. I basically try to avoid whiners ♦ Although i do it sometimes myself.

Thanks for the explanations again.

I'm considering setting some small goals for next month. It should help. I planned to shoot nl100 by the end of year (maybe be even a constant nl100 player), but those 2 weeks kinda messed my mind up, because it started to feel that like im already in it. Crushed quite hard ♦

Originally posted by gAsheks
Thanks for such reply. You're really inspiring me! I guess i might have some type of "winners tilt" (im not sure thats the right name for it) type thing. What i mean i become a bit too overconfident at some point and don't give enough credit to people.

What relates to people around me... I'm basically doing the thing solo right now, because my best poker buddy went for "his things" to America and he is not able to discuss the stuff with me at the moment. I basically try to avoid whiners ♦ Although i do it sometimes myself.

Thanks for the explanations again.

I'm considering setting some small goals for next month. It should help. I planned to shoot nl100 by the end of year (maybe be even a constant nl100 player), but those 2 weeks kinda messed my mind up, because it started to feel that like im already in it. Crushed quite hard ♦

sorry for the slower response on your hand,

pre flop - easy call of course. seldom is it different here

flop - bet for value and protection, bet sizing is fine to get calls from 2nd pair gut shots and a variety of draws. once the check raise comes things can start to get a little complicated. firstly this is a BVB situation, ranges are wide. but how wide is his range? 50? 70? how does he play the hands in his range? bet once and give up? check a major portion and then start check/calling and check raising? most people go for a one bet and give up. but on this board, his check raising range can be very wide. its still going to be a call though given his sizing, we should be calling a wide range here, including 2nd pair, OESD flush draws, and maybe raising gutshots.

turn - turn is really bad for us, connects the board, made 2p and completed draws. however sets dont make sense here. sets would have check raised larger on the flop, so we are looking at 2p like T7 78 and completed straight like 9J 69, but is he that wide? to be honest im not sure here, why not post this in the hand evaluation forums and get more competent feedback?

it seems here this card smacks his range, but yet our hand is near the top end of our range. i would fold here, but maybe according to GTO it could be a call or we might be folding too much. if the turn was something like Q or K, then i think its an easier call down because they like to bluff it alot and it does not exactly connect with their range

Originally posted by gAsheks
Thanks for such reply. You're really inspiring me! I guess i might have some type of "winners tilt" (im not sure thats the right name for it) type thing. What i mean i become a bit too overconfident at some point and don't give enough credit to people.

What relates to people around me... I'm basically doing the thing solo right now, because my best poker buddy went for "his things" to America and he is not able to discuss the stuff with me at the moment. I basically try to avoid whiners ♦ Although i do it sometimes myself.

Thanks for the explanations again.

I'm considering setting some small goals for next month. It should help. I planned to shoot nl100 by the end of year (maybe be even a constant nl100 player), but those 2 weeks kinda messed my mind up, because it started to feel that like im already in it. Crushed quite hard ♦

firstly are we friends on skype? please add me and say something like hello im gasheks?

the fact that you suspect u have winner's tilt is an ASSUMPTION. thats bad. distinguish between a fact and an opinion. susecpting that u have winner's tilt is an opinion. recognizing u have a possible problem that is stopping you from getting better is a FACT. you should get a coach to diagnose your problems. for example, some people might think, my flop play is bad, im betting too much because my CB is 80%, i need to reduce. and then he goes ahead to find methods to reduce it to the perfect 65%, but he still still losing money. and then he finds a coach, and the coach did not even touch on the CB, the coach works with him on his pre flop, because the coach noticed that this person's pre flop is very leaky, maybe hes raising 35% of hands in the CO with hands that simply are not playable and end up betting the flop and then check/folding turns. and just this fix alone makes the player alot of money, and somehow "automatically" fixes the flop CB because these crappy hands automatically reduces the flop CB because they are no longer raised and automatically bet.

in this case the player has diagnosed a wrong problem, although the symptom is correct. treating the symptom does not solve the root cause. the worst part is if his win rate actually increases and he thinks its right. but a more professional opinion quickly points out to the major pre flop leak contributing to everything.

this person is myself. i spent 2-3 years circling this.

solo is not possible. i repeat SOLO IS NOT POSSIBLE. what i mean by solo is not listening or talking to anybody at al land just palying poker. for example now im in singapore, in a sense im "solo". but that does not work. so i tune into the environment i want to be in. of course i cannot attend the functions 300km away in bangkok, but what i can do is to talk to them on skype, video chat. or i can watch their event, attend their coaching. top business people like bill gates are not even going to give me 5 seconds, but they have books i can read, and try to get into their thinking. in a sense im now "beside" bill gates and talking to him. of course i would prefer speaking to him personally, but i dont get the chance, and this beats being alone, or listening to advice from people who have not achieved what i want to achieve nor plan to get there.

avoiding whiners is not a effective objective. try to NOT think of the pink elephant, and what are u thinking of? the brain cannot process a negation. but the brain can process the object. so instead of avoiding whiners, our objective should be, find the successful person. the objective of focusing on avoiding whiners, attracts them to us because thats the focus. the objective of focusing on successful people, brings us closer to the successful persons, and in effect draws us away from the whiners. its easier to process a higher motivation than avoiding a lower problem.

nl100 im guessing is a long term goal? thats like 1million dollars. how about some learning goals? simple goals that are easy to achieve that actually matters. acheiving these goals are obviously insufficient alone, but gets you started.

for example, 15mins reviewing your HM2 database for the past week, with a specific focus on say, unopened pre flop raise and facing 3bets. well obviously this will never get u to nl100 alone, but it gets you started, and 15mins is a very small commitment, and u probably end up with 30mins session and maybe posting a hand and then doing another 3-4 sessions. but if you set that goal of 4 review sessions monthly for 1 hour each, would you actually get started on the first 15mins?

lastly, and most importantly, find a coach to diagnose your problems, i would recomend mbml, galvin bay. so far my ROI on the dollar spent on education is highest on him. might not work for you, but worth the gamble. heres the link to his blog Zooming for SNE

http://www.boomplayer.com/en/poker-hands/Boom/9619393_AAF47E7176

this is a pretty simple hand, but i changed my thought process about this hand. it might seem like a simple bet bet bet situation, but i have thought through it and made some changes in order to get max value.

flop - easy bet here, question is what size? whats his range when he calls from the BB? usually its going to be pocket pairs and of course he could also hit the K. if he hits the K its irrelevant because we will get it all in somewhere somehow. but how about pocket pairs 22-JJ? maybe he does not call 22, maybe he 3bets QQ and JJ, but u get the idea his range is still heavily weighted in the 44-JJ region possibly making up like 60-70% of his entire BB defend against UTG range, and 70-80% of his check/calling range.

how are we going to get max value from a hand like 44-TT? how are we going to get a hand like A high to maybe call down? maybe he calls one street, and we want to play in a way that makes him call 2 streets?

situation 1
if we bet pot pot pot, its obvious our range is strong, maybe he calls once, maybe twice, but seldom three times, i think its unlikely hes even going to call twice. so we get maybe another extra 1.50 if we pot it and he calls flop and folds turn. the value of this move against pocket pair is $1.50

situation 2
and if we bet say 70% 70% 70%, he probably calls twice and folds river. and we have extra 1.13 on the flop, and another 2.7 on the turn for a total of extra 3.83. the value of this move is $3.83.

situation 3
we should identify here that his range is unlikely to improve, so we can afford to give free or cheap cards. lets say we do a 50% bet, and a 55% bet and then a 80% bet.

what does the opponent think of this line? his calling range is wide on the flop and turn because our bet size is small, easy call for 55-JJ. and then a card comes like the J which does not hit the UTG range and then you suddenly increase bet sizing? if i had the K i would have bet bigger right from the flop, and the river is unlikely to help me. in this sense im using bet sizing to disguise my hand as a bluff. i seem to be trying to represent i hit something on the river, maybe a J or maybe i completed the flush which is unlikely, so he would want to bluffcatch with a wider range.

imagine the river bet is 50%. its so valuish, utg would know fold equity is low especially after betting 2 streets. this smaller bet actually tightens his calling range.

Hi,
I just popped in to say your positive manner is something many aspiring player could learn from. I really do think many people think they are being positive, but it's actually a rather half-hearted cover-up of their insecurities, whereas you make your ideas not only positive, but directly achievable for those perhaps not as strong mentally as you.

I hope I made some sort of sense and I'd like to wish you luck but I don't think you'll be waiting around for that!

Mal.

Thanks for really good post again!

What relates doing session reviews. I like to do it every day, but thats like reviewing hands mostly. Haven't gone over some specific filters since my sample @nl50 is quite irrelevant. Focusing on some aspects of my game where i want to make some changes.

Speaking about coaching. I'm living in small city, my internet is quite big garbage. So thats another problem why i don't have private coachings at the moment. Thats why i love to see some fresh videos wherever its possible. No wonder why i cry for your hand reviews, right? ♦

http://www.boomplayer.com/en/poker-hands/Boom/9631710_2263547E19

this guy is a fish so his opening and calling range there is pretty tight. i guess i should start showing hands where my moves failed, instead of all these winning hands especially when our hand is a TPTK or better

flop - easy bet, but take note of his range. Qx hits his range but since we have a Q already, his range is very weak here.

turn- even worse, he does not have the 9, all he has here is worse Qx which is rarely, a tonne of draws and then maybe TT JJ maybe 88 making a loose call, so bet sizing here needs to be small.

river - helps his range a little, JK has a straight but everything else sort of improves but not good enough, maybe my bet sizing should have been closer to 60% pot here to get wider calls.

Hand converted with online PokerStrategy.com hand converter:

Hand abspielen

$0.1/$0.25 No-Limit Hold'em (6 handed)

Known players:
[tg]BU (Hero)$26.58:///////;SB$29.02:///////;BB$30.40:///////;MP2$22.69:///////;MP3$79.82:///////;CO$25.60:///////;[/tg]

Preflop: Hero is BU with 8:c, 8:d.
3 folds, Hero raises to $0.50, SB raises to $1.50, BB folds, Hero calls $1.00.

Flop: ($3.25) 8:s, 2:h, 6:c (2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks.

Turn: ($3.25) Q:c (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $2.48, SB raises to $7.25, Hero calls $4.77.

River: ($17.75) 9:s (2 players)
SB bets $20.27, Hero calls $17.83(All-In).

Final Pot: $55.85.
Results follow:

SB shows a pair of twos(2:d A:c).
Hero shows three of a kind, eights(8:c 8:d).

Hero wins with three of a kind, eights(8:c 8:d).

flop - unknown here, his 3betting range there is unknow, but one thing for sure its unlikey to hit this board. betting here gets value from overpairs, which will go all in anyway. in order to get value from the other overcards we need to check.

turn - i want to represent a bluff here, and in order to do that i need to bet really big, which is that 80% pot. and then i face a check raise. very often hes having a draw here. against sets and TP its AI anyway. and against flush draws, which is not that often, 75% he busts and bluffs us and 25% he completes and i die. and of course a tonne of straight draws which completes maybe 10-15% by the river. if i raise he cant call, but if i call he can bluff at the river.

one thing u cant see here is me tank/calling the turn, faking thinking i was folding when i never was. not sure how much this move helps

river - plays itself.

Originally posted by gadget51
Hi,
I just popped in to say your positive manner is something many aspiring player could learn from. I really do think many people think they are being positive, but it's actually a rather half-hearted cover-up of their insecurities, whereas you make your ideas not only positive, but directly achievable for those perhaps not as strong mentally as you.

I hope I made some sort of sense and I'd like to wish you luck but I don't think you'll be waiting around for that!

Mal.

thanks mal!

being positive is a means to achieve a certain set of goals. most of the time it is effective. i constantly look out for whatever methods and try them and see which helps me to move closer to my goal the most. and this "positive thinking" somehow helps so ill keep it.

we make our own luck, the more times we shoot the more lucky we get =D

Originally posted by gAsheks
Thanks for really good post again!

What relates doing session reviews. I like to do it every day, but thats like reviewing hands mostly. Haven't gone over some specific filters since my sample @nl50 is quite irrelevant. Focusing on some aspects of my game where i want to make some changes.

Speaking about coaching. I'm living in small city, my internet is quite big garbage. So thats another problem why i don't have private coachings at the moment. Thats why i love to see some fresh videos wherever its possible. No wonder why i cry for your hand reviews, right? ♦

do it everyday? something sounds wrong here. if u are doing hand reviews correctly everyday, you should have improved very much and probably playing nl200+. you probably dont know what to fix, and have identified incorrectly what would help your win rate, get a coach.

internet being garbage is not an excuse for not having coaching. coaching does not have to be live. you can send a video of your session and then your coach downloads it and then either writes his comments or records another video on your session. my coach and i stay in singapore where internet is great but we still use this method because its more effective in terms of time planning for the both of us.

Originally posted by cutegoldfish

Originally posted by gAsheks
Thanks for really good post again!

What relates doing session reviews. I like to do it every day, but thats like reviewing hands mostly. Haven't gone over some specific filters since my sample @nl50 is quite irrelevant. Focusing on some aspects of my game where i want to make some changes.

Speaking about coaching. I'm living in small city, my internet is quite big garbage. So thats another problem why i don't have private coachings at the moment. Thats why i love to see some fresh videos wherever its possible. No wonder why i cry for your hand reviews, right? ♦

do it everyday? something sounds wrong here. if u are doing hand reviews correctly everyday, you should have improved very much and probably playing nl200+. you probably dont know what to fix, and have identified incorrectly what would help your win rate, get a coach.

internet being garbage is not an excuse for not having coaching. coaching does not have to be live. you can send a video of your session and then your coach downloads it and then either writes his comments or records another video on your session. my coach and i stay in singapore where internet is great but we still use this method because its more effective in terms of time planning for the both of us.

Well, what exactly sounds wrong? I could ask same question to you. Why aren't you playing nl200+ if you got coach etc, etc?

Im sure i don't do them perfectly, but i try to do what i can. I guess thats better than doing nothing, right?

New PC coming next week i guess. Feeling quite happy. You know that feeling

Hand converted with online PokerStrategy.com hand converter:

Hand abspielen

$0.1/$0.25 No-Limit Hold'em (6 handed)

Known players:
[tg]BU$25.00:///////;SB (Hero)$25.10:///////;BB$23.24:///////;MP2$26.35:///////;MP3$120.76:///////;CO$41.78:///////;[/tg]

Preflop: Hero is SB with A:s, K:c.
2 folds, CO raises to $0.75, BU folds, Hero raises to $2.55, BB folds, CO calls $1.80.

Flop: ($5.35) 2:h, 3:d, 5:s (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $2.80, Hero calls $2.80.

Turn: ($10.95) 9:c (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $5.50, Hero calls $5.50.

River: ($21.95) 5:c (2 players)
Hero checks, CO checks.

Final Pot: $21.95.
Results follow:

Hero shows a pair of fives(A:s K:c).
CO shows a pair of fives(T:h K:h).

Hero wins with a pair of fives(A:s K:c).

the usual move here after 3betting in the SB would be to bet many boards. however lets think about CO open/calling range here, its going to consist of

1. around 50-60% pocket pairs
2. broadways Ax 20-25%
3. broadways non Ax, which is Kx Qx around 15-20%
4. suited connectors and everything else 10%

for 1, none of them are folding, they either have a set or an overpair

for 2, we are ahead of most broadway Ax and they are not folding either and might call one or 2 bets and may bet themselves

for 3, these hands may float once or none and likely to bet somewhere to bluff us off. if we bet we lose value when they fold, but if we check we might 1-2 streets of bluffs from them and also if we hit an A or K we dominate their range.

for 4 these usually folds but might try to bluff once or twice at us.

so we notice that checking here is more profitable as we mainly
1. decrease the value that PP gets from us which is majority of the range, prevent us from being raised off our good equity hand

2. get bluff bets from everything else which we are ahead of one or 2 streets.

Well, what exactly sounds wrong? I could ask same question to you. Why aren't you playing nl200+ if you got coach etc, etc?

Im sure i don't do them perfectly, but i try to do what i can. I guess thats better than doing nothing, right?

New PC coming next week i guess. Feeling quite happy. You know that feeling fish pleased

firstly, you have asked a very valid question. i am not playing nl200, and thats exactly why i got a coach. previously i did not have one, and got stuck, since i gotten one, i have been climbing. i mean i didnt get it all the time, but at that point of time when i got it, i climbed, and when i stopped, i declined. and now im getting a coach again and im climbing again.

im going to quote some time periods here.

sometime in 2012, i was stuck at nl50, i got a coach gordon gekko 6max double your win rate, and went up to nl100 winning at around 2-3 BB, and then win rates started to decline, i didnt get any coach after that so it just kept going down. i was unaware when it was going down until a year later when i looked back.

when i realised that, i got a coach again, which is mbml, and thats sometime in 2013? so i went back up to nl100, played some nl200, and then obviously i slacked again, and the same thing happened.

and then now its 2014, there have been more unfortunate incidents all non-poker related which brought down my bankroll, im not going to evalaute whether they were right or not in this post. so im back down to nl25, and with mbml's new coaching my win rates are increasing and ill be moving back up to nl50, and then nl100.

for all you know i may never play nl200, the point is that when i did i improved. and when i stopped i declined.

and there are also things i did alone which was some hand review, watching videos etc, but while i was doing that i was declining. apparently whatever i was doing was not bringing about an significant improvement to my winrates, though they might still help, they should not be the focus because it did not increase my win rate. im not saying that watching videos is not good. im saying its not good enough. for me its videos, for you it could be your hand review.

in fact coaching might not even work for u, from what im seeing it works for around 90% of all people who took coaching, but there is always that unlucky 10%. what im encouraging is to take a shot, maybe 2-3 shots and if it works then its great, and if it does not, try something else?

oh yes that feeling of the new PC!!!!! i love SSD RAID 0 with all the video cards and stuff. makes me feel great ♠_biggrin: ♠_biggrin: ♠_biggrin:

Thanks for sharing you poker journey!

Strange. I was thinking when you move up you just get better and better. Wasn't you playing too much tables or something?

I still think that i can beat nl50 without having private coachings Yes, i know. I'm persong with quite big EGO. I'm just a bit worried about later part. Will work on some aspects of my game which i want to improve and don't think too much about nl100. The only thing that i kinda don't like is my volume. Quite low lately, but thats mainly due to some other things that i have to do.

What relates to coachings... I will start with video review firstly. I guess this should be a good starting point because i mentioned already earlier i love watching videos and they seem to work for me quite good. Thats due to visual memory most likely. And its not only about live play videos but also about presentations and other things. Thats why i suggested some coaches to visualize theory presentations a bit more because i think im not the only one with visual memory.

Since i have already decided to get new pc i will seek for opportunities to change my internet too. That will allow showing my spewfest to some of my "poker friends". I cant do it at the moment because of upload speed.

Originally posted by gAsheks
Thanks for sharing you poker journey!

Strange. I was thinking when you move up you just get better and better. Wasn't you playing too much tables or something?

I still think that i can beat nl50 without having private coachings Yes, i know. I'm persong with quite big EGO. I'm just a bit worried about later part. Will work on some aspects of my game which i want to improve and don't think too much about nl100. The only thing that i kinda don't like is my volume. Quite low lately, but thats mainly due to some other things that i have to do.

What relates to coachings... I will start with video review firstly. I guess this should be a good starting point because i mentioned already earlier i love watching videos and they seem to work for me quite good. Thats due to visual memory most likely. And its not only about live play videos but also about presentations and other things. Thats why i suggested some coaches to visualize theory presentations a bit more because i think im not the only one with visual memory.

Since i have already decided to get new pc i will seek for opportunities to change my internet too. That will allow showing my spewfest to some of my "poker friends". I cant do it at the moment because of upload speed.

i was working on alot of other business like the forex education business, food and beverage business and also an insurance job, in hope for better success, so all that led to deterioration in poker. i don't think playing poker itself is going to make me rich, i'm going to have to do something else that leverages on this, for example selling courses, or being an affiliate, or selling poker accessories etc and branching out.

what you choose to do with your learning process is up to you. why not check out other more successful poker players blog and see if your thinking is in line?

oh and yes i love my PC ♠_biggrin: ♠_biggrin: ♠_biggrin:

Originally posted by cutegoldfish
Hand converted with online PokerStrategy.com hand converter:

Hand abspielen

$0.1/$0.25 No-Limit Hold'em (6 handed)

Known players:
[tg]BU$25.00:///////;SB (Hero)$25.10:///////;BB$23.24:///////;MP2$26.35:///////;MP3$120.76:///////;CO$41.78:///////;[/tg]

Preflop: Hero is SB with A:s, K:c.
2 folds, CO raises to $0.75, BU folds, Hero raises to $2.55, BB folds, CO calls $1.80.

Flop: ($5.35) 2:h, 3:d, 5:s (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $2.80, Hero calls $2.80.

Turn: ($10.95) 9:c (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $5.50, Hero calls $5.50.

River: ($21.95) 5:c (2 players)
Hero checks, CO checks.

Final Pot: $21.95.
Results follow:

Hero shows a pair of fives(A:s K:c).
CO shows a pair of fives(T:h K:h).

Hero wins with a pair of fives(A:s K:c).

One of the first things we hear these days when starting to learn poker these days some reasons for betting.

1. To get value from worse hands
2. To make better hands fold.
3. To fold out our opponents equity share.

My issue is with "2. To make better hands fold."
This approach is fine against weak players and when taking exploitable lines. But as a solid default strategy it doesn't give us a solid mental structure for designing our ranges. It leaves us vulnerable to being counter exploited and teaches us to think about bluffing in a harmful way.

When we bluff, it's to force our opponent to have a bluff catching range. The only reason we are bluffing, is so that we get paid off with with our value hands. (unless we're exploiting)

When we understand this, we understand that:.

-We never need to bluff, when our opponent is already paying off our value hands.
-We need to design our ranges so that we are bluffing at frequencies where our value hands get paid off.

When I looked at this hand. And I saw x/c with AKo my first thought was, if we are not barreling AK on this board, will we have enough bluffs for villain to ever need to call our barrels with value hands?

So I went over it CREV.
At first glance I didn't realize that all our Ax would have a gutshot. With these I have so many gutshots that can barrel, that even with a strong checking range there is no need to use AK in the betting range.

I then changed the flop to remove the gutshot to 6:s3:d2:h. Here I think I need to be betting AK or else I just don't have enough bluffs to bet at least two streets on most runouts. I did this with having a preflop cc range in the SB. If we only have a 3b range in the SB. Then we'll have a lot more value hands and I think we definitely should be betting and barreling AK.

On the wheel flop, I'll have soo many gutshots that I'll ahve to be careful betting and barreling them all. I'll definitely have to take out some bd/fd bluffs from my flop betting range. And either be careful not to barrel too many gutshots on turns or add some into my flop checking range. I think adding some AQ into a a flop check/call range is probably best, but I'm not sure.
Even if we don't have a preflop cc range in the SB, barreling all gutshots will be too many.

just want to quickly record some thoughts.

i have been using this pomodoro timer to help to regulate my work to increase focus during work and also extend my work hours. usually i am only able to work 3 hours, and i would say at maybe 65-70% efficiency. now with the pomodoro timer i am able to work more like 4 hours with close to 80% efficiency. of course i also changed things like diet and exercise, but there was an isolated period where i only changed using the pomodoro and saw increased productivity and work hours.

how the pomodoro works is that every work is a set of 25mins, followed by a 5mins break. the break is supposed to help to refresh the mind to focus on work. and after 4 pomodoros take a longer break like 15-30mins.

during the break im actually playing games on my smartphone, namely clash of clans. which consumes like 3mins of the break. its an disengagement from the task at hand which is poker, however i actually remain at my desk, which is not as good as walking away. (maybe walking away would solve the problem?). and also i need to use some brain juice, i mean i like it, but is it sapping mental energy and decreasing work productivity for the later tasks? im still in search for an answer. i still love the game but im willing to sacrifice 70% of the playing time if it helps my work.

heres the explanation

http://pomodorotechnique.com/

im thinking when i should update this blog? in the earlier part of the day or at the end? if i update this blog at the earlier part of the day, i feel more motivated to work because this is sort of like a warm up. however my mental energy is obviously lower after updating this blog, which is around the 2nd hour of my work. at the end of the day my brain juice is also fried, meaning the quality of my posts would decrease.

however if i just start on palying, i am usually not warmed up, less motivated and also end up playing less, because i dont feel connected to my goals and friends etc. so i think im going to keep at updating this blog at the start of the day as a warm up exercise.