Glad to say that my first serious shot in 3/6 turned out pretty well. Below are my stats for today and a nice graph showing how I dug myself out of a big hole.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Finally Unstuck
Well, after my blowup earlier today, I took a break and then decided to do some serious grinding. Well, I also took a look at the 3/6nl games on Stars and saw a bunch of weak spots. Since I've been playing pretty well, minus the blow up playing heads up, I decided to sit in on a bunch of 3/6 games.
Glad to say that my first serious shot in 3/6 turned out pretty well. Below are my stats for today and a nice graph showing how I dug myself out of a big hole.
Glad to say that my first serious shot in 3/6 turned out pretty well. Below are my stats for today and a nice graph showing how I dug myself out of a big hole.
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Was having a good day.... then BLOWUP
I started off today doing really well. I decided that I was going to play a lot of heads up poker. I was up about $800 before I started playing against this donk. He was absolutely awful. I then get sucked out on against him, and I start creating bigger pots in an attempt to gain back my money, and he sucks out again, when he cracks my AA. I then start playing even more pots and attempt to bluff him out of even more pots, and obviously this donk is not going to fold. So I start playing real shitty and all of a sudden, I donk off 5 buyins against him.
So, right now, I'm down $1600 for the day, and it's quite disappointing because he was absolutely awful. I really should have quit him after donking off three buyins because I knew myself that I was tilted. I put in my last two stacks on draws knowing that I was gambling with him. It was really stupid of me.
I'm going to take a little bit of a break and see if I can dig myself out of this hole later tonight. On a good note though, this is my first negative day for the past week, I think. So, I have to be happy with myself.
So, right now, I'm down $1600 for the day, and it's quite disappointing because he was absolutely awful. I really should have quit him after donking off three buyins because I knew myself that I was tilted. I put in my last two stacks on draws knowing that I was gambling with him. It was really stupid of me.
I'm going to take a little bit of a break and see if I can dig myself out of this hole later tonight. On a good note though, this is my first negative day for the past week, I think. So, I have to be happy with myself.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Omaha Hi/Lo natural?
Okay, so Jackal69 put up an Omaha Hi/Lo video today, and I was bored and decided to watch it. Well, after the video, I didn't feel like doing work yet, so I procrastinated, and decided to jump into a couple Omaha Hi/Lo games. Well I since I've never played any limit games of any sort, I have no idea what each limit corresponds to, in difficulty of the game. I started off in a $2/4 game and a $3/6 game. And boy were these games soft. People were absolutely horrible. So, after i started getting a feel for the game, I opened up a $5/10, and then a $10/20. I won quite a bit for somebody who has played Omaha Hi/Lo under 10 times in my entire poker career. I was probably running extremely good. I have no idea what running good in Omaha Hi/Lo is, but I'm just assuming that I was because I made quite a bit of money in relation to BB/100. My other theory is that I'm just a naturally gifted Omaha Hi/Lo player, and I've been wasting my time on NL HE. I should jump into the $50/$100 games to see how I fare.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Poker Thought/Theory Post
While I'm on a poker streak, I decided that I'm going to write a bit about what I think I need to be doing in order to really step up my game for the next level. I'm getting pretty good at hand reading now, and I'm getting a much better feel of how people's perception of me changes, and I've been getting a lot better in realizing which opponents will stack off against me light with say TPGK, and which opponents only reraise me with at least two pairs or sets.
My next step though, which I have to admit that I'm very bad at right now, is figuring out my equity against my opponents CALLING range. I actually read a 2+2 questionnaire by SBrugby, and he talks about how he got immensely better when he figured this out.
So when me and my opponents tangle and he reraises me in a pot, I think about what he has. I think about what he thinks I have, and whether or not I think I can bluff him out of the pot. However, I need to start figuring out his range such that I can accurately put him on a range of hands, and not only figure out what my equity is against his range at that moment, but also what my equity is against his range if he CALLS a push from me. This is the reason why people semi-bluff very aggressively. It's the same reasoning as the case above, except for the fact that you don't really need to put your opponent on a range of hands. Against any range if you push a flush draw, because you can fold your opponent out a lot of the time, against your equity against his calling range is great. This is why fold equity is so great. Well, now I need to start doing this but not only with flush draws, but with over cards and even gutshots I think.
There are certain opponents where I know even though I have the worse hand, if I push, it's going to make it so hard for him to call. So with the fold equity, even if he does call, you're in great shape. One scenario that I've been thinking about, is lets say you're a little about 120bb deep against an opponent. And you're in the cutoff. You raise with AK or AQ, and you get three betted by a good aggressive player, you decide to call. Lets say the flop comes 492r. He fires a bet here. My play right now, in a 3bet pot most of the time is to usually flat call, to float hime, and maybe he's on an AQ type hand, or just fold it. But, I think I really need to start looking into shoving in this spot.
Lets just look at how much money is in the pot first of all. In a standard game 6max game, I will raise about 3.5bb, and the three bet is usually about, 12-13 bb. So with my call, the pot is about 26-28bb. The flop is 482r. He bets about 18-20bb as his continuation bet. So there's now about 44bb in the pot. Now lets look at this scenario from my opponents viewpoint if I shove over his cbet. I have a stack of about 110bb. So there's 150bbs in the pot, and he needs just under 90bbs to make this call. Now, he's getting over 2:1 to make this call, and he needs to be good over 60% of the times or so for this to be a good call.
Well, a large part of his range may be AQ, AJ, KQ, KJ type hands. So we have those hands crushed. And he's certainly almost never going to call a shove with those hands unless I have a maniacal image. Now lets look at all his PP hands under KK, and assuming he doesn't hit a set, which is most of the time. Against this range, I'm under a 3:1 dog. And most of the time he won't be able to make this call with 66,77,88, 55. And then a call with 10 10 and JJ if also quite hard to make here. So in Pokertracker, I gave him a calling range of TT+,88,66,44,22,T9s,87s. This is quite reasonable here I think I even put in a couple weak one pair type hands to take into account instances where he'll stack off light. Against this range I have 22% equity. Given that I have an AK, makes it less likely that he has some of those hands, like KK, and AA. But it's still included in the calculation. I think pokerstove includes all the Aces and Kings in their calculation of that equity. Regardless, lets say that he 3bets a cut off raiser with about 11% of his range. Pokerstove gives this to be 77+,A9s+,KTs+,QTs+,ATo+,KQo, which actually seems quite reasonable. You take out a couple q10 hands and K10s hands, and put in more 98s type hands, and I'd a typical loose aggressive good regular probably does 3bet a cut off raiser with a lot of those hands. Well given that the hands that he calls a shove with represents about 4.8% of his range, and that he 3bets about 12% of his range, we will fold him out roughly 60%. So for arguments sake, lets make this more conservative. Lets say he folds about half the times. And he calls about half the time. Lets calculate our equity. Equity = .5(46bb)+.5*(-110*.78+90*.22) = .5 (46bb)+ .5(-66) = -10bb. So with 120bbs stack, and where we fold out our opponents only 50% of the time, this is a losing play.
Now lets look at it when we have 100bbs. Notice that our main pot still stays the same. Just that now, we're risking less chips to win the chips in the middle.
Equite = .4(46bb) + .6*(-87*.78 + 67*.22) =.5(46bb) + .5(-53.12) = -3.5. So at 100bb, this play seems to be almost break even. Given that we balance this play with AA, KK, QQ, JJ and hands like that, I think in reality one might fold out more than 50% of his hands. If we used our analysis where he folded out 60% of his hands, this play actually becomes a slight +EV move at 100bbs, given our assumptions. Plus people might give me much much more action with my other big hands.
In real life though people play a lot more different. I'm going to have to think about this more and specifically what type of players I can target with this. Obviously it's going to have to be a regular, and one who repops enough from the blinds. He's also got to be the guy that cbets quite liberally. This cbet actually traps a lot of money in the pot. I never realized that. Our losing numbers is also quite off because pokerstove includes AA and KK for the calculation.
Though there actually might be a lot of merit to somebody who you know 3bets semitight from the blinds. A person who 3bets about 5% of his hands, has a range of about 88+, AJs+, AQo+, I think. Pokerstove put our included KQs, but not AQo for some reason. Lets change up the flop a little bit. Lets say it's Q28o. Then, his calling range actually significantly tightens. He can't really call with most of his pocket pairs, and even with a tight calling range of JJ+,AQs+,AKo,KQo we still have 27% equity. This quite confusing to me actually. I guess it's counting a lot of AKo and JJ type hands. But against that range, this is only 2.9% of hands. So, if a person is 3betting about 8% of his hands, then he's folding over 64% of his hands. I think I'm actually going to have to put a lot more thought into this. But against certain opponents, I can begin to see how this starts to get quite profitable.
Plus, here, I'm only talking about one instance of where we look at our equity against our perceived calling range.
I don't know who reads this, but good luck at the tables.
My next step though, which I have to admit that I'm very bad at right now, is figuring out my equity against my opponents CALLING range. I actually read a 2+2 questionnaire by SBrugby, and he talks about how he got immensely better when he figured this out.
So when me and my opponents tangle and he reraises me in a pot, I think about what he has. I think about what he thinks I have, and whether or not I think I can bluff him out of the pot. However, I need to start figuring out his range such that I can accurately put him on a range of hands, and not only figure out what my equity is against his range at that moment, but also what my equity is against his range if he CALLS a push from me. This is the reason why people semi-bluff very aggressively. It's the same reasoning as the case above, except for the fact that you don't really need to put your opponent on a range of hands. Against any range if you push a flush draw, because you can fold your opponent out a lot of the time, against your equity against his calling range is great. This is why fold equity is so great. Well, now I need to start doing this but not only with flush draws, but with over cards and even gutshots I think.
There are certain opponents where I know even though I have the worse hand, if I push, it's going to make it so hard for him to call. So with the fold equity, even if he does call, you're in great shape. One scenario that I've been thinking about, is lets say you're a little about 120bb deep against an opponent. And you're in the cutoff. You raise with AK or AQ, and you get three betted by a good aggressive player, you decide to call. Lets say the flop comes 492r. He fires a bet here. My play right now, in a 3bet pot most of the time is to usually flat call, to float hime, and maybe he's on an AQ type hand, or just fold it. But, I think I really need to start looking into shoving in this spot.
Lets just look at how much money is in the pot first of all. In a standard game 6max game, I will raise about 3.5bb, and the three bet is usually about, 12-13 bb. So with my call, the pot is about 26-28bb. The flop is 482r. He bets about 18-20bb as his continuation bet. So there's now about 44bb in the pot. Now lets look at this scenario from my opponents viewpoint if I shove over his cbet. I have a stack of about 110bb. So there's 150bbs in the pot, and he needs just under 90bbs to make this call. Now, he's getting over 2:1 to make this call, and he needs to be good over 60% of the times or so for this to be a good call.
Well, a large part of his range may be AQ, AJ, KQ, KJ type hands. So we have those hands crushed. And he's certainly almost never going to call a shove with those hands unless I have a maniacal image. Now lets look at all his PP hands under KK, and assuming he doesn't hit a set, which is most of the time. Against this range, I'm under a 3:1 dog. And most of the time he won't be able to make this call with 66,77,88, 55. And then a call with 10 10 and JJ if also quite hard to make here. So in Pokertracker, I gave him a calling range of TT+,88,66,44,22,T9s,87s. This is quite reasonable here I think I even put in a couple weak one pair type hands to take into account instances where he'll stack off light. Against this range I have 22% equity. Given that I have an AK, makes it less likely that he has some of those hands, like KK, and AA. But it's still included in the calculation. I think pokerstove includes all the Aces and Kings in their calculation of that equity. Regardless, lets say that he 3bets a cut off raiser with about 11% of his range. Pokerstove gives this to be 77+,A9s+,KTs+,QTs+,ATo+,KQo, which actually seems quite reasonable. You take out a couple q10 hands and K10s hands, and put in more 98s type hands, and I'd a typical loose aggressive good regular probably does 3bet a cut off raiser with a lot of those hands. Well given that the hands that he calls a shove with represents about 4.8% of his range, and that he 3bets about 12% of his range, we will fold him out roughly 60%. So for arguments sake, lets make this more conservative. Lets say he folds about half the times. And he calls about half the time. Lets calculate our equity. Equity = .5(46bb)+.5*(-110*.78+90*.22) = .5 (46bb)+ .5(-66) = -10bb. So with 120bbs stack, and where we fold out our opponents only 50% of the time, this is a losing play.
Now lets look at it when we have 100bbs. Notice that our main pot still stays the same. Just that now, we're risking less chips to win the chips in the middle.
Equite = .4(46bb) + .6*(-87*.78 + 67*.22) =.5(46bb) + .5(-53.12) = -3.5. So at 100bb, this play seems to be almost break even. Given that we balance this play with AA, KK, QQ, JJ and hands like that, I think in reality one might fold out more than 50% of his hands. If we used our analysis where he folded out 60% of his hands, this play actually becomes a slight +EV move at 100bbs, given our assumptions. Plus people might give me much much more action with my other big hands.
In real life though people play a lot more different. I'm going to have to think about this more and specifically what type of players I can target with this. Obviously it's going to have to be a regular, and one who repops enough from the blinds. He's also got to be the guy that cbets quite liberally. This cbet actually traps a lot of money in the pot. I never realized that. Our losing numbers is also quite off because pokerstove includes AA and KK for the calculation.
Though there actually might be a lot of merit to somebody who you know 3bets semitight from the blinds. A person who 3bets about 5% of his hands, has a range of about 88+, AJs+, AQo+, I think. Pokerstove put our included KQs, but not AQo for some reason. Lets change up the flop a little bit. Lets say it's Q28o. Then, his calling range actually significantly tightens. He can't really call with most of his pocket pairs, and even with a tight calling range of JJ+,AQs+,AKo,KQo we still have 27% equity. This quite confusing to me actually. I guess it's counting a lot of AKo and JJ type hands. But against that range, this is only 2.9% of hands. So, if a person is 3betting about 8% of his hands, then he's folding over 64% of his hands. I think I'm actually going to have to put a lot more thought into this. But against certain opponents, I can begin to see how this starts to get quite profitable.
Plus, here, I'm only talking about one instance of where we look at our equity against our perceived calling range.
I don't know who reads this, but good luck at the tables.
Hit a mile point
I just hit a mile point in my NL cash game career. I'm up over 10k for the month on cash games alone right now. This is the first time I've ever done that. So I'm up with tourney cashes I'm up about 12k for the month. I'm very glad about that. And I'm also consistently beating 2/4nl. Check out what happened today.
I played about 3000 hands today, and I think I played pretty good. I was playing very aggressive. I all of my hands on Stars, as I'm trying to get points for cashback there. I decided that since I can't get rakeback, I'm going to start playing a lot on stars so that I can take advantage of their points for cash system. I also did this because I recently withdrew basically all of my bankroll from Absolute poker. But there are a ton of reports of people somehow cheating with Absolute's software, where certain players act as if they can see people's hole cards. It's very convincing. Go over to 2+2 to read about it for yourself. So those are the main reasons that I'm moving to Stars. But people on Stars float sooooo much more than players on Full Tilt. Maybe it was just tonight, but it was actually quite profitable for me in certain spots to push a lot of my draws. Fold equity is nice.
So after I finished playing today, I when over my Pokertracker stats and at first was actually ecstatic with my play. I had a great session where I lost money with AA!
Yea, I know I like to brag. Haha. But I actually was extremely proud of the fact that I thought I played well, and made tons of money despite running bad. This was until I looked around at the rest of my stats. Check this out.
I made 5 flushes, which were ALL good on the river, 10 full houses, and the best part, was that I flopped QUADS 3 times! And amazingly I got paid off on pretty much all of these hands. I guess other than the fact that AA didn't hold up for me, I ran extremely well. Here is that AA hand.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1507720
I used to think that I could fold these hands, but I'm actually fine with losing these. I will never fold AA or KK in this spot. Once I there's all this money in the pot, and he shoves, I'm getting such great odds to call against his range. Folding IMO is definitely -EV.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1507722
This is a hand that I was not so sure about. I'm still not sure if betting that river value bet is +EV. I wasn't sure if KQ would call a third river bet, and KJ got there, as did JJ if he was calling me down with a PP, and an outside chance of 88. So basically does he call me with a worse pair on this river to make it a +EV river value bet. If it were AA, I would definitely fire all three streets for value, but with AK, I think it's that much thinner. I'm also talking about a good player calling me down three times. Not this guy. He played that hand sooooooo bad. When he table 3 9's there, I was dumb founded. I mean he's losing so much value. He didn't put in a single raise. If you're going to call 96s OOP, you have to at some point bet it or put in a raise.
I played about 3000 hands today, and I think I played pretty good. I was playing very aggressive. I all of my hands on Stars, as I'm trying to get points for cashback there. I decided that since I can't get rakeback, I'm going to start playing a lot on stars so that I can take advantage of their points for cash system. I also did this because I recently withdrew basically all of my bankroll from Absolute poker. But there are a ton of reports of people somehow cheating with Absolute's software, where certain players act as if they can see people's hole cards. It's very convincing. Go over to 2+2 to read about it for yourself. So those are the main reasons that I'm moving to Stars. But people on Stars float sooooo much more than players on Full Tilt. Maybe it was just tonight, but it was actually quite profitable for me in certain spots to push a lot of my draws. Fold equity is nice.So after I finished playing today, I when over my Pokertracker stats and at first was actually ecstatic with my play. I had a great session where I lost money with AA!
Yea, I know I like to brag. Haha. But I actually was extremely proud of the fact that I thought I played well, and made tons of money despite running bad. This was until I looked around at the rest of my stats. Check this out.
I made 5 flushes, which were ALL good on the river, 10 full houses, and the best part, was that I flopped QUADS 3 times! And amazingly I got paid off on pretty much all of these hands. I guess other than the fact that AA didn't hold up for me, I ran extremely well. Here is that AA hand.http://www.pokerhand.org/?1507720
I used to think that I could fold these hands, but I'm actually fine with losing these. I will never fold AA or KK in this spot. Once I there's all this money in the pot, and he shoves, I'm getting such great odds to call against his range. Folding IMO is definitely -EV.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1507722
This is a hand that I was not so sure about. I'm still not sure if betting that river value bet is +EV. I wasn't sure if KQ would call a third river bet, and KJ got there, as did JJ if he was calling me down with a PP, and an outside chance of 88. So basically does he call me with a worse pair on this river to make it a +EV river value bet. If it were AA, I would definitely fire all three streets for value, but with AK, I think it's that much thinner. I'm also talking about a good player calling me down three times. Not this guy. He played that hand sooooooo bad. When he table 3 9's there, I was dumb founded. I mean he's losing so much value. He didn't put in a single raise. If you're going to call 96s OOP, you have to at some point bet it or put in a raise.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Graph of September
I've been playing pretty well this September. Including my tourney cash, I think I'm up over 10k for the month. I have to say, that's not bad at all. Below is a graph of my September cash results.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1494759
This hand just boggled my mind. Normally i would have bet out that river, however, I had a feeling that there was a very small chance that the person didn't have an A, and that he would bet the river. Now, I don't get why he bet that river, I guess he was trying to bluff me out. But his call of my river raise, is awful. He's calling $28 more for a split pot at best.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1494769
A cooler in my favor.
I would post more hands, but I have to be off to class.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1494759
This hand just boggled my mind. Normally i would have bet out that river, however, I had a feeling that there was a very small chance that the person didn't have an A, and that he would bet the river. Now, I don't get why he bet that river, I guess he was trying to bluff me out. But his call of my river raise, is awful. He's calling $28 more for a split pot at best.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1494769
A cooler in my favor.
I would post more hands, but I have to be off to class.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Teaching
I'm writing this post because I'm procrastinating my TA duties. I have 100 lab reports that I need to grade, and I have absolutely no desire to do it. Grading sucks. One thing that I've come to realize, though, is that I actually like teaching people things. I actually enjoy my office hours when people come to me with questions and I can help them out with understanding concepts and how to do the homework problems. It's very satisfying because you're actually adding to the knowledge base of the people you teach. Grading on the other hand, to me, doesn't serve much of a purpose. It's an arbitrary measure of somebody telling you how much you know, on an artificially created assignment.
This leads into something that I've been thinking about for a while. I actually want to teach somebody what I know about poker. It will serve two purposes. I will be giving back to the poker community and helping somebody with their game, and it will help me internalize and better practice the concepts that I do know, in much of the same way that TAing has helped me better learn the subject that I TA. I don't know how I'll find a student, but hopefully some of my friends will read this post and realize that they really do want to commit to learning poker, or somehow I'll find a student some other way. Note that I use the term "student" here very loosely. By "student" I mean somebody who wants to be serious about the game of poker and is willing to discuss poker concepts with me.
Okay, now I'm back to grading....
This leads into something that I've been thinking about for a while. I actually want to teach somebody what I know about poker. It will serve two purposes. I will be giving back to the poker community and helping somebody with their game, and it will help me internalize and better practice the concepts that I do know, in much of the same way that TAing has helped me better learn the subject that I TA. I don't know how I'll find a student, but hopefully some of my friends will read this post and realize that they really do want to commit to learning poker, or somehow I'll find a student some other way. Note that I use the term "student" here very loosely. By "student" I mean somebody who wants to be serious about the game of poker and is willing to discuss poker concepts with me.
Okay, now I'm back to grading....
Sunday update
I was watching updates from the WSOP Europe last night and to my surprise a young internet phenom, Anette_15 was on the final table. If you don't know about her, just go to pocketfives.com, and you can read her fanclub there. I have to admit, back in my donkament days, I was part of that fan club. Well when I woke up this morning I decided to stream the final table coverage over the internet, and to nobody's surprise she took down 1st place for 1 million pounds. Just reading about her is pretty sick. She started her roll through online freerolls, and she's been destroying online mtts ever since. And get this, she's only 18! I can't wait till she turns 21 and starts destroying the WSOP here in the States.
Well, I also played two mtts today. After seeing her play, I was pretty determined to play my best in the two that I played. I played in the WCOOP event #5 $530 NLHE 9 handed event, and in the Stars 55k guaranteed 10+ rebuys. I got absolutely no cards in the WCOOP event, and busted in about 1500/5000, and in the rebuy I busted out in 6/1000+ for a payday of $2700. If I made $2700 today playing cash, I would be ecstatic. However, I was pretty pissed that I busted out in 6th because the play on that final table was soooooooooooo awful. If any of those players were on any cash tables I would fleece them. I also think that I messed up once on the final table in a crucial spot. If people were making solid plays, and I got beat, I wouldn't be that pissed. I saw that 15k payout for 1st place and knew that I had a great chance in taking it down. Sigh. On a positive note, I'm finally in the positive for Stars mtts.
Well, I also played two mtts today. After seeing her play, I was pretty determined to play my best in the two that I played. I played in the WCOOP event #5 $530 NLHE 9 handed event, and in the Stars 55k guaranteed 10+ rebuys. I got absolutely no cards in the WCOOP event, and busted in about 1500/5000, and in the rebuy I busted out in 6/1000+ for a payday of $2700. If I made $2700 today playing cash, I would be ecstatic. However, I was pretty pissed that I busted out in 6th because the play on that final table was soooooooooooo awful. If any of those players were on any cash tables I would fleece them. I also think that I messed up once on the final table in a crucial spot. If people were making solid plays, and I got beat, I wouldn't be that pissed. I saw that 15k payout for 1st place and knew that I had a great chance in taking it down. Sigh. On a positive note, I'm finally in the positive for Stars mtts.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
September Update
Just wanted to say that I dug myself out of that hole that I was in. I made back those 20 buyins that I lost, and I'm glad to say that I've been playing some pretty good poker. Yesterday I played a lot of HU and six max, and I must say that I really enjoy HU poker again. I just moved up to playing 2/4nl for HU, and I don't feel intimidated by the competition anymore. I got my money in good a bunch of times, however, I ended up getting drawn out on a bunch.
I just got PokerEV, and it calculates your equity for hands that went to showdown street by street. I've been running pretty far behind expectation. I'm owed about $2100 in equity. Here's the graph of my last week. Hopefully, I'll be going on a sick run pretty soon.
I just got PokerEV, and it calculates your equity for hands that went to showdown street by street. I've been running pretty far behind expectation. I'm owed about $2100 in equity. Here's the graph of my last week. Hopefully, I'll be going on a sick run pretty soon.
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