Operation Make Money

I 4bet bluff a ton at $25NL/$50NL vs taggs that 3bet OOP far too much.

I used to too and I showed a small profit. I table select like crazy now to where I rarely ever have to do so anymore. This is the biggest thing I'm working on is table selecting nonstop. It's true that there are enough tables at the stake to be able to switch a lot until we have a good one. It reduces variance from the regs and allows us to play fish.

Originally Posted by jyms

I 4bet bluff a ton at $25NL/$50NL vs taggs that 3bet OOP far too much.

I see this ambiguous term "too much" far too much. For anyone that reads this, please be more specific in your posts if possible. kthx

Originally Posted by PlayToWin

I see this ambiguous term "too much" far too much. For anyone that reads this, please be more specific in your posts if possible. kthx

This seems a bit ambuguous to me tbh, for anyone that reads this please don't read too much into it.

Yea, when I said "too much", I was being funny.

Originally Posted by kmind

$500 it is .

I think a verrrry small prop bet is fine because it is working so far. Up 3 buyins since nitting it up.

I've been looking at the software forums at 2+2. You guys ever try NoteCaddy? I dled the trial and it's pretty sick. It automatically writes notes based on hands that went to showdown (as well as a few others like gives up in 3bet pots) for every player. Even hands we weren't in. You can edit/add/delete specific notes. I'm also trying out StackAndTile which stacks all your tables and once you have action on one it tiles it in an open slot. Pretty cool but having difficulty with it. Plus I stopped playing a bunch of tables so it's not too useful right now.

Also, my second coaching session is tomorrow with mdorand.

Going to try and grind to at least BE this month pre rakeback. But only with my "new style".

I'm really curious about NoteCaddy? How's that working out for you? I went to their web site and damn that looks like the shit for sure. Did you end up purchasing the StakAndTile program? If not have you checked out TableNinja? It's an awsome program you really need to check out. Does all the table control stuff that it sounds like your looking for as well as has all kinds of hot keys etc.

Keep working your ass off buddy you'll get this shit down no doubt!

Haha yeah man it's pretty crazy. 10 free days and the like $40 or $50 but you can make $10 monthly payments until you reach however much it cost. But yeah I have TableNinja and just recently learned I can do so much more with it than I have been. I'm so dumb. Will definitely dissect the program some more.

As for poker I'm on a heater and am an hour away from my 40hr goal. I haven't played much lately so I could have gotten a lot more. Here's to a positive end to the month!

This notecaddy sounds interesting, maybe I'll check this out!

Do itttt. Here's the link at 2+2 for you guys: NoteCaddy - Programmable automatic notes for HEM/PT3 and automatic color coding for Stars/FTP - Commercial Software -- Two Plus Two Poker Forums

I downloaded NoteCaddy but I'm having some windows issues that won't let me give it permission to run as adminstrator but hopefully I'll figure it out soon. Watched all the videos on it and will probably just buy the darn thing!

Keep riding that heater buddy!!!!

Up for the month right now which feels good but I can't seem to be happy.

I'm troubled by a few things that have happened in the past involving a few FTRers that I let down. I hate letting people down especially when they were being very generous. I barely (if at all) talk to them anymore too . Yeah this is an emo post but it's on my mind and I wish I could fix it. Don't want to get into details right now.

Ok so being the old man around here I feel just maybe I can get away with giving some life advice?
Don't know exactly what it is you're referring to but just in general all through life we will on occasion let those we care about down. All we can hope for is those we care about care enough about us to except our shortcomings. We strive to do the right thing but still there will be times we will slip up or fail. If our friends are truly our friends they will have it within them to forgive us when we do come up short. If they do not then we have to analyze the situation and determine if what we did was of a magnitude we do not deserve forgiveness. If this is the case then we have to either live with it or possibly ask for a chance at redemption after letting those people know how important it is to us. Other than that we can not do any more than we have done.
I am of the belief that those I truly feel are important to me will most always except me with my shortcomings. Just as I except my friends and loved ones with their shortcomings as well. After nearly 50 years I have learned no one is perfect therefor I should not expect them to be perfect.
I hope you have done what you can to mend the situations. Be willing to allow yourself to be vulnerable and try to work it out. Life is to short to let these type of things linger. Friendships are of the most valuable things in life, unfortunately we don't always realize it until we've lost a lot of the good one!

Sorry to ramble and lecture!

Great post Harley.

Appreciate the advice Harley. Very good stuff throughout it and makes sense. I'm going to work on fixing this soon but not let it completely get to me because I'm not perfect and hopefully they've understood.

Congrats on your past couple of days too! Not just poker wise too. You seem to be getting things back in gear. Thanks again!

I feel like blogs are always best when someone has some good "life" advice as opposed to just poker. Don't get me wrong, the poker advice is solid but life > poker.

Alright so I posted in the September graphs thread in the BC. Basically, I hit above even for the month and then kept playing and fell below. Not too much to talk about. Had a 15bi downswing which is clear in the graph and just ran pretty bad overall as far as EV and coolers go.



As for October, I decided not to do any props regarding playing tighter or a certain # of hours. I do want to play a lot as moving up quicker would really help my future. I think having a fulltime job + playing at least 100NL would really help for extra spending money. I don't even have a job yet so yeah this isn't an immediate goal.

So far I have only played like 800 hands but haven't had too much of an opportunity to play. I also have 2 more hours with MDoranD and am pretty impressed with him so far.

Originally Posted by Micro2Macro

your biggest leak is being too results oriented

Thanks man. I posted results previously just to show everyone how I was doing without really caring if I was losing or winning but it's true; who gives a shit? Just always play your A-game.

As for some strategy help: I was playing vs. a guy who was extremely aggro. postflop raising/betting the flop 50% of the time over 8 times and full potting the flop/turn/river and only showdowned twice both having TP...once TPWK on a very wet board.

I had AT on a QT2tt board vs him and a reg. I was first to act and cbet and the reg folded and the aggro. minbet me. What's my plan?

And I know "always have a plan if you bet!".

Okay I just typed out a good sized response to that scenario you described but my puter deleted it all randomly because it is a cunt. So, I will rewrite the response because you are one of the nicest seeming guys on ftr and I have nothing else to do at this hour.

Okay let's think about the factors that you need to consider in this hand.

This guy is aggro, but from previous reads it's not a very polarised range when he starts shovelling monies in. He's also less likely to dick with us with total air when we bet on a 3 way flop. If he has a range of all Qx+ and draws then we'll have pretty shitty equity due to there being a load of combos of Qx and the draws still doing well vs us.

So looks like on the flop that even though he's generally aggro, our equity isn't going to be great and so we should probably fold, unless of course, we have another reason not to. So.....whatabout the LOL OMFG POT ODDS!!!!! that we're getting, is this a reason to peel the flop? Even if we have enough equity vs his range to peel a min raise based on these immediate pot odds in a vacuum, this is still going to be a fold and here's why.....

The other thing you observed about this guy is that when he played flops aggressively before, he potted turns and rivers and didn't slowdown. It's fairly likely he'll do this again on the turn with most of his range. What this means is, if we're going to call the flop minraise profitably, we need to also be able to call turns profitably when he bets larger amounts, because we think he'll do this very often. Since we actually have to fold turns due to his range containing too much Qx, it doesn't matter how good our odds on the flop are, because we very rarely get to realise any of the equity we have vs his flop raising range, because we don't and can't get to showdown profitably.

Therefore there can be spots where even if a min raise gives us the lolpotodds to make a call in a vacuum on the flop, looking only at only one street; analysis of the hand as a whole will show that we actually have way less equity than a stoved range on the flop will show us to have due to having to fold the turn/river so often. Thus, a lot of the equity we may have vs the draws or even air part of his range on the flop is actually ghost equity (dum dum DUM) since it hardly ever gets realised. So let's fold the flop.

Obviously if this guy is likely to start slowing down, giving up on the turn etc then we could peel since he'll define his range more on turn cards and allow us to play well vs him and get to showdowns. Since he isn't doing this often at all based on what we#ve observed, peeling the flop to fold turns a huge amount of the time will be setting monies on fire.

There are loads of ways to exploit a guy who goes mental with top pair, one of them is to fold 2nd pair when he starts going mental.

/rant.

Fairly tired, so what I say may be all nonsense. If it is, then just remember this: GHOST EQUITEEEEES.

That's siiiiiiiiick. Very much appreciate the response man! Now, the thing that also gets in the back my head in these spots is "Oh shit if I hit 2pair or trips on the turn I have sweeeeet implied odds". I'm starting to think that's wrong because a T or an A should at least calm him down some % of the time.

Ghost equities is awesome. Did you coin the term? There's a lot of spots that I madly call due to pot odds knowing I'll just fold the next street. I think you fixed myself a leak sir! Thanks!

Yeah ghost equitees is now copyright of carrotmanz! It all just depends on how frequently we think our opponent will be betting the turn, in this case we think a lot. I do it myself, and it's something I've been trying to plug recently.

hate to beat a dead horse here...

If we're folding to this raise, we should probably just c/f flop. But then if we go back further, how did we get into a raised pot first to act 3 ways against a reg and an agro player with AT? If we never get to showdown with middle pair, we probably wont get to showdown with top pair/10 kicker very much either.

Noones saying we're never getting to showdown when we open ATo preflop or even when we c bet this flop. Villain can call our c bet with worse Ts draws sometimes, as can the reg. It's just that when he does take this line he probably isn't relenquishing his aggression on later streets based on what we've seen and has loads of Qx.

Checking the flop maybe better here if they're likely to play draws aggressively and not call down lightly with worse value hands, expecially if we think this guy will take stabs at the pot with all of his air once it checks to him, in which case we can c/c vs him since his range in this spot could be a lot weaker than it is as played. B/f can be fine though provided villains are calling all their worse Ts, maybe even some worse made hands than this and calling with draws a decent % of the time as supposed to raising. Betting also has added beifits of A: protecting vs weak draws, or overcrads that will fold the flop and not put any money in unless they improve to beat us, and B: allowing us to avoid spots where we've given up the initiative, capped our range, and are now likely to make a mistake due to being unsure of how what villain bluffing frequncys will be like after we check the flop.

These 2 aren't reasons to be the flop in themselves but they certainly help sway things if we think it's at all close whether we can bet profitably for value or not.

Originally Posted by dev

hate to beat a dead horse here...

If we're folding to this raise, we should probably just c/f flop. But then if we go back further, how did we get into a raised pot first to act 3 ways against a reg and an agro player with AT? If we never get to showdown with middle pair, we probably wont get to showdown with top pair/10 kicker very much either.

First of all I appreciate the advice. I do need to think about this more. On the other side, I did think he'd flat sometimes if we cbet. Of course if he never flat I'd either b/c or c/f. And yeah carroter's post looks good.

Originally Posted by dev

If we're folding to this raise, we should probably just c/f flop.

I don't know about this. I can think of a million spots where I'll gladly bet a very marginal hand vs a calling range, but fold to a raise.

In this particular spot, knowing he's aggro, yes we should prob have a better plan facing a raise, given its so likely on this board. I would c/c sometimes and re-eval, instead of betting out on this board.

Some really good stuff gentlemen!

Originally Posted by Carroters

Okay I just typed out a good sized response to that scenario you described but my puter deleted it all randomly because it is a *cunt*. So, I will rewrite the response because you are one of the nicest seeming guys on ftr and I have nothing else to do at this hour.

: GHOST EQUITEEEEES.

*CUNT* my favorite word since it got my chat banned!

I lol'ed at Carroters calling kmind "one of the nicest seeming guys on ftr" for two reasons.
1) You are now considered one of the best of the worst!
2) The pot has called the kettle black!

Oh and I just think Ghost Equiteeees is a cool fucking term!

Alright update. At VA Tech for the week. Might move down to 10NL for a little as I started playing pretty poorly and let tilt get the best of me in a some of the few hands I've played this month. Coaching with MDoranD is done. Learned a lot and respect his game a lot more knowing that he provides for his family at the microstakes.

Just purchased CardrunnersEV and have been messing around with that a bit. I want to attach a few things I've learned and post them here. The program is crazy and I'm only just now learning the basics really. I've been messing around a lot with preflop situations that seem to occur frequently at my stakes vs. regs. It's great in that you can set different variables including, just as 1 example, how often one has to be 3betting you to make certain 4bet/5betcalls profitable. Of course this program will really be great with my postflop game which I've started doing a bit.

Basically, really started studying more than playing recently. I was playing/studying probably 95%/5% the last few months so this is probably a needed break as I'm not profiting as much.

If you guys have a CR membership check out the new Nikachu video. It's entertaining of course but also includes the main points I've received from coaches as well as what I've recently learned from CardrunnersEV. Basically, play like a nit vs. 3bettors and don't get in AK/QQ preflop until we have a read.


Here are the the 3bet %s I get to figure out when we can 4bet/get it in when villain is 5bet shoving QQ+/AK with 100bb effective stacks. We open to pot, villain 3bets us to 11bb, we 4bet to 24bb.

Ako
1 -9.118
2 -5.237
3 -2.406
4 -0.519
5 0.53
6 1.054
7 1.592
8 1.973

Aks
1 -7.302
2 -3.737
3 -1.356
4 0.231
5 1.113
6 1.554
7 2.007
8 2.327

QQ
1 -14.07
2 -4.564
3 -2.669
4 -1.448
5 -0.259
6 0.407
7 0.811
8 1.407

Aqs
1 -10.69
2 -10.21
3 -6.283
4 -4.037
5 -2.206
6 -1.291
7 -0.413
8 0.269
9 0.67
10 1.055
11 1.364
12 1.781

KK
1 0.204
2 3.71
3 3.868
4 3.971
5 4.019
6 4.046
7 4.066
8 4.089


*Note that the EV is at 25NL.

I checked that program out a bit and watched some demo vid, though it seems mad complicated/confusing.

how do you like it?

It does seem useful for very specific hands/spots though, but perhaps somewhat time consuming?

Im confused, what size of 4 bet does this work with, or am i completely missing the point?

Originally Posted by !Luck

Im confused, what size of 4 bet does this work with, or am i completely missing the point?

Sorry. Wrote it really quickly and had to run out. We open to pot, villain 3bets us to 11bb, we 4bet to 24bb.

Griffey - The guy who created it plans on updating the program with new videos/updated manual but the videos and manuals still work for the most part. Plus, the creator has emailed me back within 24 hours for every question I have asked him so far and he goes in-depth. I haven't had to pay him or anything either, he just does it. I even recently asked him to create a complex situation and he created the whole tree for me with a 3 paragraph explanation.

I think it's obviously great to go over a HH but you can even figure out some general concepts like the example I posted above. I've also worked on finding how often I can 3bet vs. players given how villain should respond. You can obviously figure out unexploitable shoving ranges. You can even have it solve the absolute +EV strategy on certain streets. Here's an example for the turn: Nieuwe pagina 1. You can use it for tournament play too. There's a ton more you can do too.

Keep in mind I've had the program for less than a week so I'm sure there are TONS of stuff I still need to learn. And yes, it's really confusing but you can email the creator or PM me and I might be able to help. I also googled the program and found that andyakb uses it and I think you talk to him so I'm sure he'd know a lot more than me.

Originally Posted by kmind

If you guys have a CR membership check out the new Nikachu video. It's entertaining of course but also includes the main points I've received from coaches as well as what I've recently learned from CardrunnersEV. Basically, play like a nit vs. 3bettors and don't get in AK/QQ preflop until we have a read.


Here are the the 3bet %s I get to figure out when we can 4bet/get it in when villain is 5bet shoving QQ+/AK with 100bb effective stacks. We open to pot, villain 3bets us to 11bb, we 4bet to 24bb.

Ako
1 -9.118
2 -5.237
3 -2.406
4 -0.519
5 0.53
6 1.054
7 1.592
8 1.973

Aks
1 -7.302
2 -3.737
3 -1.356
4 0.231
5 1.113
6 1.554
7 2.007
8 2.327

QQ
1 -14.07
2 -4.564
3 -2.669
4 -1.448
5 -0.259
6 0.407
7 0.811
8 1.407

Aqs
1 -10.69
2 -10.21
3 -6.283
4 -4.037
5 -2.206
6 -1.291
7 -0.413
8 0.269
9 0.67
10 1.055
11 1.364
12 1.781

KK
1 0.204
2 3.71
3 3.868
4 3.971
5 4.019
6 4.046
7 4.066
8 4.089


*Note that the EV is at 25NL.

ok so this means that say with AKo it is EV+ to get it in when your oppnent has a 3b% greater or equal to 5% ect?

Yes given the scenario (which I find common).

Villain is unknown. What do you guys think? Here's some of my thinking:

- preflop is meh. He has a full stack and I'm not really comfortable getting it in here so I just elect to call. Playing OOP though sucks
- flop he's cbetting almost always if he's a regularish player. Even if he's not, he can have a lot of Ax/Qx that I beat. If I rr he probably only continues with better
- turn I hit top two pair. I think he'll call with KQ/AQ if I raise and of course with better stuff. If he's a fish then he probably still calls with Ax one pair hands and maybe a FD
- river I curse but feel like I could shove myself, c/c or even c/f (). Since he's an unknown I just don't feel like he has like AJ here much.


Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $0.10 BB (6 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

UTG ($12.92)
MP ($10.55)
CO ($10.15)
Button ($6.73)
Hero (SB) ($10)
BB ($10.83)

Preflop: Hero is SB with K, A
UTG bets $0.35, 3 folds, Hero calls $0.30, 1 fold

Flop: ($0.80) Q, 8, A (2 players)
Hero checks, UTG bets $0.70, Hero calls $0.70

Turn: ($2.20) K (2 players)
Hero checks, UTG bets $1.45, Hero raises to $3.80, UTG calls $2.35

River: ($9.80) 10 (2 players)
Hero checks, UTG bets $5.25, Hero calls $5.15 (All-In)

Total pot: $20.10 | Rake: $1.34

After the hand, I did a few EV calcs and kind of felt like my c/c was very very marginal. Definitely depends on if my range I gave him was correct. However, shoving seemed to be the best by far. He can even fold all of his two-pair hands and it'd still be more +EV. Even if he CALLS his sets 100% of the time. If we make it so he calls two pair 20% of the time and sets 90% then it's a much better play.

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 20.000% 20.00% 00.00% 2 0.00 { AhKs }
Hand 1: 80.000% 80.00% 00.00% 8 0.00 { QQ+, 88, AQs, KQs }

If AQo and KQo is not in his range you are toast.

You should probably include some combos of JTs even, JTss for sure. Might even just flat JThh/JTdd.

QJss may also play like this, but prob also checks flop or turn some of the time. I feel as though AJ would check back this turn a reasonable amount.

I don't mind your line here, given he has like 3 reasonable combos of having Jx. Your pot odds are very good, he needs like 1 bluff combo.

Oops - I did include JTs in there and even offsuit. I'm leaving right now from the gfs and have a bball game at 7 but I'll post some screen shots of what CardrunnersEV is telling me. Appreciate the feedback guys.

Alright was too exhausted last night and the gf decided to come home with me and skip the rest of her classes this week. I adjusted a few things and agree that c/c is worse than c/f with shoving still best. iLuck, I think we have to go a little deeper in that range because he'll have certain frequencies that you didn't take into account. Like 20% he might still shove twopair, 50% a set, etc.

Here are some pics of CRev.



This was the example of c/c. I made it so he bets a set 80% of the time which is probably too much but even decreasing that number doesn't change the EV too much. Definitely -EV.



This is the shoving tree. He calls with a set 65% and two pair 20% (it says "at least MP" but it's actually two pair I just accidentally changed the name to that).

Anyways, it's (more?)interesting to note that my turn play is just -EV all around. C/r here given the range I put him on is not an optimal play at all. Hmm...

So what's optimal line? C/C turn and possible C/C river?

And I am not an apple product (iluck)..its !luck, funny how ! is inverse of i.

haha I just imagined it was some weird iLuck thing sorry! But yeah I'm lazy...I assume c/c has got to be optimal on the turn.

Here are the ranges I gave villain so you guys can get more out of it:

- AK,AQ,AJ,AT,A9,JT,AA,QQ,88. Suited and offsuit.
- On the turn I think he folds the A9

For reference. ! in some programing languages stands for not, thus the name is notluck.

I always thought you just fucked up and put the ! in front of Luck instead of after like this: Luck!

No respect, m2m.

/hijack thread

BACK TO ME.

gf just left which means time to grind (though I doubt I will much because of my work ethic) and study. I'm relying on myself to study 2 and maybe a third hand tonight that kind of bothered me. The plays were semi-standard too but just want to mess around with alternative lines. I've been playing 10NL FR the past 2 times I grinded with good results but only played short sessions. I'm working hard on making the absolute best decision on every street from preflop to the river. I am happy with my play for the most part recently.

k - failed to study those hands. Instead, I grinded some more. This time 10NL 6max. I'm determined to play some more hands here and get more breathing room for 25NL.

I'm going to work on those HH studies technically today and then I want to really dive deep into blind play. I've always been told I'm leaking too much in the SB/BB and want to come up with a few new ways I can help ease the losses.

From my brief stint, it looks like FR will be less of leak in this area than 6max because of the nittiness.

I suck at reading. Have you lost your way down to 10nl, or withdrawn your way down?

Are you playing FR now, or just experimenting?

BEN! Hi!

I've withdrawn my way down there. Also still have spending problems and pay a ton for software/coaching. But that has basically paid back for itself. I did however go on a 15bi downswing last month that didn't help. Last month I finished around even (and had to make a big comeback) and then this month I'm up VERY little. Basically even. I dropped down to 10NL FR (experimenting)/6max just to pad my roll some more and I am doing pretty well there.

Part of the reason I dropped down, too, is that I bought a program called CardRunnersEV and want to experiment with a few "findings" while studying. The program is an EV calculator for like any situation and you can create variables to find certain frequencies/stack sizes/anything that are the bare minimum for +EV situations, if that makes sense. The very first post on this page with the 4bet/calling stuff is an example. There's more you can do with it too of course.

TAG pre, c-bet some, don't run multi-street bluff lines, value bet. Good. Now, how do i get my money for all the coaching you need to beat 10nl?

Originally Posted by kmind

pay a ton for software/coaching.

money well spent?

Money well spent to me.

Not sure what your hatred is for that stuff. The guy was beating the game I play for a far better winrate (actually the biggest overall winner in the games) so he obviously had tips to fix some leaks/learn new "tricks". 10NL is a lot different than 25NL from my experience. At least 6max wise, and I don't need to spend money for coaching there. If you view my graph from last month you'll see when the green line started going up. That's when he stepped in.

The programs are CardrunnersEV (expensive) and NoteCaddy (meh...but doing the microstakes plan). I feel like I've already fixed a few leaks with CRev and NoteCaddy can only help.

This post isn't to prove you wrong but more so prove myself right. Money is tight with a long distance gf so I don't want to buy anything not useful for the long run.

Originally Posted by drmcboy

why is playing too many tables the only way you can not play bad? The fact that you just state it casually like it isn't ridiculous is even worse. I mean I hope you aren't paying anyone for coaching when you already know about this gigantic leak you're ignoring. In addition I don't believe for a second whatever this is it only happens when you have XX tables, that's just the only time you actually notice it. But playing a bunch of tables and grinding rake back is a good way to keep pretending it's not there.

Lol, ok going back and reading this thing. As soon as I saw your thing about 14 tabling because otherwise you play too loose my first thought was "drmcboy would have a fit over a statement like this!!" and was going to respond along those lines, but he already did.

If you have a leak, fix it, don't disguise it.


Also after my reply to that thread in the high stakes forums (blue book thread), it really stood out to me your recent posts about planning to study a few hands, but then grinding instead. If you're going to do this right. If you're going to spend this money on stuff, you need to devote the time to doing your study. Its way too easy to get lulled into just playing because face it, thats what we want to do, but if you want to improve, you need to study as well as get hands in.

Yeah agreed. I did study some tonight and tbh I've been studying a lot more than I used to. I'm proud of my studying lately for the most part. I'm really sick right now and have just felt so unmotivated to do much but I'm still very interested in studying. This feeling hasn't hit me in awhile. I do need someone to get on my case though for sure.

One way to look at it: if you don't feel up to concentrating on study, that probably means you're not up to concentrating on playing well.

Good to hear you're getting it done generally though.

Dont discount the value of just taking a few days or a week off and ignoring anything poker related. Just refresh yourself. When you're sick could be the perfect time. Read some books, watch some movies, and once you feel up to it return with a vengeance.

Originally Posted by kmind

Money well spent to me.

only thing that matters!
I wasn't trying to be offensive, but i admit that i was prodding a little and you're right, i do have some kind of innate objection to paying/training/etc at things that i love doing. Take climbing, it occupied all my time for some years and i've reached ok levels, but i refuse to 'train'.

an overlooked value of coaching is that there's this funny psychological thing where paying for something often makes it more effective - i use my approach to learning spanish as an example. When i'm paying for something i'm far more likely to maximise my gain from it - if i'm studying for free, i'll easily justify not giving it 100%. Weakness? sure. Common? yep. so, what am i trying to say? Well, living in chile and paying a bunch (don't remember - US$200/week?) for lessons got me moving way faster than almost everything else i'd bothered with (one exception = living at a surf beach with almost exclusively non-english speakers -> spanish was the lingua franca/gringa/whateva)

i think that coaching isn't 'necessary' because, in theory, you could gain the same info required to beat the same stakes in the same number of hours - for free. But, if you're anything like me, it's likely that you'll gain a lot more from paying for those hours. Kinda perverse huh, human nature is weird.

re 10nl being different from 25nl, it definitely applies in FR too - maybe cos you can make a decent salary there if your salary context is eastern europe/asia.

Originally Posted by kmind

This post isn't to prove you wrong but more so prove myself right. Money is tight with a long distance gf so I don't want to buy anything not useful for the long run.

no problem dude!

also, go read bjs's post in the poker book thread in the high stakes forum

oh, and if anything i wrote reeks of some strange mid-afternoon borneo cocktail of redbull-isotonic soft drink-local brandy, well, that's hardly a coincidence

I'm proud of all your studying kmizzle, hope it pays off!

If you're using this EV program a lot, I'd say try to focus on mid-sized spots that occur often, as opposed to bigger spots that happen rarely.

Just a simple situation, like you have JJ on Kd6s8d board and you bet and he c/c flop, and turn is a 2h or something. I think this spot, and choosing the right decision between betting for value again and checking is prob more valuable than what to do when facing some big c/r on a dry board on the turn.

griff - haha yep I have actually checked out stuff like that a little but will do so more! I'm really determined to study not only a few HH here and there but big stuff that comes up a lot. Which is why I made the post at the top of this page. But yeah, my goal is to study blind play right now AND study your example .

daven - great post! I understand where you are coming from and you gave some pretty interesting examples. Plus that drink sounds pretty good. I'm a redbull fan.

bjs - good call and I knew you were going to say "don't play if you're sick!". And I agree.

I'm going to forget playing tonight as I'm still sick and HOPEFULLY get into some blind playing stuff. I have some dodgeball (wow I'm cool) tonight to get prepared for this weekend's big tournament. Winner gets some cash moneyyyy and free chick-fil-a for a year. I've gotten close the past 2 years but were placed in the hardest division each time that featured the eventual winners . This time we have a new team full of football/college baseball players. We'll look intimidating at least .

Too many smilies in this post.

haha damn.. sounds like your dodgeball team is stacked

I play dodgeball on wednesdays.. my arms ALWAYS gets messed during the games and days after. years of pitching/playing third base catching up to me!

We play in a pretty rec league though and we're still only 4-4 haha. You'd probably kill our team :P

Damn you never told me that haha. I have been playing for the past 3 years when I was in college. I don't get to play really anymore since I've graduated so this is pretty big for me. My arms ALWAYS get killed too so don't think it's just you! Plus I have a basketball game tomorrow so I can't go fullspeed tonight .

Not sure how stacked our team is because I've found that having the strongest/biggest people doesn't mean they'll be good at dodgeball. Would love to play your team haha.

I can't sleep. Even after playing for the most of the game in bball and after dodgeball. No matter what I get into my bed and toss and turn for 2 hours until I can't take it, get on the internet for 20 minutes and then repeat the routine and sleep at around 5am. Around 4 hours after I first attempt to sleep and am genuinely tired.

Because of this I have been so tired during the days and unmotivated/too lethargic to study poker or play in the past few days. I've told myself I can't play or study like this until I've actually woken up at least before 11 and had more than 7hrs of sleep.

When you're attempting to sleep at 12 or 1 is this after only being up for like 12-14 hours, cos if so that could be the problem. I know Ican't sleep at night unless I've been up for like 15-16 at least.

Yep, I'm usually only up 12-14 hours when I try to sleep. And I understand that I need to be awake more BUT I've been completely exhausted when trying to sleep the past two nights. I play basically the whole game in bball and I'm usually the last to go in dodgeball (without trying to sound conceited). I'm just saying I'm out of shape now AND I play more than most so it really beats me down. I get home, call the gf for 45 minutes, shower and try to sleep to no avail.

Poker is constantly flooding my thoughts when I lay down. At first I was semi-happy because I haven't felt like this in awhile but now it's annoying. It's like kids. I want to tell my thoughts that I promise to play with them first thing in the morning if they just let me sleep now.

I feel like your avatar when I close my eyes.

Originally Posted by kmind

I feel like your avatar when I close my eyes.

i def lol'd....

but we all know real reason you cannot sleep is because the garnet and gold machine is rolling through Raleigh tonight, i guess its gonna be even harder to sleep after the game with all the grieving your going to have to do, but youll get over it.

Originally Posted by philly and the phanatics

i def lol'd....

but we all know real reason you cannot sleep is because the garnet and gold machine is rolling through Raleigh tonight, i guess its gonna be even harder to sleep after the game with all the grieving your going to have to do, but youll get over it.

I want to trash talk but I can't. I think we have a good team this year. I think FSU has a much better team this year.

But in seriousness yes even this game ruined at least 15 minutes of my sleep. Should be fun I hope! I remember a few years ago on a Thursday being the first (jumped the fence early and had security hold me back) to rush the field when we beat y'all .

Originally Posted by kmind

I want to trash talk but I can't. I think we have a good team this year. I think FSU has a much better team this year.

But in seriousness yes even this game ruined at least 15 minutes of my sleep. Should be fun I hope! I remember a few years ago on a Thursday being the first (jumped the fence early and had security hold me back) to rush the field when we beat y'all .

hell ya, nc state fsu games are always great, the one where we went to OT in doak and thorpe broke his leg comes to mind first, even the last 2 games were great

i have to say i think we are much better than in years past, but NC state is def on the come up and if someone other than us had to win the ACC i would want it to be them just because i have a mancrush on Russel Wilson

Russell is pretty damn sexy you have to admit. If only he'll stay for his senior year. Man I just hope for another good one tonight! I won't be near the computer when it's on but good luck!

Just to check the obvious, but how late in the day do you drink coffee or other caffeinated drinks?

Its surprising how many people tell me they're insomniacs, and then I find out they're having double strength coffees after dinner and trying to convince me that coffee doesn't affect them. My personal rule is no coffee after 2 if I want to get to sleep around 10pm. If not, I get that 'really tired, but almost twitching' feeling in bed.

Don't drink coffee but haven't had any caffeine after probably 9PM. I HAVE however had to eat dinner late at night sometimes. But tbh I've had trouble sleeping for the past 2 months now. Just not this severe. Used to be only 2-3 hours. Now it's getting worse.

Also - why are poker players dicks a lot of the time? I feel like a lot of them were born into rich families and are just spoiled douchebags. They don't really know how to act so they decide to be unappreciative dicks. I really don't get it. I'm not talking about one post/person in particular but I mean Marshall's comment is a good example. He was pretty bad at communicating with me when we had a coaching session too. Maybe some people are just really bad at communicating with others in general (I think Marshall even admits this). Again this rant isn't about Marshall, it's more about other people. His example is just pretty recent and on FTR.

Poker (esp online) isn't particularly social. There's no reason to expect them to be any more sociable than say online games. There's just a level of anonymity combined with the ability to be successful without having social graces. Its a spectrum though, plenty of nice guys too.

damn between the vikings and the noles i am feeling like quite the masochist.

Good game, you guys played a hell of a game, just when i thought Ponder had finally stepped it up to that next level ...well yea we all know what happened. This ones gonna sting for a couple of days

Originally Posted by bjsaust

Poker (esp online) isn't particularly social. There's no reason to expect them to be any more sociable than say online games. There's just a level of anonymity combined with the ability to be successful without having social graces. Its a spectrum though, plenty of nice guys too.

Yeah agreed.

Now I'm having trouble IRL. Friday night some guy tried to fight me for saying "I like your costume man but who exactly are you?" in a really friendly way. My friends way out number him and he semi-calms down after calling everyone a "faggot".

Then Saturday our dodgeball team is in of course the hardest division again for the tournament. We have to play the defending champs who are huge douches. Pretty sure they're like the straightedge kids who think they're huge badasses(big reason why I started drinking because I was sick of these kids wanting to befriend me). Anyways, some guy sort of shoulders the smallest guy on my team when walking by so my teammate shoves the shit out of him. Then this small semi-chubby but thinks he's really strong guy gets in his face. I get in the middle and tell him to "calm the fuck down" (keep in mind this is a charity event and he's saying "fuck" first but there's a special olympics team right next to us ) and he finally quit and says "fuck that kid and fuck you" so I say "fuck you" too of course and at this point it gets a little crazy with random people trying to stop us. Some guy tried to kick out the kid for cussing too much. My gf's made at me for cussing in front of the special kids etc. Anyways, we play this team a few games later and one of their other players is in the corner but I didn't know he was actually out and trying to leave the court so I nailed him. This caused another uproar and he started cussing me out and I looked at my teammates who were already out laughing when I honestly meant nothing by it. Their team sees me laugh and goes nuts. After the game I try to explain I really thought he was out but to no avail. They are say shit to me and one guy says to "stop fucking talking to us ever again".

What's funny is that our team would have beat the shit out of them. I'm not a big fan of these straightedge kids who try to start something over the stupidest stuff. I have plenty of straightedge friends and I respect them I was technically one for a loooong time but come on.

/end rant, bad story-telling, nothing cool actually happening

Check out griffey's thread in the 6max forum about blind play. I posted the links I was going to post here. I also still plan to do some self analysis but I predict the thread will have better answers than what I can come up with.

Was this dodge ball played in New Jersey?

So how did the tourney go overall?

What was first place prize?

Originally Posted by !Luck

Was this dodge ball played in New Jersey?

This was in Virginia. Although this tournament gets teams from up to Ohio I've heard. This team in particular that I was talking about was from Baltimore or around there so maybe they're from Jersey?

griff - tournament was so frustrating. A lot of teams didn't show up in our division so we had only 4 teams in there with the top 2 advancing to the next round. We CHOKED. NO WAY should we have no advanced. And we ended up probably in last too. It was so frustrating. I didn't play great and I think our team just needed to strategize more and maybe should have had a practice or something. It's a lot different than the dodgeball we're used to playing so assuming that we can adjust easily was wrong.

IMO, we left ourselves with either 0 balls or 1 ball way too often and when we threw we just did it randomly. I think we should have talked about either having 2 people throw at the same time at one target or kind of fake do it and throw at 2 targets. Blah SO frustrating.

Winners receive free Chick-fil-a as much as you want for a year plus the team as a whole splits $1000.

I also want to give a shoutout to my gf's dad turning 50. After the tournament my gf and I traveled to her place to give him a surprise bday. My parents came too who didn't know many of the people there but they're all nice and we all had a great time.

kmind,

I just making reference to the jersey show, which I don't watch. But, last week (or maybe 2 weeks ago) south park had a jersey shore show.

Maybe it's a Jersey thing..

Anyways, my attempt at clever fails. Sucks though shit goes down like that. Now crush some poker.

Ahh sorry man! Though my gf and her roommates/everyone in college it seems watches that stuff I don't or else I'm sure I would have gotten that.

So here's my last month (graph at bottom). Very low volume as this is from both my laptop and desktop. The whole losing part is from 25NL and the whole winning part is from 10NL (minus the quick winning part to start the month). I've made a few changes in my game since I have been winning but judging from the 25NL play this month I still have some work to do. I'm doing fairly well at 10NL again this month but something about 25NL. They don't fold as much .

I'm liking my play for the most part. I think this month I really screwed up one hand thinking villain was someone else and then I missed a few cbets/value bets elsewhere that would help my winrate. I think my blind play, from the limited studying I have done, has improved pretty drastically. I'm much more aggressive in this area, which of course has caused my red line to be a lot more positive than it was.

I'm thinking that I was just way too passive before and being aggressive here is usually +EV in a vacuum. As long as I can balance my play at certain times vs. certain opponents I should have a much better winrate in the blinds. I've started my research but have a lot more tweaks before I can really get a good start. I'll be using CRev and flopzilla a lot. The cool thing with CRev is that you can create simulations of actual hands so I can run a bunch of these just to make sure my "bot" is how I want it. I'm also trying to familiarize myself more with the automated exploitation tool it has that creates the most +EV play for every single hand given we know villain's strategy on later streets. I think I will be able to mimic villain's strategy pretty well so I have faith I can get this to work pretty realistically.

Off to my bball game tonight and then VA Tech to see them dominate the Yellow Jackets. Should be freezing and raining. WOOOO.

Lets keep an eye out for each other, and I can watch you play sometime!!

Haven't been able to put much volume in but still up at 10NL running well. Playing pretty well too but pretty sure I made a mistake vs. a tightish donk getting in QQ 100bb deep preflop. He had previously 3bet KJs but other than that he was pretty tight. Anyways, I won vs. his AA.

I'm playing much more aggressively preflop. I'm stealing a lot more vs. nits, 3bet bluffing non-stealers who have widish EP ranges, and of course 3betting the stealers that fold a lot. I'm finding some good success and really trying to time my moves correctly so that I'm not doing this 100% of the time. This is the biggest reason my redline is going up a lot more than before. This and b/f on later streets.

I'm finding that calling/raising a ton out of the blinds at my stakes is actually better because villain's take such passive and transparent lines postflop. The turncbet% stat is huge I've found with this stuff. I mean I know a lot of people look at this stat but it has more of an impact than I thought. Being able to call a lot more in the blinds and exploiting them postflop is +EV. We can predict preflop ranges/cbet ranges/etc. and figure out which boards they'll usually fire on yet still have airish hands and we can attack them there too. You don't have to rep much in these games.