Thanks for this. First.

I also want to submit a request to kick Ddog in the nuts everytime when he's about to litter these new threads with his gigabyte-heavy gifs.

Finally ! Thanks~ Hate the load up

I'm currently developing a new 8 part series for RIO

Getting in on the ground floor for this one! Looking forward to what comes up :)

Also in before 2 hour load times within the first month.

Following!

in b4 GIF Pron. Pumped for the new series!

Thought:

When someone bets too thin and you call too light, it doesn't necessarily mean they suck. Consider the possibility that you just got owned.

This will be one of the most important strategy posts I've made to date. It's something I've only understood recently by going deeper than ever into the private coaching sector and patternizing the leaks of players ranging from micro losers to HSNL winners. More specifically, by paying attention to their rationalization in spots that I'm confident are hurting their win-rate and development:

For 99% of you, there are a substantial amount of lines that you should not be bluffing on the river. Period.

I almost hesitate to write this because of how misinterpreted it will probably become. I'll try to be as clear as possible:

I am not advocating that you aspire to a hugely imbalanced river strategy for the rest of your career, or against the most observant regs. I'm honestly just saying that you're not ready for anything else. Your ranging skills and thought processes are not subtle enough to trust. 90% of the rationalizations I hear from players for why they pulled the trigger with a bluff on the river in a line that is not exploitatively supported by any sort of quantifiable metrics are just a total load of assumptive shit. With love, I'm telling you how ridiculous you guys sound. Show some humility when analyzing a hand.

With Hand2Note, we've been able to expose with strong support over gigantic samples that certain river lines should be bluffed relentlessly. The fold deviations on the road to high stakes are so universal and substantial in some lines that a player could blindly apply aggression (disregarding texture completely) and be bluffing the river super profitably the vast majority of the time. He could literally close his eyes and play on line recognition alone.

Now, what most guys do is overapply river bluffing in lines that are much more unclear, using bias texture analysis to support their action. This isn't exlclusive to forcing aggression, but it's where it most commonly surfaces, because aggro fuckers love to find a reason. And I love you guys, I came from that imbalance, but again, show some humility toward your ranging skills. For the most part, you're projecting your own assumption onto the villain and calling it a solid read. So many players have dozens of lost-pot anomoly hands over a 5000 hand sample where they are trying to justify "non-standard" bluffs (for lack of a better term) based on case-by-case analysis. You're banging your head into a wall. I'm going to simplify this:

Do not bluff the river without extremely high confidence that what
you're doing is empirically supported by some sort of data point you
can produce.

For most of you , especially if you show enough humility to game select properly even as you clear high stakes, it will never become relevant to play anywhere near a well balanced river strategy. That being said, as your understanding of range vs range interaction grows, and your self trust and sensitivity to how you're perceived at the table deepens, you will naturally find yourself bluffing more spots with real confidence. Until then, show some humility and check the river more often. You probably don't have a good enough reason to bluff. Did I mention to show some humility?

Be interested to see how you handle/blueprint strategy for playing turns having raised btn and cbet 1/3 of pot vs BB. Also how you play BB vs this strategy.
SB vs BB is another commonly occuring spot would be great to get some analysis on.

Any updates? I'm stoked for another twitch stream :D

I've paraphrased the following email I received last week to represent the most common question I'm asked by players who are actively looking to improve their game:

Hi Nick, I gravitate toward your style of teaching, but I'm not sure
I'm at a level yet where I would actually benefit from delving into
your more advanced content. I do not know much, if anything, about
game theory and equilibrium. That being said, I do enjoy your methods
of simplification, and the data driven driven support you give for
applying blueprint exploits. I'm looking for direction. What should
be the next move for somebody like me who has struggled for a while,
and is currently trying to rebuild his game?

For some reason I opened this email several different times over the course of the week and just stared at it. I haven't drawn a blank like that since I saw my first pair of tits IRL. I guess I had this moment where it no longer felt right to give any sort of general stock response. I finally emailed him back and told him I would organize my thoughts and write them in my blog. To this player: I'd like to start by saying thanks for your perseverance and inspiration. Here's my new stock response:

If I told you it really doesn't matter what direction you take, your knee jerk reaction would probably be some form of resistance. Most of you are on a path that you believe is accurate, even if that path is currently just "a search for the right direction".

I'm telling you it doesn't matter. None of your moves matter. Not ultimately. All that matters is your dedication to consistent change. A wonderful paradox.

There are students for whom my courses are career and life changing, and students for whom my courses fall to the wayside. The difference is always in their ability to grasp that the heart of what I teach is not tactical. If a process remains tactical , it will ultimately fail, because it will eventually be corrupted by the personal imbalances of the tactician. He will either burn out or recklessly overapply concepts until he burns his roll out.

Tactics are only skin deep. Real growth is about you, and your dedication to improvement. Most of you like to argue that you're dedicated, and that you just need direction. But you're not dedicated. You're insistent in your methods. Real dedication is humility. Humble people change when things don't work.

This industry sucks at changing. Long ago, It chose to polarize into an over-analytical path, and that choice continues to create the bulk of its struggle. Most guys are not ok with change, let alone continuous change. Unfortunately, that's what it takes to sustain accuracy: an allegiance to change.

My advice to those of you looking for direction would be to break the pattern -- including the pattern of "looking for direction". Looking is the best way to stay stuck. You've had enough time. You know your options. Start already. Flip a fucking coin if you have to. Just take a step in literally any direction, other than the one you're pointed in right now. That first step might not get results, but it will increase your perspective, and that perspective will give you the ability to calibrate more accurately with your next step.

"But I can't afford to experiment and be wrong!"

No, you can't afford to stay put. You're holding on to something that is of no value. It's not working. It's not variance. It's not worth defending.

You're in a better position than I was just by being able to read this post. I'm not more clever than you. I was probably just in more pain than you. The type of pain that causes you to step hard in the direction of the unknown. I took that first step out of desperation and blind faith. I took that step out of logic. The next chapter of your poker journey can start right now. And now. And now. And now. And now.

Pokerstars 50nl

BB folds 60% v Button RFI over giant recent samples.

From a 100M hand database of PS 100-600nl, the top 14 volume regs combine to be a losing group. What does that mean for you?

I am playing 50NL zoom on stars. I am not the loosest player possible, I play 24/19 with 3b 7. I am winning a few before rakeback (about 2.5 bb/100 hands).

I have just analyzed my database for 2017 and came up to a shocking result. The rake I paid up to now is an average of about 10bb/100 hands. I don't know really how sustainable this is on a long term for the average player. In a scenario of a 6 max game with 6 players of the same type, it would mean that after 1000 played hands total rake paid to the site would be 600 bb. It's 6 buy-in's. What do you think about this?

I would be curious how much are you guys paying rake on average for 100 hands.

That amount is the rake paid as I see it in hm2. I don't know if it is just on won pots or total.

If you haven't checked out Elliot Roe's new "Poker Mind Coach Academy", do so. The SVS series it comes with contains literally the best material I've come across for helping a player to increase his volume goals. I'm currently at a house with one of my CFP teams in Athens and we dove into it this morning. I ended up marathoning it till lunch. Really impressive content and just an overall great complement to any player's game. Here's the link

@JohnyC

I'd say it's definitely more like my stuff..deep core patterns that control a player'a psyche. But he also does a great job of leveraging the content step by step to get you playing more volume in a really systematic way.

Hi Nick .
We are a small skype group studying Poker. There was a hand disucsssion today between the Nick Fanboys of us where we faced an contradictory thought process at least for us .

Here is the hand. Viallain is a recreational Player

https://www.weaktight.com/h/58ecec7cd39043724c8b46f3

Data Points we got from your Video :

Riveragression on Micros is mostly Value and too less bluffs if any.
Potsize Donks on River are mostly for value

On the other hand you said in on of your streams as long as we could dominate the Value Part of Viallains Range we should call .

The Question now is if ATs,AJs,TT, maybe JTs are all "Value hands" for our Opponent should we call also considering the Player Profile or should we fold based on the general tendencies on the micros.

Thanks

Dirk

PS: based on Pool Ananlyze 3-Bet % BB vs CO is 6.5% so all hands could be in his 3-Betting Range

Thanks Dirk for letting me know about this thread. Subbed!

Ok . Thanks for your answers guys.

So in general :

We are overfolding vs regs because it's not bluffed enough but the rec Profile changes things and we call wider because recs can have a lot more worse hands ?

I'm playing in a heads up tournament this weekend to support the "solve-for-why" Academy, led by Matt Berkey and friends. Matt's giving away .33% of his Super High Roller Bowl action (300k buyin) to the winning bracket. You can fill one out by hitting the link below.

My first match is Sunday afternoon.. everything will be streamed on Twitch from Berkey's house, will post links when we're live.

*Also, I'm streaming tomorrow at 1pm Pacific, come through!

Fill out your bracket

Jumping on Twitch right now for some real talk.
Link

Quido

I've decided instead to facilitate a large Skype grouping process, for anyone who gravitates toward my content and is looking get involved with guys who like to study the game. Skype just seems like the more practical route. Basically we'll start with a huge group, and then break off systematically into smaller groups based on sites/stakes/study preferences. Members can form groups relevantly from there, and the main group will stay active as sort of the mother network if you ever want to regroup.
My plan is to launch this in June or July around the same time that I unroll a webinar, "Gun to the Head", which is going to be a swift, hard hitting kick in the ass to anyone who really wants to barrel through the ranks to high stakes. No more excuses. My goal is to take all the leverage you've built so far through your struggles, and send you over the emotional tipping point once and for all. High stakes success is closer than you think.
I think a fresh Skype network will be a great complement to this lecture. It's for anyone who's truly done asking for permission, and ready to take it down. You just need keep moving in the brightest direction, non-stop. Could you do it if I put a gun to your head?

I also think a forum would be much better, just for people who have bought one of your products,at least then everyone would be on the same page and•have shown some motivation to improve. Things just get lost in Skype, people start new topics and then old ones are forgotten about.

We're currently streaming a heads up tournament live over at the SolveForWhy headquarters. My match starts at 4pm, I'll be doing commentary on the other matches before that.

Come join us here

I liked my opponent Brent Hanks a lot. We will be live-streaming a heads up kielbasa cookout on day 3 of the tournament. I'm spending some time today researching strat.

Guys I'd like your opinion on something. Should we have a calling range IP when we have an open raise then a 3bet? For instance, UTG opens to 3bb, mp folds, CO 3bets to 9bb and we're on the button. Assuming that we play differently depending on opponents what range do we call with?

@SneakyFeet
I think it makes sense to call with playable hands that aren't strong enough to 4bet and get in. Suited broadways medium/strong PP's would be the meat of the range, and then you can mix in some AK and AA if you're concerned with balance. In the end it's going to matter much more how well you maneuver postflop.. as long as you're giving yourself good playability I think you're fine pre.

Thanks Nick that's great. I was a little concerned with our range being capped when we call but if we're mixing in some AA and AK that covers that issue. This spot comes up quite often so thanks again for the clarity.

Hey, Nick how many hours aspiring HS crusher, you think whos currently playing midstakes, should dedicate to PIO per week?

atown36

It's difficult to say because it's so dependent on how efficiently you are already using the solftware. There are guys who are spending 3 hours a day on Pio and actually hurting their winrate. I was one of them. I think players should consider using Pio in 2 main ways:

1) As a tool to explore general equilibrium
2) As a launching pad for exploitative strategy development

As a far as a time goal per day spent studying, I would always cap it when it stops being fun. If it's rarely fun, you should audit your whole approach. Allowing for more spontaneity in your exploration is a great start.

Hey Nick, I just watched your last video on youtube. I was following along in my own database while watching and was quite shocked to notice that the student in the video is a decent winner when filtering for "player won or lose between 1.5 and 4bbs" but I am just getting destroyed when I filtered for that in my own database:

Is this a huge leak? What do you think would be causing this? Thanks.

Thanks for the comments. Fold to 3 bet is 64% I know this is too high I've been working on it lately. Fold to cbet is 49% overall is that high?

Here's my results when defending BB vs SB.

I have no idea how to interpret stats from the BB as I understanding we should generally be losing in BB and in many spots our goal is just to lose less than when we fold?

Surrak

Here is one of my graphs for won/lost filtered for 1.5bb - 4bb:

Below is a larger sample, same filter. I made an alias of my hands and some of my 1Knl+ students. Redline included.

My best advice to a player who's losing money in this filter is two-fold:
1) You need to stop folding so much on the flop, from basically any formation. Usually XF flop frequency (OOP) is the biggest culprit. You can be making more hands profitable.
2) You should consider stabbing turn more as OOP after flop goes X-X. It's a huge hot-spot for universal pool exploits.

Hope this helps, stay in there and fight!

I'm only winning in pots under 7bb and pots above 70bb, what does that mean? Literally everything in between those sizes I'm losing in, and a lot...

EDIT: NVM USED WRONG FILTER

Looks like we all have the same leaks ;)
I am losing 0-4 and 5-10

I want to share some maybe weird thoughts on the 0-4 BB graph.

For all players up to NL50 :

the only chance those players could win a pot of less than 4bb is if there is one or two limpers and we check in the BB taking the pot down on the Flop. This situation occurs very rarely. All other pots have at least 4.5 BB on the Flop. So the graph consists 90% of us folding in the BB(assuming we have no Cold Calling Range in the SB).

For players NL100+:
Here players start to implement a limping strategy in the SB . So the BB has some chances of winning pots of less than 4bb when SB Open limps and BB takes down the pot on the flop .
So the graph for those players has a greater portion of winning Pots than for micro and SSNL Player.

If this is true it's nearly impossible to have a winning graph on 0-4 bb unless there is some open completing on the SB in your Pool.

This could also be a reason why Nick and his NL1k+ regs have such impressive graphs because I assume there is a lot of completing in the SB

Just my thoughts

Addtional :

The lower the Limit the bigger the openraise Sizings .

So when a player on NL50+ 3-Bets in the BB and his opponents fold he can win easily a pot of less than 4bb because the OR size is something between 2-2.5 B and this happens at a frequency of around 50% (folding frequency)

A player who plays NL5-NL25 has a harder time because a lot of guys are still opening 3bb in UTG,MP and 2.5-2.7 bb in CO so even if he wins after 3-betting the Pot will be greater than 4bb.

So for me this graphs depenfs a lot on the stakes you are playing and the environment you are playing in

@dirk

the only chance those players could win a pot of less than 4bb is if ..

I'm pretty sure this is wrong , the filter is "player won/lost bb's", so it doesn't seem to be based on pot size, but rather the hero's net. Someone pls correct me if I'm wrong.

When I filtered for 0-1.5 / 1.5-4 / 4.5-10 / 10.5-25 / 25-55 / 55+ I am only losing in the 0-1.5 pots, and it is a pretty large loss rate of ~-8bb/100.

Why do you guys think that is? Not 3 betting enough? Not calling from the BB enough?

I used the right filter this time... I think losing at 0-1.5 is normal but 1.5-4 can be improved a lot.

I did a 3 minute spinoff of Alec Torelli's recent response to the question "Can anyone be a successful poker player?". My answer forms the foundation of my upcoming summer course, "Gun to the Head". Stop asking permission and decide already!

Check out the video:
Anyone Can Be a Successful Poker Player...EXCEPT You

Streaming the championship HU match at the SolveForWhy estate, catch it live

HERE

I watched your Video and I think all you’ve said is true in Theory.

In practice to make it at Poker there are a few things more needed in my opinion:

• Don’t want to be harsh but you can’t make it when you are dumb. So some common understanding of math / logic is required
• You have to meet the right people at the right time
• You have to have a good work ethic and work your ass off
• To be mental stable also helps
• Knowledge of the Poker Environment including Sites, Software, RB Deals. If you decide to play i.e. at 888 as a micro Player where Rake is close to the highest in the Industry without RB it’s hard to make. So you would prefer sites with lower Rake and decent RB just to give an example

Let me explain some points based on my example:

• I was a decent FL player when I transitioned to NL made it to NL100 and then went on a downswing . Well back then I thought it was a downswing , now I am much more honest to myself and know everyone was evolving but me . So I dropped from NL100 to NL50 and NL20 and only didn’t go broke due to my very tight BRM.
• After a short break I decided that I will give it another try because I hate losing when I am convinced to be able to make it. So I decided to get into the GTO path because everyone who was winning back then seemed to be a GTO player and most of the Videos either on DC, CR or other Sites advocated this.
• So I spent hundreds of hours looking for GTO solution counting Combos , balancing my Range and all this shit and all that I have done playing NL10 (so embarrassing when writing this).
• In the past years I hired 5 Coaches and all of them told me I am skilled enough to beat NL20 but none of them could teach me how as it looks like (because I am still not beating NL20)
• On Top of that I was in 2 Stable without any success and spent a good amount of Dollars on useless software like Leakbuster
• I tried to establish 6 learning Skypegroups and none of them lasts longer than one year because the people don’t seem to be pumped up by Poker as I am or have my energy.
• So after all that experience I think it is more than understandable that my mental State sucks. I have done a lot to make it work and spent some decent amount of money and so far it doesn’t worked.
• When I came across your Twitch Channel last year I was pretty much interest from the beginning because as you always said I know that GTO wasn’t the holy grail and I learned this. So I decided digging deep into my DB doing a lot of the Analyze/Lines (300 hours)you recommend and saw by black and White data that this should work When you launched your first CFP group I was so biased by my experience that I couldn’t convince myself to get into it .

So what I want to say is even if you are more than willing to make it work there are factors which are hard to control that hinders you. I might be more successful if I had the right coaches’ earlier, found people at the right time (really looking forward to your Skypegroup) or had someone who guided me in the right direction.

So a long wall of text and I hope you read through all of it ;)

ok than lets have a look at nowadays game selection :

Pokerstars : good tables have 7+ on Waiting List
888 Rake on Micros barely unbeatable without RB
Party Poker no Game Selection since recent Changes
Winning Poker Game selection and RB (very hard for me as a german Player because of Peak times but I play there)
Ipoker unbeatable cause of Rake on Micros
Unibet no HUD no Tracking no chance to look where to improve
Microgaming very limited tracking since recent changes but low rake and RB but no game selection

So it look like it's harder to make it up from the Micros where Peak Rake is at 16 !!! bb/100 or there is no liteally no game slection.

MAybe it's really the best option to skip micros due to Rake (like Nick advices in the last Vid) , buy some Seating Scripts and do sufficient Game selection ;)

read through my last posts and they really sound frustrated which wasn't my intention at all ;)

I will play poker forever or at least as long as I have a Bankroll because I simply love this game .
So there is no alternative to working hard and trying to get better

Hey Nick would you consider putting some information out on paired boards OOP? I never really know the best way to navigate these since we don't have as many draws to work with and I feel like (at the moment) I'm over folding. Perhaps you can direct me to some of your videos that may cover this? To be even more specific BB v button in single raised pots.

Thanks man.

One of my new CFP students talks about the impact that his first month in training has had on him. This is what it should feel like

Please forward this to someone who is still battling the GTO bug. There are cures available.

Thought this was pretty sick and could be very realitive too poker

SELF-DIRECTED WARFARE
War, or any kind of conflict, is waged and won through
strategy. Think of strategy as a series of lines and
arrows aimed at a goal: at getting you to a certain
point in the world, at helping you to attack a problem
in your path, at figuring out how to encircle and
destroy your enemy. Before directing these arrows at
your enemies, however, you must first direct them at
yourself.
Your mind is the starting point of all war and all
strategy. A mind that is easily overwhelmed by
emotion, that is rooted in the past instead of the
present, that cannot see the world with clarity and
urgency, will create strategies that will always miss
the mark.
To become a true strategist, you must take three
steps. First, become aware of the weakness and
illness that can take hold of the mind, warping its
strategic powers. Second, declare a kind of war on
yourself to make yourself move forward. Third, wage
ruthless and continual battle on the enemies within
you by applying certain strategies.
The following four chapters are designed to make
you aware of the disorders that are probably
flourishing in your mind right now and to arm you with
specific strategies for eliminating them. These
chapters are arrows to aim at yourself. Once you have
absorbed them through thought and practice, they will
serve as a self-corrective device in all your future
battles, freeing the grand strategist within you.

Robert Greene

Nick, you said you were going to produce a lot of RIO videos in April and May, where are they? I am really looking forward to seeing them ^^

Quido

I'm submitting a list of about 10 possible titles to RunItOnce admin tomorrow and they will decide which ones they want in a series. Took a little longer to prepare because we decided on a series instead of disconnected videos. Coming soon.

Hey good morning Nick. We've been having an interesting conversation on our Skype group this morning that has brought up a spot where I need a little clarification. I think I may have misunderstood something or not understood completely what you said in one of your videos.

It was one of your volunteer hand history videos and you were talking about what lines we should fold to when we have a hand that's high in our range. I'm paraphrasing but you mentioned that when we are uncapped and the board has a lot of nut possibilities but villain is still betting into us that we can find a fold since the chances that we are beaten is quite high. I used this thought pattern when I made my river decision for this hand. Am I misinterpreting your instruction or using your instructions too liberally?

Here's the hand that we were discussing. Thanks in advance for your time.

https://www.weaktight.com/h/59072770d3904339098b4571

@ SneakyFeet.

I'm posting one of the most advanced decision-tree maps I have access to, It's something I've developed this year after working with the CFP groups, and we've distilled it over many iterations of hand analysis. We call it "The Shield".

The portion of the decision tree you're referring to is red zone "PRA", short for "perceived range awareness". This is the primary starting point when hunting for exploits vs thinking players. Vs fish, we're in a whole different world, as denoted by the dotted line where "Volatility" is separated. We can't project nearly as much on a fish's thought process, since they are (for the most part) not operating on a very high level of range assessment. Basically this means we end up having to call more in general vs fish. Moving on..

Vs a thinking player, there are actually a lot of spots where the river completes in a way where our range is perceived as very well protected. These our spots where regs consistently under-bluff, unless they're very savvy with bluffing frequencies through sound randomization. The idea is simple, and pretty logical: it's easier to rationalize giving up more in spots where the opponent's range is well protected, since he has a more natural defense in these zones. PRA basically levels that concept, and it's sustainable for much larger samples than most players think (as long as you don't start folding monsters face up :). Introducing "The Shield". I'll be explaining how to apply it, in depth, in my upcoming RIO series. Will post the first portion of that series outline tomorrow, here.

Click to enlarge

Jesus man that's way more of an answer than I could ever have hoped for. If I were a cartoon character there would be big stars in my eyes right now. You're amazazing!!! Lol

F#%kin wicked dude. Thanks again for your epic knowledge bombs.

Great answer . I think I have to get an Elite Account ;)

How do you identify a Volatility Profile ?

There are some obvious one things like limping not being Fullstacked or VPIP/PFR of 70/40 or 30/2 but how about guys playing a 25/20 style but folding to 3-Bets 75% of the time or guys with regish stats but folding BvB >60%
Are those guys also Volatility profiles or only regulars which have leaks in certain areas of their game ?

@Dirk

Good question. Volatility profiling was l something that mounted in relevance when we attempted to refine our methodology for bluffcatching efficiency (BCE). From all the work I've done in the private sector over the last 18 months, BCE has emerged as the most potentious zone for winrate improvement for all players regardless of stakes. I think the reason is that it's rooted in a player's understanding of range vs range interaction, as well as his grip on general psychology. Those two skill-sets make up the vast majority of the exploitative edge available to players. BCE also trends toward a summary of large-pot accuracy, which also sheds light on why it's so important to become good at it.

Poker Detox Night Vision members have a Skype group of about 60 players. A couple months back, group discussion started to head in the direction of creating a new database methodology that could refine BCE skills. The main suggestion was to explore some sort of pricedure for alias sub-profiling, and to hunt for line and texture trends within those sub-profiles. On one hand we could go about that sub-profiling process with no starting assumptions whatsoever (im terms of the best places to focus for winrate gains), but to me that would have made the filtering process inefficient. Instead, I thought it was safe to start from the basic assumption that our BCE was highest vs fish, because fish are notoriously volatile ( aggressively imbalanced) , and we can pull hard bluffcatching exploits consistently vs that type of profile.

There are a lot of versions of fish, but in the context of volatility profiles, I'm concerned with fish who force river aggression, and/or the fish who force multi-street aggression all the way through the hand. Working with this new description, we could loosely make the following statement:

A fish profile is always volatile, but a volatile profile is not always a fish.

Some "regs" force too much aggression in certain spots, but many of them are still winners and categorically speaking cannot be fish. It's similar to how a square can be a rectangle, but a rectangle is not a square. For the record, I never understood that shit, I'm just happy to use it as a metaphor and make it seem like i do :D.

Let's save the rest of the discussion "volatility" for the new series, otherwise I'll have nothing to talk about in the video :).

Thanks for this!

Is there a way I can make that diagram bigger? The writing is coming up really small and I cant read it.

Thanks

Here is the first half of the titles for my upcoming RIO series:

“Radar”

-An advanced tutorial on detecting bias in a player’s thought process. We look at a series of examples containing real player biases, and then break down those assumptions in an effort to become more able to detect when a statement is full of shit and not to be trusted. Then we’ll explore methods for replacing those statements with more balanced ones.

"The Power of Integration”
-A look into the power of integration as it applies to the learning process. You’ll gain insight into how concepts are deposited into the subconscious mind through conscious repetition, and what that means for our efficiency. We’ll also outline some powerful exercises for training subconscious integration that you can apply right away.

"Standard Line Metrics"

-We explore the value of a having standardized systems for major lines. These standard line metrics allow us to gain control over our range, and give us more consistency and confidence in our practical application. In my opinion this is the biggest thing guys are missing when they set out looking for new direction.

-I'll provide some of the standard line metrics I use, and explain how they were developed from large sample database analysis across many different pools.

"Mind-mapping"
-We plunge deeper into study habits. I'll show a series of "mind-maps" that I've created with the help of students and professional software. These maps aid the integration process regardless of a player's stage of development. You'll learn how to create your own mind-map, and how to use it as an efficient study tool.

-Over time, we've distilled some of the mind maps to the point where they have developed into powerful decision trees. I’ll release my most advanced bluffcatching decision tree, and use real hand examples to explain how it works in application. For those of you who saw the post I made a few days ago on “The Shield”, I’ll attach a link to the bottom of that post where you can view it in a larger format.

Looking forward to delivering on this
-Nick

Killer Nick. Very excited

please define Volatility in the context you are using it above

A lot of things fell in place over the last few days. Wait till you see what I have in store for the summer. Full announcement by the end of the week.

Yeah! I´m waiting :-)

I suppose Skype Groups and many other good things .... can't wait ;)

Hi Nick, what are your flop and turn fold vs cbet percentages? Mine are 44% & 44% Should these numbers look different?

Thanks

brodyz

Most graphs I've studied point toward disproportionate non-showdown leaks caused by fold to flop c-bet in the 40's. Sweet spot seems to be around 32%-35%, which is also consistent with what Pio
subset aggregation reports recommend vs average pool c-bet sizings. Exceptions seem to exist in softer pools where too many players see the flop. Higher fold vs cbet then becomes more accurate, since postflop playability decreases in multiway pots.

I'm quite surprised to read this because: 1) Most of my DB
explorations have shown me that non-showdown leaks come mostly fro
lack of aggression as PFR more than anything else. 2) I have an alias
of HSNL crushers (1M hand sample) with positive red line in which flop
fold vs cbet is 41.8% and turn fold vs cbet is 42.5%. 3) Fold vs bet
in the low 30's seem to be optimal vs small sizings (around 1/3rd) but
those small sizings aren't the most common at SSNL yet. Can you
elaborate on this?

@Saulo

There's definitely more than one variable. It's delicate territory to speak about high red-line, since it draws more correlation to general exploitative strategy than GTO. When I say "disproportionate leaks seem to be caused by fold vs flop c-bet in the 40's", I mean that when other highly relevant variables are stable, the guys in the mid 40s's seem to have lower red line and lower win rate in today's environments. Those other major variables include, but are not limited to:

-RFI
-Defense vs 3-bet
-Defense vs Steal
-Flop XR frequency

The only reason I've been able to isolate high fold vs c-bet and high fold vs steal as major variables with reasonably high confidence (besides the fact that it intuitively makes sense), is because a lot of my guys play blueprint strategies predicated on stable flop metrics, and when I hold up their #'s side by side, the higher fold vs BB steal and fold vs flop c-bet seem to draw correlation to lower win rate. That being said there is still some degree of assumption in this, since we will never be able to create a perfect control group.

As for optimal fold vs c-bet defense vs small sizings, it's going to be in the sub 30's. Remember this is not an easy MDF equation, we're dealing with dynamic equities and need to look to solvers for these frequencies. Pools are c-betting at least 1/2 pot on average, which supports higher fold frequencies, but pools also poorly construct the c-bet range, and compound errors thru passivity on later streets. The latter gives us more room to defend wider than solvers suggest, and we should begin preflop. As another reference point, if you're folding >35% BB vs BTN steal at SSNL, you're likely not maximizing vs the universal alias. That being said, don't start defending wider pre if you're not prepared to fight post.

@ Kalupso

I think this falls in line with my last post about understanding the additional variables that affect a general claim. Let's start with a simple claim:

we should RFI exploitatively wide from all positions in low 3bet games.

If we isolate a position, (CO) and choose an RFI to run a preflop sim accounting for rake, the scope of that output will still be an extremely limited representation of the potential winrate to be gained from an exploitatively high RFI. The solver has not accounted for all the ways that villain will fall into major postflop imbalances, and we can prove that those imbalanced exist by comparing mass data analysis to Pio subset simulations. The pools are just folding way too much in major postflop lines.

A similar example could be given for BB defense vs steal:

Pick a preflop raising range and sizing and run it thru the solver with rake considerations. You'll get a suggested BB defense frequency that will be much lower than you should play in practice, since there are endless opportunities to exploit the poorly constructed pool postflop strategies. The the solver is not programmed to reflect these, it's just playing perfect postflop poker for both sides.

Once you acknowledge that the preflop sims can't actually give you a practical MES (since it's impossible to accurately lock for all major postflop imbalances), you can reframe it as a launching pad into further strategy development. The difference between advanced strategy development and straightforward simulation is the ability to harness multi-street vision. Broadening the scope allows you tailor your game toward more refined exploits.

@ Quido

It's quite on topic actually. Again, this depends on where you deduce the bulk of win-rate is across the broader scope of the game tree. For ex:

If it's correct to open exploitatively wide OTB with a sizing closer to 2x than 3x, the basis for that argument would be that the bulk of the exploitative yield is being generated by BB overfolding preflop.

Alternatively, if it's correct to open exploitatively wide to 4x (which seems to be a good strategy for soft live environments), then that open sizing is predicated on the expectation that the pool will play so poorly post flop that we can justify bloating the pot pre in order to capitalize on later streets.

Hi Nick . How was your week?

Hint , hint : My ended right now :D:D:D

I'm releasing a new wave of private courses this summer through pokerdetox.com that will most likely be the last poker training content I'll create. Since the beginning of 2017 I've spent several hundred hours curating a path with the intention that any player would be able to follow it from micros to high stakes. With the help of my team I've been able to distill the material and structure it into what I consider to be the most comprehensive course in the industry.

Four packs will be released over the course of July-September, beginning immediately after my twitch seminar "Gun To The Head". Each pack will be priced at $600 and will scale progressively toward the a 5th graduate course, released in the fall. These products represent a sort of completetion for me as a poker coach, and I plan to retire from mainstream content production thereafter.

I'm being pulled in a new direction where I desire to polarize toward working with more exclusive groups. My interest is in holding a series of 3-day seminars in locations around the world where the most ambitious, devoted-to-truth poker minds can come for a deep cleanse in perception and catapult into new levels of their potential.

Do to the unavoidable overlap with the upcoming detox summer content, RIO has decided to opt out of my previously outlined series. Instead, I plan to continue blogging (hopefully more than ever) to provide as much free help as I can to the RIO community.

I'll outline the pack titles in my next post with descriptions. I'm thankful for the journey over the last few years since signing with RIO and am happy to be completing the most valuable chapter of my life yet.

Quido

I will most likely do more videos for RIO, it's just bad timing right now.

I like most of Nick's stuff(that I have seen) but it seems like a legitimate question to ask a coach to share some results. Especially when he is marketing/selling some very expensive products in part through this site.

Got you .
So we are dumb and Phil and his stuff is obv too because they judged that Nick is good enough to get paid for producing Videos on RIO .
So you are registered on a site operated by dumb people and post in a Forum full of dumb people..
This is because ? I would use my time more useful
Or are you the new Poker Messiah which wants to enlighten the whole communities and therefore sacrifies maximum pain by being surrounded by dumb people ?

Exploitative play (when holistically integrated) is not a stylistic trait. It's an accurate response to direct incentive. The general aversion to exploitative strategy is that it sacrifices a deeper understanding of theory, and therefore creates vulnerability. This is incorrect. The best exploitative players are the ones who understand deep theory. Quantifiable exploits start from a solid understanding of equilibrium, and from that understanding, they respond accurately (optimally) to an opponent's deviation from equilibrium.

Modern strategy software (mainly Piosolver and Hand2Note) gives us unprecedented pool vision and modeling power. Any training program that that is not based in quantitative, practical metrics is ignoring the human variable (the most important variable) of the learning process. Any system that lacks a passion for deeper understanding of equilibrium is fundamentally limited.

I'll post the full course outline tomorrow.

2017 PokerDetox course outlines:

Preflop
Pio-optimal preflop solves; rake considerations; equilibrium training; fringe exploit ranges; maximal exploit ranges for Ignition pools (mapped against the exact preflop ranges of the pool alias).

Standard Line Metrics
Universal blueprint exploit strategies (all major pools); verified Piosolver subset reports + Hand2Note mass database analysis; all relevant grids included.

Code Red: A case study in relevant modeling
Advanced range vs range interaction training; advanced modeling; quantitative metrics for pattern recognizing key textures; practical applications through real hand examples.

Volatility
Advanced player profiling; multi-street playability concepts, quantitative metrics for improved bluffcatching efficiency.

The Shield (graduate course)
Advanced range vs range interaction training; advanced decision-tree training; advanced counter-strategies; deep theory.

Also pleased to announce that each course will include a private, integrated forum for members. I'll be giving a free Twitch lecture on June 28 to kick off the launch. Free giveaways and a bunch of other ideas to get more players networked and motivated through the rest of 2017.

Quido

1) Pack lengths are somewhat undeterminable because format oscillates between workbook and video.

2) Yes, there will also be a forum created for all pre-existing pack holders.

You said night vision was the last pack anyone would need lol. Then you make more 5 more packs that are basically what night vision was suppose to be.

Completely agree that he should have to post results. Idk why RIO supports this.

It is really painful to read your posts...so much hate and aggression, you seriously need to take a therapist!

Hi Copernicus,

Why do you think that's true? Besides him charging good money for it which you mention in almost every post thusfar.

And, even if he is money hungry, why would it matter to you? If his clients are happy buying his products, what's the problem?

Do you hate capitalism?

When you become clear that equilibrium is not to be sought after by the human mind, but rather exists as an instrument to reveal the scope of potentially accurate deviations, then you will stop misunderstanding the relevance of the GTO guidance system.

I have absolutely nothing against Nick but this price really rises some questions. Tbh this looks like a neverending train. The price seems to be way too high.
I mean $7500 worth of Nicks products equals 7 years of RIO subscription. I wonder can it really be worth it. Im pretty sure you would sell 10 times more packages when the price would be 5 times lower and actually make double the money.

I mean I would buy some kind of product from players like Phil, Ike, Berri, Ravenswood aso because I know they are best of the best.
I would like to see results from at least past two years with good volume if I were to make a big investment like that.

coper needs a hobby xD
I might post a data consuming gif this thread has been so de railed.

There is also a lack of student success results. He posts a video of some kid talking about how easy poker is now lol. Let's see a graph of him crushing.

He outsourced a do it yourself tutorial to make night vision. And then started working on his next scheme. How many updates has he given NV? Isn't that what he promised you? Now he just wants another 3k from you. But but but he's on another paradigm or some shit eff the haters!

Nick is a hell of salesman though you have to give him that. Use lots of big words and talk about how you just want to help people.

Well for sure I don't want to be a part of such a discussion and I like Nick content at the same time I am aware of my own biases. On top of that I am still aware of the daliyvariance scheme that was going on for years where people were buying books for 500$+ from a guy that hasn't been winning for years. He even wrote a book after that basically how to make a milion from poker (and not really playing it).
I mean if you have been long enough in poker world like me you will learn mistrustful quite a bit (e.g. lost like 30k in 6 months due to a disastrous advices from mid/highstakes crusher from whom I took fair amount of coaching that it took me a while to realize ( BB vs BTN and BB vs SB defense when Villain opens less than optimal and with bigger sizing that optimal and you pay way more rake that them playing like nl100 some nl200 on high rake sites-the coach was teaching all of his student the same way and with his ranges and was forcing me to defend a lot more than I used to when after looking at PIO preflop solutions adjusted to the sizings and rake on my stakes and it ended up me being a lot closer to the optimal on my stakes than the coach). I used to think about myself smart enough but it took me way too long to realize what was going on especially when you respect the other guy success that makes you biased (he is too good to be wrong sort of thinking).
So basically both the guys that are pro Nick and against have their own biases that cloud their judgment. It is riduclous to think that any of us with couple exceptions can really evaluate the value of Nick work.

We all have our own biases and no one is objective enough but :
"The facts are always friendly, every bit of evidence one can acquire, in any area, leads one that much closer to what is true."

So I do believe that wanting Nick to post his Pokerstars results and/or results of his students (and not only the cherry picked one) from sites that are tracked (pokerstars,ipoker,888,winning network as of now) can't be a bad thing and his unwillingness to do so put him in a bad light.

An empty bottle makes the loudest noise.

can we change the subject to something that really matters and go back to poker? copernicus tks for your thoughts but we dont need your advices.

In reality the timing is very bad imo. Online poker overall is in a big decline. Cash game environment is in a super awkward situation at the moment, all mainly because of those rake changes. I`am not even overly certain to whom are those courses even meant. Are those for low stakes players as well? Are those for mid-stakes players? Or only for high-stakes players?
I mean if you are a millionaire then its obviously recommended taking all sort of courses to improve your game and this one should probably be one of them. But if you are mid-stakes player who thinks that after the course he is going to crush the games for 15bb/100 at NL then they are highly delusional.
Its not those big expensive courses what players need at the moment but one actual poker site with reasonable rake structure.

Zenfish, would you be so kind as to clarify this comment for me:

Conversely, some boards/runouts favor our opponent to the point where it will be hard for him to overbluff, even if he tried. In those situations we want to find out where we can overfold confidently without even trying to defend properly vs his aggression. Training ourselves to see when we can safely toss away the armor will save us a lot of money.

This reads like overfolding is a counter strategy to overbluffing to me, which does not seem intuitive. Otherwise, thank you for the wholly intriguing write up.

@Zenfish
Fuck me! So many fancy words. I dont even know the meaning of half of those words that you and Nick are using. I don`t understand what he is trying to accomplish is he trying to educate people or confuse them.
Not every poker player is a rocket scientist you know.
Sounds excruciating to be sitting through all those courses for all this money tbh. That course is not for me, thats for sure!

Anyway good luck with your project! I am a PLO cash player myself but still interested to see results from Nick and from his students (and not just cherry picked like one previous poster noted). Be Fair to your Customers!

@Zenfish

reading interested to all you wrote and really liked it .

My conclusion would be : We need a solver like Pio with a Node Lock Function , PIO Unlocked 1 and 2 for the reasons you mentioned and NVP and a big DB to compare the inbalances of our Pools compare it to PIO and draw our conclusions .

Further more we have to work hard and have a unbelievable good work ethic .

All that makes us to independent learner.

So no need for a Coach or a CFP program or a Training Site It's just work hard and get the programs , courses ?

I am simpifying things here or am I right ?

dirk I think your onto something :)

while i haven't seen all of Nicks stuff I have worked alot with PIO and some with H2N/HM2 to analyze player pool. From what I have heard the Nigh t Vision was more of a how to use software program and less about these are the results he found - is this others experience?

i think copernicous tone is too harsh, but i think it is valid to ask coach for proof of results, i also think he is right to some degree that in general the value of poker training materials is less than what it used to be when rake was lower and games were softer

Well just to be clear on this my post wasn't made to feet Copernicus or his opinion in any way .
Maybe I am wrong but I think Nick has postet a winning Graph on Igntion from 2015 as far as I remember . Thats enough for me and I believe in his ability as a coach .

My post was just to check out on which route I should and will go in the future

The problem I have in this Thread is that it is total fair to critize somehting you don't beleive in . But first of all Copernicus is too harsh in his tone and second he don't even knows what he is critizing . At least it seems to me .

When I came across Nicks stream I was the same non Believer like copernicus is but in opposite to him I put in the work checking my Pool and doing the DB research . After I have done this I knew that the things a got from Nicks Twitch streams are right and are true even for my Microstakes Pools. like inblances of certain lines , simplifying strats for sacrifizing only little EV etc.

But only yelling at someone you are a scumbag without doing all this because it's easier to put up a Picture from hands played 2 years ago isn't the way I would choose

arizonabay - please stay on RIO and work on your forum mental game :)

Either way GL on the felt

No matter whats said imo RIO has so much good stuff going - good coaches, good videos, good business plan, very good price. If somebody is not able to turn this awesome knowledge into profit then they are probably just better off doing something else for a living.
On top of that you can even ask for more and they pretty much always deliver.
I absolutely support everything that RIO team is doing!

I support Phil and the coaches on RIO 100%, they all work their asses off.

What an ironic screen name choice. I image that the real Copernicus was a pretty open minded individual.

It is anyones own estimate. Compare costs and utility of coaching, then take it or let it be.
3000$ is not suitable for the microstakes losing player. He would have to win more than a 100 BI on nl 25 to substitute the cost.

Discipline , endurance and the ability to remain calm and collected when thing just do not go your way are more important features of a long term succesful player. Intellectual and cognitive abilities come later. Aiming to improve mental game rather than winning .1 BB/100 more in theory will impact your success hugely.

When I started poker a few years ago, after reading Harrington on Hold'em and Easy Game I put $1k online, bought a $1500 (3/4 of my life roll) coaching package from Andrew Seidman and started at 10nl. I was shot taking 1knl in a year. Of course this won't happen to everyone, but dedication, hard work COMBINED with good coaching is extremely valuable.

Good job man. I am a bit in a different stage now. I am happy when I can play a couple of hours in the weekend, and perhaps a couple of hours during my workweek. Lots of "grown up obligations" lol I work 40-50 hours a week, I train 6 times a week and I have a child on the way.

Poker, unfortunately, is a bit low on the priority list but I do want to be able to grow my roll and get better each time a play.

I think, if somebody has the time and willingness to go deep with poker and he/she really loves it, go for it. And that's what you did so kudos :)

I'll be holding general Q&A on twitch and facebook live once a week for the next 6 weeks. It might just be an unscheduled spontaneous thing depending on how many wsop events I end up playing, but if the response is good I'll likely turn it into a weekly spot where I open the floor to whatever you guys want to talk about.

Will post on here any time I'm streaming, and all sessions will be uploaded on youtube after in case you miss the event.

*Feel free to post questions here, I'll try to answer as many as I can on the streams.

Mad props to Nick. I went far down the quagmire of theory and saw very little benefit, but since serendipitously discovering this blog and youtube channel my game has been transformed and my win-rate along with it. The truth is guys Nick gives away an insane amount of info for FREE on his youtube. I've watch every one of his videos, some multiple times, and it is probably the most enlightening poker content I have ever came across. I'm pretty stoked to buy the night vision pack soon.

As for a questions for your stream Nick: Could you maybe talk about some good bluff catching spots? I know there are many spots the pool are over-folding to aggression, but I know very little about when I should be calling down wide from an exploitative standpoint. I totally understand that if you do have this info that you wouldn't want to make it freely available though.

Live Q&A session starting in 10 minutes, join me on either Twitch or Facebook, streaming on both.

Gave a real talk yesterday and opened it up behind the scenes. This is the video i would show you if I could only pick one:

Extreme Ownership

Hey Nick,

I'd like to respond to the discussion of intimate community learning vs public packs. I applied for the CFP group a short while ago and I was interested in the access to your paid content, but I was genuinely excited at the prospect of working with a group of dedicated individuals. Finding a group of motivated and positive poker players to work with can be really difficult when there's such a high concentration of negative people in the poker community (look at this thread recently). So using your content and guidance to lead the group was an exciting prospect.

Anecdotal story. I'm a filmmaker and lived at a house with 9 other people for a month as we worked on producing a film. We all worked literally 12 hours+ a day every single day and it was a fulfilling and generally awesome experience. I'm 100% sure we worked so tirelessly and efficiently because we were all accountable to each other, supported a common goal with our personal vested interests, and were lead by an experienced director. I learned more from that than any formal education has taught me.

Anyway, I wound up buying PIO Unlocked and really enjoyed the content, but I have no plans to buy any future public packs. Implementing the techniques you lay out in both your paid and public material is hard to do consistently without other people, regardless of how accurate your material truly is. I don't think that's because of student laziness necessarily, but it's human nature. We just work better as groups for a multitude of reasons. So even though I'd be interested in your public packs, I wouldn't be excited enough to actually buy them because I don't trust myself to execute on your strategies well enough alone. However, if you focused something on community-based learning then I'd be open to it. I was willing to put down $30k for it this past winter.

Take that for what it's worth. Thank you for doing what you do and putting out so much free content. Your generosity and commitment to over-delivering for everyone that touches your business is a great example of how everyone should conduct themselves.

Peace.

Hey, i really think your Q&A would reach a way wider audience and be more interesting if you put out some kind of time stamps. You say a lot of good things but the spectrum is pretty wide, some questions seems more aimed to beginners.

@Sweet16

On the way, thanks

really enjoyed the Q&A. Being sick 6 out of 10 days on my first Vegas Trip this was a highlight .

You nailed it on the head when it comes to mental leaks at least for me.

Waiting for the next Q&A

Live Q&A session starting in 10 minutes, join me on either Twitch or Facebook, streaming on both.

New Q&A is up. The time-stamped topic links are posted in the description section on YouTube. Here's the track list for this one:

0:00:45 - How to gain momentum
0:05:37 - Knowing when you're on the right track.
0:15:46 - The excitement factor: inspired learning vs self sabotage
0:26:22 - What is the right way to offer support?
0:37:50 - On desperate students
0:43:36 - Don't miss the next spot!
0:45:08 - Why I'm loving heads-up lately
0:49:30 - How do you approach playing in multi-way pots when there's no way to model them?
0:52:22 - Life gets much easier with metrics
0:53:20 - The value of meditation in poker
0:59:20 - That time Sauce ruined me
1:03:21 - Success is 1000 mistakes away
1:06:03 - The theory behind overbetting
1:12:30 - An ICM discussion from a WSOP final table hand
1:19:58 - What I look for in a new student
1:29:25 - Practicality is king, redefining intelligence
1:31:10 - Haters gonna hate mail
1:33:50 - All roads lead to Rome
1:44:10 - You're never as dumb as you think
1:51:38 - Boys II Men

Why I'm loving heads-up lately

HU is basically the stone nuts. So much fun!

Live Q&A session starting now, join me on either Twitch or Facebook, streaming on both.

Quido

Scaled access is something we've considered. It's possible we might try to integrate this into a public CFP model, where the student has the opportunity to graduate into more advanced content libraries, with new forum access to a circle of other members at the same level.

Check out my most recent Q&A for some ideas on how to do more with less in your studies. Full topic outline below:

2:40 - A powerful training exercise for all skill levels

13:00 - Self sabotage, mental game

18:00 - Do the thing that you resist the most

21:40 - When to move back up stakes

23:35 - Success barriers

26:00 - Transforming perspective

31:20 - Is online cash dead?

34:30 - Equilibrium and counter-strategy

40:00 - Signs of a necessary integration period

42:00 - Solutions for resisting studying

44:00 - What type of win-rates are available?

45:25 - 100k month for student, now bored.

48:40 - Accurate interpretation of information exchange

55:15 - Risk aversion & importance of playing within bankroll

1:02:00 - Downward spiraling

1:03:40 - New to Detox content? Do this...

1:06:00 - Rationalization

1:11:40 - Challenge to a dude in the chat

1:13:30 - Freedom > Comfort

1:15:00 - Extreme responsibility

1:16:30 - Best way to get in touch, future plans

Campfire streaming tonight from the solveforwhy estate alongside Matt Berkey and friends. Come stop by here ��

About to go live on Twitch with Christian Soto. New life and my best hacks for 2017 poker players:
recording here

Hi Nick . Good to have you back streaming.

Really like the new one especially the honesty about how the first group performed.

At some point you said that non native Speakers might also have been a problem .

Could you explain this a little bit further either here are on the next stream ?

I am innterested in this because as you might remember I am a german Poker Player and might be interested in joining a stable (I am actual in a german one but contract ends next year).

Thanks

Dirk

to all the haters :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TA2jZ07ZMZ8

Newest Joeingram Stream where HSNL Stars Player (ohhHeaycindy) shout outs to Nick 2 times for opening his Eyes to different strategy and make him use PIO more efficiently

I understand that someone is questioning a Coach or his approach but if you dont even aceept the credit one of the Top Highstakes Players in the World gave for Nicks Coaching (4 hours) I don't get it.

Yolu are right If I would have same opinion . And I would snap to get Elite.
But I mostly agree with HSNL Reg which you obv dont have watched . Out here no sense in dsicussing with you

Is he really taking 50%-60% of profits from his students? What???

Mhm. You guys are really brainwashed by this dude and his companions. You better transition to PLO and Jnandez will explain all those solver things/open your eyes/take your game to the next level for just 200$ a month. I`m actually little scared that he reveals too much good information for too many people. :)

Hey Guys, can you please open another thread, where you rant about this topics. Don´t derail this one please.Thank you!

Entertaining read. Did think there was a point that every expensive coaching book/product has basically been a scam. "Let there be range" lolololol
Anyway if ppl wanna spend there money and they think it's worth it then more power. The market speaks for itself if Nick is making enough $ for it to be worth the time to manage This project and there's enough customers buying it who arent pissed off about the investment then wats the issue?

On a different tangent Copernicus does just sound like a troll who has an agenda. Who has enough time to post this much in a thread for the sole purpose of trashing another dudes product?

Due to the success of my losers-only stable that I started in early 2017, along with the luck of stumbling upon a team of language experts and life coaches capable of providing training optimization and support systems for more players, I will be reopening CFP applications in December. I’ll post a full outline at a later date but here are some of the contract details:

•All contracts will operate under a $500K profit goal. Applicants can expect this contract to be completed within 24-30 months.
•Split is 40/60 : player/backer
•Full stake, player does not use his own money to play.
•GUARANTEED MONTHLY SALARY UP TO $4000/mo. Because I believe it should become a standard for all serious staking companies. The players need support regardless of month-to-month results. A lot of my guys have families and this structure has massively reduced stress levels, which is a win-win.
•Life coaching loans, pick the right coach for you from our group of specialists in order to gain direction and accountability on your path.
•Poker mind coaching loans, Elliot Roe is part of my team and he is the best in the business imho.
•Affilation deals in some of the softest pools on the market. Our network is strong.

Probably the most valuable but least tangible perk is the brotherhood aspect of this company. We put a lot of care into our support system and are frequently taking team trips around the world. It literally operates like a family and I would ask all applicants to deeply consider if it would mean something to them to be a part of something like this. Building this team has been the most rewarding experience of my life and the trust and loyalty generated from beginning with losing players only has been worth its weight in gold and then some.

Oh and one more thing, we’re taking winners now too :)

Quido

Will be up first or second week in November (for real this time). Night Vision pack holders will remain in a private Skype group bc we have very good activity there with about 70 members.

I’d like to hold a general Q&A stream next week specifically for RIO memebers who ask questions in this blog. Feel free to post the single most confusing thing that you feel is blocking you from achieving hsnl success.

Hey Nick,

I'm currently on a bit of a heater and would like to ask if you think having the urge to open the window and shout "I AM THE GREATEST NLHE PLAYER OF ALL TIMES AND SHOULD BE WORSHIPPED AS A LIVING GOD BY POKER PLAYERS EVERYWHERE" a sign of healthy confidence or winner's tilt?

Also, how far are the pools on major sites from settling into an equilibrium (no exploits left) in your opinion?

Hi Nick, love the videos and appreciate the free, great content you have been providing everyone. From all your videos and posts I've come to understand of your basic approach to poker, simplification and then exploitation which I have begun to act upon, I'd like to thank you for lighting the path for myself.

You have answered most of my questions, my only query is what is the optimal approach to taking solutions from PIO grids to applications in game? There's tons of spots where a simple strategy can be applied easily like 1/3p cbet/x range, but I find myself struggling to learn more complicated strategies such as 'CO' vs BTN, 'SB' vs BB or OOP in 3BPs ('' showing heros position) as strategy simplification isn't as possible without significant EV loss. Should I just be using brute force through hours of study or from your experience is there a better way to approach complicated strategies? Thanks.

Question for Q&A:

If I am an independent leaner how much hours of private Coaching with you does it take to push me in the right direction so that I can go on from their putting in the work and reach Midstakes when I am playing NL50 right now.

Thanks in advance

Q&A Question:

Do you think it is intelligent to heavily prioritize spending study time on mental game and performance aspects? I mean to the point of spending almost no time on technical study. I have a full-time day job that takes up 50 hr/wk and I'm committed to grinding 12 hrs/week of 2 tables 200NL Zone on Bovada (I often exceed this target). I have been studying about 5-8 hr/wk and for the past 3+ weeks, this has been almost entirely mental game/performance study. I have been studying Elliot Roe's content and putting a lot of time into meditation and yoga. I've always felt that mental game issues have been my biggest leaks, and since shifting my focus almost exclusively to these things, I have seen really good results. It's not a huge sample yet, but I feel like my results lately come directly from this shift in thinking and focus. If you think this is intelligent, how do we know when it's time to dial back in order to dedicate more time to technical study such as Pio analysis?

How do you gain vision over balancing an empirically driven exploit and an intuitively driven bet (check) timing tell? While it feels like we need more empirically vision over bet timing, without this at what confidence interval do we fall back on the empirically driven exploit? Does vacuum theory application in such spots form a resonable fall back option (in relation to the alternatives) in spots where we lack enough confidence in balancing our empirical vs intuitive read?

Thanks Nick

Hey Nick, first of all I'd like to thank you for all the content that you've been putting out over the course of the past 2 years, it’s been a great help in my development as player and being able to live with my mistakes and not to dwell on them.

Question for Q&A::
I've been struggling to put in decent volume. For context, I'm usually playing 2 tables of Zoom, mainly because my game suffers from playing too many tables and instead I’m choosing quality over quantity (I'm a winning player). I just don’t seem to be able to sit down for longer than 2-3 hours per day. Conversely, studying with PIO and other tools comes very natural to me and I have no struggles putting in volume in that department. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Question for Q&A

Playing poker for a living is an incredibly lonely and isolating profession. You play on your computer, in your house (probably alone or with non-players) and your "friends" are, most likely, an icon on Skype. As months and years rolls by, you realize money wasn't your primary drive and you begin to lose interest in the game. You are not sure why though. You put in the volume, you studied strategy, worked on your mental game and balanced life. You did your job right? But it seems something is missing...
Studies show that people who feel to be part of something bigger than themselves lead happier and more fulfilled lives. No poker player can claim to feel that way, and I think, this is the missing puzzle piece, for most of them
How much do you think is important having a family that really supports your journey and strive to achieve the same goals? Can you estimate a percentage of that in the overall poker success? With "family" I'm not talking about your poker peers who you share strategy with and some casual rant, I mean a real team that works with (and not for) you, soaking in defeats and celebrating success

On Saturday Oct 28, 230pm Eastern, I’ll be streaming the answers to these questions on both Facebook and Instagram live, then uploading to Youtube after. I’ll also be rolling out a 1 month long November challenge ����. Players who complete the challenge will have an advantage if they decide to apply for the January 2018 Detox CFP squad. Thanks guys, looking forward to getting back on a more frequent Q&A schedule.
my facebook
my instagram: nickwillmadeit

@4Star

Yes they all get uploaded to YT

"All Things Poker" Q&A starting right now on my FB, link in my last post

After watching one of your youtube videos about not forcing aggression on the river in 3b pots, I ended up spending quite a bit of time analyzing my own database and realizing this is a huge leak in my own game. However, I realized very often, even while 1-2 tabling, I revert back to old habits and immediately realize after I clicked all in. Not sure if this is an appropriate analogy, but it's similar to when you calculate a move in chess for 30 minutes, and immediately after playing your calculated move, you realized you have blundered. Do you have any advice on how to remedy this?

My connection was very poor, I'm going to watch the episode on Youtube when you upload it.
I am very interested in the November challenge though, can you post some details here so I can have a sneak preview before you upload the video? Ty a lot

I've watch the stream right now, ty for the answer. You pretty much nailed it and confirmed my view

Watch my latest stream here

Intro - New additions to improve the effectiveness of our methodology

4:45 - Mental game / Confidence / Discipline / Intensity

13:15 - Reflections on an old student who now beats Stars 25/50

18:00 - How many hours of coaching do I need as independent learner to achieve success?

27:30 - How can different methods of learning be integrated to speed up the training process?

29:00 - CFP Program Outline

38:30 - What are we looking for in CFP applicant?

43:30 - What does the new Detox CFP application entails

51:15 - Stepping relevantly

53:30 - Higher level problem solving

1:03:00 - Challenge for CFP applicants

1:06:00 - What is “intense studying”?

1:10:50 - Importance of 'family' in poker

1:25:00 - New benefits to the Detox CFP program

@4Star

There will be a detailed write up released before thanksgiving, outlining everything the new applicants can expect from the course. Short answer is yes.

For those of you looking to boost your chances of making the new Detox CFP team, I am issuing a November volume challenge. The directions as follows

-Drop at least 1 limit from your normal stakes
-play 100K hands of Zoom during the month of November.

If you can’t play on pokerstars, play some close equivalent of this challenge on your site of choice. Hand goals may vary but I trust you guys to use your judgement to estimate what a similar target hand goal would be for your site. Don’t overthink it , what matters is that you play your ass off and demonstrate your grinder muscles. If I have two guys tied for the CFP spot, it will go to the grinder.

*Pokerstars is best bc they have a hand audit link. Applications will have a spot for players to attach graphs, in case you’re unable to play on stars for a month you can still show us a November graph for a boost.

I am in! I got a blog on https://raiseyouredge.com/forums/topic/poker-path-of-the-peaceful-warrior#post-32953 It's more of a diary :) I mesaged you in RIO and also in pokerdetox contact form, but then for now i just do the volume challenge. It will be tracked on my RYE blog.

Have a nice month guys!

this looks nice! will be following

I’ll be doing another Q&A this week, please continue to post your questions below. There were some good one’s last time that I didn’t get to , i’ll start with those.

Ok you asked for work ;)

How do we gain Vision over the inbalance of a pool when there is no Tracker working and we couldn't get HH ?

Would you prefer to play in soft pools and no tracker over those where we have a lot of vision over the inbalance / tracker but better players

Thanks Dirk

Hey Nick,
what happens in case the cfp student don't reach the profit goals after 2/3 years or he's making poor result in the first 12 months?
Thanks

KidAle

Those types of things always end up being decided on a case-by-case basis. imo the worst thing a coach can do is over-apply a rigid training model that demands results by X timeframe from a student. The beauty of working with a proven concept at this point in the operation, is that we have seen less-optimized versions of our current training model produce winners in the past. My team has 2 major focuses moving forward:
1) To optimize the model, so that it's as distilled as possible and able to offer alternate learning paths to players of different learning types.

2) To provide an abundant support system for the training process in all areas outside of strategy. We have an ecosystem consisting of hand history threads, weekly group calls, private mental game coaching with Elliot Roe, personal life coaching from experts working with our stable, and even guaranteed salaries to help students find the right balance of comfort and motivation necessary to succeed.

Basically we have a lot of eyes on this project from a lot of different specialists, That gives us a lot of capacity to assess where a problem is likely to be stemming from. I would never cut an horse unless it was the absolute last resort, usually stealing or some sort of monstrous roll-punting self sabotage would need to be involved.

Hello NICK, I´d like if you talk a bit about adjustments in your strategy (33% ip cbets, checking range oop etc.) in rly fishy games esp. live poker. Usually there are not so many regs so do you play the same vs fish? Dont we lose value with good hands vs fish when we bet only 33% IP and when we always check oop? What would be your adjustment when people start straddeling? Do you play tighter on the BTN when this happens because there are more players left to act or looser because live players dont 3bet enough and there is more money to steal/play pot IP. And what about SB? Do we need to play rly tight SB when there is a straddle? Would love if you can answer at least few of my questions. Thx a lot!

How do you deal with overthinking? With interests in psychology, philosophy and personal development I'm finding myself constantly trying to fix problems in my head on a rational level. The problem is that the unconscious mind doesn't always agree with your rational solutions and that leads to an inner conflict. How does one find the right balance so that he can actually use rational thinking to his advantage instead of feeling like it may just do more harm than good?

Nick's new video he just uploaded on YT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aKYrcPxSxs

Nick could you please check your messages and respond to mine?

new questions / new answers

In between spurts of my waterbottle blocking my webcam, some of the most valuable free poker advice on the internet is in this video^ ��:

7:45 - Biggest instance of tilt witnessed.
9:40 - What is GTO?
12:15 - How to gain vision over pool without the necessary info?
15:50 - Adjustments in blue print strategies
25:40 - How do you deal with over-thinking
40:00 - Differences in regs --> Paradigm Jump
45:00 - Language Upgrades
50:45 - Mental game improvements
54:28 - Be honest with yourself
55:35 - CFP Application information
56:20 - Potential new pack information
57:00 - More CFP details

Thanks for the recent Q&A format, guess I'll throw in a question for the next one.

What’s your take on intuition in poker? I recently came across a statement that resonated with me.
“The only way to improve intuition is to start listening to it. You'll make mistakes at first, but it will get sharper and more powerful.”

How can I make my chance of making the new cfp team higher?

i can tell you that if you are attempting to balance either another full time job, or a university degree, it’s very unlikely you will be picked.

This program requires your full focus and should basically be viewed as a 2 year university degree in itself.

Clearing your schedule is part of demonstrating a clear purpose. Beyond purpose, character goes the rest of the way . The 2 minute video is the part of the application where you get to express yourself. We’re looking for personalities and good vibrations.

Guys that are memorizing preflop solves for the sake of autopiloting those ranges are wasting their time. The only purpose of studying optimal preflop ranges is to strengthen your ability to calibrate exploitatively.

-What is the preflop raise sizing?
-Is there’s another caller in the pot / what position is he in?
-What is the HUD stat RFI for the PFR?
-How weak is PFR’s postflop game?

This is enough to get you deviating from optimal literally every single time you have a coldcall decision.

Hey Nick
Just popping in to say have been bingeing on your youtube channel over the last couple of weeks. Really enjoyed, really got a lot out of them.
I don't think I'm going to commit a lot more time to poker study in relation to playing/having a career but still find your thoughts (I like the q&a vids most) v useful as can transfer the general ideas to my main pursuit: film writing.
Keep releasing please. I intend to follow for as long as you keep producing content!

What if GTO was just an elaborate hoax invented by top exploitative players to trick everyone into thinking it’s worth making calls in spots that are clear folds?

Nick, will you make any new videos for RIO in the near future?

Since mentioned solvers, what's your view on 3 player+ equilibrium? I'm in the Monker skype group, and I know many players use the software. PIO creator said they won't be involved in a multiway solver because the results are shaky, ie you can play GTO and still lose. What's your view on these equilibriums?

Recently a couple of my Night Vision members reached out to me with a product geared around monksolver for NLHE. My team has reviewed the material, confirmed its accuracy, and it is likely that Detox will sponsor this multi-way preflop pack release in January. This was the creator’s response to the question above:

“Basically the fundamental thing to point out is that there is no such thing as a multiway GTO, GTO by definition is 1v1. So when we are exploring multiway interactions, such as preflop, with a multiway solver such as Monker, we are doing so knowing that we cannot come up with some GTO strategy. What we aim to come up with is an incredibly strong strategy through, often, hundreds of billions of iterations until all the dominated strategies (those performing with suboptimal EV) are screened out.

We further our confidence in the method by reproducing 1v1 solves that Pio can do, and observing that we arrive at almost identical outputs on Monker as those on Pio.

In short, we can say:

1) We arrive at strong strategies, far from shaky, and far superior to humanly made-up ones. And;

2) We have literally no other scientific method for acceptably solving preflop interactions on any table other than a heads-up table.”

Spent 10 mintutes today looking for an animation of a jackpot counter.. one that spins up really fast. Like on CNN when they do the Bill-Gates-real-time-hourly-rate-counter fast. Couldn’t find the animation but the concept is this:

If you truly understood how much money was being punted by the professionals of this industry simply by paying off late street zones that are so consistently underbluffed, you would have one of those crystal clear “aha” moments followed by a spontaneous alignment with an incentivized learning model capable of showing you how little difference there ever was between intelligence and relevant action.

Received a facebook message from a young Belgian player the other day...something like this

Is it possible to get to high stakes on my own, without coaching or an active poker network?

I would say It’s possible but very improbable. What’s more interesting to me how little a player’s chances of scaling to highstakes go up from getting coaching or joining discussion teams. Hearing this generally leads to two fast conclusions:

•Good coaching is hard to find
•Public discussion forums are useless

From the perspective of the “independent learner”, neither of those are true. I’ve said before that the best training I’ve ever gotten was training that redirected me to higher relevance through the failure I endured under those guidances. If you wait for the perfect course, you’ll wait your whole life. One of the main reasons (which is a whole separate topic entirely) is that our industry still makes the mistake of classifying the mental-game as a gay hobby instead of a honoring it as an equal and irreplaceable counter-part to a solid technical/metric based understanding of the game. I digress:

Start seeing the benefit that lies in trusting your own powers of discernment. This doesn’t require a strong theoretical framework (though that will help), it just requires that you begin to call bullshit on the level of inconsistency and assumption that a specific program or coach or forum tolerates. Call bullshit on gut. If your approach is honest and puré. it’s the most accurate radar you have. Remember that the ability to move away from inconsistent thought patterns is your sharpest weapon, and that is especially true in a learning environment where it can feel like nearly everyone from the middle on down is practically shooting in the dark.

The reason that so few players are improving is not because of a lack of strong resources. To believe this is to reinforce the very problem with how we perceive the learning process. Real learning is not that which is secondary or spoonfed. Real learning cuts to the heart of developmental self awareness in an individual, and the most powerful lessons in self awareness can not be taught, only surrendered to, until enough experience confirms that the new paradigm is safe and real and useful. Flash back to DMT trip where some guy who looked a lot like Einstein was kind enough to drop me this advice:

“A self-learned lesson is the smartest”

Thanks Al ����

Th vast majority of Skype type study groups I have joined are a waste of time. Whenever something subjective is up for discussion such as a HH where there are multiple solutions, it frustrates me to hear "this is horrible" or "so bad just do this". The pure insistence of some members that they cannot be wrong and start running stats through equilab/Fzilla to prove you wrong makes me leave these groups. They cannot seem to pull back and look at the wider picture and say - villain bet check bet half pot on the river he has very few bluffs here for us to bluff catch instead they rationalize a call via pot odds and/or running numbers through Fzilla (thinking they know villains exact range in certain scenarios).

This is why I tend to take the lone wolf route, I do not want other people projecting their skewed thought process and to a degree negativity/skepticism of my approach. There are an abundance of resources out there for people to take their own paths and scale up the stakes.

4-Star - I feel the exact opposite about every point you stated. I am driven and cannot wait to figure things out for myself - daily, especially on the micro level. I feel I can take what Nick provides and really run with it. I have 0 insistence for my methodology and would love to have somebody whom I respect criticize my game. What im doing is genuinely working for me right now and I am pushing forward. If I get stuck I will re-evaluate and do whatever is necessary to continue forward.

@Jpoker and 4-Star

The difference in someone’s experience when he embarks an an independent learning method will always reflect the core intention at the root of his quest. If it is polluted with a need to find answers in a certain way, or guarded by layers of insistence, avoidance, and a general lack of intensity or discernment, then the journey will reflect the lack of availability the learner has for true growth. Only when the approach is purified beyond a certain threshold of confusion, through suffering or grace or some combination of the two, does one gain the momentum necessary to plow through a critical-learning-mass into a self stabilizing, but still ever-expanding state of authentic dedication to truth. There are a lot of areas of life that still generate confusion for me, but for the most part poker is no longer one of them. I didn’t arrive there as a random self-proclamation or some pick-me-as-your-favorite-coach bullshit. I arrived there by investigating the landscape of the game deeply enough that most of my opinions dissolved into the light of what exposed itself be more balanced, more consistent, and therefore more true. If it seems like I have an opinion about a hand history, a concept, or even the state of the industry, it’s more likely that i’m just reflecting that which appears obviously true to me when held against the alternatives. To many people I will look arrogant for these types of statements. But to me, it is the uninvestigated complacency of the masses that is true arrogance. I’m aware that at this point many of you will sense that you are becoming subtly triggered or even angry with me, but that’s actually my intention this time. I hope I’m causing that inside of you. What more direct a method do I have to slap you the fuck awake? So that you have the opportunity to see once again that such resistant forms of judgement are still dormant in you? If distorted lines of sight can be activated in you, it is in everyones best interest for you to excavate and eliminate them as quickly as possible.

If you truly understood the level of balanced discernment that it takes to arrive at a relatively purified place of confident humility in any art or sport, you would not be resistant to words that point toward the possibility of that type of reality being valid or obtainable. You would just meet me in the silent recognition of another man who has realized a chunk of the essential truths that are available for all to claim if they are so willing to trade themselves in turn. But that road is scary as fuck until you spot some light at the end of the tunnel, and that’s why most of you haven’t committed yet. I feel you, I empathize, and I would simply ask again that you humbly reconsider your incentives. There is much more available for you (and me) than we currently know.

How much are you guys folding your BB vs btn steal? (hint)

Fold to steal BB vs BTN RFI (Last 110k hands)

varies a lot with BTN's sizing

44

56.8%
-36.77 bb/100

~60% vs 3x
~50% vs 2.5x
~30% vs <2.5x

Defending my BB v BTN aggressively is probably the most valuable insight Nick has helped me with. I went from struggling at 50 - 100nl to crushing it. Over a smaller sample button openers started losing portions of their raise vs me :D.

I am folding ~36.5% against a 2x open

I see BB defence similar to playing black in chess. Your are at a natural disadvantage but its gotta be done. Esp as in poker you are given a nice big incentive due to the discount preflop. The biggest crushers will do it very well and high level chess is defined by who wins with black and who draws with white.

@Doug Polk

It’s a shame that you use your influence to promote negativity. It’s even more sad that your reputation is sustained by driving fear into members of the community who would otherwise speak out against you if they weren’t so preoccupied with their public image. There are those of us who don’t give a fuck about your opinions and, if we cared enough, could publically dismantle your training methodology as the inconsistent marketing hoax that it actually is. Your actions are a disservice to everyone who looks to you as both a leader and a role model. I hope more players find the courage to speak out against what you’re doing, and I truly hope it inspires you to find a way to positively polarize with the influence you have.

Once you start selling poker training stuff like all three of you(berkey/polk/howard) - you are sort of fair game in the poker world. I don't see why anyone would fear Polk or any other poker player, and I sure don't see him as a role model.

This just seems like two guys with big egos needling each other on youtube - no?

Quido

It is just weird for Nick to attack his training site, when everyone I have ever heard talking upswing products was rather impressed by them. Polk is a nosebleed player selling a 33 hour long video series for a 1000 USD, JNandez is still beating PS high stakes PLO and his price tag is the same. Nick on the other hand is selling a 4.5 hour pack for a thousand and nobody even knows how good he is and as soon as the trolls came in calling him out on the lack of results he disappeared.

The first assumption your making is that the methodology used by upswing is efficient. It’s a maze of contradictory junk designed to keep the learner in a perpetual codependent loop. The second assumption you’re making is that success and credibility are defined by flaunting personal (public) results at the highest limits. That has never been at the root of my value system. I’m driven by offering maximum opportunity to as many people as possible. That’s why 80% of my content is free and I started a losers only CFP program to give opportunity to players that no other stable would even look twice at. The reason I don’t respond to trolls is because it is the accurate response. The reason I don’t post results is because I’m smart enough to play on untracked sites. The reason I don’t need to play much is because because 90% of my income comes from my horses that I pour my heart and soul into training. Please consider the value you offer to the community before you post here again.

I opened up about my rock bottom experience in part 1 of my interview on the Poker Mind Coach podcast. For anyone who has suffered deeply, I hope you can find a spark of inspiration from my story and use it to break free from whatever is stopping you from making radical change. Part 2 coming. Thanks to Elliot Roe for all that you give to the players of this industry.

Pod Part 1

Hmm, I barely post into any discussions/blogs, but here I feel like doing so.

Quido

I think you misunderstood message OP provided us with (or maybe I did, in which case, please take my apologies), and would like to share my 2 cents on whole thing...

It is just weird for Nick to attack his training site

I dont see it as an assault on his training site, but rather on Doug himself, not taking responsibility for position he voluntarily did put himself into, as one of most followed representatives of our game. You wont see "look how good I am" type of behavior, based on talking down another competitor, anywhere in the world, in any field, maybe except combat sports, in which case its rather desirable thing to do. In that case its pretty disgraceful and it shows our game in bad shade to general public, which DP is definitely influencing through his wide social media base.

Polk is a nosebleed player selling a 33 hour long video series for a 1000 USD, JNandez is still beating PS high stakes PLO and his price tag is the same. Nick on the other hand is selling a 4.5 hour pack for a thousand and nobody even knows how good he is and as soon as the trolls came in calling him out on the lack of results he disappeared.

Being good poker player and being good poker coach are two separate things. When defining training as good, or rather efficient, it really comes down to two things:
- Has this coach helped someone exactly in ones situation to get desired results?
- Is this coach able and willing to repeat same process with another student to achieve his desired results?
If answer is yes, then there shouldnt even be discussion. It has nothing to do with coaches ability to compete at highest levels whatsoever.
Its important to call things as they are...
Nosebleed player producing some content for money is just nosebleed player producing content for money, nothing more.
Paying for lessons with one of best guitar teachers out there offers one opportunity to become better guitar player. Having guitar signed by Slash just means one has guitar signed by Slash, nothing more. Ownership of such an artifact wont turn one into one of best guitarists out there.
Having cocky representative of our craft, means...

Saw the Video just to know why Nick goes that out of line the first time . For me it's not the strategy talk about the hand (i don't even can judge if the hand was played good from both sides) but it's the presantation from Doug which is far off. All he said and how he presents his thought on Matt after 10:40 in the video is pretty much not necessary and disrepectful and just aims to get more clicks at least in my opinion.

Nick since you mentioned you play on untracked sites... assuming you play 6M, do you think collusion is a big issue there? From what I've heard, the pool is soft but collusion is really rampant

I love this Copernicus guy, he is such a nice dude, always positive, full of joy, loves life, is successful and has always a good advice for people. And the best thing is, he never repeats himself.And the best thing is, he never ever repeats himself. It´s really a gift to have you on board, sir.And by the way, he is also aware of the function of money. He knows very well, that without money you can´t buy anything or pay invoices. So people want our money. I thought people do everything for free. I work for free. I let my boss earn the money, and i don´t need any money from him. Because I live in a world, where you can pay simply with love.
I hope he opens a thread to spread his wisdom among us.

I can't resist :)

(1) Money is just an instrument to get what you desire, it's not the end goal (shouldn't be, we can fall in the trap of thinking it is)
- There are physical, emotional, mental, spiritual "desires"
- You're basic desire is surviving, we need: food, shelter / after that sex / then community and so on -- most of this you can buy with money, so you want money to get these things, but also you can get without it so there shouldn't be a misunderstanding
- There are mental desires: love, relationships, recognition...and a lot of it -- you can buy some for money, mostly not really, you get these with character more.
So its just a pretty bad assumption that people want only money. Freud said they want only sex, that's incorrect too. Jung has some nice philosophy about it. Also stoicism you can learn some :) (maybe you can end your painful view of the world)

(2) Coaching is a totally different stuff from playing poker. Its a service which gives information and insights to the people who use it.
- For the players is good cause you get another view, another perspective, mostly a little bit better than yours, but that doesn't really matter. You get introduced to other methods that you know. It is like with all other coaching in the world, like life coaching, or athlete coaching, the coach is in the 99% cases not swimming better he just corrects your form as he sees it from outside, from another perspective. So maybe you can do it alone, but mostly it is faster with a coach.
- For the coach is good too. In poker he gets variance free money(that's a motivation why he is doing it, along with some others like: recognition, being a master, help), maybe he doesn't like to play and likes more to analyse the game, to view from outside more. Obviously he should be a relative okay poker player, but anyway he can teach you methods that can improve you. (if he is bad maybe mislead you, but that's not really the case with most coaches here, and if he is good he might have bad conceptions too and mislead besides his will)

There are a ton of motivation to be good for both parties, i don't say coaching is good/bad or a must, but it is helpful to people who get it. Then you have to decide, what kind of possibilities you have, how much you are willing to pay / worth to you some information or insight. For every people is different.

As you (can't) see, you maybe need a mental attitude coach to get you through your negativity. I could write thousand of more lines, but let this be just some fast thoughts here :)

I made the loot back for the course I bought by implementing what I learned in the course, now I have more loot for another course. Am I doing this correctly?

Why are you feeding the troll? :)

By the way guys, pokermindcoach.com released part II. of their interview with Nick here.
https://www.pokermindcoach.com/nick-howard-poker-pt2/

Hey guys, just an update on the new wave of CFP applications — we expect to open up December 18, and keep application doors open for at least 3 weeks. Chosen applicants will begin phase 1 of training several days after final selection.

I’m headed on a 12 week meditation retreat and will make sure to post again here when we finish preparing the application section of the website. Thanks to all who participated in the November volume challenge —get your graphs ready :)

Hi,

I will start doing some Research about 2 different Environments using H2N and have some questions.

1. do you exclude Reg vs Fish Hands in H2N when mapping Lines ?
2. when looking for frequencies at a certain Line like BB vs BTN in a triple barrel Spot vs 33,66,66 Betsize I have to filter for those Betsizes especially on the Flop because it's uncommon, right ?
3. In PIO how many subsets do you use ?
4. When I Solve the subsets in PIO do i solve my BTN Range vs BB Pool or BU Pool vs BB Pool defend ?

Thanks in advance to anybody who answers

Dirk

A developing student of mine has been on a 100k hand breakeven stretch. Along this stretch he has been made aware of a lot of bad plays, and as far as I can tell he’s improved both technically and mentally. But he’s frustrated, and his frustration leads him to consider all of the borderline crazy things that many of us are guilty of considering during long stretches without good results.

In a recent text message, he considered a few versions of possible (and partly hilarious) realities to explain the poor sample:

1. Somehow, I am energizing my own run-bad on some sort of molecular, law of attraction level
2. Somehow, an authority completely outside of my control is forcing me to run bad (poker-gods)
3. It’s just plain random variance

I offered up a 4th option, and then asked him to rank them from top to bottom in order of his most preferred to least preferred version of reality.

4. You’re actually playing poorly without realizing.

In my opinion there’s more or less an “accurate” ordering here. My definition of accurate would be “the order that shows the student prefers to live in a reality that requires the most responsibility from him. To me, the correct order is as follows:

4 -best
1
3
2 -worst

If a student prefers reality 2 (poker-gods are against me), it shows he actually prefers to live in a victimized reality where he has no real control. This indicates heavy identification with fear of failure/success beliefs. As a result of those beliefs, the person voluntarily chooses disempowerment as a more favorable option than risking a true confirmation of disempowerment through “real” failed action. Or, he chooses to act, but self-sabotages on an unconscious level. Same-Same but different.

If he prefers reality 3 (random variance), it most likely indicates that he lacks discernment and avoids reviewing his sessions with the intention of extracting maximum benefit from possible mistakes. Even if it IS variance, it’s detrimental for that to be the preferred reality — it has a really high chance of making you lazy and avoidant. At higher levels you can chalk it back up to variance, but only after you’re positively well-discerned as a player.

Option 1 deals with some pretty controversial and ungrounded law-of-attraction theories, but at least it’s in the direction of taking personal responsibility, albeit some woo-woo form of “vibrational” responsibility.

Option 4 is the most relevant preference for immediate growth, because it requires the most humility and responsibility. Although it could be confusing and even temporarily overwhelming to find out you were doing things incorrectly with no awareness over it, you should always prefer to have your paradigm shattered if it opens up into an invitation to higher self-understanding and accuracy. Sure it sucks to find out you had no clue you played hands wrong, but that’s far more correctable than choosing a reality where it’s “lol variance” or “poker gods hate me”. Extreme responsibility is always the dominant strategy option.

I would love for guys to understand that it’s a choice what reality you live into, and it works that way because on the most relevant and fundamental level, your beliefs are largely creating your interpretation of reality. Option 1 is looking pretty good now ;)

CFP Applicants - the application section of pokerdetox.com should be up in a few days. I’ll post again when we officially open for submissions. Thanks for your patience.

Thought experiment: If we "raised" a poker baby and neglected to tell him/her/it about the concept of variance at all, would that help or hurt their career?

@ restacks

I think it would help and it wouldn’t even be close.. as long as they were taught to understand the value of self forgiveness as it applies to both learning and performance.

I definitely agree that there's a lot of upside, but there is also a humbleness that comes from acknowledging that you're simply running well. It's also important to be able to detect that you might be losing to an opponent that you are currently running well against.

I don't really have an opinion on this topic. Just thought the discussion might enlighten

Where's the CPF applications? Lol

It is on the PokerDetox website

@Nick, a few question if you don't mind

- How many applicants waves to do you expect in 2018? A guy can apply now and make another application for the second wave if not he isn't snapselected?

-from your site
Over the projected 2 year model, complete life/mind coaching expenses will be roughly $25,000. We understand this is a substantial amount. It is our belief that the implied gains created through both the efficiency of the player’s contract and the momentum he will have post contract make this well worth it. We are looking at this from a long term perspective. Students should keep in mind they are not liable for payment on any of these loans if the company does not give them the means to do so through results.
It's pretty clear you believe 110% in your system (as it should be) and the last phrase testify that. At the same time, I'm sure your model include potential losses. Worst case scenario: what happens if a student after an year of intensive work find himself with buried in make up and don't want to continue?
From your words seems a student can freeroll your services while in reality he shoudn't allow to. A make up is a debt a player must pay, but seems unclear this time, at least for me, can you elaborate a bit on that?

- I'm pretty sure you mentioned you plan to take your team to a few trips, do these trips go into make up or they are just a business cost?

Not a question, but a statement. I think what you offer is a great opportunity, and some players could take advantage on some other players by doing something shady. Last month you issue a volume challenge. Be aware that any database can easily edited and trackers can show you whatever a player want. Also, unless a player played on Stars, there's no way to verify actual hands were played in a given time period. I'm sure you know this, and I feel a little bit silly to write that, whatever...
I didn't reach your volume goal for the challenge, I can easily show you a graph with 100k hands 8bb/100 winrante but I won't because I rate very high integrity, but this doesn't mean other players will do the same

Hello,

I sent the application. The platform didn't give feedback about successful submitting. Confirm that you got my application, please.

Thanks,
Robert

Applications for the new CFP flight are now
open. Thanks to the early birds, we’ve received your submissions just fine. Applications for this flight will remain open until January 16, we are taking 4 new players. There will also be 3 subsequent flights over the course of 2018.

What's wrong with Ben Sulskys, Tyler Forresters, Mark Lammers, Daniel Dvoresss etc. and every other RIO no limit holdem coach's coaching on this site??

This is just sad...

$300,000.00 for 2 years of poker coaching ??

What is he talking about?

The poor player will have only made 200k for himself with no risk involved. Ripped off!

I'm not sure if you're being deliberately obtuse, or you're just stupid. Without your "coach" you wouldn't have 300k to give to anyone. Gonna stop feeding the troll now. Wish a mod would step in so this blog could go back to being awesome

2018 Resolutions:

•Goin “crypto-dark”
•Gettin strong A F
•Praying for all trolls (not just my trolls)

����

"strong AF"?

Well if you think I am troll I guess your prayers can't hurt. I was thinking my comment above would give you reason to explain things to Copernicus.

What does crypto-dark mean?

Just a word I made up for someone who no longer compulsively checks crypto prices

But first, one more for good luck..

#patterns

If you think this Copernicus issue has crossed any reasonable line, please like the thread below and/or make a comment so we can show Rio staff that your users understand that something needs to be done.

Thread

And I'm sorry for doing this Nick. I know you have been handling this issue in a different way, but this doesn't affect just you, it affects everyone that comes here to read the (awesome) things you post and I just can't accept this or simply ignore it.

Nick is a big boy and should be able to handle a little critisicm.

I kind of respect Nick more for having these threads on this forum where people can ask question, critize his material, and have disscusions - rather than just some random blog/youtube page with all comments turned off.

So if I don't see it your way we can't have a disscussion?

I am not super active in RIO forums lately so maybe I am not fully aware of Copernicus's behavior in other threads?

Tip: the sauna is a mental game challenge and should be treated as such.

Thanks to everyone who applied for this wave of Detox CFP. If you haven’t submitted your application and still plan to apply, please do so by January 18. Initially I planned to keep applications open through late January, but we have a lot of strong applications and I will need that time to decide.

Some of you will be receiving wait-list calls.. This means you will be re-evaluated in the April flight without needing to send in a new written application.

The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.

-Marcus Aurelius (on war and poker)

Fail early, fail often, fail forward.

I thought I had my top 4 picked out for this round of CFP but a few of the most recent applications just changed everything. You guys are seriously bringing the heat �� �� �� . Seeing real dedication in a struggling player is inspiring. Witnessing their willingness to convey inner conflict is cathartic. Connecting into their level of awareness over that conflict is enchanting. Being reminded of how much we have in common is why I built this company.

Applications close on January 18th. All applicants will be informed of our final decision by Jan 28.

❤️

I’ll be holding a “All things poker” Q&A specifically for RIO members, on facebook in /early Feb. Please post any poker questions below, either technical or mental.

Where/how would you start to think about multiway pots, specifically live games where 4-5 way pots are common?

Any heuristics that you would use? Most relevant data points you see/feel?

How exploitatively out of line can you get in an anonymous poker environment.

Are you still recommending super high RFI strategies to your students. Are these strategies really that incentivized in high rake games on sites like Ignition/Global w/ no rakeback.

Last question:

When you attack an exploitative hotspot, specifically hotspots that incentivize an aggressive action on earlier streets - you naturally end up on turn or river w/ a wider and weaker than "optimal" range. These hotspots indicate were printing EV in a vaccum. That said, I feel like it is really easy to compound these aggressive preflop and flop exploits into big mistakes on turn/river by forcing aggression when there is a lot of money in the pot and your up against an already too tight range. Which leads me to my primary question, which is how do you teach your students how to proceed on future streets effectively and in a simplified way without getting countered involuntarily or voluntarily by villains when there's way more BB's in the pot?

I hope that makes sense, Cheers!

0% rake fishy game = play loose (we have skill adv + low SQ %) or play tight (too many players call our opens)?

Thx

Not sure if this qualifies to what you are expecting but its something I have a lot interest on:

What changed for you in terms of life quality when you switched from playing most of your time to teaching most of your time? And how important or relevant or beneficial do you think it is for a poker player to teach his skills to someone else (either a person who just discovered the game or a player from a lower stake level)?

Nick too, given this is Nick's thread, I will give him the space before I jump in further.

Hey guys,

A couple days back I got to my airBnB in Melbourne. I recorded an impromptu stream on FB, but had some lag. Will wait till I arrive at my next leg in Zealand (first week in February) to record the QnA stream.

Cliffs from my last stream:

“Lightning Bolt Theory”
Assume 1 out of a billion people get hit by lightning each day.

Q1: What is your level of paranoia that you’ll be struck by lightning today?

Q2: What is your level of paranoia that you will run worse than a billion other players?

If your paranoia level is even remotely higher in question 2, watch the rest of the video, and cure yourself from this outrageous (yet common) form of tilt.

Lightning Bolt Theory

I was planning to take 4 new contracts for this flight of CFP, But as of right now it’s looking like I’ll be taking 6, two of which are RIO‘s own. For those of you who applied and are waiting to hear back, you’ll receive an email by end of day Jan 28 PST. Strong, strong applications this round and I’m happy to be able to give further support to members of this community who have grown alongside me over the years.

Over the next two weeks I’m going to be releasing 7 findings that were uncovered by members of one of my affiliate research teams. These findings came from sims performed by “MonkerSolver”, one of the first multi-way solvers for both NLHE and PLO. Our goal is to generate discussion with you guys on optimal play in different multiway zones. I’ll post the solution for each before I head on to the next zone. All of the findings from this research team will be available for sale on February 11 at pokerdetox.com, in a complete “multiway blueprint”pack. I’m hoping to provide an exploitative outlook on the optimal findings highlighted in these 7 research posts in this blog. This way you guys can develop your understanding of equilibrium while increasing your exploitative edge against imbalanced industry trends. Here’s to two weeks of intelligent, new world discussion!

Hi Nick
I have some q's:
i) are you familiar with Tai Lopez?
ii) what do you think is optimal: a fastidious routine that you never break or a rougher routine but you get the odd extreme experience that provides radical insight? (You can only have 1!)
iii) do you feel you have a tendency to fall into negative thought patterns? do you feel you have control over this (now)?
Thanks

We’re gonna post the multi-way solves in a quiz format so you guys have something clear to aim at with your responses. We will be giving away prizes to the top 3 scorers over the next 2 weeks. Let’s begin!

BB Defending Quiz

1) 100bb 6-Max no ante table, UTG raises 2.5bb, you are dealt AQo in the BB, you...?

2) 100bb 6-Max no ante table, UTG raises 2.5bb, you are dealt AQs in the BB, you...?

3) 100bb 6-Max no ante table, UTG raises 2.5bb, you are dealt A9o in the BB, you...?

@nick howard
without the RFI % its impossible to give the correct answer :P
1- call 90% 3bet 10%
2-call 10% 3bet 90%
3- fold

Playing zone on ignition, population folds 36% to 3b UTG when IP over my small sample and rarely 4bets (8%). PFR 13.6
1) 3b/fold.
2) 3b/fold
3) fold (but can believe calling is profitable with more thorough vision of my environment postflop)

Lets simplify that so...

1-call
2-3B
3-call

1 - call
2 - 3b
3 - fold

1. call
2. 3b/call
3. fold

It depends on RFI, assuming something like 15% i would say:
1) Call
2) Mix between 3bet and call, mostly call
3) Fold

1. Call
2. 3b 80%, Call 20%
3. Fold

Extra details: these are optimal blueprints from which we can intelligently deviate to max exploit known under-defends

1) 100bb 6-Max no ante table (5% rake, capped at 0.6bbs), UTG 17.6% range raises 2.5bb, you are dealt AQo in the BB, you...?

2) 100bb 6-Max no ante table (5% rake, capped at 0.6bbs), UTG 17.6% range raises 2.5bb, you are dealt AQs in the BB, you...?

3) 100bb 6-Max no ante table (5% rake, capped at 0.6bbs), UTG 17.6% range raises 2.5bb, you are dealt A9o in the BB, you...?

1) call/3bet both seem good
2) 3bet
3) call

1) 80% call, 20% 3b
2) 3b
3) fold

1) 3-bet
2) 3-bet
3) Call

1) call
2) 50/50 call/3bet
3) fold

You said "We’re gonna post the multi-way solves in a quiz format" and "Our goal is to generate discussion with you guys on optimal play in different multiway zones", but this first question is a heads-up spot: UTG vs BB. What's the catch? :)

Answer:
1) call;
2) call;
3) call.

This all depends on Villain fold to 3bet and fold to cbet in 3bet pot.
If you look at solution from PIOSolver Preflop

1) call
2) 3b/call are roughly the same in EV. PIO tend to slighly favor 3beting but thats like whatever tbh.
3) clear fold.

But Looking at Nick post I just assume there is some catch and If I did mass database analysis it would show me some clear deviation from optimal.

Besides I never used Monker and Maybe Monker gives different ranges (just my guess it can slightly underdefend compared to PIO in mulitway solved because defend is our shared responsibility so it can get away with defending less as long as other people defend correctly??? Or maybe I am just confiusing myself)

Exploitable I would go with:
1) 3bet
2) 3bet
3) fold

Optimal AQo is close to 100% a call and very rarely 3bets. So although in theory calling and 3bet have same EV in practice because villans are overfolding to 3bets we might win more by 3betting it.

AQs even against optimal players its mostly a 3bet so against a player that underdefends against 3bet our EV increases in that line so we shpould 3bet 100%.

A9o its to weak to call and probably even with villans overfolding against 3bet the low equity of the hand against the villan continuing range makes it to weak to 3bet although I would not be surprised that its still slight positive to 3bet it against a player that overfolds against 3bets + overfolds flop when calls.

1. Call
2. 3b 80%, Call 20%
3. Fold

1. call
2. 90% 3b 10 % call
3. fold

I guess that's the rake for 500 zoom? It's a good bit rougher where I'm at. Could be convinced that 3balling AQo is more winning but standard for me is 3bet AQs, call AQo, always folding A9o.

Lol Copernicus is actually funny too bad he's a hater
#stilljustahater

1.call
2.call
3.fold

Solutions to the BB Defending Quiz

“1) Call (96% of the time, 3-bet the remainder) - AQo is a pretty strong hand, but versus a strong range, and OOP, it is not that strong. It is also a hand that will often have good equity, but rarely exceptional nutted equity. Therefore it becomes a more powerful hand at shallower stack depths, and vice versa.

2) 3-bet (87% of the time) - The suitedness makes all the difference, now AQs is a holding that can make nutted equity, which is ideally suited for a 3-bet range.

3) Fold - This surprises many players, but the logic is intuitive - when OOP deep-stacked, A9o has poor playability versus a strong range, and a raggy offsuited ace especially will offer significant reverse implied odds whilst at the same time will rarely win big pots.”

• Ivan, Monker pack creator.

started with a HU spot :)

BB Multiway Quiz:

1) Assume BTN 3-bets optimally: 100bb 6-Max no ante table (5% rake, capped at 0.6bbs), UTG 17.6% range raises 2.5bb, BTN 3-bets 8.5bb 'x%' range, you are dealt JJ in the BB, you...?

2) Assume BTN calls optimally: 100bb 6-Max no ante table (5% rake, capped at 0.6bbs), UTG 17.6% range raises 2.5bb, BTN calls 'x%', you are dealt ATo in the BB, you...?

3) Assume both villains play optimally: 100bb 6-Max no ante table (5% rake, capped at 0.6bbs), CO 'x%' range raises 2.5bb, BTN 3-bets 8.5bb 'y%' range, you are dealt 99 in the BB, you...?

I'm also in team #allfolds

1) JJ cold 4b.
2) Call
3) fold.

JJ fold
ATo call
99 fold

4b JJ
Call ATo
Fold 99

1) JJ 4b - unlikely we would construct a CC range here. 4b/fold strategy, JJ is a pure 4b.
2) ATo fold - simillar as A9o in BB defending quiz, but now OOP against two strong ranges (17,6% and 11%?), which is not countered by better immediate odds.
3) 99 fold 85%, 4b 15% - again no CC range. I'm guessing 10-30% 4b in this configuration.

1. 4 bet
2. call
3. fold

1. 4bet
2. fold
3. fold

4bet/fold 50/50

fold

fold

4bet,fold,fold

1)4b/f
2)fold
3)fold

1. 4B (vs population trend in my pool its prob a fold)
2. Fold
3. Mix 4b & fold, but probably fold more often (low-midstakes Ignition its probably best as a fold readless)

1 4B
2) Fold
3) 4B

1. 4bet;
2. fold;
3. fold.

1. cold 4b
2. fold
3. fold

I don't like folding.... so....
1. 4b
2. call
3. 4b

BB MULTIWAY QUIZ SOLUTIONS

“1) Call 53%, 4-bet 47% - this is a great example of a spot where we can quickly shift to a pure strategy of always calling or always 4-betting based on player profiling the two opponents. For example, if either opponent is a recreational, it is likely that we get swayed to calling, or if both villains are regs and the BTN is an aggressive reg, then we are likely to be swayed to 4-bet. These conclusions can easily be drawn from our MDA as discussed in Night Vision.

2) Fold! This is counter-intuitive - here we have a very decent hand with good pot odds. However, multiway solving reveals the importance of a core concept, namely that pot odds are a secondary consideration compared to the realisable equity we generate OOP in multiway pots. This is important in heads-up pots, but more pronounced in multiway pots where we are OOP to two opponents. The pool is getting these spots terribly wrong, 'strong' regs included...

3) 4-bet 24%, fold 76% - this illustrates how things change a lot with position, when comparing to the question one answer. Also, Monker is not a fan of cold-calling, instead showing a clear preference for re-raising/folding.”

-Ivan Stokes, Monker pack creator

#2 seemed like a really tight fold to me. I would like the think that we could turn a profit with ATo here in most games, esp vs a 2.5x open, once postflop mistakes from our opponents are considered. I would be really interested to see how poorly the pool plays postflop here relative to the solvers. Any thoughts?

Hi belong to a FB group that posts hands for review on a daily basis - in general, i'd say we are missing the 4bet spots most often but getting the folds close to right. Looking forward to seeing how the AT analysis falls out.

Cutoff Opening QUIZ

1) 100bb 6-Max no ante table (5% rake, capped at 0.6bbs), you are dealt A6o in the CO, you...?

2) 100bb 6-Max no ante table (5% rake, capped at 0.6bbs), you are dealt 43s in the CO, you...?

3) 100bb 6-Max no ante table (5% rake, capped at 0.6bbs), you are dealt K9o in the CO, you...?

1) fold
2) open
3) fold

1)fold
2)fold
3)open 45%

fold / 35% / fold

1) fold
2) fold
3) open

1) Fold
2) Open 25%
3)Open 25%

1)fold
2)open
3)open

1) Open. Ace blocker means you get 3 bet less and you push a good baseline equity.
2) Fold. 4 high is does not push strong equity and scs are overvalued in general.
3) Open. High cards matter.

1) Fold.
2) Fold.
3) Fold.

3x fold

Before we can start choosing our opening range we should decide what open size strategy we use for the rake structure we are facing. But since it's not included in the question, I'm just going to assume "standard" 3bb open like everybody else:

1) A6o - open
2) 43s - fold
3) K9o - open

Totally agree with WM2K's explanation above for the reasoning.

fold
open
open

1) fold
2) open
3) open

3x fold

1. fold
2. open
3. fold

1. Fold
2. Fold
3. Open 22%

1) Open
2) Fold
3) Fold

1) fold
2) fold
3) Close, some kind of mix i would imagine. Im going to guess 50/50 or if i had to chose one or the other i would say always open.

Interesting how much people seem to be love in with 43s lol, that hand is garbage.

1. fold
2. open
3. close fold

Observations from Day 1 of Aussie Millions Main event (and life in general):

The vast majority of people can be divided into two types:

1. Those who are allowing themselves to stay imprisoned by fear
2. those who destroy themselves trying to escape.

Mind games ftw. 20th/394 headed into Day 2

1) Fold
2) Fold
3)) Open

1) Fold
2) Fold
3) Fold

1) Fold
2) Fold
3) Open

CO Open Solutions

“Open raise size as previous quizzes (2.5bb)

1) Fold
2) Fold
3) Fold (raise 80%)

General remarks: these results will surprise many, because we have engineered our ranges based on arbitrary benchmarks and trees facing a single opponent, with only that villain's cards removed from the deck. In reality, in this situation we now know that four cards have been mucked, and three opponents will have options against us (one opponent with position on us). In particular, the button is super important here, yet the thought processes of most orient around how we'll fair against the BB. This may be because Pio/SPF preflop range packs only showed solutions based on this interaction, without factoring in the other stuff that I have mentioned.

Nevertheless, the lesson here is that ranges are constrained by these additional factors which leads to tighter ranges being optimal in the equilibria of late position interactions, most noticably CO opening.

Note on hard exploits: based on these findings, we can find hard exploits on unbalanced regs opening too wide, and also on almost all players defending vs. opens too passively/tight (although I'm seeing a trend towards better regs possibly calling too wide in the BB). The impact of raise sizing is also super interesting, in particular when facing regs who are geared for facing 2bb raises.”

• Ivan, Monkersolver pack creator

BTW Nick or Ivan . The new mutliway pack did you also dabble into big ante/mandatory straddle games? This is quite important because this is a big part of the market now and I have reason to believe most of the people play them poorly.

.

Hi Nick, there will be some kind of updates regarding your CPF students? I mean blogs or something like that...

When is the monkersolver MW project thing coming out?

Hi!Could u tell when u'll release that new course for RIO which u had announced in the first post?

CO Defense Quiz

1) 100bb 6-Max no ante table (5% rake, capped at 0.6bbs), UTG 17.6% range raises 2.5bb, you are dealt A9s on the CO and can only 3-bet 8.5bbs or fold, you...?

2) 100bb 6-Max no ante table (5% rake, capped at 0.6bbs), UTG 17.6% range raises 2.5bb, you are dealt KTs on the CO and can only 3-bet 8.5bbs or fold, you...?

3) 100bb 6-Max no ante table (5% rake, capped at 0.6bbs), UTG 17.6% range raises 2.5bb, you are dealt A2s on the CO and can only 3-bet 8.5bbs or fold, you...?

1 - 3B 60%
2 - 3B 40%
3 - 3B 25%

1)3bet 38%
2)3bet
3)fold

1) Fold (maybe 3bet 25-50% or so)
2) Fold
3) 3bet

all 3 mixing 3betting and folding

1. fold
2. 3b
3. fold

1) 3b
2) 3b
3) fold

1. fold
2. 3bet
3. fold

1 3bet
2 3bet
3 3bet

Solutions to the CO Defending QUIZ

1) 3-Bet 29%, fold 71%
2) 3-Bet 96%, fold 4%
3) Fold

“Here we see another surprising finding, which is that solver typically values A2s far less than we do as a 3-bet candidate, and possibly values A9s higher than we do (at least relative to A2s). This may be because with some frequency UTG must defend with hands that do poorly vs A9s but would do fine vs A2s, but there may be more to it than that, such as how solver likes to construct ranges for board coverage balance and/or optimise hot:cold equity IP etc.

It may also surprise some that KTs is basically always a 3-bet, but with deep stacks KTs is a quality hand to take to postflop in 3-bet pots. Moreover, it blocks AKo from UTG's 4-bet range, but more important still is that it blocks AKo in the cold-4-betting ranges of the players left to act. This, it would appear, is significant. Hard exploit: the reg population is typically 3-betting too much speculative stuff with no regard for this important factor, and are therefore going to face 4-bets with a greater frequency due to poor hand selection.“

-Ivan, Pack Creator

UTG Defending vs CO 3-Bet Quiz

1) 100bb 6-Max no ante table (5% rake, capped at 0.6bbs), you as UTG with 17.6% range raise 2.5bb, CO 8.2% range 3-bets 8.5bb, with A5s you...?

2) 100bb 6-Max no ante table (5% rake, capped at 0.6bbs), you as UTG with 17.6% range raise 2.5bb, CO 8.2% range 3-bets 8.5bb, with KJs you...?

3) 100bb 6-Max no ante table (5% rake, capped at 0.6bbs), you as UTG with 17.6% range raise 2.5bb, CO 8.2% range 3-bets 8.5bb, with KTs you...?

1) call 26%, 4bet 49%, fold 25%
2) call 36%, 4bet 56% fold 8%
3) call 17% 4bet 19%, fold 64%

This is harder for me as I don't open ~18% from UTG. It this a monker solution for optimal UTG open range?
1) mostly fold with some 4Bs
2) mostly call with some folds
3) mostly fold with some calls

1. Mostly fold/mixing 4bets
2. Call
   3.mixing calling/4betting/folding

1) mix call/4b close to 50/50
2) mix call/4b leaning more to call
3) mix call/4b close to 50/50

1) Fold
2) Call
3) Fold/Call 50/50

1) Fold ~75% and 4bet around 25%
2) Fold. 4bet around 15%
3) Fold.

1) call 13% fold 38%
2) 4b 52% call 26%
3) 4b 11% call 10%

1. 4b 50% call 25% fold 25%
2. 4b 50% call 25% fold 25%
3. fold - maybe not solver optimal but as a 2 gapper it's a hard hand to play oop.

1. 4bet 50% - 25%/25% call/fold
2. 4bet 50% - 25%/25% call/fold
3. Fold

1) Fold 86% 4bet 14%
2) Fold 56% 4bet 44%
3) Fold 93% 4bet 7%

Things that are officially less likely than being struck by lightning during a lifetime of living in the US:

• A 5bb/100 winner going on a 7,500bb or 300,000-hand downswing

• A 20bb/100 winner going on a 2,000bb or 35,000-hand downswing

• A 30bb/100 winner going on a 15,000-hand downswing

Playing on soft sites allows for winrates of 30bb+, even at high stakes. I hope it’s clear why this is so valuable to the humble learner.

1) 4bet
2) mix 4bet/call mostly 4bet
3) mix 4bet/fold mostly fold

Hi Nick Howard , my responses are :
A5s - 4bet 28,89% ; call - 16,49% ; fold - 54,62%
KJs - 4bet 63,36% ; call 32,22% ; fold - 4,41%
KTs - 4bet 6,29% ; call - 7,06% ; fold - 86,62%

UTG Defending vs CO 3-Bet Solutions

1) 4-bet to 22bb 38%, call 13%, fold 49%
2) 4-bet to 22bb 52%, call 27%, fold 21%
3) 4-bet to 22bb 11%, call 10%, fold 79%

“This is one of the most complex game tree formations, reflected in the results. What we see here is that basic pure game strategy approximations are just not going to cut it and will quickly lead to range imbalances. In the more straightforward parts of the tree, we can make some intelligent simplifications and expect a negligible loss of accuracy and winrate, but once we get into 3-betting, and even moreso when facing 3-bets OOP it is vital to have an in-depth understanding of how to respond. This may be why it is the most poorly played part of the preflop game by regs and fish alike.

Useful takeaway points: solver clearly has a preference for moving towards a 4-bet or fold approach when possible - this is seen even in the quiz hands, albeit within a mixed approach. With that said, in pools where we face regs who 3-bet inappropriately IP, with poor hand choices and excessive 3-bet ranges, we can intelligently simplify towards a straightforward mostly 4-bet/fold approach with greater frequency than solver recommends, and with a greater part of our range. For example, moving KTs to 100% 4-bet would likely be super +EV against that CO player profile. On the other hand, versus fish who clearly 3-bet far less than regs, we would be encouraged to call a lot more than solver advises and 4-bet less. This is because of our worse hot-cold equity vs. their 3-bet range, but ALSO because of our significantly better realisable equity OOP vs. those weaker opponents at deep stacks.”

• Ivan, pack creator

Graphs of 30bb/100 winrates on soft sites are welcome Nick :)

@Straightfloosh

Being skeptical of higher attainable winrates helps you exactly 0%. What would be helpful would be for all skeptics to build a new peer circle, where the emphasis is on studying and implementing more efficient exploits.

a Pokerfriend of mine switch to Pokermaster (Chiinese App) and were a BE NL50 on stars back then . He uses no exploit theories because he is not aware of any / dont want to put the time in .

He made over decent sample 23 bb/100 on NL150$.

So I think its quite possible with the right exploits / Coach

And before anyone asks : No I will post no graph :D

I hope you guys enjoyed the last 2 weeks of multi-way quizzes and solutions from this new product.
Since it’s pretty clear the some of you have been inputting the questions into MonkerSolver before giving answers (either that or some of you really good at guessing) I’d like to change the rules for the prize to make it fair-game for all. If you’ve been following along with the of quizzes and solutions, write a post on how it’s strengthened your perspective on poker. I’ll give a $300 Amazon gift card to my favorite post before the pack goes on sale on Feb 13.

Think that the bigest lesson I got from your questions/answers is how much big of a equity drop multiway is and how much bigger impact it has compared to "good" pot odds. Thanks for sharing this, it pushed my thinkig in the right direction... :)

Takeaways(they are all about preflop since this was the theme):

1. Solver gives preference to high cards in the opening range: K9o better open in CO than 34s, KJs better 3b than A2s(CO vs EP), KJ's better 4b than A5s(UTG vs CO)...

2. Offsuit cards are much worse compared to their suited equivalent

3. Dominated hands like ATo have poor equity in multiway pots.

4. Preference to 4b or fold instead of calling.

5. No calling from MP and CO and just 3b/fold simplifies our preflop strategy with insignificant loss in EV.

6. In the 3-4 betting game many hands become a mix strategy. A huge unexploited area where we can expect opponents to make many mistakes.

7. We can exploit players that 3b more than the optimal strategy using a 4b/fold strategy.

8. The solutions offered by Monker differ from the traditional HU solvers as it is the first time a solver accounts for card removal of players that acted and still left to act. 2 big differences as pointed by Nick:
   - optimal ranges are tighter for late positions than most people play
   - this leaves wide open ranges exploitable to 3b especially as they defend too tight vs them

P.S. I do not own Monker and while I believe my preflop estimates were pretty good this is due to me studying a lot the preflop game(I bought PIO solver preflop ranges, studied my DB for losing hands and also trained it with Snowie). Also for full disclosure I was in the Monker solver Skype group where they shared a solution at some point for BB vs UTG.

For me preflop is the absolute most important area of the game. Good ranges make the game easy to play and I don't end up in bad spots postflop that I end up needing to save with bad aggression. I really hoped I will win the new Monker package :)

Thanks for everything you shared with the community.

I haven't put a ton of thought into preflop this year, so the quiz called attention to core concepts that I wasn't really paying attention to. I think the most salient takeaway was focusing on the equity of hands and not as much on pot odds. The ATo fold was shocking to me and I never would have even considered it. It's possible we can make it profitable versus the player pools, but it was eye opening that I don't yet have that base-level understanding of where to start from.

If there's something I'm curious to learn more about, I'd like hear what incentives the construction of 3-bet and 4-bet ranges. For example, what is the difference between a bad 13% 3-bet BB vs SB and a good 13% 3-bet BB v SB? We see how delicate range composition is postflop, and what our resulting counters are for it, but I don't have the same knowledge for preflop construction. Basically, I'm curious to learn more about what influences the equilibrium preflop.

And I'd ultimately want to use that information to keep it simple. I'm less interested in hearing a list of various percentages for every combo of hands I could have, and more interested in learning the most relevant core concepts on what defines good preflop play. If I can use that to draw up dynamic preflops strats versus 2-3 player types, then it seems like a good way to press out winrate that is totally invisible to a lot of players.

Thanks Nick & Ivan.

Take away from the Quizzes

Main Take away: My Preflop Game is not that well thought out and reasonable as I thought

Details:

1. I overvalue Wheel Aces over Axs with better Kicker in 3-Bet Range
2. I call too liberally multiway underestimating the difference between Equity and realizable Equity in MW Pots especially OOP

After reading this:
For example, if either opponent is a recreational, it is likely that we get swayed to calling, or if both villains are regs and the BTN is an aggressive reg, then we are likely to be swayed to 4-bet

Work to do:

I will have to resolve my Ranges vs MDA Pool Ranges (and different Player Profiles) to look into details when good blocker with High cards have more EV in 3-Betting and 4-Betting on Flop Subsets. After that I will change mixed Strategies to pure Strategies based on the Player Profiles and develop a base Strategy based on the most occuring Profile in my Pool.

Nick I'm pretty sure people are just using Snowie mostly lol.

That I have tendency to over-simplify poker strategy. Even preflop involves much more mixing - and has more room for exploits - than I like to think. Thanks for the quizzes, Nick. I think I'll finally buy myself a solver. :)

Take away from the Quizzes
Thinking for my perspective strengthen,i think that how I deny compromising situation.
So some quizzes showed me that more evaporate cold-call range &3b call OOP(more 3b/4b) different to genelally speakings.
I used snowie at those time,for example QQ at EP,raised in and got 3bet by In-position player,snowie said that "call 3b and if there aren't overcard at flop, you should calldown at river"
To some extent of GTO is like that,but human can't take perfect line of GTO,so I think that I need to take more simplify strat&reduce the loss-EV actions.

To summary for strengthen perspective
1.simple taking strategy
2.If you can't decide taking strategy(you can't be confident that strategy),you should decompose why causing confuse(how do i understand like that situation) and would make me do locking strategy(for simple taking)

The reality is a lot of preflop "theory" has gotten us to ranges that are suboptimal and highly exploitable. The solutions strengthen my perspective on poker in that there is still a ton of room for growth in multiple facets of the game, including in the development of exploitative preflop ranges. But really, its a kick in the butt to remind me there's a lot I don't know, which brings me back to a more humble perspective my poker game, which in my opinion is the best place to be.

@Mattdabeast

Winner. PM me your email to claim the $300. Some really close 2nds too, thanks to all of you for taking the time to organize your thoughts. I’ll repost within 24 hrs when the sale starts for the new preflop product.

I’m sponsoring this product because it represents a new landmark in the evolution of the poker industry. We now have solutions covering the full spectrum of the preflop game tree. The Preflop Blueprint will be bundled with the Detox Night Vision pack for a 7-day sale; for a total savings of over $800. Together they are highly compatible for any player trying to develop a complete game.

Night Vision includes access to an active Skype group of over 80 players, many of whom are high stakes winners and active RIO members. If you’re looking for a group of like-minded players who are relevantly exploring practical exploits using hundreds of millions of hands of data analysis, these are your people.

We’re launching the same private Skype service for The Preflop Blueprint, so that players can develop practical preflop exploits and well balanced simplifications using the product as their guide.

Thanks again for following our quizzes over the last 2 weeks, I hope you all came away with some value.

Link to Sale

A peek into the new tech we’re using with our $500k contract students. The circle is color coded to reflect the zones where mistakes were made over a 3000 hand sample. The green bar “Action Steps” calls their attention to the chapters of our tier course that are in need of review. This is the power of a full fledge metric based training system.

Re: the 30 bb/100 winrate discussion (quoted at the end of the post).

Many thanks to you all for pointing out that winrate expectations are limiting beliefs!

Until today, I thought that the ratio of attainable winrates to the rake was set in stone and would be 0.5, at most 1, in today's poker economy.

But now I've internalized the fact that regs have various irrational reasons to avoid certain games (e.g. laziness or fear of variance), and their avoidance is not always based on the knowledge of the winrates that they'd have themselves if they tried (which may be very different from the 'average reg' winrates because everyone has a unique set of strengths and weaknesses).

I don't have first-hand experience with Chinese apps as I'm not a cash gamer - my only source of knowledge about their mechanics are the descriptions that I've read at public sites - but my guess (correct me wherever I'm wrong) is that, apart from the stack depth, a big reason for regs' avoidance of those apps is the logistical difficulty: in order to multitable and select games well, it's necessary to have many accounts per app on many apps and move money between the accounts daily to maintain the balances of 5-10 BIs per account, which results in extra transaction fees.

But even if the fees on sitting in, on net winnings and cashouts add up to like 20 bb/100 (this is my ballpark guesstimate; of course, those who actually grind those games know the actual numbers, and it doesn't hurt for any midstake cash gamer to try and find them out), this still leaves one with a 10 bb/100 net winrate (= 30 - 20). Even though it has to be discounted further considering the big antes, so deep NL600 is like NL1K-1.5K in terms of variance, and 10 bb/100 at deep NL600 is essentially like 5 bb/100 at NL1.2K, that's still an awesome winrate by NL1K standards, and the best regs may actually be winning a few times more (40 - 20 = 20 or even 50 - 20 = 30 bb/100).

Nick Howard wrote:
@Straightfloosh

Being skeptical of higher attainable winrates helps you exactly 0%.
What would be helpful would be for all skeptics to build a new peer
circle, where the emphasis is on studying and implementing more
efficient exploits.

gargamel_fk wrote:

Well I could imagine scenario where it is possible. Mostly because a
lot of the Chinese sites can get within couple of hours to really sick
deep stacks. So when you and like 2 fishes are 300bb deep everything
is possible :D . At the same time very few people have really an edge
playing deep stack quite a few myself included play it super poorly.
It makes sense because before the Chinese apps being deep with anyone
at the table was rare occcurance and it didn't make sense to work on
deep play that much (or we ,not so good regs, thought like that )

Like how many of you guys did any work with PIO with 200bb stacks +
???

I believe there were quite a few regs on Stars in deep ante games when
the games were still 200bb+ with long term winrate at these tables of
15bb/100+ . One of the reasons why Pokerstars get rid of them,lol .

So I don't always agree with Nick but I agree with his idea that I
limit myself and my winrate by thinking "WTF this is impossible". This
give me nothing. Worst case scenario by trying to achieve 30bb/100
and study super hard you will get like 3-4bb/100 more to your winrate
at least. Still sounds good to me :D

dirk_diggler wrote:

a Pokerfriend of mine switch to Pokermaster (Chiinese App) and were a
BE NL50 on stars back then . He uses no exploit theories because he is
not aware of any / dont want to put the time in .

He made over decent sample 23 bb/100 on NL150$.

So I think its quite possible with the right exploits / Coach

And before anyone asks : No I will post no graph :D

That said, it's not news to me at all that some of the games that forum posters declare as unbeatable are in fact soft enough for me to try out. That's not always because the posters intend to keep everyone else in the dark about where the value is, but even more so, because they have prejudice and fear about unfamiliar games, especially high-rake or high-variance ones, and even when they intend to give me correct advice, they truly believe that they wouldn't beat such unfamiliar games with a bigger hourly than their familiar games given the same starting bankroll and study effort.

Due to irrational beliefs and information asymmetry, there's more likely to be a market inefficiency in the 'wild west' niche games than in mainstream ones.

Hey Nick, when will you do that facebook live stream you announced some weeks ago?

Nick, how can I get in touch with you? You don't reply to RIO messages or email.

The Preflop Blueprint is now available by itself here.

Looking over the discussion contributed on attainable winrates, I feel compelled to offer some big winrate value to the community that, even if everyone read and believed me, <5% would take ownership over long term anyway.

The reality is, it’s not all about fish. It’s also about the inability of decent regs to implement stop loss limits. Regs are tilting when they’re tilted and it’s allowing better regs who tilt less to destroy them. I remember Sauce wrote a post some years back saying that he found strong support thru personal database review that his winrate dropped off when he played through a session after losing just 3 buyins. That’s one of the best players in the world acknowledging that he’s susceptible to tilt after a downswing that most regs would play through without even thinking twice.

The universal reg pool is sloppy beyond belief, especially when they’re losing. If regs were smart they’d go all-in on mental but almost none of them will because it’s not cool or flashy to train for discipline. To be frank it’s very fucking uncomfortable. Cheers to the 2 guys that decide to implement a lifestyle change from reading this post.

Lot of awareness here^^

I agree strongly with these posts and have little tilt issues now, but I'm hitting my stop-loss or stop-win (not hard limit, I just feel strong impulse against continuing when up big) so frequently my volume is becoming awful. Like this month I tried a volume goal and I started losing very badly the first day and tried to push through it and ended up tilting off some money. Then I scrapped this idea and I just played normally with my conservative limits, so this month I had good results (five figure at midstakes), no tilt, but very shitty volume. I feel trapped in the middle of this. I guess I should start by trying to get past my stop-win behaviors but I play like shit when I'm upstuck too so that's also a risk.

@girth

You’ll need to repair the motivational system. In these cases there is usually some sort of displaced sense of benefit that a player attributes to booking a win. Could be coming from a deeper avoidance of losing. Try talking yourself through the benefit you see in quitting early, then challenge the credibility of that perceived benefit. Do this with enough frequency and intensity and the limiting belief will unravel.

Hi Nick, is your CFP only for NLHE? If not, will be PLO available in the future?
Ty in advance

Thanks Nick. It isn't such a secret for me though. I want to book the win because then I can carry the mild euphoria throughout the rest of my day. The reason to keep playing is of course money, I just don't have any monetary goals at the moment because I'm past the 'grind for rent stage' and the 'set myself for life' thing which is my purpose for playing poker is so vague and distant. I guess I need to find a way to make poker itself more of a passion... but essentially bumhunting these cash games feels so uninspiring. Maybe moving would help. Mexico or something like that.

@girth

You feel good when you book a win because it's appeals to a feeling of safety, whereas booking a loss challenges your safety by subconsciously threatening your livelihood. So when Nick says to challenge the credibility of what you gain by quitting, I believe he means that your livelihood isn't actually being threatened by booking a loss because poker is such a macro game and you'll win in the long term. You're essentially letting the "animal" part of your brain win that is concerned about safety, when it's in your best interest to continue playing because your real goal is to maximize your winnings.

I think it's a great idea for you to prioritize defining your purpose in playing poker. It's a lot harder for the animal part of your brain to win out if you have a clear purpose to point to, and I can understand how that gets stagnant if you're just collecting money in your bank account each month without really DOING anything with it. I can't really give advice without projecting what I would do, but you know if things feel off. Finding inspiration often involves some "time away" to get perspective on things. It's hard to gain insight on a problem when you're in the thick of it.

Just throwing in my 2c. Good luck!

Strategy Question,

Do we use the postflop hotspots against fish?

Thanks

brodyz

It’s a bit line dependent but overall they still work.

@Matt and girth

So when Nick says to challenge the credibility of what you gain by quitting, I believe he means that your livelihood isn't actually being threatened by booking a loss because poker is such a macro game and you'll win in the long term.

This would be the more linear upgrade in perspective. A fuller paradigm shift is possible by directly challenging the benefit of living a life that sets out to manipulate safety through circumstance. Going deep enough into this inquiry will always reveal the core belief “I am not safe”. At this stage, the journey flips and surrender becomes the most powerful weapon in your arsenal.

Hey Nick, always nice to stop by and read through new posts in this thread.
Any (facebook)-streams planned for the foreseeable future?

Random 2-point theory:

1. On an infinite timeline, a player who never gives up and constantly improves has a 100% chance of success

2. On the same infinite timeline, a player who never gives up, constantly improves and improves faster than the competition has a 100% chance of becoming the best in the world.

who agrees/disagrees?

I am trying to take simplification of strategy as far as I can since I play in 200NLz games with 15s time for each decision. I currently play pure strategies for all preflop decisions. If you had to choose between being able to use mixed strategies for preflop only or postflop only, which do you think is most important for achieving maximum winrate? After reading through the quizzes above it seems like playing mixed preflop is far more important??

@Douggy

First I would like to hear your reason for wanting to mix at all. It will make for an easier entry point for me to discuss. In other words, what do you feel you would be giving up by never mixing?

I guess the main thing I feel I am losing by not mixing is average equity across all flops with all ranges (e.g. if I tend to move all my suited wheel Ax in a given spot to a 3b or 4b then when I flat my RvsR equity is significantly worse on low boards).

If being exploited by regs isn’t a concern, then this shouldn’t be either. Also keep in mind that pure strategies are as valuable for winrate boosts as they are for simplification. That’s the beauty of proper exploits, theyre simpler and smarter at the same time.

Leading off round 2 of the annual @solveforwhyacademy heads-up challenge. Streaming now @runituptv. I’m the guy who overbets too much ��

www.twitch.tv/runitup