I learned that real valuable infomation was not, is not, and will not be shared, with few exceptions like what Nick Howard does with his free content. Can't see why someone would come to a public forum to tell everyone everything he has learned with his own work, for free, in a competitive industry. Maybe that makes sense for struggling micro stakes players who have nothing to lose and everything to gain, but a micro stakes struggling player doesn't really have much to share anyway. Which is exaclty why Nick blows my mind. If everyone followed what he says poker would change quite drastically. However, he somehow knows that only few people will actually change their paradigms towards higher relevance.

The biggest idea for me in 2017 was the importance of doing learning in an active way, and I managed to develop a few effective ways to practice and implement what I study. The problem is that just watching a video, reading something or browsing a simulation makes the learning shallow, most of what is learned is forgotten after a few days and it's difficult to apply what is learned correctly while playing. Using active methods in the learning process makes the learning deeper and more practical. Examples of things you can do to make learning active is writing about ideas you learn, applying it to HHs (write, discuss or talk out loud) or quizzing yourself (e.g. on EV and frequency for hands in a PIO sim). There are, as far as I know compared to chess, piano etc, a lack of good options developed and available for poker, but you have Simple GTO trainer that does a decent job (Nuno Alvarez made a few videos using it), Nick Howard made a video he called something like 30 second exercise and there are some quiz functions in preflop shove/fold and ICM calculators. I feel there are a lot of room to further improve poker practice methods and a lot of edge to be gained in that area by having a good routine using strong effective practice methods.

Here is the link to website for a great book that explains the idea in more detail: "Make it stick" by Peter C. Brown et al.

Poker players are still very exploitable.

This is how badly the pros were beaten by the NL Bot that was published in Science. This in big blinds per 1000. The average "pro" player lost to the bot by 50bb/100 (500bb/1000). By-the-way if the pros had always folded they would have lost 75bb/100, so this winrate is outrageous. I think the upper limit on winrates is higher than anyone had previously thought.

Most improtant lesson I learned was on Microstakes the biggest part of my WR comes from recreational Player . Therefore Site/Table/Seat Selection is a crucial Skill most player underestimate and you have to play exploitiv Poker and getting really out of line vs those guys by using uncommon Betsizes and Lines.

From all the things I've learned, the most remarkable thing was mixing frequencies.

For example, sometimes it's better to have tons of different combos in low frequencies, rather than having few types of combos in a 100% frequency.

Another example, how a slighty adjust (node locking) at some frequencies of folding/call in solvers can drastically change the optmical actions.

Some of these poker related, some less so:

• Trying to emulate GTO strategies is dumb. Highly mixed strategies can turn into a really radical, pure strategies with just relatively small changes in villains strategy (more exploitable).

• The way you act in the world reflects on how you play poker.

• There's no freedom without responsibility.

• Maybe the bible is not that stupid of a book

• Clean your room before you criticize the world

I have learned:

-I should not make the excuse of not being able to beat rake+playing a different strategy that can't be applied to higher stakes to skip micro stakes.

-Fundamentals are extremely important, I watched some super basic videos on Game Theory and finally understood basic optimal play(my biggest aha moment), and when I read/watch theory content I should think how it applies in everyday poker instead of thinking "I've read this a thousand times and I understand it, not going to think too much about this, next!"

-I should not try and reach high hanging fruit all the time when I still have so much work to do on my fundamentals. I should have a solid basic strategy and have a very good grasp on my fundamentals before apply complex ideas/theories.

-Even though I'm not using solvers very often, I understand how to interpret the data and how to apply it to my game versus villains.

-Difference between optimal play and exploitative play

-Exploitative play involves identifying leaks in your villains strategy. In order to identify a leak , you need to have a idea of what is right(~GTO). If you don't understand what right is, you cannot identify leaks, and you cannot exploit. So if you want to be a primarily exploitative player, you need to have an optimal approach first to be able to exploit. And the better an exploitative player is, the better he understands optimal play.

-^This would mean live players aren't playing an exploitative style, they are actually just making up their own strategies and assumptions and playing a whole new style, the live style.

http://www.runitonce.com/nlhe/nl25-qjs-3rd-barrel-question/

James Hudson, what have you learned? :-)