Reviewing My A Game
Posted by Nuno Alvarez
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9 min, table 1: agreeably a weird one given IP flop and turn sizings (bigger on flop and smaller on turn compared to GTO). Given the hand he barreled, however, it seems like this one might still be a fold at GTO. That is, since he triple barreled 87o it seems like A3o might function as a better call on the river both according to GTO and in practice. Surprisingly to me, it does appear that at GTO IP is barreling more hands like this (87o) OTT than he is barreling bottom end air, even 45 with a gutter. Do you feel that to be the case in practice? Do you think IP will potentially be significantly overbarrelling this turn spot with 64,54 type hands (compared to GTO) that he will continue to barrel on river? In general, do you feel like you are overcalling river in response to IP bluffing too much?
If we see them triple barreling a hand like 87o, I think is fair to assume that they will often barrel with low cards as well and that will likely end up resulting into an overbluffed situation where all of our bluffcatchers will be +EV.
Not at all. I think humans struggle a lot with finding non-natural bluffing hands in general and they tend to look for some sort of direct equity most of the time.
I think that most players will end up overbluffing blank rivers given how many draws there are available OTT that people would feel obligated to bluff with. Because of this, I will indeed feel inclined to overcall quite a bit in this situation in general.
Good explanation
Thanks for the intro! As a live cash player, this can be a very difficult balance to find
Glad that you liked it.
I agree. If I was a live cash player I'd probably try to play somewhat tougher online lineups from time to time in order to get better and motivated to keep improving.
36:13 table 1: you’re calling a bit wider in some spots, like this one with Kd8d, under the assumption that he is barreling too many turns and rivers as well. Wouldn’t you want to call less than GTO in these spots, anticipating too much aggression by IP? Perhaps x/r slightly less with medium-value and letting IP barrel?
You're totally right. No idea why I mentioned that maybe I decided to call because he was betting too many turns and/or rivers, that should just make the call even worse.
I totally understand, I tend to do the same thing against opponents I feel are betting too much or too large across all streets.
This. For the past couple of years, despite improving a lot, I have struggled to move past $2knl- despite having a good WR at pretty much every stake I play. I thought that I just needed to study more, to get better etc, but last week it was like an epiphany and I realised that it was just due to a mental block and a 'weak' mental game. So I started to look in to getting a mental game coach in order to overcome this block.
However, last night I ended up playing $10k (though i did sell some action) so perhaps consciously identifying my own mental weakness was enough to help me begin to overcome it. It's very stressful though and it's not easy for me to handle huge swings. Unfortunately i've ran shit at $10k so far though, so it's not easy on the mental game haha.
If I want to make serious money (instead of $100k-$200k py) then i'll just have to get used to big swings. That $10k game last night though was hugely profitable though, so in that sense it was a highly +EV decision to play.
Good luck on your own journey and I hope we both become regulars at $10knl and beyond!
Hey Demondoink!
I remember you watching and commenting on my videos a long time ago and I only have good words towards you because you've always been very supportive so it makes me especially happy to see how far you've come as a player.
I saw your Ts3s hand at 10KNL on 2+2 this morning and despite it going wrong, I loved seeing you there battling it out :)
Nuno Alvarez Thanks mate, I appreciate that! I always thought you made really good RIO videos, even if I don't play HU. You seem to approach the game from a very similar perspective to me in terms of your study, with a focus on taking a theoretical approach and on learning the drivers behind the solvers outputs- why they bluff or bluff catch certain combos over others based on blockers, unblockers, suits etc.
Hopefully we can both keep moving up in stakes though!
Yeah I'm happy with that hand, even though it was a little frustrating cos that hand is supposed to fold sometimes otf and fold over half the time otr. So it's not ideal, but I think we both played the hand pretty well (I was using $1k 3bet ranges instead of $10k ones, cos at $10k my hand is supposed to just call pre actually). However it doesn't make any difference imo and I like my line. It's not that easy to find bluffs there, especially these random airball combos.
It's cool though cos next time i'll have Jx and stack him instead!
Demondoink Curious how does the mental game coaching go? How much do you think it impacts your performance? Always curious to find out how non-technical elements are shaping curshers' game :D
mx404 Hey man, good questions! I actually haven't booked the mental game coaching yet as i'm kinda overwhelmed right now with everything else going on in my life. I'm moving house on Friday and have to do coaching, play poker etc as well.
However, I'm going to book it once i've settled in and I am able to focus on poker fully again. At the moment I'm just playing a few times a week, basically on days where I have time to grind. It will take number one priority again in a few weeks, and then I will book mental game coaching and assess other ways that I can improve my game so that I can crush next year.
I will post an update in my blog at some point if you are interested :)
I will do a post soon on this too, as I sometimes run out of ideas for new ones haha. So that was a good suggestion!
Demondoink Sounds great -- look forward to it!
Nice video as always!
I don't know what's more surprising, if you remembering some showdowns from three years ago or the RIO's profile pic update haha :)
Hahah yeah i noticed the pp update too! Very professional!
Hahaha, both are pretty close on EV.
Fun review, some pretty wild timing tells in there! Wasn't expecting to see that from such good players.
RIP Hyper Simple. Used that table format for years so that I could pump my screen full of HUD stats playing 6 max.
Hey very nice video Nuno -- I enjoy the talk and appreciate your take on playing vs regs. I usually shy away from playing when I see the my pool is super reg-heavy, this gives me some new perspectives!
Thanks for the kind words mx!
As long as you're aware that you're playing at a low EV environment but you decide to do it anyways for reasons other than the EV, I don't think there's anything wrong on playing reg-heavy games from time to time. Just don't make it your modus operandi and you'll be fine.
12:42 AQs hand I was interested in the river action as well and it seems villain is very spade heavy. However I checked the Wizard sim all the AQo is still pure shove (the sim pure 4b AQs). Was curious on your thoughts on this -- do you think it is because 1) with 120BB in play our top pair decrease value and prefer checking back or 2) villain is not hero calling some 8x and some 3x region of his range? (I assume it's pretty standard to call off any top pair here)
Thank you!
The fact that there's not AQs ever on that and the multiple betsize choices that GTOWizard offers on their default trees might change things a little bit.
I ran it with my custom 100bb tree and this is what I came up with / AQo
Funny enough AQcc is the only AQs combo that checks because it blocks KQcc which is the only KQs combo that doesn't shove OTT for OOP.
I also ran it with 120bb to see how things change. OOP starts to develop a donkshoving range OTR and our AQ combos start to check more. If we remove the donking range for OOP we just check them every time which makes total sense.
Yeah that makes a ton of sense. Don't think humans are incorporating too many donkshoving river strategies here and funny indeed you're riding with the exact combo that prefers a check xD
Thanks for the reply!
Nice one. It's strong line up even 3 years ago.
It was good to see time travel.
Thanks BlankyLion!
05:41 table 1 you mentioned Davy maybe applying a 6-max concept in terms of cbet sizing. I’m curious to what content do you familiarize yourself with 6-max strategy as a HU specialist, and do you learn those to mainly exploit/understand the 6-max player who is trying to extrapolate the strategy in HU? Thank you!
I do know a little bit about 6-max since I have a few friends that play that and I study with them from time to time but I wouldn't say that I learn 6-max in order to exploit the players that come to HU. I just study it because I'm a curious person and I like the game of poker :)
Really enjoying your heads up content, it got me into playing it a bit myself as a new format.
Total newb question in regards to PT4/your stat set up in the video from a few years ago.
I’ve been trying to set up hud to filter for heads up hands only but it seems to always pull 6max stats regardless of my settings
I understand if this likely a bit outside of your domain so no response necessary if that’s the case, thanks!
Hey Oback! Very glad to hear that you're enjoying my content :)
I think you can set it up under HUD –> Edit HUD options.
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