ItsToothPasteISwear

HI!! Haven't been around in a while. Haven't played much poker at all, but going to get back on the saddle and do some grinding. I screwed up my foot so I am in a walking boot for the next 8 weeks or so, so I don't have much else to do anyway! :(

I've been teaching myself how to program in Android, so far I really like the challenge and its interesting. I just finished my first app. It's not very fancy, I just used it mostly as a way to get some experience. It might be of some interest so ill post it here. Basically it just deals two random poker hands and you have to guess the equity your hand has vs villains. I might eventually redo it so its of more use (hand vs range, and weight it more towards hands that actually come up in real scenarios as). Anyway, you can DL it at http://www.idspispopd.net/PreFlopEquityQuiz.apk (you have to turn on the setting to allow installs of non google play apps). And as always, you don't know me so if you are paranoid you shouldn't install it (tho it doesn't do anything malicious I promise :)). It also uses lots of memory so it might not work on older/slower phones. *shrug*

Not much else is new, I was thinking about going to NJ to test out the games, but with my foot I don't really feel like going now. I'm a bit rusty right now anyway. Hopefully I can knock that off :)

100% agree

nice job mush, im confused tho, he only bought in for 100bb once? That musta been a crazy match! Glad he didnt quit you when he was up a bunch of BI :)

"But of course you can keep burning money in casino games that don't require any skill."

Sheldon anderson is behind all this, all those fucks introducing the bill are on his payroll. He needs to seriously hurry up and die, I fucking hate that guy.

Spend some time going over the math vs the shortstackers, once you have that down you wont be annoyed by them because youll have an understanding of how to play against them.

work on the spots vs the aggro regs as well. Maybe filter your DB vs some of them and see how you are doing vs them. I know for me I just have to keep reminding myself that my goal isnt to win pots, its to win money, so just cuz I fold to them a bunch doesnt mean im playing poorly against them, you just cant get frustrated and then spew to them.

while obviously losing to bad players is annoying, without them and their ability to win money when playing bad, you wouldnt be able to make any money at this game. As hard as it is, you have to work on viewing those suckouts and that variance as a blessing, because it is the exact reason poker is profitable.

I wish this country would just implode, I hate the politicians of this country so god damn much

yeah, that's what its called. I havent tried it or anything tho

dont get a mac, cuz then you are limited by software.

Daz, a gaming laptop isnt going to be what you need, because a high caliber GFX card (which is a big part of the $ upgrade in a gaming latop) isnt going to really do anything for you. I would suggest finding something that you can add a second hard drive to, and installing a SSD drive on which you put your OS and your poker clients/apps and then using the regular hard drive for storage. This will drastically speed things up. Also make sure youve got something with 8GB of ram at least and a 64bit OS. I have a three year old dell that was $1K that I added a samsung pro SSD to, and it runs everything fine. Spending anywhere even close to 2K is complete overkill for what you want

you could also try swtiching from HM2 to PT4, supposedly the next HM uses virtually no resources, I think you can get the beta of it now, so maybe try that.

identify what it is that annoys you about the other regs, then work on fixing that issue in yourself. 

Ideally the other players at the table shouldnt bother you at all, they are just variables in an equation. Tommy Angelo has a nice bit about how they are just trees (from his series on DC), they are just there and they are sometimes in the way, but its silly to get emotionally affected by them as they are just trees.

Is it an ego thing, you feel you are better than them and it pisses you off they are at your table and taking your money with their stupid plays?

1a is an excellent excellent suggestion, I never even thought of that, you are completely right tho, it would make it a lot easier to understand, will fix this

1b - I hadnt really considered this, my overall plan was to have sort of a tutorial that explains the math or whatever, and when they are wrong it gives the right answer, so it should be easy to figure out why, but in the case of the outs I guess I could have it display what the outs actually are

2) I havent learned how to do logging yet, so sadly no. The way its programmed right now, once it asks a question basically it sits there and waits for either an answer or a program termination command, and if you do something besides either of those 2 things it fucks it up. I know how to fix this, I just have to implement it. 

3) Im not sure :( It should count outs directly to a winning hand on the next street (back doors arent counted), Its all randomly generated, Ive done a ton of them and have yet to see an error so I thought I had that nailed down, Ill add it to my bug list and go over the code. 

thank you for the suggestions and letting me know about the errors and for trying it out!

fish on a heater ;P

no one is gunna fold when they flop a flush

A lot of times they just stay stuff like that either to sound knowledgeable, or because they are trying to justify their sub optimal play (gotta protect that ego yo!). But yeah, you should pick the play that is the highest EV in a vacuum in the situations you described.

I know lots of players get titled when they make a mistake. Like its some sort of sign that they arent good, because if they were they wouldnt have made that bad play, or that its upsetting because if they can figure out its a mistake, then why the hell did they make that play? For me I think a better understanding of what mistakes are helped me with this. Mistakes are part of the learning process, without them it means you arent getting better. As you grow and expand your game part of that is getting into new situations and unfamiliar areas, how exactly are you supposed to explore these new areas without making a mistake? Thats what part of learning is, figuring out what works and what doesnt, mistakes are an important opportunity in this process because you can learn what doesnt work. If you arent making mistakes it means that you arent exploring. 

Also remember, you are only aware of the mistakes that you can spot, so if you arent "making" mistakes, really what it means is that you arent yet good enough at understanding certain situations well enough in order to see the mistakes you are making, or you are just playing absolutely perfect poker, but I feel safe in saying thats prolly not the case ;) There is a difference between what you know well enough to execute under pressure at the table, and what you know away from that pressure, its not fair to get upset at yourself for a mistake at the table just because you can spot it away from the table or when the hand is over. Its not something to beat yourself up over, its just a sign that you dont fully have that situation under control yet and means there is still room for improvement. And identifiable room for improvement isnt a sign you suck, its a sign you have an opportunity. So maybe trying to look at mistakes you make as an opportunity to improve instead of a sign you are bad, would help.

I mean look at it this way, what would it be like if you played your game and never made or spotted a mistake. How would you go about improving? Where would you look to get better? How much would it suck if right now you were at the ceiling of your skill and you could never improve? Youd never be able to move up, and eventually youd get passed by the people around you who were able to improve. So thank God that you can see and make mistakes!

How long have you been working on your mental game? Its definitely a long process and not easy, so dont get discouraged. As far as mental game coaches, I have done a ton of work with Jared Tendler and can't recommend him highly enough, I think spending money on any other coach out there would be a waste cuz it would be better spent on him.

I dont like the turn check, just bet for value, especially vs a guy like this, as hell just keep clicking call with any overpair, your range isnt super wide and airy and he doesnt have lots of floats nor likely bets them as he doesnt look very aggresive. Plus when you c/r it looks a lot stronger than just betting twice. 

I think river is an easy fold

Id rather just check than bet so small. I dont think it generates any extra action. I think if he calls all you did was cost yourself money and keep the pot smaller. I dont think it inspires him to raise or do something dumb. So id either just bet standard to build a pot, or check to maybe get some money from hands that would fold, or to give him a card that will give you action on turn/river

I think when doing analysis on this spot, you shouldnt try and figure out if your play is exploitable, cuz that doesnt really matter here. Id figure out instead if calling river is +EV or not, and see how often he needs to be bluffing (or betting worse) in order for this to be a call

A video where you just talk about what the drastic changes in your game are, what areas in your old game you identified as leaks, and how you went about working to make such changes, I think would be a pretty awesome video

Daz,

How often do you look at your results? Have you given any thought to not looking at them for an extended perioid of time?

I only look at mine every 2 weeks, sometimes I go even longer. I think it really helps for when you are running bad, because it all sorta just gets lost in the noise. I mean I still know sometimes when im running really bad, but theres no quantitative numbers for me to latch on to and fester over. Im not saying its a cure all by any means, getting sucked out on still stings, but I think the overall impact of the swings (both good and bad) is sorta leveled out as I don't really know about them.

Its also just a lot nicer overall even when im not running bad. I used to carry my results with me away from the table (bad time at the poker, meant I was in a bad mood the rest of the day, and vice versa). If you have no idea how you did, its not really possible to be effected away from the table by how you did. Not knowing your results also doesnt allow accumulations to build up. I dont know if Ive had a few losing days in a row and go into the next session already agitaed that things arent going well, or is my downswing going to get worse today? Or any number of emotions like that. Its just another day at at the table.

might be worth experimenting with for you. I think ive worked through most of the problems I had that led me to deciding no to looking at my results, so that I dont think it would effect me like it used to, but honestly, its just nice to not even have to care about it, so I still continue to not look.

whats your image?

Why do you think he folds to the flop bet a lot? A board like this hits his range really well and hits it better than yours.

given hes unkown and its a small network im gunna assume hes likely to be a fish, especially given he minraises the flop. Im not getting away from this hand, he can have JT or have slowplayed AA pre and now be overplaying it, altho his turn bomb really scares me, cuz minraise and then bomb is never good when we are worried about our hand, but yeah, I just dont think I could find a fold without more info on him

Given relative positions id also prolly just go with it on the flop. Really sucks to just call and then watch a good turn get checked thru, and there are TON of straight draws out to give us action, considering the players we are up against (an aggro tard and a fish). I dont think its as important to wait for a safe turn card because our hand still has equity even if a bad turn falls, and our position blows so we cant really control the action by playing it safe anyway. 

You cant angle shoot without intent. Its not possible, without intent its just ignorance of the rules that ends up working in your favor. So here It's only angle shooting if the BB had been the one to pull the whole "I said five, I meant 500!" after the SB called and he lost, unless he knew for sure the dealer was going to do what she did and only after SB called, instead of her just announcing "the bet is five hundred" after he threw his chip out, which really doesnt seem likely. (or if the BB and the dealer are working together, but then its just blatant cheating not angle shooting).

BB also technically cant just give him 4500 even if he wanted to because you cant just give someone tourney chips, so its not like he could do the honorable thing even if he wanted to. So imo we cant really say anything definitive about BBs behavior.

As for the ruling, I dont play enough live to know. To me it seems like the bet was obviously meant to be $5k but I dunno what the rules are in terms of how they handle verbal bets in the context of what "five" means. The dealer clearly screwed up tho if the rule is that it technically is $500 when you say "five" because she should have made it clear to the SB that "the bet is five hundred".

Hell call TT/99 and JTs 98s as well. and all thats still more than what he has that beats you (88/77 T9s). Plus its an 80bb pot, there is a lot of value in protecting vs 2 players, so even if you bet and they both fold, its a win for you

He has lots of hands on the turn that even tho you are ahead you dont mind him folding, because hes going to bluff a blank river. Unless you feel like you can still happily click call with your SDV even when you miss (in which case, I like checking back). Also whether hes capable of say folding a hand like 77 or A3s that he c/c flop with is a big factor, and how often you expect to get c/r here. Really just kinda depends on what kind of "retard" he is

Do you think BB is ever check/calling AA-QQ on this flop, and if so how often? If hes not then I just bet the turn. If he is, then I would check and see what happens.

I would add "take a breath" to the top of each one. Part of the reason for that "fog" is because your brains logic centers are being over ridden by the emotion from the pressure of the situation. You kinda go into lizard brain mode. Taking a deep breath can help this (I read an article talking about the increase in oxygen also helping, but im dubious of that because it takes like 10 to 15 seconds or something for the air in your lungs to get to your brain, but Im not really clear enough on the biology of this to know one way or the other).

I think having a checklist like this is a really good thing tho to help keep you on the path of decision, and sorta provides you some rails to travel down when you mentally arent capable of steering yourself.

kind of a nitpick, but number 4 under betting I dont think is the best way to look at those situations from an EV standpoint, for either bluffing or value betting. Also id switch number 2 and 3, cuz you cant really know if you are bluffing or value betting until youve thought about what his range is. (and obviously its not always one or the other but sometimes both)

I dont see why hed pot control AK/KQ, you block KJ, so which is more likely hes 3 betting KT- or bet/check/bet as a bluff. Both arent that likely imo given no reads (he could also just be slowplaying KK/99). Altho we need one to be less likely more than twice as often to call, which I dunno if its the case. Prolly really doesnt matter all that much what you do honestly. So id call for the read

"I'm just asking - once you've started playing the game - isn't it just as stupid to check in on a team's 'chance of winning' at any particular time as it is to worry about a street by street rollout on an AI pot? "

if you really feel this way, then I will happily set up bets with you on games but we bet on the outcome at various points of the game. 

but yeah, like Tom said, if you dont know how the actions in the game have effected the potential outcome, you cant make the most +EV decisions going forward. (which you cant do once AI, because you no longer have the chance to make strategic decisions. Which is why toms HU sng is a much better analogy)

Why did your friend decide to do a speech on this if he doesnt have much in the way of experience with it?