JCJordypants

Good luck dude! Played these for a while when I was starting out so brings back fond memories. Hope you crush it!

PMd

Good luck mate! Hope it all goes well, will be interested to see how you get on.

Hi Nicolau,

The KJo hand at around 10:00 you talk about the possibility of reshoving vs his open but are more reluctant to based on his 2.5x open vs a player with 10bb in the BB; thinking he is going to be more committed than usual. Based on this read which I agree with you on do you think we could also take out the very top of his range that doesn't mind min raising and possibly seeing a flop such as AA, KK etc.? This is assuming of course that he usually uses a minraise strategy and we're now seeing him deviate from it but it makes sense to me that the deviation would be condensing his range from both ends (taking out the strongest and weakest parts). Therefore he is going to have fewer hands that will want to call our 25bb shove which makes our shove with KJo more profitable. Do you agree with this analysis or do you think that he will include the top of his range for that size?

Thanks!

My understanding of it is that it won't track stats for each opponent rather than the specific seat they're sat in so if you're playing a 3 hour session and you have 3 people come in and out of one seat the HUD will show you the stats for each of those players combined.

HUDs are allowed on zoom tables on Party so if you're playing that then you're allowed to use one if you want and I imagine most regs are. Although you can't use regular HUDs like HEM2 or PokerTracker on regular tables there are things like screen scrapers and other stuff which works around the anonymity of the tables. I personally don't use one and I believe that they are banned by Party but how much they're cracking down on it I'm not sure. If I had to guess I would say a a decent percentage of regs have one, more so the higher stakes you go.

Hope this helps!

Depending on your 3bet range you have non diamond hands that you can bet turn with that still have some equity, hands like 86s, 54s, A4s, A5s etc. I agree with Brokenstars that turn should probably be a check.

Hey Dekkers, enjoyed the video!

Had a couple of questions:

13:58 - On the left table where we have 88 and we turn a set after the flop checks through on Q63r you decide to go for an overbet saying that as he's only playing one table you never expect him to fold any Qx or JJ/TT. My question is how often does villain have these hands after he checks the flop? It's reasonable that he checks a lot of his JJ/TT combos but I would expect most people to stab with their Qx a lot here. If this is the case that he's actually betting most of these hands on the flop wouldn't it make sense to size down a lot to target the weaker parts of his range that are checking back? Or do you think he's checking enough Qx that he will call the turn overbet often enough?

Also there were a couple of hands in the SB where you folded 76o and 87o when unopened to you. Without going back and trying to find the timestamps for those hands is this a default strategy for you or would it have been an adjustment to very loose/aggressive big blinds?

Thanks!

Thanks for the video Wei!

Couple of questions:

5:40 Top Left Table: You say that on the turn hero will want to raise smaller (closer to 3x rather than the over 4x that they made it). I would have thought that considering our raising range is going to be very narrow and very polarized that we'll want to be making the raise a bigger size. To be honest I'm hard pressed to come up with bluffs in this spot for hero. The player we raise seems to be a weaker player given that they're not full stacked and considering we're not that bothered about balancing this spot isn't it ok to go a bigger sizing to make sure it's a reasonable size for an all in on the river?

25:00 Bottom Left Table: What do you think about an overbet in this spot? The way the hand has played the BB has no 6x in his range and we have the 6x+fd like A6ss and hands like 76 which could call twice. Do you think this will get villain to fold a lot if not most of his Jx? Or do you think the kind of villain who will donk bet twice with a J in this spot never fold it no matter what so we might as well go for a smaller sizing targeting a weaker part of his range and saving ourselves money on the bluff?

Thanks!

Ah ok that makes a lot of sense, so it's more to do with how villain caps their range and the fact we can exploit that. Need to be more aware of this when playing.

Yeah I was thinking that I probably would have just bet again with 99 on the turn but I totally understand the reasoning for not check raising the turn. When the 5 comes on the river and you say it's a better card for our range than his do you ever consider leading there? It could be hard to balance with bluffs and you mentioned that you wanted to induce bluffs on the river sometimes and this obviously reduces the likelihood of that happening.

OK I'm with you, better to keep your preflop investment to a minimum with marginal holdings against the way this player is playing even if we have to play OOP multiway especially as we're expecting to get paid when we hit big. Yeah I think I'd have roughly the same squeeze/call range as you in that spot.

Hey Brad, welcome to RIO!

Had a couple of questions for you:

0:23 Top Right - You triple off here with Ad2c after SB raises then check calls twice. These are spots, especially the flop decision, that I tend to have a bit of trouble with when deciding which hands to stab. My thoughts are that we're going to want hands with decent backdoors (like this one) but then my trouble is thinking I'm going to be bluffing too much if I continue when the backdoors don't get there.

I'm going to catch myself before that becomes too ramble-y and try to ask a succinct question! What are the main things you look for in a hand BvB when stabbing the flop (assuming like in this video we have no hud stats)?

I imagine things like board texture, who has a range advantage and general playerpool tendencies are going to be big factors in deciding whether or not to stab with certain hands? So on dryer boards where we have a range advantage we'll be stabbing a lot more liberally compared to the reverse situation? Do these variables play a bigger factor in whether or not to stab non-showdownable hands than the makeup of the hand itself or are we always going to be more inclined to bet hands with good blocker effects?

3:20 Bottom Left - After you raise 99, cbet the flop you decide to check call after turning the 9 saying that you're not gonna have a lot of checkraises on this board. While that makes sense it makes the turn check a bit more confusing as it's going to be a lot harder to get more money in with our very strong hand. Could you explain the thought process behind this line a bit more? Is it just that this is generally going to be a good board for the BB and we're going to check a lot of hands in this spot so this is a good hand to balance our x/c range and we can check raise the river on most runouts?

19:21 Bottom Left - You mention that you're not sure why the 3 seat is 3betting and snap folding vs the suspected loose/fun player. My thoughts were that he is basically trying to isolate and get you to fold out your equity so he can get heads up with Seat 2, not expecting him to shove very often. Is this a good idea with hands like suited broadways or even a couple of hands like T9s/89s or is he better off playing those multiway and not bloating the pot OOP when he's almost always getting called?

Thanks!

Hey Phil, enjoyed the vid - I felt the pace was better in this video with the sped up footage and as a beginner PLO player I enjoyed listening to you talk about the fundamentals. I also had a few questions:

22:21 - When we call preflop and end up with a wrap on the Ac5c4c you advocate for a continue but this is a spot that I feel unsure about. Mainly I wanted to ask how do we continue vs further aggression when we improve? For example we turn the 6d and our opponent continues for 2/3 pot. I imagine this is an obvious call but my main concern is when/if we face a river barrel. Do we kinda just have to close our eyes and hope he's bluffing with blockers and wouldn't value bet enough weaker flushes for 3 streets that we can call or is it a spot where we have to fold rivers? Obviously depending on betsizes etc.

32:38 - Where we consider bluffing with the Qh blocker on KhTh7h8s I get the concept of using this hand to bluff sometimes even though we have somewhat decent showdown value and I like the idea of a checkraise but I was wondering what our plan is if we get there with a J or a Q? You said the main reason we'll want to barrel twice is because villain will probably call a lot of two pair hands on the turn then fold river so does that mean we're not really valuebetting our straights or sets when we make them? Or are we just targeting his sets and straights that may call twice after checking back flop, mainly 88 and J9.

41:34 - We have Ac8c9s6s in the BB and while this is definitely a hand we're going to play in the BB I sometimes feel unsure of my best action when playing these kinds of hands from the BTN/CO especially when faced with a raise. Even though we have the nut suit I don't think it's a hand we're going to want to take multiway that often as our straight draws aren't going to be great and the 9 high suit can become a problem so I've been leaning towards 3betting these hands rather than flatting them. Without any reads on players would you prefer flatting or 3betting these kinds of hands in the situation I've outlined?

Thanks!

Hey Dekkers, welcome to RIO! I personally like the 2-3 table videos as they're usually well paced and we don't miss any of the action.

I had a couple of questions about two of the hands you played.

1) At 20.26 we overcalled with K3o in the BB after a button 2.5x open and a SB overcall. My BB startegy is something I've been trying to improve and this looked quite loose to me. It doesn't seem like a hand that would play well multiway or even if the SB folded and we would be HU with the button. Is this a standard call for you or did the stats of either the SB or button influence your call? If you could you explain the thinking behind the call that would be great.

2) At 23.49 we isolate a HJ limp with a 5x isolation raise with J9o in the SB. This seemed a bit too wide given that we're going to have to take a relatively bad hand and play it OOP even against a fish. How wide are we attacking limps in this situation? Does it help that we're in the SB compared to the CO or BTN given that we only have the BB to worry about behind us? Or did the fish have a really high limp/fold stat which means we could have raised that spot with a really wide range?

Thanks!

Hey Paul, finally managed to get some time to have a look at this!

Been really good to see your view on how I play and highlight a few things that I hadn't noticed about my game and a few things that I have. I agree my 3bet sizing back then was a bit all over the place and I now just go a standard 3x IP and 4x OOP.

How often I'm folding turn after cold calling and checking twice OOP is an interesting one that I hadn't noticed and will definitely be looking in my database later to see if that's something I'm still doing.

The cbet sizing I had on paired boards interested me as well and the two examples we had in the video were 772dd and TT9r. I think I had kinda assumed that due to how wide both ranges were that neither really had that much of an advantage in the combos of trips they'll have, especially if BB decides to use hands like 76s/75s/T9s/JTs as 3bets then in SRP it makes it even better for the BTN but this is something I'll have to check and see what's up.

Thanks and looking forward to Part 3!

Hey Steve, loved the video! Really well explained and great for someone like me who was never even taught factorials at school!

I was interested by the game you showed us at the end but it looks like Skoldpadda beat me to the answer!

For those who say that UTG has played this hand quite weird:

I would disagree, this is a flop that's going to smash the buttons cold call range so I can see UTG checking very often in this spot and playing a lot of hands as check-raises. This includes hands like sets, 78, flush draws, combo draws, pair+draws, AA/KK maybe even hands like JJ/TT depending on the villain.

I think I play the hand the same way and decide on the river. The only hands that get there on the K is Kxdd and even then people don't valuebet thin enough and probably aren't shoving it for value. If you have info on villain that they have a wider opening range and is more on the aggro side we could call down but with no info I don't mind the fold. Kind of sucks we have the Qd too.

Yeah it's pretty bad haha, it's improved since then but need to work on memorising it for sure

Hey Paul, thanks for doing this video series!

I'll have a proper look through it tomorrow and will no doubt come up with a few questions. Had a quick look through and saw some pretty suspicious post-flop folds and CO opens! Hope it's not all like that haha.

Whoops, forgot to put in goals for this month!

June Goals:
[ ] Play at least 80K hands in the month.
[ ] Meditate at least once a week.
[ ] Continue to study at least 1 hour a day.
[ ] Take at least 1 shot at NL50.

End of the month time! Gonna post two different graphs, one for my month on Stars and one for my month on Party, managed to get decent volume on there in the week or so I've been playing.

Stars:

Not the sexiest graph in the world with a nice little drop off at the end where I tilted pretty much every session.

These are the overall winrates for the stakes I played this month, again doesn't make for great reading but on the plus side I managed to hit one of my goals!

Party Poker:

Doesn't look amazing but glad to have a positive end to the month, finally starting to feel like I'm coming out of whatever downswing/breakeven stretch I was on. Also been putting a shit ton of work into my game, I always like to say "lady luck likes to hang out with guys who work the hardest!"

So time to look and see if I acheived the goals I set for last month!

May Goals
[x] Play at least 50K hands in the month.
[ ] Meditate at least 5 times a week.
[x] Put at least 1-2 hours study work in a day.

Manages to smash the hand target getting close to 70K hands in. Time to up that target for this month I think! Didn't even attempt the meditation one to be honest, really not sure why though. I think I was just too focused on what I was trying to do that I didn't want to stop to meditate, completely neglecting the fact that the purpose of meditation is to remove myself from everything and take the time to slow down. I did manage to get in at least an hour of study a day though which is pretty sweet, got a new way to study which focuses me and lets me know if I'm improving on each topic I pick.

Feeling confident going into this month that coupled with the rakeback I'm going to be getting at Party that I can take a shot at NL50 soon. Time to stop being breakeven and time to start crushing!

Won't be doing an end of the week post, will just do an end of the month one in a couple of days. Not looking forward to it, been running soooo shitty and it a lot of ways we don't see with the EV line, getting rivered and coolered all over the place. Doesn't help that I'm a pretty shitty player - I need all the help I can get and this has been the opposite!

Also moved my action over to Party, their improved rakeback and Stars reducing theirs means it's probably the smart thing to do. Though the start there hasn't gone well either! Just had a 6 buyin losing session, not good!

I feel more confident that this is a lot of run bad though, had a session with a coach from 2+2 who was very good and showed me a few leaks that I have and some adjustments I can make but whenever we were looking at spots where I was losing a lot it was a bunch of coolers and those coolers have continued to this new site. However the title of this blog is 'Holding Myself Accountable' and don't get me wrong that's still what I'm doing, there are at least two big river folds that I should have made as well as some other mistakes. It's times like these we need to make sure we're making as few mistakes as possible!

Had a veeeery shitty week so far, losing buyins left and right. Some of it has been tilt, some has been spew, some just playing bad and some running bad. Getting quite disheartened that I won't be able to make it as I thought I could.

It's hard to take when you realise you probably won't be able to achieve your dreams and go back to working a 9-5 like everyone else. It's times like this that I wonder why I bother if I can't do what I love. I am quite drunk so may be talking a bit more emotionally than usual but every time I'm so pumped to get back in the streets and play as good as I can but no matter what I do I can't seem to win.

I really don't want to turn this into one of those whiny blogs where shitty microstakes players complain that they can't make it but this blog is meant to be somewhere where I can get my thoughts out and this is what I'm thinking at the moment. I'm seriously considering getting a coach, I think part of the problem (apart from the fact that I'm just not very good) is that there are tons of spots where I think I know what to do but I'm not sure so every time I lose a pot I'm questioning myself. Then there are the spots where I know I have no idea and must be losing tons.

Don't get me wrong I still love playing though. That kind of makes it harder knowing that I'm going into most sessions losing and wanting to just play and play but I stop myself before I lose a fuck ton of buyins. Even now I really really want to play but I'm stopping myself until I sober up a bit though I can't be that drunk as I'm not making any more grammatical mistakes than usual.

So yeah, vent over.

I know right, it's so weird and I bet very damaging to a lot of people! To be honest there are times especially in poker where I've felt it was a good thing but I can't see it being healthy in the long run.

Ah fair enough! I mean when you say in your post you're 22 then people are gonna think you're 22 ;) haha.

It's an ongoing process! There are times where I can completely accept losing sessions and there are times when I have a winning session but I'm disappointed because I thought I was winning more!

Maybe it's a mental thing but I've found NL16 and NL10 a lot easier compared to NL25. I can't quite put my finger on why exactly but in terms of sessions I win the majority of them at NL16 and below (like 80%) but it's a lore more hit and miss at NL25.

It's weekly update time! Been an interesting one this week. After going through a bit of a downswing at the end of last week/beginning of this week I dropped down in stakes a couple of times to build up some confidence. I played a couple of sessions each at NL10 and NL16, I think it was on Wednesday I said I'll play 1K hands at NL10 and if I'm winning and playing well then I'll do the same at NL16. I managed to win in both of those sessions and felt good getting back into NL25.

I definitely recommend doing this if you feel you're on a bit of a downswing at your current stake. Playing a stake where you know you can win and feel more confident playing made it so much easier for me to focus on playing my game rather than worrying about if I'm winning or not.

Since I've jumped back up to NL25 I feel it's gone quite well, definitely a couple of losing sessions here and there but I'm learning to accept those and not feel bad about them.

It doesn't look fantastic but battling back from a 10 buyin downswing to being breakeven/winning in EV is ok with me! Surprised at how long that breakeven stretch is to be honest. I guess the losing sessions have been cancelling out the winning ones! Also a bit disappointed how steep the redline is. There are always things we can be working on!

I think it depends on what your sample size is for the 50/4 stat read. If it's over a fair few hands then I think it has to be a fold on the river. Players with this stat type are often going to be passive (calling a lot preflop and hardly raising) so when they show aggression over multiple streets it needs to be given respect.

Hey man, great post! Was a really interesting read and I identified with a lot of it for sure. Being the same age and it sounds like we come from the same kind of background (though my school was decidedly nicer by the sounds of it!) I went through that same feeling of 'emotions are bad'.

This meant that feeling guilty, and also running away from feelings, became a way of life. I think this is likely the case in many middle class, UK households. Not showing emotion is seen as a virtue.

This was basically how I felt growing up as I was quite emotional when I was younger but every time I cried or whatever I was made to feel really bad about it - especially by my Dad. Basically from there I avoided confrontation at all costs as I knew they would make me emotional and 'emotions are bad' and I try and repress any real emotion if I can.

I don't really have any point to this post or any great links like Samu has but what you said resonated with my so much I felt like I had to post - if only to say that you're not alone in feeling this way!

DrCooper

Yes I think that's the case. This is because we can assume that villain isn't balancing this spot correctly with value bets and bluffs (just given how hard it is to do so imo) and therefore we can overfold as a response.

"It's immoral to let a sucker keep his money"

-Canada Bill Jones