Jafeeio

Hey Tyler,
first thanks for your 8 years of videos! You're easily one of my favorite creators on the site. I really appreciate your continued transparency with the recent graph and your attention to detail about what's actually going on with player tendencies.

I had a question in my mind about the 88 hand at 16:55 but then you snuck in a review at the end of the video, mentioning that you had a read on this player's 3bet sizing. Basically I'm curious if you have noticed any strong trends when it comes to 3bet sizing recently and how much it would affect the EV of a hand like 88 if we had instead faced a smaller or even larger 3bet.

Absolutely. There are a lot of great timeless videos on here if you dig a little.
Tommy Angelo for general mindset stuff, also check out his Youtube channels and podcasts.
Anything from Phil Galfond that just involves his thoughts about a topic like the "Thinking out loud" series.
Anybody who's an expert at articulating their thoughts is worthwhile watching because it gives you an idea how to think about the game, even if that particular strategy might not apply currently or to your game.
Sauce123 is excellent at this, though beware just copying him because he's not afraid to experiment on literally everything :D
For lower stakes stuff:
Cameron Couch / Ishter11
For mid to high stakes.
Tyler Forrester
Peter Jennings

If you only have the essential plan then I would really focus on Cameron Couch.

Hey Peter, first of all thanks for posting a rocky live session, these are by far the ones I personally enjoy and learn from the most. Maybe instead of using a randomizer while doing a live session with explanations, you could go into the session with a plan to cut down on the decision time by picking one way and sticking with it (for example always 3betting or always coldcalling when it's a mix).

At 6:06 you defend the BTN with KJo against a 3bet from the SB and it checks down to the river at which point you make a big bet. This might have been a good hand for the GTO solver since it's a high frequency spot against a regular with pretty defined ranges, so I would be curious what he gets to the river with that folds against a big bet. In my mind you might honestly only be bluffing out worse hands with the occassional KQ, but all of his Ax that would have felt pressure on the flop and turn can now comfortably call. You also make a note that you expect villain to be more stationy which just makes the bet even worse. Curious about your thoughts after the fact.

I think you did yourself a big disservice going into GTO Wizard in the middle of the session for the AJs hand at 17:39. Seeing the river node really threw you for a loop and made you question your decision way more than was warranted on the spot. You're opening for 2.2bb UTG and BB makes a giant 3bet to 13bb from the BB. I would need a whole lot more confidence to assign a regular the range GTO Wizard is spitting out. This is Zoom at the end of the day, you're raising from UTG and BB who could have easily folded his marginal hands wants to battle it out with you. Maybe I'm a bit naive in this regard since I have never trusted GTO-chosen ranges but I would really like some evidence that villains are playing close to GTO in this situation before massively doubting my plays.
As played I really like the check on the turn for the reason you mentioned, getting shoved on is just awful and this is a great spot for villain to induce bluffs from floats that missed.

Lastly, could yo go a bit into detail why we're not building a coldcalling range from the BTN vs CO as mentioned in the ATs hand at 31:47?
Thanks and have a nice day :)

Hey Ben, thanks for always considering the rake when you're making these videos.
At 33:40 you opt to fold the A2o on the button against two tough regulars. Would you say rake is the major factor or do you expect them to 3bet too much for this hand to be a profitable open for this size?

First of all, that's the wrong rake stat. Rake is bad, but not THAT bad :D Look for "rake attributed" or something. For me it's about 6.1bb/100 on NL25.

Secondly, Kalupso and Justin already summarized it very well, you're wasting your time on Zoom. You need to realize that Zoom facilitates very tight aggressive play, even from "fish". And because it's so convenient it attracts the most amount of good regs. The more convenient, the tougher the games.

I don't think there is any 1 thing that you can improve on with theory which is going to make you a winner over night. You need experience at the tables first and foremost.

If you really want to make progress you need to play regular tables, focus on getting on tables with at least 1 clear fish (odd stacks, limping, coldcalling 3bets etc) and take their money.

Label EVERY opponent that you encounter, ideally 2-3 colors for regs and 1 for fish, more is unnecessary imho.

Use a hud that displays important information that converges quickly. Those are:
VPIP / PFR / 3Bet / Fold to 3Bet / 4BETt
Raise first in from every position / Fold 2 steal BBvsBTN and BBvsSB / Cbet oop and ip.

This is how I'm currently beating NL25 FR for 10bb/100. For the record I'm a big fan of Nick Howards philosophy and watch his Youtube videos daily, but I neither own Pio unlocked nor Piosolver so I can't comment on that.

Just wanted to come in and say thanks for your videos.
You are clearly very in touch and honest with the games you are playing in and the opponents you are facing and I appreciate that.

I might replay later with a question if I can find something :D

It is quite disconcerting to see NL1k / NL500 regulars (who will be heavily impacted next year) continue playing, but you can thank the Pokerstars VIP program for that. Teunuss is sitting at 918k VPP according to his blog which is already cutting it close if you don't want to play on Christmas and sylvester.

As much as I see players who think striking in the next year is more effective, it's also a cop out. I regularly take weeks or months off at the beginning of the year because I'm in no hurry to get VPPs.

I am striking now when it hurts me the most, the games are probably great and I still have VPPs to chase but for next year I will probably just play whenever I feel like it and not participate.

I can't find an easy list but according to the Pokerstars Blog ( https://www.pokerstars.com/en/blog/online/super-tuesday/ ) the number of entrants hovers around 500 most of the time with one dip to 432 in the past 10 weeks.

Pokerstars has got you guys by the balls and it is totally understandable so late in the year.

Just do me one favor and remove the display of your SNE stars. Getting shafted by Pokerstars and getting your rewards cut so drastically is not something to be proud of anymore. Teunuss already did that in his last video, just not sure if it's for personal or for everyones display.

Online poker is way behind the "fun casual gaming" curve, especially Pokerstars. Mobile and free2play games have risen dramatically in popularity because they are cute, easy to get into and very often reward returning players with daily login bonuses.
This is an industry that is very focused on attracting new players with poor results. The strategy might have worked 10 years ago but with markets closing / splitting and the overall amount of players decreasing it has to be top priority to keep casual players on board who are already familiar with poker and have played in the past.
Pokerstars has done some challenges that give you a $0.50 Spin'n'go ticket here, a freeroll there, but nothing that really gets anyone excited and often they are linked to small deposits that don't get you anywhere either.
I am actually not sure if Pokerstars does any special promotions for recurring losing players but their site-wide promotions do need better exposure. I should not have to opt-in to a challenge from an obscure menu and I should not accidentally stumble over a bunch of Spin'n'Go tickets that I didn't even know I had until I checked my tournament tickets.
FTP did a lot of things right back in the day, including special avatars for FTOPS winners and cashgame tickets. They created a more fun "gamey" (not gambly) atmosphere with their comic artstyle contrasted to the very vanilla Pokerstars client (which has just gotten more dark and serious over the years).

I just don't have any trust in Pokerstars wanting to do the right thing for the health of the poker game right now. They are very focused on sportsbetting, casino and casino / lottery style formats like hypers and Spin'n'Gos. I think it has been shown that recreational players lose even faster in these variants and might get turned off quicker. Combined with the high rake for Spin'n'Gos and high jackpots that leech prize money from the vast majority of players they have created a monster that rewards very few lucky players.

Good luck :)

Don't forget to trade in all your FPPs before the end of the year / in case you lose Platinumstar.

Good video :)
I would love a follow up where you focus on squeezing hands like 99 and TT since those seem to perform very well as squeezes vs late position but somehow always give me trouble.

I liked the video, just a really bleh session where nothing came together.

Concerning the ATo hand at 39:15 that you turned into a bluff. You might have failed to assess your own range for getting to the river after calling the overbet on the turn. You are going to have a lot of 8's, namely 78s, 98s, T8s, 88, probably all A8s. As you correctly noted he would have a hard time valuebetting any sets on this river against our range, even for that sizing. This makes me think that he is trying to get a guaranteed call from any 8 on the river with the added illusion of fold equity because of his bet sizing.

Obviously there has been a big shift to a more GTO approach when it comes to calling and bluffing combos in these spots, but at the end of the day you still have to pick up some reads on your regular opponents. Considering you are playing 4handed with him on a bunch of tables there was no effort made to get an understanding of his playing style. This is not a rip on you specifically, it's just something that has been present in most training videos with the increasing popularity of zoom games and maybe the reluctance to give away actual reads because it would hurt your bottom line even more.

Great video!

Quick note: HUD is frozen from minute 19 on.

Seeing autopilot as a bad thing is a pretty interesting topic, especially for someone who has worked with and/or read Jared Tendlers books. The definition of unconscious competence reads as follows: 

Unconscious competence: You’re on auto-pilot. The skill is second nature to you. You’ve developed the mental or muscle memory that allows you to perform it with ease.
It seems like this is not enough or even desirable as a top player when facing someone headsup who plays an unorthodox style. You said in the video you were playing a couple of triple draw tables on the side which were probably for much higher stakes and take up way more brainpower. But then again I have watched you countless times playing 6 tables of headsup or 8 tables or more of 6max PLO. 
So I guess my question is, where does good autopilot end (if it even exists) and bad autopilot start?

5:46 ATdd on Kd6c4s You say that the hand is too strong to start barreling and check back. When the 9h hits and Syous donks you fold without much thought. I use this reasoning quite a lot myself but then I chicken out on any aggression from my opponent. I feel like we have too much equity against his entire range to fold here but mainly I would prefer just cbetting the hand to avoid making a bad fold on the turn. 

I don't agree that we should assume these bots are good, Sauce. These are not individuals that have been playing poker for years and years, no, they are barely programs that are doing what some HUMAN students at some university told them to do. Humans that probably have little to no achievements in the real poker world. We know very little about these bots which makes watching these matches and trying to rationalize good play from weird play very dangerous. 

Once again, the sample is very tiny and both players are bots. I have not found any way to play against these bots which would make for a much more interesting video. 

@Zachary Freeman: A lot of people (including me) that are complaining appreciate this as a once-off video but just don't want it to turn into a series of 3 videos because for us watching real play is much more educational. 

How much actual discussion about the bot play has been going on in this thread? Very little, people are either stating that they like it or dislike it. Same goes for his Toygaming video which had very little comments overall. But all of his live play / review videos get a TON of comments and people are really engaged. 

Have to agree with WhiteDevil. 

Both of these bots seem to live in their own universe with the very weird plays that they have shown and the ambiguity of not knowing how they arrived at their decisions / how they were programmed in addition to the very small sample size (they could easily play 100k+ hands against each other and we could review them in HEM) makes it really hard for me to draw any valuable information out of this. 

I'd also much rather see a human play one of these bots over a large sample than 2 bots each other. We don't even know if they are capable of adjusting strategies. 

So yeah, kinda nice for a gimmicky video but please don't make this a 3parter (aka 1,5 months of content).

Get someone to sweat you for a session or review some hands with. It's very important to get some distance from your own play if you've been losing for a while. 

I would love some more info on your playing schedule and downswing. 

NL25 is a completely different game from NL200 and if you are constantly changing stakes you probably don't have great samplesizes, reads or colorcodings on the players either. A good play on 200 isn't necessary a good play on 25 with no reads. 

In my opinion the first thing you should do when running bad or playing bad is reduce your number of tables, tableselect hard and really focus. 

All of Nassim Talebs books are really good reads but I'd recommend starting with "Fooled by randomness". It's the first one, the easiest to read and understand for me and it had the most real life application. If you like his style you can also get "The Bed of Procrustes". 

Thanks a lot for the response, that was what I hoped to hear. 

Regarding the HUD and your gameplay: I would really appreciate it if you could get as close to your normal environment when playing as possible or announce beforehand what you want to accomplish with the video. You have to remember that you are here to teach and explaining how you made a certain decision + solidifying it by using proper stats and reads is very important to the watcher. Much more important than having a clean video in my opinion, especially in replay videos :). I only harp on this because you are one of the few guys that seem to regularly play NL500 zoom and actually have decent samples on the playerpool, I wouldnt ask this of Phil Galfond :D

In regards to your 3bet defending range: After watching this video yesterday I went on and watched Leforts review of Lucas Greenwood (http://www.runitonce.com/nlhe/lefort23/ T9s starting at 31:30) and he made a point that he doesn't 3bet at all vs UTG because he feels he doesn't have enough value hands against such a tight range. Other players continue to only 3bet very nutty hands like AA, KK vs UTG and others again use their perceived strength to 3bet bluff way more against UTG. I understand that what you are doing is probably good against the field, but can it not be exploited just as easily? This is why I would love some more nuanced use of the hud or reads in your videos. 

First of all welcome to the team. I really enjoyed the video as well, especially in regards to the theme of balance vs exploitative play that has been floating around this site for a while. 

You seem to have made up your mind for the way you want to play (loose and sticky) and build your gameplan around that. You also mention that you are winning more at non-showdown using this style which intrigues me greatly since from my own experience playing loose and passive usually led to a downward slope red line and I play lower stakes and in less aggressive games than you. 

What I noticed in your play was that you are playing very static, if you don't mind me saying. You have quite a lot of hands on many of the players but you are using a very minimalistic hud and not once did you use any advanced features like 3bet vs position, cbet percentage, 4bet percentage or even opening percentages. For me this very much conflicts with your style of play. I would think somebody who is involved in a lot of pots postflop would benefit greatly from knowing if someone cbets and barrels a ton or not. Same goes for 3bet percentages. I play in games where the 3bet percentage of regulars drastically differs from person to person and vs different positions and I would assume the same is true in your games. I never quite understood the notion of "forming" your defend range vs 3bets to 50% when it easily could be way too wide. 

I come from the school of poker where you make your decision based on the players you are playing against. There is a difference between being exploitable and being exploited. If everybody only 3bets the top 3% against your UTG raise there is no point in defending 50%. If we always defend the same range, does this mean we assume every single one of our opponents is making a mistake with their 3bet range? 

I hope I didn't read too much into just one video but those are some general thoughts that have been going through my mind :) I would love to get some input from your or anyone that utilizes this way of thinking. 

I'm not sure how you went about tilting off your roll, but I would recommend to everyone to impose a limit of the cashgame tables and tournament buyins that you play on a daily basis (in your case NL100 and nothing above). It's very easily done on Pokerstars in the Requests -> Responsible Gaming -> Restrict Table Limit / Restrict Tournament Buyin Limit option. It takes 24 hours to increase the cap and no time to lower it. At the least that should stop you from moving up 3 stakes to chase losses :) At the best you don't accidentally post a blind against Luckychewy on NL5k because you were railing him while Tableninja was still running. 

Really nice video. I have to confess that I usually only watch Galfond and cashgame videos, but the analysis in this video from both of you was so superb that I just had to go watch some MTT videos from Jason :)

Awesome addition to the team. Your videos on Leggo always were excellent, if few and far between, and the thought of getting them on a regular basis makes me way too excited :)

Makes perfect sense, thanks for the answer :)

Looking forward to part 2.

Great video, Sean. I can certainly relate to a lot of the topics discussed. 

You made some "conflicting" statements like being okay with shotting 100/200 while being frightened of losing more than 10% of your net worth in a session. Also you mentioned that you can handle variance better than other players hence running it once but you still feel like your threshhold for losses being significant enough to affect you is a lot lower than for other players. 

I would appreciate it if you could expand a little bit on that, since I am stuck at the same static money threshhold for several years now, regardless of the stakes that I am playing and my bankroll / net worth which makes it very hard for me to move up in stakes. Did yours change over the years, possibly even decrease?