Quick

INTP

Risk Management

Good video Garrett. You do a pretty good job explaining your thought process and I really like it when you talk about what you would have done if different cards came like the AJ hand if the board had paired the river. I was going to ask about that then you answered in the video. That really gives us useful insight as to how you think about the game, which is what I benefit most from. Not what to do, but how to think. 

I agree with you that picking some hands where you are bluffing in close spots and get looked up is far more interesting than cherry picking hands where you just pwn people for thin value.

+1 on incorporating discussion of live tells in your videos. Better yet, make live tells the main topic of a video. Specifically, I'm really working on spotting tells of weakness and uncertainty early in a hand (like on the flop) so that I can proceed with big bluffs with more confidence.

Also, I remember you saying you normally play 8-10 hours a day. I'm curious how you structure your breaks, meals and snacks in a "normal" day of grinding. Do you bring food with you or just eat casino food? I don't have many healthy options at some of the places I play, so I try to bring healthy snacks. But I often hit a wall around 6 hours and need a proper meal. So most of the time I just end up going home unless the game is exceptionally good, but I feel like I'm not maximizing my potential. Whether ITT or in a video, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

Snap liked this video at the description of the "60 year old Italian guy" lol

I vote for more. It seems like more and more live players are joining this site (which I have mixed feelings about). But if we all speak up, maybe we can get more frequent content from Garrett and/or bring in additional live poker specialists to make videos.

Hi Garrett,

Good video. My advice would be to make fewer self deprecating comments and accept that you are not perfect. The occasional rambling tangent is fine. Sometimes instructors spit out real gems when they ramble a bit. But when you frequently apologize it just takes away from your perceived credibility as an instructor. I think I can speak for the masses when I say you make a valuable contribution to the site and I look forward to viewing more live poker videos from you. 

Several times you dance around the topic of live tells, saying you were confident about your read "because of how they were acting" or "because of their body language". Can you please dedicate a live poker video (or even a series of videos) to the various live poker tells you still see in the bigger games? What do you look for the most? Which tells are the most universal and the most reliable? I know it can be difficult to express in words how we "sense" strength or weakness sometimes because our emotional brains are processing information our logical brains cannot yet articulate. But after close scrutiny, there is always something specific to point to even if it's as subtle as an averting glance of the eyeballs that lasts only a microsecond, or a slight tension in the neck and shoulders that wasn't there before they flipped over the nuts the last time they bet pot on the river. The area I have the most room for improvement is identifying when my opponent really doesn't want to see a big bet from me on the turn or river. Or conversely, aborting the big bluff when they do want me to bet. Currently I just focus on doing my best not to give off any tells of my own in such situations, and I save my "soul reading" for situations when my opponent is the aggressor.

I realize this site is mostly about online poker but I am a live pro and tells are obviously a huge part of the game. Even at higher stakes games, we can sometimes narrow people's ranges significantly based on how they are acting. And often times, physical tells can be established sooner than we can make accurate inferences about their ranges and frequencies. Especially in river situations since live poker is so slow and we rarely see showdowns in big pots at 5/10nl and higher. I feel like there is currently very limited quality content out there about tells but I am hopeful that you can change that.

One of my favorite albums to listen to while grinding:

Alt-J

Try setting aside at least 1 day every week where poker is completely out of your mind. Don't talk poker, read poker, or even think about poker. Structuring that time away helps me maximize my effectiveness in the long run. Instead of playing every day for a month and then not playing for a week or more because I'm burned out, I try to pace myself. And it's not like you HAVE to play the other 6 days of the week. As Phil said, we play better when we play because we want to, so we should give ourselves that freedom. After all, that freedom and autonomy is a huge part of what makes playing poker so attractive to many of us.

We are at our best when we are giving 100% of our focus to one thing at a time. If you find yourself still browsing forums, talking hands with friends, or just ruminating about hands on your "off days", then you are not giving your brain the break it needs to prevent burnout.

This structured time away from poker also helps me keep my life in balance. It allows me to focus time on hobbies and fitness. And when I'm in a relationship it provides a modicum of stability in a relatively unstable, unconventional lifestyle.

As played, I think it's probably a fold on the river unless you've specifically seen him overbet bluff or try to overbet someone off a chop in a similar situation, or have a reliable live tell on him. I have a maxim that I apply to live poker players. "Do not give people credit for being capable of making a play that they have not yet proven themselves capable of making." Most live players are not all that imaginative. More often than not, you will be leveling yourself only to find that a thing is exactly what it looks like and they were not doing anything fancy. You are getting 1.3:1 on a call to most likely win only half the pot at best. I think we can all but rule out a bluff. Very few live players who are not complete fish would ever shove as a total bluff here. It just seems to me that when you make that call in a live game, you are going to be shown K6 or 44 more often than you will chop the pot. And when you are chopping, he'll be betting an amount that is enticing get calls from worse hands.

Fwiw, I think it's a mistake to straddle UTG almost always.

I would normally bet out on that flop, something like $30-50 unless there is a bluff-happy LAGtard or someone majorly tilting behind you or some other good reason. By betting, you will get people calling with worse where they would have otherwise checked behind, thus giving them a chance to improve and missing potential value. They will call with any 6, overpairs to the board, some 4's will at least stick around for one bet, 75s and 53s. Plus people will be more suspicious of your check/call or check/raise. I'd bet 3 streets here as a default play, maybe mixing it up sometimes based on player types and live reads. And I'd have to evaluate if I got raised at any point because most of the time you will be beat when you get raised here, especially on the river.

Thanks for posting a live hand. I hope we get some other live players' input.

Has anybody tried this product yet? I'm thinking about buying it.

You could play on Bovada

Thanks for the reply and the links, Phil. Your "When Optimal Isn't GTO" series was the first thing I watched when I got my membership. Only watched part 1 but I like it so far. For the games I play in, if you focus on playing GTO you will be missing out on A LOT of profit... Definitely made that mistake in the past.

I'll def check out these links you posted. Thanks again!