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June - Week 5 - 26th to 30th

I decided to properly start firing the UK tour sats this week and played a total of 6 during the week (Not really firing is it 🤣). Out of those 6 I managed to finish 5th in 4 of them resulting in absolutely nothing. In the remaining two I finished 3rd with 2 places playing in one and finally picked up a €25 ticket in the other.  I'm actually quite happy with the results because normally I punt these things way earlier so getting down to the last few players seems to be progress and I felt focused whenever I played and was trying to make the best ICM decisions possible. If I watched them back I was probably being a little too tight but it's all part of the learning process.

Nothing exciting happened on the MTT side of things, One min cash in a €4 turbo and a win in a €2 Step-it-up were the only other positives on an otherwise quiet week. I completed the last week of Moving On Up and torched the resulting €25 PLO ticket in about 10 hands :waterfall:.

 

** END OF MONTH REVIEW (JUNE 2017) **

  • +/- for the month: €203.43 (BR Total: €207.93)
  • Days played: 25
  • Losing days: 17
  • Winning/Break Even days: 8
  • Sessions/Games played - Cash: 38, SNGs: 10, MTTs: 102
  • ROIs - Cash: -1.29% , SNGs: 20.42% , MTTs: -7.40% 

** FULL RESULTS **

270123140_graph1.PNG.4564c99030d9f51cca1ba841708e77d7.PNGgraph2.PNG.7248a643415340fa88156687a3a67bf6.PNG

I've managed to break the bankroll graph so I'll have to redo it :(

 

Goals for July

  • Get out the hole and start playing with profit again.
  • Blog regularly and post hands for discussion and analysis that will be helpful to the community.
  • Grind the UK Tour Sats

Not much has changed with regards to goals, just trying to keep them simple and grind out some profit every month. Considering how negative most of the numbers are it's been a pretty decent month. I've played half the MTTs I normally would and still come out with €200 profit. I didn't get too crushed playing cash and the SNG ROI continues to be positive. Maybe this less tables, more focus thing is working :)

Off site I managed to final table the Big $0.55 on PS but could only manage 8th I think for $45. It doesn't sound like a lot but that's roughly 90x the buy in which is pretty good. Unfortunately it took about 8 hours with their being 4000ish players. Every time I run deep in these things I wonder why I bother but at the same time I know that it means I'm doing something right and I'm getting closer to doing in consistently.

Slight spoiler alert for July now. I've been getting lots of tickets on Party through their click-and-collect promo which is basically a promo where you log in, click on a card and randomly get a ticket for whatever satellite system they're trying to promote. One of these systems is for a £200 MTT running every Sunday at Dusk Till Dawn in Nottingham. Last Sunday I went through the $2.20, $11 and $55 steps and won myself a seat in an online day one for the DTD200. I played the day one on Monday night and survived the 12 levels of play and am now in the live day 2 :Cool:. You can choose which Sunday you play but a number of things have aligned perfectly and I'm going down tomorrow to play so I can play this Sunday. It's a local holiday on Monday and also my birthday so I had time off work already and I managed to get out of a DJ gig  on Saturday night so I'll be up bright and early tomorrow morning for the 7 hour drive down south to Englandshire.

They roll back the blinds for the day 2 so my 35bb finishing stack has become a 70bb stack when I start play but I'll be way below average. You can see on the DTD website the stacks people have that have qualified online and there are some huge stacks. I have 140k but I saw one guy with 1 million chips... that's 500bb! Luckily they don't appear to have picked a day so I don't think I'll have to worry about that stack. There are two live sats running today and tomorrow so I think there will be plenty of players on Sunday. People can also just buy in direct on day 2 and get 50b so hopefully I get a few of them on my table and catch some of the gamblers out :)

Full trip report when I get back as always and since I'm off work all next week I'll be back on the grind and back on the hand history collecting so I have stuff to type about here :)

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July - Week 1 - 3rd to 9th (and the 1st and 2nd)

Started off the month with a positive result on Saturday. I had a PLO4 ticket from somewhere that I completed for a delightful €24 and also cashed a SNG. Only blip was a small cash loss completing a mission but other than that a great start to the month. Monster Sunday session as Davitsche had his monthly league promo on. Ended up being a pretty brutal session. I cashed two of the league games to cover the cost of playing them and then bricked every standard MTT I played. Only glimmer of hope on the day was going 3/3 on UK tour sats including a comeback from 22 chips. Definitely took the edge off the other losses :)

The first week of July was pretty quiet in terms of results. Nothing over/under €20 for the 6 days I played. What confuses me the most is that I actually played 6 days because I spent most of Saturday driving. I must have got up early to complete a mission or something 🤣. Only interesting results were a min cash in the €4 bullet and completing a €1 ticket as part of a 2+2 NLOB promo for €15.

As mentioned in the last post I was off to Nottingham on Saturday to play in day two of the DTD200. For a close to 8 hour drive time flew as we made it to the hotel in the early evening. The hotel itself didn't actually look like a hotel at all and to be honest probably isn't one most of the time. It was situated in the grounds of Nottingham Uni and was a conference centre by trade with multiple rooms for conference guests to stay in. It was tucked away so was nice and quiet and there was barely anyone about whenever we walked through the lobby. Room was pretty nice and comfortable and it was within walking distance of DTD and the city centre.

First port of call was food so we headed over to the closest chain restaurant to DTD for some food. Hunger satisfied we made our way across the car park to the Dusk Till Dawn building. If you didn't know already who which poker site was the main sponsor for the card room you'd be hard pushed not to know after seeing the front of the building. This theme continued after registration when you are given a members card that does not say the venue name on the front, just the name of the affiliated poker room. Inside the main room was a wash of black and orange to further remind you who's paying the bills. There were three levels to the room with rows of tables on each tier. It was a busy room but didn't feel cramped. They have a 'TV' table too which I believe they do live streams of and 'Trickett's room'... a homage to Bobby's Room in the Bellagio named after (funnily enough) a sponsored pro of the affiliated poker site. Sam has won $10m+ so we'll let them off :)

I only had one issue with the venue and that was the hostesses. I don't mean the people themselves, just how they were dressed. Now I'm not a prude and I have no issue looking at scantily clad women but I thought we had progressed as a society enough that we didn't need girls in tiny shorts, or in some cases pants, serving drinks in a modern poker room. It instantly cheapened the experience for me and reinforced the seedy underground club vibe you'd see in the movies. I'm sure they get paid well and make plenty of tips so it's probably fine for them and I'd expect the majority of the clientele don't mind the views so I'm probably in the minority about it being a bad thing image wise. Only other note from my first visit was that they were showing the cricket on the TVs and the sponsor that appeared at the beginning and end of each ad break was Unibet. I had a giggle every time I saw it. We had a few drinks and then headed home for an early night.

Play started at 12 noon on Sunday so I was up nice and early to get some breakfast in. When I arrived at DTD the doors were still closed and there were a number of people outside waiting to get in. To the left of the entrance were some tables with various promotional items, t-shirts, hoodies, hats, etc. The first inquisitive souls ventured over, had a look and picked up a few things. No money changed hands with the person filling the tables with goodies. Slowly it dawned on more and more people that these items were all free to a good home and business picked up. I got in there early and picked up a hat, t-shirt and pink hoodie for the girlfriend along with a branded bag to put it all in. My guess is it was all old merch that they couldn't shift in the online store as it was difficult to find a M or L but if you wanted XXL you were in for a treat. There was also a number of items that had the old Party logo on them and in the case of the hoodie I picked up had the old logo and was a .fr branded item. Nevertheless it was a nice thing for them to just give this stuff away to whoever wanted it. When I left after playing the table was still full and had additional items that were not there on opening so there was plenty to go around.

The doors opened and there was a mild rush to get in. Most players looked like they knew the place and knew that the table draw wouldn't be released until a few minutes before the start of play so were pretty calm and just got themselves a drink and a seat. Once the table draw appeared on the TV screens I made my way to table 42, seat 3. 

IMG_20170709_115606.thumb.jpg.334400223ff6fbe19b4a6fb4c9de27a2.jpg

I have no idea why the forum is turning the pickture sideways 🤣. Anyway, that's what greeted me, chips in a bag. I've never had to open a chip bag before so it was pretty exciting. 

IMG_20170709_120130.thumb.jpg.816748e9aae8ff5bfdad410abf3a202f.jpg

Again apologies for the sideways photo. That's what 140k looks like. It didn't last very long :Scared:.

They have introduced a 'Button pays the ante' feature in an attempt to speed up play and I can say that in the two hours I played it definitely worked. The difference in the speed of play between this and the UK tour was massive. It may have been that I was just on a quiet table or with quick players but we flew through hands. I was doing twitter updates at the end of each level so I won't bore you with the details but I lasted until the last level before the first break. We had had 3 eliminations by the time I busted, two players that had bought in on Day 2 and a short stack that played from the beginning. The player that filled the seat of the departing short stack was another Day 2 buy-in and a gentleman that liked to get chips in the pot. 

After about 30 minutes at the table he had called an all-in on the turn (Board was 5434 or something similar) with A6o for 40bb or so and his opponent flipped over QQ.

"What?! How do you call there?"

"I thought I had a Straight"

River is a A, busted player slams fist on table and departs.

The loose goose was two to my right and opened for his usual 3x. I'm in the button with pocket 7's and exactly 20bb. We were a few minutes away from the break and a blind increase so it seemed like a great time to shove and get it in ahead against the maniac. Small blind snap shoves :(. Maniac turns over KTc and mucks so I was right in my assumption that I was ahead. I was not ahead of the Jacks of the SB. Board tried to give me a sweat with a straight draw on the turn but it was not meant to be. Our loose friend ended up finishing 6th so he must have been doing something right.

I didn't play well to be honest. I was playing a little scared and was making rookie mistakes. I raised to 3.5x blind vs blind at one point because I picked up the wrong chip and the big blind knew it straight away. I had it in my head that I didn't want to make all this effort to come down and then get it in light so was being overly tight and generally rubbish. I need to get more live play under my belt for sure and it's on the to-do list if I bink another live package to anywhere. 

All in all a good trip though and another new venue and experience in the bag. Nottingham was lovely and the weather was great so I can recommend checking it out, especially if you're going to play the UK Tour stop in August :)

 

 

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July - Week 2 - 10th to 16th

It's my birthday! I always take the week around my birthday off work so I'd planned to get lots of poker in :) Got back from Nottingham just in time for Iany's follower MTT thingy. It was a disaster and I fired 6 bullets and won nothing 🤣. Playing after 8 hours on the road was probably not a good idea so the only other thing I played was the Community league and a little cash to clear a mission.

Tuesday was a much better day. Picked up a gold trophy in a €10 turbo along with final tabling both €10 Ten-X bounties for a healthy €80 profit. That trend continued on Wednesday where I won one of the Ten-X and finished 2nd in the other for a total of €170. :cash:

I then spent the next 4 days losing :wonder:. Sunday was the only day that had any positive results with an 8th in the €1k Bullet 4 and a 5th in the UK only €500 bounty freeroll but they did not cover a full day of play. Overall the week ended with €72 of profit so no complaints :)

 

 July - Week 3 - 17th to 23rd

Another healthy start to the week with a big PLO win for me. Don't think I was feeling in the mood for a big MTT session so sat in at PLO4 and left up 4 buy ins. Played three €1 SNGs as I had tickets for them and won 2 and came 2nd in the third one before stone bubbling a €4 UK tour sat. Tuesday I cleared my bonus for winning the Tennis comp Andrei ran so it looked like a positive day although I didn't actually cash anything on the tables.

I didn't play on Wednesday for a reason I cannot remember and Thursday brought a win in the €4 UK tour sat to gain a €25 ticket, a final table bubble in the 1k €4 Bullet and another FT in the Ten-X Turbo Bounty. It also brought the return of the bad beat tracker.

Previously I would write in my notes when I got knocked out of a tourney in a bad way, it always good to have some context as to why you finished 75 out of 78 for the blog. Then I realised these things are not really important as far as variance goes and so long as I'm making the correct decisions these things are going to happen from time to time. Then I play the the €10 Evening deepstack and all that positive mindset is undone. It's my new Daily 4, my nemesis and my kryptonite. I have never cashed it and just do not understand how some people play in it.  Wednesday's trip into the madness ended in my close to 30bb reshove with QQ being called by 64s. Yep, 6 4 sooooted. They of course went runner runner for a straight (not even the flush) and I was out in 29th. Now I know in the long run these things are great and I'll be making money like Scrooge McDuck but it doesn't make it any less annoying in the moment.

The weekend was a mixed back. Picked up a silver medel in a €10 turbo bounty for €53 after getting it all in HU A9 vs A7 and not managing to hold for the game. Sunday was a big losing day with the only joy coming from the added money Bounty Deepstack where I finished 4th for €60. Other than that it wasa losing day.

Overall on the week I lost €7 so it was swingy but not too painful. 

 

I still have a Saturday Stack ticket from the Haiki competition Lappin ran in June so I plan on using that this weekend as I finally have a Saturday off. I also plan to screen capture the entire thing and then hopefully ship it off to Mr Lappin or Mr Simpson for a hand review if I get any sort of run. I'll maybe do what I did last time and create a 'highlight' version and a full one so people can choose what they want to watch (if any).

I'm also still on the UK tour sat grind and in the same loop of getting 2x €25 tickets converted, playing the €4's and getting 2x €25 back. Things are looking positive this week so hopefully I can buck the trend before August and the MTT league promo :) 

 

ICM spot of the day to round off the post. The following (I think) is from a €4 UK tour sat with 3 paid.

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Do you call the shove from button? I'm pretty confident I folded because I'm more like to go back and find out if something is a call when I fold over a fold when I call :) Lets take it to the ICM voodoo machine.

ICM1result1_20-07-17.thumb.PNG.657d947ac15f5000450a35a063f23ff7.PNG

Based on what I think the villain's range here is going to be it's a clear fold. I went for about 22% or Any pair, any Ax and some broadway combos because I think they'll still be on the tighter side at this point.

ICM1result2NASH_20-07-17.thumb.PNG.768b915c7d6db1226a666f63e1514a54.PNG

If you calculate Nash equilibrium and then run it then it's a clear call. I think 47% is a little wide of a range but it is Unibet so who knows. Where do you stand on the range? Call or fold? Answers on a postcard please.

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It's a spot where I would instinctively fold but it is a profitable call.

Your hand needs 52,89% equity versus the shoving range to make it a profitable call.

For the shoving range, there are multiple options, but I think they are all close to what ICMizer suggests:

  • An ICM expert, who thinks there are ICM aware players behind, will have a range close to what ICMizer calculates (47%), in which case it's a profitable call
  • A decent player will have a range that looks very much like the nash push/fold range, which in this case is about 49%, very close to the range ICMizer calculated, in which case it's also a profitable call: A8s has 56,8% equity versus that range.
  • An ICM expert, who thinks he has ICM unaware players behind, will in a lot of situations, where the correct calling ranges should be really tight, use a range a bit tighter to what ICMizer calculates, because people will call too loose. But in this case, this won't really be the case, because the ICM-correct calling ranges are already quite loose, so ICM unaware players don't have much room to call too loose. So also in this case, A8s will be a profitable call.
  • A fun player is hardest to range. A lot of them will shove not enough middling suited connecters but anything with a broadway card, also versus a range like that A8s is about a 56% favourite. It's only versus a fun player who really nits it up with a short stack near the bubble that calling isn't profitable.

So it's definitely a profitable call. However, if you know there are players at the table who make big ICM mistakes, the $EV of your current stack is actually higher then what an ICM calculation suggests, so your tournament life is worth more, and so you might make your calling requirements tighter then what an ICM calculation suggests. But this is often a dangerous road to go down because people tend to overestimate their edge.

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ROTPSOV (huh! yeah!).. what is it good for?

 

LUCK (noun) - success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions.photo.thumb.jpg.71e718dd12950b1045b5527178249888.jpg

 

 

If you've watched any of the Unibet ambassadors stream on Twitch you'll be aware that the chat box is almost always positive and constructive. People like to use it to vent frustration at bad beats from time to time but I don't know anyone that doesn't like to have a good moan when their aces get cracked. If your life is filled with primarily non-poker playing humans then it also makes the process of deflating your tilt with other people that understand what you're going through a little easier. The other thing you see a lot is people discussing tournaments they may be deep in or away to start playing. I am well versed in the excitement of, for example, a table popping up with an MTT you have satellited into that is both way above your normal buy-in price and with a big prize pool to play for. It's a thrill and one you want to share from time to time. Almost without fail when a situation like this is brought up in chat it is met with the following response..

"gl"

Good luck. It's the general response to anything in life that is seen to have an element of luck to it. Gambling, job interviews, exams.. the list of situations where "Good Luck" is deemed an acceptable response is endless. Unfortunately wishing someone good luck in any situation is completely pointless, both for you and more importantly the person you're wishing the magical luck on.

Poker is a perfect example of why luck does not exist. Using the Google definition provided at the start of the post helps to really hit home why wishing someone good luck is a hollow gesture. Essentially what you are saying to someone is that you hope they win all the situations where they are behind and hold whenever they are ahead, whether they are making good decisions (actions) or not. This completely contradicts the concept that in order to be a good poker player you need to make good decisions. Good luck is a short term solution for a long term problem for poker players and we shouldn't be promoting it.

You're also lying most of the time when you say it anyway. I lie when I say it. If we're heads up or on a final table I don't want you to have good luck, I don't want you to run on the positive side of variance, I want my 72 to crack your aces. I want to win. I will still say "good luck" though :Rofl:. It's a bizarre ritual that exist both online and live where it is polite to say and almost expected even though nobody really means it. It would be frowned upon to sit down at a table of strangers and wish them terrible luck and that they all lose all their flips, even though that's really what you want. 

The solution? Well when I originally had the idea for this post in the shower I thought it was using ROTPSOV (Run on the positive side of variance) instead of "gl". Yeah it's longer to type but it's also more accurate. Luck is not measurable where as variance is. Having now typed out a few paragraphs I've realised that luck and variance are almost the same thing. Luck is just the beginners guide to variance. Luck is simple, it's good or bad. Lucky or unlucky. Variance is maths, calculations and percentages. Luck is the result, variance is the reason why the result happened. They both relate to the same uncontrollable elements that happen after we make decisions, luck is just less detailed in it's account of the situation :).

So "gl" is out and "ROTPSOV" is out, what's next? Well if you truly want to send positive thoughts or well wishes to someone else then I think the only thing that makes sense now is "Make the correct decisions". It's not catchy, it doesn't roll off the tongue and for me personally it opens up another opportunity to type 'the' incorrectly but it's the only thing the person you're talking to can control and really needs to focus on, especially in poker. If you genuinely want someone to do well then you need to promote the idea of them making the correct decision in any situation, it'll help them in the long run.

The reason behind this bizarre rant? A heater :) Sometimes it takes a good run above variance to make you realise luck is nonsense and so long as you're making good decisions things will come your way eventually. Last week was one of those runs.

Highlights

  • Won 6x €25 UK tour tickets and 1x €100 UK Tour ticket
  • €4 Deepstack turbo win on Monday for €50
  • 5x MTT wins in the space of 24 hours over Saturday night to Sunday night (€25 Turbo Bounty, €10 Turbo Bounty, €4 Four for Noon, €4 Quick Lunch,  €4 Daily Deepstack)
  • 8 other FTs inc. 5th in Bullet 10 for €170 and 3rd in a €25 bounty for €86.

I'll add some stuff to the end of month review in a seperate post but needless to say the bankroll has been given a massive boost which is perfect timing for the Bounty Badlands promo in August. 

 

 

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** END OF MONTH REVIEW (JULY 2017) **

  • +/- for the month: €347.60 (BR Total: €555.53)
  • Days played: 28
  • Losing days: 15
  • Winning/Break Even days: 13
  • Sessions/Games played - Cash: 22, SNGs: 15, MTTs: 246
  • ROIs - Cash: 0.88% , SNGs: -57.42% , MTTs: 16.58

** FULL RESULTS **

Goals for July

  • Get out the hole and start playing with profit again. :Speechless:
  • Blog regularly and post hands for discussion and analysis that will be helpful to the community. :Wonder:
  • Grind the UK Tour Sats :Thumbsup:

Point one is going to take a while so we'll skip that but there seems to be an upward trend towards that being completed at some point before I die :)  

Blog posts have been fewer and further apart. This partly due to the work office move giving me less time to type, partly due to it being a bit of a boring month regarding play (until the end of the month) and partly because I'm still trying to work out how to make it a more interesting read going forward. 

UK tour grind is going well. I've been trying to play the 3x nightly €4 whenever I can and the odd stab at the €25s. Ticket haul is always changing so it's hard to keep up for results but as of the end of the month I had 1x €4, 4x €25 and 1x €100. I've already split the 100 and a 25 as well as giving away the 25 Pirahn gave me (as he wouldn't accept it back) to Mynona so she can try and reach another UK event so the current ticket collection is already different :)

 

Goals for August

  • Get out the hole and start playing with profit again.
  • Blog regularly and post hands for discussion and analysis that will be helpful to the community.
  • Grind the UK Tour Sats
  • Bounty Badlands supremacy and (hopefully) prop bet 2.0 with Ian Simpson

Much the same for the goals in August. The grind continues to both get into profit and to make another UK tour stop. I'm going to have to be a little more aggressive I think and play more UK €25's as I'm running out of time for Nottingham and really need to get at least one package before the end of the second week in order to have time to get time off work and get things booked. 

Bounty Badlands is a promo that really works for me. I like bounty tourneys and I tend to do well in them. I had thought I might try for the High and Low league but after one day quickly found it's just too much. I don't have the patience to sit in a €1 grinding out the small wins and it's too many tables. I'd rather focus on the high league and the UK tour. What I am going to do is play the two evening €4 bounties because I think they're going to have a lot more value to them this month. More players, playing looser, to try and get on the leaderboard can only be a good thing.

I've also created a prop bet for Ian :)

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I have sent it to him but he was drinking in Malta so did not confirm it was booked. Darkangel asked me why the % I'd give away if I lost was so high. It's an understandable question, Ian would be in line to win multiple thousands of pounds if I won a UO event...

But let's be honest though, that's not going to happen :). The much more likely outcome is that I min cash a UK tour event, win roughly £400 and have to give him £40. I also think it's more balanced that my % is much higher because I can play every day of the month for the bounty promo if I choose whereas Ian tends to only play when he's streaming. He also streams twice a week during the day where there is only 1 qualifying bounty tournament. I have multiple times more opportunities to score points than poor Iany so it makes sense to me that less of his potential winnings could be lost.

Ian is also going to attend a lot more live events than I will so that also increases his chance of cashing. I won't be in Vegas or Brighton for sure and all the other stops are package dependant so it may be 2018 before I have a chance to pay up :) Ian on the other hand will be at them all I expect.

Anyway, that's the concept, we'll see if he agrees when he returns to streaming :)

 

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Yeah, not too sure why they have starred out the aliases and it also seems strange to use initials on the main Unibet website leaderboard and aliases on the in-client one. Make it easier for people to rail me I guess :)

 

I have an update to do shortly but quick prop bet update is that Ian politely declined the bet because he is taking a week off this month and won't be playing enough sessions to make it a fair fight. I was not aware of this before proposing the prop :) I'm sure we'll do something in the future.

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August week 1 - 31st July to 6th August

'Start as you mean to go on' someone said at some point in the history of time. It's a motto I subconsciously decided to live by as the first tournament of the month resulted in a 3rd place finish and 5 bounties. The €10 turbo bounty providing the ideal start to a month of bounty hunting. The evening session did not match teh positive start to the day unfortuantely. I only picked up 1 bounty and did not cash anything for money. I did play a UK25 sat which I promptly busted and then while attempting to close the window I had a brain fart. I saw the popup as "Would you like to rebuy? Yes/No" even though it's a choice between rebuying with a ticket or cash so I ended up firing an accidental cash bullet. Luckily it paid off and I picked up a €100 ticket 🆒.

As I've mentioned before I don't intend to go for the low league during the Bounty Badlands promo but I think there's cash value in playing them. I'm happy to say this theory was proved right on Wednesday as I finished 11th with 9 bounties for a nice €22 haul. Up in the dizzy heights of the high league things went from good to great as another 3rd, this time in the €25 bounty, resulted in 6 bounties and a €120 payday. Unfortunately that was it for the night, minus a token bounty in the Ten-X Turbo. UK tour sats were also not successful with 2x €4 and 2x €25 tickets down the drain. Worked on Thursday so no play outside a quick mission completion.

Friday saw another return to the €10 Turbo Bounty final table with a 4th and 5 bounties added to the stack. No other results to note and another UK €4 and €25 ticket torched :( Saturday brought some positive results as I finished runner up in the Four for Noon and the lunch turbo for €40. Was working at night so couldn't get stuck into the bounties :(

Big ol' Sunday session was on the cards and it was probably a 12 hour day. First cash of the day was a back to back FT in the €4 lunch turbo, collecting a bronze medal for my troubles and €11.66. Next results was a glorious 9 bounties in the €10 Turbo Ante Bounty and another 3rd for €48. Rounded off the night with a small cash in the 'Early' €4 Bounty and a 4th in the €25 bounty inc. 4 bounties. All in all a good way to round off a pretty decent week.

Profit for the Week: €34.47

 

Monday 07/08/17

Another good start to the week with 6 bounties collected (3 at €10 and 5 at €25) along with the first conversion of a €4 UK ticket. Internet crapped out at the end of the night and when it came back on I was bubbling the Ten-X Turbo :( A losing day but a positive for the Badlands.

 

Tuesday 08/08/17

Ohh boy do I have an ICM corner for you today. We'll get to the voodoo in a moment but first a quick look at the results for the day. Finally picked up a gold trophy after an epic heads up battle with @KostenBerg  in the €10 PLO bounty. 9 bounties and €97 for my troubles. Also picked up single bounties in both Ten-X events to keep my quest for the Badlands leaderboard alive. The UK tour grind was also fruitful as I won a €4 and €25 to pick up my second €100 of the month. To round off the evening I won a HU SnG and a buy in at both NL4 and PLO10 while completing missions. 

 

Now then, let's crunch some numbers...

Hand 1

icm1_08-08-17.PNG.539419be637abffca91dfafdedd3b3af.PNG

All of the following hands are from the €25 UK tour sat and are around the same two levels. I don't have any particular reads on anyone and at these stack depths it probably doesn't really matter. In order to do the calculations I found this cheeky little site http://www.holdemresources.net/nashicm. It'll calculate the Nash ranges for you if you give it stack sizes and payouts and is a whole lot cheaper than ICMizer :)

Now you always hear stories about players folding aces in sats and when this hand came up those stories crossed my mind. We've seen in some previous calculations that the calling range can be pretty tight in some situations so I really wasn't sure what to do. I also can't remember 100% what I did here but I'm pretty sure I called. Would you have done the same? Let's see what the voodoo machine thinks..

icm1Result_08-08-17.thumb.PNG.7cd96e94c4431077d5b1f111331c9596.PNG

It's a lot of letters and numbers I know. The first column is the position of the first player that goes all in, the second is the position of the player that calls the shove and the third column is any player calling the shove and first call. I've highlighted where we are in this particular case but I think it's good to show the whole thing so you get an idea of what you could call in any of the positions in a situation like this. As you can see there are not many hands we should be calling here but QQ is one of them. I think there is an argument that while it's profitable it may be so thin that it would make sense to wait but we all know people are not shoving nash ranges on Unibet :) This is the point I realise I highlighted the wrong range :) We're in the 15.4% range and it's a pretty clear call. I thought it would be closer but it seems not.

 

Hand 2

icm2_08-08-17.PNG.693519f2865caceccc0bfad9f3454110.PNG

Turns out this is from the €4 UK sat but it's a similar situation to the one above. Again I think I called because I felt blind on blind I'd be ahead of a good chunk of the hands he was shoving and I'd still have a few chips if I lost.

icm2Result_08-08-17.PNG.545dc8d2c2897283a315cd52b1d997ab.PNG

Again, I'm surprised at just how wide we can call in this situation, as well as how wide you should be shoving. Villain has KJo.

 

Hand 3

icm3_08-08-17.PNG.6a1b031efe75091f11a1e9783d6bfd60.PNG

Now this was the last hand of the €25 sat. I remember calling and thinking back to what I was saying in hand 1 about people folding aces and thinking it was a terrible call. I can't remember the exact board but I think there was a K and A and the second short stack knocked out the smallest stack and everyone got a ticket. When I was trying to decide if I should call or not I figured that I had the chips to lose and that I only need to beat one of them to end it. Let's see what the voodoo machine said..

icm3Result_08-08-17.thumb.PNG.8466f0694447a719ff6554011bbedf35.PNG

It's super thin but it's a call. Even aces are just +0.19 and you're breaking even with JJK and AKs. It's one of those where you could happily fold and know that you have more than enough chips to still be in an excellent position to get a ticket, or you can be pure maths and make a high variance but profitable call.  

 

So there you have it, some interesting spots to mull over. If you're railing the Badlands leaderboard I'm in 6th as of the early morning of the 11th with 66 points. Leader has 83 but it doesn't take much to catch them up :)

I'll be back next week with another bounty update and some more ICM and push fold stuff for you to look over.

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Variance: An American Horror Story

 

"F**k this game, f**k it right in the face" - MoreTBC (13/08/17)

I imagine an expletive filled rant is the way many a Sunday night grind finishes. Above were my exact words after getting it in good with AJs versus ATo only to have the T play on a flop A ♦️ ♦️ ♦️ ♦️. It completed a session where my aces were cracked in the Sunday Deepstack by tens and in the Ten-X Bounty I went all in on Axx with AKs, after calling a small stack shove and having the biggest stack at the table call, only to have the big stack call me with QT and go runner runner Q and T. There have numerous other trips to the dark side of variance over the last 48 hours but eventually my tolerance to bad beats ran out and the rant came out and the client was closed for the night.

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The pain of being battered by run bad was coupled by starting to watch a new TV series. American Horror Story is by no means new but for someone that finds themselves watching Twitch more than TV I'm a little behind the times. For anyone that does not know about it my limited Google search suggests each season revolves around a generic horror theme. Season one for example is about a haunted house and tells the story you've read 100 times in a horror movie synopsis about a family that moves to a new house with a terrible past. Season two is about an Asylum and the trend continues like that.

I watched the majority of the first season during the Sunday grind and I've been enjoying it. It's weird and basically a story I've watched countless times before in movies but the way they've done it makes you want to see what cliche is going to happen next. 

It did get me thinking though, variance and the swings in poker have all the traits of a good horror movie. Lets use the premise from above about the haunted house as our example. In the movies the start of the film is always the family moving into their new house, or making their first deposit. Sometimes it can be for a good reason, like a new job, and sometimes it can be for a bad reason, like the cancellation of Supernova Elite. Either way things always start off well. Friendly neighbours, deposit bonuses, life is good for the first few scenes. 

Of course we all know this never lasts long and eventually the films protagonist starts to make themselves known. Objects move, doors bang.. runner runner bad beats. The peaceful existence of both family and players starts to slowly unravel. Eventually you find yourself looking into the shadows as you hover over the 'All In' button with AA to see if it's there, watching you. It is, and it's ready to give the other player a pocket pair and a set on the flop. 

The climax of the film always requires a head on clash between good and evil, deuces against AK. At this point the family are usually down on their luck, they're on their last buy-in, and now they have to go heads up with evil itself, variance. One last all in to determine whether the world is going to end, and they'll have to redeposit, or if they can live happily ever after... with a bankroll. In the movies the families deuces nearly always hold and life is good. In the poker world sometimes the outcome is not so rosy. Either way the film always ends with a tease that there might be a sequel.

"You have received a new bonus"

C2u1YvXm.thumb.jpeg.78fc7f9ab216e66aeba265bb57dc3224.jpeg

I started thinking about other horror films that accurately describe what variance is like to poker players and the best one I could come up with was a 2014 film called 'It Follows'. IMDB have nicely summed it up in one line for me.


"A young woman is followed by an unknown supernatural force after a sexual encounter."


What you learn very quickly at the start of the film is that if you have sex with someone the supernatural force is after then it'll turn it's attention on you. It'll then slowly hunt you down until it gets you or you pass the curse on to somebody else.


This basically sums up variance.


Every time you hit a two outer on the river you pass the curse of running bad onto the next unsuspecting victim. In the film this doesn't happen a lot but in poker it's a constant battle. The only way to beat this monster is by making good decisions. Sometimes it'll still chase you down even though you're making the correct choices and sometimes you'll pass it on making bad decisions but the good players will always stay far enough away from the monster to survive.

A combination of the haunted house storyline and 'It Follows' is how the second week of August has been for me. It started all nice and happy with many wins and slowly descended into terror and bad beats. Sunday was the final scene and it was one of the few times a movie didn't fade to black with a happy ending. Don't worry though, there will always be a sequel here and after taking tonight night off to do a few re-writes we'll be back filming and trying to make a blockbuster hit :)

 

 

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Thanks for the nice blogposts. I've been a bit behind in reading.

In the first two ICM hands, there is are clues that are easy to detect that indicate that ICM pressure is low:

  • In the first hand, you have more than double the amount of chips you need to call. Whenever you have such a big stack as compared to the shove, ICM pressure can't be huge because you're still very much alive after you lose, and when stacks get so short, the dead money really affects the pot odds. Without all the dead money, you would need 59,65% equity to call. And with all that dead money, you only need 52,27% equity.
  • In the second hand, you're 2 off the bubble as one of the shortstacks, so you're current $EV isn't that high (€12,86 in this case). As long as you only have half the $EV of the payout, ICM pressure can't be that big, because your $EV will still massivly rise as you win chips. This combines with the good pot odds you get here, makes that you only need 53,87% equity versus villains range.
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  • 2 weeks later...

August wrap up - It's been a rough one

The hunt for Bounty Badlands glory has taken it's toll on me, both mentally and financially. It was always going to be a risky option to try and go for the high leaderboard, playing €10 and €25 games, when you start the month with €550 in the account but it seemed to work out OK last time so I didn't see the harm in trying again. On the last day of the month as I type this out it's clear to see that harm can and has been done. My results sheet for August is a wash of negative values and crimson filled cells. 

Since my PLO bounty victory on the 8th I have had just two winning days. €12 was the profit on both of those days, only €12 :(. The rest of the month has been filled with sessions full of runner runner bad beats, never making my draws and watching my opponents always hit theirs. Now I know it's easy to blame coolers and as humans we have selective memories when it comes to remembering bad things over good things but I really have been getting battered this month, honest!.

I consider myself I pretty level headed guy and 99% of the time can brush off a bad beat knowing that I'm going to win in that situation in the long term but there is only so many times you can see things like your aces get called by 72 suited preflop and then the board go runner runner for a flush I can take. I got to the point this month where I just didn't want to play on Unibet. 

I'm still at that point now :(. Having seen the promo for next month I don't like the sound of sitting at NL4 grinding out 150 flops per day for the chance to win €35. I have zero interest in that. The MTT schedule isn't due to change until October at the earliest so with my now decimated BR I have the choice of 4 or 5 MTTs to play on any given weeknight. Having to move down in buy-in will also increase the chances of me getting it in good and getting punished so it's tough to get motivated at all. They are also adding casino spins as a reward for completing a step in the missions next month which I cannot use so I don't really want to complete those either.

The only saving grace is the UK tour. I have managed to continually turn over a comfortable number of tickets during August and results have been ok. I have played 2 UK tour finals this month and I stone bubbled both of them, including running into Startlinggrope/ChapInAChairs Aces blind vs blind for the KO. Despite this I still have €133 worth of tickets now after starting with €50 at the beginning of the quest so things are not too bad on that front. I expect those sats are the only things I'll be playing consistently in September.

I've been playing a lot more off site this month too. A few of the other sites have been offering free daily sat tickets for thing and I try to play them as often as possible. I'm not worried so much about the 'rags to riches' prospect of winning something from nothing but rather getting free sat practice against people that are actually trying. You can practice all you want on play money but once you reach the 2nd or 3rd tier of a sat structure people are really playing and in some cases have bought in with money so there is much less mucking about. It provides a great platform to practice and learn about this specific format of poker and I've been enjoying it. As long as the sites keep offering them I'm going to keep playing them :)

Let's get the results out the way..

** END OF MONTH REVIEW (August 2017) **

  • +/- for the month: -€512.83 (BR Total: €42.70)
  • Days played: 24
  • Losing days: 19
  • Winning/Break Even days: 5
  • Sessions/Games played - Cash: 14, SNGs: 6, MTTs: 249
  • ROIs - Cash: -16.34% , SNGs: 90.43% , MTTs: -26.71% 

** FULL RESULTS **

 

Goals for September

  • Get out the hole and start playing with profit again.
  • Blog regularly and post hands for discussion and analysis that will be helpful to the community.
  • Grind the UK Tour Sats.

 

No change for Septembers goals. Back to basics and working on my game. Let the games commence!

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Self Assessment - SNG edition (Part 1)

There seems to be one thing you hear about constantly when anyone talks about becoming a good poker player in today's climate.. study. I'm fairly confident I read a tweet/reply from Dara O'Kearney the other week saying he does about 18 hours of study a week...

*goes off to find tweet*

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20-30 hours!!

30 hours is 4 day shifts at work for me, that's almost a full time job. It clearly works for Dara as a day doesn't go by where I open Instagram and find a story chronicling another final table run. I however, do not have 20-30 hours a week to study. In fact, I don't have 20-30 hours a week to play most of the time. It did get me thinking about what ratio of my free time I should use for study vs play. It's something I'm going to ask all the streamers/tweet Dara about to see what they think and try and work out a rough average to work with. I'm taking a guess now at 1 hour study : 3 hours play as the ratio. I'm also going to pose the question as to whether your level of skill and knowledge plays a factor. I would think at the highest level of game more study is required to find the smaller edges but at a lower level it's more about nailing the fundamentals 100% of the time.

Edit: This has already taken me a few days to write and I've got Dara's responses here: Tweets. You'll have to open some of them to see other replies as it spilt into two at some point.

I wish I did have 20-30 hours to spare for poker I'm starting to enjoy the studying and learning part of the game. I get a strange satisfaction out of seeing a situation and knowing that the decision I will make will the correct one because I've looked at something similar in the past. Even without doing hand reviews or proper study I get tested with pop quizzes about poker situations by my girlfriend, even though she is blissfully unaware that she's administering them.

I was sat the other night playing some massive field MTT I had been given a ticket for from one the 'other' sites and I get A9o in early position. I fold. Two players after me go all in, as they tend to to in these hyper freerolls, and we get to see the flop, turn and river.

"Told you, you should have raised with your ace" she says.

I think the flop was Axx and two more bricks so that I would have won the hand. The other two players had JTs and 4's.

"I'm pretty sure I'm behind both of those hands" I replied as I opened the ProPokerTools website

Capture.PNG.1c4d1c049f2eb51c4fb97f51400a875e.PNG

 

I had passed my test :) Checking these little things from time to time reminds that slowly you might actually be getting the hang of the game. This might be one single situation out of millions of possible scenarios but it then generates a tree of related scenarios that use the same rough equities. You might be the one with JTs and think you're up against 55-77 and A2-A8 and with this info you know you're going to be a slight favourite. A good thing to know in the heat of the action!

The more time you can spend doing these things, the bigger the tree of scenarios you create, and hopefully remember, the easier it will be to make the right decision in any given situation. That's my theory anyway ;)

With this months promo not being to my taste I've found myself playing on sites outwith Unibet a lot more recently. This have been advantageous from a studying point of view because it allows me to collect hand histories for pretty much every game I play. I also managed to get myself into the Holdem Manager 3 beta so I decided that I'd make a fresh database from the 1st of September and make a conscious effort to run it all the time, tag hands and review tournaments and SnGs after their done. 

I also though it would be a good idea to do some of the history reviews here and essentially talk out loud. I could go through them on my own and just say I played brilliantly but there are much smarter people than me on this forum that I can gleam information off of if I just write it all down and let you point out all the mistakes :Cool:. 

The first game I'm going to review is a 10-man $0.10 SNG on 888. I've been getting daily spins on the site for the last few months and they tend to give out tickets to freerolls that run daily at various times. These freerolls pay out 2000+ players so the min cash is normally $0.10 or so. I've managed to rack up a whopping $1 or so in winnings and decided I'd use it on a SNG or 2. I also knew I wanted to do a hand review like this so I needed some hands to go over and I think SNGs provide the best source of material because they include Push/Fold decision, ICM decisions and also some deepstack early game decisions that relate to MTT play. 

The SNG lasted 71 hands and we'll just get this out of the way now, I won it. I think it would be easy to just pick another SNG where I didn't cash and try and work out what I did wrong but I think there is equal merit in looking at a game that ended well to see if decisions were correct or if I just ran well. I also specifically remember tagging a number of hands in this game because they were spots I was unsure about. 

Better mention the HUD stats as well as they'll be appearing on all the replayer screenshots. The stats represent the following things from left to right :-

Name / Big Blinds /VPIP% (Voluntarily put in pot) /PFR (Pre flop raiser) / Post-Flop aggression factor / Recorded hands

Steal attempt %/ Fold to steal %/ 3bet%/ Fold to 3-bet % / C-bet % / Fold to C-bet %

There was a good discussion between @Karl_Parrish and Dara (I'm not stalking him, honest) on Twitter recently about the use of HUDs and whether they're a good or bad thing. Karl has written an excellent blog on why he thinks they're a bad thing which you can find here. It's a good read and makes so excellent points as to why they could be a bad thing for poker.

I personally like having a HUD, mostly because I like knowing how many big blinds I have. I know it's a simple calculation most of the time but hovering over a rectangle on screen is just that little bit easier. I'm also terrible at paying attention to hands I'm not in so my HUD buddy does it for me. It doesn't want to look at Facebook or Twitter, it doesn't watch Twitch so it can troll Ian, it just sits looking at the poker table watching what players are doing. Every now and again I'll ask it if a player has been playing a lot of hands and it'll give me an answer. The answer will never be something like "He has aces, fold",  it'll always be something like "VPIP 12%". HUDs don't tell you how to play against someone in the hand you're in, they just tell you what that person has been up to in the past. It's an indication of what they might have but by no means is it a guarantee. 

Anyway, the HUD debate is for another post.. Let's get to the SNG then! The blinds are 10/20, we start with 1500 chips and and I'm seated UTG +1 for the first hand.

Hand 1

Hand1.thumb.png.8391d62527c3c48eb84ab87bc89d02ec.png

UTG folded, I folded and then it went limp, limp,, fold, HJ makes it 4x, CO calls, BTN calls, BB calls.

BB donk leads for 490 (pot). HJ clicks it back to 980, BB moves all in and HJ calls... and then there were 9.

This should hopefully give you an indication of the level of play and action in these SNGs. Things seems to move pretty quickly in terms of chip movement and it appears a number of players are not thinking too deeply about their plays.

I'm going to skip any hand where I think the decisions to fold pre-flop is obvious and to give you an idea of what I think is obvious here's the first 10 hands in short form.

First10.PNG.72591aaf698253cba35769e28aea33e5.PNG

With the A3s hand in the SB there had been two limpers and the blinds were 20/40 with a 5 chip ante so I was calling 20 chips into a pot of 185 which is 9.25:1. I like those odds :)

On the QTo hand UTG had limped and then UTG+1 shoved for 600 chips (10bb) which is why I folded. I think it's a fold pre-flop from MP anyway but when you just see the runout it looks unfortunate. UTG had 7's and UTG+1 had A3s

 

Hand 11

There have already been another two eliminations and we are down to 7 players. Blinds are now 50/100 with a 10 chip ante. We are dealt Q5s in the big blind. UTG limps and it folds round to the small blind who completes and I check.

170295683_hand11.PNG.6fe78535b6cbd10bc515d4e67e439d5a.PNG

Flop comes 665 with two diamonds. UTG bets 200 into the 370 pot and the small blind folds. This was the first real decision I had to make and the first hand I marked. Looking at the HUD it's a mixed bag of information. Villain has played 45% of the hands so far but has never raised, so they like a limp. Unfortunately he has not made a c-bet or folded to one so we have zero post flop information to go on with this decision. Is there a standard action here? I have no idea but here were my thoughts.

Villain shouldn't really have a 5 or a 6 in their hand. I'd expect a player that is limping a lot to have Broadway type hands or a low to middle pair. With me having a 5 and there already being two 6's on the flop that makes either 5's or 6's tricky to have. Also the bet size seemed strange. You can't customise the quick bet buttons on the client so the villain has typed that number in, not just randomly clicked the 1/2 pot button. It seemed on the large size to me because if I had a 6 I'd want my opponent to catch up a little and I wouldn't want them to be scared off a call. With that in mind I check-raised and UTG folded. Is that a losing play long term?

 

Hand 12

We're in the small blind now with As3h and 18bb behind. It folds round to the button who limps for 100. I complete in the small blind and BB checks. Flop comes 6s7hJh. I check, big blind bets 100, button calls and I get out of the way. Preflop I was getting nearly 6.5:1 to call so I think it's OK but from my tiny sample of hands (3kish) the SB is the only position with a negative bb/100 so maybe it's the kind of hand I should let go and just keep the chips. I don't really know :Speechless:

 

Hand 14

1494678669_hand14.PNG.f66bc050fc1161bb78cb54b101a8389a.PNG

Facing two limpers I wasn't exactly sure what to do here. If it was a higher stake I'd be very weary of the limp from the 8bb stack but thankful HUD buddy has been taking notes and is showing that both players have been playing lots of hands and never raise. I was confident that if it had folded to me unopened the 8's were a snap shove but I wanted to check just how wide I could shove. So I did..

795742856_hand14nash.PNG.a338664be8681e3d26c7f7abb4a014d8.PNG

There are definitely some hands there that I wouldn't shove with in that range and given the stake and general level of play I'm likely to get called more than I should so I don't think I'd want to get it in with T8s.

I also checked to see if the two limps made much difference to my shoving range using ICMIZER.

1222268668_hand14ICM.thumb.PNG.0b3edcfbbaea6639ddd0b763c0adb545.PNG

Those two little limps basically cut the shoving range in half which is quite surprising to me. It also throws up some of that ICM voodoo where AJo is a fold but KJo is a shove and the same with A9s and K9s. I don't think I'll ever understand the dark art of ICM :Rofl:

Everyone ended up folding and I picked up a helpful 4bb.

That's enough words and pictures for one post I think. We'll return part 2 to have a look at the middle part of the game.

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Self Assessment - SNG edition (Part 2)

So we're back again for part two of my dissection of a $0.10 SnG. We're up to hand 15 of 71 and things are going just fine. We have just over starting stack and the table is down to 7 players.

Hand 16

hand16.PNG.7fe5b8d025c204819e1040c9a61ee26c.PNG

This hand sees us UTG+1 with pocket 5's. We're sitting on a stack of around 14bb. I was pretty confident this was a shove at the time but I thought I'd check again.

hand16ICM.PNG.9c6d9a626e287b859794f2dbe99ba0cb.PNG

It's really close but it is just a shove. I actually folded this hand because I felt like with it being a $0.10 game and with the action the way it had been I was likely to get called light and I didn't really want to have 5's in that spot. I think this would fall into the "wait for a better spot" category. Is there any argument for shoving there other than the slight +ev?

 

Hand 21

Business has picked up in the last 5 hands and it's down to just 4 players now. Blinds are 100/200 with a 20 chip ante and I'm faced with the following strange scenario in the CO/BTN depending on how you look at it.

hand21.PNG.3d7c576e27a81d276a2eff0c2a4f1ab7.PNG

I instafolded this at the time but having been through a few of these types of things before I'd suspect that I can shove pretty wide here and pick up some chips. My theory would be that because I am 4/4 I have the least ICM pressure.

hand21icm.PNG.16f861be7656ec0edfc056b522b46284.PNG

Turns out I was wrong. Both the player before and after me can shove really wide but I'm handcuffed to 21% of my hands. I find this kind of ICM voodoo fascinating. I have little to lose and they have lots to but I'm not supposed to shove wide apparently. There could easily be an argument that at this point the other players are going to be playing tighter on the bubble and that a shove like this, while not being +ev according to ICM, would be profitable in an exploitative sense but maybe that's crazy talk, let me know. :)

In the very next hand I have almost the exact same scenario with JTo in the CO. Results for that came out at 19.8% of hands so basically the same range as above.

In hand 23 the chip leader gave me a walk, a clear indication that they are not particularly ICM aware. Nothing like winning chips with 36s :) I get dealt pocket 7's on the button during hand 25 and get a shove through to pick up more valuable chips. 

 

Hand 28

hand28.PNG.131bd26f8bb31e6cc77ddf577eefb271.PNG

A fairly straightforward looking shove but again I wanted to look at where this hand sits in the range of hands I could shove in this spot.

hand28icm.PNG.2bd2df511cb1d42137d161606cc148f3.PNG

As expected any Kxs is a fine shove and considering I can go all the way to 53s it doesn't seem like a thin shove either. What I found more interesting was how wide the BB can call. Pretty much any two broadway cards are fine to call with here and even things like K8s. I don't know if I would find a call with Q9s normally but apparently it's making money :). The shove got through and I get myself up to 12bb.

 

Hand 31

hand31.PNG.a427dfc162ae20609c8cce19fc4dc141.PNG

Spots like this confuse me all the time. Do I shove? Do I check and hope to hit something? I figured the best thing to do was run this through ICMizer so that I would at least be able to rule out shoving and make my future choices a little easier. It's glorious to click one button in HM to copy the hand history and one button in ICMizer to paste in all the details I tell you, glorious! Downloadable hand histories FTW!

hand31icm.thumb.PNG.7434dd4774d07f6e551ad49a4a7af737.PNG

Well I wasn't expecting that!

Edit: I'd typed a couple hundred more words and done the next hand but none of it autosaved :( We'll pick this up next time as I can't be bothered typing it out again today :)

 

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Nice blog, its definitely a good idea to play a few games somewhere other unibet where you can collect hh and do some analysis more easily.  

With ICMizer and HRC the equilibrium solution often bears no resemblance to what bad players (and good players) will do in game.  It's essential to model what your opponents are doing, not what they should be doing.  

The J9o fold, one reason why folding is better than shoving  in theory relies on the CO and SB shoving very wide, which results in occasional clashes when someone else has a premium hand. Is this what's happening in your games?  I'd guess not, probably we are relying only on preflop coolers, which happen far less often, meaning we can push wider; I don't play that game type so don't know if J9o is a push.

Same with the 76s shove over limp.  In reality my guess is you are almost always getting called, you should have very little fold equity preflop at this stack depth. Shove hands that have a decent chance of being in the lead; Ax, pairs, good broadways.  A hand like 76s plays great as a check pre, we can then give up when we miss completely and donk shove every flop where we have reasonable equity and generate far more fold equity than we would preflop, and usually be in ok shape when called.   

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