'finding' my game

ive been meaning to look at some common situations for that 'Villain' profile i posted about, but haven't gotten to it. 

lately ive been more concerned with simply getting my game to the table. it's weird that it should be hard to play according to concepts that are well understood away from the table. i feel so weak when thinking about it, but it's undoubtedly true for me. 

so, anyway, i'll be working on that. 

im sort of thinking of doing something like the fee's moving up series on bluefire.com. although, it seems a bit contrived and would require some discipline, so on second thought...

pot limit omaha hi-lo

I made a video of some plo8 action, been strugglung with NL lately so I was ready for a change. I am just getting into playing the game again after a long time away. I thought i would share video.
Thanks


http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ZOLRG1VC

alternate bb defense: justification and absolution

so, i'm about done w/ this donking stuff for a while. i just wanted to sort of tie it up a bit before moving on...

why: players are opening a ridiculously wide range of hands from late position, and they're getting pretty good at countering the polarized 3-betting that's so popular from the blinds. so, i wanted to explore another option for playing back.

the line: call from the bb, take a flop, and attack dry boards by leading out and 3-bet jamming over a raise w/ a wide range. 

results summary: the line turns a profit v. many opponents on many flops. i make no claim about the optimal play in any of these spots, but at the very least this line could be used to mix things up, and keep the button guessing. here are the basic (largely intuitive) findings:

1. ev is higher v. wider btn opening ranges on all but the driest flops, 
2. be careful on wet flops v. opponents prone to bluff/semi-bluff raising donk bets,
3. balance is critical, as most players will take note of aggressive and uncommon lines like this.

as always, i'm very interested in how others interpret these numbers and if they suggest further lines of inquiry. but, as always, i expect the few people who read this wont bother...

...yet more donking drivel...

below are some results (bold # = $ ev in a 200nl game) from simulations i ran on the donk/3-betting line:

bb donks,

btn raises {>=tp, fd, oc+gs, Var2% others}

bb 3bets all-in w/ {>=tp, fd, oesd, pr+gs, Var3% others}

btn calls w/ {>=tp, fd, oesd, pr+gs}

		Var2 %
Q94r		10	20	30	40
Var3 %	30	2.1	1.61	1.13	0.65
	40	3.88	3.32	2.77	2.21
	50	5.58	4.91	4.23	3.55

Th98h		10	20	30	40
Var3 %	30	9.35	9.72	10.09	10.46
	40	9.86	10.39	10.93	11.47
	50	11.06	11.7	12.34	12.98

		Var2 %
5h43h		10	20	30	40
Var3 %	30	10.47	10.63	10.8	10.97
	40	9.06	9.24	9.42	9.6
	50	9.7	9.91	10.11	10.32

		Var2 %
KJ6r		10	20	30	40
Var3 %	30	0.96	0.32	-0.31	-0.94
	40	2.57	1.78	0.99	0.2
	50	3.75	2.86	1.96	1.06

as you can see, this line shouldn't lose money on most boards. that said, it's not necessarily the optimal way to play the hand. 

anyone want to try picking a flop or two and looking at alternate lines? 

Response to donk betting post below...

For some reason I cannot get the comment section to work, if you can move this response or whatever. I just thought I would get this down while I was thinking about it.

Your work suggests that 3 bet bluffing is a plus EV proposition even against the tightest btn responses. I am wondering if maybe our assumptions about the buttons response to our donk is a bit off.

You suggest:
btn raises to $36 w/ {top pair+, flushdraws, overcard+gutters, var2% of other hands},

As a frequent donker I have found that I really don't get raised near as often as this response above would suggest. I will try to get together a filter later and review a bunch of hands in actual play. If I had to guess just based on my feel of these situaion I think the Btn raise response is more polarized between bluffs and monsters, with the top pair and floating hands ( overs, guttters ect) doing a bunch of calling.

I also have some 3 bet bluffs I have been test driving if memory serves, maybe I will make review vid of a bunch of replayer donks. Love the sound of my own voice and all.
Sean

...incremental progress on bb call/donk...

here are a couple quick additions to the bb call/donk line i've been yammering on about. the images below use basically the same scenario as before w/ a few exceptions:

1. btn opens to $7 the top var1% of the time,
2. bb calls w/ a fairly wide range of {JJ-22, AQs-A2s, AQo-AJo, connectors 54o+ and suited one-gappers} ,
   
3. bb donks $12 w/ all hands,
4. btn raises to $36 w/ {top pair+, flushdraws, overcard+gutters, var2% of other hands},
5. bb 3-bets all-in w/ {top pair+, flushdraw, open enders, pair+gutter, var3% of other hands},
6. btn calls w/ {tp+, fd, oesd, pair+gutter}.

the first image assumes bb never 3bets w/ air (var3 = 0%) and varies btn opening % (Var 1) and flop bluff-raising % (Var 2); the table values indicate the ev of the donk bet in $:

this next image sets btn opening range to the top 40%, and looks at the effect of a variable bb 3-bet bluff range by stepping 3-bet frequency for non-value hands (Var 3) from 0-100%, against the same span of btn flop bluff-raise % (Var 2):

i'll look at it more closely and think about the numbers when i get another free minute. in the mean time, feel free to post any thoughts or interpretation or problems w/ assumptions...

new initiative: the Royal 'we'...you know, the editorial...

sean mentioned something in a recent video that reminded me of something i've been meaning to think about - exploiting prevailing collective player tendencies. 

the spot sean talks about is playing paired boards.  his premis is that, as a group, players bluff too often on these boards and that many players have made that same observation.  if i understand correctly, he wants to exploit the collective tendency by weighting his betting/raising range toward value hands (value betting thinly and bluffing rarely), and widen his calling (bluff-catching) range. 

those adjustments make logical sense, but that's not quite enough for us to immediately integrate them into our games.  we first need to compare that strategy to our current approach and then all other possible adjustments...  whatever, it would be a huge pain in the ass to try to do this rigorously, and it probably wouldn't be worth much more than just mulling over a few possibilities, but hopefully you see where i'm going. 

anyway, i think it would be very worthwhile to work on a collective Villain profile and think about how we can exploit 1) the projection of that image onto us, and 2) those tendencies in others.

idk, any thoughts? 

Weekend Pokerings

I played some 1-2 NL on Fulltilt, Bodog and Absolute. I recorded some of the action for no other reason than I like to hear the sound of my own voice. The recorded play was yesterday. The first session on the Dog I am playing some great poker ; watch me call when I know I am beat and attempt to bluff quads.

Fun stuff.

The damage was not too bad overall as you can see from the graph below, I actually finished last night up a bit but after a restless 6 hrs of poker filled dreams I jumped out of bed and spewed a bunch.

The sessions are here:

Bodog http://www.megaupload.com/?d=75Q1QTN0

Fulltilt http://www.megaupload.com/?d=A7JR5PB6

The Bodog is about 40 minutes and the 25 or so on Fulltilt. Please don't feel obligated to watch, however if you do any comments are welcome and appreciated.

Good Luck all.

Sean

200NL on Full Tilt

I played a 30 minute or so session on FT this morning. It was one of those sessions where not a lot was going on really. I decided to post it anyway because maybe someone would see something that could help them or better yet, help me!!


http://www.megaupload.com/?d=J7UZ27A0


Thanks in advance. Sean

marginal video

a few days ago i made a video of me 5 tabling full tilt 1/2. the audio quality sucks and video isn't great and i whine and mumble some, but if anyone has the time and interest i'd be keen to hear any feedback:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=EPB8QEKX

flop shove w/ 77 in 3-bet pot

sean asked me to look at this hand he played: 

Full Tilt Poker NL Hold'em - $1/$2 Ring (6 handed)
Hand History converter (http://www.pokerhand.vg) powered by Poker.vg (http://www.poker.vg)

Starting Stacks:
Seat 1: SB ($201)
Seat 2: BB ($491.75)
Seat 3: UTG ($427.70)
Seat 4: LP ($607.10)
Seat 5: CO (Hero) ($215.40)
Seat 6: BTN ($200)

Preflop: Hero is CO with 7c 7d
2 folds, Hero raises $7, 2 folds, BB raises $26, Hero calls $19

Flop: ($53) Ad 5d 8d (3 players)
BB bets $45, Hero raises all-in $189.40, BB calls $144.40

the obvious questions are what are the bb's cbetting and calling ranges? the calling range probably doesnt vary a ton across villains; i used {>=tp, fd w/ Td+}.  it's not so easy to estimate a cbetting range, so i included a variable in the range, {>=tp, x% of all other hands}, and varied x from 0-100% to get the following results:

so, basically, we need bb to c-bet >54% of his less-than-tp hands to turn a profit. if we run the ev calc w/ x = 55%, we get ev = +$0.82 and a bb bet/fold range that includes {JJ-KK, 99, KQs/o, QJs, JTs (all no diamond)}.

idk, i cant say i loved the shove at first glance and it's definitely a high-variance play, but after a closer look it doesnt look too bad v. typical TAG regs who cbet a lot.

priceless advice from the great leatherass

i heard a rumor that leatherass was retiring from poker. so, i thought i'd make a short video to honor him for all that he's given to the poker community (script taken from one of his posts on stoxpoker: http://www.stoxpoker.com/forums/showpost.php?p=143294&postcount=14)...

...a little more on call/donk-bluff as defense v. steal attempt

here is the decision tree i used for this analysis:

here is the spreadsheet showing the 'worst case' ev of a donk bet. some general observations are:

1. the roi on our 6bb 'investment' can vary from +54% to -80% depending on opponent and board texture. 
   
2. dry flops are generally better than wet, but are also more exposed to bluff %,
   
3. A - high and 2-broadway flops are bad, but are more protected from bluff %,
4. ...more?

if you look at that decision tree, you may notice the alternate path for bb response to a btn flop raise. it wasn't used for the #'s in the spreadsheet, but is the beginning of accounting for our hand value and developing a more complete donking strategy. if anybody wants the .stx file, or has other thoughts or ideas on this, let me know.