about AleoMagus´ how to beat 10+1

[imported_comguy4321]

Hey All,
I'm a newbie to studying poker, and since I'm not good enough on my own right now, I decided to use "AleoMagus´ how to beat 10+1 guide". It's not really going that well, although it's partly my fault. What keeps happening is I end up with 4 players left in a 10 person table, but I'm low on chips.

Like this hand. I think I played this correctly. What do you think? I think I should have went all-in pre-flop. That was my mistake.

#Game No : 1328369783
***** Hand History for Game 1328369783 *****
NL Hold'em $10 Buy-in + $1 Entry Fee Trny:8049054 Level:4 Blinds(50/100) - Tuesday, December 21, 00:44:33 EDT 2004
Table Table 11943 (Real Money)
Seat 6 is the button
Total number of players : 4
Seat 6: buddymucker1 ( $2437 )
Seat 4: nickto212 ( $583 )
Seat 3: WillWu69 ( $3420 )
Seat 2: TheAvenger48 ( $1560 )
Trny:8049054 Level:4
Blinds(50/100)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to nickto212 [ 8s 8h ]
buddymucker1: good job willwu
WillWu69: bam! bam!
whippo8041: nh
buddymucker1: greta job
WillWu69: you too - ood game
buddymucker1: great
WillWu69: good game
nickto212 raises [300].
buddymucker1 folds.
TheAvenger48 folds.
WillWu69 calls [200].
** Dealing Flop ** [ 7d, 3d, Td ]
WillWu69 bets [283].
nickto212 is all-In.
** Dealing Turn ** [ 3h ]
** Dealing River ** [ 6c ]
WillWu69 shows [ 7c, 7h ] a full house, Sevens full of threes.
nickto212 shows [ 8s, 8h ] two pairs, eights and threes.
nickto212 finished in fourth place.
WillWu69 wins 1216 chips from the main pot with a full house, Sevens full of threes.
bam!
nickto212 has left the table.
Game #1328373368 starts.



Also, In a previous post I posted the below hand(hand is at bottom of page) . Instead of me raising 30, (which I've been told is a mistake) I should have raised around 100. I understand that now. But, in AleoMagus's guide, it says with AKo, to bet 3bb, and if raised, go all-in. I was comfortable with that suggestion, until it was explained to me that I should just call the raise to see the flop, so I'm not involved in a coin-flip, and possibly lose all my chips, and that suggestion seems logical.
BUT, that's not what AleoMagus's guide says to do. It says to go all-in.

Now, I can see both viewpoints. Calling instead of all-in will save me from decimating my stack. But on the other hand, if I'm up against one opponent, I have the chance to double up, which greatly increases my chance of ITM. If it's a coinflip, and I win against one other opponent around %50 of the time (I don't know what AKo against a random hand is)then %50 of the tournaments I play in, I have a greater chance of ITM.

Brcause my opponent re-raised my AKo raise, I understand that's not considered a random hand, but a hand with something going for it, but again, all-in is what AleoMagus's guide says to do.


So my question is, is the AlgeoMagus guide good enough to be a long term winner if I continually fix my mistakes that deviate from it? Like many of you, I'm trying to figure out how to do the online poker thing well enough to eventually make a decent amount of money, and I'm trying to figure out how to play - although I guess that's stating the obvious.

Also, thank you AleoMagus for the guide. I'm sure it works, it's just knowing when to follow it, and when not too, I think at least.

Here's the hand I was talking about above,btw. And thank you for your reply in advance.

Remember, I realize my raise wasn't 3bb.

#Game No : 1327724648
***** Hand History for Game 1327724648 *****
NL Hold'em $10 Buy-in + $1 Entry Fee Trny:8045872 Level:1 Blinds(10/15) - Monday, December 20, 22:28:48 EDT 2004
Table Table 12163 (Real Money)
Seat 2 is the button
Total number of players : 9
Seat 2: Brockbonds ( $305 )
Seat 3: thekid_1 ( $1065 )
Seat 4: breadman69 ( $440 )
Seat 5: skydivr ( $540 )
Seat 7: JUSTDOIT7777 ( $1785 )
Seat 10: kman71 ( $1550 )
Seat 9: nickto212 ( $775 )
Seat 8: spider8sin ( $795 )
Seat 1: cheekdogg ( $745 )
Trny:8045872 Level:1
Blinds(10/15)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to nickto212 [ Ac Kh ]
skydivr folds.
JUSTDOIT7777 calls [15].
spider8sin calls [15].
nickto212 raises [30].
kman71 raises [45].
cheekdogg folds.
Brockbonds folds.
thekid_1 folds.
breadman69 folds.
JUSTDOIT7777 calls [30].
spider8sin calls [30].
nickto212 is all-In.
kman71 calls [730].
JUSTDOIT7777 folds.
spider8sin folds.
** Dealing Flop ** [ 8d, 3c, Js ]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 8h ]
** Dealing River ** [ As ]
kman71 shows [ Qh, Qd ] two pairs, queens and eights.
nickto212 shows [ Ac, Kh ] two pairs, aces and eights.
nickto212 wins 1665 chips from the main pot with two pairs, aces and eights.

[pindawg]

The guide lays down the groundwork for solid ABC TaG style play, but to succeed you must incorparate some of your own style, and dont forget to steal blinds.

[The Yugoslavian]

Hand #1: Umm, just go allin here. You're not getting any extra folding equity by getting a caller and pushing on the flop. Essentially this is simply a bad beat -- you were drawn out on by a dominated preflop hand. Being short 4-handed can be fairly common using Aleo's guide. The beauty of his guide is it allows you to play +EV at the $11 buyin level until you get a better feel for SNGs.

Hand #2: Raising 30 chips here is definitely a mistake -- you don't need to raise to 100 but make at least a 2xBB + limpers raise to effectively cut short pot odds for anyone else who wants to enter the pot. I don't like your allin here this early on in the tournament. Either reraise a substantial amount or just call to see the flop. Frankly Kman didn't play this especially well either, as he should also be betting for value preflop and not min-raising.

Try not to min-raise unless it's on very high levels (level 6+) where a min-raise is probably fine (but will pot commit you anyway) as it *may* buy you more folding equity if you get a caller and can push the flop.

I haven't looked back at Aleo's guide in a while but essentially all of the stuff in there is pretty solid -- but you definitely will have to adapt and refine for your own style of play and experience.

Good luck! (and keep posting hands that you feel you may have misplayed)

Yugoslav

[Michael C.]

One rule that I think is even in the guide is when you're short stacked like you in hand one, push or fold. And that's especially true with mid-pair. You're basically committing yourself anyway, but it's also unlikely you can make much more on a hand without flopping a set. If it's an overcard bet, you might call for pot odds when hopelessly beaten. If it's a low board, you probably aren't getting callers.

[AleoMagus]

I find your post disturbing. My greatest fear is that new SNG players like yourself will read that thread and think many of the same things that you appear to be thinking.

Firstly, in both of these examples, you did not play according to the strategy laid out in that thread. Your raise on the bubble is very bad (which you know) and your raise with AK is equally bad. In the bubble example, you are putting over 50% of your stack at risk, so why not push to try and gain whatever extra fold equity you can. In the early round example, you are min raising.

Nonetheless, it is very likely that both of these cases could have ended up just as they did if you had played according to the guide and it is here that a little bit of deeper understanding is required.

I have always prefered the original thread to the Part 2 for this very reason. The guidelines that it gives sometimes seem a little more vague, which they should. To think that you min raised with AK then immediately pushed as soon as another player min raised you back is unreal to me. I often suggest that if you are planning on re-raising, you should raise 3x the amount of the original raise, and that guide was written with that in mind. What that means is that if you had brought the pot to 45 with your raise, and were then raised to 90, you would be raising to 270 or more at that point. It is for this reason that I advocate the push here, as you would be putting a big portion of your stack at risk. Pushing after your opponent brought the pot to 45 is very bizzare. You are going to be called by the wrong hands in this spot.

Also, you need to understand why I advocate pushing and why others will advocate just calling. Pushing is easy. Calling means that you need to play a flop. I am positive that a push with AK in a 10+1 under the conditions I describe is +EV and for a new or struggling player and this is all we are after.

Calling is the better play for a skilled player, but it means seeing a flop. If you are a weak player, you can get into trouble, and in a guide as small as the one I wrote, I didn't want to start expounding on how you need to play your AK if you hit a uniform flop, a rag flop, top pair with a pair on the board and an aggressive bettor, etc... So I went with the suggestion to push knowing full well that the likely range of hands you are up against if you are called is something like AA, KK, QQ, JJ, TT, AQ, AJ. Often you will be in a race situation, sometimes you will be an underdog and sometimes you will be dominating. Combine this with the chances that a hand like AQs or 99 takes the hint and lays down, and it sounds like +EV to me. This is not true at anything higher than 30+3, and maybe not even there.

All of this is besides the point. You are focusing on two hands, one of which was a bad beat, and the other of which was an early round error. The SNG is really played from rounds 4 to 6. Early round decisions with AK matter, but not as much as you think if being a winning player is your goal. If you made it to the bubble with 800 chips everytime, sure, you are always shortstacked, but your $ equity in the tournament is still such that you should show a profit over time. In reality, you will not always make it to the bubble, and sometimes you will be a huge stack on the bubble but in the end, playing with an ABC play will net a small profit at 10+1. If you are NOT making a small profit over time, then you probably have bigger leaks than things the guide is telling you to do.

You need to get it out of your head that poker plays like basic strategy blackjack. Comments like

[ QUOTE ]
that suggestion seems logical.
BUT, that's not what AleoMagus's guide says to do.

[/ QUOTE ]

seem to indicate that you are looking for ONE right answer, when in poker many factors will dictate what you need to do. You, your game, and your oppoonents all measure in if you want to play expert poker. The guide is about simple to follow guidelines for winning play, nothing more (and certainly not expert play).

Sorry if this is all coming off as a bit harsh, but I'm not only responding to you here. There are many who have posted similar comments in the past months and it makes me really regret having written that original post sometimes.

Even more crazy is the fact that so many people seem to prefer the one page version of it to any of the discussions which took place. The original post resulted in a great discussion and many of the comments in the part 2 were excellent as well but I know there are people who are not reading much of it. Trying to win at poker with a strategy card mentality can be disastrous.

I suppose I should be happy, as I may have inadvertently made SNG easier to beat as long as people are just following the one page outline and not really playing according to it anyways, because that guide has found it's way to many places on the net where players are probably NOT looking at anything but the guide itself.

For example

10+1 guide on affillite site (http://www.dealerscall.com/showarticle.php?a=16)

10+1 guide on SNG site (http://www.sitandgostrategy.com/beating_low_limit_sng.html)

10+1 guide in another language. (http://pokerprofi.info/strategies/sng/howtobeat10.php)
Anyone know what language that is? I'm curious.

Sigh.

Regards
Brad S

[bearly]

hi, have tried to open the link to this magnum opus on the faq section and can't get it done---any help would be really appreciated....thanks, h

[Scuba Chuck]

I write this post in deference to Aleo.

My personal experience with the Aleo "guidelines" over the past 40 days (when I began using them).

I learned very quickly that the one page outline wasn't very helpful - because it was out of context. I generally ended up at round 4 short stacked and no strategy on how to change that. Looking back, I didn't understand the concept of bubble play, and I'd say the light bulb didn't really turn on until about a week ago. 4 weeks ago, I reread the thread over and over and over to get a sense for how to play at the bubble. You will find that the conversation with Phil VanSexton will be very helpful. Good luck.

PS - until the lightbulb turned on, I was only marginally successful. Since then I have an enviable ROI, and a bankroll I thought I was never going to get to. My point is, I struggled through about 120-150 SNGs before the lightbulb really hit. Be patient, if it was easy, then everyone would do it.

One final point. Once your lightbulb turns on, you will find out it is more than just learning bubble play - you will have the early foundation of what your style is, and what to study next like FE, TGC, etc. At least I think...

I credit all of my success to the Aleo guide AND thread.

[Killer Mike]

[ QUOTE ]
10+1 guide in another language. (http://pokerprofi.info/strategies/sng/howtobeat10.php)
Anyone know what language that is? I'm curious.

[/ QUOTE ]
I'm almost positive it's Russian.

[citanul]

I'm going to reply to you again here, even though I and ChrisV responded to your hands yesterday, and talk about your AK hand AGAIN.

I'm going to state something here, and if you don't understand it, you should stop playing immediately. You should possibly never play poker again for money, but you should definitely not play any more until you do.

In the AK hand, this is what happened:

1) One player limped. Then another player limped.
2) Then you raised to 30 chips. 30 chips is 2BB. 2 does not equal 3.

Meanwhile, let's look and see what the guide says:

"QQ-AA (raise 3xBB, raise 4-5xBB if there are already limpers in the hand. Reraise any raisers. Get all-in if you can)
AKs,AK (same as high pairs but be carefull about calling huge raises. Any PP is a favorite against you . AK is a good hand to raise all-in with, but you don't want to be calling all-ins)"

So the guide says that about 5BB is better, or 4BB. 4 and 5, similarly, are not equal to 2.

Other conventional wisdom, as has been told to you by both ChrisV and myself, suggests that a proper raise when there are already players in the pot, would be around 1 or 2x(limpers chips in the pot) +3x (bb). That would make your raise in this case somewhere between 5BB and 7BB. Still, neither of those is the same as 2BB.

Alright, that was the leadin: Here's what you must understand before you play any more cards:

Your play was "I raise the minimum to 30" there are other plays, that most would consider "better." Your opponents react one way to one, and possibly another way to another. Though it is likely that you would wind up heads up, and all in, anyway, in the QQ v AK hand, it's possible that that isn't so.

So a) you have to learn what the things in the guide mean, if you're going to announce that you're "playing by the guide. b) you have to understand that hands don't play out the exact same way if you change something in the play. (For the trivial example, if you had just folded preflop your AK (a bad play, surely) you would not have been involved in the hand at all, you would not have been all in, etc.)

c) is important enough to get it's own paragraph. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE understand something here: the guide is NOT NOT NOT something that you can just blindly follow and make money. I don't think that it says anywhere that it is. The guide is meant to lay down some fundamental groundwork for new players to sngs. Rest assured though, you WILL lose money if you play exactly as it says, over the long run. (I believe this to be the case, at least. It may be that you will be marginally profitable.) You must incorporate a few more ideas and stylistic points of your own to make any reasonable money at all using this framework.

d) is also pretty damn important: Read through the whole threads for both Aleo's original post and benfranklin's follow up, both linked to in the FAQ. Other players have had the problem about "always being short stacked," etc. They have received help on this subject, or been reemed on this subject. But reading through that instead of just whining is a much better solution to things.

I appreciate that your posts are not whining, and don't mean to say that they are. You in fact have already started the best process of improving when you don't understand, which is to post some hands. You have, at this point, I hope, already by posting a few hands, found out that you weren't playing as the guide says to, which may have taken significantly longer if your post just had said "I'm losing and playing just like the guide says to waaaaaah." So keep it up, and learn fast.

citanul

[adanthar]

Yeah, it's Russian. Russia's absolutely full of online poker players at this point - there's a bunch of rich whales and a bunch of people that know they can triple their yearly income just playing low stakes. (10K a year goes a loooong way outside of Moscow and maybe St. Pete's.)

...if the guide is causing this much confusion to the people that actually *find* this site I wonder what it does to a fish.

Edit: If it helps, the guy makes no pretense at being the author and has a 2+2 link/posted about just translating your guide in the comments section.