Big Leaks, and a New Challenge

[MrWookie47]

In response to POKhER in the Epiphany thread, I had a few ideas about what he and all new, struggling players should focus their studies on in order to become winning players. What concepts and ideas pay off the biggest with increased understanding for beginners? The OP in that thread thought it was getting reads and stats on opponents. POKhER was suggesting that it might be learning expert lines that are designed to handle specific situations. I don't think so at all. They're good, yes, and they will increase your win rate, but they're vanishingly small compared to other things. Here are the things I said you must understand in order to be a winning player:
<ul type="square">[*]Preflop hand selection - know what to play and where to play it profitably.[*]Pot odds and outs - know how big the pot has to be to chase what.[*]Implied odds - know how big the pot WILL be to determine if you can chase. (And to add, know how much you'll eventually have to pay).[*]Pot equity - know when you can pump strong draws for value, and when the probability of drawing out, the probability of having the best hand, and the size of the pot dictate a call down with a marginal hand.[*]Betting and raising for value - Know when you're ahead often enough to extract more bets from your opponents. This should probably be higher on the list.[*]Knowing when to fold and when to call on the river with a hand that might be beaten - This relates to what I said about pot equity, but it bears saying again.[/list]At least one of those things comes up every single time you play a hand, and you'll usually be forced to apply concepts from one or all of them. Since the magnitude of a mistake is directly proportional to the frequency with which it occurs, these concepts by far are the most important. There are a couple more concepts that warrant mentioning, however, even if they aren't quite as important as the above. They are:
<ul type="square">[*]Hand protection - know when to raise to protect, check/raise to protect, wait to raise to protect, and why, if you're protecting properly, you're usually rooting for your opponents to call, not fold.[*]Hand reading - Put your opponent on a narrowing range of hands and act accordingly. Even if you always assume a very broad range to start with, you'll be doing yourself quite a favor.[/list]Can you win at poker without trying to do any hand reading whatsoever? Maybe. Can you win if you always assume a somewhat loose, somewhat passive opponent and do your hand reading based on that? Absolutely. It's players like this that are the most common. Assuming one of them is a fantastic place to start.

As for lines, can you be a winning player without knowing WA/WB? Almost certainly. Situations where it applies come up infrequently, so any missed bets or additional losses constitute a small mistake. Can you win without other lines? Definitely. The "lines" that are discussed here are usually somewhat tricky plays to extract or save an extra bet in a specific HU situation. At the micros, few pots are HU before the turn, and then if it does happen to be HU, it's probably not one of the special situations that the "lines" were designed for.

As we've all (hopefully) read in NPA's biggest leak post, the size of a leak is proportional to the size of a single mistake multiplied by the frequency. There are no concepts that come up more often than these, and misapplication can result in some of the largest isolated mistakes.

If you really want to make sure you have all of your fundamentals in order, I've got a new challenge for you. I challenge you to take Grunch's challenge of responding to 5 posts per day without reading responses. Additionally, however, I challenge you to write a sentence or two in each of those about how that poster properly or improperly applied each of the concepts I outlined above, or else a brief explanation about why a particular concept doesn't apply in one spot. Doing that is a fair bit of work, but it will pay off in spades. Not only will you have the entire forum repeatedly critiquing your understanding of the most important concepts in poker, but you'll be forcing yourself to concretely hammer out the exact and complete reasoning for every action someone takes when playing a hand. The more you do that, the more automatic it will become, not only on the forum but at the tables. You'll get much better at the fundamentals, your win rate will go up, and you'll be much better able to answer questions about the obscurities, too.

Now, everyone loves discussing the hard hands. That's what's most fun and interesting. However, you always want to keep the fundamentals in focus, so never feel ashamed or afraid to post on something basic in any hand post here.

Good luck guys.

[Guruman]

I'm in.

...well off to it then. [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

[trainslayer]

I love to play golf. I haven’t been to a driving range in over a year. I hate to practice. I have very little time for golf and I’d rather spend it playing rather than practicing.

Same thing for poker. I KNOW I need to study and practice. But I hate to. I’d rather just play. I don’t have a lot of spare time for playing and I hate to “waste” any of it. And since I’ve been making money and building my roll there hasn’t been any urgency on my part to really bear down on the getting better part.

I play decent preflop. I’m tight and aggressive. But I know I could do better if I really tried.

I kinda sorta understand pot odds, implied odds, equity, etc. But I find that most of my play is just shootin from the hip, playing by feel. I think most of my plays are close to being correct (when I don’t allow my self to go on tilt or get sucked into playing like the rest of the maniacs). But I know that if I’d really study and learn to make the correct play and REALLY know that it was correct I’d be so much better off.

I don’t post very many responses to hands here, tho I do look at them, think about what I think would be the correct play and see how my thoughts stack up against others opinions. Sometimes I do good, some times I learn something new, sometimes I ain’t got a friggin clue – before or after I read the post.

So….

I hearby commit to setting aside time each week to really studying. Not just superficially but to struggle to grasp these important concepts. In the process maybe I’ll become a better contributor to this community.

I’m not sure how I’ll manage this process but I gotta start somewhere. How do you guys schedule your playing time and your studying time?

Thanks for the post Wook.

[@bsolute_luck]

good post Wookie. could i make a slight suggestion regarding the Grunching challenge?

can we modify the blind-grunch posting to be: look at the hand, figure a response/questions/thoughts prior to posting, but THEN to read the responses before actually posting. There are so many threads that have multiple postings of "i'd fold preflop", it just gets tiresome reading the same thing over and over.

and take the Grunching a step further: when you are reading a posting, don't just read each posting 'til you get to the end, but take each posting as a basic "hand theory" in itself, and think of whether you agree with each individual posting as you move down.

To unconfuse:

we open up our thread to find this hand posting:

what do i do on this river? No reads, I'm multi-tabling

1/2 6-max
Hero is MP3 A[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] K[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]

Preflop
UTG calls, UTG+1 calls, MP1 folds, MP2 folds, Hero calls, CO and Button fold, <font color="red">SB raises</font>, BB calls, everyone calls.

Flop 9SBs: K[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]T[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]6[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]
<font color="red">SB bets</font>, BB calls, UTG folds, <font color="red">UTG+1 raises</font>, Hero calls, <font color="red">SB 3-bets</font>, BB calls, UTG+1 calls, Hero calls

Turn 9.5 BBs: 6[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]
<font color="red">SB bets</font>, BB folds, UTG+1 calls, <font color="red">Hero raises</font>, SB calls, UTG+1 calls

River 15 BBs : 8[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]
<font color="red">SB bets</font>, UTG folds, <font color="blue">Hero...???</font>

STEP 1: GRUNCH figure out how you'd play the hand and WHY you'd play the hand that way, what hands you put other players on, any math-related points (odds/equity/hand combos/etc.), and questions you have.

STEP 2: Read the 1st posting (assuming you're not the first) and here is the first posting:

"i'd call. he might think you were bluffing on the six or figured you had a flush draw, but he might have rivered a 3-of-a-kind or the straight."

STEP 3: Think about this posting before moving on and repeat STEP 1 as it relates to this posting. such as: what about preflop? is raising the turn okay? why not raise the flop?

STEP 4: Repeat as necessary for each posting.

If you come to the end and you find 5 other people have said you should cap preflop or raise the flop, there is no reason to repeat that posting. BUT if the last posting says "i'd fold the river, he wouldn't betting into you unless he had top pair beat." THEN respond to that posting with the reasons of why you disagree.

make sense? (FWIW: this hand is completely made up, but it looks pretty fun right? [img]/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img]) too many times we repeatedly berate the OP by passing over the 5 previous people that said something and the fact the original poster had said: i misclicked already. savvy?

[MrWookie47]

I think that's a reasonable request, to have people think their grunch, read, and then post if they're wrong. However, this is a beginner's forum, so I won't be too aggressive in stopping them if they don't do that. Also, if they're posting their complete analysis like I recommended above, there's bound to be something new (right or wrong) in their post, even if they're the 20th person to respond.

If the extent of your grunch is just "fold preflop," however, yeah, there isn't much to see, so just post it if you disagree.

[deception5]

[ QUOTE ]
can we modify the blind-grunch posting to be: look at the hand, figure a response/questions/thoughts prior to posting, but THEN to read the responses before actually posting. There are so many threads that have multiple postings of "i'd fold preflop", it just gets tiresome reading the same thing over and over.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've thought about this, but I dislike it because when a new player looks at a hand, thinks of their response, then goes and reads the other responses they say something like "oh yeah, that's what I would have done too". They won't post their thoughts because they don't want to sound silly contradicting 15 other people in the thread even though they disagree.

When they actually post it without seeing any other responses they will learn a lot more, especially if they have to defend their reasoning. They may also have an experienced poster come by and point out some holes in their logic specifically which can be a big help.

[@bsolute_luck]

oh sure. i'm not saying to do anything to stop them, merely hoping to institute GRUCNH CHALLANGE 2.0 [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

and, yes, i was more concerned with the "i'd to this"- type thoughtless/not so usefull postings.

[POKhER]

Earlier in the week after having read the board for some time(Specially the past weeks) i went to paradise poker and played.

I got into two situations in which i thought one was WA/WB, 2nd was a value betting situation.

Now i wasn't 100% confidant(As i would be if i read a book) but i was fairly sure i knew where to apply them(The concepts) from reading 2+2 forum. After playing the hands and losing a fair bit i posted the HH's and was told EVERY LINE(Value betting, WA/WB) IN EVERY SITUATION WAS WRONG.

I realised from reading all these threads i hadn't learn the CONCEPTS BEHIND THE SITUATION. I was attempting to play a fancy line in the wrong circumstances DUE TO LACK OF KNOWLEDGE OF THE CONCEPTS!!!!

Then i realised all this time and effort reading board and desperatly trying to understand them(So i could win more and lose less at the tables) had backfired.

I'd developed Fancy Play Syndrome(FPS) so took a step back and asked myself "WHAT MAKES A GOOD PLAYER?".

I came across a thread that wookie posted in and asked him what he thought. He listed things so i wrote them down and told myself i'd revise these making sure i have a strong foundation. As many of these we're covered in SSH I grabbed the book and started reading the whole thing FROM THE START.

I got to preflop hands and read about Little offsuite Broadways(Do you know what they are?). I read a line which says "SO consider who has already limped in before deciding to call" (Pg 74, 4th line down in italics).

It hit me that i never do this, i also realised i didn't know the reasons i was playing QJo(Its strong points). Sure not looking at who limps infront of you and not knowing the finer points to QJo wont make me lose much BUT IT MADE ME STRONGLY QUESTION MY KNOWLEDGE OF THE BASICS OF POKER.

And if i dont know the basics of preflop, Do i know the basics of postflop? And if i dont know the basics then do i know the intermediate concepts/Strategys? AND IF NOT, THEN WHY AM I TRYING TO LEARN WA/WB!?!

So i set myself a task, as i want to play GOOD POKER(Which should convert into GOOD $$$). The task is this...

Every day for one hour read SMALL STAKES HOLD'EM. Everytime i come across a subject i'm not happy i know about i shall write it down on the paper and continue to read through it. Upon completing SSH the list will be huge and i will have already learnt(And refreshed my memory of) many topics/concepts/strategys.I will then systematically go through the list and tick off each concept as i read it.

My list currently says:
Fold Equity, PREFLOP SECTION.

I expect when i get past the preflop the list may well contain:
Hand protection, when a raise will not protect, Free card play, Betting the flop and many other concepts.This one hour would have previously been spent reading 2+2 forum and hopelessly trying to build upon a UNSTABLE FOUNDATION OF POKER KNOWLEDGE(or lackof).

WINNING 2BB/100 AS SO MANY OF YOU MICRO PLAYERS DO, DOES NOT MEAN YOUR GOOD AT POKER! It is also a VERY POOR EXCUSE for not making yourself Re-Read SSH and all the other books you may own.

I'm sure many of you can't be assed to read it, Why bother hey? You winning 2BB/100... Well maybe this splits the ok from the better? Who knows. I'm writing this reponse as a newbie whose attempting to find leaks in his WHOLE game BEFORE CONTINUING TO LEARN the finer points of poker.

In conclusion:
Reading the forums is good sure, But the replys are always situation dependant. learning WA/WB form a forum may seem fantastic but it IS NOT IF YOU DONT UNDERSTAND THE CONCEPT(REASONS) BEHIND THE PLAY.

MAKE SURE YOU KNOW THE BASICS(Through self challenges such as Wookies suggested, or that im doing or any other way you feel you can test them). After all, How are you going to find your leaks if you just continue to slog away winning 2bb/100? Will you only try to find them when you move up to 1/2 and get your ass kicked? Or maybe 5/10 and get your ass kicked?

Sooner or later your lazyness may cost you BB's and depending on the stakes, That could be an EXPENSIVE lesson.

[steelcmg]

Very good post POKhER and MrWookie47
I think im going to have to start by saying i really need to start doing the same as pokher. i tell myself i know the basics and i understand how to use the basics but i dont really notice the bad things i do when im running good and when i was making decent money. But now that im on a downswing im starting to notice situations where im doing things i should not. I have a bunch of poker books but i have only read them i have not studied them which is what i really need to take the time to do. If i ever plan on moving up past 1/2 im going to have to know these situations like the back of my hand.

For the most part i dont think i have a problem seeing whats right and wrong when i look at HHs but when im doing that i have time look at what was going on. I need to learn how to be able to know how to do these things in oline play since u dont really have the time to think about it every hand.

Again thank u both for finally makeing me relize i have alot more work to do before i really understand this game.

[ QUOTE ]
To unconfuse:

we open up our thread to find this hand posting:

what do i do on this river? No reads, I'm multi-tabling

1/2 6-max
Hero is MP3 A[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] K[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]


[/ QUOTE ]

This may sound like a dumb question, and I am hoping it hasn't been answered yet, because I haven't yet read the entire thread but I figure I will forget by the time I get to the end if I don't ask now.

Doesn't max 6 mean a maximum of 6 players? I am not trying to be snide, just asking - I am still new enough to the forums that I am not positive and would like to know...

Or maybe you were joking - I didn't get to that part if you were [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

Just wondering how you fit all those players into the 6max table [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]