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#1
08-18-2005, 05:36 PM
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What I Learned This Summer ( really really long)
Originally I had no plan to make this post. But driving back from Turning Stone with rory and rakein, they recommended that this could make a good, helpful post, so I figured what the hell. I hope that no one reads this post and thinks it’s a brag post, or one where someone is trying to talk down to everyone else. To be quite honest I hate it when some mid-high player makes some post in small stakes trying to talk down to everyone – saying that 75s is DEFINETLY a limp after a bad player open limps in mid position. I don’t know if those posters really want to help you play better, want to sell you some coaching or just want to feel good about themselves by pointing out others mistakes. I mean if you play well postflop, then yea, you make that play. But different players push different edges, and I am quite confident that there are no players on this forum who push all the right edges, every player is guilty of over playing some hands, or under playing others, period. Furthermore, there are players who limp 75s who aren’t playing it profitably. I’d rather be in the group that starts by adding 98s and then 87s and then 67s and then 97s before jumping in and adding all of those, along with 75s.
I don’t think I’m a great player. I don’t think I’m necessarily a good player, either. Right now i'm getting the crap kicked out of me at 10/20 6max. I have a lot of leaks and a lot of learning to do. There are a lot of hands that I don’t play very well. I don’t like my big blind defense still. I don’t play enough hands from the small blind, and don’t limp enough on the button to a limper in front. I don’t really have much confidence playing weak aces in late position when I open limp after multiple limpers in front. But I have learned a lot over the past few months and I think they are things that are pretty common to the 2/4 and 3/6 fh players who are interested in improving their game. Anyways, I took the necessary time and sweat to move up to 5/10 sh and learn how to beat the game. I had a lot of help, mainly from Drgutshot, who I was able to watch play 10/20 6max and discuss many/any hands I wanted. I was really fortunate because DrG and I learned a lot about poker playing against each other, and I was able to come over his house and play sessions or take breaks to watch his. Stinkypete was also really helpful, although he lags it up a bit more then DrG and I didn’t get to watch him play. Rakein was also helpful, as we both had to make the transition to short handed and we were able to argue about hands. This is vastly underrated, but having an argument about certain hands is really important because both players have to list their reasons, you can’t just say “o I raise, and because I beat such and such a game for a certain amount, it must be right”, because both of us had a level of uncertainty. in general i feel like posting hands on 2+2 get way too many people with one liners and no explanation. granted some hands are standard, but arguing them through makes you learn a heck of a lot more. Tilt. I used to think tilt was when you started making bad raises preflop. You start making these horrendous plays, like capping 53o preflop, or raising bottom pair no kicker. And I mean, I know that when I am running bad or running good, they will affect how I’m playing, but I never thought it was enough to really affect the bottom line, between making me be a winning or losing player. I even had some friends tell me that they thought I was “untiltable” because of how I usually laugh when opponents hit ridiculous drawouts. Unfortunately my friend was mistaken. Tilt is when you a 2 pair hand that gets counterfeited and you call down against a tight player anyways. When you miss your flush draw but call a river bet with A high anyways. When you get check raised when you bet your flush draw on the turn, call, river some mid pair and call the river bet anyways. It took me a while to learn this, but if you’re playing on the top of your game, bad runs can happen. But at a certain point, you MUST learn to see when your game is getting worse and you should stop playing. Adding hands. I hate when people were like 15 vpip is too low, add more hands. Give me a break. You can’t just say that and expect players to go “o okay” think about adding one or two more hands and have their vpip adjust to 18 and their win rate to go from .6 to 2.5. Poker is about pushing edges, and if you can add hands profitably, then you gotta go for it. But you need to know your spots. This took me a while. I also think a big mistake that I had was I always thought it was easy to add hands up front, but never put the effort in to put hands in late position. Take a look at AJo in utg and utg+1. Over 70k hands at 3/6, I’ve had AJo 80+ times. Over that time I’m a slight loser with it. This post isn’t to say that you should fold AJo utg, because I think that much larger databases will contribute to tell you that it’s a winner in the long run. But its more important to realize that if you were a 3bb/100 player and you decided to start folding AJo utg, you would still be a 3bb/100 winner. So I talked to DrG a lot about what hands you limp with on the btn or co after 1 limper after 2 limpers, what hands you raise, where you open QJo or K9s or A4s. I’d recommend you play short handed and learn how to add these hands. Playing short handed will increase the amount of hands you get to play per hour, and of course the amount of hands you play in late position. I’ve gotten fairly comfortable limping suited connectors in position. Make a preflop quiz and ask players how low they go in terms of limping preflop to a limper up front with varying stats. Ask how they play bottom pair, top pair, etc with different boards. How to isolate. Playing maniacs is one of the funnest and most rewarding plays in poker. You get to play marginal hands against unpredictable players, and you are for the most part unable to accurately narrow down their holdings. I never isolated at 3/6 until maybe my last week or two playing. That definitely cost me. I think most of you probably know how to isolate. I didn’t. But I guess I got a lot more exposure to hit at short handed, as you play a lot more hands against bad players, and get to try and maneuver for position against them. Stats: Stats are over rated. Other then vpip and pfr and maybe position stats we never really discussed these numbers. I guess the thing about stats is that you can play horrible horrible poker and have absolutely perfect stats. Stats don’t track when you make a bad call down or when you bluff check raise and get 3bet. Or that you folded in a huge pot with 2 pair, but called with A high on a four flush board. As long as your stats seem reasonable, don’t worry about the stats as much as the hands you’re playing. Don’t even read other peoples stat posts. Whenever I read “ o I think your fold to river bet is 2% higher then mine” I want to puke. Or someones like “your went to showdown x your won at showdown should equal (insert random number).” Give me a break. What is that player going to do? Go out and play and think “well I guess I should call this bet on the river even though I’m quite sure I’m beat so my stats are better” ??? please don’t do this. If your stats are cracked out, take a look, post some hands, see what people say. Get someone else to watch you play. I’d stop talking about stats, but it keeps bugging me, and I keep seeing these posts. I see it in the headsup short handed a lot more now that 3/6 6max came around, and I still see it all the time at small stakes. people post their stats and go “why am I losing?” “why am I not winning more”.and then on top of that, they say “don’t post here if you don’t want to help”. I must be on a downswing. You aren’t winning more because you aren't playing well and aren’t facing the facts. Sure great players have 30k hands of break even poker. But they also have 30k hands of 3+bb/100 runs. The best posters on this forum do not post random stats. They look at the hands they play, and see how well they play them. The stats, they will fall into place if you play well, period. If you lose more then 100bb on a downswing, you should take a really good look at some hands that you’re playing. Talk to someone else about poker, or see if you can watch someone else play. Making standard plays: As easy as it is, I went through my 3/6 career checking behind on turns and calling river bets way too much. And even worse, I’d probably try one fancy play per hour, which I honestly think cost me a ridiculously large amount of $. I had a conversation a little while ago that really showed me how much I had changed in terms of becoming a more simple minded player. A friend of mine who 8 tables 5/10 sh showed me the following hand Preflop: Hero is BB with Ad, 9s. Button calls, SB completes, Hero checks. Flop: (3 SB) 9d, As, 2h (3 players) SB checks, Hero checks, Button bets, SB folds, Hero calls. Turn: (2.50 BB) Th (2 players) Hero bets, Button calls. River: (4.50 BB) Qs (2 players) Hero checks, Button bets, Hero raises, Button folds. Final Pot: 7.50 BB He told me how he donk bet the turn to make it appear like a bluff, and then checked the river in order to induce a bluff. This is probably about the standard fancy play I’d try and pull all the time at 3/6. but I learned that in this particular hand, its fairly safe to assume that the button had a piece of this board. His hand was strong enough that he would bet if checked to and call if bet into. So if the hero had bet all 3 streets he would’ve made 2.5 bb. By making this fancy play, hero also made 2.5 bb. So there is really no point in making these donk bet on the turn. Its also possible that on the flop players may call a flop bet with 2 spades, but might just check behind if checked too. Wanting to improve. This will really vary between players and what their goals are. But I imagine that a lot of you want to move up to higher limits. I doubt many if any are trying to move from .5/1 to 100/200 asap, but I think its important in playing to have goals to move up. If you want to 8 table 2/4 and can make $80/hr, good for you. I got burned out playing too much 3/6 and not taking enough or having enough desire to take shots. So the ones I did were short, uncommitted and ended in failure. It takes commitment, time and periods of break even or losing play. Rory said that at every level he’s moved up to, let it be 3/6 , 5/10 , 15/30 or higher he’s gotten “gang banged” at first. I was quite literally raped the first time I tried playing 5/10sh. Two 10/20 sh players, both with ridiculous high winrates have told me similar stories. One spent over 20k hands playing 2-3 tables and breaking even. The other played for a month, 8hrs/day and ended up that month down 8k. But they weren’t crying, they looked at what they were doing, looked to improve and raised their level of play. You shouldn’t expect anything less to happen. Also there should be some willingness to improve your game by trying out new things. Experiment with different strategies to see how they work for your game. I think that the answer to if there is one perfect way to play any or every hand in a given situation is “yes and no”. post flop play should and must incorporate creativity to succeed and the way you play post flop should affect the hands you end up playing pre flop. 
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#2
08-18-2005, 08:20 PM
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Re: What I Learned This Summer ( really really long)
You are right, your post is really, really long. However, for many players, it holds a number of key aspects about poker they may not have considered. Good post - I'm sure those that give it a good read will benefit.
I was the fish at the table each time I moved up also (and still)- we all are. Unless you catch fire (which I am sure happens every once in a while), you are just going to have to pay your dues. I played live for a long time, but struggled with $5/$10 for a couple months, and I still find $10/$20 easier than $5/$10. Dogmeat [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]
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