paulverme

LESSON 2

1.What do you think you could play differently than suggested in the BSS Starting Hands Chart and why?
- I think almost all hands of the Starting Hands chart can be played differently. The Chart is only a tool for beginning players to have a guideline and play tight by following the chart.
- I think that your action preflop should be based on several other elements and that the cards matter the least.
- Preflop action is defined mainly by:

o What actions have taken place before my turn? (limps,raises,folds,reraises,….betsizing)
o What kind of people are still in the hand (before and potentially after me)
o What is my and their (relative) position at the table
o What are their stacksizes
o What kind of playertypes are these (do we have a read based on stacks, or not yet?)
o How do we act against these playertypes?
o And last: what is our hand?

Example: QQ in the CO according to the handchart always should be a reraise against a raiser. But in my opinion if UTG raises 3xbb and this is a real nit then I might be inclined to Cold Call the raise as a 3bet from my side will always be raised or at least called by this kind of player (too narrow range). In case of a LAG who raises UTG the QQ is clearly a 3bet for value.
Therefor I think the handchart is just a guideline, but should not determine your play too much.
For myself I probably would raise any PP unopened from every position and I am also not so fond of completing the small blind with hands like ATo or Ajo for example.
Blindstealing: ATC can be decent to steal depending on the players in the blinds.

Question 2: Do you have questions about your preflop play?
No questions yet

3: What is the equity of AKo against the top 5% range? 5% means 88+, AJs+, KQs, AKo.
Equity is: 46,32% against 53,68%

Welcome to the Course and Best of Luck. Good job! Homework #1 Done!

Trust me, I have enough of students and being a bankroll nit isn't a weakness! Rather follow the BRM whatever you set for yourself than just gambling away it!

Boredom in poker is like boredom at work. You start to do things which you shouldn't. Like playing too loose, playing too many hands, calling too loose at showdowns. All those kind of mistakes will cost you a lot in poker. Now think of poker as working for the money, you spend specific amount of time to earn. Which means you also have to find anything against the boredom. For some it might be fixed with playing more tables, some trying to force themselves against the boredom and always try to remind yourself what you are doing on the tables. Try out different things for yourself but try to fix the leak with the boredom. Boredom may force you doing also such things which may distract your game. Distractions therefore can make to also loose money:
Easiest way to not get distracted, just try always remind yourself. I have to close the browser(or whatever you have as distraction)! I am trying to win money here and make something for living not watching something on youtube (etc). This might work for some. Also train that on every session and at some spot you will get used to that. For yourself you might even have to find other way. But the best thing is to always remind what you came to do on table.

Most of the weakness you wrote can easily be fixed by posting hands (analyzing your session). We will start writing feedback to your play. Usually negative feedback will put you into thinking phase and trying to fix all those leaks. It's almost the same as you lose money, you will remember it more than winning part. By this situation it's gonna be that negative feedback you gonna remember and try to avoid them next time.

Tight style is usually called playing selected hands. Like following the Starting Hand Chart. Aggressive should be also pretty clear that already the word says how you should be playing. But the problem playing aggressively is that you have to watch that you don't play too aggressive. Find good spots, find good targets. About The tight-aggressive strategy you can read in this article: "What is the Big Stack Strategy?"

Hopefully you will enjoy the Course.

Good job! Homework #2 Done!

I like the process you went through about QQ, that's how poker should be and especially understanding that kind of concept will help you around poker. Well done!

Playing PPs can be in long run be very profitable, we could even say that you earn the most money with them. You can always try out either you play them profitable or not by check the programs either you are doing great on early position with PPs or not and base according to that.

Totally agree with you about the stealing ranges. They can be very easily be balanced with even wider range. Depending on the opponent you can as well put a wider stealing range. Against some tight opponents who give up their blinds either preflop or postflop, why not to adjust? Against some shorties you can even steal with smaller raise, for example 3xBB. But don't overdo the stealing situations. Sometimes you might just put yourself into too many difficult spots if opening with marginal hands.

About Question #3:

       Equity     Win     Tie
UTG    46.32%  37.92%   8.41% { AKo }
UTG+1  53.68%  45.27%   8.41% { 88+, AJs+, KQs, AKo }

Hopefully you enjoy the Course so far.

lesson 3

Question 1: classic coinflip situation
Preflop KQs is a very slight favourite over the pocket 3’s; 50,8% vs 49,2%
The flop gives the 3’s a set and we are left drawing to the flush. Our equity is reduced to 26,5%

Question 2:
outs to improve our hand to a flush: 9 clubs
outs to improve our hand to a straight: 4 4’s minus 1 for 4 of clubs = 3
The straight however could be not good enough against opponent with a 6 so I would not count the full 3 as an out ; maybe 1,5 outs

Total outs: 10,5
Pct to improve = 10,5 x 2 =21% or around 4 to 1
We have to invest 0,22 to win a pot 1,13; this is also close to 4:1
In general this is a borderline CALL
Question 3: no

Good job! Homework #3 Done!

About Question #1:
Preflop Equity:

Equity Win Tie
UTG 50.78% 50.40% 0.38% { KsQs }
UTG+1 49.22% 48.84% 0.38% { 3d3c }

Postflop Equity:

Board: J♠5♦3♠
Equity Win Tie
UTG 26.46% 26.46% 0.00% { KsQs }
UTG+1 73.54% 73.54% 0.00% { 3d3c }

About Question #2:
There are several occasions on turn:
a) If we take just odds for the FD and we take into account that all our odds are clean. Which means:
Total Pot = $0,91 ; We have to Call = $0,22 -> According to that it means we are getting ~4,16:1 odds. For flushdraw we would need 4:1. Which tells us that we are getting perfect odds.
b) If we consider the opponent having sets here:
Which means we have to discount outs, for example 6:c and also 3:c. Which means we have 7 clean outs so that means we need 6:1 odds. That tells us that we need ~$0,41 on river to make it profitable. If we expect the opponent being loose enough and being able to pay us no-matter what then we can do the Call here properly.
c) We might even have overcards as outs or even 4 as a out:
Although this kind of situation ain't that likely. I'd rather discount that one and either pick a) or b). Most likely towards Call.

You are doing great progress, keep going!