DrDunne

Laptop coolers also suck, doesn't matter which ones. At some point they just going to die. ♦ Although I still use both and laptops are needed when you are abroad.

Auch, it hurts when moving up the stakes and you get a downswing. My advice is usually after every upswing wait a bit until you move up, cause as you know after every upswing there is a downswing.

Well, easiest rule for BB = -30 and SB = -15. Should be something like that but not much more but again then you would need a decent sample. Yours of course are too high but I assume also really low sample.

Try to maybe move back down and build back your confidence, at least took a shot. Don't worry about moving down, rather I'd say you going to save in long run some money with that. Sometimes it's going to take few times or even more to take shots at new limit.

the sample is over 70k hands so i guess big enough to at least understand there is a leak there. i'll hopefully be improving this! i will try to rethink how im playing in the blinds.

and i made 10BI when i first moved up so its not TOO bad. i'll stick around for a bit ♦

Originally posted by DrDunne
the sample is over 70k hands so i guess big enough to at least understand there is a leak there. i'll hopefully be improving this! i will try to rethink how im playing in the blinds.

and i made 10BI when i first moved up so its not TOO bad. i'll stick around for a bit ♦

Well, you are still doing pretty decent. At least seems so from the hands you have posted and the thinking level you have got. Just keep improving and you will move up the stakes sooner or later.

it is very motivating to have you say that. thanks!

Originally posted by DrDunne
it is very motivating to have you say that. thanks!

You are welcome of course!

Just keep your chin up, poker isn't only about winning, everyone of us is going to face downswings, it's just a matter of time when you going to understand how to take it. By which I mean at some point you just going to continue grinding cause you know your game is decent and no need to worry about swings, cause it's just part of poker.

hey veriz i have a few questions....

in the pokerschool calc excel spreadsheet, what are the black coloured values in columns C-G?

also, in your coachings whenever you use notepad it has a dark grey background and the font is white and looks totally different to the standard MS software. what have you done to make it like that? i want it ♦

in the pokerschool calc excel spreadsheet, what are the black coloured values in columns C-G?

Which row. But black numbers are usually those numbers which you edit as add for example pot + bet + raise etc.

also, in your coachings whenever you use notepad it has a dark grey background and the font is white and looks totally different to the standard MS software. what have you done to make it like that? i want it

It's with specific style of Win7, you have to install some stuff. Though it's on my old PC so can't remember exactly how the style was called. Google it, most likely will find different themes.

hello veriz! i want somewhere to post and i don't like my old blog so i won't resurrect it. instead i'll post here ♦

been doing lots of reading/video watching lately. bankroll is slowly growing and since i have nearly $1k i'm taking shots at nl25 and nl20 (€). it is WAY more aggressive and the regs seem to really go out of their way to exploit me (which i'm really not used to from nl10 and below!)

it feels like total chaos. if i play too loose/too aggressive i get exploited and pounded on, if i play too nitty i get exploited and pounded on. however, i can really see how if i keep playing on this limit that my game will improve a LOT. i just need to work on it a lot.

Originally posted by DrDunne
hello veriz! i want somewhere to post and i don't like my old blog so i won't resurrect it. instead i'll post here ♦

been doing lots of reading/video watching lately. bankroll is slowly growing and since i have nearly $1k i'm taking shots at nl25 and nl20 (€). it is WAY more aggressive and the regs seem to really go out of their way to exploit me (which i'm really not used to from nl10 and below!)

it feels like total chaos. if i play too loose/too aggressive i get exploited and pounded on, if i play too nitty i get exploited and pounded on. however, i can really see how if i keep playing on this limit that my game will improve a LOT. i just need to work on it a lot.

Hey mate,

great to hear of your progress! Only happy about you and I hope you will move up even more. Though about your thoughts here I'd say that you are being result oriented too much. Don't concentrate too much on those factors but rather just continue playing your a-game. Try to improve and learn something new and everything will go in order and you will find your style.

yeah i'm definitely very results oriented and it hurt my shot at the next level where i wasn't playing optimally because of it. i don't think it's something i can really help at the moment but i'm sure that as my learning curve develops i will become less focused on the short term results. since i moved back down i feel a lot more confident @NL10 so shouldn't be too long now until my next shot. and this has only meant i work harder on my game lately too, so i've been having lots of ah-ha! moments

so what are the plans for the beginner's course now that you have stopped public coachings?

Originally posted by DrDunne
yeah i'm definitely very results oriented and it hurt my shot at the next level where i wasn't playing optimally because of it. i don't think it's something i can really help at the moment but i'm sure that as my learning curve develops i will become less focused on the short term results. since i moved back down i feel a lot more confident @NL10 so shouldn't be too long now until my next shot. and this has only meant i work harder on my game lately too, so i've been having lots of ah-ha! moments

so what are the plans for the beginner's course now that you have stopped public coachings?

That's also why it's good to take shots at new limits.

What gonna happen with beginner's course, I don't really know. Seems rather like they are not interested in developing it and I am not responsible for those things, so I am not going to force it either. Guess it's really up to them as there has been a lot of changes as you saw yourself.

can i still use this thread to ask questions about things i'm having trouble with? it probably won't be EXACTLY beginner questions but i've been playing nl10 for a looong time so i have lots of problems ♦ i just stopped using this since veriz left, don't really know why..

Originally posted by DrDunne
can i still use this thread to ask questions about things i'm having trouble with? it probably won't be EXACTLY beginner questions but i've been playing nl10 for a looong time so i have lots of problems ♦ i just stopped using this since veriz left, don't really know why..

Of course,

Any questions are welcome and I'll try to answer to the best of my ability.

Best regards,

Bogdan

great! i'll just explain where my game is at right now - doing a lot of studying about cold calling, board textures, cbetting, barreling etc etc to try and help my thinking in certain spots. i've shot for nl20/nl25 like 7 times and the last time i ended up moving down and losing more than 25 BI at nl10 so my roll was quite screwed up after that! so im studying mainly at the moment and getting a small amount of volume in.

im coming across a fair few leaks in my game and i'd like to get some more experienced perspectives on what i should do about them. the main one atm is cold calling and when i was reviewing my database i realised i pretty much have no game plan for when i'm in the BB facing a SB open.

assuming a full stacked unknown player what sort of range would you suggest we defend in this spot? if i have info that he's weak i'll expand my value 3bet range and flat call a little less (floating probably will be no good vs a weaker player) and i probably won't be 3bet bluffing. but if i have info that he's a regular and rarely (if ever) calls 3bets OOP then i can have a polarised 3bet range weighted towards bluffs.

what do you think of this sort of flat call range vs an unknown:
JJ-22, AQs-A8s, K9s+, QTs+, JTs, T9s, AQo-A9o, KTo+, QTo+, JTo

and then we'll adjust this once we pick up more info. not looking for some sort of starting hands chart, just trying to come up with a default plan/idea of how i should be continuing.

Playing is key to your progress. Studying a lot and playing little won't be very helpful.

You want to be able to put in practice the things you are learning before you forget about them and learn the next thing.

As far as your flat range goes, for 10nl, we can add all suited aces, and more suited connectors and gappers. You have a lot of potential for floating and people are very straight forward (plus we can bluff raise more flops).

hey bogdan!

Originally posted by BogdanPS
Playing is key to your progress. Studying a lot and playing little won't be very helpful.

You want to be able to put in practice the things you are learning before you forget about them and learn the next thing.

still struggling with this

anyway, i thought i'd ask you this because you are good with numbers ♦ ...

was doing a bit of reading about EV and i decided to see what's going on with AK allin preflop since it's a spot i've always hated. ended up with a few more questions than i started...

1) does this look correct? (please bear in mind that i am not very good at maths but i'm trying to get better at poker maths so this might be a little off.) i know there are 2 ways of calculating EV that give the same result, so i was just using the way that i've seen the most often:

2) so if that is right, then it tells us something not very new - that we can profitably 4bet/call AK vs a range of QQ+, AK and it is still +EV even when we have 0%FE. that's great for my peace of mind, but i want to know your opinion about the effect that rake has on this at nl25 and below... seems like if we remove 6bb from the amount that we can win we are left with 118bb (to account for ~5% rake) then, if we 4bet and then face a jam from our villain whose range is QQ+ and AK, our EV is then -1.301! which is only a really small difference, but it's still -EV. im just wondering if you have any comments about the effect that rake has and whether or not we should be slightly adjusting our strategy to account for this?

seems like overall if our villain is 3bet bluffing quite a lot, then the overall EV of the 4bet/call is fine simply because of the FE from our 4bet. but if they are 3betting a pretty narrow range it means our FE is going to be reduced and thus our EV drops...

i'm starting to see just how complicated EV can get when you start to account for future streets soo what's your opinion about crEV? worth the $? i quite like doing this sort of work off of the table even if i get it wrong, but im just thinking if i plan on looking into the EV of some hands it might be much less tedious to just have the software to do it for me.

sorry this turned into an essay ♦

The 4bet/call part can be done separately.

It's really all pot odds vs equity.

Assuming 0 bluffs from him you face his value range and then you take your equity vs that.

You have 38.82% equity vs QQ+, AK. You get 38.308% so theoretically, before rake, calling is correct. Once you factor in rake you can add 2-3% to the equity needed and you see it will be slightly -EV. Of course most people have some sort of rakeback/points/etc that can reduce that 2/3% but since it's so marginal calling/folding are very close. However, some people shove lighter or have the occasional bluff so that tilts the balance in our favor.

Of course the size of the pot, stacks, bets are all very important. Slightly deeper/shallower stacks, bigger/smaller bet size can change the %s.

Given the limits you are currently playing and what things you should f ocus on I don't think you need to invest money in crEV just yet. Equilab, and Flopzilla should be enough.

Thanks for the reply!

Originally posted by BogdanPS
The 4bet/call part can be done separately.

What do you mean by this?

I also wanted to ask your opinion about study and mindset. I guess I study:play lately with a ratio of something like 5:1. Since I started playing a couple of years ago I've made some painfully slow progress and given the low winrate my game has got a ton of variance which is pretty bad for my mindset. I'm regularly having 10-20BI "downswings" so my motivation isn't that high for actually playing which means I end up spending so much of my time studying the game instead. Just watching videos & note taking, discussing with some friends, and reading through my notes.

However there is a huge problem - it has been like this ever since I started playing. 1 step forward and 2 back, and I'm now questioning my whole approach to poker. I feel like I need to start playing more, but I really find it difficult and I find myself protecting winning sessions and grinding through losing ones. Anyway, since there has been relatively little change to my game (in practice) I was wondering what your opinions are of all this and if you have any interesting insights about improving your game at the tables.

How can you play enough of a sample to get into that same spot (that you are currently trying to study/understand) with that same (type of) opponent - and remember it - enough times to build up some general assumptions about the flow of the games you play? It just seems impossible to me so I guess my game stagnates.

Hey Lewis,

After your 4-bet you are faced with a shove and thus receive X pot odds. Compare with your Y equity and decide to make the call or not.

As far as your other problem goes it's very common.

Studying 5 times more than playing will not get you anywhere. You need actual play time and practice/experience. Plus chances are you are studying so much that you will have a conflict of ideas at some points and at the same time forget a lot of what you studied because you never have a chance to apply it and really learn it.

I think your approach to "play enough" to get into the same spot to remember it is wrong. When you post a hand, or read about another hand you should not look to learn that spot vs that opponent because chances are you will never see it again. But rather you should understand the logic behind the spot and how it can be applied to hundreds of other similar spots.

Poker is all about assumptions based on the information you have. Learning to make better assumptions and then make use of them is what's key here.