w34z3l's Poker Academy

Originally posted by bonecore
Thanks for live lesson and for answering any of our question. I have one more question now:

Question1: When constructing 3bet ranges, how much should we 3bet by default VS UNKNOWN?
I read somewhere that it ranges according to how good they are postflop.
Example that i have heared is to 3bet 25% of opponents PFR. Some say 50% of opponents PFR.
How about vs unknown that in 10 hands seems loose (vpip>pfr)

Question2: Is it wrong that i play a lot more conservative vs unknown that seems loose (vpip>pfr) , until i get an idea and see a few showdown hands?

Question3: How to test the opponents Fold to 3bet and Fold to Cbet vs unknown that seems loose - cheaply and quickly and get some conclusions? Do i really need to have a little swing vs these guys?

Hey Bonecore,

Thanks for your questions.

1) Depends on the position of the opener. Naturally the later the position of the opener the wider and more aggressively we should 3bet.
We should tighten this range vs tighter opponents although there are no exact formulas for this.

A while back I made a rough guide for default preflop ranges alongside the walkthrough series.

https://forums.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?postid=1930790#post1930790

Instructions on how to import these ranges into equilab can be found in the above thread.

2) Not wrong at all. We should start out with our default ranges and expand them when we have an exploitative read on our opponents.

3) Start out with default ranges. Use high-equity hands in position such as suited Ax and suited Kx and offsuit broadways. Imagine we have a hand like A8s BTN vs CO. Firstly perhaps CO folds too much, easy to see how we make money here. But he is unknown so perhaps he calls way too much. We don't mind that either because we are going to have a ton of equity (maybe even the best hand), position, initiative etc. So regardless of what our opponent does it's going to be a decent bluff in most cases. We either make money directly preflop or we will make money on the flop.

Originally posted by Theodor95
Hey w34z3l,
Really enjoyed your coaching session last week about betsizing, is there another coaching this week? Would be awesome.
Thanks for answering.
T

I don't think there will be another coaching this week. I have to take the suggested topics to pokerstrategy.com admin first and get the green light.

However there will be released shortly a strategy video on squeezing.

Hi w34z3l!

Some more advices for future videos/series.

1) Playing vs merged and polarized 3 bet ranges IP and OOP from all different positions.
Determining which hands are better as flat and which are better candidates for 4 bet bluffing + how to proceed post flop.
Feel there is not enough material on this but it would be a hit series I am positive

2) Playing in 4 bet pots IP and OOP as initial aggressor and caller
Determining ranges, discussing unexploitable approach and exploitable ones, using for 4 bet different ranges from opponent, ranges that we should use and have better equity with vs merged or polarized 3 bets etc. Another great potential series - developing on 3 bet pots one.

3) Defending vs squeezer IP and OOP as a original opener as well as cold caller
Discuss positional awareness, expected ranges, vs merged or polarized squeeze how to defend unexploitably and exploitably.

4) Bluff raising river
Discuss textures and opponent types that bluff raising rivers is profitable against. Range construction post flop, choosing best hands that are ideal candidates. Discussing exploitable and unexploitable approach.

5) Bluff raising in 3 bet pots
IP and OOP , as initial raiser and caller. Range brake downs with regards to different textures. Exploitable and unexploitable approach.

You asked for more material, this should be enough to crush NL200 ZOOM BTW, I am working on all these things myself lately and can provide feedback in any of the areas mentioned.

Thanks for the latest Video on squeezing, haven't really put to much thought into the idea that speculative hands and TPGK type hands play completely different Postflop when it comes to squeezing.
My question is, how should we continue these hands Postflop, for example, when we squeezed with a speculative hand and totally missed the flop against two opponents. This is just one of the various examples where I often feel very insecure post flop. Hope this will be covered in some upcoming Videos.
Again thanks for the Video and keep it up.

PS: please sign me in, totally on board with the academy.

T

Hi Theodor95,

We are glad that you like w34z3l's Academy project and your feedback value a lot for w34z3l because based on your feedback and activity from here depends future coaching's and videos that he will do
For those that miss the news here is the link with w34z3l's newest video: w34z3l's Academy - Squeezing

Sign me up w34z3l ♦

Squeezing OOP: I usually squeeze a merged range but I think that's not a great approach, but yeah, probably not loosing much EV by doing it. Start changing now
A question, in the sqz oop range, do we sqz as "bluff" T7s-T6s but overcall T5s-T4s... First ones can make straights, yeah... But our squeeze as bluff shouldn't be the better hands that we fold / the worst hands that we call?

PS: nice motivation with the possibly DB review / coaching and even avatar. I follow the topic since beginning but here is my first post, right?

About the topics, I like most ivicaIliev options but, for example, I'd like to see something like raising flops / raising turn (and how to play after raise) instead of 4bet pots, for example. Maybe I'm wrong actually, but 4bet pots occur less often so they don't have so impact in the overall winrate even they are always big pots.

Just watched the first video, please sign me up

About the overcalling range IP: I do prefer the 26s, 34s... instead of the J3s etc., but I guess you mentioned to play whatever you feel more comfortable postflop with and make adjustments.

About those adjustments: You're saying that squeezing range can/should be rather dynamic, so I feel one video could be dedicated to do hand reviewing on squeezed situation including player's stats and reads. This should help to get a better understanding on how to adjust the ranges vs certain players types in variuos scenarious etc. If you'd need hands I'd volunteer to give you like my last 100k hands to analyze and pick situation. Probably a lot to find since I feel I was playing rather poorly in squeezed situation. Just a suggestion though.

I was just wondering ... I't have run nicely for a while and I have changed a lot of things in my game. Perhaps to many. Suddenly something unpleasant hit the fan and I sort of lost much of my money on FTP.

So i switched back to Pokerstars and my game was really shakey. I had no chance what so ever on NL5 and had a hard time even at NL2. So I tightened my ranges and turned back into a nit until the downfall ended and things felt more like normal.

So the thing I thinking about is what if I don't really worry about that my winrate isn't maximized, I just want a nice winrate that's not such an easy prey for variance ... sort of auto-pilot poker to fall back to when things get rough. What would such an strategy look like? Tighten ranges obviously but is there more to be done?

Originally posted by Svinhugg
So the thing I thinking about is what if I don't really worry about that my winrate isn't maximized, I just want a nice winrate that's not such an easy prey for variance ... sort of auto-pilot poker to fall back to when things get rough. What would such an strategy look like? Tighten ranges obviously but is there more to be done?

it would look like a normal strategy , except you don't adjust to your opponents. It would be like playing vs unknowns all the time.
The problem is that unexperimented players dont have a strategy at all... so we have nothing to compare to normal. I have made a list about adjustments ... from many videos that i found. Here it is:

Originally posted by Theodor95
Thanks for the latest Video on squeezing, haven't really put to much thought into the idea that speculative hands and TPGK type hands play completely different Postflop when it comes to squeezing.
My question is, how should we continue these hands Postflop, for example, when we squeezed with a speculative hand and totally missed the flop against two opponents. This is just one of the various examples where I often feel very insecure post flop. Hope this will be covered in some upcoming Videos.
Again thanks for the Video and keep it up.

PS: please sign me in, totally on board with the academy.

T

Hey Theodor,

We should generally just be giving up postflop if we completely miss the flop. Assuming we flop backdoor equity we may be able to cbet some hands as a semi-bluff but we should be extra cautious if we get 2 or more callers.

A lot of the pointers from playing 3bet pots in the walkthrough series can be applied to squeezing situations also.

Originally posted by IuriTPena
Sign me up w34z3l ♦

Squeezing OOP: I usually squeeze a merged range but I think that's not a great approach, but yeah, probably not loosing much EV by doing it. Start changing now
A question, in the sqz oop range, do we sqz as "bluff" T7s-T6s but overcall T5s-T4s... First ones can make straights, yeah... But our squeeze as bluff shouldn't be the better hands that we fold / the worst hands that we call?

PS: nice motivation with the possibly DB review / coaching and even avatar. I follow the topic since beginning but here is my first post, right?

About the topics, I like most ivicaIliev options but, for example, I'd like to see something like raising flops / raising turn (and how to play after raise) instead of 4bet pots, for example. Maybe I'm wrong actually, but 4bet pots occur less often so they don't have so impact in the overall winrate even they are always big pots.

You are right about the T4s and the T7s. Although ultimately it doesn't matter too much. We should probably be mixing up our squeezing range a little. So T7s should likely appear in both our squeezing and over-calling range. By yeah, by default we can put T5/T4s as squeezes and T7s/T6s as the overcalls, that would make the most sense.

Originally posted by reto27
Just watched the first video, please sign me up

About the overcalling range IP: I do prefer the 26s, 34s... instead of the J3s etc., but I guess you mentioned to play whatever you feel more comfortable postflop with and make adjustments.

About those adjustments: You're saying that squeezing range can/should be rather dynamic, so I feel one video could be dedicated to do hand reviewing on squeezed situation including player's stats and reads. This should help to get a better understanding on how to adjust the ranges vs certain players types in variuos scenarious etc. If you'd need hands I'd volunteer to give you like my last 100k hands to analyze and pick situation. Probably a lot to find since I feel I was playing rather poorly in squeezed situation. Just a suggestion though.

Cool, thanks for the suggestions. The main issue I find with stuff like 34s is there is such a large chance we will flop undercards. With J3s at least we will hold an over-card a decent percentage if we completely miss the flop. It's a matter of style though of course, I doubt anyone can give us a correct GTO answer at this stage.

Originally posted by Svinhugg
I was just wondering ... I't have run nicely for a while and I have changed a lot of things in my game. Perhaps to many. Suddenly something unpleasant hit the fan and I sort of lost much of my money on FTP.

So i switched back to Pokerstars and my game was really shakey. I had no chance what so ever on NL5 and had a hard time even at NL2. So I tightened my ranges and turned back into a nit until the downfall ended and things felt more like normal.

So the thing I thinking about is what if I don't really worry about that my winrate isn't maximized, I just want a nice winrate that's not such an easy prey for variance ... sort of auto-pilot poker to fall back to when things get rough. What would such an strategy look like? Tighten ranges obviously but is there more to be done?

Essentially we have to ask ourselves why we play poker. For some it's to maximise winrate. For others it's to maximise hourly. For others it's to make money consistently via the easiest route possible.

I often used to say in training videos that I felt it was possible to beat micros without 3-betting any hands apart from AA. 3bet pots can easily be a nice source of winrate but they add to variance and make the game tougher. Also while it's all the rage to play VPIP/PFR styles such as 28/17 these days, it's unlikely to be the simplest way to beat the game. It's easy to forget after watching a training video that many games can still be beaten playing 18/15 VPIP/PFR and a pretty tight-aggressive style without much bluffing.

Anyway, keep in mind that one of the worst things you can do as a result of short term variance is to significantly change your game. I.e, we have a positive winrate but run bad. So we try to "fix" our game. Our game gets worse. Now we genuinely have a negative winrate. So don't underestimate variance. If your style was winning over a decent sample there is no logical reason to assume that you woke up one day and were a losing player.

3 guys with the magic words so far
Avatars and details on the rankings/point system will come soon. For now you 3 can get 5 academy points. Congrats.

Rank 1 Academy Points

Theodor95........................ 6
IuriTPena........................... 6
Reto27................................5

Thanx for good answers w34z3l and bonecore.

It's an I ( i ) not an L
Common mistake ♦
Nice 5 points, the very first ones hopefully.

By the way, another question about squeezing oop:
The best result when we squeeze (oop or ip) is always everyone folds (unless we have a monster, ofc), right?
So squeezing is a kind of bluff play (almost) every time. Do you think it's important that we have a polarized squeezing range so we can play aggressive more boards?
At NL50 and below is someone alert/exploiting us if we squeeze just the offsuit brodways and some suited brodways? IMO, probably not, not even the regs.

Humn, I assume that squeezing is a bluff. But in the video you also refer to squeezing as an isolation. Before discuss the above questions maybe we should discuss this one.
I can see squeezing as an isolation in case of the PFR is a fish so we can play a lot of flops with initiative vs fish, and not much more. But yeah, if the caller is a reg he should be aware of this and call more lightly if the fish calls and our strategy (isolation vs fish) falls apart.
_____________

Another question is about sizing...
UTG open 3bbs, CO calls. BU sqz to 10bb, 12bb same spot but oop, plus 1bb or same size?
Thumb rule about sizing regarding number of callers?

Originally posted by IuriTPena
It's an I ( i ) not an L
Common mistake ♦
Nice 5 points, the very first ones hopefully.

By the way, another question about squeezing oop:
The best result when we squeeze (oop or ip) is always everyone folds (unless we have a monster, ofc), right?
So squeezing is a kind of bluff play (almost) every time. Do you think it's important that we have a polarized squeezing range so we can play aggressive more boards?
At NL50 and below is someone alert/exploiting us if we squeeze just the offsuit brodways and some suited brodways? IMO, probably not, not even the regs.

I doubt it will make a huge different a the lower limits if we squeeze purely a merged range and no speculative hands. It'll be tougher to play postflop but we'll generate more FE preflop with the blockers. And yeah, the best result when squeezing is to get folds and pick up the 6bb or so that's in the middle. Naturally if we are squeezing AA/KK we usually prefer action to folds however.

Originally posted by IuriTPena
Humn, I assume that squeezing is a bluff. But in the video you also refer to squeezing as an isolation. Before discuss the above questions maybe we should discuss this one.
I can see squeezing as an isolation in case of the PFR is a fish so we can play a lot of flops with initiative vs fish, and not much more. But yeah, if the caller is a reg he should be aware of this and call more lightly if the fish calls and our strategy (isolation vs fish) falls apart.

Tbh I don't recall referring to squeezing as an isolation play. The idea was that we should simply be aware of who we are likely to generate action from with our squeeze and adjust our range accordingly.
_____________

Originally posted by IuriTPena
Another question is about sizing...
UTG open 3bbs, CO calls. BU sqz to 10bb, 12bb same spot but oop, plus 1bb or same size?
Thumb rule about sizing regarding number of callers?

Yeah, about 3x + additional x per caller. So essentially 4x. And yes, it's fine to make it slightly larger when OOP and slightly smaller IP. If we are using the ranges advised in the video we will be polarized OOP and more merged IP so this sizing plan makes sense.

Hi w34z3l, I've added you to friend list. Don't know if you accept random so I type here too. I'd like to send u a pm. Thx.

Originally posted by TTR153167832
Hi w34z3l, I've added you to friend list. Don't know if you accept random so I type here too. I'd like to send u a pm. Thx.

Thx for msg, I have added you as friend.

Originally posted by Svinhugg
So the thing I thinking about is what if I don't really worry about that my winrate isn't maximized, I just want a nice winrate that's not such an easy prey for variance ... sort of auto-pilot poker to fall back to when things get rough. What would such an strategy look like? Tighten ranges obviously but is there more to be done?

Svinhugg, I like your approach to move down in stakes and by that, keeping your own Bankroll management rules up:f_thumbsup:. By doing this you probably already got an edge on your opponents on the Micros, because some of them don't care about BRM at all.

When it comes to an Autopilot playing style in a rough stretch, I made the experience that, not thinking deep anymore and by that just klicking buttons in some sort of way, you may end up loosing your enjoyment for the game.

But maybe your Autopilot style is better than mine and for that +EV, if so then keep it up.