casual chill ZOOM pokers

we crossed another milestone

easy game, or very easy? i'll go with just "easy" for now...

small turn overbets aren't what they used to be.
i'm actually a big fan of folding hands, but you're going to have to try a little harder than that

PokerStars - $0.16 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 99.81 BB
SB: 107.06 BB
Hero (BB): 173.06 BB
UTG: 111 BB
MP: 101.5 BB
CO: 241.25 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has Q♠ T♠

fold, fold, CO raises to 2.13 BB, fold, fold, Hero calls 1.13 BB

Flop: (4.75 BB, 2 players) 3♣ 3♥ Q♦
Hero checks, CO bets 1.63 BB, Hero calls 1.63 BB

Turn: (8 BB, 2 players) 8♣
Hero checks, CO bets 8.25 BB, Hero calls 8.25 BB

River: (24.5 BB, 2 players) 5♠
Hero checks, CO checks

Hero shows Q♠ T♠ (Two Pair, Queens and Threes)
(Pre 45%, Flop 82%, Turn 75%)
CO mucks A♣ 2♣ (One Pair, Threes)
(Pre 55%, Flop 18%, Turn 25%)
Hero wins 23.38 BB

PokerStars - $0.16 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 118.88 BB
SB: 107.69 BB
Hero (BB): 114.5 BB
UTG: 100 BB
MP: 100.5 BB
CO: 194.69 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has Q♠ T♦

fold, fold, fold, fold, SB raises to 3 BB, Hero calls 2 BB

Flop: (6 BB, 2 players) 3♣ 2♣ Q♥
SB bets 4 BB, Hero calls 4 BB

Turn: (14 BB, 2 players) 3♠
SB bets 15 BB, Hero calls 15 BB

River: (44 BB, 2 players) 6♣
SB checks, Hero checks

SB shows J♦ 8♦ (One Pair, Threes)
(Pre 38%, Flop 3%, Turn 0%)
Hero shows Q♠ T♦ (Two Pair, Queens and Threes)
(Pre 62%, Flop 97%, Turn 100%)
Hero wins 42 BB

0% equity and then of course he doesn't have the balls to fire the decently good river, dealing with some real pro regs here

on another subject, does anyone play partypoker fastforward? any thoughts on it?
i am just curious.

Hello, nice blog.

On the two last hand histories it's more pot bets than overbets turn but whatever.

I play a little on partypoker but not on the .com, I have railed people on it though and it seemed pretty fishy, agro, sticky etc if it's what you wanted to know. Clearly less nitty than pokerstars as the cliche goes.

hey, thanks!
hand histories still show rake, so the actual pot display is a bit smaller. but yeah, it definitely plays more like a potsize bet with an extra layer of leveling thrown in.

month:

nl10 10k hands 3.33 EVBB
nl16 32k hands 6.77 EVBB

so EASY!
instead of moving up yet i should probably just run some leak analysis first, i don't like my play in a lot of spots...

What do you use for analysis? Since your using pt4 , im guessing leak tracker? when you reach 50k hands , you should try leakbuster its much more accurate.

custom filters

mp some kind of aggro fish, sb reg.
flop played out exactly as i visualized the best case scenario going, got the reg's hand strength correctly but didn't expect that actual holding (seems too weak to play oop, just setmining seems a bit optimistic given that you don't even close the preflop action)

PokerStars - $0.16 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 115.19 BB
SB: 110.69 BB
BB: 85.63 BB
UTG: 15.75 BB
MP: 322.75 BB
Hero (CO): 192.44 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has Q♣ A♣

fold, MP raises to 3.5 BB, Hero raises to 9 BB, fold, SB requests TIME, SB calls 8.5 BB, fold, MP calls 5.5 BB

Flop: (28 BB, 3 players) K♠ J♦ T♥
SB checks, MP bets 20.06 BB, Hero SNAPcalls 20.06 BB, SB raises to 50 BB, MP calls 29.94 BB, Hero SNAPraises to 183.44 BB and is all-in, SB calls 51.69 BB and is all-in, MP calls 133.44 BB

MP shows Q♦ K♦ (One Pair, Kings)
Main Pot [333.06 BB]: (Pre 24%, Flop 11%)
Side Pot#1 [163.5 BB]: (Pre 29%, Flop 13%)

Hero shows Q♣ A♣ (Straight, Ace High)
Main Pot [333.06 BB]: (Pre 35%, Flop 59%)
Side Pot#1 [163.5 BB]: (Pre 71%, Flop 87%)

SB shows T♠ T♣ (Three of a Kind, Tens)
Main Pot [333.06 BB]: (Pre 40%, Flop 30%)

Turn: (496.56 BB, 3 players) 7♦

River: (496.56 BB, 3 players) 4♥

MP shows Q♦ K♦ (One Pair, Kings)
Main Pot [333.06 BB]: (Pre 24%, Flop 11%, Turn 21%)
Side Pot#1 [163.5 BB]: (Pre 29%, Flop 13%, Turn 24%)

Hero shows Q♣ A♣ (Straight, Ace High)
Main Pot [333.06 BB]: (Pre 35%, Flop 59%, Turn 57%)
Side Pot#1 [163.5 BB]: (Pre 71%, Flop 87%, Turn 76%)

SB shows T♠ T♣ (Three of a Kind, Tens)
Main Pot [333.06 BB]: (Pre 40%, Flop 30%, Turn 21%)

Hero wins 487.19 BB

Wow:f_thumbsup: I think I'm gonna leave NL5 and go for NL16..

it's not all great!

tough to say if most of it is runbad or if i also overadjusted my game - that's the problem with poker, you can never be sure...

nl16 month

i believe that my game has improved, but the results didn't, so i want to say that i ran bad. of course, if we all are to be believed, everyone always runs bad all the time, so this doesn't mean much. (i do realize my previous game most likely wasn't 6 BB/100 level either)
the other news is that we hit $1250 and should play nl25. however, i'm not happy with anything less than a crushing result in this limit, so might well keep refining my game further, because it's harder to add aggression right when moving up.

the total nl16 sample is 64k hands at 4 AI EVBB.

the elusive upswing day has showed up to literally double the month's winrate

lol

Lol good surprise

today, for something different, i'll be posting about avatar tells!
i've read some of the "literature" on the subject and, frankly, it fucking sucks. there were perhaps two good pages out of a dozen.

so, let's get started.
do you play with avatars off? you're missing out!

firstly, i should reiterate the well-known fact that there is a strong inverse correlation between age and skill.
everyone knows that old players tend to be big fish whose best poker reference, if they have one, is Doyle Brunson's "SUPER SYSTEM" from 1979 or, if they're lucky, "Harrington on Cash Games" from 2008. young players, on the other hand, tend to either be regs or at least have come in contact with the game via a more "dangerous" source.

thus, as a general rule, avatars and screennames that indicate oldness should make you more inclined to believe that they are recreationals, while avatars and screennames that indicate youngness should make you more inclined to believe that they are regs.

so, without further ado, let's begin with the "recreational" avatars:

baby: this is a VERY reliable tell because having a baby indicates either old age or a general lack of life planning, either of which are good to have as an opponent. most likely very loose-passive.

any pet that is not a cat: most likely the avatar is the family pet and, thus, the player is an old loose-passive recreational. cats (specially memey ones) are not included because, as we all know, the internet loves cats and that might indicate that he is a young player instead.

sports team/player: this will mostly (but not always) be a recreational. however, reg or not, these guys tend to like action and will be considerably more aggressive than average. be prepared to stack off lighter and expect a lot of variance.

random live poker selfie: surprisingly (or not), this player most likely isn't going to be very strong, specially if you see that he's not young. while he's not going to be the worst player in the table, he's likely to be weak-tight for modern standards, so raise his blinds and attack his checks aggressively. this is the most likely player type to berate opponents in chat for not being weak-tight and to pull off some completely random zero equity multibarrel bluff because they "felt" like "making a move" (but don't call them down light).

uninspired choice (e.g. default windows wallpapers): this player most likely doesn't really care about his time playing internet pokers. likely to make random plays and overbet jam preflop if they've lost some money and feel like finishing the session.

known pro avatar: this might not be an old player, but he's not going to be a very good one. most likely a weak reg who spends too much time watching irrelevant poker videos on youtube instead of working on his own game. within 100 hands you should be able to tell if he's weak-tight or loose-spewy.

now, on to the "reg" avatars:

memes: this is a very strong tell for a young player and, thus, a reg. likely to be more aggressive than average. do note that freshness of the meme should also be considered - pepe the frog is generally going to be a stronger player than trollface.

anime: this is pretty much always a regular. watch out for specially obscure titles, which means that the player is a massive nerd.

video games (retro included): probably nearing their 30s, but if they aren't taking the game seriously right now, they have at least taken the game seriously at some point. likely reg.

hot girl: sometimes an old fish, but most likely a young reg. all that flowing testosterone makes these players likely to be more aggressive than average as well.

poker team: obviously won't be the biggest fish at the table, but you probably shouldn't be too concerned. they are most likely tournament players who won't be that strong in cash games.

and finally, the neutrals. look for clues in the username:

no avatar: the player is intentionally trying to conceal information or just doesn't care.

one of the many default avatars: regs and recs alike use those. i haven't noticed any trend in the specifics either (such as choosing "horseshoe" or "shark"), but if you see a recreational using something aggressive like a shark, you should expect him to be more aggressive than average.

that's it for today! obviously, it should be said that these are just tendencies and that, if you have actual stats, you should use them instead.
good luck at the tables! or not, whatever, i don't really care. nobody really cares.

I dunno.. am few months short 40 and a reg..learn Via coaching and backnin The MTT Days from a community of hard hitting regs..
And like you Said My avatar feels The same..

Originally posted by Team0zum
I dunno.. am few months short 40 and a reg..learn Via coaching and backnin The MTT Days from a community of hard hitting regs..

of course there are a number of 40+ age players who are very good players, but there's no doubt the path is much easier with a young brain and no real responsibilities. obviously, you should be happy to be in the exception, and anyone who works hard enough can make it, regardless of age or avatar choice ♦

Great article, but what about a cup of coffee avatar ? Smells fishy to me ♦

partypoker support adventures

so, after not playing in partypoker in basically forever in poker time (since 2013-2014?), i figured i should at least check it out.
first things first, somehow my account isn't verified anymore. i assume that has to do with the new management, so yeah whatever, i send in the documents. they get accepted, all good there.

however...
as old regs might remember, it used to be a partypoker feature that you could change your screen name every 180 days. naturally, i didn't take my screen name choice that seriously at the time, given the assumption that i would be able to change it later. however, i couldn't find the option anymore, so i decide to ask about it in live chat support before actually depositing real money - these things are actually pretty important to me and i would probably not actually want to be a partypoker reg if that got denied.

tl;dr: good response times and you actually get the feeling that you are speaking to actual humans. however, it seems that the subject i asked about was obscure enough that half the guys didn't actually know the exact details and provided wrong information.
i get the feeling that this specific subject has gone through a few policy changes at least somewhat recently and not all people got all the memos yet, don't really want to blame them.

i always try my best to be really nice to support, because i think it's ++EV.
i was actually much nicer to them than i'm letting out here. i mean, there's no point in being mad at support, it's only very rarely their fault. being nice also makes them happier to actually look into your issue.

where were we at? ah yes, i wanted to contact live chat support regarding changing my screen name.
so yeah, i get in queue. waiting times are pretty short (mostly not over a minute) - that's good.

first guy tells me that yes, i can still change once every 180 days and that i should just do xyz. that made sense to me, since that information still is in their faq pages. so i thank the guy, wish him a nice day and leave.
of course, i somehow couldn't manage to do xyz, so i just go to sleep wondering if i'm actually a fucking retard. (even if this is not my fault, i might still be a fucking retard, can't ever be sure)

new day comes, i get in line to chat with a new guy.
new guy tells me that no i actually can't do it, so i am like that's unfortunate but dude please i haven't been here in forever and old policy was x and i wasn't expecting to be stuck with this screen name. so he's like well ok that's fair, we can make an exception in this case, just give me an username choice and log out of your account, give me like an hour and i'll do it.
great! so i log out and go play on pokerstars.

i finish the session and log in to partypoker - nothing. i decide to wait another day before pestering them again, maybe the guy had to escalate it, who knows.
of course, i log in the next day and there's nothing. so i get in line to chat with third guy.

third guy tells me that no i actually can't do it, so i am like that's unfortunate but dude please i haven't been here in forever and old policy was x and i wasn't expecting to be stuck with this screen name. so he's like well ok that's fair, we can make an exception in this case, just give me an username choice and log out of your account.
so i give him an username and he's like NO!!! sorry but you can only use alphanumeric characters and underscores, i suggest you use an underscore instead.

WTF??? why didn't guy 2 say this? partypoker screennames used to be like anything goes - the one i was stuck with even had a space. clearly these "special" screen names are still out in the wild. so i guess guy 2 just didn't know and that's why he ended up not being able to do it? also what the fuck kinda change you make in your database that you don't accept these screennames anymore but you can keep old ones?

so i say sorry and request timebank ("give me a minute") for the very tough decision to make under pressure of whether to use a fucking underscore/make up an username/leave it for later in what would probably be another frustrating experience. i expired my timebank so he figures he has to call the clock ("are we still online?"), to which i decide to just go with the flow. i give him an username, thank him and log out.

you think it's over? not yet!

about 30 minutes later, i get an email from the guy saying that it couldn't be done because i was actually still logged in somewhere somehow.
now, i had definitely closed the software and didn't have any browser open, so my main hypothesis was that there still was some active cookie from some random visit from at least a full 24 hours ago. why the fuck is a session that hasn't been used in over 24 hours still active? or did it get refreshed when i logged in the software? either way, it shouldn't have been a thing.

whatever, i clear all my partypoker cookies and reply.

about two hours later i get a reply from a new guy (guy 4). he says please confirm your information etc, and...

Originally posted by partypoker Customer Service (snipped)
[...]
Please also send us five suggestions (in order of preference) for your new nickname.

When making your choice, please consider the following points:

- Your nickname may not be the same as your username
- Your nickname must contain 5-15 characters (characters which may be included in the screen name are A-Z,a-z and 0-9. Special characters may be spaces, _,-, and dot .)
- Your nickname may not start with any special character and can only contain one space between two characters.
- Your nickname can not be changed if you're playing a game or you're registered in a tournament. Before writing back to us please unregister from all tournaments.

We would also like to inform you that you will not be able to change your nickname again. As soon as we receive your details, we will make the necessary changes.
[...]

of course, i'm clearly ecstatic at these news. so it turns out that i can use these characters after all?
not wanting to take my chances since i was pretty sure that my top choice wasn't taken, i reply with usernames that all have a special character in them.

the reply comes in less than an hour (very good).

however, it turns out that my precautions were rewarded!
i get a reply by a different guy (guy 5):

Originally posted by partypoker Customer Service (snipped)
[...]
Due to the fact that our system does not allow us to input the "." symbol in the screen name we have changed your screen name to <redacted>.

If you have any issues with this, please revert back to us with an alternative option to see what we can do.

Please bear in mind once again that you cannot change your screen name again after it has been changed once.
[...]

WTF????? of course i have "issues with this".
guy 4 literally just told me that i could use that symbol, so i did. so it turns out that i actually can't do it?
this is so sad alexa play despacito

the epic conclusion is that i think about it for a moment and send a reply regarding my final screen name choice.
it gets acknowledged quickly and i do have a new screen name.

a dramatic tale of success, but no success.

partypoker fastforward first thoughts

first things first - generally speaking, the fish-to-reg ratio seems to be not as nice as in pokerstars, but it's not awful.
edit: actually, i take that back. you have to be careful or you might be stuck with a VERY low number of fishes in the pool - i played some nl5 in what i figured that were some "reg hours" because i have a twisted sick definition of "fun". it was one of the most depressing sights i have ever seen, 3k hands and then i check and pretty much everyone is losing to rake, no hands ever get action and i barely eeked out a pre-rakeback profit while exploiting the fuck out of the weak regs (almost everyone). rake was about 8 BB/100 for my style.
conclusion: the better of them might be small winners post-rb, but that was truly depressing. it turns out that having fish in the pool is pretty important.

the pool is DEAD at this time of the day (like canada nighttime), only nl25 and nl5 seem to actually run at this hour in weekdays. however, i managed to get some HU/short action from nl10 regs sometimes, and most likely the same thing happens at nl50 and nl100.

the software is not bad (it's actually mostly pretty good), but there are a few quirks that made me struggle to keep up a high level of play in 4 fast fold tables.
the main issue for me is that, for some reason, some of the buttons aren't immediately responsive. sometimes you click fast fold and it doesn't fold (seems to happen sometimes when you do it just when another player is also folding), but the worst is with the betsizing adjustment clicks (the +/- to add/subtract a blind).
if you click a bunch of times very fast, it won't register all the clicks, thus making you lose precious time, which is VERY tilting. however, the mouse wheel works just fine, but i'm not used to it. partypoker will force me to get used to it.

a minor thing is that adding a color tag requires a little more effort (double-click player + clicking a quite small color square). however, it's not a huge difference, and given the size of the player pool that's not really a big problem.

the good: it's mostly quite nice. the main upsides compared to pokerstars are that they allow up to 5 betsizing buttons (compared to 4 in stars) and there's a built-in option to display bet amounts in BB (eliminating the need for something such as starshelper or starscaption as far as that is concerned). also, of course, they have rewards that don't completely suck, and it's easy enough to keep track of them.

i'll most likely remain a pokerstars main. but who knows, partypoker might grow on me.

after a very annoying session, i pulled off a cooler of my own:

PokerStars - $0.16 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 160.13 BB
Hero (SB): 191.75 BB
BB: 107.13 BB
UTG: 70.88 BB
MP: 143.81 BB
CO: 112.38 BB

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has A♠ A♣

fold, fold, CO raises to 2.38 BB, BTN raises to 9.5 BB, Hero raises to 26 BB, fold, fold, BTN calls 16.5 BB

Flop: (55.38 BB, 2 players) T♦ 6♠ T♠
Hero checks, BTN checks

Turn: (55.38 BB, 2 players) 4♥
Hero bets 31.75 BB, BTN calls 31.75 BB

River: (118.88 BB, 2 players) T♣
Hero bets 134 BB and is all-in, BTN calls 102.38 BB and is all-in

Hero shows A♠ A♣ (Full House, Tens full of Aces)
(Pre 82%, Flop 92%, Turn 95%)
BTN shows K♦ K♠ (Full House, Tens full of Kings)
(Pre 18%, Flop 8%, Turn 5%)
Hero wins 314.25 BB

standard. or is it?
well, basically everyone would say so.

the question is, how do you tend to approach this spot (slightly deeper stacks) from both perspectives?
i see this approach of checking 100% of flops as the 4bettor quite a bit (and it's the one that i use myself, since i don't want to be spazzing out with missed 4bet hands here). is it better to just assume that we have tons of fold equity and cbet 33% sizing at close to 100% frequency instead? i think we'll mostly be donating money if we don't follow up and it can get very spewy really fast.

from villain's perspective, everything sucks, of course. i've actually played a number of these 4betpots AA vs KK from both sides and they seem to go like this really often.
the KK player checks behind the flop desperately trying to pot control/induce bluffs/spike a king, but of course it's a 4bet pot and it's easy to get the stacks in. both players know that the river ranges are incredibly narrow, but they feel compelled to just play out the script. ("can't just fold top of our range, can we? we even checked the flop! maybe he has QQ or AK or whatever!")

well, everyone will probably continue to stack AA vs KK in similar pots. it just is what it is.
(disclaimer: this spot isn't important for your winrate.)

I don't find it standard. The standard in 4bet pot would rather be to cbet 1/4 flop with more or less your whole range (moreover when you're deep).
By slowplaying the flop you aren't achieving anything. Lots of bad regs are doing it in the meta and in a 4bet pot anyone can see your range is strong and your bluffs wouldn't go that way so anyone seeing a check flop followed by 2 big barrels should't be calling lighter than they'd have if you'd have bet since the flop.

But then again not shoving pre KK vs AA BU vs SB is already weird of course. Are NL16 players that nit ?