Mind Games

Originally posted by VorpalF2F

Adjustments

When our opponents are tight, we loosen up, when they're loose, we tighten up <== Adjust ranges

this is not exactly right.

you loosen up FIRST when opponents BEHIND YOU are tight
you tighten up while defending when opponents who have entered IN FRONT OF YOU are tight.

this distinction needs to be made

Originally posted by mbml

Originally posted by VorpalF2F

Adjustments

When our opponents are tight, we loosen up, when they're loose, we tighten up <== Adjust ranges

this is not exactly right.

you loosen up FIRST when opponents BEHIND YOU are tight
you tighten up while defending when opponents who have entered IN FRONT OF YOU are tight.

this distinction needs to be made

Excellent point!
Thanks for adding that!

you are of course absolutely correct.

At the moment, I believe that almost all of my major leaks are mental in origin, so identifying a purely strategic error might require some outside assistance. Hmm...The notion that my poker leaks are all purely mental is almost certainly wrong, but at this stage, I'm not actually capable of making the distinction

The best thing about mental leaks is that recognizing that you have them is half-way to fixing them

I busted the first few tournaments I played, but didn't feel like stopping, so I reg'd two more -- one of which was the $7.50 2-7 Triple Draw.

And my, am I glad I did!

I can't recall running this good ever. As you can see I lead the pack almost the entire way

Note to self:
Hey Self! -- did you notice how extremely important aggression is even in draw games.

Ran really terribly today -- and played badly in spots too

But in the end it was 4th-place finish in the $2.20 PLO8 for $31.14 that saved the session.

It even covered my $15 losses at PLO8 cash -- I either missed the flop (no hand, no draw) or my hand failed to hold.

<sigh>

Sir, I am very grateful that I've got to find this blog on my very first day of being member of poker strategy club. Just this morning I was in a bus impatiently waiting for the trip to be over while being down on a poker session around 500£ which was basically was my holiday money. I was than watching on how to study and improve poker game and this sort of prep before the ses / feedback after was exactly what I was lacking. Even though I do make profit in live casinos in London (which are closed till this day) having this kind of blogg/diary is a game changer for sure. Haven't read all the blog but deffo gonna come back here to seek wisdom.

Originally posted by Olifatas
Sir, I am very grateful that I've got to find this blog on my very first day of being member of poker strategy club. Just this morning I was in a bus impatiently waiting for the trip to be over while being down on a poker session around 500£ which was basically was my holiday money. I was than watching on how to study and improve poker game and this sort of prep before the ses / feedback after was exactly what I was lacking. Even though I do make profit in live casinos in London (which are closed till this day) having this kind of blogg/diary is a game changer for sure. Haven't read all the blog but deffo gonna come back here to seek wisdom.
Wow!
Thanks so much for dropping by and to my blog.
The first part of the blog is my walk-through of "The Mental Game of Poker" by Jared Tendler and Barry Carter.
I highly recommend that you get this book and go through it as well.

Don't just read it -- DO it. It is a workbook with exercises to help keep your head on straight.

All the best,
VS

Somedays, though it is rigged in my favour...

Pacific Poker - 300/600 Ante 60 NL - Holdem - 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

MP+1: 21,595
MP+2: 16,158
CO: 771
BTN: 25,729
Hero (SB): 18,876
BB: 1,216
UTG: 1,086
UTG+1: 6,035
MP: 1,020

9 players post ante of 60, Hero posts SB 300, BB posts BB 600

Pre Flop: (pot: 1,440) Hero has Q♥:A♦:

fold, fold, fold, fold, MP+2 raises to 2,640, fold, BTN calls 2,640, Hero calls 2,340, fold

Flop: (9,060, 3 players) T♦:2♦:6♦:
Hero bets 16,176 and is all-in, MP+2 calls 13,458 and is all-in, BTN calls 16,176

Turn: (54,870, 3 players) J♦:

River: (54,870, 3 players) 2♣:

MP+2 shows T♣:9♣: (Two Pair, Tens and Twos)

Main Pot [49,434]: (Pre 26%, Flop 9%, Turn 0%)

BTN shows T♥:K♥: (Two Pair, Tens and Twos)

Main Pot [49,434]: (Pre 30%, Flop 39%, Turn 0%)
Side Pot#1 [5,436]: (Pre 38%, Flop 46%, Turn 0%)

Hero shows Q♥:A♦: (Flush, Ace High)

Main Pot [49,434]: (Pre 44%, Flop 52%, Turn 100%)
Side Pot#1 [5,436]: (Pre 62%, Flop 54%, Turn 100%)

Hero wins 49,434
Hero wins 5,436

I was watching RichyRob's Stream just for the edutainment today...
Each day he plays a tournament he calls "The Goldmine". It is a $3.30 Zoom PKO.
I entered it, and quickly got two bounties, and although I built up a largish stack, I never got another bounty since the short-stacks doubled up a bunch and gradually it got to be the short stack and didn't double up.

Here is a hand I rather liked.
I just called because with my deep stack (160 BB) I figured I could speculate a bit.

PokerStars - 40/80 Ante 10 NL FAST - Holdem - 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 9,763
SB: 13,836
BB: 7,062
UTG: 7,856
UTG+1: 15,281
MP: 20,367
MP+1: 20,549
Hero (MP+2): 12,907
CO: 41,135

9 players post ante of 10, SB posts SB 40, BB posts BB 80

Pre Flop: (pot: 210) Hero has K♥:9♥:

fold, fold, MP raises to 160, fold, Hero calls 160, fold, fold, fold, fold

Flop: (530, 2 players) K♣:T♥:K♠:
MP bets 240, Hero calls 240

Turn: (1,010, 2 players) 9♠:
MP bets 1,040, Hero calls 1,040

River: (3,090, 2 players) 7♥:
MP bets 1,520, Hero raises to 4,708, MP raises to 18,917 and is all-in, Hero calls 6,749 and is all-in

MP shows J♦:Q♠: (Straight, King High)
(Pre 40%, Flop 13%, Turn 0%)
Hero shows K♥:9♥: (Full House, Kings full of Nines)
(Pre 60%, Flop 87%, Turn 100%)
Hero wins 26,004

In PLO if you open raise you bet pot, if you three bet, you bet pot (I think)

I really needed to be heads-up here.
I have AA with one suit, and I also have the nut low draw, and blockers to anyone else having a nut low

Pacific Poker - $0.10 PL Hi/Lo - Omaha Hi/Lo - 8 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BB: $11.57
UTG: $7.10
UTG+1: $14.05
MP: $9.81
MP+1: $7.81
CO: $10.00
BTN: $6.45
Hero (SB): $11.85

Hero posts SB $0.05, BB posts BB $0.10

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.15) Hero has A♦:2♣:2♠:A♣:

fold, fold, fold, MP+1 calls $0.10, CO raises to $0.45, BTN calls $0.45, Hero raises to $2.00, fold, fold, CO calls $1.55, fold
We get heads-up -- my pot-sized squeeze pretty much turns my hand face up, and he still called
Flop: ($4.65, 2 players) Q♣:T♦:4♦:
Hero bets $4.65, CO raises to $8.00 and is all-in, Hero calls $3.35 Flop isn't the greatest but no way I'm folding

Turn: ($20.65, 2 players) J♣:

River: ($20.65, 2 players) 6♥:

CO shows A♥:3♦:7♦:8♠: (High Card, Ace)
(Pre 31%, Flop 38%, Turn 25%)
Hero shows A♦:2♣:2♠:A♣: (One Pair, Aces)
(Pre 69%, Flop 62%, Turn 75%)
Hero wins $19.62
Rake paid $1.03

The hand holds, but it leaves you wondering which one of us played it badly

Miracle flop test. Unsuited A3 wants to see 2 on the board. With holding 78 you "expect" 56 to draw for the top straight. and not donkey straight. How often do you see :2x::5x::6x: as a flop?

Suited Aces, A2 what else do you want to see in your PLO8 hand? Doublesuited and an additional wheel card to increase your chances from 24% to 40% of having a low on the river?

Preflop is fine. And I don't mind postflop as I wouldn't want to give a straight draw a free card.
But your opponent was ambitious and went for the fd.

Originally posted by Rhodriguez
Miracle flop test. Unsuited A3 wants to see 2 on the board. With holding 78 you "expect" 56 to draw for the top straight. and not donkey straight. How often do you see :2x::5x::6x: as a flop?

Interesting question -- I'm guessing you already know the answer, but I'll try to figure it out.

3 specific cards OTF
We see 4 cards, so there are 48 unknowns.
There are 17,296 possible Omaha flops
for an unpaired board , there are 64 combinations of the 3 different ranks (4 * 4 * 4)
So the chances of hitting a specific flop are 0.04% or odds of 269:1 I'm surprised that the chance is that good, actually
In reality, though, we really only want the 2, and any two other low cards.

Deuce OTF (or any specific card)
(Assume we don't hold one ourselves)
Of the 48 unknowns, 4 match the card we want, and there are 44 others.
The 44 others can make 946 2-card combos, and each of those can go with one of the 4 deuces, so 3784 flops can possibly contain a deuce.
Thus the chances of landing a flop containing a deuce are 3784/17296 or 21.9% thus odds of 3.6:1 against.

Deuce OTF plus 1 other card <= 8
<I'll do this one later>

Deuce OTF plus 2 other cards <= 8
<I'll do this one later also>

Originally posted by Rhodriguez
Suited Aces, A2 what else do you want to see in your PLO8 hand? Doublesuited and an additional wheel card to increase your chances from 24% to 40% of having a low on the river?

Well, my all-time favourite card to hold for my second low card is the magic 6.
If you hold the six, and the A2, then if two players make a wheel by the river, you have the higher straight and get 3/4 of the pot.
Next favourite card is a 3, since even if the deuce doesn't hit, 2nd nut low is often good for 1/2 the pot.

AA32 DS is considered the best PLO8 starting hand.
AK32 is also way up there

Thanks for the comments.
I wish we had more PLO8 players on PokerStrategy.com !

These two hands are just a couple of hands that I didn't "just fold" when faced with aggression, while holding less than an ideal hand.

Hand #1:

Hand #2:

Of course it helps to have a stack that can afford a bit of risk...

Deuce OTF plus 2 other cards <= 8
This is carried forward from this earlier post: https://forums.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?postid=3161269#post3161269
The situation: We are playing Pot Limit Omaha Hi/Lo split, usually referred to has PLO8. The "8" comes from the fact that the low hand must consist of 5 unique ranks all 8 or less.
Straights and flushes don't count -- just 5 unique ranks. He best lo hand is a "wheel" 5,4,3,2,A

For this calculation, we assume that our hand has A3XX
This hand is an open fold unless it has something else going for it -- Broadway values, another A perhaps or a K or Q the same suit as the A
We saw in the earlier post that there was a 21.9% chance of landing a flop containing 1 specific card -- in this case we want a deuce.
But that is for any two "other" cards.
For this calculation, we still want the deuce, but now we'll only accept cards 8 or less.
We'll include the A, because we really don't mind pairing out A.
We won't worry about suits.

We have seen 4 cards, so there are 48 unknowns.
There are 17,296 possible flops in total
We disregard 4 each of K,Q,J,T,9 and the three remaining 3s
So there are 23 cards we don't want to see on the flop.
So of our 48 unknowns, 25 are "live".
4 are the deuce that said we want, the other 21 are the other cards that make up the flop.
Those 21 cards make 210 2-card combos -- some will be pairs (see below)
So there are 840 possible flops containing a deuce and two low cards if we don't mind that we might have a pair besides the deuce.
to ensure uniqueness, we eliminate the 6 combos for each lo rank that are pairs, plus the 3 combos of pairs for our A and deuce
So that is 36 combinations that represent pairs.
210 - 36 = 174 combinations of cards that give us the nut low.

174/17296 = 10% or odds of 98.4:1 against flopping the nut low when holding A3XX

I guess I have to read "Pot Limit Omaha 8 Revealed" after 11 years again. If this is still valid?

If you don't mind I make a rough calculation. Because I have the feeling here is something wrong an oversight.

Originally posted by VorpalF2F
4 are the deuce that said we want, the other 21 are the other cards that make up the flop.
Those 21 cards make 210 2-card combos -- some will be pairs (see below)
So there are 840 possible flops containing a deuce and two low cards if we don't mind that we might have a pair besides the deuce.
to ensure uniqueness, we eliminate the 6 combos for each lo rank that are pairs, plus the 3 combos of pairs for our A and deuce
So that is 36 combinations that represent pairs.
210 - 36 = 174 combinations of cards that give us the nut low.

174/17296 = 10% or odds of 98.4:1 against flopping the nut low when holding A3XX

I have the feeling like, as the 210 is only for two cards, you are missing to multiply these 174 (which I doubt also) with the four 2s from the deck.

My calculation: We pick two from [4,5,6,7,8] = 10 possibilities. Each possibility multiplied by 4*4 = 160 2-low-card-combos without [A,2,3]. 160 multiplied by 4 [2] = 640 flops.

640 / 17296 = 3.70%.

Or I'm mistaken.

Originally posted by Rhodriguez
I have the feeling like, as the 210 is only for two cards, you are missing to multiply these 174 (which I doubt also) with the four 2s from the deck.

Bingo -- well spotted.
I'll correct the original post
Using combinatorics, I get a slightly different answer, but close enough.
I don't have time right now to figure out the error.

Originally posted by Rhodriguez
I guess I have to read "Pot Limit Omaha 8 Revealed" after 11 years again. If this is still valid?

I can't see why it wouldn't be -- It was written in 2009, and the odds haven't changed in the last 11 years.
What has changed though is the introduction of Game Theory into the poker world, and rather than just open strictly by the odds, we should be mixing it up a bit.

In tournaments, using ICM is really important too -- does the book cover that?
I looked up the book to see if there was a Kindle edition but sadly no, and $64 bux is out of my price range...
https://www.amazon.ca/Pot-Limit-Omaha-8-Revealed/dp/1442197633

Originally posted by VorpalF2F
In tournaments, using ICM is really important too -- does the book cover that?
I looked up the book to see if there was a Kindle edition but sadly no, and $64 bux is out of my price range...
https://www.amazon.ca/Pot-Limit-Omaha-8-Revealed/dp/1442197633/blockquote >

The chapter about sng's and mtt's is 15 pages and explicitly mentions that it's not about ICM.

The newer version https://www.amazon.ca/Pot-Limit-Omaha-Revealed-Expanded/dp/1453770836 is a bit cheaper 40 CAD. Dan Deppen sells his book also on his homepage as a pdf. And is was lucky that I got the free updated version eventhough I had paid less.

I will try to re-read it. But of course it's the old style of writing a poker book. A part is pot limit odds in general, a part poker in general that we all know already. Then a list of some catch phrases to keep in mind when playing. It's a good place to start if one has no clue and needs to have collected everything in one place. But as I read you previous thoughts on plo8 i can say it doesn't really go deeper than that. It would not e a revelation anymore.

Monte-Carlo-Simulation

Spoiler

I had Odds Oracle for a while, but cancelled my subscription.
I don't make enough from poker to justify the expense.

I could not find Dan Deppen's website -- at least not one that included his book

Odds Oracle is a one time purchase. It's needed e.g. to use pokerjuice. If you used that "skin" you might still have PPT Odds Oracle.

Dan Deppen's page is: http://www.plo8poker.com/