durinko

my first posted hands

AQo 11.1.
QQ 11.1.

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

Bankroll-management is a common leak for beginners. They just don't see how important it's actually to follow the BRM. Without following it you could say that you are just gambling with your money. For that reason we really need to find a way how we gonna follow strictly to the BRM and never try to play besides it. Or it will be hard to make you a good poker player. Try to find a way, just force yourself to follow the rule even if it's hard at the beginning.

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.

What about tilt? Do you somehow adjust to it, for example:
Easiest way to fight against tilt is to set up stop-loss technique. Which means if you for example have lost more than 3BIs for a session then you just stop the session for some time. The BI amount is set up from your own results. Some may put it higher, some lower. Also after the stop you can spend some time with evaluation part to become better.

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.

Sorry for being away for a longer time, I was playing SnGs and learning various aspects of SnG play. But I want to come back to cash games and learn them properly so I will try to continue this begginers' learning path

About your question about tilt adjustments - I stop immediately when I feel like I am not playing my best game anymore. For stop-loss technique, in cash game I use 5 BI rule.

Looking forward to play some cash games again.

Oh no problem mate, you are always welcome back to join when you have time or want.

Homework No.2

Question 1: What do you think you could play differently than suggested in the BSS Starting Hands Chart and why? (Are there any hands you would play differently? Do you have a problem or question about how a specific hand or hands should be played?)

Question 2: Do you have questions about your preflop play? Post your hand for evaluation. ( Post your hand in the Hand evaluation forums and provide a link to your hand in your private thread in the Locker Room.)

Question 3: What is the equity of AKo against the top 5% range? 5% means 88+, AJs+, KQs, AKo. ( You can either calculate this yourself or use an equity calculator such as the PokerStrategy.com Equilab.)

Q1
I make adjustments to starting hands chart depending on how my opponents at the table play. The more passive opponents there are, the more opened my range is, especially from CO and BU. In SBvsBB situations I steal a lot, again depending on the tendencies of my opponent. From some of them I steal with ~70 percent of range and proceed cautiously when I'm called. I also take into account Fold Flop vs Cbet stat - I don't really mind when someone with high percentage over bigger sample size calls my steal with speculative hand.

Q2
NL5 AK

And one question about betsizing - I have read various articles about pf play and also some books - some advocate 3BB rule, some (together with pokerstrategy) 4BB rule, some online coaches vary their betsize according to position (e.g. 2.5 from EP, 3 from MP, 3.5 from LP). Therefore I would like to ask you, why do you guys on pokerstrategy prefer 4BB rule (just being curious)

Q3
AK vs top 5% is 46.509% vs 53.491% (Pokerstove).

88 21.4.

Q1
Equity preflop is 50.78 to 49.22.
Postflop equity changes to 26.465 to 73.535

Q2
In following situation we have 9 outs to make the best hand - flush and with 1 card to come our odds are 4:1. We have to call 22 cents into 91 cents already in pot. That is we are getting 4,13:1 pot odds and we can call profitably in this spot.
If opponent had a set of 5s or 6s (as I don't expect a lot of players to call with 33 or 22 after preflop raise), we would have to discount 6c and 3c (one giving him quads, second giving him fullhouse). Then we would have 7 clean outs and our odds will be 6:1. We could call if we expect our opponent to pay us well if we hit our flush on river.

If we are sure that he does not have 77 or 78, we can include 4 to our outs.

Q3
AKs 23.4.
A5o 23.4.
KK 23.4.
QTs 23.4.

one extra question: i would like to ask you, if pokerstrategy won't launch something like study group for chosen members. I saw this concept on one different poker page - members of a study group have to do something similar like homeworks here in this beginner's course + evaluate their hands together within a group, have to make their own blog with weekly graphs etc + if they meet some criteria (etc. some ammount of hands played in a month) they are rewarded with some extra cash, coaching sessions or leakfinders etc. I think this concept is quite nice

KK 28.4.
AK 28.4.
AKs 28.4.
QQ 28.4.

Good job! Homework #2 Done!

Totally agree with you about the stealing ranges. Against specific opponents we adjust, either wider range or tighter range. 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. As for example stealing too many hands from SB and being out of position.

Therefore I would like to ask you, why do you guys on pokerstrategy prefer 4BB rule (just being curious)

Usually on lower limits till NL10 4xBB from almost every position. From late position you can do smaller raises cause of wider stealing range and also vs smaller stacks. There are different kind of raise sizes, I guess the best would be if you posted some hands and we could talk there.

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.

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!

one extra question: i would like to ask you, if pokerstrategy won't launch something like study group for chosen members. I saw this concept on one different poker page - members of a study group have to do something similar like homeworks here in this beginner's course + evaluate their hands together within a group, have to make their own blog with weekly graphs etc + if they meet some criteria (etc. some ammount of hands played in a month) they are rewarded with some extra cash, coaching sessions or leakfinders etc. I think this concept is quite nice

Doubt that it's going to happen in few months, it might be in like half of a year or so. You will definitely hear about it. I have heard about the Polish community version one, although not sure if we going to change the same way, we will see. But thanks for the tip, I forwarded it.

Just a short ~1/2 hour session today on NL5. Profit: 11.29 USD. Shame that I didn't have more time today, the tables were fishy as hell.

One hand for evaluation:
J8 29.4.

edit: one more thing - isn't it possible to somehow "retrack" my pokerstars account to pokerstrategy so I can get the strategy points? Because I mainly play there but without having it tracked I won't have an access to more articles I wanted to move my BR to partypoker where I had my 50 dollar bonus from pokerstrategy but at the moment pokertracker doesn't support HUD on Mac for PP and multitabling without HUD is hard...:-/

TT 1.5.
QQ 1.5.
77 1.5.
22 1.5.

Hi

In last weeks I was thinking about migrating my account somewhere else and move back to stars when I reach some bankroll level, which I can possibly think about grinding to SN(E) with. Would you change site if you were me?
Party is out of question until PTR solves problem with HandHistories and HUD for Mac for it so I was thinking - maybe TitanPoker or WilliamHill. Is traffic on my stakes comparable to Stars?

Or should I just stay on stars and grind my way up? I will be glad for any suggestions Thanks

edit: moved this question to Choosing the right poker room for you thread

Q1
AA 4.5.
AQ 4.5.
KK 4.5.
QQ v2 4.5.
99 4.5.

Q2
Hand evaluation

Q3
equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 41.414% 41.41% 00.00% 410 0.00 { KsQd }
Hand 1: 58.586% 58.59% 00.00% 580 0.00 { 7c7h }

KQ 7.5. NL5
33 7.5. NL5
TT 7.5. NL5
JJ 4.5. NL5
44 7.5. NL5
AJs 7.5. NL5

isn't it possible to somehow "retrack" my pokerstars account to pokerstrategy so I can get the strategy points

Unfortunately it's not possible.

In last weeks I was thinking about migrating my account somewhere else and move back to stars when I reach some bankroll level, which I can possibly think about grinding to SN(E) with. Would you change site if you were me?

Grinding for SNE? What limits you play? Even grinding for SN is difficult for low limits.

Party is out of question until PTR solves problem with HandHistories and HUD for Mac for it so I was thinking - maybe TitanPoker or WilliamHill. Is traffic on my stakes comparable to Stars?

As long you are playing FR the main sites which I'd advice to pick would be Party/888/Ongame. Those are good for FR, not really sure if iPoker network has a lot of FR games running which WH & Titan are.

Or should I just stay on stars and grind my way up?

My advice try out 888, it's super loose and you can also get tracked. You will be amazed how bad the players there are and might even get better bonuses there, they are very often offering different bonuses/reload ones/insta cash and etc.

Good job! Homework #4 Done!

This weeks homework was a bit easier. But the idea of that is to help you go through last weeks stuff if you didn't go through everything. Or either way maybe even read some more articles, watch some videos and of course attend in the coaching. What will also help for your game is the evaluation part of other members hands and of course posting your own hands.

If you have interests you could try calculating the equity with a formula which you can use even on tables(either playing online or live poker):
(Amount of outs x 4) – (Amount of outs – 8) = Your Equity

About Question #3:

Board: J♠9♣8♥
       Equity     Win     Tie
UTG    41.41%  41.41%   0.00% { KsQd }
UTG+1  58.59%  58.59%   0.00% { 7h7c }

Hopefully this wasn't too easy homework for you.