anhvusa

Hey anhvusa,

I'm positive that if you work hard and concentrate on your game, you'll learn a great deal from the course and be able to control your tilt and 'must see showdown' issues.

Glglglglgl!

Marc

Thanks Marc for the words that encourage me so much!

Although I don't have much time too much after work, but I will try my best as I can to keep up with the school and improve my games much better!

Best regard!

anhvusa

Question 1: What is your motivation for playing poker?

At the time when I'm asking myself that What makes me want to play poker the most? I can jot down many things in poker that make me feel like I want to join the game immediately. But here are the things that I think they are the main reasons that can answer the question "Why do play poker?" reasonably:

+ Fun: Not only winnings make me feel happy, but in sometimes it's funny when I can see how fool I am, or just see the way that the other players communicate with each others through the game.

+ Mindset: I've found myself that poker is not a just a simple cards game. It's like an arena where players not only use their skills, experience (ofc luck somehow) to achieve winning, but sometimes they have to lay down to let their apponent win a hand to make them safe in the long run. Therefore, I can learn myself some lessons that can help me in my real life ie. analying skills, thinking carefully before making decisions, controlling my emotions etc.

+ Money: having alot of money from winning that can make my life comfortable somehow, but above all it's also one of the measurements that judge how well i played. At the beginner of poker, I think my first goal is to build and manage a solid BR that can make me to move up higher limits.

Question 2: What are your weaknesses when playing poker?

After read the articles for the 1st lesson, I realized that I still lack of many things that make my games improve, and I consider them as my weaknesses. Here is some of them:

+ Tilt: I got tilt easily esp after play for a long period (like 3-4 continuing hours).

+ Experience: Sometimes I've caught in difficult situations and made wrong decisions. I think I should play much more to get experience. (I still wonder whether 1-2hrs/day is enough for me to get experience in poker?)

+ Playing at the wrong momments: after get drunk or after a hard working day.

+ I'm the kind of the ones who like to see the showdown so bad, though sometimes I could analyze and realize how strong my opponent was, but... I can't help it.

Question 3: What does it mean to play tight-aggressive?

Tight-aggressive playing is a playing style in which you play with your carefully selected cards with a aggressive route (check/raise, bet/raise, bet/push) in that can put your opponents into difficult situation and hardly make decisions. This playing style also can keep you safe for a limit (b/c you carefully select cards to play). Hence, in my opinion, tight-aggressive playing style is like a "sword" that can make you win, but it's also like a "shield" to keep you safe in the game.

English is not my mother tounge so it's quite tough for me to express all things that I want to say. So take it easy! ♦

Hello anhvusa,

Easiest wait 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 wanting. Some may put it higher, some lower. And after the stop you can easily just spend some time with evaluating your play.

Playing drunk is just horrible. It's usually the case that you are either way too aggressive, some even are too nitty. I wouldn't recommend playing poker when drunk. Unless you have a BR and you can play very small-stakes.

Most of the other weakness you wrote can easily be fixed with you posting hands. We will start writing feedback to your play. And usually negative feedback will put you into thinking phase and trying to fix all those leaks. It's almost the same as you loose money, you will remember it more than winning part.

Welcome to the Course and Best of luck! First points earned.

Hi veriz!

Thank you for your points and your priceless advices that would help me improve my playing style too much. I've tried (not too much, but enough) and realized that the stop-loss tech helped me somehow and brought me a lot of benefit in BR building and I appreciate it.

Best regards,

anhvusa

Question 1: What do you think you could play differently than how it is in the BSS Starting Hands Chart, and why?

I think I could play differently than how it is in the BSS SHC because of those reasons:

+ SHC doesn't mention in detail how much we could bet/raise/re-raise in a particular situation like how many players get in to play?How much is the mount they bet/raise?

+ SHC also doesn't show what kind of players whom we're dealing with?But in reality, we've faced alot of many kinds of players, so we should be more flexible in our playing style.

Therefore, I would change and play in an open range hands (not so wide) with these kinds of hands like: gap hands (1 or 2 gap suited connectors), King-high or even Queen-high.

Question 2: Post a hand for evaluation where you have a question regarding your pre-flop play.

AKs poorly played
Ac3d overplayed/tilted?

Question 3: What is the equity of AKo against the top 5% range? 5% means: 88+, AJs+, KQs, AKo?

46.32% (using Equilab)

I have some questions in my head, but still haven't found anwsers for:

1. I quite don't understand clearly about the equity in poker? are the equity and the winning chance (in %) the same? or they're different from each others?

2. How long is enough for a session (cash game) ideally?(bc I don't have time too much to spend on poker!)

Welcome and thanks in advance for any answers from anybody!

Best regards,

anhvusa

Good job! Homework #2 Done!

Totally correct to play not just according the chart. In future if you are more experienced you will be playing anyways rather wider range. Although for just the beginning I'd rather still try to stick to the hands which are the most easiest way to earn money and get the understanding of your postflop play.

1. I quite don't understand clearly about the equity in poker? are the equity and the winning chance (in %) the same? or they're different from each others?

Yep, exactly. Equity = How often you gonna win against villain.

2. How long is enough for a session (cash game) ideallyconfused bc I don't have time too much to spend on poker!)

Depends how much free time you have? You can separate your sessions, some play few hours, some play just a hour some maybe even less, somebody even more.

Hopefully you enjoy the School so far. Some more points earned.

Hi coach,

Thanks for the points and the answers that help and motivate me somehow.

I still have some questions in my head. I've tried to search the reasonable and completely explanation for the equity in poker, but I didn't get too much or wasn't satisfied with their explaination (or maybe it's hard for me to understand :() so can you help me with these questions, coach:

1. What is equity calculation based on? (IMP, I think it comes from the odds, but... cannot explain why and how to calculate it.)

2. Without using Equilab or Equilator, can we have a formula, or a system (or sth like that) that could help us estimate briefly our hands on each street? How do you calculate your hand's equity when you play?

3. What is the meaning behind put our opponents's hands on range when we calculate equity? Can we have the equity our hands without using this info, the opponents' range hands?

Maybe I'm annoying you with those most basic things that I've should known in Poker, but actually I don't understand completely these issuses. Pleas help me coach and anyone who can help me!

Thanks and best regards,

anhvusa

1. What is equity calculation based on? (IMP, I think it comes from the odds, but... cannot explain why and how to calculate it.)

Have you tried the Glossary? Check out this link:
http://www.pokerstrategy.com/glossary/Equity/
If you still can't understand then I give you my explanations about it.

2. Without using Equilab or Equilator, can we have a formula, or a system (or sth like that) that could help us estimate briefly our hands on each street? How do you calculate your hand's equity when you play?

Mainly those kind of calculations and automatic play will come with experience. You have to analyze a lot of hands and of course post a lot of hands to be good at that. But for example if you really want to calculate the equity your hand gets, you can for example do this:

Amount of outs x 4 – Amount of outs – 8 = Your Equity

On flop we have OESD, which means 8 outs:
(8 outs) x 4 - (8 outs) - 8 = 32% equity. This is the conclusion of equilab:

Board: 8♠9♥3♣
       Equity     Win     Tie
UTG    31.82%  30.61%   1.21% { JhTc }
UTG+1  68.18%  66.97%   1.21% { JJ }

But mainly as I described all those kind of situations I have learned from different kind of hand evaluations and analyzing my own hands.

3. What is the meaning behind put our opponents's hands on range when we calculate equity? Can we have the equity our hands without using this info, the opponents' range hands?

We do get the answer if we are ahead against his range or not. If we can do the shove profitable or if we can Call it profitable. Yes, of course we can predict opponents range even without using any stats or anything. But it's harder.

You are not annoying me at all. This course is exactly for those kind of questions or whatever type of questions you have. Don't hesitate to ask them!

Hi coach,

Thanks for answering my questions in short time and giving me some helpful advice. I enjoy the class so much. From your given link and searching in PS Forum, I've found something that's concerned to my questions. Here is what I can get about Equity:

Odds = #unuseful cards : #helpful cards
Pot odds = Current pot : amount to call = x : y (does it mean we're going to lose x times, and win y times?)

Pot equity (or Equity needed to call) = (amount to call) / (current pot + amount to call)

Am I right?

And If so am I, I'm still wondering what do we base on to compare to Pot equity to decide to stay in the hand (call/bet/raise)?How is it calculated?

Amount of outs x 4 – Amount of outs – 8 = Your Equity

I think it should be like this: (amount of outs x 4) - (amount of outs -8) = Equity

I've used this formula in Equilab test, but sometimes it can give us a big difference from the real Equity. (even +/- 20-30%)

One more thing I want to ask you is: Do we have the record of live Coaching week #3? If so, when can I find this video? (I ask you this favor because my ISP has got prob with their system, so the speed connection of my internet is damned slow, and it isn't convinient to catch up with the live coaching and watching videos for lessons. I hope they'll fix soon)

Thanks and best regards

anhvusa,

PS: your coachings are very great and very helpful with beginners like me! Thanks so much, coach!

Question 1: You are holding K :spade:Q :spade:. What is your preflop equity against an opponent who has 3 :heart:3 :club:? How does the equity change on the following flop: J :spade:5 :diamond:3 :spade:?

The preflop equity of K :spade:Q against 3 :heart:3 is: 50.78%
The equity changes on the following flop J :spade:5 :diamond:3 is: 26.46%
(Using the Equilab)

Question 2: What would you do in the following hand?

No-Limit hold'em $2 (9 handed)
Players and stacks:
UTG: $2.00
UTG+1: $2.08
MP1: $1.92
MP2: $1.00
MP3: $3.06
CO: (Hero) $2.08
BU: $2.00
SB: $2.00
BB: $1.24
Preflop: Hero is CO with A :club:J :club:.
5 folds, Hero raises to $0.08, BU calls $0.08, SB folds, BB calls $0.06.
Flop: ($0.25) 2 :club:6 :diamond:3 :diamond:(3 players)
BB checks, Hero checks, BU checks.
Turn: ($0.25) 5 (3 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $0.22, BU raises to $0.44, BB folds, Hero...?

We've got FD on the turn, so we have 9 outs to count on. Therefore, we've got 4:1 odds. The total of the pot now is 0.25 + 0.22 + 0.44 = 0.91. If we call, we have to pay 0.22 more, so the pot odds now is 0.91 : 0.22 ~ 4.13 : 1 ( higher than the odds 4 : 1) and it's profitable for us to make a call. That's the case we just count on our outs.

If we put our opponent on a range like he's holding A4+ or K4s or even 44+, we would discount some outs that could give our opponent a made hand which could beat ours. Therefore, we would discount 4 out of 9 outs for FD. So, we have left 8 outs -> 4.75 : 1 odds (higher than the pot odds 4.13 : 1) and we miss ~ 0.62 odds (equally ~ $ 0.14) to make it reasonable to CALL.

Conclusion, we can make a CALL here (a "crying" call) and hopefully we can make our hand in the next street.

Question 3: Post a hand for evaluation where you have a question regarding your post-flop play.

QQ bad played post-flop

Pot equity (or Equity needed to call) = (amount to call) / (current pot + amount to call) Am I right?

Yes, pot equity is calculated like this.

I've used this formula in Equilab test, but sometimes it can give us a big difference from the real Equity. (even +/- 20-30%)

Well, that's the problem with those easy formulas, they ain't made for correct answers. Which one gave you that wide difference?

One more thing I want to ask you is: Do we have the record of live Coaching week #3? If so, when can I find this video?

http://www.pokerstrategy.com/strategy/bss/1992/1/
From there you can find the Coaching podcasts for every week.

I am glad to get such a great feedback. If you have anything to add to the coaching then drop by: https://forums.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?threadid=146167
It's a feedback thread for the Coaching.

Good job! Homework #3 Done!

About Question #3:
There are few situations on turn:
a) If we take just odds for the FD and we take into account that all our odds are clean. There 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. Which means that 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! Some more points earned.

Hi veriz,

I'm very happy you've replied my questions with many helpful info and instruction and I appreciate your giving points (though I haven't made too much ♦) for motivating me. I enjoy the class and am looking forward to next lessons.

Well, that's the problem with those easy formulas, they ain't made for correct answers. Which one gave you that wide difference?

I've used this formula while taking the Equity Training session:

(Amount of outs x 4) – (Amount of outs – 8) = Your Equity

But the problem is I wonder whether I did it right or didn't calculate the right number of outs to take the estimated Equity?

For example (I use the option: random vs. random)

Hero: Q :club:Q and the Flop is:K :spade:4 3♣
I counted my outs: 2 left Q + 3 left K + 3 left 4 + 3 left 3 = 11 outs total. By applying above formula, I got my Equity is 41%. But the exact Equity is 75.9% and the absolute difference is: 40.3%. I don't understand whether I miscounted my outs or... something is different from calculating the Equity of my hand? (Though I know it's quite hard to calculate the exact Equity, but estimating it with a acceptable difference can be better!)