Amateur Poker Association & Tour
Poker Forum => Strategy => Topic started by: AAroddersAA on September 16, 2013, 12:00:02 PM
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Hi Guy"s
I thought it might be worth doing this as it might be good for a strategy discussion, rather than just discussing one hand. I have recorded about 50 hands of 6-max zoom on Pokerstars. I have given my thoughts as I go along and would like to hear feedback on how I played during the session. What is good, what is bad, what mistakes were made and how would you play it differently.
Hope it is worthwhile the video is about 15 minutes long.
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NG2HlJwlets&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]
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Just had a very brief look, will look when I get home tonight mate.
First thought, was I right in thinking that your HUD didn"t change at all?
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Just had a very brief look, will look when I get home tonight mate.
First thought, was I right in thinking that your HUD didn"t change at all?
Yeah, HUD is frozen mate. PT3 is pretty useless with zoom. Upgrade to PT4, it"s the nuts. It does auto note taking as well
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Will have a gander at this when I get home from work.
Lols - I randomly clicked into the video half way through to see what it looked like and saw you 3 betting with the old J6 off!
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Very impressed Steve. Very professional. Lot better than some of the ones I"ve seen on stars. Interesting hand close to the end with I think K5o, where you barrelled the turn. You mentioned didn"t think it hit his range. Can you expand on that please .
The expand to full screen didnt seem to work, so I couldnt see the detail on the huds. Anything I"m missing.
More of the same would be good ;).
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Wow, you"re much better than me lol, I"ll stay away from Stars cash when youre online! Seriously though, thanks for the video, very informative and well played, totally crushed your opponents imo :)
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To start with I think this video watched alone probably makes me look much better than I actually am. I am intentionally playing aggressive and it was working (as luck would have it). I will try and put a losing session together for some balance. If I do a 15 minute session each morning next week I should get a losing one quite quickly I would think. That might be easier for people to critique as when you see people winning pot after pot it is quite easy to think they are just playing amazing which is unlikely to be the case usually. I would like to do it without zoom to be honest but as I am limited to 15 minutes zoom gives me a decent number of hands to show.
As far as the hand where I play the K5 from the cut off goes. I obviously raise intending to steal the blinds. When the button calls me I think he often has a range of pairs, Broadway cards and some suited connectors/Ax hands. The flop looks good to continue on as there is not a lot he can have. He can have diamonds some of the time. I think he has a ten or a middle pair such as 77 or 88 quite a lot. I think the flush draw would often raise, although he can call on the flop. Most of the time people seem to be raising flush draws on the flop though.
I thought the Jd is actually a good card for us to bet again, even though it will sometime hit him. We are betting $1 to win $1.50 which is going to be enough. We need to win the pot 34% of the time to break even. The Jack hits my range quite well and changes quite a lot. It puts another overcard out to the mid pairs in his range and completes a possible flush. Quite often this bet will be enough to make him fold a lot of the tens in his range as they now lose to a lot of hands I would have bet the flop with (I know he shouldn"t, especially against me, but people often will). The only hands that will really continue are flopped monsters like sets and flush draws. I suppose the Ad can also continue but I doubt he has this in his range enough of the time to stop him calling.
Hands that could have called the flop
33 - 2 Combos
66 - 2 Combos
77 - 6 Combos
88 - 6 Combos
99 - 6 Combos
TT - 2 Combos
AT - 12 Combos
JT - 8 Combos
Adxd - 12 Combos (estimate)
Hands that continue are
Adxd - 12 Combos
JT - 8 Combos
TT - 2 Combos
66 - 2 Combos
33 - 2 Combos
AT - 6 Combos
So about 32 hands - that will call or raise me
Hands that should fold
77 - 6 Combos
88 - 6 Combos
99 - 6 Combos
AT - 6 Combos
So about 24 Hands - that will fold
This assumes he is never floating me with nothing hoping to take the pot away which in reality I think happens sometimes.
So we win the pot with a bet about 43% of the time. There is a margin of error in this of course but the Jd on the turn means enough changed from the flop to push out some of the combos of a ten (if the turn had been 4h I would check/fold). This is a very inexact science of course but I am pretty happy with the bet here. It"s a really good discussion though. There is a chance that somebody floated with AJ in position etc but this is pretty unlikely and if they did they are just as likely to have done it with AQ or even KQ (AK should have 3bet pre) in which case I win the pot more often with the bet, although KQ hit a draw so that might impact it as well. Are my numbers fair here or would other people see it differently?
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Just had a very brief look, will look when I get home tonight mate.
First thought, was I right in thinking that your HUD didn"t change at all?
As I think I said, it froze. I had to reboot it to get it working again. PT3 generally works fine with Zoom. It comes back at 10:51 in the video and works from there on.
Saying that I will be upgrading to PT4 as soon as I get around to doing it.
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Just had a very brief look, will look when I get home tonight mate.
First thought, was I right in thinking that your HUD didn"t change at all?
As I think I said, it froze. I had to reboot it to get it working again. PT3 generally works fine with Zoom. It comes back at 10:51 in the video and works from there on.
Saying that I will be upgrading to PT4 as soon as I get around to doing it.
Ah sorry chief, as i said, was looking on my phone at work. Planning on having a good watch in the morning :)
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Not to go overboard Steve but credit where its due. Whilst I was also impressed with your play my comments were more directed at the presentation. At the level it was intended I think it was very good. Your comments were very clear why you were doing what you were doing, which in my experience is not always the case.
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Planning on having a good watch in the morning :)
Filthy thing. The lad"s got no shame.
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Cheers Mark, great response with some very good points. I was intentionally trying to play hype aggression in this video, I think the style will be +EV but it was too full on and needs to be toned down slightly to be optimal, it does not need to be toned down that much though. I am not sure if this style is actually better than multi table ultra tight trying to get paid off when you have it. I suspect this style played well, will result in a better BB/100 but it takes more focus and therefore you have to play less tables so may net less money in the long term as you can play more hands using the other style. I honestly do not know if that is true or not but it is certainly possible. The only thing that makes me wonder is that at this level people fold too much.
The reason it is 15 mins is so that it can be uploaded to you tube. I guess it is easy enough to upgrade my account to make longer ones though. On the weekend I will try and do one of a six max standard table as it will allow the HUD to be used better and will definitely make a better video.
I think your assessment of the way to play the SB is fine/good. I just don"t really agree it is the most profitable way to play the position. I have run tests and just purely raising every unopened pot to 30c and check folding against any resistance will turn a profit. People fold the BB far too often, yeah people will adjust but they just will not play back often enough to make this a losing play. I may sometimes fold the SB in a BvB spot if I am holding trash and know I am likely to get 3-bet but this spot would be rare. Over 20K hands this year I am down $4.57 in the SB. The sample size is pretty small obviously but I would say that raising ATC in an opened pot BvB is +EV. It is a great point for discussion though and I will take these comments on board and look at it in more detail.
The T3 was just a button raise. If I have no info to say that the players are going to play back at me I am pretty much happy to raise almost ATC, at this level people fold far too much and you can win lot"s of money without a showdown. Again people will play back but not often enough to make it unprofitable.
One thing I do disagree with is the 3-betting range you mention. If I 3-bet AT I am doing it as a bluff as if you get action you are usually dominated, you can flat in position and have the best hand against your opponents range a lot which should be profitable. I may still do 3-bet it a lot but when I do I generally want my opponents to fold. Small pairs are bad hands to 3-bet in my mind as they have so much equity post flop. Yeah you can 3-bet and still hit a set but I think it is better to flat call these hands and try and hit a monster. You waste the massive equity of a small pair if you get 4-bet off the pot. I would raise with them and call a 3-bet usually but would not usually 3-bet with them. Obviously there are no hard and fast rules though.
I also think never 3-betting as a pure bluff is OK but again missing some profitable spots, as there are some players who in the player pool who it is profitable to do this against.
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Some thoughts on 3b bluffing.
It"s all very well to notice a decent spot where a 3b bluff will show immediate profit but we can"t and shouldn"t take every spot that presents itself, if we do we will be very noticeably 3b"ing way too much.
I"d love to hear how some you guys regulate your 3b frequencies?
Currently my preferred method is to add certain hand combo"s to my 3b range opponent dependent, the wider they open the more bluff combo"s. OOP when it"s going to be 3b and give up somewhat often when called, I like to use rag Aces and Kings for their card removal value.
Take a starting point of the pure value 3b range of JJ+ and AK (40 combos) we can create and control a balanced value:bluff ratio by adding....
A2-A5 where Ace is a diamond (16 combo"s) for a 60:40 value to bluff ratio etc. etc.
At the very least this allows us to simply understand the volume of hands we are 3b"ing with.
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Some thoughts on 3b bluffing.
It"s all very well to notice a decent spot where a 3b bluff will show immediate profit but we can"t and shouldn"t take every spot that presents itself, if we do we will be very noticeably 3b"ing way too much.
I"d love to hear how some you guys regulate your 3b frequencies?
Currently my preferred method is to add certain hand combo"s to my 3b range opponent dependent, the wider they open the more bluff combo"s. OOP when it"s going to be 3b and give up somewhat often when called, I like to use rag Aces and Kings for their card removal value.
Take a starting point of the pure value 3b range of JJ+ and AK (40 combos) we can create and control a balanced value:bluff ratio by adding....
A2-A5 where Ace is a diamond (16 combo"s) for a 60:40 value to bluff ratio etc. etc.
At the very least this allows us to simply understand the volume of hands we are 3b"ing with.
Not really sat down and thought about this before, but has been a good exercise for me. So thanks for the prompt. I have put together an initial strategy would welcome your thoughts.
I think there are 2 issues here. The first is your 3 betting for value range and secondly your 3 bet bluffing frequency/range.
My 3 betting for value range would depend on - the villains PFR range from his current position, whether I am in position compared to him, and the number and type of players yet to act.
So for instance if villain raises in co and does this 40% of time, and I am on the button, my initial reaction would be to 3 bet with top 20%. I would temper with the fact that 2 players yet to act especially if seems to be good reg who may 4 bet light. So may be 15% of my range in this spot - which would be AA-55,AK-A9,AKs-A5s,KQ-KJ,KQs-KJs,QJs. I am not sure that I would want to add many bluffs when I am betting for value. I suppose the difficulty I have is what range do I continue with if I am 4 bet. Its at that stage I need to refer to his 4 betting range and make a judgement.
If the villain does not have a wide PFR range for his position but does have a high 2bet/fold %age it is at this point I think I would tend to add a bluffing range. If your oppo raisses to 3 BBs if you reraise to 7.5 BBs you only need a fold 62.5% of time for it to be profitable, even ignoring the equity if you get called. Clearly with zoom the population of hands is not going to be great but I think if he has folded 2/3 to 3 bet I think that"s enough evidence. I don"t think you need a great hand to do this but I think a playable hand.(I think maybe Q4s is ok but not 83o!) The more players behind the more evidence you want that villain is going to fold. So I would tend to do this when circumstances are best rather than do it when you are dealt specific hands.
I would monitor my 3 betting frequency on a regular basis to make sure it is not getting out of hand. If it is adjust as required.
Also I would tend not to be 3 betting what appear to be weak players so much, especially in position, beacause I would want to play post flop against them.
Would appreciate your thoughts Brendan or anybody else.
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Brendan/Mike, been trying to compose a good response to this for a while.
Some interesting thoughts there. I will add to them.
Your 3-bet pure bluffing range needs to be based almost entirely on your opponent. I do see Brendans point about needing to regulate your 3-betting percentage. Rag Aces and Kings and card removal OOP seems sensible. I would base it a lot more on my opponent though. The card removal is a factor, my opponents PFR and 3-Bet stats are far more so. If I find somebody who is opening wide, more than 25% of hands ideally, if I can get positional stats that is even better. I would then look at how often they fold to 3-bets more than 80% is ideal. Now lets say this player is cut off to my button and I have two tight players behind me then I will consider this a very good 3-betting opportunity and take advantage of it a lot (regardless of cards, also I am not too worried about the players behind, people rarely cold 4-bet light). To regulate it I just don"t do it every time, I do keep doing it on a pretty regular basis until there is some kind of sign that he has made an adjustment, the amount of times they don"t is quite amazing. So I just rely on myself to be able to regulate the frequency of my 3-bets and try to keep my percentage below 15%. If it goes above this I am not likely to be 3-bet bluffing as often unless I see an excellent spot, kind of like the one in my example in which case I will let it go higher. We should not assume players will adjust until we see that they can. Even when they do adjust they often do it badly and start to call the 3-bets rather than raise them so we can still often win the pot post flop. In this case my bluff % will be higher than my value bet percentage as I can get away with it.
I am not going to be worrying about if my hand is ahead of my opponents range either. I am just going to think about his calling range and 4-betting range. It rarely matters if you have A2s or 72os (other than the card removal) in that spot, you are bluffing and if you get 4-bet or called you are likely to be well behind. Sometimes the better hand can actually get you into more trouble but you should be able to play the streets well enough to avoid this but none of us are perfect players.
Hope this makes sense as it is quite hard to describe how I personally do this, I suppose I am sort of just saying I make sure I don"t 3-bet too much but that does not sound like a very good explanation.
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OK, here is a new one of just one table not Zoom, it is longer though, about 50 minutes. I did post one in my thread but it did not come out that well as far as quality went. This one is a bit better though. It"s probably not the best session I have ever played in terms of the standard of poker but that might help create a better strategy discussion. Feel free to throw some comments in. Where am I not playing an optimal strategy, where am I not getting enough value and where am I doing OK?
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42FwdX4FAGo[/youtube]
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A few quick points before I hit the nest.
I suggest your notes may reread easier/quicker if you format as...
villain 3x btn, we 3b to 11x in sb and fold to 30x 4b
not a biggie but worth a try.
Don"t 3b bluff a 6% pfr.
3b sizing to 11x is fine oop but you can consider 8.5x to 9.5x when in position.
Table select, no fish at your table and when 2 of 6 players are sat out, time to find a better table.
You never once mentioned fold to cb tendencies of opponents. This is critical in choosing whether to cb and in choosing how wide we can isolate limpers. Since most of our action versus fish will be when they limp call, we can iso raise wider versus those that fold to cb"s too often and vice versa.
Finally, though I know you were deliberately playing too many hands, just a mention of a hard learnt lesson.
When we play too many hands we are hugely likely to be in the pot when someone has a monster, also, we get in so much action that we get the adrenaline flowing, it can be very subtle and often creep up on us unnoticed but we end up fighting bravely for pots well beyond where logic based thinking would allow.
Fair play for the courage to put this up, I don"t think I"d have the balls for it :-[
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A few quick points before I hit the nest.
I suggest your notes may reread easier/quicker if you format as...
villain 3x btn, we 3b to 11x in sb and fold to 30x 4b
not a biggie but worth a try.
Don"t 3b bluff a 6% pfr.
3b sizing to 11x is fine oop but you can consider 8.5x to 9.5x when in position.
Table select, no fish at your table and when 2 of 6 players are sat out, time to find a better table.
You never once mentioned fold to cb tendencies of opponents. This is critical in choosing whether to cb and in choosing how wide we can isolate limpers. Since most of our action versus fish will be when they limp call, we can iso raise wider versus those that fold to cb"s too often and vice versa.
Finally, though I know you were deliberately playing too many hands, just a mention of a hard learnt lesson.
When we play too many hands we are hugely likely to be in the pot when someone has a monster, also, we get in so much action that we get the adrenaline flowing, it can be very subtle and often creep up on us unnoticed but we end up fighting bravely for pots well beyond where logic based thinking would allow.
Fair play for the courage to put this up, I don"t think I"d have the balls for it :-[
Haven"t watched the vid yet, but some very good points here Brendan.
I wouldn"t mind posting one of these myself Rodders, what recording software and equipment are you using?
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Camtasia is pretty good
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Camtasia is pretty good
Thanks Chris
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Feel free to throw some comments in.
just look back at Simeon and how he played his JJ plus his river action, add 20/10 plus watch the other board textures he played before the JJ...
and you thought he was playing a draw quick in a 3bet pot and would bluff the river? [edit ref - when you have AQ in the sb about 31mins in]
thoughts Rodders ?
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Camtasia is pretty good
Thanks Chris
AGree with this but I used Snagit, Camtasia is better though, would be great to see one from Neil imo
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Feel free to throw some comments in.
just look back at Simeon and how he played his JJ plus his river action, add 20/10 plus watch the other board textures he played before the JJ...
and you thought he was playing a draw quick in a 3bet pot and would bluff the river? [edit ref - when you have AQ in the sb about 31mins in]
thoughts Rodders ?
The hand is obviously played badly against that player, not a lot I can say to defend it, the river is a clear fold. The 3-bet in itself is actually not great either with AQ there. I over thought the situation due to the check on the turn, can I fold the flop? It"s possible I should. His bet size is really too large for it to be a bluff, all good though we learn most by our mistakes and all that.
Can"t find a spoon anywhere, does anybody know why? ;) ;)
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Feel free to throw some comments in.
just look back at Simeon and how he played his JJ plus his river action, add 20/10 plus watch the other board textures he played before the JJ...
and you thought he was playing a draw quick in a 3bet pot and would bluff the river? [edit ref - when you have AQ in the sb about 31mins in]
thoughts Rodders ?
The hand is obviously played badly against that player, not a lot I can say to defend it, the river is a clear fold. The 3-bet in itself is actually not great either with AQ there. I over thought the situation due to the check on the turn, can I fold the flop? It"s possible I should. His bet size is really too large for it to be a bluff, all good though we learn most by our mistakes and all that.
Can"t find a spoon anywhere, does anybody know why? ;) ;)
There is no spoon!!!
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Camtasia is pretty good
Thanks Chris
AGree with this but I used Snagit, Camtasia is better though, would be great to see one from Neil imo
Did you use a mic, or just the pc"s built in mic?
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Camtasia is pretty good
Thanks Chris
AGree with this but I used Snagit, Camtasia is better though, would be great to see one from Neil imo
Did you use a mic, or just the pc"s built in mic?
I just used my laptop which has a Mic built in. Seems to work OK. Most laptops will have built in mics which are up to the job.
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Feel free to throw some comments in.
just look back at Simeon and how he played his JJ plus his river action, add 20/10 plus watch the other board textures he played before the JJ...
and you thought he was playing a draw quick in a 3bet pot and would bluff the river? [edit ref - when you have AQ in the sb about 31mins in]
thoughts Rodders ?
Not sure we learn much from the JJ hand tbh or how it is in any way similar to the AQ 3b pot, would be happy to hear your thoughts though?
It"s very easy to see folds in these spots when we know results, in the heat of the moment it"s a lot tougher. Rodders had been playing pretty manic and given those circumstances doesn"t TPTK hold significant value?
With hindsight we can look back and be very sure Simeon"s flop raise is for value and yes he"s a passive"ish player in a 3b pot (they tend to play more honestly) so his raise is super strong but imho this is not a trivial fold.
There is a lot of advanced learning to be had reviewing the spot though and you may even call flop and river in a similar spot again but with time and liberal use of a baseball bat the key points will become second nature. ;D
Disclaimer: Baseball bat analogy may be lost in translation ;)
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there are no results orientated thinking here Bren, u can get off that horse fella :)
like i said watch his previous hands before he played the JJ add in how he reacted to the 40c river bet into a $7 king river, and you think thats not something worth noting regarding his style?
now add in the notes Rodders had on him - flatted 3bet from sb from the btn with AA and raised cbet on wet flop... [at about 9min35secs Rodders refers to Simeon being capable of flatting big pairs when he has the J8s on the btn also]
even the the way he played 55 after hitting a set oop gives extra clues... [btw Rodders i"d note the flop texture he did that on]
there are no notes on seeing bluffs or semi bluffs... [plus on the video i can"t see him even possibly semi bluffing/bluff, like you refer to also Bren, all i see are predictable straight forward abc types]
plus at these limits post flop with a opponent with stats like this, plus what notes Rodders has, can Rodders improve upon his thought process ""i think i"ll just call and go from there"" [didn"t even check previous notes, plus he didn"t start putting Simeon on a range in which he"d raise call pre with or raise on the flop]
turn thoughts?
river thoughts? still no reason to expect him to bluff 100% all missed draws imho, we know he"ll bet for value 100%...
is his river bet sizing worth noting?
river - no thoughts at the time except for ""thats a big bet"" - pot odds, i"d like to see Rodders go through how often he thinks Simeon will bluff before he checks to him, as played i"d like to see Rodders go back through the hand quick and think how its played out etc [we use our extra time bank]
plus Rodders could of thought about bet folding as an option also [remember how villain reacted to that ridiculous 40c bet only moments earlier]
i think thats enough for now, Rodders i tip my hat to you sir for having the stones to put this up... regarding the video, maybe you can record first then add audio later on what you were thinking about at the time.. [just in case i"m doing you a dis-service and you actually thought about a lot more things but didn"t express them at the time of the making of the vid]
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Excellent post"s as usual both Noble and Brendan (and the earlier one by Brendan that I have not yet responded too but will).
The AQ hand. I think Nobles points are good ones and his posts demonstrate why I think posting the video was good as it is better than posting one hand in isolation to think about how you played it, I should have been using the info from the previous hand where I 3-bet him with J8s OTB and that I had seen him flat AA then raise the flop. I could do the audio later but I wanted to do it live as it will best show my thought processes as I go along, Noble is right that I didn"t make all of my thoughts during the hand clear and did have stuff going through my head I don"t mention. A lot of his points about the hands are valid and I should have thought back through that hand more including thinking about his pre flop range and asked the question what am I actually beating (the answer is not a lot so given the bet size I can fold the river in that hand), it should be easier to do this in a 3-bet pot and I should have noted this to be honest. The JJ hand is not that relevant is it, he has the betting lead through that hand until the river where he calls the tiny with showdown value where as I check to him on turn and river in this pot. The JJ hand looks standard but it does show a slightly passive side on the river although don"t see what else he does in that spot. Overall though yes I could have though this spot through better, I sort of put him on a draw on the flop and went with that which was not the right thing to do in that spot.
Brendan is right that in game this is a lot harder but I wanted to look at spots where I get it wrong in game so that I can try and do better in such spots in the future. It"s quite easy to be able to look through hands and get them right in retrospect but doing this does help you in game as it becomes more second nature to you.
The whole thing helps with the continuous effort to keep getting better and to increase win rate. I don"t worry about constructive critisim. Having people like Brendan and Noble taking the time to view this and pick spots where I could have played better by improving my thought processes is a good thing and the debate it creates on the forum is a good thing too.
Think I will do another one if people do not mind. I may try and do what Noble said and add the sound later. Thanks for all the contributions on this though, it is useful and hopefully is good for the strategy section too.