If you are a 10NL or 25NL player ...

Date: Sun, Jun 22, 2008 Professional Internet

... and are break-even over the last couple thousand hands and would like an opportunity to be part of a video series about becoming a better and tougher player player for your limit, shoot me a PM. Here are the things I'm looking for:

1. Played at least 15K hands at 10NL or 25NL - this is your main game. You are not planning to move up in the next month or so.

2. You are break-even or losing at that limit.

3. You have been using PokerTracker3 recently.

4. You play most of your hands on PokerStars or Full Tilt Poker.

5. You don't mind being in CR videos (3 - 6) and don't mind talking during this.

6. You can commit to trying out new things for the next couple of weeks.

So - if this sounds like you, shoot me a private message and you might get some free coaching/advice :) Also, send me a screenshot of your PT stats which show your VPIP, PFR, AF, and winrate.

Grinding the lower limits (25NL - 50NL)

Date: Mon, Jun 16, 2008 Professional Internet

I've been thinking a lot recently about what it takes to beat the different levels. I've been reading some 2+2 posts about how a lot of big winners from 3 years ago are playing lower stakes right now. There are a LOT of professional 50NL - 400NL grinders. This means that not as much money is making it up to the bigger games. Thus those games are tougher. Yet there are plenty of people that beat those levels for a good winrate. They employ a certain strategy and it works for them. Most of them have pretty major leaks at their current level which better players could exploit yet since the are playing at the lower limits there are not enough people to exploit them.

I've played 50NL - 200NL in the last couple of weeks. It's crazy how different the levels are. For one, the play at 50NL was fairly transparent. I imagine that 25NL is even more so. I think it basically comes down to how the regulars play and whether you can exploit the fish. Most fish at

I think that what it takes to win at the different levels (25NL - 400NL) is a VERY different skill set. I think that playing a conservative, tight style is going be most profitable at 25NL yet not necessarily so much at 400NL. I want to play a couple thousand hands at 25NL and try to identify some of those areas. I think once I'm satisfied I will do the same thing for 50NL, 100NL, and 200NL.

Some of my initial thoughts about winning at 25NL:

1. Play quality hands - cut down on the marginal ones. Tight early, tight late. The fish and regulars will still call with worse. When you hit, get 3 streets of value - don't get cute. Have faith that people won't bluff-raise you.

2. Know how to seat and table select well. It will make a world of difference.

3. Know when to c-bet, delay c-bet, and not c-bet. Know when to slowplay and why. Basically it comes down to "why" do you do what you do? Recognize situations where you will get 2 or 3 streets of value and know what those streets are (flop and turn, turn and river, flop and river). Each is unique and has to be applied properly.

4. Identify basic leaks that the regulars have and that the fish have. Have a set of counter-strategies for those leaks. Group player types and focuse on timing tells.

5. Tailor bet sizes for specific situations. Hand reading is key here.

6. Know good situations to bluff the regulars.

I think that most people have MAJOR leaks in the areas above. That doesn't mean that they can't be winners at 50NL or even 100NL, but they are moving on w/o a good foundation. 25NL is a great place to really solidify the above. It's like taking Algebra II without really getting what Algebra 1 was all about and having teachers just pass you.

Anyhow ... that's it for now. I'm going to outline a few other things later.

Mixing it up - getting out of a rut

Date: Thu, Jun 12, 2008 Professional Internet

So I played around 1,200 hands today. Stars during the day is just filled with regulars playing 18/14 but very aggro. For the most part I played some break-even poker for most of the morning:

Then, around hand 865 I was sweating Zaitsev for a bit and opened up a HU table. As you can see, the general trend of my line changed pretty quickly. Within a couple hundred hands I was up like 4 buy-ins. People were just playing horribly. It's crazy how much more of an edge I had there.

This got me thinking about how game selection is so crucial to your overall success in poker. When I'm playing HU vs. a bad player his/her leaks continue to compound hand after hand. I basically played vs. 2 players who left after I took their stack and another who left after I took two of his. My edge is so much smaller when I am playing vs. three or four competent regs at a 6-max table.

Some 6-max trends ...

What the hell is up with people 4-betting light? I swear - it's like everyone who has watched a CTS video is doing it these days at 100NL and 200NL. So here the player was playing something like 27/24 and I just felt like I was going to get 4-bet since I put in a positional raise on him. My thinking was "he's going to 4-bet bluff here and I'm going to shove once he does it."

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2749637

He folded really quickly, but I can't remember how often I see people fold to my 5-bet shoves. I feel like the 4-bet bluff is something people at this level feel like they need to do but don't have a good feel for.

More on that Red Line ...

Date: Mon, Jun 9, 2008 Professional Internet

Here are my last 3K hands at 100NL:

As you can see, this is much improved from my previous play. I have made pretty big adjustments to my play and I think this recent trend reflects this. Malfaire talked a little about his experience with showdown (SD) and non-showdown (NSD) pots in his blog.

I guess the first thing I did to address this was ask myself the following question:

"What common situations do I find myself folding a lot?"

I then started thinking about lines which would re-exploit how opponents exploit my leaks. For example, a lot of people have been raising or floating my 3-bets in re-raised pots. How often do they have a hand though? So my plan here was to bet, expect to get raised, and then shove:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2733638

I expect to be good often enough to either be ahead of a draw or get a fold or have outs often enough to make this +EV. I felt like by thinking ahead I am able to really exploit some of these situations. I've working out a bunch of these other situations but that's a start ...

Basically, as Mark said above, it comes down to reading hands and player tendencies and knowing how to counter this.

Red Line, Part II

Date: Sun, Jun 8, 2008 Professional Internet

I've been working on my game quite a bit - I feel that having a negative "Money Won w/o Showdown" is a leak and thus have been thinking of big areas where this has been hammering me.

I did a few sweat sessions with a CR member named Alex whose red line goes straight up and we talked about the differences between his game and mine. Over 44K hands his blue line was back to zero, so his profits would come from the non showdown pots.

We also broke down a few hands and talked about the hand ranges we are repping and what the villain is repping in certain situations. Given all this, I decided to aggressively apply some of the things that I've already been thinking about as well as what Alex and I discussed. Here is my morning session at 100NL:

I'm not going to go into details about exactly what changes I've done since a lot of you are playing me on Stars so I don't want to make you play me more effectively :)

Edit: Poland plays Germany today in the Euro Cup. They are expected to lose but I really hope for a good game and perhaps the upset. Go Red and Whites!

The Red Line

Date: Thu, Jun 5, 2008 Professional Internet

This really bothers me, but my PT3 graph these days looks like this:

Basically my won $ w/o showdown is a steady downward slope. There are a number of reasons for this but I'm still exploring them. What I want to do is go down to 50NL and try to keep my red line either up or at least hovering around 0.

I remember Fabian talking about how he's a slight loser at showdown and most of his winnings come w/o showdown. This is very different from my game at the moment.

I have some ideas of things I'm going to do differently in my next few sessions at 50NL but I won't write about them on here just yet. I've talked to a friend whose red line just goes straight up and our games are very different at the moment. I'm also datamining some good 5/10 players and analyzing their graphs/styles for some insight.

I'm guessing that a lot of CR people have a graph which is similar to mine and non-optimal IMO. If your red line is flat or goes straight up and would like to offer me some suggestions or have some observations on the topic please let me know.

Preflop vs. Postflop Agression

Date: Tue, Jun 3, 2008 Professional Internet

Jaydubl posted the following question about my recent video:

In general do you think this is a bit different to the way most CR pros have played in the past? My memory might not be spot on, but I remember cold calling being some sort of sin in these parts! It was like, 3bet or nothing. Reasoning being that you have more ways to win + the initiative etc. I know thats the way I feel I've been taught/conditioned to play, or perhaps I had some selective hearing and missed out plays like the ones you demonstrate.

I wrote out some of my thoughts on this and wanted to cross-post them on my blog:

Yeah ... so this is something I've been thinking a lot about. I can start getting into this here but my thought process is still very much a work in progress.

I guess the big topic is 3-betting. There are a bunch of reasons to 3-bet. These include:

1. For value.
2. To build an aggressive image which gets you paid off later.
3. To isolate a weaker player.
4. Because someone calls a lot pre-flop and then folds post-flop.
5. There is dead money in the pot. This is where squeezing comes in .

A lot of these are connected. The more you 3-bet the more aggressive your image becomes. But ... you can also have a very aggressive post-flop image. One of the things I didn't include in the video is calling with these hands and then bluff-raising a lot of flops in general. This is pretty important.

Basically I think there is a big trend toward emphasizing pre-flop poker instead of post-flop. When asked what style he would play if he played 100NL, Phil Galfond said "I dunno ... maybe something like 28/10? I have a big edge post-flop."

So as your perception of your post-flop edge grows, I think you should look to get in and player more flops cheaply. This brings up kind of the crux of this whole argument:

There is a lot more money to be made post-flop.

I think that the most important thing to notice is how often someone calls pre-flop and then folds the flop. If they are doing this (or folding to a lot of 3-bets), then by all means 3-bet them. On the other hand if people call a lot you'll just play inflated pots with marginal hands.

So let's say that a 20/16/2 regular opens from MP to 4BB and you are sitting with 8c7c on the button. One of the players in the blinds is a fish and you think he'll come along as well. Your image is a 22/16 TAG. You also know that the 20/16/2 regular folds to 3-bets 75% of the time and 4-bets 6% of the time. You also know that he c-bets 75% of the time and folds to a flop raise 60% of the time and c-bets the turn 50% of the time.

Knowing all that, let's look at our options:

1. We can 3-bet and risk 12BB's and hope to fold out everyone. We risk 12BB's in order to win 4BB + 1.5BB = 5.5BB's. So 75% * 5.5 - 0.25 * 12 = 1.125 BB immediate profit if he folds.

2. It goes to the flop heads-ups. We know that the player will c-bet 6BB's into the 9BB's 70% of the time. If he checks we will bet almost always and expect him to fold. Thus we'll 9BB's 30% of the time.

We could bluff-raise. Thus we risk 16BB's to win 9BB + 6BB = 15BBs. Since he folds 60% of the time this shows an immediate profit of 60% * 15 - 40% * 16 = 2.6BB's

We could also just float a wide variety of flops and then bet the turn (or even raise the turn). If we flat call there is now 9BB + 12BB = 21BB in the pot.

Given all these situations, I think there is a lot more money to be made post-flop on later streets - either by going to showdown, floating, bluffing, etc ...

3. If we call we call and the fish calls or the fish folds we get to play some post-flop poker. It is a lot more likely the the fish will call if we call. Thus we are looking to play a 12BB pot in position. There we will get to make good post-flop decisions.

To sum it up:

1. These types of hands are great for risking a little in order to win a lot if you play them correct. Implied odds through the roof!

2. Post-flop aggression is more profitable in terms of EV than pre-flop aggression.