All true enough in the real world, but we aren’t in the real world. I’ll gloss over the “lucky run” statement because nobody has ever won a WSOP main by this method alone. If skill levels were equal in a once-per-year tournament with a field of 6,000, one would expect to win once every 6,000 years and cash once every 600 years. So yes, not a great metric.
Let’s say the MTTs here average 100 players, and someone plays 200 of them a month. I think ROI does become more meaningful.
I am not saying that ROI is a perfect indication of anything. My original point was that it is probably better than just going on pure bank growth, and that it’s very easy to calculate from the very limited data set provided by that plugin. Let’s not dismiss the “better” because it’s not “perfect!”
Robert Varkonyi (2002) but I was using reducito ad absurdum to make the point (and for those of you who may not know this, Latin was not a language invented by JK Rowling for her Harry Potter books).
I never claimed MTT statistics were meaningless, just that they weren’t the most reliable if looked at on their face. If someone is playing a ton of $200 online MTT’s, their raw ROI becomes more meaningful over time.
Mostly what I do is play, then study the hands that seemed noteworthy in the games I recently finished. I’ll put myself back into the situation, and see if I would have played the hand the same way. I’ll also try to think the hand through the perspective of the opponent, so I can see whether their actions made sense for the cards they held. I’ll try to see if there’s anything about the hand that can give me insights into the opponent’s range. I’ll also take a mental note on who I’ve been seeing at the tables, and their style of play, weaknesses, etc. I do not keep long-term notes on players, because I think old notes go stale – human players are dynamic and make adjustments, learn to improve, go on tilt, etc. so a note from 3 or 6 months ago may be very bad advice today.
In addition, I have read books on poker strategy, and I watch some poker-oriented youtube channels, mostly for entertainment, but also somewhat for study. Jonathan Little, Doug Polk, WSOP, etc.
Thanks for the suggestion to check out gumroad – I hadn’t heard of that one before.
I think the suggestion to ask questions about situations rather than specific hands is good, too. I have done that sometimes.
Can you elaborate on why/how this format is useless for practice?
I get that they are high variance, and that losing games due to variance is tilting me, and I should avoid things that tilt me if I can’t control my tendency to tilt.
But what about the format is so unlike the post-bubble endgame phase of a 9-max SNG that it is useless as a training exercise to play 3-Max? What might be a better format to use for training for the SNG endgame?
I’ve also been playing a lot of 2-Max deep stack, with 2500 or 3000 chip stacks with the blinds starting at 15/30. Is this a format you would recommend for me or no, for what purpose(s) would you recommend/not recommend it, and why?
It is the highest variance structure out there. If you want to get better at dealing with variance, then they would suit your needs. If you want to get better at strategy and decision making, play the games where those things have more impact.
I’d suggest dropping in stakes to the point where wins or losses are 100% irrelevant to you. Jump in any 6 or 9 player SnG you can and play a lot of them. Either go into each session with 1 goal in mind or play a few dozen games and figure out what parts are causing you the most trouble. Whatever you do, do nothing quickly (other than auto-folds). Make sure you are taking at least 5 seconds before you touch a button. Have a reason for your action firmly in your mind before you make it.
If you try this out for a few dozen games and come back here with questions (not hands), I think we could get something productive going.
@puggywug: This is really good advice. I’ve seen you often insta call many times. OFC its a small tell, one of a few for online poker tells but that’s not the biggest issue. The problem is if your insta calling then your not thinking. Considering the following hand you posted:
Hand # 624625322
You raised the button with QsTs min which I like. When Villain 3bets you insta called. I’m probably folding but what do you think about Villains 3bet? At the time you didn’t think much if at all.
Calling his 3bet isnt necessarily wrong but insta calling every time without thinking is.
I think focusing on taking 5sec every decision will revolutionise your game. It will help you think more & be more focused. It should help you remain more relaxed, prevent or reduce bad decisions from TILT.
This is such an easy step to take and is easy to implement. It requires no study.
Lowering stakes could be a good idea, as is deciding what games are best to play.
I wanted to start playing ring HU games for fun. A game I knew I wasn’t good at so I lowered stakes. I went from 500/1k ring (4/6MAX) to 100/200 & 200/400 HU ring. I probably didn’t need to bc I won a lot at these stakes even though I wasn’t good but I didn’t to be TILTED and upset by losing bigger chunks of my bankroll whilst playing learning & improving my HU game.
This change for fun & practice totally killed my profitability to probably less than 5% of what it was. I went from 2 tabling 6MAX 500/1k with regular & consistent games to playing 1 HU game, waiting for players to turn up. That’s a guesstimate but probably even conservative. Whilst this bothered me a little I was playing for fun mostly & also to improve my HU game and wasn’t overly focused on building my bankroll.
You posted bad results in MTT but thats only a few games & a tiny sample. It really doesnt indicate that your bad at MTT. You should generally know your strongest & weakest game etc. If you do think MTT is your worst game then do consider buying in for lower. This might make you more relaxed for the tournament.
Pug has nearly 30M & plays 100k SnGs so the loss is barely a scratch and should be nearly irrelevant. I deff would suggest trying 6/9 player SnGs. Think about how you play pug & your style, what best suits you and will give you best results.
Temporarily dropping stakes can be a good idea if your on a big downswing etc. If you continue to lose it matters very little.
Overall think about the big picture & player Mr Manager.
Not necessarily. It could mean that I have a game plan and know how I want to play the hand, and have thought it out a few moves in advance. I try to not eat the clock. It’s considered rude by some people, and as well if you take too much time per action, the hands take a long time to play out, and you get fewer hands per minute, and fewer hands per blind level. Which, given how much difficult I have playing a short stack strategy effectively due to variance, doesn’t it make sense that I want to get a lot of hands in while the blinds are still cheap?
But that said, yeah, it wouldn’t hurt to take a little more time and think about everything, including the very last thing before the action moved to you before acting.
In that specific hand, I had seen V 3-bet on a few prior hands. If I recall correctly, this entire game lasted 19 hands, and by this point he had already 3-bet in enough hands that I could tell he was either very, very hot, or that he was accustomed to playing against players who overfold to 3-bets, and was probably 3-betting pretty wide a lot of the time.
In short, I was expecting that about 50% of the time, he’s 3-betting my min-raise, and I’m not making the min-raise to fold it; I’d fold it if I knew to expect a 3-bet that often. In part, because the blinds are so small this early, I’m more comfortable going higher. At 20/40, a re-raise from 80 to 210 isn’t horrible when stacks are at 2500-3000, and I can still lay it down after seeing a flop if I really don’t like it.
I’m not saying I would snap call any 3-bet, but 210 was within my comfort zone, I was ready for it, and I had already thought about it.
Taking my time to take the action I had planned on could still be useful, if it conveys deliberation and difficult decision making, it might lead him to think I’m weaker, and then he’s more willing to call or raise me when I do hit a strong hand. There’s some value to that.
Of course, snap-calling also can be done for theatrics, to show that you’re holding something very strong and aren’t going to be pushed around easily.
That’s fair, and if I’m doing something to experiment or for practice, I agree, dropping to lower stakes makes a lot of sense. I especially will do this if I feel like playing Omaha or Royal. NLHE is a lot more popular on this site, though, so to some extent I play higher stakes in order to filter out the riffraff so I can (hopefully) play someone who’s decent and will take the game seriously. Since the chips have no monetary value, it’s a bit of a mental bamboozle to be very concerned about stakes, so long as I’m practicing healthy bankroll management. As you point out, I’m playing at a level that I can afford to lose a lot.
I don’t want to lose a lot, and when I do hit a skid, it drives me nuts, but I’m very unlikely to go broke. I’d have to lose 300 in a row, and even I don’t have the endurance, patience, or masochism to lose that many in a row. But definitely, if I find myself in a skid, dropping down is something I’ll do, if I elect to continue playing.
Both good suggestions. I pretty much don’t care if I lose a 25k buy-in. I get upset less from losing a game, and more from losing many games in a row, losing a lot of hands when I’m a 2/3+ favorite to win, etc.
When I get really full-on tilty, in the moment I don’t care even more about the number of chips I’m losing. If I’m going to play like that, I should definitely play at lower stakes so that by the time I get it out of my system, I won’t have hurt my bankroll all that much. Probably, though, the better answer is that I just shouldn’t play like that.
Anything is possible. Maybe RP is rigged & aliens live under my bed. This isn’t chess. You cant play a few moves ahead. Lets talk realistically about things that make logical sense & not crazy assumptions. You think you have a game plan but lets take a look. Watch every hand & think about how well you played:
Hand1 624624739: 1 you raise the button 3x & get 3bet & call. V bets flop & H folds. V 3Bet x1 (seems V is a player?) H2 lost a few chips to V aggression. H3 Limp Button & V Donk raises to 12BB. (more V aggression) H4 No comment H5 Raise Button 3x 90 V 3bet 270. V bets flop & takes pot. (V aggression) V preflop 3Bet x2 H6H raises V limp button OP to 26BB 800 (game plan initiated) So H bets 800 chips & wins 60 chips ?!?!?! H7H raise button to 6BB 200 & wins 60. H8 Limp pot. H bets 100 into 60. I’m not hating this play. H9H open shoves Button. (What do you think?) H10 Limp pot. H OP pots the flop 60. V raises 240 & H shoves & wins showdown. H11H raises button min 60, V 3bets 210 & H calls.
If I had to guess your game plan its selling the idea that I’m a bigger Donk than you! Lets gamble!
You seem Italiano Leaning Pizza Towered Off that Villain keeps 3betting you. I rarely see you fold to a 3bet.
My Game Plan is to market myself as aggressive but not a complete Donk. I want to get paid, but I want to be able to bluff a occasionally. Table image has been mentioned many times. Its incredibly important. Try & represent your image in the best way RE Villain.
H6, H7, H9 3 out of 11 hands were played badly. Think about value betting & getting value. Im guessing at least 2 of these 3 hands were very good, & you Donk bet got the minimum or nothing really.
There is a Poker saying about broad casting your hand. It basically means betting strong & representing strength. Good players will often let you have it. You can use this, especially against an aggressive V by betting weak & repping weakness. I dont remember seeing you 4bet very often or at all. Bet weak with strong, get a raise, and 4bet for value. This wins more than the min.
If you bet weak against an aggressive opponent you can entice action, a raise & re-raise. Your game plan doesn’t include a good plan against an aggressive V. Look for opportunities to 4bet preflop.
Out of these 11 hands I’d be interested in what your plan was? Anyone could say I have a plan. Everyone should have a game plan. I have lost many HU or 3MAX SnGs playing badly. I don’t make excuse like a bad game plan or I’m cursed etc.
Thats a game plan weakness that can be exploited. You need to consider folding to 3bets, otherwise your gifting chips like its Christmas.
There is a lot of psychological play in using the timer. This isn’t chess tho. Yes you should think about how to respond on the next street but you still need to play each street for what its worth. If you flop a flush draw etc and decide ill donk call until the river thats bad.
Ignore psychological play etc. Right now your losing that battle. Focus on making the best decision at every opportunity. You will only achieve this by taking more time to think on each decision.
Its your decision. I play lower stakes SnGs (HU & 3MAX) which is worse considering the variance. Stacks are 1500 2000 with the same blind schedule. That means I need to gamble more with presumably worse players.
You would need to be the unluckiest man alive to go broke based on your BRM. Maybe beak up with your GF and she burns your BR. Your BR management is more than reasonable, and conservative.
Getting back to it. One Hand 624625322 of bad luck doesnt mean the excuse I might? maybe? have a game plan for playing badly has any value.
@puggywug - if you can formulate a clear plan for every hand preflop and adjust it instantly to the changing conditions of the board and other players actions, then you are way more advanced than I am. I have a feeling you aren’t taking many variables into account. This may be one of the issues you’re having and lead you to bad results, even with great starting hands. LMK if you want to go into this and I’ll lay out some of the things that I consider each and every hand before taking any action.
BTW - I suggested dropping in stakes so that no matter what happened, your bankroll wouldn’t change noticeably. If you have any tilt issues related to bankroll, I’d want to steer clear of them. Also, I don’t think the play or the players are necessarily better at 100K than at 7.5K. Even if there are differences, you need to be able to beat all types of players. Whether people are taking the game seriously or not isn’t relevant to the discussion here anyway. All we are trying to do is get the decision making process in order.
Well, here we are again. Another Wednesday, another horror nightmare hand.
I’m in 4th/26/36 in an MTT, final hand before the hour break.
I take KK into AQs, and they flop a flush. I can take getting beat by AQ, it’s easy to flop an Ace and take the lead from me. But not on Replay, where the gratuitous dealer has to give V the absolute nuts every time I commit my stack.
Hand #627529104
“It’s just one of those things that happens all the time, it’s completely normal”
Yet, only when I put in my whole stack.
The entire strategy book for beating me is to shove any time I raise. I’ll either fold, unless I have AAKK+ in which case I’ll go all-in with you, and lose to whatever the best hand your two cards can possibly make that has me drawing dead. The end. Publish, best seller, now everyone knows.
Nothing wrong with my strategy, nothing wrong with V’s strategy. Nothing I could do here. Nothing surprising about any of it. Completely normal. Except that it always happens, always goes the wrong way, and only the giant pots.
Somehow, you must’ve offended the Poker Gods. Have you considered sacrificing a goat? You don’t seem to have much to lose and nothing else is working. It might be worth a try.
Seriously, beats–this one isn’t even “bad”–are hiding in every shadow, and behind every rock, tree, and bush. Try being a little more cautious. “Ahead at the moment” doesn’t always win in the end. You know that. You see it every day.
I raised KK to 4BB, and a player who I had covered by nearly 4000 chips shoves. Am I supposed to fold here? I’m beating most hands here most of the time. If I get beat, I get beat. But why is it every time I go for a big bet preflop, I lose way beyond what’s expected?
It’s a 0.1% shot to flop a flush, and AQ has 3 outs for Aces, or possibly could draw trip Queens. I think my odds here are pretty good, and folding is way too tight. Once again 33% is good. When will variance make up for it? I need to win about 100 all in hands in a row at this point to break even.
I agree, Puggy. I would’ve raised with KK. And, I would’ve called the reraise, and lost. But, when the Earthquake comes, and the ground splits beneath our feet and we fall into the crevasse, the only thing we can do is shake off the hurt and climb like the dickens to get out of the hole before it closes up.
We both know from painful experience that things like this happen all the time. Either we learn to live with them or we find a game like chess where there is zero hidden information and few surprises. Surprises work in both directions, though, and chances are good you’ve gotten lucky about as often as you’ve gotten unlucky. Do you keep track of the times things go right for you? I’d bet there are more of them than appear in memory. Most folks don’t think much about the good stuff that happens to them, they just take it for granted.
I have been working towards tracking this sort of thing, but setting up a spreadsheet and doing the data entry is time consuming.
I’m playing profitable poker, but not as profitable as I’d like to, and it seems like I can only win hands when I get to play postflop. I get rivered and outplayed and surprised sometimes, but I play pretty well when I can make decisions at each street. When someone goes all in preflop, even when I have a strong hole, and it seems like a disproportionate amount of the time V gets a fantastic board that’s custom tailored to kill my hand, as though the deck was stacked.
I need to track this so I can prove that I’m not crazy. It could be a cognitive bias thing, but it sure seems like the vast majority of the time I’m in ahead with a better hand and they hit something crazy.
This morning, I got a player in a HU SNG, two great hands quickly, Pocket Tens, then a 7-J straight, got him down to 1000 chips, he gets me with trips over top two pair on a hand, but then and got him to shove on me with 55 when I’m holding KK. He ends up with a wheel straight, and I’m left with 160 chips. How do they keep getting so lucky? Straights and flushes are supposed to be rare, right!
And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had High Ace over Weak Ace, miss the board, and they pair their kicker. It’s the most common outcome.
If it happened proportionally to the odds, I’d be fine with that. But it’s all the time. Drives me nuts.
Get heads up in a 3-max vs a player who had the lead from rail to rail. I eliminated the 3rd place finisher on a lucky hand where I shoved a suited King-rag, got called by AT, and hit top pair Kings on the flop, and filled a full house.
Heads up, my opponent shoves at me on the first hand, I fold JTs. The second hand, I flop an inside straight draw, and fold to a bet on the flop. The third hand, I get AQo, raise pot, and get called by 64o. The flop is 6Q4, v checks to me, I min-bet 100, v shoves. I call, lose the hand.
Not complaining, just can someone please explain the logic of calling a 3BB raise with 64o?
Well, I wouldn’t do it, but I understand why someone would call with a hand like that preflop. If you are raising, they probably think you have high cards. Heads up, preflop who knows what the texture of the board is going to be. I’d rather call a raise with low connectors preflop, than call with another high hand that is likely dominated. Calling with a low hand usually means you have 2 live cards and HU, when you have the lead, it makes some sense to me. JMO
I agree. This is simple, he has a slightly larger stack than you. If the flop hits him, he may be able to stack you, or if the flop comes with no broadway cards, he may be able to bluff you off the pot. If the flop misses, he loses the pot, but is still in the game as one double up will put him in the lead.
In general if I am the large stack at the table, I am going to be calling raises with some hands like this, especially if there are two or more opponents in the pot, because my odds are slightly improved if the opponents hold high cards that block each other, and these are exactly the kind of hands where you expect to take out opponents.
If OP had shoved preflop with this hand, chances are opponent would have folded.
I jam a player who’s betting too aggressively with junk. I’m holding just a Ace, he should be laying down J3s, instead he makes a 7-heart flush.
Because when I all-in, it triggers a conditional statement in the Replay Poker code that nuts up my caller’s hand automatically.
I did it with AK on a four-heart flush board, 223 flop, in the past week, and a player holding pocket 66 called, filled a full house on the Turn which also filled me a useless nut flush, then proceeded to river Quads.
Yeah improbabilities happen once in a while, when it happens all the time it’s called completely normal and a coincidence and perfectly reasonable.
Here, here’s another one. I’ve been beaten by quads 4-5 times this week. Unreal.
I played a MTT last night on the final table, and I had about 7000 chips and BB had 5000. I was in SB and shoved with A9s and he called with 94 offsuit, Naturally he won the hand, and then another similar, and ten minutes later he was leading the tournament.
However I finally got him heads up and beat his ass with a few tricks of mine in a satisfying finale. 15 million chips to moi.
Here is one killer hand. I don’t know what he had, but I can guarantee he had me beat, because I was playing the board.
