June Review

It's that time again. June was an interesting month, as during the first half I ran significantly bad, but ran well enough in the second half to reach a very solid profit figure.

Here's the summary of my play for the month:


My winnings in graphical form, PT3 style (note that I still use PT2 + PAHUD for my everyday play, as the PT3 HUD is terrible):


As you can see above, the bulk of my winnings came in the latter half of the hand sample. In the EV graph below, my Showdown Winnings trail my Sklansky Bucks up until the very end of the month. It is also worth mentioning that during the first half of the month I had a very high cooler to heater ratio, which didn't help things. Anyway, here's the EV graph:


By the end of the month my actual versus expected equity was just about even, and according to Set-O-Meter I ran very close to dead even in heater versus cooler hands. While these factors don't tell the whole "luck" story, it appears that I ran pretty close to average on the month as a whole.

Time to check if I met my goals for the month:

(1)Play 50,000 hands
Crushed this, playing a (once again) new personal best 67k hands. It seems every month I think I'll play less, and end up playing more instead. The move up to 100NL definitely boosted my motivation a ton, and when I run bad as I did during the first half I tend to play more hands to try to grind through it.

(2)Be comfortable at $100NL
I'm nice and comfy. Complete! In all seriousness, $100NL isn't terribly different from $50NL. I'm getting used to dealing with some of the more aggressive regulars, and while I'm certain there is a lot of room for improvement, I'm confident that I'm a solid winner at the stakes.

(3)Loosen up in position
My VPIP went up perhaps a quarter point in the BU and CO, but not nearly enough. I think I need to start bluff 3-betting a little more in position with the occasional suited connector, as well as raising suited one/two gappers more often when first in from the BU/CO and maybe even HJ.

Big Blind: Be more aggressive!
I failed at this goal too unfortunately. I've caught myself lately simply checking hands like small pairs in the BB with say 3 limpers in the pot (including the SB), when I could be raising and either taking the pot down right there, or winning a good percentage of the time with a c-bet on the flop.

Obviously I still have some things to work on carrying over from June going into July, as well as any new adjustments I identify. I'll think about these and post my goals for July tomorrow.

Total Profit for June:
$4023 + 67,313 FPPs ($1010*) + 2,000 FPPs spent on "Ace on the River" by Barry Greenstein ($30) = $5063 total

Note that FPP -> $ conversion is based on purchasing the $1500 bonus, which requires Supernova. I will hit Supernova during August, and at that point can convert my FPPs to cash at the rate used in the calculation above. Until then I am hoarding earned FPPs.

Just for kicks, here is my lifetime winnings graph so far (includes $25NL, $50NL, and $100NL):


There's always going to be bumps, but all things considered it's been a pretty smooth ride so far!

Balancing Ranges

A term you'll see thrown around a lot by good players playing medium to high stakes (typically probably $400NL and higher) is "range balancing". What this means is that in order to not become easily exploited by good opponents who are paying attention to our tedencies, we must take the same action with roughly the same percent of our strongest hands as we do with our weakest hands.

Lets consider a typical ABC TAG player who c-bets 100% of the time in HU pots on the flop. However, on the turn he only fires a second barrel with TPTK or better, and checks everything else (including his draws). Once a good player has figured out how the typical ABC TAG bets his hands on the turn, it becomes trivial to play near perfect poker against him. We'll call or raise his turn bet if we can beat TPTK, and fold if we cannot (and do not have enough outs + implied odds to make a call +EV). If the good player is IP and is checked to by the TAG on the turn, he will bet every time. It also becomes much more desirable for the good player to float the TAG's flop c-bets, because he knows that he's never going to be bluffed off the best hand on the turn. Thus, against very good players we must balance our betting ranges with bluffs so that they cannot play near perfectly against us. If all of a sudden our ABC TAG begins to bet the top 25% of his range as well as the 25% of the bottom, the good player will now be folding the best hand on the turn some of the time. As he eventually adjusts to calling down lighter on the turn, the TAG's big hands will also get paid off more easily.

It's worth noting that when we choose to bet our near worthless hands (we get to choose because >25% of our range is made up of these hands, and we're only betting 25% to balance the betting of the top 25%) it is important that we pick good spots. We want to pick spots where our opponent is more likely to fold based on his tendencies. If we know he likes to raise his draws on the flop and a draw completes on the turn when he merely called our flop bet, this is a good spot to bluff. Following a low flop, a turn ace or king is often a good card to fire a second barrel, as it is more likely to have hit our range than that of our opponent (as they are likely have folded missed large cards on the flop).

Hopefully from the above you can see how having balanced ranges is very important when appropriate. However, unless you're playing mid/high stakes perhaps the most important lesson is that you do not need to balance ranges against players whom are not considering your range and associated betting patterns. This includes the fish and the majority of the regulars at micro/small stakes. For instance, assume we isolate a fish that we know is a calling station. He only very rarely can find the fold button, and is calling a flop bet with any pair, missed overcards, any draw, etc. Against a good player, only betting our made hands and checking our air would be extremely exploitable and bad. However, against this fish it is absolutely optimal, and we should play this way because he's not going to adjust and try to exploit us. The same goes for the majority of the ABC TAG regulars at micro/small stakes. These players eventually build a roll and move up, but if they don't learn to balance their own ranges and exploit the unbalanced ranges of other players, they become "TAGfish" whom are feasted on by the better players.

Taking Notes Part 2

Over the last week I've run good for a change. After a minor cooler session on Tuesday, I rebounded with a nice +5.5 BI heater on Wednesday, followed by an average +2.0 BI session on Friday, and finally a +5.0 BI heater Sunday night. These results are awesome, especially when considering I put in less hands this weekend than I have in ages because I spent the entire day Saturday and Sunday morning out of town. If I can focus up and put in good volume over the last week of June, I might be able to hit 70k hands on the month.

Here is my EV graph for the period between Tuesday the 17th and Sunday the 22nd (since I last posted a graph):


On to a little strategy. In early May I wrote a post about how useful taking notes about player tendencies can be. During my Friday session, I played a hand in an extremely non-standard fashion based entirely on a read from a note I had taken on the villain.

Lets take a look at the hand history:

Villain in this hand is a 18/13/2.3/690 reg, who has recently moved up to 100NL. Most of the hands I have on him were at 50NL. He is spewy postflop, to the extent that his postflop play has recently been bashed in 2+2 SSNL Stars Regulars Thread. I have a note on villain that says "minraise=bluff".

Poker Stars, $0.50/$1 PL Hold'em Cash Game, 8 Players

MP2: $168.90 (168.9 bb)
MP3: $39.80 (39.8 bb)
CO: $33.05 (33.1 bb)
BTN: $101 (101 bb)
SB: $99 (99 bb)
Hero (BB): $202.10 (202.1 bb)
UTG+1: $99.50 (99.5 bb)
MP1: $97 (97 bb)

Pre-Flop: Hero is BB with
3 folds, MP3 calls $1, CO folds, BTN raises to $4.50, SB folds, Hero raises to $15, MP3 folds, BTN calls $10.50

This is a standard spot to 3-bet, and is especially good because his calling range is likely wider than normal. This is because he knows I know that his button raising range is very wide, and thus I am likely 3-betting a much wider than normal range.

Flop: ($31.50) (2 players)
Hero bets $18, BTN raises to $36, Hero calls $18

Terrible flop for our hand. Our villain's range includes AA, AK and perhaps AQs, along with QQ, JJ, TT and perhaps some suited broadways like KQs, QJs etc. Honestly, I'm lost on what to do in this spot. If we check we are inviting the villain to bluff us off our hand, but by betting we very likely only get called by better hands + big draws. In either case, our villain is spewy postflop and might get crazy with QQ/JJ/TT etc. I decide to bet just over half the pot. The bet is a little bit on the weak side, which is perhaps a good thing if we want to induce a bluff out of the villain. We get minraised and have to make a very difficult decision.

Against a typical villain we need to fold in this spot, despite the line not making a ton of sense. Why would our villain minraise? Most AK/AQ hands should be calling here, as they almost never get value out of worse (the exception being AhKh). We know our villain is bad postflop, so applying such logic may not be valid. We also have our note which reads "minraise=bluff". The combination of these factors makes me decide to take this hand to showdown, as I believe our villain is full of shit enough of the time to make it +EV. He also shows up with KhQh or QhJh sometimes (rarely) as well. Note that once I call the flop minraise, I am 100% calling a turn shove from the villain who is pretty much committed to his bluff (or strange value line) at this point.

Turn: ($103.50) (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $50 and is all-in, Hero calls $50

Snap call, as before we call the minraise we make the decision to take this hand to showdown. We should never, ever, be calling the flop raise if we aren't prepared to call here. Note that betting or shoving here would be terrible on our part. Our hand is essentially a bluff catcher at this point, and we need to check to allow the villain to follow through on his bluff. Otherwise we beat nothing, and make our line very, very -EV.

River: ($203.50) (2 players, 1 is all-in)

Results: $203.50 pot ($3 rake)
Hero showed (a pair of Kings) and won $200.50 ($99.50 net)
BTN mucked (a pair of Queens) and lost (-$101 net)

Villain shows down a bluff with QQ, huzzah! That said, we're going to be up against AA, AhKh, or AhQh a fair bit in this hand, and even sometimes 99/88. Despite the wonky flop minraise, against most villains we need to fold. However, thanks to our note taken playing with the villain at 50NL, we use our read to pick off a bluff for his entire stack.

/yawn

I've played a couple sessions lately, including a bit of a cooler on Tuesday followed by a solid 5.5 BI heater last night. On the month I'm still only running at 2.0 ptBB/100, but that's life. My volume is on pace for something like 75k hands I think, though I doubt I'll make it quite that high, especially since I'll be spending much of this weekend in Banff with the girlfriend.

I don't really have much content for this post, unfortunately. I'm trying to stay proactive in analyzing my game and always trying to find the perfect line for a given spot. There was one hand last night I wasn't happy with how I played (despite winning a $190 pot), but I don't have the HH handy. Short story was I had AA versus villain's KK which he smooth called preflop (this hand would have played itself had he 3-bet). After c/ring me on the flop I turned passive, despite the flop being two-tone. The villain was running something like 15/7/1.3, and I didn't have any reads. Thankfully, he valuetowned himself for most of his stack (we were 130BB deep) as I took c/c lines on the turn and river. I think based on his range, I should probably have taken a c/r line and jammed the turn. 3-betting the flop is probably also better than my actual line.

I scored a PS3 yesterday, thanks to a company rewards program. The only game I picked up was a mediocre RPG called Enchanted Arms because the price was right. We'll see if it can hold my attention after I'm done with Persona 3, although FFTA2 comes out pretty soon, and that will most definitely eat up some of my gaming time. I should also mention that I ordered Ace on the River by Barry Greenstein for 2,000 FPPs, which I'm excited to read. Barry is one of the most respected people in poker for the reason, and I'm told this book teaches some often overlooked things about the game.

The River and Hero Calls

When learning how to play winning TAG poker, the first aspect of the game one typically focuses heavily on is preflop play. Learning what hands to play from what positions and against what opponents, what ranges to 3-bet, etc. is important, and the foundation of a good TAG game. There are many regulars at small stakes who are very solid preflop, and decent amounts at microstakes as well. A few might even be exceptional, working concepts such as light 3 or 4-betting into their game against appropriate opponents. That said, preflop is the least complex of all streets in NLH, and as a result, we can find a much larger edge against reasonable players on the later, more complex streets.

Poker is about making your opponents make mistakes, while limiting your own (this is basic game theory). Because of the nature of betting during the lifecycle of a NLHE hand, the street where the biggest mistakes typically occur is the river. On the river, the bets become huge and we either have the best hand or we don't. This makes it a great street to bluff (though so is the turn, due to the leverage of a future bet on the river), as well as a great street to value bet when appropriate. Missing value on the river is a huge mistake, and often the difference between a player crushing his stakes and merely beating them.

Today however, I'd like to talk a little bit about making big river calls (sometimes referred to as "hero calls"). When we consider calling a big bet on the river, we should keep the following things in mind:
(1) How our hand stacks up against the hands that are in our opponent's range based on the betting patterns so far. Basically, how often we are ahead. This requires hand reading skills, as it is essential we are able to trim down our opponents preflop range based on his street by street decisions. Unless of course we are up against a 6/2 nit which raised UTG preflop (he has AA/KK).
(2) The pot odds we are being offered. Even if we only have the best hand 33% of the time, if we are being offered 2.5:1 on a call, calling is +EV.
(3) How likely our opponent is to be bluffing. If our opponent is a complete maniac who fires mercilessly regardless of his hand, we can obviously call down light. Furthermore, if our opponent is a good, thinking player (not an ABC nit) and the board texture has given him a good shot at bluffing, we can again call down light.

Lets look at a couple hand histories.

Villain is a 28/20/10 maniac donktard over 70 hands

Poker Stars, $0.50/$1 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 7 Players
MP1: $128.05 (128.1 bb)
MP2: $88.55 (88.6 bb)
MP3: $75.90 (75.9 bb)
CO: $21.25 (21.3 bb)
Hero (BTN): $100 (100 bb)
SB: $22.45 (22.5 bb)
BB: $56.80 (56.8 bb)

Pre-Flop: Hero is BTN with
MP1 raises to $3, 3 folds, Hero calls $3, 2 folds

Because our villain is raising so much of his range and likely has a large 3-bet calling range, 3-betting wouldn't have been a bad move here. However, since he is liable to spew post-flop, I decide to just call and play poker.

Flop: ($7.50) (2 players)
MP1 bets $5, Hero calls $5

This is a good flop for us. Because there is only an unlikely straight draw possible, I don't think a raise is great here. While he might call a raise light with a hand like 88, TT or A9, we're probably folding out several hands we beat while being called by everything that beats us. Also, our opponent is super aggro so he'll probably keep betting worse hands for us. Thus, I just call.

Turn: ($17.50) (2 players)
MP1 checks, Hero bets $9, MP1 raises to $27, Hero calls $18

Surprisingly, Villain checks, and we need to bet to get value out of the hands we beat. The raise here is scary, as the T completes an unlikely straight, and also puts us behind another hand that we were previously taking to value town, TT. The villain is an aggro maniac however, so I call.

River: ($71.50) (2 players)
MP1 bets $93.05 and is all-in, Hero calls $65 and is all-in

The back door flush draw misses, and the river almost certainly helps nobody. Villain instantly pushes all-in. At this point I'm getting about 2.15:1 on my money to call. Based on the betting, my hand is nothing more than a bluff catcher at this point, but the villain is a donkey and extremely aggressive so a bluff is likely. If he's only full of shit once every three times he makes this move, calling is +EV. I think he almost certainly bluffs this often (especially due to the insta-push, it's like he didn't care what the river was - in my experience this usually screams bluff) so I call and scoop. I expect to get shown AA/KK/QQ/TT sometimes in this spot, though also AK/AQ and garbage a fair bit. Note that if we are going to fold somewhere in this hand, it should be to the turn raise.

Results: $201.50 pot ($3 rake)
MP1 showed (high card Ten) and lost (-$100 net)
Hero showed (a pair of Jacks) and won $198.50 ($98.50 net)


Lets look at one more hand. While I make a dumb mistake on the flop, the river decision is very interesting because we have a lot of information regarding our villain, and hand reading skills are required to make the correct decision.

Villain in this hand is a 14/11/3 regular over 1600 hands. He is a competent player and is an active member of the 2+2 forum community. I know that he is capable of creative bluffs.

Poker Stars, $0.50/$1 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 8 Players
MP1: $55 (55 bb)
MP2: $106.90 (106.9 bb)
MP3: $89.50 (89.5 bb)
CO: $106 (106 bb)
BTN: $20.80 (20.8 bb)
Hero (SB): $99 (99 bb)
BB: $48.95 (49 bb)
UTG+1: $107.55 (107.6 bb)

Pre-Flop: Hero is SB with
2 folds, MP2 raises to $4, 3 folds, Hero calls $3.50, BB folds

Standard.

Flop: ($9) (2 players)
Hero bets $6, MP2 raises to $22, Hero calls $16

Crazy flop. We have a one card open ended straight flush draw, which means we have 2 outs to the stone cold nuts. I must have not been paying attention here, because I donkbet into the villain who is the aggressor. While donkbets have their place, this is not it. I think a c/c line on this street is certainly best. As played however, we bet and the villain raises. Assuming our opponent is not making a mistake, he should not be raising with a hand like the naked Ad or Kd here, because he then gets shoved on by sets which puts him in a terrible spot. Thus, his likely range at this point consists of sets, air, and perhaps a hand like QdQx which has decent equity versus a set. He might also have AdAx or KdKx, though those probably should be calling rather than raising as well. Because he has air here a fair amount of the time, and we can spike cards to help us against any of his potential holdings, we call.

Turn: ($53) (2 players)
Hero checks, MP2 checks

Turn blanks, and checks around. Since the villain knows we probably don't have a made flush or set (we would have reraised the flop) by checking the turn we now know he probably doesn't have a set himself (he'd want to get more money in ahead by betting). Our villain's line now doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and the chances of him having a small pair or missed non-diamond overs increases. Our hand now looks very much like QdQx or our actual hand.

River: ($53) (2 players)
Hero checks, MP2 bets $38, Hero calls $38

The river completes the four flush and we check. Our check screams that we don't have the Ad. The villain bets fairly large. At this point his range is completely polarized. He would want to go to showdown with a set or even likely the Q-high flush here. Thus, he either has a big flush which misplayed the flop, air, or maybe a Q-high flush that is looking for thin value. The key in this spot is that we know that our villain probably knows about Clarkmeister's Theorem which states that a 4-flush board is an ideal bluffing situation. Checking here with our flush and calling induces value from worse hands which bluff, while taking a b/f type line merely folds out worse hands and is shoved on by better. We are also getting 2.4:1 on our money. Thus we c/c, induce a bluff, and scoop.

Results: $129 pot ($3 rake)
MP2 showed (high card Ace) and lost (-$64 net)
Hero showed (a flush, Jack high) and won $126 ($62 net)

My God Bad Larry... Just One Time Can I Get A Hand!?

As the American Dad reference in the title suggests, I had another rough weekend. Once again I ran like ass in both showdown equity and heater versus cooler hands. As always, when I run bad I play lots, so I put in a ton of volume between Thursday and Sunday (15k hands). Eventually I ended up at +2BI in winnings and likely a similar amount up in FPPs, so it wasn't entirely a waste. It really blows being at 1.75ptBB/100 on the month so far when I know my game puts me in the 3+ range running average.

Here are my EV and luck graphs for the period:



I'm going to do a lengthy writeup about making big calls on the river shortly (with a few hand histories), so stay tuned.

Missing Value

I played a solid 2k hand session for +$250 last night. I was put into several nasty cooler spots against donkeys who just happened to have huge hands, but I sucked out a couple times for a change.

A great online player once said that it is criminal to miss value at microstakes, and I couldn't agree more. Recently, people have fallen in love with the concept of pot control. Pot control is a great thing when it is applied appropriately: with very deep stacks against good players. Neither of these typically exist at micro or small stakes online poker. This doesn't mean we should be eager to stack off with overpairs or TPTK, but it does mean that we shouldn't be afraid to bet hands where we can get value out of worse. As a result of this, it also means we have to be able to make big folds when our value bets get raised (assuming the villain isn't a maniac).

Here is a hand I played last night which probably seems really standard, because is it. However, I'm certain a lot of players would have missed value on at least one street, and I'll talk about why playing it as I did is appropriate.

Villain in this hand is a 17/3/0.5 weak tight fish over 60 hands.

Poker Stars, $0.50/$1 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 9 Players

SB: $60.35 (60.4 bb)
BB: $84.75 (84.8 bb)
UTG: $24.80 (24.8 bb)
UTG+1: $120 (120 bb)
Hero (MP1): $163.55 (163.6 bb)
MP2: $61.70 (61.7 bb)
MP3: $94 (94 bb)
CO: $38.10 (38.1 bb)
BTN: $111 (111 bb)

Pre-Flop: Hero is MP1 with
UTG calls $1, UTG+1 folds, Hero raises to $5, 5 folds, BB calls $4, UTG folds

Preflop is completely standard.

Flop: ($11.50) (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $7, BB calls $7

This is my typical c-bet size, and betting here is standard. I don't think many players would be bad enough to check the flop behind. It is usually on the turn or river that people tend to miss value. Based on this flop call, our villain's range likely consists of sets, pocket pairs, A9, flush draws, and suited connectors which flopped a pair plus a straight draw. We're way ahead some of the time, way behind occasionally, and a decent favorite against draws some of the time.

Turn: ($25.50) (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $15, BB calls $15

The turn pairs the board, and likely changes nothing. Sure, it is possible our villain has a five, and some people might be paranoid of it enough to check behind. Checking here is terrible however, as there are still plenty of hands we get value out of (TT, 88, 66, A9, T9) as well as flush draws to charge. Thus, I bet a healthy amount to make calling with a draw -EV for the villain. At this point in the hand, if we get raised we almost certainly need to fold without a read. Our opponent is passive, and if he suddenly get aggressive we know we are beat nearly every time.

River: ($55.50) (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $19, BB calls $19

The river likely changes nothing, although we are now ahead of an extremely poorly played (and very unlikely) straight. Our villain has $57 left behind. I'm a big fan of the "value shove" move on the river, but it probably doesn't make sense here. That said, checking behind also has us missing value a lot of time. Sure, we might valuetown ourselves against villain's QQ+ with a bet, but more likely we can pick up a little bit of extra value out of TT/66/88/A9/T9/98. We need to bet an amount such that that our villain can call with most (or all) of the range we beat. It is spots like this on the river where I know a lot of people would be checking behind, and while it isn't terrible, it is certainly not the optimal play.

It's worth noting that Zeebo's Theorem applies here. People really don't like folding full houses, so we should be confident that we can get value from the weaker boats we have beat. The more I think about it, value shoving here might actually be pretty close or perhaps marginally better EV when compared to the smaller bet which I used in practice. Hard to say for sure. If we had AA or KK, I definitely like a value shove. However, if we intended on playing for stacks we should have bet the flop and turn stronger to make the river shove a little less than pot sized.

Results: $93.50 pot ($3 rake)
Hero showed (a full house, Fives full of Jacks) and won $90.50 ($44.50 net)
BB mucked (a full house, Fives full of Sixes) and lost (-$46 net)

We take down a good pot because we weren't scared to value bet our hand the whole way. Obviously, we wouldn't necessarily be betting for three streets of value against every opponent. But against many of the typical villains at micro and small stakes, we can and should be doing so in situations like the one above.

If I could play this hand again, I probably would instead bet roughly $10 on the flop, and $24 on the turn. This would result in a $70 pot on the river, allowing a value shove to be much more reasonable. Who knows if the villain would have still come along on all three streets, but I think against the average weak-tight fish these bet sizes are better.