Probably the best plog in the world

He took a glass jar and asked if it was full or empty. They all said it was empty. Then he filled it with medium sized rocks, and asked again if it was full or empty. They all said it was now full. Then he took small rocks and poured them to the jar. They fell among the bigger rocks. Then he asked if it was full or empty. They all said that it was full. Then he took small grains of sand and poured them to the jar, asking once again if it was full or empty. And they all said it was full.

That jar is our life. First rocks are the foundations of our life: family, health, friends etc. Smaller rocks are things that make our life good but are not that essential: hobbies, music, good salary etc. And the small grains of sand are the little things that make our life good: morning coffee, good dinner, movies, sunshine etc.

If you take away those small grains from your life, it would still be pretty good. If you also take away the small rocks, your life is good. But if you take away the bigger rocks, your life would be pretty empty.

We all define our rocks and grains individually. Now the question is, what size of a rock is poker to you?

I stumbled to that story yesterday, while reading a book about treatments for gambling addicts. Part of my studies is to do practical training in the fields of social services, and I am spending 7 weeks in a project about centralizing the services for gamling addicts.

As I have been involved with poker and casino games (as a player and as an employee) for 10 years, I have seen a lot of different type or players. That story got me to thinking where poker stands in my life at the moment. As the Finnish community got more or less shut down, a medium sized rock was taken from my jar. Being a Poker School coordinator and a coach was the backbone for my income as a student. I dropped off from my daily job at the end of July, as I calculated that the income from those along with others would be sufficient.

Every cloud has a silver lining though. When I was working as a coordinator and a coach, I didn't have much time to play myself or do private coachings as much as I would have liked to. Now I have time for them. But now we come to the interesting part: pressure and stress.

As a student, the last thing I would like to have in my life is the stress of income. That's why I haven't ever counted my poker winnings to my income. It would be easy to do stuff like "I have 40 hours a month to play poker, so that would be 35K hands. With winrate of 10bb/100 that would be 35 buyins. Easy money." but we all know that variance is a bitch. A MAJOR bitch. If I assume that I would get $xxx a month from poker, what happens if I don't get it? What if I get a 100K downswing, meaning that I won't make any money in 3 months? I can't just increase the volume, as I have so much things to do in my life (that are those big rocks). So I would like to keep poker as a bonus, and secure my life and income in other ways.

I don't know how I will do that. Might be that private coaching goes up and I can get solid field of students. Or might be that I can be a coach at somewhere else, who knows. Or might be that I go to normal job every now and then along my studies. Or might be that I get an insane heater at the end of the year and earn enough of a cushion ($$$) to start playing for income.

There are two ways to get traffic into a poker blog. Strategy content or naked girls. Might be a stupid decision, but I'll go with the hand histories:

PokerStars - $0.25 PL Hi FAST (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 6 players

BTN: 106.4 BB (VPIP: 16.50, PFR: 9.71, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 104)

SB: 106.76 BB (VPIP: 18.55, PFR: 13.87, 3Bet Preflop: 4.10, Hands: 528)

BB: 51.92 BB

UTG: 102.36 BB (VPIP: 38.30, PFR: 21.28, 3Bet Preflop: 19.05, Hands: 49)

MP: 74.4 BB (VPIP: 27.59, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 29)

Hero (CO): 102.4 BB

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has Q♦ K♠ 7♥ A♦

fold, fold, Hero raises to 3.4 BB, BTN raises to 11.6 BB, fold, fold, Hero calls 8.2 BB

Flop: (24.6 BB, 2 players) T♦ J♠ 2♦

Hero bets 23.56 BB, BTN raises to 94.24 BB, Hero calls 67.24 BB and is all-in

Turn: (206.2 BB, 2 players) 8♦

River: (206.2 BB, 2 players) 6♠

Hero shows Q♦ K♠ 7♥ A♦ (Flush, Ace High) (Pre 49%, Flop 71%, Turn 100%)

BTN shows 5♣ 5♦ 6♦ 7♣ (Flush, Ten High) (Pre 51%, Flop 29%, Turn 0%)

Hero wins 198.2 BB

I just don't get his shove otf. I opted to donkbet full pot which is a mistake. I made the mistake by thinking that if I go for check-raise he can't fold his AA/KK hands. I thought that his 3bet range is made of more or less AA/KK, meaning he usually has equity on that flop. So I donked to make him fold his equity. The mistake was that I estimated my equity horribly wrong. Against overpairs or Jxxx I have around 63% equity. If I get the money in with that, the EV is better than it would be if I make him fold. And by donking I force him to fold all his air.

So check-raise would have had a lot better EV than donking. Poker is a funny game where we might end up making a big mistake, but the results are still the same as without that mistake (or even better). But that's the very reason why poker is profitable to play, as most recreational players fall into this trap.

What comes to his shove otf, it would be nice to hear what he thinks. He is sort of solid player, who clearly knows something about PLO (his stats after 100 hands). Maybe he got tilted, as this is his first 3bet. Hand is sort of crappy, and it's hard to find logical justification for the flop shove. As when I donkpot, I clearly have a hand that I am happy to stack off. And against whatever I might have, he has around 30% at max.

Look who it is!

Good luck Kyy!

When the best plog in the world is going to continue? Always like to read your updates.

Originally posted by NutzAreOk

When the best blog in the world is going to continue? Always like to read your updates.

You mean the best plog

Originally posted by VladimirN

Originally posted by NutzAreOk

When the best blog in the world is going to continue? Always like to read your updates.

You mean the best plog

That`s right. Fixed.

Not much to go ploggin' with. I am doing my practical learning in my studies. 7 weeks with addicted gambling issues, research and therapy. Very interesting, but takes away the time to play poker. Oh the irony!

I've had some private coachings which is nice, and I have played two sessions of Zoom with my mobile this week. In the first one I first lost twice set over set in 3bet pots, and then third buyin with flopped nut fullhouse, when villain called flop and turn with an overpair and hit his 2 outer on the river. Second session lasted only for few minutes as the very same player hit his 2 outer again on the river when I flopped full house. That was enough for me.

Mobile Zoom FTW! And the best part is that I am too lazy to get the hand histories to see how I run. Cos I think I have run sh*tloads over EV. Last couple of sessions have been like this:

• I get set over set, flush over flush etc. in 3bet pots and lose couple of buyins there.

• I get 95% of my stack in by the turn, and river completes the draw for villain.

• I win a big multiway lottery and get even.

I have been trying to get rid of my selective memory. But still I have a feeling that villains hit insanely good in Zoom. They cold call 4bets oop with A442 type of hands, and hit set or straight too often. At least for my selective memory. But sometimes there are sessions where I just hit the nuts all the time and villains give their money to me. So it's either god-run or bad-run. Nothing in between.

Mobile Zooming (MobZo?) is pretty much the only way to play poker during my practical learning. I am really waiting until it's over, so that I can play normal sessions during the daytime.

I think this is probably the best plog in the world ♦

Re-animation time! Almost started a new blog but then I remembered this one. Poker wise things have gone backwards since November. Studying, hobbies and family takes so much time that I haven't had time to play poker outside some coachings almost at all. That doesn't really bother me, but it creates some akward situations when someone approaches me for private coaching and asks for graphs/results. And I understand, how reliable is a coach who doesn't play himself?

I am more than happy to explain things about my poker and coaching in here, in case someone is interested.

In the first posts, I said that the only way to get traffic to a blog is either strategy content or naked girls. Which one do you prefer?

P.S. Soon I will hit my 10K posts mark, so I need to figure out what to do with my 10Kth post. Any ideas to that are more than welcome!

Preach strategy (in the 10K-th post too), please!

Originally posted by tonypmm

Preach strategy (in the 10K-th post too), please!

Sure, what topic?

I watched the start of Skod's PLO5 (http://www.pokerstrategy.com/video/33114/)video, but one 6 year old menace interrupted me so Skod lost the battle. Due to many, many incidents, trip to Spain and biggest losing session of my life, my own bankroll was dropped to somewhat minimum. As I said in earlier post my poker volume is similar to recreational players. So I went to play PLO5 Zoom.

At first I bluffed conservatively. Then I noticed that bluffing in PLO5 just doesn't work. So I decreased it. Then I decreased it even more. To a point where 95% of my bets/raises were for value. I never nittied up, just started to make thinner and thinner valuebets. And it worked, as the last 1K hands were pretty fun to play.

Oh, and the funny thing is that usually people say that PLO5 is full of passive players. I found out that in Zoom people just have to bluff the river if they are checked to. Check-call river with a bluff catcher makes wonders.

PLO5 today:

Originally posted by Kyyberi

Originally posted by tonypmm

Preach strategy (in the 10K-th post too), please!

Sure, what topic?

Erm, I just wanted to prevent you from wasting time on looking for naked woman pics

I can't think of many things that 1) I acknowledge as my leaks, 2) apply to Zoom, 3) Skod or any other coach has never explained to me

Let's try the following to begin with: 3-betting IP into a nitty UTG opener - both the preflop range and the behaviour on different flop textures; the thing is, regs fold UTG to 3-bets more often than I'd expect That's too narrow a topic for the 10K-th post, but let me think more on the latter.

Too narrow topic in PLO? When everything depends on everything, the discussion always bloats and even the most simple topics get carried away. 3betting might be a good subject as so many players don't really know why they are 3betting.

I see a pattern!

Again the session started with a downhill slope, and eventually I grinded above the surface. Now one might see a pattern and say "you play poorly in the beginning". I have wondered too if that's the case. It isn't.

It's funny that when you start the session with 8bin losses and grind it to a winning session, it feels pretty damn good. But when you start the session with a 8bin winning streak and eventually lose it all with coolers and setups, it doesn't feel good. Even if you end up winning a little. But it should, as in the end the total $$$ is all that matters.

There are two things that stands out in PLO5 Zoom.

#1. If a player has a busted draw or a weak hand at river and I check to him, he bluffs with a full pot sized bet. I can't even remember if someone has bluffed me with a smaller sizing.

#2. If a player has a decent/good draw on the turn, he raises it even if hero's range is only the nuts. He can't think about equities, pot odds or estimate the difference between the actions. If he has more outs than he has fingers, he treats his hand like it's the nuts.

Despite the swings this overall PLO5 Zoom graph looks pretty solid. As in micros the rakeback is very essential source of income, I have included the rakeback to the graph. EV winrate without the rakeback is around 15bb/100.

I also figured out the topic for the 10Kth post, all I need to do is to spam this forum a little more before that

edit: I adjusted my game to PLO5 at around 750 hands, and reduced my bluffing a lot.

Graphs are funny. You can make them to show almost anything you want.

Feeling angry for running poorly? Post a graph with the EV line!

Having a hue upswing? Post a graph without the EV line!

Here is the graph for today, runnin almost 10bin under EV:

I could cry how cruel the world is and I am the unluckiest person in the world blah blah blah. When we put that graph to the total graph of last week, it looks like this:

So instead of running poorly I have actually run over EV for the majority of the time.

This blog is alive again! Keep it going Kyy!

I busted my knee about a week ago, so the last week I have been sitting/lying at home. I have had quite many private coachings, so I haven't been able to play poker myself that much. I grinded a lot in the last day of month to get the status for next month, and run pretty bad. Played some PLO50 at thursday and friday, and those went well. I am quite happy to the level of my playing, even as I lost on one session and won on the other.

I also noticed that my private coaching thread has some old information, so I am going to update it as soon as I have time.

looks like you need a little bit more luck with the starting of your session just to bring up the graph a little bit ♠_biggrin:

Dr. Rungood is in the house! Played 2 small sessions today while killing time:

Again started with a loss, and then bounced to rungood. But in the overall graph, no one even notices those minor bumbs:

As I mentioned, I busted my knee about a week ago. Finally today I got the answer from my insurance company about the MRI. They don't cover it, as they don't consider it as an accident. That is just bullshit, as it is as clear as an accident can be. But when I reported it, I have used such a wording that they can use against me. The company lady asked if there was any collision or torgue to my knee. I said that I don't know, I was busy playing the game. I don't know what happened to my knee, all I know that there was sudden major pain. So now they said that as there wasn't any hit or torgue, it's not considered as an accident. I am going to write a complain, but I doubt it's efficiency.

edit: And a little late night session for 800 hands, won $16 while EV was $4. Dr. Rungood in the house!

Played small morning session with the regs, decent winrate...

Here is a trick to get a beer in a bar/pub.

Get a deck of cards, and suggest a poker game with your friend. Rules are easy. The first player picks a card and keeps it hidden. Then the other player picks five cards (again keeps them hidden), and after that the first player picks remaining four. Your friend might be suspicious, so tell him that he can choose if he/she likes to be the first or the second.

I don't think there are that many non-pokerpro's that can beat this game. I am not going to reveal the trick yet, I will give you guys some time to think it. What would you pick if you are the first one? If you are the second one, your friend probably takes A:h or A:s. What would you pick then?

I told you about the trend of losing at the start of the sessions. So far I have just thought it's variance, I just get a setup or two in the beginning. Not a big deal. Or is it?

I concider myself a winning player at the stakes I play. So it should be over 50% probability to win at the start of the session. Still most of the sessions have started with a loss. Human brain is like an ex-gf: it tries to **** you up in every possible occasion. Instead of facing the facts, I kept believing that it's just variance. Easy way to think, as it doesn't reveal any leaks in me as a person and I don't have to do anything. Just let it be. But I realized that I have those losses in the beginning usually when no one is watching. If there are people watching (railing, coaching, making a video) I don't have that problem. And especially in PLO5 9 out of 10 sessions have started with a loss, and I should have a decent winrate with my A-game.

It all made sense when I read about warmups. I have read Jared's books, so the idea behind warmup is nothing new. But I haven't really done that, as I am too lazy. Could the early losses come from that? It would make sense, as the first 15 minutes of the session is kinda my warmup. In that period my brains and mind warms up, and I start to play my A-game.

To test things out, I am starting to make a short warmup before each session. It includes reviewing some goals, mental game leaks and activating brain with few puzzle-things.

I'm somewhat disappointed to see that you blamed the issue on the variance while not obeying Jared. Silly you!

If you decide to use Erik Stenqvist's guided meditations, please make sure to listen to both the mindfulness (http://www.pokerstrategy.com/video/28402) and then the visualisation (http://www.pokerstrategy.com/video/28572) one as a part of the warmup. Last December, failing to visualise my A-game after exercising mindfulness led to me feeling empty during sessions (all the real-life mindset was erased by the mindfulness but nothing was input to substitute it) and eventually experiencing one of my most regretful sessions.

Nice signature Sir!

I am trying a light warmup, which includes going through my goals and common leaks (most of them mental). After that I warmup my brain cells with brain games. And I will implement a strict timer to my sessions. To be able to close the clients, it needs to be learned. And sometimes it's a lot harder than one might think. I have found myself playing a lot longer than I planned, and nearly always I have been in a losing session. We all know that it's a lot easier to stop playing while winning than when losing. And it would be stupid to think that I could play my A game when the reason for playing is purely emotional (getting even). Although when playing, my brain tries to justify it by ***** me up and saying "you play good, keep going!", "games are so fishy, keep going!", "just a little more to win some back, keep going!".

To time sessions, you need just some kind of minute minder. Even if you find sophisticated anti-tilt tools yet too expensive, there are free ones like the online mindfulness bell (http://www.fungie.info/bell/) (popularised by Erik ) or Workrave.

I am trying a warmup website, that has timer in itself. Too bad I don't have time to play poker for the next 2 weeks or so.

Thought to send an update, I still don't have time to play poker. Looks like the next time to play some poker with volume is in June.

Nothing new from the front.

Haven't had time to play poker, except couple of small sessions. I marked some hands where villains made amazing (in a bad way) plays, but the strategical or interest value is pretty small in those. Something like villain calling a pot sized check-raise ott to 3JJQ board with AAA8 and so on.

But I have some news, next week I will be hosting my first ever EN live coaching! Information about the coachings will be posted to Omaha section as soon as possible.

Finally I had time to play some Zoom. Was a horrible day, I lost almost 20 buyins in EV in one session. Luckily I lost only 6 buyins in real money, but still... It was like Mr. Murphy was in the house: when something goes bad, everything goes bad. Three times I flop the 2nd nuts in 3bet pot +200bb deep. Opponent had AAxx, where xx is the nuts. JTT board, he had AAJJ. T98 board, he had AAQJ. And creme de la creme, 3way 300bb deep in 3bet pot I hit the jackpot. T98ss flop, I have KT76 with the flushdraw. 3bettor has aces for sure, and he overplays them. I am on the button, 3bettor is SB and guy who cold called 3bet is on the BB. Aces guy pots, cold caller calls, and I repot with a victory dance. Aces guy goes allin with bare aces, and cold caller thinks for a while and goes allin too. Cold caller has AJ77 with the nut flush draw. Solid hand to cold call 3bet while sitting 300bb deep.

Also it was an avalanche of valuebetting flop and turn, and see on the river that villain has hit some backdoors. I am not complaining or whining, it is nice that people make mistakes. But even with good winrate the variance can be a bitch. This downswing is just a bump on a road, I managed to climb up for about 8buyins in EV in the evening.

I thought about writing an article about "How to crush PLO5", but I am too tired now (and my laptop battery is at 11%). A lot of people think that PLO5 is the same as PLO10 and PLO25, but it's not. PLO5 is VERY different from PLO10. What amazes me is that there are some regs that play a LOT in PLO5. And they are all losing money in my statistics. Why aren't they investing their time to learn how to play, instead of grinding many hours a day with negative winrate?

Here's the total graph from my PLO5 Zoom adventures:

I'm not sure if you plugged in the correct RB% - due to 8.5 VPPs given per $1 of PLO5 rake, and some small promos like Mission Weeks or Pokerstrategy Gold, it's rather 45-50% for Silver-Goldstars than the 28% usually cited, so 20 EV bb/100 instead of 16. Stars care a lot about us recreationals

That 28% is what I have put to my stat, as I use it to all stakes. But here's the calculation for PLO5:

Milestones rewards: $50 for 5000VPP, which takes $588 to achieve, resulting 8,5% rakeback.

Playing FPP hypers with ROI 0%: value of FPP is $0,0157 in those. With Gold Star, $1 generates 17 FPP, which is 26,7% rakeback.

So overall the rakeback is actually around 35% which is really nice. I play pretty aggressively, and I rake around 19bb/100.

Thanks for noticing, here is the graph with up to date rakeback:

Originally posted by Kyyberi

Milestones rewards: $50 for 5000VPP, which takes $588 to achieve, resulting 8,5% rakeback.

Don't forget five $10 rewards for lower targets, making it $100 total, or 17% RB. It gets smaller past the 5K VPP mark, though.

The smallers are $10 for 1000 VPP, same as $50 for 5000 VPP. Of course you get a "bonus" everytime it jumps up a level.

After a month, my PLO5 Zoom adventure continues. Solid and normal session:

Can't really complain about bad run, as you can see below. Here is the project after 45K hands, rakeback included:

Almost posted some hands, but to be honest they hold little any value from PLO5.

Originally posted by tonypmm

Last December, failing to visualise my A-game after exercising mindfulness led to me feeling empty during sessions (all the real-life mindset was erased by the mindfulness but nothing was input to substitute it)

If a coach told you this then ask for your money back. This is the worst nonsense I've read in a long time.

What is nonsense, the whole thing or the part where tony did only half what the coach suggested him to do?

The whole idea of mindfulness as an eraser of "real-life mindset" and, more importantly, the idea of having to substitute that mindset. Mindfulness is not a tool and can be terribly misunderstood if not taught properly.

Visualization is also something that just doesn't belong in the arsenal of a serious mindfulness teacher (at least not in this way. There is a place for visualization, but it's merely for physiological benefits). Mindfulness means realizing how much noise your mind creates, visualizing is just more noise.

OK, I likely misinterpreted the concept, and it's my fault.

But what disturbs me is that Kyyberi knows so much about the percentage of the coaches' suggestions I did. They can hold to their opinions, but mine is that I did almost everything I was supposed to, albeit with delays at times.

Actually, it was the other way round - I had a complete warmup routine before that experience, but the coaches were introducing a bit different a routine, and were rolling it out gradually, so one of the halves went missing for a while.

Anyway, let's not recall that episode any longer.

Originally posted by tonypmm

But what disturbs me is that Kyyberi knows so much about the percentage of the coaches' suggestions I did. They can hold to their opinions, but mine is that I did almost everything I was supposed to, albeit with delays at times.

I don't quite understand this, sorry for my english. My comment was based on your own words, and I understood that you said yourself that you didn't put anything back even as you should have. If I misunderstood that, my apologies.

Nice plog, SUBSCRIBED!

Originally posted by Kyyberi

I don't quite understand this, sorry for my english. My comment was based on your own words, and I understood that you said yourself that you didn't put anything back even as you should have. If I misunderstood that, my apologies.

You did misunderstand it. I said that I had started doing less than I had used to do, but that decision to simplify my warmup routine was heavily influenced by the coaches. A note to self is that I should take any advice with a grain of salt.

Oh, I understood that you didn't do what the coaches said. That's what happen when you mix english and Finn.

Played a session, 1K hands, 10bin under EV.

This might actually be one of the very first times that losing that much under EV didn't even bother me. So at least I KNOW that my mental game is better than before. About a year ago I would have felt bad, despite understanding variance and stuff.

And at the very next day it goes the other way around:

I played badly. Very badly. Low stakes is a double edged sword. While the swings don't hurt my mental game that much, it's sometimes hard to play A game. As the money in the tables is so low, I found myself making some mistakes that I would never ever do at higher stakes.

But still I managed to get 10bin stack, which is always something to cheer about:

Nice one!

Why do you play at plo5 with your skills? I mean you can grind a much better hourly at let's say PLO25 right?

Cos my own bankroll is about $200, that's why. I play PLO25-PLO100 with staked money couple of times a week.

I had to cash out my whole bankroll during the summer as being a student and missing job opportunity for the summer doesn't really mix well. And as I don't have much of an opportunity (nor the will) to play at the good times (evenings and weekends) that much, I just grind PLO5 every now and then to kill time. During the summer I have played 27K hands at PLO5 Zoom. That is like 30 hours, tells a lot how much I have time to play now.

The playing quality has been poor too, breakeven on those 27K hands. Maybe it's time to wake up and concentrate to the game a little...

I was just looking at the videos from my recent trip to Spain, Jaca. Me and my friend (and FI Community BigBoss MikkoMi) were there to watch ice hockey div IIB world championships. We created about 10h or more of video material, too bad most of them are in finnish. Some pretty epic shit, I have to say!

After each day, we sat on our hotel room's couch to discuss about the matches, ice hockey and more. We met some friends from Latvia (we met them last year in Izmit, Turkey) and decided to make one video in english. For those who might be interested, here it is:

YouTube

Tap to unmute

This video is private

(https://www.youtube.com/)

Nice to see Kyyberi at drunk.

Originally posted by NutzAreOk

Nice to see Kyyberi at drunk.

If you see the rest of the videos, you might see it even more...

Managed to play some more PLO5 Zoom in July. This is one of the sickest graphs in a while. As my A-game winrate is about 20bb/100 and even poor B-game wins 10bb/100 from PLO5 Zoom. And here I am with 20 buyins under EV in just 8K hands. I had a feeling that most of my hands hadn't held in July, lol!

Finally the engine room has done it's magic and the last parts of my coachings are viewable in podcasts. First video created a lot of discussion, propably cos it had some hand histories in it. The later ones don't have those "easy" things to comment about, so it's interesting to see if they get any comments.

Wow. Oldies n' Goldies!

I haven't had a plog for some time now. I figured out I need a place to share my badbeats so thought about making a new plog. Then I remembered that I might have had one back in the days, so I went to search for it... And here we are.

Quick Update:

I am working in a dayjob (still!), and on top of that I have family and hobbies to do. And I do host coachings for few hours a week. After all those, the time to actually play this fine game is a bit limited.

So there won't be graphs coming out every other day for thousands of hands.

Now that the update is done, we can focus on important things. Like multitabling. It has been 1 or 2 years since I last played with full setup of 12 tables. And I had forgot how fun it is. As long as there isn't any interruptions (like mouse not working, connection issues, urge to check Skype/Facebook/Whatever etc.) it works pretty well. But then if there is anything that disturbs, it creates a snowball effect. 12 tabling is a bit like 4 Zoom tables, no need to wait for action.

Welcome 2019, and feel free to talk/ask about anything. This thread was made for hijacking!

Coooool, your blog continues? I´m in! ♠_thumbsup::banana:

I hope this continues.

On the thread for The Deal (https://www.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?postid=2975210#post2975210), there was some discussion about if the outcome of the jackpot wheel is decided before the spin stops or not. Vorpal suggested that the software randomizes an angle for the spin to determine the outcome. I don't think it works that way.

In slots the spinning motion is just a graphical effect. Once you press the "spin" button the rng determines the outcome. All the rest are just effects to make the playing more pleasurable. Like in the Deal, there are %'s for the outcomes, and rng decides which one you win. Spinner is just to make it look nice and random, and the placement of the wins are carefully decided. The idea of all slots/spins/whatever is to give as many near-misses as possible. You all might have noticed how in spingo's you often almost get the big multiplier, in scratch cards you almost get the big win, in slots the big win or jackpot almost got there and so on.

When researchers have scanned the brain activity for those who have gambling problems and addiction, near-misses give more activity than actual hits. Casino owners have known it for ages, near-misses work wonderfully to those who have higher risk for gambling problems and addiction.

I actually did one of my practical learnings in a gambling problems and addiction resource center, which is quite unique in the scale of whole world. Learned a lot about games, addiction and how the problem gamblers think. They knew that I was a poker player, coach and an active member of national online poker community (I told it myself when I sent the application). One of the harder parts was to see the situation for some of the "good customers" in the tables. They lose a lot of money, which is nice for those who want to win money. But sometimes the story behind your "good customer" might be quite a sad one.

It's awesome to see you back blogging

From the viewpoint of addiction psychology, is there an explanation for the quite frequent scenario when, out of the three possible 1st place prizes in Spin & Go Max, two are smaller than the 2nd place prize?

It's known that even someone who's risk-neutral with respect to their own gambling will usually root for another person whom they observe gambling.

However, I guess that Stars' research showed that the effect is usually the opposite when the other person is the one who has just beat the observer HU, otherwise I see no explanation for the phenomenon. Personally, I root against the house and want the winner to earn the biggest prize at Stars' expense, but I might be an exception. (To be exact, I root for recs so that they pick the biggest prize and get more money to lose back in further games, but root a bit against regs so that they move down stakes.)

Or is this payout structure designed to put the winner on tilt 2/3 of the time and prompt them to enter more games to chase the 'loss'? (Don't worry, I don't tilt myself - EV is EV.)

Kyyberi, I think your blogging about gambling problems is very important and very interesting! Also the philosophy with the "glass jar" and the rocks is a very good one. You make people think about their lifes, about their habits! Please keep on blogging! ♠_thumbsup:

Honestly I have no idea how spingo max works. ♦

Most common single though addicted gamblers (and many of us who are not labeled as addicts) have is to chase the losses. It's funny, cos even if their winnings covers the losses, they would just play it anyway. For whatever reason they lie to themselves. In their subconscious level they are looking to lose their money. Psychology of games is really interesting. Like the frequency and possible winnings.

If frequency (how often game is run) is too low or too high, it's not good. Game providers want to find the sweet spot, where the frequency is as high as possible without lowering the income too much. Quite many slots have options for different speed, and even the possibility to manually stop the wheels as fast (or slow) as the player wants. Something for everyone.

Possible winnings is also an interesting one. Normal customer doesn't know a ** about probabilities and EV. Even when you explain those, they don't care. The plain stupidity of people is amazing (see the story below). That's why those high jackpot games are the most popular ones. That's why people here in Finland play national lottery where RTP (return to player) is *** 40%! I don't think it would be even allowed anywhere else in the world to run a national lottery with that RTP. But the main prize is few millions, so people like to dream and play it a LOT. That's why spingo's became so popular. You have a chance to hit big. People play Deal a lot, as you have the chance. They play all those promotions where one in a million wins bigger prize. Often in all games that have random element (spingo's, random rewards etc.) there is one prize that is significantly bigger. And the most common outcome is next to the most rare. Maximum amount of near-misses.

I worked as a poker dealer in freeroll bar games for few years. And I worked as a blackjack dealer for few years. There are so many stories that I could tell about how stupid average person is when it comes to probabilities. Here is one example:

In Holdem sitngo, with pretty fast structure, one player was all-in. Another player was thinking about calling, and as it was a friendly game of drunken people, the first one opened his cards and showed KK. The other one showed too, A4o. It was cold preflop shove, stacks were over 20bb. Both of them were decent (in the level of those games) in poker so I was quite amazed when the A4o guy didn't instafold. They knew that I knew something about poker, so the A4o guy asked me that would I call. As it was ok for KK guy that I answered (he wanted to know too), I told them that I wouldn't. They wanted to know why, so I told that KK is a favorite and wins two out of three times. So mathematically it's wrong to call. They both said that how can I know that KK is going to win, as no one knows if an Ace comes. And then KK would have only two outs. I really had to think for a while what to say to that. ♦

I tried to explain probabilities and something about EV, but they both agreed that you can't play poker like that, as no one knows if an Ace comes or not. I didn't push my opinions about that, but I did ask them if they would like to play for real money sometimes.

Played some poker today, first hands of the year! Now my yearly graph is looking nice.

Spoiler

There were couple of situations where I had a nasty badbeat (you can see the lines separating), but you can also see couple of situations where I sucked out (or held in big pot). So even when you lose to one outer, don't worry. In the long run EV tends to even out a bit.

I also folded Nut Boat. Actually faced Quads three times in the session with a Nut Fullhouse. It was funny as after the session I thought that it was mediocre one with all the setups and suckouts. And when I looked the results it was a nice surprise.

MP: 79 BB (VPIP: 61.02, PFR: 15.25, 3Bet Preflop: 4.00, Hands: 61)

CO: 126.7 BB (VPIP: 41.16, PFR: 7.96, 3Bet Preflop: 3.62, Hands: 1,029)

BTN: 3 BB (VPIP: 47.50, PFR: 12.50, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 41)

SB: 72.5 BB (VPIP: 37.14, PFR: 2.86, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 35)

BB: 69.1 BB (VPIP: 24.78, PFR: 17.06, 3Bet Preflop: 9.68, Hands: 563)

Hero (UTG): 365 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has A♦ J♦ A♣ J♥

Hero raises to 3.5 BB, fold, fold, BTN calls 3 BB and is all-in, fold, BB calls 2.5 BB

Flop: (10.5 BB, 3 players) T♥ A♥ 7♥

BB checks, Hero checks

Turn: (10.5 BB, 3 players) T♣

BB bets 5.1 BB, Hero calls 5.1 BB

I probably should have raised here. If opponent has T, he is going to call and then if he hits his boat he will call the river bet. If he has a bluff, he is one and done with it anyway. And if he has the flush, he check-calls or check-folds the river.

River: (20.7 BB, 3 players) T♦

BB checks, Hero bets 9.9 BB, BB raises to 49.5 BB, fold

On this board, this should be an easy fold. If the board would have been something like AK777, it would have been harder as then opponent could play KK that way.

BB shows 6♥ T♠ 8♥ 8♠ (Four of a Kind, Tens)

(Pre 65%, Flop 98%, Turn 94%)

BTN shows 4♥ 8♦ Q♣ 4♠ (Full House, Tens full of Fours)

(Pre 35%, Flop 2%, Turn 6%)

BB wins 38.8 BB

I guess, 'good customers' don't calculate the odds in KO tourneys either. They just see they're eligible for a bounty and go for it with any hand/draw they consider strong enough

nice blog, both the pokerpart and the gambler part. subbed.

For good customers all draws are with 50% equity. They either hit or miss, and they just need to decide if they feel like it's the time they will hit it. I have also tried to explain that the more outs the draw has, then the more likely it is to hit one of them. Some people don't get it, they say that no one knows what the next card will be.

That's why there will always be players at the tables who calls with gutshots.

Then I reckon that Fusion will be a hit. Its 2 starting cards are less confusing than the 4 at PLO, while the probability of flopping a bare gutshot is high too I like it how the number of hole cards increases gradually, making it easier for a new player to read a hand the majority of the time.

Do you think you'd attain 50 bb/100 at the $3 (PL5) Fusion if you tried similarly to your PLO2 experiment?

The rake seems large like at PLO (18 bb/100 in my 144 test hands), and the standard deviation seems at least as large as at PLO with the same blinds, so I think I'd need to be beating PLF5 at 40 bb/100 in order to prefer it to other forms of poker.

Has anyone figured out a good strategy for that game?

Not really. You'll be way ahead of the field if you do it on your own

Well, actually, PS-gy member jmackenzie (aka jlhmac, aka James) has been giving some strategy tips on his Op-Poker site and Twitch streams, but I can't verify that they're good I'm bad at the game, but I'm bold enough to have disagreements with him; in particular, I think the button VPIP range first in should be much wider than 50% because position matters a ton

But maybe the point is that the top 50% of hands earn 90% of the profit from that position, and playing the other half of hands doubles the variance while not contributing much to the winrate.

I tried it yesterday, it's a bit weird game. You can have total crap on the flop, but turn a monster. Played the lowest limit for a while, and for some VPIP was close to 100. And rarely they folded on the flop. In that game I think the turn is the crucial point, as from that point on it's just normal PLO. Harder part is to figure out when it's +EV to peel the turn and when not. Trying to give range for opponents is close to impossible as calling range can literally be total air. And for some, the betting range is also close to almost anything. And for some, 2nd nuts is just a bluff catcher as they are afraid of the nuts.

But if we start with a preflop, should we play with holdem preflop ranges or alter them in some way?

edit. I got the OP-poker starting hand charts. And I looked pokerstars page for 5 tips for Fusion. I didn't get the part "suited starting hands are worse than offsuite" thing. That doesn't make sense. Or maybe it does, I just don't get it.

My 2cents with few hands under my belt is that on the flop your only sizing should be pot. Protection is so important.

Originally posted by Kyyberi

I didn't get the part "suited starting hands are worse than offsuite" thing.

An offsuit hand can hit 2 flushes It becomes suited on the flop 48% of the time (out of the 50 remaining cards of the deck, 24 are of the same suit as 1 of the preflop hole cards).

I still consider suited hands more playable because they still flop a 4-card flushdraw about twice more often than offsuit ones.

In terms of raw preflop equity, though, the difference between suited and offsuit hands is very small, though still in favour of suited ones. The explanation is that, for an offsuit preflop hand to become 4-suit on the turn, 1 out of the 26 cards of the 2 missing suits has to be dealt OTF (with 50 cards still in the deck), and then 1 of the 13 cards of the single missing suit has to be dealt OTT, so the probability of an offsuit hand becoming 4-suit is (26/50) * (13/49) ~13.8% (the flop cards are ignored in this calculation, as if they weren't dealt). So an offsuit preflop hand becomes suited by the turn over 84% of the time anyway.

The reason why an offsuit hand beat a suited one in a simulation may have been that the ProPokerTools site (that merely runs 600K Monte Carlo trials) was used instead of the more precise Odds Oracle where the simulation length can be adjusted. A simulation with 600K trials can easily give an error of a few per mille.

I set the length to 10M trials (that's still fast enough but precise within 0.01%) and got the following preflop equities vs a random hand:

AKs ~57.02% (56196788 wins, 1640420 ties)

AKo ~56.50% (55664902 wins, 1667491 ties)

For hands without an ace, the difference is even smaller because the flushes that they hit sometimes lose to higher flushes.

Too many numbers for me. I just can't see how ATo is better than ATs. Core preflop equity is good, IF you can get to the showdown. But to get there you need often to hit the board. ATs can hit nutflush draw on the flop roughly 11% of times. I have no idea how often ATo picks a flush draw on the flop, but it becomes suited around 50% of times and then hitting a flop with two of that suit is 11%. So it might be around 5,5%? Hitting the nutflush draw is half of that. And as it's PLO for turn&river, you really want to have the nutflush instead of a smaller one.

What I saw yesterday was that most players are probably from Holdem. They draw to small flushes and then gave max value when they hit it, not folding pocket QQ+ postflop to any boards etc. I am quite confident that on the turn&river PLO players have HUGE edge. Tricky part is to get to the turn with good strategy. And one key is to have some kind of an idea about how often backdoors and backdoors of backdoors come.

Like when you have Kxxx on J73r board, and see a free turn. Turn is K and your 4th hole card is K. From air to nuts. Chance for that to happen is small (less than 1%), but if you have multiple miracle outcomes and few good ones, the overall chance to get one of them might be a difference maker.

I see that everytime in PLO-CG, even on PLO20. Many players come from Holdem (ok, me too) but do not adapt to PLO. They overplay AKxx (xx= any crap), they 3-bet or 4-bet QQxx (xx = any crap like 72o), often they totally overplay a hand with only two good cards like KTsxx or AKsxx, they overplay bad kings, bad queens and especially bad acies on any board. My edge as a PLO-beginner is to make the nut-str8, the nut-flush or the nut-full and then milk those who overplay any flush, any str8 or any FH or even any two pair. I watch out for those who even think one-pair-hand is good got get it in. So at the moment I wait for good PLO-hands like AAKKds, AAKKss, AAQQds/ss, AAJTds/ss, ATKQds/ss, .... suited aces with rundowns, suited aces with pairs and rundown, double suited broadway-rundowns, double suited rundowns (in late pos), double suited double pairs, single suited double pairs ...etc. If the flop hits hard and gives me a set with a draw, a str8 with a draw to the nut flush, top set, the overfull and such stuff, I get it in. There´s often someone who pays (and sometimes gets lucky but that happens).

Originally posted by Kyyberi

And as it's PLO for turn&river, you really want to have the nutflush instead of a smaller one.

Vs the loose population of 0.02/0.05, likely yes. But as you move higher and start encountering more TAGs, a K-high FD has a decent equity vs their ranges, as they fold the worst Ax hands pre. However, I agree that a T-high FD is too weak at large SPRs (over 5?). A way of mitigating that weakness is 3-betting wider (and for much less than pot) pre IP (again, it can only work at higher stakes where they respect your raises).

That said, I'd rather 3b 98s than ATo on BTN vs UTG because I'm happier to call a 4b with a non-dominated hand.

In PLO-MTTs Villains are even worse. Many play Holdem (and even that very bad) and just try PLO for fun without having any idea about it. I either get a huge pot with the nuts or get outdrawn by some lucky random stuff like gutshot or some random-ignorant-str8 or some runner-runner-whatever.....

Hmm. I had an idea. As the starting two cards are first two of a PLO hand (used in turn and river), could we use PPT rankings to determine starting hands?

Like J9s. In PPT Oracle range explorer we can get PPT ranking for a hand, and if we put just two cards in it the spectrum is wide. But then we could use the average rank to determine the average value of the hand?

Spoiler

As far as I know, the solvers give similar RFI frequencies for holdem and plo. So if we use my standard micro plo ranges based on those, we might have decent preflop strategy? 15,15-20,30,40 from UTG to BTN.

With that and solid turn/river strategy (just as in PLO) should give decent edge. The only dark area is from flop to turn. How wide we should peel? I had a nice hand with pretty good turn cards today:

Spoiler

Looks like PT4 doesnt support Fusion in any way.

Install the latest HM2 beta, it imports Fusion hands as PLHE. (Afaik, earlier versions import them as PLO but don't display a HUD at the tables.)

The average of the PPT hand rankings is one of the good ways to rank Fusion starting hands, yes.

Thanks, got HM2 working. It does import the hands, but it doesn't show the 3rd and 4th cards. So there won't be an EV line.

I have played a LOT of hands at smallest stakes online PLO. But even in those, people don't stack off this wide. In both of these hands, the opponent had at least pot sized stack behind on the turn when the money went in. I raised or shoved, and opponent called.

Spoiler

What about 3bet range? AA/KK only?

Originally posted by Kyyberi

So there won't be an EV line.

I read raw HH files and type hands manually into Odds Oracle

What about 3bet range? AA/KK only?

OOP, yes, there's not much value in 3betting anything else, the equities are too close pre. IP, it depends on the opponent; I make it wide vs a TAG, as I said before. Generally, there are different schools of thought on Fusion, though.

3bet game is tricky. Don't think we have much FE pre, so 3bet is only for value. In PLO when we know all 4 cards it easy to pick up hands that work in that situation. But in Fusion, we have only half of a hand. Have to think that a lot.

Originally posted by Kyyberi

Don't think we have much FE pre, so 3bet is only for value.

Don't we have FE OTF and the ability to take 2 free cards if checked to?

Yes. As in PLO. But if the main plan with a hand is to 3bet, get called and then bluff the flop, I don't think it will be much +EV in the long run. FE on the flop is smaller than in Holdem, and I would think that at least at smaller stakes it's even smaller than in PLO. People love to chase, and in this game you can chase a lot. Even with total air you can chase, and catch it every now and then. I am really interested to see what kind of stats the opponents will have when I get more hands.

Using PPT rankings doesn't work. If I put all hands that have avg ranking around 15 or so (or better) our UTG range is QQ+,AK. Talked with Mackenzie today in his stream, and those preflop charts at OP-poker are a bit old and not based on any deeper strategy. I suppose Fusion is at the same stage as PLO some years (10 or so) ago. You can play it in many ways and make profit. Reason is that no one knows the "optimal" way, so no one can heavily exploit anyone's tendencies

Equities run really close, as in PLO. But in PLO you know your hole cards so you can select hands that dominate your opponent's and/or has good playability. In Fusion, Holdem monsters (KK+) are big hands in Fusion. AK is 55% against random hand, but creates flop situations where we can shove with small equity edge. Rest are in a big bunch of hands that no one knows which ones are good or not. Like which one is better, 75 or K4 in fusion? Or are they the same?

As preflop equities and possibilities are even closer than in PLO, I think you can limp with almost anything from the BTN. Position is really important as general population (at lowest limit) doesn't raise flops without really nutty hits. And even then they go for c-raise. It means that position gives you a lot of options. You can bluff certain boards (decent PLO players should have a good idea on what kind of boards we have enough FE), or get a free peel for the turn to suckout with your flopped air.

In one way it's like PLO long time ago. No one understands the value of draws or medium strength hands, so their bet or raise range is limited close to the nuts. But their calling range is wide, as they play it like Holdem. At the moment I think you need to protect your flopped hits a lot, which means cbetting and donking when you hit the board. Free turns are even worse in Fusion than in PLO. Don't give them unless you want to get one.

Here you can see Holdem players. In PLO when I re-raise on the river, most players would put me on nut straight. I did pot flop and turn, and on the river I bet half a pot and SB minraised. BB overcalled and I shoved. SB calls instantly and BB went for a tank. And then in the end called. After I re-raise and SB calls, BB should realize that his 3rd nuts can't be good. I don't know about Holdem ranges there, but in PLO BB should fold for sure.

Spoiler

Great to see you back Kyyberi! Off topic what are some of your other hobbies besides poker it'd be interesting to know?

Btw, Kyyberi, which exactly genres of metal(core) do you prefer to listen to? (I think I'm gonna sell my soul to thrash )

I practise and teach taekwondo. I played american football for years but now I am doing live streams from our games and work as a media representative. And I play guitar.

For music, I do like anything with a melody. I love metal too, and if I had to pick just one band at the moment it would be Arch Enemy. But I am 80's kid so Anthrax ftw!

Originally posted by Kyyberi

I practise and teach taekwondo. I played american football for years.......

Aw, so: Don´t make Kyyberi mad?

You can't make me mad ♦ I worked over 10 years in kindergarten and now at child welfare (or child protection). So the only way to make me mad is to call flop with air, call turn with 1 outer and make it on the river when I have the 2nd nuts. No other way.

Or Prim style, full pot flop with air, full pot one-outer on turn and full pot when hitting one outer ;-)

Originally posted by Kyyberi

You can't make me mad ♦ I worked over 10 years in kindergarten and now at child welfare (or child protection). So the only way to make me mad is to call flop with air, call turn with 1 outer and make it on the river when I have the 2nd nuts. No other way.

With your (!) coaching it´s impossible to do that ♠_cool:♠_wink:

Originally posted by deralte71

Or Prim style, full pot flop with air, full pot one-outer on turn and full pot when hitting one outer

Now I have played three sessions of Fusion at 0.2/0.5 limit. I don't even know what it's abbreviation should be? 100bb is $5, but the buy-in is $3. So is it F3? F5? FPLO? PLOF? FUS?

Anyway, the single biggest thing at that limit is value. Second is value. Third is value. And that's it.

Here is my list of wonders:

• People call with Jxxx on KKKJx board on the river.

• People call multiple streets with 2 pairs on flushing boards

• People call pot sized bets and raises with air, without any obvious backdoors

• Sometimes people 3bet preflop with weird hands, and then shove flops when they totally miss it

Two factors to understand:

1. There are more Holdem players than PLO players, so they play Turn/River like in Holdem.

As Turn and River are PLO, they tend to overplay overpairs and medium strength hands. In betting, raising and calling. Also their sizings are confusing for PLO player. In PLO you don't see 1/4 pot bets with nut straight on flush draw board. In Holdem I guess you don't have to protect your hand that much, but in PLO it's crucial. And come on, 1/4 sizing gives direct +EV odds to even a bare flush draw.

2. No one knows anything about anything

Just like when Holdem player goes to PLO table without any preparation, he is totally lost about ranges. He knows that AAxx is a good hand, but that's it. KK might be. Same in Fusion. Everyone knows that AA is favorite if you get it in preflop. After that, everything is open. My experience is that Holdem players in general are pretty bad in estimating outs (especially when they have more than 2 cards), equities, pot odds and implied odds. When you add that third and fourth hole card, they have no idea about drawing math. And in Fusion, as your total air can turn to nuts on the next street, FE is often pretty low. Some people are scared to bet the nuts on the flop, or they slow play it. Both are bad options.

Out of those two comes the simple strategy advice: don't bluff.

There are some exceptions. In HU pots, turns and rivers are good for bluffing on certain boards, and some flops are good for bluffing unless the opponent is one of those players that call the flop with anything cos he might hit the jackpot on the turn. On Turn I do a lot of semibluffing. The hand is defined, and there is only one card to come. The difference between Flop and Turn FE is huge. So your EV of drawing hands go up a lot by semibluffing.

Putting opponent on a range when they call or bet is somewhat impossible. In PLO you can narrow down the range from the bottom and from the top. In Fusion you can't as his flopped air can become nuts on the turn, no matter what the turn card on the table is. I have seen people raise flops with weird hands, the overall raising range has been from air to nuts and everything in between. People overplay overpairs all the time, or they shove hands like bottom end gutshot with 7high flush draw (that might be a "monster draw" in Holdem). But one thing is for sure: River raises are for value. River bets and raises in multiway pots are quite often strong hands.

Fusion is so much fun that I am thinking about playing it in the next Primetime coaching at 17th day.

P.S. What might be good stuff to have in the HUD for Fusion?

Originally posted by Kyyberi

Fusion is so much fun that I am thinking about playing it in the next Primetime coaching at 17th day.

You might be too late because it looks as though Six Plus Holdem will be launched at Stars on the 16th (https://clips.twitch.tv/FaintPuzzledTriangleWoofer) and take a lot of customers out of Fusion. (It's not known whether trips will beat straights in Stars' version of the rules like they do on the iPoker network, but flushes will definitely beat full houses.)

Boo.

Skipped Fusion today, played some Zoom PLO (I know Zoom is usually a bad option for EV, but I was in a situation where I don't know how long I can play and I was on my laptop. Excuses, excuses). Breakeven session in EV, there were few crazy players who just decided to get lucky. In one hand, shortie opened, aggro player 3bet, I 4bet with AA, shortie shoves which didn't open new betting round. Aggro calls and I call. On the flop pot is over $50 and I have $5 behind. Aggro bets that $5 on Q92 flop. He had Q993. Shortie had KT72. 300bb pot. Well played Q993

Here are two highlight hands from the session:

Spoiler Hero (BTN): 337.24 BB

SB: 166.24 BB (VPIP: 34.78, PFR: 13.04, 3Bet Preflop: 10.00, Hands: 46)

BB: 101.4 BB (VPIP: 30.61, PFR: 26.53, 3Bet Preflop: 20.00, Hands: 50)

UTG: 145.52 BB (VPIP: 30.43, PFR: 21.74, 3Bet Preflop: 5.56, Hands: 47)

MP: 102.76 BB (VPIP: 26.83, PFR: 18.29, 3Bet Preflop: 5.17, Hands: 168)

CO: 363.24 BB (VPIP: 20.00, PFR: 15.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 41)

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has A♥ K♠ 2♠ 3♥

fold, MP raises to 3.4 BB, fold, Hero calls 3.4 BB, fold, BB raises to 14 BB, MP calls 10.6 BB, Hero calls 10.6 BB

BB had 3bet 1/5 so far, and that one hand was Aces. But otherwise he looks like he might be a standard reg, so can't fold there with a caller and position.

Flop: (42.4 BB, 3 players) A♦ 6♥ K♣

BB bets 20.32 BB, fold, Hero calls 20.32 BB

Good or bad flop, depending if he has Aces or not. He thought only couple of seconds, which might mean it's automatic cbet for his strategy on that board, or he doesn't have AAxx. If I had AA there 3way oop, I would think for few seconds about the sizing. Anyway, can't fold top2 so can't do anything else than call.

Turn: (83.04 BB, 2 players) K♦

BB bets 22 BB, Hero calls 22 BB

Turn is like the flop, except that if he doesn't have AAxx he has 0% equity to win. Weird sizing, he has 67bb behind. If he was betting for value, wouldn't he usually bet at least a bit more? As on the flop, hero has no other options than to call. Folding is not an option and raise doesn't achieve anything.

River: (127.04 BB, 2 players) 3♠

BB bets 45.08 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 45.08 BB

Then he shoves, hero calls and he shows AQ. My first thought was that he should earn some kind of an award for his optimism. In 3bet pot, I call flop and turn. It should be obvious that I have either an Ace or a King. And once he shoves I have to pay 45 into a pot of 210 so I am not folding anything.

But his line with AQ is interesting. I think flop bet is fine. On the turn it's tricky. Is that bet for a value or a bluff? Flop was rainbow, so when I call I really should have Ax or QJTx. If I don't have Kxxx then AQ can bet for value. Maybe he was going to bet-fold, but when I just called he thought I don't have a King and shoved river for value.

So from the initial thought that opponent played his hand badly, I turned to think that his line with AQ actually makes a lot of sense. If I had a weaker Ace then his line would have been brilliant.

BB shows A♣ 9♥ 8♥ Q♣ (Two Pair, Aces and Kings)

(Pre 49%, Flop 12%, Turn 0%)

Hero shows A♥ K♠ 2♠ 3♥ (Full House, Kings full of Aces)

(Pre 51%, Flop 88%, Turn 100%)

Hero wins 209.2 BB

Spoiler

Hero (BTN): 100 BB

SB: 104.76 BB (VPIP: 72.55, PFR: 47.06, 3Bet Preflop: 16.67, Hands: 52)

BB: 212.96 BB (VPIP: 15.38, PFR: 7.69, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 14)

UTG: 137.84 BB (VPIP: 34.04, PFR: 12.77, 3Bet Preflop: 9.52, Hands: 47)

MP: 97.8 BB (VPIP: 30.77, PFR: 15.38, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 13)

CO: 95.6 BB (VPIP: 50.00, PFR: 16.67, 3Bet Preflop: 25.00, Hands: 12)

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has 6♦ 9♥ 7♣ 5♦

UTG raises to 3 BB, fold, fold, Hero calls 3 BB, SB calls 2.6 BB, BB calls 2 BB

UTG opens and hero makes a loose call on the button. Perhaps too loose, but UTG was really tight one so his range is almost exclusively broadway cards. He also is tight postflop, giving hero a lot of room to make bluffs. But then both blinds call and it just sucks. And if hero had looked his HUD, he would have seen that SB is an aggro-baller. Bad call preflop, bad bad bad!

Flop: (12 BB, 4 players) 7♠ A♠ 4♠

SB checks, BB checks, UTG checks, Hero checks

Alright folks, nothing to see here!

Turn: (12 BB, 4 players) 6♣

SB bets 5.76 BB, fold, fold, Hero calls 5.76 BB

Aggro leads half a pot after everyone checked flop. Classical spot to bluff, although I wouldn't do it 4 ways. Hero has 2 pairs and a gutshot, and the sizing is weird in multiway pot.

River: (23.52 BB, 2 players) Q♠

SB bets 12 BB, Hero calls 12 BB

River is another spade, and opponent bets half a pot. Didn't think almost at all, it was a quick bet. That bet should be a polarizing one, meaning it's nuts or air. Jhigh flush can be played that way too. But all of his middle flushes, straights, sets etc. he should check. So if hero is right about the bet being polarizing, then 2pairs should be as good as a straight. Hero call, and it paid off.

Problem in the call is that sometimes opponent shows higher 2pairs and hero is left thinking why in the world opponent bet those. But when the assumption is right, it looks sooooooo nice. And I am sure the opponent said few selected words after seeing that hero called his double barrel with 67xx.

SB shows J♣ J♠ 3♣ K♥ (One Pair, Jacks)

(Pre 55%, Flop 40%, Turn 20%)

Hero shows 6♦ 9♥ 7♣ 5♦ (Two Pair, Sevens and Sixes)

(Pre 45%, Flop 60%, Turn 80%)

Hero wins 45.52 BB

As the idea of using avg ranking for a starting hand in Fusion didn't work out, I had a new idea. We can practice starting hands in normal PLO with Odds Oracle by asking "how often a hand matches range of XX". And XX is PokerJuice preflop range, like First In 15%. Now with Fusion, if I put just two cards (the starting hand) and ask how often it is in FI15, I get a % number. Like JT is 30-32%.

Now the harder part is to figure out a treshold. Let's say we want to open 30% from CO (although I am not sure what would be GTO in Fusion where postflop position is more important than in PLO and equity shifts are HUGE at flop and turn). Do we want to open just top 30% of hands (that would be the same as top30% in Holdem) or do we tweak the range a little? Ace in general can make a strong hand, so are low Ax hands better than J9?

Now as I thought it more, the % how often something is at certain range doesn't really help a lot. It gives same results as just looking at Holdem ranking of the hand. But I don't want to delete it, maybe it will give some ideas to someone.

Another question that I have been wondering is this: how wide we can call in position? Equities run so close and position is so powerful that shouldn't we peel a lot of flops from the Button? In PLO general rule is that we don't make much money by calling. But now when no one can put you on range when we go from Flop to Turn (as flop air can be nuts on the turn) you can make more bluffs than in normal Holdem/PLO. Which increases the EV of those crappy hands.

And then they killed Fusion.

Back to PLO then, I just noticed that I need a new mouse pad. My mouse wasn't working smoothly, and when I have 12 tables open some of the buttons are really small. So I bought a new mouse. Still not smooth enough, so the reason might be my 14 year old mouse pad.

Hand of the day, solid ranges FTW!

Spoiler

BTN: 68 BB (VPIP: 66.67, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 3)

SB: 48.6 BB

BB: 41.84 BB (VPIP: 41.67, PFR: 9.72, 3Bet Preflop: 4.92, Hands: 146)

UTG: 120.48 BB (VPIP: 40.00, PFR: 20.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 5)

Hero (MP): 104.96 BB

CO: 40.64 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: -, Hands: 1)

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has Q♦ Q♥ 5♣ A♣

fold, Hero raises to 3.4 BB, fold, BTN calls 3.4 BB, SB raises to 14.6 BB, fold, Hero raises to 48.2 BB, BTN calls 44.8 BB, SB raises to 48.6 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 0.4 BB, BTN calls 0.4 BB

SB is a shorty and although there aren't stats from him I know that he is often gambling there with wider range. I block AA so I am happy to flip with him and knock the BTN out.

Flop: (146.8 BB, 3 players) Q♣ J♥ 8♦

Hero bets 56.36 BB and is all-in, BTN calls 19.4 BB and is all-in

Turn: (185.6 BB, 3 players) K♠

River: (185.6 BB, 3 players) 6♠

Hero shows Q♦ Q♥ 5♣ A♣ (Three of a Kind, Queens)

Main Pot [146.8 BB]: (Pre 28%, Flop 77%, Turn 89%)

Side Pot#1 [38.8 BB]: (Pre 56%, Flop 94%, Turn 100%)

BTN shows 6♦ 4♣ 3♦ 3♣ (One Pair, Sixes)

I almost fell from my chair when I saw this hand. I get the first preflop call, he is VPIP 67. But then after 3bet and 4bet, 6433 isn't that great. But hey, VPIP 67 so why not see the flop. And then he puts 20bb more on the flop. He has 2 backdoor flush draws, so it's not horrible. But as he has 20bb behind to over 180bb pot, why not just get it in preflop. I don't think he would have folded to any flop.

Main Pot [146.8 BB]: (Pre 33%, Flop 5%, Turn 0%)

Side Pot#1 [38.8 BB]: (Pre 44%, Flop 6%, Turn 0%)

SB shows 7♠ Q♠ A♥ K♥ (Two Pair, Kings and Queens)

Main Pot [146.8 BB]: (Pre 38%, Flop 17%, Turn 11%)

Hero wins 177.72 BB

Sorry for dragging you into Fusion, I honestly didn't expect it to be killed so soon.

RIP, Fusion, you'll be missed

Short session, and one of those...

Spoiler

Nothing special, just your everyday one outers (well not 1 outer, he had couple Tens too)

Spoiler

BTN: 86 BB (VPIP: 40.00, PFR: 20.00, 3Bet Preflop: 9.52, Hands: 45)

SB: 138.32 BB

BB: 152.28 BB (VPIP: 33.33, PFR: 22.22, 3Bet Preflop: 12.50, Hands: 19)

UTG: 179.24 BB (VPIP: 25.00, PFR: 25.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 4)

Hero (MP): 125.24 BB

CO: 83.16 BB (VPIP: 20.90, PFR: 8.96, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 68)

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has 8♠ 8♥ 7♠ 7♣

UTG raises to 3.4 BB, Hero raises to 11.6 BB, fold, fold, fold, BB raises to 38.6 BB, UTG calls 35.2 BB, Hero calls 27 BB

Flop: (116.2 BB, 3 players) T♦ T♣ 7♦

BB bets 111.28 BB, fold, Hero calls 86.64 BB and is all-in

Turn: (289.48 BB, 2 players) A♠

River: (289.48 BB, 2 players) 4♦

BB shows 2♥ A♦ 5♣ A♣ (Full House, Aces full of Tens)

(Pre 57%, Flop 18%, Turn 98%)

Hero shows 8♠ 8♥ 7♠ 7♣ (Full House, Sevens full of Tens)

(Pre 43%, Flop 82%, Turn 3%)

BB wins 281.48 BB

Nothing special, just your everyday flop raise-bluff in 3bet pot with total air vs. my nuts.

Spoiler

Hero (BTN): 100 BB

SB: 114.04 BB (VPIP: 27.59, PFR: 20.69, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 31)

BB: 86.76 BB (VPIP: 24.79, PFR: 14.02, 3Bet Preflop: 5.98, Hands: 2,646)

UTG: 73.24 BB (VPIP: 50.00, PFR: 33.33, 3Bet Preflop: 25.00, Hands: 7)

MP: 102.2 BB (VPIP: 29.17, PFR: 19.17, 3Bet Preflop: 6.25, Hands: 121)

CO: 320.88 BB (VPIP: 100.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 1)

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has 6♣ A♠ A♣ 8♠

fold, fold, CO raises to 3 BB, Hero raises to 10.4 BB, fold, fold, CO calls 7.4 BB

Flop: (22.2 BB, 2 players) 2♥ A♦ 8♣

CO checks, Hero bets 8 BB, CO raises to 26.64 BB, Hero calls 18.64 BB

Turn: (75.48 BB, 2 players) Q♠

CO checks, Hero bets 62.96 BB and is all-in, CO calls 62.96 BB

River: (201.4 BB, 2 players) 9♥

CO shows T♥ J♠ 4♦ J♦ (Straight, Queen High)

(Pre 35%, Flop 9%, Turn 20%)

Hero shows 6♣ A♠ A♣ 8♠ (Three of a Kind, Aces)

(Pre 65%, Flop 91%, Turn 80%)

CO wins 193.4 BB

Nothing special, just your everyday 4way all-in on the flop where one has decent draw, one has air and one has weak draw. Solid ranges FTW!

Spoiler

BTN: 213.84 BB (VPIP: 42.73, PFR: 29.63, 3Bet Preflop: 16.99, Hands: 929)

SB: 90.48 BB (VPIP: 44.44, PFR: 33.33, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 9)

Hero (BB): 125.96 BB

UTG: 100 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 2)

MP: 130.44 BB (VPIP: 30.77, PFR: 19.23, 3Bet Preflop: 3.85, Hands: 54)

CO: 92.92 BB (VPIP: 33.33, PFR: 20.00, 3Bet Preflop: 25.00, Hands: 33)

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has 8♦ J♠ Q♠ 8♣

fold, fold, CO raises to 3.4 BB, BTN calls 3.4 BB, SB calls 3 BB, Hero calls 2.4 BB

Flop: (13.6 BB, 4 players) 8♠ T♣ 2♣

SB checks, Hero bets 13.04 BB, CO calls 13.04 BB, BTN raises to 65.2 BB, SB calls 65.2 BB, Hero raises to 122.56 BB and is all-in, CO calls 76.48 BB and is all-in, BTN raises to 179.92 BB, SB calls 21.88 BB and is all-in

Turn: (435.32 BB, 4 players) 3♦

River: (435.32 BB, 4 players) 6♠

Hero shows 8♦ J♠ Q♠ 8♣ (Three of a Kind, Eights)

Main Pot [361.92 BB]: (Pre 11%, Flop 45%, Turn 50%)

Side Pot#1 [7.32 BB]: (Pre 15%, Flop 57%, Turn 66%)

Side Pot#2 [66.08 BB]: (Pre 53%, Flop 66%, Turn 69%)

BTN shows 3♣ A♣ 4♠ 8♥ (Two Pair, Eights and Threes)

Main Pot [361.92 BB]: (Pre 28%, Flop 32%, Turn 31%)

Side Pot#1 [7.32 BB]: (Pre 31%, Flop 34%, Turn 31%)

Side Pot#2 [66.08 BB]: (Pre 47%, Flop 34%, Turn 31%)

CO shows Q♥ A♠ K♠ K♥ (One Pair, Kings)

Main Pot [361.92 BB]: (Pre 43%, Flop 9%, Turn 3%)

Side Pot#1 [7.32 BB]: (Pre 53%, Flop 9%, Turn 3%)

SB shows 9♣ 7♥ 9♥ Q♦ (Straight, Ten High)

Main Pot [361.92 BB]: (Pre 17%, Flop 14%, Turn 16%)

SB wins 353.92 BB

Hero wins 73.4 BB

It's not nice when that session happens at the same time you are taking a shot to higher stakes. Back to grinding.

Another session, and the trend continues. Good decisions, good spots, good outcomes, bad suckouts. At one point the difference was 10 buyins. It's normal in PLO, but as I said I am taking a shot to higher limit so it would be nice to rungood instead of that. I just started to wonder that normally you would like the graph to be that way, instead of switching orange and green lines. But when taking shots and trying to establish bankroll buffer to new limit, I wouldn't mind a little rungood. ♦

Spoiler

Couple of hands that caught my attention:

First, I haven't seen this kind of a bluff raise in a while. With those actions and those stacks. Opponent sort of instafolded, which means that he didn't have any kind of hand.

Spoiler

BTN: 191.76 BB (VPIP: 19.02, PFR: 9.24, 3Bet Preflop: 7.35, Hands: 188)

SB: 224.28 BB (VPIP: 19.66, PFR: 7.69, 3Bet Preflop: 3.77, Hands: 119)

BB: 100 BB (VPIP: 50.00, PFR: 32.50, 3Bet Preflop: 16.67, Hands: 40)

UTG: 202.92 BB (VPIP: 31.97, PFR: 20.95, 3Bet Preflop: 11.18, Hands: 1,403)

Hero (MP): 100 BB

CO: 79 BB (VPIP: 27.27, PFR: 18.18, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 22)

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has 6♠ 9♣ A♠ 7♦

UTG raises to 3.4 BB, Hero calls 3.4 BB, fold, fold, fold, BB calls 2.4 BB

Flop: (10.6 BB, 3 players) A♣ 7♠ 9♥

BB checks, UTG checks, Hero bets 7.64 BB, fold, UTG calls 7.64 BB

Turn: (25.88 BB, 2 players) A♥

UTG checks, Hero bets 14 BB, UTG raises to 40.4 BB, Hero raises to 88.96 BB and is all-in, fold

UTG opens, and 3way check-calls flop. Then check-raises the turn. With air. Thinking that I don't have A or 77/99 there over 50% of times. A bit optimistic in my mind. He needs less than 25% to call there.

Hero wins 102.16 BB

Second, this is the sickest bluff catch so far in 2019 for me.

Spoiler

BTN: 176.12 BB (VPIP: 33.33, PFR: 16.67, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 7)

Hero (SB): 184.36 BB

BB: 67 BB (VPIP: 50.00, PFR: 25.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 20)

UTG: 108.96 BB (VPIP: 45.45, PFR: 18.18, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 12)

MP: 226.28 BB (VPIP: 28.95, PFR: 21.05, 3Bet Preflop: 6.67, Hands: 38)

CO: 37.24 BB (VPIP: 24.24, PFR: 18.18, 3Bet Preflop: 8.33, Hands: 34)

Hero posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has J♦ 7♦ A♥ T♥

fold, fold, fold, BTN raises to 3.4 BB, Hero raises to 11.2 BB, fold, BTN calls 7.8 BB

BTN is relatively unknown, so a standard 3bet from SB.

Flop: (23.4 BB, 2 players) 4♣ K♥ J♥

Hero bets 16.8 BB, BTN calls 16.8 BB

NFD, nut gutshot and middle pair. We are deep, but still I think cbetting is better than check-calling.

Turn: (57 BB, 2 players) 5♦

Hero bets 40.92 BB, BTN calls 40.92 BB

He called the flop, so a big portion of his range is something less than 2 pairs. He might just call with KJ or even a set as we are deep and now raise the turn, but on the other hand the chance for that is a slim one. People usually play sets and top2 quite straightforward in 3bet pots. Turn bet is sort of a semibluff, as he still has Kxxx, QQTx kind of hands that are ahead of us. If he folds, nice. If he calls, we have a lot of outs.

River: (138.84 BB, 2 players) 8♦

Hero checks, BTN bets 107.2 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 107.2 BB

River is one of the nastiest cards in the deck. I checked because I really didn't know what to do there. I had bet flop and turn, so if I bet river what am I representing? Would I bet AA? KJ? I can't really have 67 unless I have something like AA76hh. On the other hand, if opponent has Kxxx or QQTx he beats me. And even now, I am not sure what would be the best line for the river. After I checked, he shoved 107bb quite quickly.

My first thought was WTF? as that didn't make any sense unless he had 67. So I went to the tank. And started to work on his range.

• If he had 67, he would need to have something along with that to hit the flop. BTN open, so he could have hand like 4567, K76x etc. But a quick shove? If I was there with 67 I would think for a sizing, as shove is pretty big and forces AA often to fold. But 67 is possible.

• If he had a set/2 pairs, would he shove? I could have KK/JJ and checked to call. Why turn 2 pairs into a bluff, when he can take the showdown? And with flop and turn calls, he would need to make the 2 pairs with an eight. So his possible 2 pairs would be sort of weak. And quick 107bb shove with J8 kind of hand? Weird.

• If he had Kxxx, could he turn it to a bluff? I think this was the part that concerns me the most. KQTx, losing to AA could bluff and beat me if I call.

• If he had a worse hand, could he shove 107bb as a bluff?

When I thought about calling, I started to think about my run in the session. Had been struggling to make profit, so would I want to risk over 100bb into a hero call with just a middle pair in 350bb pot? Well I erased that thought quickly from my mind, as I realized that it was a mental game fish thinking. I have talked earlier about my intuition in bluff catching. Sometimes I just have a feeling that opponent is bluffing although I don't know why. And I have learned to trust that intuition, it has been right so many times. Maybe some of you have seen that in my streams. Intuition is just the subconscious mind doing the work. And when I wondered his shove and erased the fishy thinking, I got the feeling that he is bluffing. And even then I was a bit nervous to press the call button, cos if he shows Kxxx it would suck.

But I was right, and I am sure the opponent gave me a huge fish label.

BTN shows 4♥ T♣ 9♥ 2♣ (One Pair, Fours)

(Pre 39%, Flop 20%, Turn 18%)

Hero shows J♦ 7♦ A♥ T♥ (One Pair, Jacks)

(Pre 61%, Flop 80%, Turn 83%)

Hero wins 345.24 BB

Omaha sure is weird game or thinking behind it at least. If you have value hand on flop and turn is this run out not one of best ones? No draw from flop has completed and one very unlikely backdoor straight completed. So if we shove river we can still easily have at least sets in our value range. KJ would be on thin side probably. Though in same way if villain has e.g. some Kxxx without heavily blocking your possible draw hands would he not have reasonable bluff catch candidate?

Same way if villain wants to bluff river he needs way more value combo than some very specific 67xx combo to have even tiny bit of balance (I would imagine). If he has just called twice with set those should be no brainers and probably KJ also. Though probably also those are limited somewhat to combos that have some draws as support because even sets are so vulnerable on this board. Of course if hero is never hero calling then KJ cannot be value hand but e.g. AA would seem like pretty solid call on this board with 1001 busted draws. Especially if we assume sets or KJ to rarely taking this line.

PS: This was for AJT7ds hand.

We don't have many KK/JJ hands in our 3bet oop range there. If we had KJ, I am not sure if we should bet or check-call the river.

Oh boy do those poker gods laugh at me! Another session, 6 buyins under EV. Here are all PLO hands from this year:

Spoiler

On the bright side, orange line is looking good and I am not losing.

Couple of hands from today's session:

You can play Aces that way, for sure...

Spoiler

MP: 104.88 BB (VPIP: 28.62, PFR: 12.22, 3Bet Preflop: 2.54, Hands: 319)

CO: 354.04 BB (VPIP: 49.64, PFR: 12.41, 3Bet Preflop: 5.97, Hands: 142)

BTN: 100 BB (VPIP: 21.90, PFR: 16.79, 3Bet Preflop: 8.89, Hands: 139)

SB: 100.4 BB (VPIP: 23.85, PFR: 16.51, 3Bet Preflop: 5.26, Hands: 112)

BB: 100 BB (VPIP: 31.46, PFR: 18.07, 3Bet Preflop: 8.11, Hands: 323)

Hero (UTG): 132.04 BB

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has 8♣ 8♠ 9♦ T♦

Hero raises to 3.4 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, BB raises to 10.6 BB, Hero calls 7.2 BB

Flop: (21.6 BB, 2 players) 8♦ K♠ 7♥

BB checks, Hero bets 15.52 BB, BB calls 15.52 BB

Turn: (52.64 BB, 2 players) 4♥

BB checks, Hero bets 37.8 BB, BB raises to 73.88 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 36.08 BB

I just don't get the logic behind this line. And I see this a lot. If he loves hit AA+gutshot so much, why is he slowplaying it on the flop and then shove 1,5 pots on the turn?

The logic might bet something like this. Flop: "Can't fold AA, and I do have a straight draw", Turn: "Fuck it."

River: (200.4 BB, 2 players) 2♠

BB shows A♦ A♠ J♦ T♣ (One Pair, Aces)

(Pre 72%, Flop 22%, Turn 13%)

Hero shows 8♣ 8♠ 9♦ T♦ (Three of a Kind, Eights)

(Pre 28%, Flop 78%, Turn 88%)

Hero wins 192.4 BB

There's good aggression, and then there is this...

Spoiler

UTG: 272.96 BB (VPIP: 50.00, PFR: 20.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 32)

Hero (CO): 100 BB

BTN: 83.84 BB (VPIP: 38.32, PFR: 10.28, 3Bet Preflop: 3.92, Hands: 108)

SB: 31.8 BB (VPIP: 29.54, PFR: 15.98, 3Bet Preflop: 4.40, Hands: 641)

BB: 100 BB (VPIP: 50.00, PFR: 14.86, 3Bet Preflop: 7.69, Hands: 74)

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has 4♣ Q♦ J♦ 3♣

UTG calls 1 BB, Hero calls 1 BB, BTN raises to 5.4 BB, fold, fold, UTG calls 4.4 BB, Hero calls 4.4 BB

BTN is a bit weird player. Preflop stats are sort of a call-happy tight-reg. Calls preflop a bit too much, opens a bit too tight. Postflop does weird stuff. I have a feeling that he doesn't really have a standard strategy, he makes the decisions in a moment. Which means a lot of his decisions are based on a feeling. A bit harder to play against as he could take totally different lines in the same situations depending on his feelings. Maybe that is some sort of balance as he could do anything with anything.

Flop: (17.6 BB, 3 players) T♣ 3♠ K♠

UTG checks, Hero checks, BTN bets 8 BB, fold, Hero calls 8 BB

Just under half a pot cbet, which is one of those weird things. On that board it's a weird sizing. If he had bet bigger, I would have folded my OESD and bottom pair.

Turn: (33.6 BB, 2 players) 6♦

Hero checks, BTN checks

Total blank, and he checks behind.

River: (33.6 BB, 2 players) 3♥

Hero bets 16.08 BB, BTN raises to 70.44 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 54.36 BB

As he checked the Turn, trips is definitely a valuebet on the River. But then he shoves and I was first like WTF, that doesn't make sense at all. Didn't see that one coming. If he had KK/TT why would he check the Turn? He could, as he does weird stuff. But not sure if he is that crazy. As it was hard to put him on a value hand, and he can do really not-so-good-things-strategy-wise, I called and was really surprised to see AA. Was that a value shove or a bluff? And when I saw his hand, I just wondered that why did he shove it?

BTN shows 2♥ A♣ 9♣ A♥ (Two Pair, Aces and Threes)

(Pre 62%, Flop 48%, Turn 60%)

Hero shows 4♣ Q♦ J♦ 3♣ (Three of a Kind, Threes)

(Pre 38%, Flop 52%, Turn 40%)

Hero wins 167.08 BB

Dear Poker God. I have been diligent.

P.S. I never doubted you.

Today's sessions:

Spoiler

Quite a weird day. In all sessions there were a lot of hands where I felt really unlucky and unfair. Situations where opponent decides to call the flop with air versus my set and makes runner runner by the river. Or opponent decides to cold call 3bet/4bet with really crappy hand and hits the nuts on the flop that I hit too. And of course those situations where aggro 3bettor wakes up with AA when I have KK.

But on the other hand, I was running superhot on the turns when I checked the flop with gutshot, overpair etc. Those 2-4 outers came quite often. So overall the luck was average, but the variance of the variance was high.

Hands of the day:

I thought I made a good fold on the river...

Spoiler

BTN: 196.24 BB (VPIP: 25.00, PFR: 15.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 20)

SB: 167.6 BB (VPIP: 7.07, PFR: 3.03, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 101)

BB: 320.96 BB (VPIP: 19.59, PFR: 11.90, 3Bet Preflop: 6.21, Hands: 994)

Hero (UTG): 266.68 BB

MP: 92.12 BB (VPIP: 49.53, PFR: 33.64, 3Bet Preflop: 10.64, Hands: 109)

CO: 148.68 BB (VPIP: 30.00, PFR: 20.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 10)

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has 8♥ 6♣ 9♥ T♥

Hero raises to 3.4 BB, MP calls 3.4 BB, CO raises to 15 BB, fold, fold, fold, Hero calls 11.6 BB, MP calls 11.6 BB

Flop: (46.4 BB, 3 players) 4♣ T♠ 5♥

Hero checks, MP checks, CO bets 22 BB, Hero calls 22 BB, MP calls 22 BB

Turn: (112.4 BB, 3 players) 3♥

Hero checks, MP checks, CO checks

I have no idea what CO does here but he has A2.

River: (112.4 BB, 3 players) 2♥

Hero checks, MP bets 55.12 BB and is all-in, CO calls 55.12 BB, fold

I thought that when CO calls he has to have the flush decent amount of times. So I was happy to make the fold, until I saw their hands. Doh!

MP shows 9♠ T♦ J♣ Q♠ (One Pair, Tens)

(Pre 30%, Flop 28%, Turn 0%)

CO shows A♠ A♣ 8♣ 2♠ (Straight, Five High)

(Pre 70%, Flop 72%, Turn 100%)

CO wins 214.64 BB

Here is a little Kyyberi Special for a reg who is a bit too aggressive and likes to float.

Spoiler

BTN: 152.88 BB (VPIP: 53.42, PFR: 31.51, 3Bet Preflop: 13.51, Hands: 74)

SB: 119.36 BB (VPIP: 40.00, PFR: 14.29, 3Bet Preflop: 5.00, Hands: 35)

BB: 101.4 BB (VPIP: 15.89, PFR: 7.01, 3Bet Preflop: 3.30, Hands: 216)

UTG: 84.2 BB (VPIP: 11.28, PFR: 6.02, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 138)

MP: 128.8 BB (VPIP: 20.10, PFR: 12.89, 3Bet Preflop: 1.32, Hands: 197)

Hero (CO): 228.92 BB

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has Q♣ Q♥ 2♥ 8♣

fold, fold, Hero raises to 3.4 BB, fold, SB calls 3 BB, fold

Flop: (7.8 BB, 2 players) T♠ K♠ 7♠

SB checks, Hero bets 3.76 BB, SB calls 3.76 BB

Turn: (15.32 BB, 2 players) T♦

SB checks, Hero checks

This was a tricky spot. If I check, he will bet the river with a wide range. And his calling range on the flop was probably quite wide. So check here and fold river is a bad plan.

River: (15.32 BB, 2 players) 5♦

SB bets 5.56 BB, Hero raises to 18.48 BB, fold

So I made a special move. His sizing was perfect for me. The only concern is that does he believe my story. Could I have the nuts, when I checked the turn. I think that in the eyes of my opponent, I could trap. And it doesn't make sense to raise the river without the nuts. I just begun to wonder would I ever have KK/KT here on the river. Maybe if I had AssKK, as just KK/KT I would probably check back vs. him. Luckily he doesn't know that (unless he reads this plog!) so I am safe for now.

Hero wins 25.32 BB

P.S. Is it just me, or has Pokerstars improved the rewards from the chests? Sometimes it flashes purple which means the rewards are bigger ones.

Originally posted by Kyyberi

P.S. Is it just me, or has Pokerstars improved the rewards from the chests? Sometimes it flashes purple which means the rewards are bigger ones.

I think the rewards have the same value as before, just they've become more targeted (e.g. I get $1+$0.25 spin tickets plus 1 StarsCoin instead of $1 cash + 26 SCs because I used to grind spins), and the animation has been upgraded.

Maybe I have just been lucky then, as I have got around 20% rakeback this month.

I checked my rewards history. I've got over 30% rakeback this year from chests. Running hot!

Cool move! Learnt something new again! In Holdem you do this with a blocker.

What would be a good blocker there? K? T? As?

The ace of spades

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Originally posted by Kyyberi

What would be a good blocker there? K? T? As?

I suppose Tx if its not too strong to turn into bluff as it will block most full house combos. If those should be calls then Kx or As imo.

As is not a good blocker at micros imo, as people in general don't fold flushes to raises.

Originally posted by Kyyberi

As is not a good blocker at micros imo, as people in general don't fold flushes to raises.

No. Flushes they do not fold for sure but everything else. For example you have A-high and Villain hit a pair or two pair with no spade. I think there are a lot of hands which can fold vs our raise and the blocker makes it less likely that Villain indeed hit the flush. But on the other hand you´re right: Some fishes will NOT fold even middle pair in the micros!

When I said As is not a good blocker I mean if it's used to rep a nut flush and hope the opponent folds a smaller flush. That doesn't happen. It might work as a card removal blocker. When I have time, I could make a post about how much single or double cards remove things from opponents ranges.

Meanwhile, games are as usual. Up and down and mostly under EV. Today I exploited rng by making couple of calls that are -EV, but turned to be +EV as rng owned me money.

Spoiler In reality I was a mental game fish and couldn't fold my hand even when rational approach would have indicated a tight fold

At Friday I run 3bin under EV, but managed to get a Cash Player's Trophy! 1000bb stack! Always worth a screen shot.

Today rng was fair and gave something back, 3bin over EV.

Originally posted by Kyyberi

At Friday I run 3bin under EV, but managed to get a Cash Player's Trophy! 1000bb stack!

Respect for not being afraid to play with such a deep stack

Originally posted by tonypmm

Originally posted by Kyyberi

At Friday I run 3bin under EV, but managed to get a Cash Player's Trophy! 1000bb stack!

Respect for not being afraid to play with such a deep stack

I've been noticing that when I have a deep stack (rare though it is) people seem to afraid to challenge me -- so fold equity increases a bunch.

Cheers,

VS

Have the same experiance as Vorpal.

Most players get a bit scared when they have a big stack. Might be fear of losing it. Then there are players who pull up BIG moves with big stacks, but those are a rarity at micros. In the end it doesn't really matter how deep your stack is, unless someone starts to raise a lot. In single raised pot, it requires raises to get even 100bb stacks in. So if you play a bit small ball unless you have the nuts, it doesn't matter a lot how deep you are.

Couple of post-worthy hands from today:

Solid ranges FTW!

Spoiler

BTN: 119.96 BB (VPIP: 37.93, PFR: 27.59, 3Bet Preflop: 16.67, Hands: 31)

SB: 129.6 BB (VPIP: 26.47, PFR: 16.67, 3Bet Preflop: 7.89, Hands: 105)

BB: 128.8 BB (VPIP: 60.87, PFR: 47.83, 3Bet Preflop: 36.36, Hands: 24)

UTG: 101.8 BB (VPIP: 26.67, PFR: 16.67, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 31)

Hero (MP): 231.72 BB

CO: 100 BB (VPIP: 100.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 1)

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has A♦ A♣ J♦ 7♦

fold, Hero raises to 3.4 BB, CO calls 3.4 BB, fold, fold, BB raises to 14 BB, Hero raises to 45.8 BB, CO calls 42.4 BB, BB raises to 128.8 BB and is all-in, Hero raises to 231.72 BB and is all-in, CO calls 54.2 BB and is all-in

Flop: (358 BB, 3 players) 3♥ 2♣ J♠

Turn: (358 BB, 3 players) T♣

River: (358 BB, 3 players) J♣

BB shows 5♠ 5♦ 9♠ 7♥ (Two Pair, Jacks and Fives)

Main Pot [300.4 BB]: (Pre 27%, Flop 14%, Turn 11%)

Side Pot#1 [57.6 BB]: (Pre 33%, Flop 15%, Turn 14%)

Hero shows A♦ A♣ J♦ 7♦ (Three of a Kind, Jacks)

Main Pot [300.4 BB]: (Pre 52%, Flop 61%, Turn 6%)

Side Pot#1 [57.6 BB]: (Pre 67%, Flop 85%, Turn 86%)

CO shows T♦ 5♣ 6♦ T♥ (Full House, Tens full of Jacks)

Main Pot [300.4 BB]: (Pre 20%, Flop 25%, Turn 83%)

Hero wins 57.6 BB

CO wins 292.4 BB

Domination FTW!

Spoiler

BTN: 102.6 BB

SB: 129.2 BB (VPIP: 38.73, PFR: 20.42, 3Bet Preflop: 1.82, Hands: 149)

Hero (BB): 100 BB

UTG: 112.16 BB

MP: 207 BB

CO: 102.72 BB

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has 9♦ A♥ K♦ J♥

fold, MP raises to 3.4 BB, CO raises to 11.6 BB, fold, fold, Hero calls 10.6 BB, MP calls 8.2 BB

Flop: (35.2 BB, 3 players) 2♥ 7♥ T♠

Hero bets 33.72 BB, MP raises to 134.88 BB, fold, Hero calls 54.68 BB and is all-in

Here the opponent has flush draw and a gutshot, and thinks he has decent equity. I guess his 15% came as a bit of a surprise to him. It shows the importance of domination especially in 3bet pots. So kids, don't 3bet junky hands with low cards.

Turn: (212 BB, 2 players) J♣

River: (212 BB, 2 players) 5♦

Hero shows 9♦ A♥ K♦ J♥ (One Pair, Jacks)

(Pre 71%, Flop 85%, Turn 75%)

MP shows K♥ J♦ 9♥ Q♦ (One Pair, Jacks)

(Pre 29%, Flop 15%, Turn 25%)

Hero wins 204 BB

I love the title of this blog!

And it was a good read.

GL

Heh over 50% equity in 3way preflop allin in omaha must be like lottery win

Rough ending for a session.

Spoiler

I can't get love from rng, EV bb/100 is 8,3 and actual winrate is 0,6bb/100. At least I am not losing, lol.

I have a question for all of you. If there would be a SuperBowl pregame party stream, what kind of content you would like to have in that?

Well, at low limits I guess nobody will fold a small flush, not in Holdem, not in PLO, my idea was to make hands like 2-pairs fold.

Dear RNG.

Fuck you.

20K hands, 20 buyins under EV.

Spoiler

Positive note, I am losing only 4 buyins. Was down 8 buyins before the last hands of the latest session.

I had thought to end the session at certain time. But when the time came, I had 9 buyin stack at on table. So of course I continued playing until it was 10.

When it was $230 or so a Finnish player commented in the chat that Cash Player's Trophy is closing. I replied to him "I will get it now" and raised the flop, too bad he folded and I didn't get value for my top set.

Marked few hands too:

This was nasty.

Spoiler

BTN: 117.48 BB (VPIP: 26.13, PFR: 15.58, 3Bet Preflop: 7.55, Hands: 406)

SB: 100.52 BB (VPIP: 17.84, PFR: 9.95, 3Bet Preflop: 2.99, Hands: 5,031)

Hero (BB): 117.16 BB

UTG: 517.28 BB (VPIP: 23.30, PFR: 15.53, 3Bet Preflop: 2.35, Hands: 213)

MP: 152.96 BB (VPIP: 32.39, PFR: 21.88, 3Bet Preflop: 10.81, Hands: 358)

CO: 397.56 BB (VPIP: 23.13, PFR: 16.79, 3Bet Preflop: 6.19, Hands: 274)

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has 8♠ A♣ K♠ K♦

fold, fold, CO raises to 3.4 BB, fold, fold, Hero raises to 10.6 BB, CO calls 7.2 BB

Flop: (21.6 BB, 2 players) K♥ 5♣ 2♥

Hero bets 15.52 BB, CO calls 15.52 BB

He called here with a gutshot on flush draw board.

Turn: (52.64 BB, 2 players) 3♦

Hero bets 37.8 BB, CO raises to 163.8 BB, Hero calls 53.24 BB and is all-in

And of course he hits it. If he had a wrap, it wouldn't feel so bad. But 19% on the flop and he spikes the turn...

River: (234.72 BB, 2 players) T♣

Hero shows 8♠ A♣ K♠ K♦ (Three of a Kind, Kings)

(Pre 60%, Flop 81%, Turn 23%)

CO shows 6♠ 2♣ A♠ 4♣ (Straight, Six High)

(Pre 40%, Flop 19%, Turn 78%)

CO wins 226.72 BB

No respect.

Spoiler

Hero (BTN): 111.68 BB

SB: 209.6 BB (VPIP: 61.90, PFR: 23.81, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 22)

BB: 123.52 BB (VPIP: 20.33, PFR: 14.63, 3Bet Preflop: 8.00, Hands: 126)

UTG: 186.16 BB (VPIP: 53.85, PFR: 38.46, 3Bet Preflop: 25.00, Hands: 13)

MP: 69.12 BB (VPIP: 33.33, PFR: 25.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 25)

CO: 102.16 BB (VPIP: 19.77, PFR: 15.12, 3Bet Preflop: 3.81, Hands: 262)

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has 4♠ 5♥ 3♥ 8♣

fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 3.4 BB, SB calls 3 BB, fold

Flop: (7.8 BB, 2 players) 8♦ 4♣ T♣

SB checks, Hero bets 7.48 BB, SB calls 7.48 BB

I pot the flop for max protection. Instant call with KK.

Turn: (22.76 BB, 2 players) 4♥

SB checks, Hero bets 16.36 BB, SB calls 16.36 BB

Turn pairs the board and I fire the second barrel. That is a good card to barrel, so here I kind of get the idea of a call. With bare KK.

River: (55.48 BB, 2 players) 2♠

SB checks, Hero bets 22 BB, SB calls 22 BB

River is a blank and I fire the third barrel. And he snap calls with KK. At least he was consistent, he didn't give respect to my bets at any point. I don't think he realizes that even if I cbet 100% of my BTN range there, he is still 45/55 underdog against my whole range. As that board is bad for bluffing, my actual cbet range is just crushing him. I don't think he had any post flop plan for that hand. He called flop cos he had an overpair and he couldn't fold KK. Turn paired the board so he thought I would have draws in my range, and river was one of the few brick ones and he kept calling.

Hero shows 4♠ 5♥ 3♥ 8♣ (Full House, Fours full of Eights)

(Pre 41%, Flop 69%, Turn 95%)

SB mucks K♥ K♠ Q♠ 6♣ (Two Pair, Kings and Fours)

(Pre 59%, Flop 31%, Turn 5%)

Hero wins 95.24 BB

Kids, don't do this at home!

Spoiler

BTN: 156.84 BB (VPIP: 35.48, PFR: 3.23, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 31)

SB: 101.88 BB (VPIP: 18.75, PFR: 6.25, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 16)

Hero (BB): 163.24 BB

UTG: 100 BB (VPIP: 20.59, PFR: 16.18, 3Bet Preflop: 3.74, Hands: 276)

MP: 47.08 BB (VPIP: 52.71, PFR: 11.63, 3Bet Preflop: 6.43, Hands: 391)

CO: 97.2 BB (VPIP: 15.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 21)

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has 9♣ K♥ 6♥ 5♣

fold, fold, CO calls 1 BB, fold, fold, Hero checks

Flop: (2.4 BB, 2 players) 7♥ 4♥ J♠

Hero bets 1.72 BB, CO calls 1.72 BB

Turn: (5.84 BB, 2 players) 8♦

Hero bets 4.2 BB, CO calls 4.2 BB

For the record, he has T9 with a flush draw here. And just calls instead of raise.

River: (14.24 BB, 2 players) 3♥

Hero checks, CO bets 10 BB, Hero raises to 26.84 BB, CO calls 16.84 BB

Poker gods don't like slowplaying, so he got what he deserved. I am not even sure if he should bet that Jhigh flush on the river.

Hero shows 9♣ K♥ 6♥ 5♣ (Flush, King High)

(Pre 52%, Flop 48%, Turn 18%)

CO mucks 9♠ T♥ J♥ 2♠ (Flush, Jack High)

(Pre 48%, Flop 52%, Turn 83%)

Hero wins 65.04 BB

Intuition

Spoiler

BTN: 100 BB (VPIP: 19.29, PFR: 12.20, 3Bet Preflop: 2.78, Hands: 512)

SB: 100 BB (VPIP: 29.79, PFR: 14.89, 3Bet Preflop: 4.35, Hands: 48)

Hero (BB): 263.76 BB

UTG: 178.8 BB (VPIP: 22.64, PFR: 11.32, 3Bet Preflop: 4.55, Hands: 56)

MP: 114.48 BB (VPIP: 19.28, PFR: 15.15, 3Bet Preflop: 6.54, Hands: 371)

CO: 240.8 BB (VPIP: 65.22, PFR: 36.23, 3Bet Preflop: 9.38, Hands: 69)

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has J♣ 8♦ 8♣ T♥

fold, fold, CO raises to 3.4 BB, fold, fold, Hero calls 2.4 BB

Flop: (7.2 BB, 2 players) Q♠ 8♠ A♠

Hero checks, CO bets 1 BB, Hero calls 1 BB

Turn: (9.2 BB, 2 players) J♥

Hero checks, CO bets 8.8 BB, Hero calls 8.8 BB

River: (26.8 BB, 2 players) 7♥

Hero checks, CO bets 25.68 BB, Hero calls 25.68 BB

On the river I first thought that "ok, he has the nut flush". Then I got a feeling that something's not right. I have talked about my intuition earlier, and sometimes I get a strong feeling that opponent is bluffing although I can't explain where it comes from. I have learned to trust it as it has been right very often. Here I was hesitant as I just tried to figure out could he actually play nut flush in that way, minbetting the flop? It was a funny moment, my intuition said that he is bluffing and my rational mind said "don't do anything stupid". I almost folded, but then I followed my good old intuition. And there it was, a blocker bluff.

CO shows 5♥ 5♣ K♠ Q♣ (One Pair, Queens)

(Pre 46%, Flop 3%, Turn 8%)

Hero shows J♣ 8♦ 8♣ T♥ (Three of a Kind, Eights)

(Pre 54%, Flop 97%, Turn 93%)

Hero wins 74.84 BB

No respect, part II

Spoiler

BTN: 100 BB (VPIP: 28.07, PFR: 15.79, 3Bet Preflop: 7.41, Hands: 58)

Hero (SB): 489.76 BB

BB: 128.92 BB (VPIP: 43.48, PFR: 26.09, 3Bet Preflop: 3.85, Hands: 71)

UTG: 100 BB

MP: 121 BB (VPIP: 22.74, PFR: 13.20, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 419)

CO: 117.96 BB (VPIP: 19.10, PFR: 6.74, 3Bet Preflop: 2.38, Hands: 90)

Hero posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has 8♠ 8♦ 4♥ 6♠

fold, fold, CO calls 1 BB, fold, Hero calls 0.6 BB, BB checks

Flop: (3 BB, 3 players) 8♣ T♠ 5♥

Hero checks, BB checks, CO bets 2.88 BB, Hero raises to 11.52 BB, fold, CO calls 8.64 BB

If the previous "no respect" hand was weird, this is the next level shit. Limped pot, T85r flop and I pot raise his pot bet. He calls with bare KKT.

Turn: (26.04 BB, 2 players) Q♣

Hero bets 18.68 BB, CO calls 18.68 BB

Turn completes the highest straight draw and opens a flush draw. I barrel a big bet, he calls again with bare KKT.

River: (63.4 BB, 2 players) J♥

Hero checks, CO checks

Turn was a nasty card but he didn't want to turn his KK into a bluff. His motto might be "I didn't come here to fold shit!"

Hero shows 8♠ 8♦ 4♥ 6♠ (Three of a Kind, Eights)

(Pre 37%, Flop 86%, Turn 95%)

CO mucks 7♥ K♣ K♦ T♥ (One Pair, Kings)

(Pre 63%, Flop 14%, Turn 5%)

Hero wins 60.72 BB

Has anyone else had a feeling that Stars had improved the Chest rewards? Today I got 4 chests. One was with purple light and I got 50% rakeback out of those 4 chests. I would think that if they had improved them, they would make big news out of it.

Nice to see yr thoughts on every street, as always very educational

Oh boy the waters are deep. Another session where RNG is testing me. In the end I lost 3buyins and EV was -3 too. But the way it happened was just mental. Overall I run horribly when money went in. But it evened out in 2 big pots where I got it in with less than 10% equity. And as I played deep, there were some nasty situations where a Good Customer cold calls 4bet with 8865r and flops nut straight when I flop 2nd nut straight 3way 4bet pot. In the long run that preflop call is nice, but today in the short run... Might be my selective memory, but I lost so many pots today where opponents made insane calls on the flop with air or close to it and spike runner runners vs. my bluff catcher. And I give them the value on the River. River call efficiency was 1,3.

There was one insane hand where I raised 863ss flop, pot K turn and made 3/4 bet on K river. I didn't look my stack, I have $16 behind and I bet $15. Opponent raised me, and I had put him on a draw. I cried and called that $1 just to see what he had (I had 55xx something). He had T77x and raised probably as a bluff, but didn't check my stack. So if I had shoved, I am quite sure he would have folded. I still don't know what went through his head.

I got over 10buyin stack again.

Some hands:

It worked!

Spoiler

BTN: 624.68 BB (VPIP: 24.48, PFR: 18.53, 3Bet Preflop: 7.14, Hands: 291)

SB: 84.8 BB (VPIP: 24.83, PFR: 13.08, 3Bet Preflop: 1.66, Hands: 777)

BB: 100 BB (VPIP: 26.18, PFR: 16.75, 3Bet Preflop: 4.55, Hands: 195)

Hero (UTG): 142.48 BB

MP: 70.72 BB (VPIP: 24.02, PFR: 15.64, 3Bet Preflop: 2.74, Hands: 184)

CO: 69.2 BB (VPIP: 31.61, PFR: 18.26, 3Bet Preflop: 5.44, Hands: 374)

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has K♣ A♠ A♥ 8♥

Hero raises to 3.4 BB, fold, CO calls 3.4 BB, BTN calls 3.4 BB, fold, BB calls 2.4 BB

Flop: (14 BB, 4 players) Q♥ 7♥ T♥

BB checks, Hero bets 6.72 BB, fold, BTN calls 6.72 BB, fold

Nuts and half a pot bet.

Turn: (27.44 BB, 2 players) 9♠

Hero bets 26.28 BB, BTN calls 26.28 BB

Still nuts, and opponent is a reg. Either he has really weak hand and he folds the turn, or he has a set/flush. Standard line would be to bet smaller, 2/3-3/4, but here I made it pot to represent Ah blocker. He might think "why would he pot if he had the nut flush?". Opponent thought for a while and called.

River: (80 BB, 2 players) 4♥

Hero bets 76.6 BB, BTN calls 76.6 BB

Same concept on the river. Pot to rep Ah blocker. Once again he might think why would I pot it, and scare him away? Opponent tanked and called with 6high flush. It worked! Would be interesting to know if he had actually folded his small flush if I had bet 3/4 on the turn and on the river?

Hero shows K♣ A♠ A♥ 8♥ (Flush, Ace High)

(Pre 59%, Flop 98%, Turn 100%)

BTN mucks 6♥ 9♦ 5♦ 5♥ (Flush, Queen High)

(Pre 41%, Flop 2%, Turn 0%)

Hero wins 225.2 BB

PLO Zoom is impossible to beat, they say...

Spoiler

Hero (BTN): 104.08 BB

SB: 284.36 BB (VPIP: 14.81, PFR: 11.11, 3Bet Preflop: 14.29, Hands: 28)

BB: 166.92 BB (VPIP: 28.21, PFR: 23.08, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 39)

UTG: 93.44 BB (VPIP: 22.12, PFR: 13.94, 3Bet Preflop: 6.90, Hands: 336)

MP: 198.16 BB (VPIP: 23.28, PFR: 9.48, 3Bet Preflop: 2.44, Hands: 120)

CO: 357.12 BB (VPIP: 63.64, PFR: 27.27, 3Bet Preflop: 12.50, Hands: 33)

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has 4♥ 2♣ A♦ A♣

fold, fold, CO raises to 3.4 BB, Hero raises to 11.6 BB, fold, BB calls 10.6 BB, CO calls 8.2 BB

Flop: (35.2 BB, 3 players) A♠ 6♠ 9♦

BB checks, CO checks, Hero bets 25.28 BB, BB calls 25.28 BB, fold

Turn: (85.76 BB, 2 players) 7♦

BB checks, Hero bets 67.2 BB and is all-in, BB calls 67.2 BB

I don't really get this one. Opponent is a reg and decides to cold call when I 3bet against UTG open with AKJ3ss. Then he hits dry Ace on A96ss flop without his flush draw. And on the turn when another flush draw opens and straight gets there, he snap calls my 70bb shove. What in the world did he put me on?

And for all of you, DON'T COLD CALL 3BETS! It's not profitable. There are only few exceptions to that.

River: (220.16 BB, 2 players) 2♥

BB shows J♦ A♥ 3♥ K♠ (One Pair, Aces)

(Pre 30%, Flop 2%, Turn 0%)

Hero shows 4♥ 2♣ A♦ A♣ (Three of a Kind, Aces)

(Pre 70%, Flop 98%, Turn 100%)

Hero wins 212.16 BB

Another tight fold gone wrong

Spoiler

BTN: 182.28 BB (VPIP: 25.00, PFR: 14.29, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 28)

Hero (SB): 154.96 BB

BB: 110.12 BB (VPIP: 50.98, PFR: 31.37, 3Bet Preflop: 21.74, Hands: 55)

UTG: 243.24 BB (VPIP: 25.89, PFR: 17.86, 3Bet Preflop: 8.33, Hands: 114)

MP: 211.08 BB (VPIP: 4.35, PFR: 4.35, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 24)

CO: 100 BB (VPIP: 45.16, PFR: 30.65, 3Bet Preflop: 12.50, Hands: 63)

Hero posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has A♣ K♦ 4♣ 9♦

fold, MP raises to 3.4 BB, fold, fold, Hero calls 3 BB, BB raises to 13.6 BB, MP calls 10.2 BB, Hero calls 10.2 BB

BB is a crazy player who 3bets pretty much whatever he feels like.

Flop: (40.8 BB, 3 players) 9♠ A♦ 2♠

Hero checks, BB bets 29.32 BB, MP raises to 127.04 BB, fold, BB calls 67.2 BB and is all-in

As BB was crazy and would stack of with almost any hit, I was really excited about this flop. My mouse was already over the pot button, until MP who had so far played only one hand out of 24 decides to shove 130bb against 3bettor in Axx flop. I was so sure he would have AA there, and I folded my top2. And thought that I was lucky that he didn't trap me with a call on the flop. Until I saw their hands.

I would have had 40% on the flop.

Turn: (233.84 BB, 2 players) 3♣

River: (233.84 BB, 2 players) 4♦

BB shows 4♥ Q♦ 7♦ A♥ (Two Pair, Aces and Fours)

(Pre 45%, Flop 27%, Turn 40%)

MP shows Q♠ A♠ T♣ J♥ (One Pair, Aces)

(Pre 55%, Flop 73%, Turn 60%)

BB wins 225.84 BB

Kudos to opponent

Spoiler

BTN: 942.4 BB (VPIP: 26.33, PFR: 14.63, 3Bet Preflop: 5.90, Hands: 772)

SB: 211.88 BB (VPIP: 24.43, PFR: 16.03, 3Bet Preflop: 3.70, Hands: 136)

BB: 128.2 BB (VPIP: 20.83, PFR: 16.67, 3Bet Preflop: 11.11, Hands: 74)

UTG: 135.16 BB (VPIP: 40.00, PFR: 20.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 5)

Hero (MP): 176.84 BB

CO: 289.12 BB (VPIP: 35.85, PFR: 22.64, 3Bet Preflop: 11.76, Hands: 54)

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has A♦ 6♠ 3♠ A♣

fold, Hero raises to 3.4 BB, CO raises to 11.6 BB, fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 36.2 BB, CO calls 24.6 BB

Opponent has AA here. He could have raised to 100bb and take the flip against my assumed AA. But instead he called my 4bet.

Flop: (73.8 BB, 2 players) Q♠ 3♥ 4♦

Hero bets 70.68 BB, CO raises to 252.92 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 69.96 BB and is all-in

On most flops we have 50/50 situation. SPR is almost 2, so if his plan is to shove any flop he would create some FE. If I don't fold any flop, then the outcome would be the same as if we went all-in preflop.

Note: If he had premium Aces, then he should have shoved preflop as he would have been 55-60% favourite.

Turn: (355.08 BB, 2 players) T♠

River: (355.08 BB, 2 players) 4♥

Hero shows A♦ 6♠ 3♠ A♣ (Two Pair, Aces and Fours)

(Pre 51%, Flop 43%, Turn 55%)

CO shows 7♣ A♠ A♥ 5♦ (Two Pair, Aces and Fours)

(Pre 49%, Flop 57%, Turn 45%)

Hero wins 173.56 BB

CO wins 173.52 BB

Small cooler in 500bb pot

Spoiler

BTN: 54.16 BB (VPIP: 17.80, PFR: 9.32, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 122)

SB: 235.52 BB (VPIP: 17.54, PFR: 15.79, 3Bet Preflop: 10.00, Hands: 59)

BB: 165.72 BB (VPIP: 73.21, PFR: 35.71, 3Bet Preflop: 7.69, Hands: 56)

UTG: 94.6 BB (VPIP: 47.13, PFR: 18.47, 3Bet Preflop: 3.51, Hands: 158)

Hero (MP): 308.08 BB

CO: 29.32 BB (VPIP: 31.35, PFR: 18.81, 3Bet Preflop: 6.84, Hands: 308)

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has J♠ T♣ J♣ K♠

UTG calls 1 BB, Hero raises to 4.4 BB, fold, fold, SB calls 4 BB, BB calls 3.4 BB, UTG calls 3.4 BB

Flop: (17.6 BB, 4 players) 3♥ K♦ J♦

SB bets 5.56 BB, BB calls 5.56 BB, UTG calls 5.56 BB, Hero raises to 44.64 BB, SB raises to 161.88 BB, fold, fold, Hero raises to 303.68 BB and is all-in, SB calls 69.24 BB and is all-in

4way pot and opponent donks 1/3 pot. I block the King, and KJdd offers a lot of draws. BB and UTG called, so KK is out of their ranges. That donk doesn't look like KK (and I block it too) so I raise. And when SB reraised I puked. He could shove combodraw, like KQJTdd. To fold my KJJ, I would have to be very sure that his range is only KK. It looks like it now, but the donk...? My blocker...?

Couldn't fold, got it in with 9% and made runner runner straight. I think my opponent doesn't feel happy.

Turn: (490.96 BB, 2 players) Q♠

River: (490.96 BB, 2 players) A♦

SB shows 6♦ 8♥ K♥ K♣ (Three of a Kind, Kings)

(Pre 60%, Flop 91%, Turn 78%)

Hero shows J♠ T♣ J♣ K♠ (Straight, Ace High)

(Pre 40%, Flop 9%, Turn 23%)

Hero wins 482.96 BB

What in the world are they thinking, part 2

Spoiler

BTN: 99 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: -, Hands: 2)

SB: 53.6 BB (VPIP: 33.51, PFR: 6.88, 3Bet Preflop: 2.24, Hands: 561)

Hero (BB): 146 BB

UTG: 105.2 BB (VPIP: 21.05, PFR: 15.79, 3Bet Preflop: 5.00, Hands: 99)

MP: 318.76 BB (VPIP: 50.00, PFR: 50.00, 3Bet Preflop: 50.00, Hands: 6)

CO: 297.08 BB (VPIP: 27.27, PFR: 16.08, 3Bet Preflop: 5.36, Hands: 147)

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has A♦ 9♣ A♠ 9♥

UTG raises to 3.4 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 10.6 BB, UTG calls 7.2 BB

UTG is a reg, so let's look how this goes from his perspective. I 3bet his UTG open from BB, which means that my range is pretty strong. AAxx heavy.

Flop: (21.6 BB, 2 players) Q♥ 7♥ 6♣

Hero checks, UTG checks

Flop goes check-check. I could try to check-raise with AAhh or AAQQ etc. but most likely I check because I missed the board.

Turn: (21.6 BB, 2 players) A♥

Hero checks, UTG bets 9.92 BB, Hero calls 9.92 BB

Ah comes. So my AAxx range doesn't fold, and my hh range doesn't fold. He decided to bluff with JJ. To be honest, I don't think I would fold any of my Axxx range either as it would have at least a gutshot with it. I don't know why he decided to bluff here when majority of my range doesn't fold.

River: (41.44 BB, 2 players) J♣

Hero checks, UTG checks

On the river he doesn't barrel to make me fold my AA, probably because he got some showdown value.

It might be that he doesn't understand that when I 3bet from BB against UTG I should have a damn strong hand (as with the rest I can see the flop for cheap price). To him all 3bets are the same. On the turn he doesn't think about my hand, just makes the bluff as I checked twice.

Hero shows A♦ 9♣ A♠ 9♥ (Three of a Kind, Aces)

(Pre 65%, Flop 81%, Turn 85%)

UTG mucks 8♥ J♦ T♠ J♠ (Three of a Kind, Jacks)

(Pre 35%, Flop 19%, Turn 15%)

Hero wins 39.68 BB

Late night session, -3buyins under EV. 24K hands, 22 buyins under EV. That means RNG owns me $550.

You know the Universe never owes us anything, don't you? It's the sad but crucial truth.

You are a #partyspoiler.

Don't ruin my fun with realism.

Oh, sorry you run under EV, I´m running about 25 BI under EV too in MTT. I would suggest we go and beat up the poker god

Dear poker god, meet me in the backyard. Now.

Originally posted by Kyyberi

Dear poker god, meet me in the backyard. Now.

Wait for me! I´ll be there too!

Kyyberi, by the way, you plog is awesome! I´m improving by reading it. As a self-employer I don´t have much time to study, the plog and your coachings are a great way to improve without studying for hours!

+1

And I only post the fun hands. ♦

Originally posted by Kyyberi

And I only post the fun hands. ♦

But they help! What helps that helps!

Another session, and at few points it was really frustrating to play as it was impossible to win an all-in situation. And if it was not all-in, then opponents made backdoors like pancakes on the morning. But hard work paid off, and things started to look brighter. Profitable session and I have to admit that it was quite a relief. At around 300 hands where I lost another 70/30 all-in I actually said out loud "are you fucking kidding me?".

Good thing is that I have created a simple-to-follow basic strategy for micros that I can follow without much thinking. So even when I was F'd up I just followed that strategy for a while. After that one big pot (see hands below) I was at 990bb's at one table. Couldn't stop the session until I got it over 1000bb's just so I could post a pic. Here it is, once more. This time at PLO10:

The session:

Spoiler

Couple of hands, the fun ones:

I always try to understand people, but sometimes they make it hard for me

Spoiler

Hero (BTN): 977.2 BB

SB: 122.9 BB (VPIP: 13.95, PFR: 11.63, 3Bet Preflop: 5.88, Hands: 44)

BB: 102.5 BB (VPIP: 39.47, PFR: 32.89, 3Bet Preflop: 8.82, Hands: 77)

UTG: 246.4 BB (VPIP: 28.11, PFR: 11.08, 3Bet Preflop: 2.15, Hands: 749)

MP: 118.9 BB (VPIP: 45.61, PFR: 8.57, 3Bet Preflop: 3.49, Hands: 2,984)

CO: 100 BB (VPIP: 20.00, PFR: 14.62, 3Bet Preflop: 2.33, Hands: 132)

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 3♠ A♠ T♥ Q♣

fold, MP calls 1 BB, CO raises to 4.5 BB, Hero calls 4.5 BB, fold, BB raises to 19.5 BB, fold, CO calls 15 BB, Hero calls 15 BB

Flop: (60 BB, 3 players) 3♥ 6♠ Q♦

BB bets 24.1 BB, fold, Hero raises to 129.7 BB, BB calls 58.9 BB and is all-in

BB is an aggro player, and decides to bet slightly less than half a pot here when SPR is just above 1. At that SPR I don't think he should use that sizing, he should always pot it. Only if he had a rundown that misses the board he should check. Now he bets and snap calls my shove. I was already like "ok, let's see if he has AA or KK". He had KJT9. I am quite sure that he is really bad at poker math, or then he just doesn't care. Or he has never calculated equities of backdoors. But to get it in with 14% equity vs. the bottom of my range is really bad decision. I was pleasantly surprised.

Turn: (226 BB, 2 players) 2♣

River: (226 BB, 2 players) 8♥

BB shows K♣ 9♥ T♦ J♣ (High Card, King)

(Pre 48%, Flop 14%, Turn 0%)

Hero shows 3♠ A♠ T♥ Q♣ (Two Pair, Queens and Threes)

(Pre 52%, Flop 86%, Turn 100%)

Hero wins 216.4 BB

This is annoying as %#&¤&¤/ every time it happens

Spoiler

BTN: 100 BB (VPIP: 29.44, PFR: 22.38, 3Bet Preflop: 13.66, Hands: 506)

SB: 242.1 BB (VPIP: 20.00, PFR: 13.33, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 15)

BB: 262.4 BB (VPIP: 32.11, PFR: 20.00, 3Bet Preflop: 3.75, Hands: 195)

UTG: 104.1 BB (VPIP: 24.68, PFR: 19.81, 3Bet Preflop: 9.92, Hands: 319)

MP: 290.3 BB (VPIP: 37.88, PFR: 16.67, 3Bet Preflop: 1.85, Hands: 136)

Hero (CO): 382.3 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 7♠ 6♥ T♣ 9♣

fold, MP calls 1 BB, Hero raises to 4.5 BB, fold, fold, fold, MP calls 3.5 BB

Flop: (10.5 BB, 2 players) 7♦ 6♦ 5♣

MP checks, Hero bets 7.6 BB, MP calls 7.6 BB

Turn: (25.7 BB, 2 players) 9♥

MP checks, Hero checks

I thought for a while if I should barrel here with top3 or not. Most of his range is flush draws, some T8 and some overpairs/one pair hands. Getting raised would suck and the only thing we need to be scared on the river is a diamond. Once we check the turn, he could bluff almost everything he has if he misses it. So I checked and was ready to call any non-diamond river if he bets.

River: (25.7 BB, 2 players) K♦

MP bets 24.6 BB, fold

If I was a mental game fish, I would say "the river is ALWAYS a diamond!". But I won't say it, I just say "of course".

MP wins 24.6 BB

Surprise on the turn/river

Spoiler

BTN: 191.4 BB (VPIP: 27.03, PFR: 13.51, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 37)

SB: 127.1 BB (VPIP: 38.46, PFR: 23.08, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 39)

BB: 228.7 BB (VPIP: 28.17, PFR: 10.85, 3Bet Preflop: 1.87, Hands: 718)

UTG: 442.7 BB (VPIP: 24.26, PFR: 19.34, 3Bet Preflop: 10.00, Hands: 316)

Hero (MP): 739.6 BB

CO: 71.9 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 2)

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 5♦ 9♠ Q♦ Q♥

UTG raises to 3.5 BB, Hero calls 3.5 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold

Flop: (8.5 BB, 2 players) 5♣ 8♦ 2♦

UTG bets 5.7 BB, Hero calls 5.7 BB

Almost 450bb deep PLO gets interesting. Opponent is a bit aggro reg, I know him from few forums and sites.

Turn: (19.9 BB, 2 players) Q♣

UTG bets 19.1 BB, Hero raises to 76.4 BB, UTG calls 57.3 BB

River is just pure gin, and once he made a pot barrel I was quite sure to see a shove with 88 or a call with a combo draw. He called so he probably has some kind of a combo draw.

River: (172.7 BB, 2 players) 8♠

UTG checks, Hero bets 124.1 BB, UTG calls 124.1 BB

This time I didn't have to say "of course" on the river. I chose slightly over 2/3 sizing to make it look like it could be a bluff with missed combo draw, in case he has a hand like AAxx that might bluff catch. After all, the only hands I could have for value are QQ/Q8. It would be hard for me to have QQ as I called the flop, and would I want to play for stacks against a pot bet on the turn with top2?

I was REALLY suprised to see that he check-called with 2nd nuts. For me to have QQ it would need to be QQ with something on the flop. And if he puts me on QQ, why does he call the turn pot raise then? His turn and river are not consistent with each other. Probably he doesn't think that deep, he just thinks "I can't fold this" on the turn and on the river, but he doesn't raise anything but the nuts there. At least I got a note from him that doesn't stack off deep without the absolute nuts.

Hero shows 5♦ 9♠ Q♦ Q♥ (Full House, Queens full of Eights)

(Pre 59%, Flop 81%, Turn 100%)

UTG mucks A♥ J♣ Q♠ 8♥ (Full House, Eights full of Queens)

(Pre 41%, Flop 19%, Turn 0%)

Hero wins 405.9 BB

THE POT of the day (and a reminder about EV line)

Spoiler

BTN: 71.1 BB (VPIP: 50.98, PFR: 41.18, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 53)

SB: 322.1 BB (VPIP: 67.52, PFR: 51.28, 3Bet Preflop: 44.44, Hands: 118)

BB: 61.7 BB (VPIP: 47.02, PFR: 13.99, 3Bet Preflop: 3.33, Hands: 348)

UTG: 106.7 BB (VPIP: 16.83, PFR: 10.89, 3Bet Preflop: 3.13, Hands: 103)

Hero (MP): 343.8 BB

CO: 148.2 BB (VPIP: 24.16, PFR: 14.04, 3Bet Preflop: 2.99, Hands: 180)

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has J♣ A♦ 9♦ J♦

UTG raises to 3.5 BB, Hero calls 3.5 BB, fold, BTN calls 3.5 BB, SB raises to 18.5 BB, fold, UTG calls 15 BB, Hero calls 15 BB, BTN calls 15 BB

SB is one crazy dude and we are over 300bb deep. What could go wrong?

Flop: (75 BB, 4 players) J♠ T♦ 3♠

SB bets 71.8 BB, fold, Hero raises to 287.2 BB, fold, SB calls 215.4 BB

Pretty nice flop, and when he instantly bet pot I knew that it's time to make Sklanskys! After my raise he thought for a while and just called my raise, leaving just 16bb behind. At this point a lot of players think "now my EV line looks bad if he makes his draw!". Well, he is not making his draw any more often than with a shove. Sometimes he makes it and your EV line looks bad, but sometimes he doesn't and your EV line looks "better than it should". It will even out in the long run.

Turn: (649.4 BB, 2 players) T♣

SB bets 16.4 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 16.4 BB

Here I thought "haha, fuck you EV line!" which is a bit childish.

I knew he was aggressive, but didn't expect to see that hand. Nice stop and go, and he got it in with 5% equity.

River: (682.2 BB, 2 players) 2♦

SB shows K♦ 7♠ K♣ 8♣ (Two Pair, Kings and Tens)

(Pre 59%, Flop 19%, Turn 5%)

Hero shows J♣ A♦ 9♦ J♦ (Full House, Jacks full of Tens)

(Pre 41%, Flop 81%, Turn 95%)

Hero wins 667.2 BB

This week I will host a SuperBowl Pregame Party stream at Saturday, 20.00 CET. I don't think there will be any PLO, but the content is about football, SuperBowl, betting, AMA and my view on "how to get started when starting to play a new poker format". Should be a fun stream and more info (and a thread) will be published shortly. Please join, I might go for 1M spingo. Would be something to hit it.

Another session where most of the time I surfed under the wave of EV line. Then, when I had already selected sitout on all tables, I managed to win few pots to make the session profitable! +0,10$!!!

Spoiler

Some suckouts, and nasty coolers. One hand was vs. a Good Customer, flop is A88. Both checked. Turn was 7, I made a half a pot bet with A7+fd. He called. River was 7 and he checked. I made a bet, hoping to get a call from A, 8 or 7. He minraised and I was like WTF? Couldn't fold, he had A8.

Another cooler was that my cat decided to walk on my laptop, and when I removed him his nail got stuck on one of they keys in keyboard. It flied off, and despite being able to find all the pieces in the key I couldn't get it back as it was. Now my number F3 is hanging barely there. Luckily it's a key that I can't remember I have ever even used. It's function is to increase volume, and I never use keyboard for that. So guess I was lucky after all?

Some selected hands:

If I made a mistake, so does he...

Spoiler

CO: 216.24 BB (VPIP: 32.50, PFR: 18.41, 3Bet Preflop: 6.04, Hands: 448)

Hero (BTN): 88.84 BB

SB: 100 BB (VPIP: 23.97, PFR: 18.49, 3Bet Preflop: 8.33, Hands: 146)

BB: 63.6 BB (VPIP: 20.93, PFR: 13.11, 3Bet Preflop: 5.42, Hands: 566)

UTG: 90.2 BB (VPIP: 41.76, PFR: 8.39, 3Bet Preflop: 3.73, Hands: 1,921)

MP: 135.84 BB (VPIP: 78.53, PFR: 15.95, 3Bet Preflop: 6.02, Hands: 165)

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has 9♥ T♣ J♠ Q♠

UTG raises to 3.4 BB, fold, CO calls 3.4 BB, Hero raises to 15 BB, SB raises to 52.8 BB, fold, UTG raises to 90.2 BB and is all-in, fold, Hero calls 73.84 BB and is all-in, SB calls 37.4 BB

UTG is a tight one, so his range is AA/KK heavy. My 3bet was not a misclick, just a mistake. I am not sure what I was thinking, as soon as I made it I realized that call is superior. Why flip against AA/KK when I could call and use position? Shame on me.

Then SB makes a cold 4bet and I was saved by the bell. If he has AA and UTG has AA, I would have the best equity. If UTG has KK, he should fold it and there would be enough dead money in the pot to make it +EV.

And then the money goes in, but SB doesn't open AA. He has AQ45ds. He is a decent Reg, and I just can't understand what he is doing there. I can't figure out ANY situation where cold shove of AQ45 with 0 FE would be a good play. And he thought for a while so it wasn't a tilt shove. He hasn't gambled earlier so if I was just clicking buttons without a thought, so was he. I got it in with EV0, and got lucky.

Flop: (273.64 BB, 3 players) 9♦ Q♥ 8♠

Turn: (273.64 BB, 3 players) 3♠

River: (273.64 BB, 3 players) A♣

SB shows 5♠ A♠ Q♦ 4♦ (Two Pair, Aces and Queens)

Main Pot [270.92 BB]: (Pre 20%, Flop 4%, Turn 17%)

Side Pot#1 [2.72 BB]: (Pre 29%, Flop 29%, Turn 33%)

UTG shows A♦ 5♥ 2♦ A♥ (Three of a Kind, Aces)

Main Pot [270.92 BB]: (Pre 48%, Flop 11%, Turn 0%)

Side Pot#1 [2.72 BB]: (Pre 71%, Flop 71%, Turn 67%)

Hero shows 9♥ T♣ J♠ Q♠ (Straight, Queen High)

Main Pot [270.92 BB]: (Pre 32%, Flop 85%, Turn 83%)

Hero wins 262.92 BB

UTG wins 2.72 BB

Hero[call] of the Day

Spoiler

CO: 114.4 BB (VPIP: 23.17, PFR: 14.80, 3Bet Preflop: 4.31, Hands: 2,254)

Hero (BTN): 308.48 BB

SB: 199.88 BB (VPIP: 82.86, PFR: 48.57, 3Bet Preflop: 12.50, Hands: 36)

BB: 179.64 BB (VPIP: 14.21, PFR: 6.56, 3Bet Preflop: 3.66, Hands: 185)

UTG: 100 BB (VPIP: 31.74, PFR: 4.53, 3Bet Preflop: 0.73, Hands: 3,383)

MP: 185.08 BB (VPIP: 25.00, PFR: 18.37, 3Bet Preflop: 4.00, Hands: 198)

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has 4♥ 9♠ J♠ 9♥

fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 3.4 BB, SB calls 3 BB, fold

Flop: (7.8 BB, 2 players) J♦ 5♠ 6♠

SB bets 7.48 BB, Hero calls 7.48 BB

SB is an aggro maniac, but I saw him slowplaying a made hand couple of times earlier. Can't really raise my hand 200bb deep so it's just a call.

Turn: (22.76 BB, 2 players) 7♥

SB bets 14.4 BB, Hero calls 14.4 BB

Turn completes the straight, I block spades but then his sizing was a bit weird. And I block 89, 84 and 34.

River: (51.56 BB, 2 players) 5♥

SB bets 49.36 BB, Hero calls 49.36 BB

Then on the river he pots, representing Full House. Now the story just doesn't make sense. With the read his flop pot donk shouldn't be a set/2pairs, and on the river he reps a straight (although with a weird sizing). Pot on the river really polarises his hand to JJ+ or air, and JJ+ shouldn't be in his range. Hero call and some compliments from the opponent.

He called me a donkey first, but I started to chat with him. He calmed down a little and I think he enjoyed the rest of the match. He lost some to me, but was happy. I hope he remembers me and comes to my table next time.

SB shows 4♦ K♦ 6♦ 7♦ (Two Pair, Sevens and Sixes)

(Pre 37%, Flop 36%, Turn 60%)

Hero shows 4♥ 9♠ J♠ 9♥ (Two Pair, Jacks and Fives)

(Pre 63%, Flop 64%, Turn 40%)

Hero wins 143.88 BB

This is becoming a whining plog. Another session, another -3,5 buyins under EV. Yearly graph looks like this:

Spoiler

As my bankroll is winding down, I sometimes get this feeling that "why should I even play this stupid game?". Which is a mental game fish thinking. But instead of making profits I find myself depositing more. EV line is going up, so I know that at some point the green line will turn too. And there is +10buyin upswing in the greenline at the end, but I wouldn't even know it unless I looked the graph. After each session the biggest thing in my head is "another fucking session like this!".

Deep waters, deep waters.

Couple of hands too:

Surprise surprise!

Spoiler

BTN: 40.12 BB (VPIP: 19.44, PFR: 5.56, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 36)

SB: 102.48 BB (VPIP: 25.56, PFR: 13.33, 3Bet Preflop: 2.56, Hands: 91)

BB: 123.2 BB (VPIP: 28.57, PFR: 18.37, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 49)

UTG: 100 BB (VPIP: 16.50, PFR: 11.65, 3Bet Preflop: 11.63, Hands: 104)

Hero (MP): 312.88 BB

CO: 171.92 BB (VPIP: 100.00, PFR: 100.00, 3Bet Preflop: -, Hands: 1)

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has A♥ 4♣ Q♥ 5♣

fold, Hero raises to 3.4 BB, CO calls 3.4 BB, fold, fold, fold

I have only 1 hand at this stakes from villain (my HUD is limited to the current stakes) but he is marked as an aggressive from other stakes.

Flop: (8.2 BB, 2 players) 6♣ 5♥ 5♦

Hero bets 3.92 BB, CO raises to 12 BB, Hero raises to 25 BB, CO raises to 64 BB, Hero raises to 199.84 BB, CO calls 104.52 BB and is all-in

On the flop he makes 50/50 raise. Against 5xxx I am ahead, against 66 I am pretty dead and against 65 I have some outs. With the color code of an aggressive, I made a small reraise to at least represent some kind of re-bluff instead of just potting and telling him I have 5+ for sure. He had a wrap and I was a bit surprised to see he was happy to shove 170bb drawing possibly dead. I was almost sure he had 5 in his hand.

Turn: (345.24 BB, 2 players) 5♠

River: (345.24 BB, 2 players) 2♥

Hero shows A♥ 4♣ Q♥ 5♣ (Four of a Kind, Fives)

(Pre 54%, Flop 56%, Turn 100%)

CO shows 6♥ 4♠ 7♣ 8♣ (Three of a Kind, Fives)

(Pre 46%, Flop 44%, Turn 0%)

Hero wins 337.24 BB

Light call of the day

Spoiler

Hero (BTN): 100 BB

SB: 68.48 BB (VPIP: 33.33, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 3)

BB: 480.36 BB (VPIP: 25.79, PFR: 16.30, 3Bet Preflop: 8.43, Hands: 641)

UTG: 109.8 BB (VPIP: 30.56, PFR: 18.89, 3Bet Preflop: 2.67, Hands: 185)

MP: 980.48 BB (VPIP: 37.70, PFR: 26.23, 3Bet Preflop: 8.49, Hands: 247)

CO: 90.92 BB (VPIP: 23.08, PFR: 15.38, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 14)

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has Q♣ T♦ 8♦ Q♠

fold, fold, CO calls 1 BB, Hero raises to 4.4 BB, fold, fold, CO calls 3.4 BB

Flop: (10.2 BB, 2 players) K♠ 6♠ 6♦

CO checks, Hero bets 4.88 BB, CO calls 4.88 BB

CO looks like a decent reg, and I think I have played with him at other stakes too. So he might have notes/reads on me. And yes, I am aggressive on paired boards. But his call on the flop is damn optimistic, as he doesn't turn it into a bluff on the turn/river (which could explain why he calls the flop with effective A high). Here is my Nugget of Wisdom:

If your opponent is aggressive with cbets on paired boards, the worst way to adjust is to start calling with all kinds of crap and hope for a showdown. Raise flops, float ip, call with good overpairs. But don't start to call with almost anything just because the opponent is betting almost anything.

Turn: (19.96 BB, 2 players) 9♥

CO checks, Hero checks

River: (19.96 BB, 2 players) 2♠

CO checks, Hero checks

CO shows 3♠ Q♦ A♦ 3♦ (Two Pair, Sixes and Threes)

(Pre 42%, Flop 24%, Turn 13%)

Hero shows Q♣ T♦ 8♦ Q♠ (Two Pair, Queens and Sixes)

(Pre 58%, Flop 76%, Turn 88%)

Hero wins 19.12 BB

I know that he knows that he should fold, but can he...?

Spoiler

BTN: 144.44 BB (VPIP: 21.05, PFR: 13.16, 3Bet Preflop: 5.66, Hands: 156)

SB: 271.8 BB (VPIP: 22.36, PFR: 15.64, 3Bet Preflop: 6.76, Hands: 742)

Hero (BB): 281.8 BB

UTG: 145.08 BB (VPIP: 15.38, PFR: 7.69, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 13)

MP: 133.88 BB (VPIP: 25.00, PFR: 25.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 8)

CO: 936.84 BB (VPIP: 39.63, PFR: 27.19, 3Bet Preflop: 8.89, Hands: 220)

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has J♦ T♠ A♦ T♦

UTG raises to 3 BB, MP calls 3 BB, fold, fold, SB calls 2.6 BB, Hero calls 2 BB

Flop: (12 BB, 4 players) 8♦ 2♠ 9♦

SB checks, Hero bets 8.6 BB, UTG raises to 37.28 BB, fold, fold, Hero calls 28.68 BB

Tight player raises flop. Range is 99xx.

Turn: (86.56 BB, 2 players) J♣

Hero bets 82.88 BB, fold

If he has bare 99xx, he doesn't have the equity to call against my straight. He needs at least 30% or so, and with a set he has 24%. But is he mentally attached to his set? If he calls, I have still 15 outs so it wouldn't be the end of the world. But here he folded at least 65% equity which was nice. Took the whole timer though, probably counted outs and pot odds.

Hero wins 82.88 BB

The pot of the Day

Spoiler PokerStars - $0.25 PL Hi FAST (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 6 players

Hand converted by PokerTracker 4 (http://www.pokertracker.com/)

BTN: 52.32 BB (VPIP: 75.00, PFR: 50.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 4)

SB: 236.52 BB (VPIP: 26.38, PFR: 18.51, 3Bet Preflop: 6.02, Hands: 743)

BB: 119.48 BB (VPIP: 40.96, PFR: 20.14, 3Bet Preflop: 0.84, Hands: 299)

UTG: 100.6 BB (VPIP: 35.85, PFR: 3.77, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 57)

MP: 460.48 BB (VPIP: 19.07, PFR: 12.45, 3Bet Preflop: 6.69, Hands: 1,893)

Hero (CO): 337.52 BB

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has 9♠ Q♠ A♥ K♥

fold, fold, Hero raises to 3.4 BB, BTN calls 3.4 BB, SB calls 3 BB, BB calls 2.4 BB

Flop: (13.6 BB, 4 players) J♦ T♥ 2♠

SB bets 9.12 BB, fold, Hero calls 9.12 BB, BTN raises to 48.92 BB and is all-in, SB raises to 168.92 BB, Hero calls 159.8 BB

Nice wrap with backdoors, and then the money starts to fly in. If the board was suited, it would be trickier with the third player. But on rainbow, it's easy time to ride the waves of variance. No reason to shove though, as SB has a set or at least JT here for sure.

Turn: (400.36 BB, 3 players) 8♣

SB bets 64.2 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 64.2 BB

Nice turn, now I can put the rest in to the pot.

River: (528.76 BB, 3 players) A♣

SB shows 8♦ J♠ T♦ 8♠ (Three of a Kind, Eights)

Main Pot [160.36 BB]: (Pre 35%, Flop 20%, Turn 14%)

Side Pot#1 [368.4 BB]: (Pre 47%, Flop 50%, Turn 17%)

Hero shows 9♠ Q♠ A♥ K♥ (Straight, Ace High)

Main Pot [160.36 BB]: (Pre 39%, Flop 47%, Turn 83%)

Side Pot#1 [368.4 BB]: (Pre 53%, Flop 50%, Turn 83%)

BTN shows 2♥ Q♦ 2♦ 6♥ (Three of a Kind, Twos)

Main Pot [160.36 BB]: (Pre 25%, Flop 33%, Turn 3%)

Hero wins 520.76 BB

Damn.

Spoiler

Hero (CO): 457.4 BB

BTN: 44.84 BB (VPIP: 22.81, PFR: 15.79, 3Bet Preflop: 5.88, Hands: 57)

SB: 100.08 BB (VPIP: 49.23, PFR: 35.38, 3Bet Preflop: 7.41, Hands: 66)

BB: 106.88 BB (VPIP: 12.74, PFR: 7.20, 3Bet Preflop: 6.18, Hands: 366)

UTG: 215.76 BB (VPIP: 62.50, PFR: 19.32, 3Bet Preflop: 13.33, Hands: 89)

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has 8♠ K♦ K♥ A♠

UTG calls 1 BB, Hero raises to 4.4 BB, fold, SB calls 4 BB, fold, UTG raises to 18.6 BB, Hero raises to 61.2 BB, SB raises to 100.08 BB and is all-in, UTG raises to 215.76 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 154.56 BB

I missed that UTG limp-3betted. Not sure if that would change my line. Opponent has 3bet 6 hands so far: QJ33, AQJ3, QQ74, T973, 8765 and AJ97. I have one A in my hand. It's just so annoying when that kind of gambler wakes up with Aces, when you have one in your hand.

For the whole session he owned me. No matter how bad his hand was, he managed to hit slightly better hands than me. Set vs top2 in 3bet pots, backdoors vs my flopped goods, 2pairs into fullhouse on the river vs straight etc. Good session for him, made few hundred bucks. When his luck runs out, he is one of the best customers.

Flop: (532.6 BB, 3 players) 3♦ J♦ 9♦

Turn: (532.6 BB, 3 players) 2♠

River: (532.6 BB, 3 players) 3♠

UTG shows 3♣ J♣ A♥ A♣ (Full House, Threes full of Jacks)

Main Pot [301.24 BB]: (Pre 39%, Flop 68%, Turn 86%)

Side Pot#1 [231.36 BB]: (Pre 69%, Flop 88%, Turn 94%)

Hero shows 8♠ K♦ K♥ A♠ (Two Pair, Kings and Threes)

Main Pot [301.24 BB]: (Pre 28%, Flop 4%, Turn 0%)

Side Pot#1 [231.36 BB]: (Pre 31%, Flop 12%, Turn 6%)

SB shows 6♦ 7♣ Q♣ T♥ (One Pair, Threes)

Main Pot [301.24 BB]: (Pre 34%, Flop 28%, Turn 14%)

UTG wins 524.6 BB

Umm... Huh?

Spoiler

Hero (SB): 203.6 BB

BB: 80 BB (VPIP: 35.02, PFR: 10.44, 3Bet Preflop: 1.54, Hands: 300)

UTG: 32.8 BB (VPIP: 22.22, PFR: 17.78, 3Bet Preflop: 7.14, Hands: 45)

MP: 100 BB (VPIP: 40.48, PFR: 30.95, 3Bet Preflop: 5.26, Hands: 43)

CO: 117.48 BB (VPIP: 12.54, PFR: 6.73, 3Bet Preflop: 5.59, Hands: 332)

BTN: 61.84 BB (VPIP: 61.04, PFR: 18.18, 3Bet Preflop: 10.26, Hands: 78)

Hero posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has K♥ 9♣ T♦ K♦

fold, MP raises to 3.4 BB, fold, BTN raises to 11.6 BB, Hero raises to 39.2 BB, BB calls 38.2 BB, MP calls 35.8 BB, BTN calls 27.6 BB

MP was an aggro, and BTN was the crazy 3bet guy from the previous hand. BTN was shorty, so I wanted to get preflop all-in. They just called.

Flop: (156.8 BB, 4 players) J♥ 6♣ 5♦

Hero checks, BB bets 40.8 BB and is all-in, MP raises to 60.8 BB and is all-in, BTN calls 22.64 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 60.8 BB

Flop is not horrible, I should have shoved but timed out as there were situations on the other tables. But money went in, and I didn't even notice that I made the nuts on the turn as I was looking at their hands.

BB cold called 4bet with 6654. MP called with QJ99ds, which is not horrible. But against 3bet and 4bet and cold call ranges, it's not in a good shape.

This is something I really don't get. BB called my 4bet with a hand that he might had folded if there wasn't a 3bet or 4bet. 3bet/4bet seems to be a red blanket to some players, and they just have to gamble with what ever they have in hand.

Here justice happened.

Turn: (341.84 BB, 4 players) K♠

River: (341.84 BB, 4 players) Q♣

Hero shows K♥ 9♣ T♦ K♦ (Straight, King High)

Main Pot [247.36 BB]: (Pre 31%, Flop 20%, Turn 88%)

Side Pot#1 [54.48 BB]: (Pre 41%, Flop 21%, Turn 88%)

Side Pot#2 [40 BB]: (Pre 69%, Flop 79%, Turn 91%)

MP shows J♠ 9♠ Q♥ 9♥ (Two Pair, Queens and Jacks)

Main Pot [247.36 BB]: (Pre 21%, Flop 9%, Turn 0%)

Side Pot#1 [54.48 BB]: (Pre 27%, Flop 11%, Turn 9%)

Side Pot#2 [40 BB]: (Pre 31%, Flop 21%, Turn 9%)

BB shows 4♠ 6♠ 5♥ 6♦ (Three of a Kind, Sixes)

Main Pot [247.36 BB]: (Pre 25%, Flop 62%, Turn 3%)

Side Pot#1 [54.48 BB]: (Pre 31%, Flop 68%, Turn 3%)

BTN shows A♣ Q♦ J♣ 3♥ (Two Pair, Queens and Jacks)

Main Pot [247.36 BB]: (Pre 22%, Flop 10%, Turn 9%)

Hero wins 333.84 BB

Originally posted by Kyyberi

This is something I really don't get. BB called my 4bet with a hand that he might had folded if there wasn't a 3bet or 4bet. 3bet/4bet seems to be a red blanket to some players, and they just have to gamble with what ever they have in hand.

As soon as the 2nd person calls the 3Bet, pretty much everyone has pot odds to call with their crap -- or they think that they do.

I see this a lot at PLO8 full-ring cash, where 3 or 4 players limp, someone pots, someone 3Bets, then they're all in for stacks.

It's hilarious.

See you Saturday!

VS

This qualifies as Good Flop/Bad Runout

Spoiler

BTN: 53.84 BB (VPIP: 75.00, PFR: 25.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 4)

SB: 66.12 BB (VPIP: 66.67, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 6)

BB: 76.72 BB

UTG: 43.76 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: -, Hands: 1)

MP: 121.32 BB (VPIP: 8.70, PFR: 4.35, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 24)

Hero (CO): 100 BB

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has K♦ K♥ A♦ A♥

UTG raises to 2 BB, fold, Hero raises to 7.4 BB, fold, fold, fold, UTG calls 5.4 BB

Flop: (16.2 BB, 2 players) A♣ 8♥ T♥

UTG checks, Hero bets 4 BB, UTG calls 4 BB

Turn: (24.2 BB, 2 players) 9♦

UTG checks, Hero bets 17.36 BB, UTG calls 17.36 BB

River: (58.92 BB, 2 players) 7♦

UTG checks, Hero checks

UTG shows 9♠ 9♣ 5♠ J♠ (Straight, Jack High)

(Pre 28%, Flop 14%, Turn 18%)

Hero mucks K♦ K♥ A♦ A♥ (Three of a Kind, Aces)

(Pre 72%, Flop 86%, Turn 83%)

UTG wins 56.4 BB

As allways a pleasure to read. I see the same at the bottom of the food chain. A raise and a reraise, then my K-10-7-2 rainbow is ready to gamble, i go all in. At Unibet at least

Another session, and this time it was roller coaster all the way!

Spoiler

At one point I finally surfed over the EV, but it evened out. With the exception in the end, the whole session was sort of a nightmare. Good Customers made their hands constantly on the river. Typical pot was where I flop hard and pot flop and turn. On the river there is SPR 1/3, and either opponent shoves (and I am there with flopped nuts and one backdoor filled) or check-calls with rivered miracle that looked blankish. I just kept saying to myself that if they call flop raises with gutshots or chase OESD on paired and suited board, in the end the money will come to me.

In the end it happened. Of course it's nice when the session ended in profits, but in the long run it doesn't matter if it goes up today, tomorrow or day after that.

Have been exploiting him since 2010

Spoiler

BB: 100 BB (VPIP: 33.29, PFR: 24.01, 3Bet Preflop: 12.01, Hands: 2,890)

UTG: 38.6 BB (VPIP: 65.10, PFR: 13.02, 3Bet Preflop: 2.44, Hands: 196)

Hero (CO): 110.28 BB

BTN: 133.88 BB (VPIP: 53.76, PFR: 19.36, 3Bet Preflop: 5.38, Hands: 349)

SB: 252.28 BB (VPIP: 44.05, PFR: 9.72, 3Bet Preflop: 1.39, Hands: 515)

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has J♠ J♦ 3♠ 3♥

fold, Hero raises to 3.4 BB, fold, fold, BB raises to 10.6 BB, Hero calls 7.2 BB

Flop: (21.6 BB, 2 players) 8♦ 2♦ 8♣

BB bets 12 BB, Hero calls 12 BB

Opponent is a multitabling reg who has played micros for over 10 years. And still grinds. One of his leaks is really weird 3bet ranges. Not consistent, it seems that it's more based on feelings and feng shui. There are some dryish KK and QQ, bad and low rundowns, some AA and some quite disconnected hands. It looks like he has never really put an effort to his preflop game. Also he is opening flat 20-30% of hands from all positions except BTN where he opens 40.

His range on the flop is quite wide, except if he had 8 or AAdd he would bet bigger. I called with the idea of turning the hand into a bluff as I can rep an 8 easily vs. this player.

Turn: (45.6 BB, 2 players) 7♣

BB checks, Hero checks

When he checks the turn he caps his range. Definitely no 8 in his hand. But I can't bluff yet, as he will probably call that bet with overpairs/FD.

River: (45.6 BB, 2 players) 4♦

BB bets 20 BB, Hero raises to 61.84 BB, fold

That bet is most likely a flush or Ad blocker, weighted heavily on flushes. When I call the flop my range is either 8xxx or a flush draw. So it wouldn't make sense to bluff the river. One thing on the opponent is that as he is multitabling his decisions are more or less automatic, he follows his abc poker and rarely makes any adjusted decisions, traps etc. So he could have also dry AA here, and bets the river without thinking about my range at all.

I can rep a full house or nut flush here and his small sizing gives me good odds with that raise. He snap folds.

Hero wins 81.96 BB

Oh boy...

Spoiler SB: 433.32 BB (VPIP: 69.05, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 42)

BB: 100 BB (VPIP: 29.56, PFR: 19.21, 3Bet Preflop: 8.44, Hands: 618)

UTG: 106.6 BB (VPIP: 89.47, PFR: 28.95, 3Bet Preflop: 6.67, Hands: 38)

MP: 324.52 BB (VPIP: 19.25, PFR: 11.21, 3Bet Preflop: 3.06, Hands: 1,873)

Hero (CO): 130.36 BB

BTN: 100 BB (VPIP: 27.43, PFR: 18.32, 3Bet Preflop: 7.38, Hands: 4,750)

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has 7♣ 9♠ T♥ K♥

UTG calls 1 BB, fold, Hero raises to 4.4 BB, fold, SB calls 4 BB, fold, UTG calls 3.4 BB

Flop: (14.2 BB, 3 players) 7♥ 6♥ 2♣

SB checks, UTG bets 13.6 BB, Hero calls 13.6 BB, fold

Turn: (41.4 BB, 2 players) 5♥

UTG checks, Hero bets 19.84 BB, UTG calls 19.84 BB

River: (81.08 BB, 2 players) 8♥

UTG bets 39 BB, fold

This was a nasty spot. Opponent is a bit wild, so I don't know what the hell that river donk was. The only hand that makes sense is Th9h and I block that. If he had Ahh or 3h4h why would he call the turn and then donk the river? So it's a situation where he can't have the hand that his line would make sense, and with anything else it doesn't make sense at all. He could shove the river, but instead he bets small. Blocker bet with Qhh? Doesn't make sense.

He donk potted the flop against 2 players which indicates a hit. Another confusing element in the hand. Somehow Ahh could be played that way as he is not a good player. Now this fold haunts me as I am really curious what he had there.

UTG wins 77.64 BB

Look at that board! And the river!

Spoiler PokerStars - $0.25 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 5 players

Hand converted by PokerTracker 4 (http://www.pokertracker.com/)

UTG: 106.92 BB (VPIP: 33.57, PFR: 24.00, 3Bet Preflop: 11.61, Hands: 2,769)

CO: 29.36 BB (VPIP: 68.22, PFR: 7.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.83, Hands: 262)

Hero (BTN): 208.92 BB

SB: 58.12 BB (VPIP: 19.40, PFR: 9.36, 3Bet Preflop: 4.72, Hands: 607)

BB: 73.88 BB (VPIP: 43.69, PFR: 13.59, 3Bet Preflop: 8.00, Hands: 105)

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has J♦ 7♣ 7♥ A♦

fold, CO calls 1 BB, Hero raises to 4.4 BB, fold, fold, CO raises to 14.6 BB, Hero raises to 45.2 BB, CO calls 14.76 BB and is all-in

Good old limp-trap. Once he 3bets I thought that "let's go!". He had lost a big pot, and sometimes these recreationals can shove almost anything when they just want double up or quit. Still, AJ77 is not a hand that can go all-in here, so a mistake for me.

Flop: (60.12 BB, 2 players) 7♦ 7♠ K♦

Turn: (60.12 BB, 2 players) K♣

River: (60.12 BB, 2 players) K♥

But oh boy how the board run out! He had the nut boat on the river, just to put some salt into his wounds! This would have been a nice board for really deep stack situation.

CO shows A♠ T♠ 5♥ A♣ (Full House, Kings full of Aces)

(Pre 71%, Flop 0%, Turn 0%)

Hero shows J♦ 7♣ 7♥ A♦ (Four of a Kind, Sevens)

(Pre 29%, Flop 100%, Turn 100%)

Hero wins 57.56 BB

Too easy.

Spoiler

SB: 106.76 BB (VPIP: 41.52, PFR: 25.65, 3Bet Preflop: 9.77, Hands: 468)

BB: 100 BB (VPIP: 26.59, PFR: 19.24, 3Bet Preflop: 8.68, Hands: 3,603)

UTG: 89.88 BB (VPIP: 27.78, PFR: 7.07, 3Bet Preflop: 2.56, Hands: 203)

CO: 126.24 BB (VPIP: 48.91, PFR: 10.22, 3Bet Preflop: 5.45, Hands: 139)

Hero (BTN): 222.92 BB

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has A♥ 9♦ K♣ 5♣

fold, fold, Hero raises to 3.4 BB, SB raises to 11.2 BB, fold, Hero calls 7.8 BB

Flop: (23.4 BB, 2 players) 7♣ 5♦ 4♥

SB bets 12 BB, Hero calls 12 BB

Half a pot bet, probably does it with most of his range. If he had hit the board well, I think his sizing would be bigger.

Turn: (47.4 BB, 2 players) J♠

SB checks, Hero bets 34.04 BB, SB calls 34.04 BB

As flop call was a combo float, he it's a good spot to represent that straight. If he calls, we have outs to improve and if unimproved just bet again on non-pairing rivers.

River: (115.48 BB, 2 players) A♦

SB bets 49.52 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 49.52 BB

On the river he tries to rep AA, with SPR under 1/2. A bit optimistic, as none of my turn valuerange hands would fold here. As his 3bet range is wide, my 2 pairs is an easy call.

What really amazed me was his turn call. Dry QQ on 754Jr board when I bet. If he even thought about my hand/range, what did he think I have?

SB shows Q♠ K♠ 6♠ Q♥ (One Pair, Queens)

(Pre 55%, Flop 55%, Turn 75%)

Hero shows A♥ 9♦ K♣ 5♣ (Two Pair, Aces and Fives)

(Pre 45%, Flop 45%, Turn 25%)

Hero wins 206.52 BB

Biggest pot of the day

Spoiler PokerStars - $0.25 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 5 players

Hand converted by PokerTracker 4 (http://www.pokertracker.com/)

SB: 100 BB (VPIP: 22.63, PFR: 14.27, 3Bet Preflop: 4.56, Hands: 2,663)

Hero (BB): 248.48 BB

UTG: 351.96 BB (VPIP: 67.03, PFR: 5.23, 3Bet Preflop: 1.04, Hands: 368)

CO: 187.52 BB (VPIP: 81.76, PFR: 31.57, 3Bet Preflop: 12.92, Hands: 1,866)

BTN: 106.68 BB (VPIP: 12.90, PFR: 8.06, 3Bet Preflop: 3.45, Hands: 62)

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has J♠ 9♠ 8♠ T♦

fold, CO raises to 3.4 BB, fold, fold, Hero raises to 10.6 BB, CO calls 7.2 BB

With deep stacks most players are quite passive with their raises postflop without the nuts. 100bb deep I would just call here probably, but now when we are deep I like to 3bet these rundowns. Really good implied odds against these active players.

Flop: (21.6 BB, 2 players) 9♣ 7♥ 3♦

Hero bets 15.52 BB, CO raises to 67.24 BB, Hero calls 51.72 BB

I should have just shoved here, top pair with a wrap. I wouldn't fold to any turn anyway, so just get it in here. I misclicked the call.

Turn: (156.08 BB, 2 players) 6♦

Hero bets 149.44 BB, CO calls 109.68 BB and is all-in

EV line thanks for the misclick, looks better when you get it in with the nuts. His hand is one of the examples what you really wouldn't want to have in deep stack (or actually with any stack depth) 3bet pot. That hand isn't even in the CO opening range, so he got what he deserved.

River: (375.44 BB, 2 players) A♦

Hero shows J♠ 9♠ 8♠ T♦ (Straight, Ten High)

(Pre 65%, Flop 53%, Turn 85%)

CO shows 6♥ 3♠ T♠ 7♦ (Two Pair, Sevens and Sixes)

(Pre 35%, Flop 47%, Turn 15%)

Hero wins 367.44 BB

Swing low, sweet chariot...

Spoiler

In my dayjob I work in 3 shifts. Night shifts are nice, as I have few hours to play poker. Co-workers don't like the night shifts as they find it hard to stay awake. I love these, as there are a lot of Good Customers during my night hours.

In January I managed to put up almost 32K hands, which is a lot on my standards. Last year I probably played 30K hands outside the streams during the whole year. RNG was naughty to me, but I should be happy that I ended up +10 buyins. RNG still owns me 20 buyins, I am waiting...

Spoiler

Don't you just hate when this happens?

Spoiler

Hero (BTN): 150.64 BB

SB: 100 BB (VPIP: 60.87, PFR: 41.30, 3Bet Preflop: 11.76, Hands: 46)

BB: 330.12 BB (VPIP: 34.90, PFR: 18.66, 3Bet Preflop: 5.93, Hands: 670)

UTG: 258 BB (VPIP: 24.77, PFR: 17.43, 3Bet Preflop: 3.80, Hands: 220)

CO: 38.6 BB (VPIP: 43.54, PFR: 4.11, 3Bet Preflop: 0.86, Hands: 1,042)

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has 8♥ 6♦ 6♥ 5♥

fold, CO calls 1 BB, Hero calls 1 BB, SB calls 0.6 BB, BB checks

Flop: (4 BB, 4 players) 6♣ T♥ 2♥

SB checks, BB checks, CO checks, Hero bets 3.84 BB, SB raises to 15.36 BB, fold, fold, Hero raises to 49.92 BB, SB raises to 99 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 49.08 BB

SB is an active guy who has been getting it in with all kinds of hands. Here his range is pretty much T+, flush draws and inside wraps. And of course he happens to have the one hand that beats me. Kind of a same thing when 100/100/100 maniac wakes up with AAxx when you have AKKx and 4bet.

Turn: (202 BB, 2 players) 6♠

Even RNG felt sorry for me.

River: (202 BB, 2 players) A♥

SB shows 4♠ T♣ T♦ 8♠ (Full House, Tens full of Sixes)

(Pre 67%, Flop 65%, Turn 3%)

Hero shows 8♥ 6♦ 6♥ 5♥ (Four of a Kind, Sixes)

(Pre 33%, Flop 35%, Turn 98%)

Hero wins 194 BB

You did what?!

Spoiler PokerStars - $0.25 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 6 players

Hand converted by PokerTracker 4 (http://www.pokertracker.com/)

SB: 131.12 BB (VPIP: 76.34, PFR: 0.54, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 188)

BB: 75.88 BB (VPIP: 24.42, PFR: 13.95, 3Bet Preflop: 5.71, Hands: 88)

UTG: 38.8 BB (VPIP: 37.21, PFR: 27.91, 3Bet Preflop: 8.33, Hands: 44)

MP: 207.8 BB (VPIP: 27.59, PFR: 18.60, 3Bet Preflop: 7.56, Hands: 5,200)

CO: 149.32 BB (VPIP: 34.17, PFR: 14.29, 3Bet Preflop: 3.00, Hands: 525)

Hero (BTN): 135.2 BB

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has T♦ A♥ T♥ 7♠

UTG raises to 2 BB, fold, fold, Hero calls 2 BB, SB calls 1.6 BB, BB calls 1 BB

Flop: (8 BB, 4 players) J♠ K♥ 4♣

SB checks, BB checks, UTG checks, Hero checks

Turn: (8 BB, 4 players) 9♥

SB checks, BB checks, UTG checks, Hero bets 7.68 BB, SB calls 7.68 BB, fold, fold

Gutshot, NFD and TT blockers. Nice spot.

River: (23.36 BB, 2 players) A♣

SB bets 11.2 BB, Hero raises to 33.6 BB, SB raises to 121.44 BB and is all-in, fold

River is a blank. Opponent donks half a pot. If I had any Ax two pairs, I would have just called. That donk is a weird one. If he has QT, why just call the turn and then donk the river? That doesn't make sense at all. I thought that he has some sets/2pairs that is going to bet-fold. He instantly shoves, and I was stunned. One weird way to play QT, but what else could he have? It's even harder to find bluffs for him. With blockers he would need to have some kind of KQQJ, but I haven't seen bet-reraise with blockers at PLO25 probably ever.

One way that it makes sense to just call the turn with QT is that if he puts me on QT too, and is looking to bluff the river. Too bad the river wasn't hearts.

SB wins 86.72 BB

Classical PLO

Spoiler

SB: 150.48 BB (VPIP: 74.67, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 151)

BB: 40.96 BB (VPIP: 33.33, PFR: 33.33, 3Bet Preflop: -, Hands: 7)

CO: 129.68 BB (VPIP: 27.41, PFR: 18.47, 3Bet Preflop: 7.54, Hands: 5,089)

Hero (BTN): 100 BB

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has 3♥ A♣ 8♥ 8♣

CO raises to 3.4 BB, Hero calls 3.4 BB, fold, fold

Flop: (8.2 BB, 2 players) 3♠ 2♦ 8♠

CO bets 5 BB, Hero raises to 22.84 BB, CO raises to 76.36 BB, Hero raises to 96.6 BB and is all-in, CO calls 20.24 BB

On the flop you might think that you are in a good shape. But then it turns out that he had the best equity and I sucked out.

Turn: (201.4 BB, 2 players) 3♣

River: (201.4 BB, 2 players) 6♦

CO shows 4♠ A♠ 6♠ 5♥ (Straight, Six High)

(Pre 33%, Flop 52%, Turn 0%)

Hero shows 3♥ A♣ 8♥ 8♣ (Full House, Eights full of Threes)

(Pre 67%, Flop 48%, Turn 100%)

Hero wins 197.4 BB

Mr. Optimistic

Spoiler

Hero (SB): 102.6 BB

BB: 141.64 BB (VPIP: 41.86, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 43)

UTG: 128 BB (VPIP: 38.46, PFR: 26.92, 3Bet Preflop: 11.11, Hands: 27)

MP: 49.6 BB (VPIP: 35.08, PFR: 19.32, 3Bet Preflop: 6.09, Hands: 600)

CO: 124.04 BB (VPIP: 23.48, PFR: 17.39, 3Bet Preflop: 2.27, Hands: 116)

BTN: 85.2 BB (VPIP: 42.03, PFR: 8.58, 3Bet Preflop: 3.93, Hands: 1,941)

Hero posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has Q♦ 3♠ T♦ J♠

fold, fold, fold, BTN raises to 2.4 BB, Hero calls 2 BB, fold

Flop: (5.8 BB, 2 players) 5♦ K♦ 9♦

Hero checks, BTN bets 2.8 BB, Hero calls 2.8 BB

Turn: (11.4 BB, 2 players) 2♥

Hero checks, BTN bets 5.36 BB, Hero raises to 16.2 BB, BTN calls 10.84 BB

River: (43.8 BB, 2 players) 6♠

Hero bets 31.44 BB, BTN raises to 63.8 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 32.36 BB

Let's stop here and see what happened. I called the monotone flop, and check-raised the turn. Now I bet 3/4 on the river with SPR 1,5. Opponent has a set and Ad blocker. He shoves the river. So he really thought that I would bet-fold the river with 30bb behind? When he raised I hated it. But there are couple of things. First, he bet half a pot on the turn which is a bit small sizing if he had the nut flush. Second, I have the second nuts so if I fold this hand my calling range on the river is only the nut flush. BTN is recreational so could I ever make the hero fold? Versus some passive nit I would bet-fold this on the river, but versus random recreational never...

BTN shows A♦ 9♥ Q♠ 9♣ (Three of a Kind, Nines)

(Pre 50%, Flop 36%, Turn 25%)

Hero shows Q♦ 3♠ T♦ J♠ (Flush, King High)

(Pre 50%, Flop 64%, Turn 75%)

Hero wins 164.12 BB

Today is Saturday, and it means that 20.00 CET starts our SuperBowl Pregame Party! Tune in to Twitch and join the fun. I will talk about the upcoming SuperBowl match and about sports betting for the game. And it's your chance to come and ask anything about football, I am more than happy to help! There will be no delay in the stream so the interaction should be easier. And yes, I will play PLO too with the Lucky Dollar raffle!

Pokerstars reduces the timebank and timer. From a selfish point of view I like this change. The biggest threat to profit are regs. And multitabling regs are the worst. If there are two regs playing their session at the same time as me, they take 2 spots from almost all tables. So if I am playing 8 tables, that means 16 spots for them! Versus most multitabling regs the edge is not enough to beat the rake (at least at higher winrate). So the less there are them, the better it is.

For me, multitabling is still possible. 8 tables is not a problem, of course shorter timer means that I have to concentrate even more. In my game the basic strategy is close to the level of automation for all preflop and flop decisions. Big thanks for that goes to PokerStrategy.com forum. While replying and analyzing hundreds of hands in the forum, I have done good repetitions of the basic skills and decisions. And then through the hundreds and hundreds hours of coaching other players, I have done good repetitions on a bit more complicated skills and decisions.

Good news for me is that out of other micros players, I don't think anyone at PLO25 or lower has a good and solid strategy close to automatic level. So after the timer change, most of them will reduce the amount of tables they are playing. Those who don't are struggling with the timer, which means that their capability to adjust and make more complicated lines and decisions is reduced.

And shorter timer means more hands per hour.

P.S. I had a crazy idea. Would it be something if there would be a site without a rake from the pots? Instead of paying the rake you would need to buy time for your timer. When it runs out, you can't play. Probably impossible to make it fail safe, but at least it is an interesting idea.

Originally posted by Kyyberi

Would it be something if there would be a site without a rake from the pots?

There are non-partner sites that tax session winnings instead of raking pots (thus raking winning players more and losing ones less); do you find it a viable method of rake collection?

Originally posted by Kyyberi

P.S. I had a crazy idea. Would it be something if there would be a site without a rake from the pots? Instead of paying the rake you would need to buy time for your timer. When it runs out, you can't play. Probably impossible to make it fail safe, but at least it is an interesting idea.

Back in the olden days in Vancouver there were private clubs where you could play poker.

In the one that I know about, there was an annual membership fee, and you paid an amount per hour to play there. There was no per-pot rake that I'm aware of.

I never played there, but one of the other cab drivers I worked with did quite regularly.

Using this idea, you would pay a flat fee, and get an hour of time that you could "spend" at as many tables as you wanted to.

It would be really important under this system to be sure to click the "sit out next hand" button -- timing out would be costly.

Cheers,

VS

The hourly fee is a well-known method of rake collection in live poker indeed, however, if I ran an online poker room this way, I'd charge per 5 minutes per table to discourage multitabling

Kyyberi, now we both have a whining plog each - while I´m running quite good in PLO I´m whining my MTT blog full. I think, the PLO-god is too busy to babysit me, little beginner so he left you alone. That´s what the MTT god did to me! Running in MTT like you totally under EV and win some bucks back in PLO-CG.

As I said in yesterday's stream, it would be funny to complain. I am now sitting in a spa hotel room, ready to go to spa, have some drinks and food and then watch the SuperBowl in spa's sports bar. Paid by my poker profits from this week. Could be worse.

When people heard that I am willing to spend 300 euros for this (100 for the room/spa, 100 for food/drinks and 100 for bets/gas/parking etc.) they asked if I am insane. It's hard to justify it to someone who isn't as hyped for SuperBowl. But as I said yesterday, for me SuperBowl is THE event of the year. One sports event that I can't miss. Last year we had a local SuperBowl party at local sports bar, but it didn't work out this year. One option was to go watch it with few Lionesses (local women football team) players. But that would have included taxi to home (50e) and there wasn't really an option to have any food during the game. At first I was supposed to share this room with a friend, but he cancelled it. When I was thinking about this option at the start of the week, I decided that if I make over 300 profit during wed-thu I will book the room. I made almost 500, so here I am.

I placed around $200 on SuperBowl bets. If most of them wins, this spa would be a freeroll. ♦

Well, I personally prefer French open and Wimbledon

I had no idea, that some Europeans know "Super Bowl".

Hey Kyyberi,

love your Blog...I'm going to start my PLO Blog as well...And I'm going to get coaching soon from you!!

I prepare cautiously. Having only one beer during the small meal.

Just watched yr show from yesterday. Really nice. Used yr under 56 point and C.J. Anderson tip. If i don't win, i will reclaim the money in yr lucky dollar spin ;-)

That under is looking prett good.

Gurley got 35y, Anderson 7 carries. So both bets hit. Too bad I changed Gurley to over just before the game.

Crazy scoreline. Got odds 2 for under 56 points!

Three tips, all of them were right. Grats for everyone who watched the stream and did them.

I almost made a big profit from SuperBowl. As I said, I changed my bet in the last minute before the game. I put money into Gurley rushing over 36,5 yards. He got 35y. He did run over that, but the last run was taken back by holding call.

Then I had a big bet for Michel to run 100+y and score a TD. He did score and put up 94y.

For Gronk I had 100+y catching. He had only 87.

I had decent sized bet for Brady to rush over 0,5y. In stats, if he runs 1 inch, it's 1 yard in statistic. There was a spot in the last quarter with 4th and 1 that Patriots should have done QB sneak. Brady is the best in business for doing that. But they didn't. Almost got it.

Anyway ended up in profits in SuperBowl betting, so I shouldn't complain. The Big Payday was so close though...

RIO Poker is THE thing at the moment. They launched, and you can play their buggy and limited games with all the other members of poker sites ♦

I went for it too, of course. I thought the games would be tough, as most players are from RIO community (and other learning sites). But it's far from it. People are crazy. Insane amount of 3bets with weird hands and no one folds anything. Everyone is chasing with or without outs. I tried to play "normal" PLO in the beginning but learned the hard way that to make money there you should play tight and for value.

Their "rakeback" is splashed pots, where extra money is put to the pot when the cards are dealt. Often it's 1-3bb's but there has been bigger ones. Lets talk about those small ones first.

If there is an extra bb in the pot, it shouldn't affect your strategy at all. It makes the preflop pot raise bigger, so it's almost like a straddle. Think how you adjust if there is straddle in your game? Instead of doing that, people go mental. If there is couple of extra bb's most players start to open everything and 3bet everything. And then the others defend with everything. All that to fight for an extra bb?

When the splash gets bigger, it starts to change things. If the splash is 10bb's, then your first raise preflop can be to 13,5bb's. But still, a lot of players want to call with almost everything.

As long as the splash is under 10bb's, I would say that don't change your strategy. You will get your share with your good and strong hands. But when the splash goes over that, it starts to affect. You can gamble a bit more, and the bigger the splash is the more you should do it.

With those big splashes (they have reported over 2000bb splashes!) there is a point where you should just get the stack in with any hand. That creates insane variance and kind of sucks if you are deep. I am quite sure that they will tweak the splash system in some way in the future.

Oh my... When will I learn that big river bet is 95% of times for value with the nuts. Would have won 3 buyins more from latest session if I just could have folded two times when opponent had exactly what he was repping for. And it was a spot where those players never bluff.

Back to mental game dojo.

Glad to hear that even the coach is sometimes to curious ;-)

I think I am at least decent in bluff catching and making "hero calls". That's when the decision is based on rational thinking and information.

These calls were more like "he's reppin' the nuts. And my line looks strong and he bets big on the river. But he could be bluffing, and play nuts in trickier way." That's just me trying to justify a bad call, when the real reason is that I got emotionally attached to my hand. And couldn't get rid of the idea of me winning the hand.

Now if I only could figure out why that happens? Most of the times my mental game is good. But every now and then I find myself making a call/shove/bet I shouldn't. I don't know what triggers it, but quite surely it's connected to downswing. Subconscious mind trying desperately to get back to even. Or to the profits I had earlier.

As I am taking shots to PLO50 with my bankroll, it's nice to have some excitement and tension in the game. Normally in PLO10, PLO25 it's just implementing strategy and seeing how it ends. At PLO50, I started with one buyin (and played with mobile client) so the first all-in was an exciting one. Win and continue the shot, or lose and go back to PLO25.

One thing is that at PLO50 normal tables aren't that much better than Zoom. Difference in avg. VPIP is less, and there are fewer tables. And as there are often 1-3 regs sitting in each of the normal tables, it's not anymore so clear that normal tables would be better than Zoom ones. Probably I will try to put as many color labels as possible and then just table select between normal and Zoom tables with the optimal mix. Too bad you can't get hands by observing tables anymore.

Originally posted by Kyyberi

Too bad you can't get hands by observing tables anymore.

True, but you can still take notes!

VS

Damn.

I started to watch people explaining how martingale or their versions of it are guaranteed way to make money in roulette. And those videos have millions of views.

I also loved one "how to beat the house" video that said "good poker players can increase their returns up to 99,5% if they know when to bet and play big". Same video said also that in roulette your chance to win is bigger with a system instead if putting chips randomly. At least their math is consistence. It sucks all the way.

Stupidity of people is amazing. And the stupidity of some people who make youtube videos is even more. I just wonder how many of those videos are actually made by casinos?

Originally posted by Kyyberi

Stupidity of people is amazing.

Various authors with many variations

Only two things are infinite: The universe and human stupidity

I'm not so sure about the universe...

Originally posted by Kyyberi

And the stupidity of some people who make youtube videos is even more. I just wonder how many of those videos are actually made by casinos?

One of the common ideas used to debunk the idea that online poker is rigged is that they don't need to rig it to make money, and that getting caught would be devastating. The same could apply to casinos making videos detailing how to lose.

In 1981 Mrs Vorpal and I went to Reno on an excursion sponsored by our bowling league.

We had little money, with [some amount I can't remember] set aside for gambling, some for shows etc.

I studied up on blackjack before we left, and one of the things I "learned" was the "double your bet on the next hand if you lose" idea.

In those days, there were $1-to-$100 tables [1] in Reno, and we played those, and we did the double-up thing several times, sometimes having to place a $16 bet.

I figured this was pretty good.

On our second-last night there, we blew through the $16 and the $32.

If we lost the $64 it would wipe out our winnings so far. Mrs Vorpal was all in favour of just walking out, but I was all for continuing.

The dealer called the pit boss over, and he said "You do realize that if you lose the $64 bet, your next bet would be over the table limit?" I said, yes, I did. He said "OK, go ahead"

We won it.

We didn't play any more blackjack.

On our very last night there, we stayed up all night, and played one game in each casino until we either lost $10 or won $20.

We played games we'd never heard of -- or at least never played before.

We sat down at a table with just a dealer, no other players, and explained that we had never played before and would like to learn, and we would play until we won or lost $20 the we would leave.

We won over and over again.

Rigged?

Couldn't be

Cheers,

VS

[1] In 2015 in Vegas, the lowest stakes blackjack I saw was $10-to-$1000

I didn't play.

A lot of the web pages that explain martingale as "100% safe way to make money!" have affiliate deals with online casinos. For casino if a customer thinks he has a system that beats the game, he is pretty good customer.

In a way, martingale is 100% sure way to make money. All you need is an infinite bankroll and a table without bet limit. I would love to see those few million dollar chips in play to win the initial $1 back. ♦

Originally posted by Kyyberi

In a way, martingale is 100% sure way to make money. All you need is an infinite bankroll and a table without bet limit.

Or be the house...

If player has infinite amount of money and house has infinite amount of money, they both win in theory. But why would they play when they have infinite amount of money. And if one has infite amount of money, can his bankroll get shorter? Can he lose, no matter what happens? If no one loses and everyone wins, where does the money come from?

That game would be rigged.

It's not that long ago since I played PLO10 with my bankroll. On a swingy day I went $100 up or down. Mentally that $100 is some sort of a threshold. It's 3 figures and amount of money that has some significant value in real life. Now when playing PLO50 brings up some mental game issues, as the amount of money that is moved during the session is that way significant all the time. It has been years since I have played PLO50 regularly so I am not used to win/lose amounts of money that have real significant value in real life. Variance can easily swing $500-$1000 in a day at PLO50. Thousand bucks is kind of money that would have impact on my life if I would won it from somewhere or lose it from my salary. So to move that kind of money back and forth and embracing the variance that can be thousands is kind of a mental barrier to me. While playing I can relate to chips as chips. But I know for sure at the moment if I would lose $500 in a session it would feel bad. I would be thinking what I could have done with that $500. Which is human, but far from optimal mindset.

Now when I have run good in PLO50 it's harder to start a session. I look at my bankroll and think it would suck to lose significant amount of money. Sort of scared to lose. Human mind is a funny thing. Even if I would lose $500, I would have a bankroll I just dreamed about 2 months ago. And I know a lot about mental game and stuff. But you can't order your brain to work in certain way. So I am having a battle in my head between playing PLO50 and aiming to higher profits or playing PLO25 with lower variance (in terms of $$$) and cash out the excessive money. So far I have been sticking to PLO50 and will keep doing it unless my mind plays tricks on me.

So I played a short session. Opened 4 tables of Zoom. I had just opened the tables and I was placing my drinks besides me and trying to find a good position in my chair while playing the first hands. And BOOM, I was $200 down. Two lost all-ins as a favorite, one cooler and one suckout when most of the stacks had went in. EV profitable, winnings -$200. For a moment I had the feeling that this was the thing I had been "fearing" of. I stick to my plan, continued to play, and half an hour later I was making profits from the session. I have to say that when that session ended in profits, it was a mental relief.

Marked one hand, another bluff catch

Spoiler

Hero (BTN): 106.76 BB

SB: 283.66 BB (VPIP: 21.88, PFR: 6.25, 3Bet Preflop: 6.25, Hands: 32)

BB: 104.28 BB (VPIP: 29.22, PFR: 17.58, 3Bet Preflop: 2.84, Hands: 447)

UTG: 103.2 BB (VPIP: 14.38, PFR: 2.61, 3Bet Preflop: 1.64, Hands: 159)

MP: 101.5 BB (VPIP: 19.25, PFR: 14.23, 3Bet Preflop: 6.42, Hands: 1,869)

CO: 113.04 BB (VPIP: 68.75, PFR: 50.00, 3Bet Preflop: 50.00, Hands: 16)

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has K♦ T♥ K♠ 2♠

fold, fold, CO raises to 3.5 BB, Hero calls 3.5 BB, fold, BB calls 2.5 BB

Flop: (11 BB, 3 players) K♥ A♦ J♦

BB checks, CO checks, Hero checks

Small sample size, but CO looks like an Action Man. Checks the flop, which doesn't really make sense with QT.

Turn: (11 BB, 3 players) 3♠

BB checks, CO checks, Hero bets 7.84 BB, fold, CO raises to 17.68 BB, Hero calls 9.84 BB

When they both check the turn (on a flush draw board) I find it very likely that neither one has QT. So I valuebet/protect my hand, but CO check-raises me. Not a pot sized raise, slightly over a min-raise. Really weird raise. I was thinking between calling and raising, but that raise is either a trap with QT (somehow, maybe QT with set/2pairs and/or flushdraw) or a bluff with blockers. But as a bluff the sizing doesn't really make sense. Of course in here hero doesn't have QT almost ever so opponent could turn a lot of hands into a bluff.

River: (46.36 BB, 2 players) 4♠

CO bets 24 BB, Hero calls 24 BB

Luckily the river is quite blank and opponent makes very valuebet-look-a-like bet. The only hand that it makes sense to bet the river for value is QT (somehow) or 52xx which he could have in his turn bluffing range. But as hero is capped and bet the turn, KK is almost the top of the range. And to fold the top of your range when you are capped would require a lot of information. Here we have none to justify even thinking about it.

He had QQ blockers. Kids, remember to play blockers in the same way you would play if you had the hand that you are trying to represent.

CO shows 9♣ Q♥ 6♠ Q♣ (One Pair, Queens)

(Pre 35%, Flop 11%, Turn 8%)

Hero shows K♦ T♥ K♠ 2♠ (Three of a Kind, Kings)

(Pre 65%, Flop 89%, Turn 93%)

Hero wins 90.36 BB

I suppose your hand would have been too strong to fold versus triple barrels also on this board runout?

Originally posted by Kyyberi

Now when I have run good in PLO50 it's harder to start a session. I look at my bankroll and think it would suck to lose significant amount of money.

When this happens to me, I back down a level to get back in the groove.

I sometimes switch games entirely for a day or two, then go back.

Do you set a stop-loss?

If so, how many buy-ins will you willingly lose before ending your session?

How often does this happen?

Cheers,

VS

I don't have a strict stop loss, and I don't believe in it. Stop loss might be a good way to minimize the damage in case of severe mental game issues. But in PLO you might play in the zone, your best poker, and lose a lot of buyins in very short period of time. And you will, it's inevitable. If that doesn't affect your game, why would you want to quit your session?

I try to monitor my game all the time, and I know my triggers for dropping to B or C game. Most of the times I take a break or just close the session if the feelings get too strong. Sometimes I don't, I am still in the middle of learning process.

I have my BRM so I know how much I have available for PLO50 shot. If I lose it, I'll go back to PLO25 and grind a new shot roll.

For Ghaleon: if opponent bets the flop and then fires three barrels, then it's a judgement call on the river. How likely it is that opponent could take that line with blockers or missed combo draw? But the same concept applies, if hero caps his range before the river then it's a call unless there is information that says opponent isn't bluffing the river often enough.

I have a dream. I want to stream.

That sounds like 90´s techno song. Deep lyrical expression, like here:

Spoiler Captain Jack - Captain Jack (HQ) - - YouTube

Tap to unmute

Captain Jack - Captain Jack (HQ) - (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFdgK2GbHmo)Atef Bouslimi (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8nSJLWB99g9tsmZA-Vdvwg) Atef Bouslimi26.6K subscribers

Watch on (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFdgK2GbHmo)

Primetime runs once a month, and looks like at the moment I don't have any other live streams to host. So why not joining the hype of RIO poker and host streams every now and then. I just started to explore all the gadgets and fun stuff you can have in stream. Just like a kid at toy store, I would like to have them all! As soon as RIO accepts my application, I will put it up. About the schedule I know that most streams will be during the european office hours (between 8am and 3pm CET). Not sure how many can attend streams during those hours, but we will see.

Would be nice to stream at evenings, but my evenings are already full of coachings and there is that thing called family too... But at least during the weekends I can host some evening streams too. Stay tuned for more information!

Finally it's on!

I have spent quite many hours to setup my stream, and finally yesterday I hosted the first EVER stream at my own channel! Funnily, I have streamed for about 1000+ hours during the years. And everytime it has been on someone else's channel. Now I started to host some streams at my own channel, and I can do there whatever I want!

There is a Jackpot (upgraded version of Lucky Dollar), mini-games in chat, the world's best Chatdroid (who will give you it's life-guidance if asked) and much more! Please check the info and follow the channel to get notificated when I am online!

https://www.twitch.tv/kyyberi

Next stream is scheduled today 21.2.2019 at 11:30 CET.

P.S. Don't worry, PLO Primetime and Lucky Dollar isn't going anywhere!

Hope to join tonight, look forward to the future streams

Originally posted by Kyyberi

Next stream is scheduled today 21.2.2019 at 11:30 CET.

P.S. Don't worry, PLO Primetime and Lucky Dollar isn't going anywhere!

11:30 CET is 02:30 PST ♠_cry:

I'm glad the primetime is still on!

VS

You describe perfectly the mental game issues and the human mind. This is exactly me. So I always use amounts of money which I can easily handle to loose, which doesn´t hurt me at all when I loose it. I noticed you shouldn´t play neither too low nor to high. When you play too low you take it too easy like: "ooooh, it´s only xy $" and start to play sloppy. When you play too high, you have scared-money, I use to play too anxious when the loss of my stack or buy-in could hurt me. I personally find the something-in-between perfect. Money that doesn´t hurt me but also winnings that are interesting for me. At the moment it´s PLO10 and PLO20. After loosing 2 stacks on PLO20 I move down to PLO10, I´m okay with that, that´s how I feel comfy at the tables.

I have to admit by the way that the mental game is absolutely not my forte.

Upcoming scheduled streams:

Tuesday 26.2. 11:00 CET

Wednesday 27.2. 20:00 CET

Thursday 28.2. 11:00 CET

I might put up a stream tomorrow at 22pm CET after work, unless I am feeling too tired.

See you there!

Oh boy, can´t make it at 11:00 a.m. - gotta work! But can catch some afternoon or evening streams!

Read the 11.30 CET as 23.30CET :-(

Originally posted by deralte71

Read the 11.30 CET as 23.30CET

Was not sure either, but Kyyberi writes 11:30 pm as 22:30. Too bad I can´t make the 11 a.m. streams

I will use am from here on to be more clear

Originally posted by Kyyberi

I will use am from here on to be more clear

to me 23:30 is more clear -- but at least I can make it at that time!

Yeah, evening would be awesome!

I mean I will use am for morning, and 23:30 for evenings. There shouldn't be any confusion after that!

I wish I could stream at evenings, but there are so much more important things at evenings going on that mostly those will be afternoon streams. But as you can see, I try to make at least one evening stream per week. So that everyone should have an opportunity to grab the progressive Jackpot!

My stream is very different from the others. I believe that streams are mostly for entertainment and interaction. That's why I have created few things that viewers can have fun with:

• Stream currency is kyybucks. You earn them by watching the stream and joining the chat games (see below). They are mainly used to buy jackpot tickets when it's triggered (see below)

• Progressive Jackpot: instead of lucky dollar, I have progressive Jackpot. Everytime I win at least 100bb pot money is added to the jackpot. 75% of all donations go to it too, and sometimes Special Event (see below) increases the Jackpot. At the moment there is a promotion where 50 followers mark will add $5 to the Jackpot. If I win a pot with quads or better the Jackpot is triggered. Anyone in the chat at that time can buy raffle tickets (with kyybucks). Winner gets 75% of the current Jackpot and 25% is used as a starting point for new Jackpot. Raffle ticket costs 100 kyybucks which is around 3h of watching time if one is active in the chat (without games or betting).

• Special Event: When a set amount of donations are done ($5 at the moment), Special Event is triggered. Decided by the spin wheel, current Special Events include:

No-Fold Preflop

Minraise Mayhem

No-Raise Preflop

Chicken (PotPotPot)

Double Jackpot

Triple Jackpot

Aces Full Jackpot

5x Kyybucks

• In the chat you can play with Chatdroid, which is a cutest droid around. It will answer to any question you have in mind, and sometimes you get pleasant surprises from the Chatbot.

• For the price of 1 kyybuck you can request a song which is played in the background.

• Chat Games: While watching the stream you can play chat games with other viewers. Current games include fighting against Bosses like Phil, Dwan, Daniel and Gus. You can also go to local Casino and try your luck, or play in virtual HU or KO tournament. In chat games you can try to increase your kyybucks.

• Betting: every now and then you can use your kyybucks to bet on certain events, like how many pocket Aces will I get in the next 5min and so on.

You can find all the information from the channel page at https://www.twitch.tv/kyyberi too. Idea is that there are a lot of ways you can be entertained in the stream, and with Progressive Jackpot and Special Events there is also something to rail and cheer for in the stream, besides the poker.

Please note that when songs are requested, they probably are under copyrights which means that the videos of the streams might be muted.

If anyone has ideas or feedback for the streams, I am more than happy to hear it!

Afternoon-streams would be awesome, would love to follow!

Kicking in with additional stream today, here is the schedule for this week:

Monday 25.2. 22:00 CET

Tuesday 26.2. 11:00am CET

Wednesday 27.2. 20:00 CET

Thursday 28.2. 11:00am CET

Aaaaaaw, can make the one today! Aaaaaaaaweeeeeeeeesoooooomeeeee!

Hope to join also

Was great fun to watch yr stream Yesterday, must have been tough to play Four tables and keep track off the chat

The stream was awesome, even though I died in almost all boss fights

Can come to the Wednesday, 8 o clock stream for one hour, before Collins coaching

Will try to catch the stream tonight, let’s kill the Boss tonight, Prim!

I might be able to start a bit earlier today.

Originally posted by deralte71

Will try to catch the stream tonight, let’s kill the Boss tonight, Prim!

We´re gonna ............................. kill Phill!!!

That’s the spirit!

If you wonder if the games at RIO are soft or not, here is an example. There is 25bb extra money in the pot (called splash money), and we go 4way all-in preflop. My hand is not a monster, but when you compare it to their hands it looks quite solid. Remember, PREFLOP ALLIN!!!!

Spoiler

Jackpot is over $26 now. So when I win the pot with quads or better, someone wins 75% of the jackpot. For free. It starts to be a nice bankroll boost...

LOL, finally I won in a boss fight, but your bot has some problems with smilies Guess put too many smilies in my messages

Hope next time I can write in the chat again

PLO is serious, no room for smiles

Originally posted by deralte71

PLO is serious, no room for smiles

Guess that´s Kyyberis chatbot thought too

Not much games going on at 11 CET, decided to work on my to-do-list. I will see a bit later if there are some games running, stay tuned!

Going live now! PLO50 coming up!

So close to winning the jackpot, and then a meeting came in the Way :-)

Jackpot has triggered three times. In all of those, no one in the chat had 100 kyybucks to claim it. Maybe one day someone will claim it.

Played PLO50 in the stream. Lost huge 500bb pot against aggro, on the turn I was 60/40 favorite and wondered between call or shpve when opponent bet pot. With call pot would be 300bb and 100bb behind. Decided to call and call all rivers, as the EV should be better than just shoving.

Board was AT594 (or similar) with flop flush draw. He shoved river with 5486, which he had 4bet preflop. I called his pot bet on the flop and turn. I really don't know if that was a bluff or value on the river. I had Axxx with combo draws.

I also donated 2 buyins when I misread my hand suits. And then 3 times I made 4bet with KK against maniac, shoved Axx flop and each time the maniac had Axxx. And one 200bb stack disappeared when a maniac 3bet me with JJ, called 4 bet and hit the set vs my 2 pairs on the flop.

After all those and a lot of lost flips, I should be happy that I lost only 6 buyins.

You’re not exactly running hot in the last couple of streams. Missing every board

Well I have run pretty well on some streams, and in general. It's part of the poker, and that's why we should have BRM. Overall today was -4buyins, which isn't that unordinary. If I had won that one 60/40 hand, I would be up one buyin.

Streams continue next week:

Tuesday 5.3.2019 at 22:15 CET

Wednesday 6.3.2019 at 13:00 CET

Wednesday 6.3.2019 at 23:15 CET

Thursday 7.3.2019 at 13:00 CET

And we will have PLO Primetime (https://www.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?threadid=403175&goto=firstnew) next week too, at Wed or Thu!

will try to catch both some of yr fun streams and PLO primetime.

Will try to catch the Tuesday-stream

Finally it happened to me! 800bb splash on the table. It means that before the cards are dealt, $80 dropped to the pot in this PLO10 table. We are over 100bb deep with couple guys, and I get this garbage hand:

Spoiler

Too bad I messed up my clipboard and I can't fetch old hands, but I made a boat as flop was K3x and river was a 3. I wish I could have saved the hand to see my preflop equity. My flush draw was dominated, someone had AK and the wheel straight was heavily blocked. I don't think I had much of an equity, but it was enough this time!

This week is full of streaming, as we have the Primetime at Thursday too! Wohoo!

Jackpot triggered! And this time we had a winner, deralte71 won $28,50 totally free money!

Aaaw, nice, deralte! Was a great stream, love it! Can´t make the next ones (booo!), hope there will be another evening-stream next week?

There will be evening streams this week too! Afternoon session, jackpot triggered twice. No one claimed it.

Can´t make the one today, gotta get up early again tomorrow!

Hope to catch some of the late one.

Have to finish some work for a "good costumer" by tomorrow, but hey, on Thursday is Primetime! Looking forward to it!

Deralte is just crushing the jackpot game. Got his second today. As the jackpot is triggered quite often, I changed it from now on. It needs quads of Queens or better to trigger.

Special stream starting now! With another streamer, we try to get to same tables and place them in same order for streams, with same delay!

So you can see both streams at the same time at http://multitwitch.tv/kyyberi/nutraisin/ , just mute one channel or your head will explode.

Let's see how it works, this is the second time we do it. Please give feedback. Stream starting in 5min.

Kyyberi, when are your next streams?

Wednesday afternoon.

Weekend is full of things and Mon/Tue I am working in long shifts.

Hope for late afternoon. Fingers crossed

You can uncross. It will be afternoon.

yeah:f_drink:

After 2 p.m would be awesome!

Started at 12:00 afternoon, which was 5min ago. Join the fun!

I am quite often live during the midday and midnight (CET). Like today, live now!

Schedules changed, so I will go live now!

https://www.twitch.tv/kyyberi

And to prevent this stream going to a live notification thread, I promise to post poker content the next time. Too bad PokerJuice is down atm so I can review hands from the stream.

What is this sorcery? Deralte71 took his third jackpot in the row, and he has earned almost $60 just by watching the stream! If YOUR bankroll needs a booster, my stream might be on of the easiest ways to do that. And you might learn something in the process. Win-win!

Today a huge nit caught me off guard with his first 3bet of the session: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/395572057

Hard to post good strategy content as PokerJuice doesn't work. They had server issues so I couldn't log in for 2 days. Now I can log in, but can't make any calculations. Does anyone else have similar problems with PJ?

Originally posted by Kyyberi

What is this sorcery? Deralte71 took his third jackpot in the row, and he has earned almost $60 just by watching the stream!

Maybe he´s a magician?

I wish, the Way i have been running lately😂

Couldn't post anything as someone killed the forum. But I am streaming, come see me at:

https://www.twitch.tv/kyyberi <

It would be nice to be a bit younger, with no family and no dayjob. Could just play and stream all day and night long. But as things are, there aren't a lot of times for me to stream. In RIO promotion for streamers, I would need 200h of total watching time during a month to get the tier1 rakeback. If I would have 40 viewers per stream, that would be easy. But as I am not, I have a minor problem now. I still need 45h for this month, and I have 2 days to stream. Next week's Wednesday and Thursday. With 10 viewers that would be 4,5h. So it looks like I am hosting couple of longer session next week.

This might be the thinnest value raise I have ever seen in my life. Yeah, I have won pots with A high in 4way preflop allin's, but here I raise the river for 80bb more and opponent snap called.

Spoiler

And of course the biggest pot of the day, and a bad beat story:

Here is the turn, and money goes in.

Spoiler

And here is the river and his hand. He decided to put over 160bb in on the turn with top pair and flush draw, making the total pot of almost 500bb. Kinda nice, until the river came.

Spoiler

And yes, that is the very same opponent in both hands. I would call him a good customer.

Edit. Sometimes you miss over 700e pot by one hand... https://www.twitch.tv/kyyberi/clip/SaltyCooperativeWolfFeelsBadMan

It is now open! www.kyyberi.com!

Nice homepage👍

Very cool! Will catch up after my little break from poker!

And I can highly recommend Kyyberis Twitchchannel - and not because of my raffleluck

Here is a hand I played a week ago:

Spoiler

BTN: 143.84 BB (VPIP: 37.50, PFR: 12.50, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 9)

SB: 82.76 BB (VPIP: 27.27, PFR: 5.45, 3Bet Preflop: 3.45, Hands: 56)

BB: 100 BB

Hero (UTG): 340.88 BB

MP: 106.04 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: -, Hands: 1)

CO: 116.24 BB (VPIP: 33.90, PFR: 13.56, 3Bet Preflop: 6.52, Hands: 118)

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has T♦ K♠ J♣ 2♠

Hero raises to 3.4 BB, fold, fold, BTN calls 3.4 BB, fold, fold

A loose open from UTG, I don't like it. But as it was played a week ago I really can't recall what was going on. CO and BTN are sort of good customers but still, this is a bit too marginal.

Flop: (8.2 BB, 2 players) 5♦ T♥ 9♠

Hero bets 5.88 BB, BTN calls 5.88 BB

Top pair, gutshot and backdoor flush draw. Plan is to bet and barrel a lot of turns if called.

Turn: (19.96 BB, 2 players) 9♥

Hero bets 14.36 BB, BTN calls 14.36 BB

Following the plan, but opponent decides to call the turn. I was expecting frequent folds here.

River: (48.68 BB, 2 players) 5♣

Hero checks, BTN bets 46.6 BB, Hero calls 46.6 BB

On the river I was actually going to check-fold, until he pots it. My intuition said to me that there is something wrong in that. He could have T5/T9/95 or even bare 9 or 5 easily in his value range. And when a bit passive guy pots the river, I should be worried.

I have talked about my intuition, and how I have learned to trust it. So I call and win the pot.

BTN shows K♥ J♦ 8♠ A♥ (One Pair, Nines)

(Pre 61%, Flop 39%, Turn 46%)

Hero shows T♦ K♠ J♣ 2♠ (Two Pair, Tens and Nines)

(Pre 39%, Flop 61%, Turn 54%)

Hero wins 135.84 BB

On the hand section there has been some discussion about small river bets. Here opponent decided to make a blocker bet.

Spoiler

BTN: 678.56 BB (VPIP: 44.44, PFR: 44.44, 3Bet Preflop: 20.00, Hands: 9)

SB: 390.4 BB (VPIP: 61.84, PFR: 25.00, 3Bet Preflop: 3.13, Hands: 78)

BB: 141.64 BB (VPIP: 20.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 5)

Hero (UTG): 170.08 BB

MP: 136.16 BB (VPIP: 28.80, PFR: 14.40, 3Bet Preflop: 6.82, Hands: 127)

CO: 93.48 BB (VPIP: 26.39, PFR: 15.28, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 73)

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has K♦ 7♦ A♥ Q♦

Hero raises to 3.4 BB, fold, fold, fold, SB calls 3 BB, fold

Flop: (7.8 BB, 2 players) 3♠ J♥ T♥

SB checks, Hero bets 5.6 BB, SB calls 5.6 BB

Wrap with Ah blocker, mandatory cbet.

Turn: (19 BB, 2 players) 6♦

SB checks, Hero bets 18.2 BB, SB calls 18.2 BB

Blank turn screams for pot.

River: (55.4 BB, 2 players) 6♠

SB bets 9 BB, Hero raises to 44.52 BB, fold

River pairs the board and I have bet flop and turn big, representing JJ/TT. Opponent decides to donk 1/6 of a pot. I have no idea what he is representing there. I have seen that line with an overpair, KKxx would make sense. I have A high, and I raise 45bb to win 65bb. If opponent folds the more than 40% of his hands, I make profit. I am quite sure that he folds at least half of his hands as my story makes sense a lot. Opponent is capped, he could have a miracle full house with running 6's but besides that he never has a full house there. And when I raise, what else could I have except JJ? ♦ ♦ ♦

Hero wins 70.28 BB

Here is a nice slowplay, and aggro took the whole bait.

Spoiler

BTN: 115.4 BB (VPIP: 40.00, PFR: 24.00, 3Bet Preflop: 21.05, Hands: 52)

SB: 142.6 BB (VPIP: 22.70, PFR: 13.48, 3Bet Preflop: 1.92, Hands: 288)

Hero (BB): 102.84 BB

UTG: 80.68 BB (VPIP: 49.76, PFR: 12.44, 3Bet Preflop: 1.08, Hands: 212)

MP: 367.72 BB (VPIP: 32.30, PFR: 13.48, 3Bet Preflop: 3.17, Hands: 364)

CO: 100.4 BB (VPIP: 20.06, PFR: 15.88, 3Bet Preflop: 4.64, Hands: 978)

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has A♣ J♣ 8♣ J♠

fold, MP raises to 3.4 BB, fold, BTN calls 3.4 BB, fold, Hero calls 2.4 BB

Flop: (10.6 BB, 3 players) 6♦ 6♠ J♦

Hero checks, MP bets 6.08 BB, BTN calls 6.08 BB, Hero calls 6.08 BB

Initial plan was to make a small raise, but when BTN decided to call it changed. If I raise here, it looks really strong. Most likely only 6xxx would call, and if they have that it shouldn't be a problem to make to pot bigger later. So it's a call.

Turn: (28.84 BB, 3 players) 5♦

Hero checks, MP checks, BTN bets 19.32 BB, Hero calls 19.32 BB, fold

Checked and when MP checked it seemed that we go to the river as turn was a blank one. But then BTN decided to bet, representing a strong hand when it gets checked to him. If I raise, it looks really strong so it's just a call.

River: (67.48 BB, 2 players) 3♥

Hero checks, BTN bets 64.6 BB, Hero raises to 74.04 BB and is all-in, fold

River is kind of a blank one, which is nice. Opponent has either air, or then J6/65 that would be anyway. So the plan is to check-raise as opponent should bet pretty much everything he did bet on the turn (should be quite polarized). And he does pot it, and then fold when hero raises 10bb more. Tight fold. ♦

Hero wins 188.68 BB

It's nice when opponent actually plays like you estimate him to play

Spoiler Hand converted by PokerTracker 4 (http://www.pokertracker.com/)

BTN: 462.92 BB (VPIP: 41.86, PFR: 30.23, 3Bet Preflop: 15.00, Hands: 45)

SB: 216.6 BB (VPIP: 18.46, PFR: 15.38, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 65)

BB: 99 BB (VPIP: 45.19, PFR: 22.22, 3Bet Preflop: 5.66, Hands: 140)

UTG: 74.08 BB (VPIP: 36.36, PFR: 36.36, 3Bet Preflop: 16.67, Hands: 22)

MP: 113.32 BB (VPIP: 30.69, PFR: 17.14, 3Bet Preflop: 3.60, Hands: 4,648)

Hero (CO): 229.6 BB

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has A♣ Q♠ 7♠ Q♣

fold, fold, Hero raises to 3.4 BB, BTN calls 3.4 BB, fold, BB calls 2.4 BB

Flop: (10.6 BB, 3 players) 2♠ 8♦ 3♠

BB checks, Hero checks, BTN checks

BTN is a bit aggressive player, is a reg who just plays too many hands. This flop doesn't hit my CO range heavily and I don't want to get raised by either one. And I don't want to bloat the pot when we are deep. Plan was to check-call if BTN bets. But he doesn't.

Turn: (10.6 BB, 3 players) 7♦

BB checks, Hero bets 7.64 BB, BTN raises to 33.08 BB, fold, Hero calls 25.44 BB

On the Turn I am quite sure I have the best hand, so I need to protect it. Suddenly BTN raises for pot, and it doesn't make sense. The only hand it makes sense is 77 which we block. Hero is also capped so he could raise there with a lot of hands. Don't want to re-raise with these stacks, so it's a call.

River: (76.76 BB, 2 players) A♠

Hero checks, BTN bets 56 BB, Hero calls 56 BB

River brings the 2nd nuts flush for hero. When opponent checked the flop, I don't think he hit the flop really well. Turn raise is 77 or some kind of weird semibluff with a draw that opened in the turn. On the river, 77 doesn't raise. He could have KT9ss kind of a hand for the nut flush. But hero checked the flop which easily caps the range in the eyes of the opponent. If hero had a high flushdraw, opponent might think that hero would have bet it on the flop. Turn bet looks more like a showdown value bet. So river is a check-call, and opponent had just the complete airball.

BTN shows Q♥ 9♣ 9♠ 8♥ (One Pair, Nines)

(Pre 33%, Flop 12%, Turn 8%)

Hero shows A♣ Q♠ 7♠ Q♣ (Flush, Ace High)

(Pre 67%, Flop 88%, Turn 93%)

Hero wins 180.76 BB

Forgot this one, made Royal Flush. I donk the flop, BB raised and CO raised. Money went in, I had 40% and river was a beauty.

Guess Greg wasn’t to happy to see yr cards on the flop, needing a 6 :-)

That was a rough session. Had 200 to make a shot to PLO50 tables and I did. 15min later I ended up losing 300. Got the nuts or close to it six times, and lost all. After that I continued at PLO20, where nothing seemed to hold. Got the money in frequently in good spots, but the theme was if opponent had outs, he made it. In one hand I had played HU with a tight player for an hour, always grinding my stack up and then he managed to give me a setup to even it out. As we were 200bb deep, came the hand where we got the money in preflop. I had double suited Aces and he had JTT8ss with dominated suit. Looked really nice until he made the straight. That always amazes me, he plays really tight for an hour and then decides to just shove 200bb stack with that.

There we a LOT of hands where I got the money in on the turn with 2 pairs versus AAxx, only to pair the river and losing the hand. Too bad I can't get the hand history from RIO, would have been a wild graph. Lost only 5 buyins at PLO20 in the end with a heater in the last minutes. But overall -400 evening. Looks like it might take a while before I can go to PLO50 waters again.

This week I need to get some viewing hours for the streams, to get to the level1 in RIO rakeback system. So I kindly ask everyone to at least open the stream. No need to watch, just keep it open for the next couple of streams to help me out.

This week:

Tuesday 16CET and second one after 22 CET

Wednesday afternoon and then late evening

Thursday late evening

This is the splashmania. There is 25bb splash money in the pot. To get it in 4way, one would need 24% equity. Without the splash it would be 25%. So the 25bb splash money shouldn't affect preflop stackoff ranges. But this is what happens in reality. 5way allin, and I am the only one who has at least close to a hand that could be used to stackoff preflop.

I was the first one to act preflop and made 25bb bet. And then MP called, CO called and BTN called. And BB decided to shove his QJ64. And in PLO, 5 way allin and everyone has close to 20% equity, no matter how good or bad the hand is.

I really don't know if I should teach people about splash or not.

Sometimes poker gods smile, and sometimes they just fuck you up. Played a session at Stars zoom, -10buyins. EV was -5 buyins and the number of setups was insane. There was one maniac who 3bet almost everything. And when I made middle set, he had the topset. When I had set+fd, he had the straight. When I made top2, he had the set. Or then he just got it in with some random hands and made runner runner.

Last hand of the session, flop is 456ss. I cbet, opponent calls. Turn is K, I pot and he calls. River is 9, I bet 3/4 and he snap calls. I had As5s7x. He had Ks9s, over 200bb pot.

After tonight, both of my bankrolls (Stars and RIO) are damaged. Back to PLO10 baby!

Ouch rough sessions :-( will try to catch yr streams, so you meet yr goals

Originally posted by deralte71

And I can highly recommend Kyyberis Twitchchannel - and not because of my raffleluck

Hope Kyyberi will stream at some decent times

Originally posted by Primrose6789

Hope Kyyberi will stream at some decent times

What would be qualified as "decent times"?

I'll aid in 'killing the boss' tonight, maybe during the 1st stream too unless I have a guest

Kyy, I hope the retreat to PLO10 is just a phase and you're back to PLO50 soon

Originally posted by Kyyberi

Originally posted by Primrose6789

Hope Kyyberi will stream at some decent times

What would be qualified as "decent times"?

Something like 5 p.m, 6 p.m, 7 p.m. 8 p.m, 9 p.m, 10 p.m

how did you get hold of the RIO hand histories, kyyberi?

Strange guy, trying to sell a piece of masterclass during yr session, clearly illegal, was just trying to say no politely

Originally posted by Pokamon

how did you get hold of the RIO hand histories, kyyberi?

Copypasted them to pokerjuice. Hand histories are not yet saved.

Woke up at afternoon, so that morning zoom-grinding session didn't happen. New try tomorrow, around 8 or 9am CET for morning people.

Woke up having sore throat and flu. Meaning that next stream will be on next week, wednesday and thursday.

Originally posted by Kyyberi

Woke up having sore throat and flu. Meaning that next stream will be on next week, wednesday and thursday.

Get well soon, Kyyberi!

Get well soon, hope you don’t miss yr weekend activity

My weekend activity is to work 3 days from morning to late evening.

Oh, thought you had some alternative icehockey for fun, my bad. Get well soon, and let’s hope the run good will start. Some really brutal set ups and suck outs last time 😩

Ice hockey is next week Fri&Sat.

In my bankroll resurrection I got the point where I am able to take PLO25 shots. I don't know what he is doing, but I like it:

Spoiler

BTN: 100.4 BB (VPIP: 30.68, PFR: 17.13, 3Bet Preflop: 3.60, Hands: 4,650)

SB: 113.16 BB (VPIP: 23.35, PFR: 13.22, 3Bet Preflop: 3.09, Hands: 229)

BB: 729.76 BB (VPIP: 58.54, PFR: 26.83, 3Bet Preflop: 11.11, Hands: 42)

UTG: 170.96 BB (VPIP: 21.05, PFR: 12.28, 3Bet Preflop: 3.23, Hands: 57)

MP: 329.44 BB (VPIP: 16.81, PFR: 10.94, 3Bet Preflop: 6.38, Hands: 2,417)

Hero (CO): 125.28 BB

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has J♦ T♥ J♥ Q♣

fold, fold, Hero raises to 3.4 BB, fold, fold, BB raises to 10.6 BB, Hero calls 7.2 BB

Flop: (21.6 BB, 2 players) J♠ 9♠ 8♦

BB checks, Hero bets 15.52 BB, BB calls 15.52 BB

Turn: (52.64 BB, 2 players) A♥

BB checks, Hero bets 50.4 BB, BB raises to 100.8 BB, Hero calls 48.76 BB and is all-in

River: (250.96 BB, 2 players) 6♠

BB shows K♠ 9♥ K♥ A♦ (Two Pair, Aces and Nines)

(Pre 68%, Flop 3%, Turn 5%)

Hero shows J♦ T♥ J♥ Q♣ (Straight, Queen High)

(Pre 32%, Flop 97%, Turn 95%)

Hero wins 242.96 BB

Hope the health is up too