If you are a previous buyer and want the mobi or epub versions please just email me at blackrain79@dragthebar.com and I will send them to you. Thank you for all the patience!
Friday, May 18, 2012
Crushing the Microstakes for Kindle
If you are a previous buyer and want the mobi or epub versions please just email me at blackrain79@dragthebar.com and I will send them to you. Thank you for all the patience!
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Update: Traveling, Affiliate Program, Translations, Articles
Haven't written a blog post in awhile. Wanted to provide an update. Have been traveling a bit lately around Thailand (pic is from Lamai beach on the island of Koh Samui where I am now). Been a welcome getaway. And especially as I had never really gone anywhere before besides the west coast of the US and a little bit in Canada. It's really an eye opening and amazing experience to visit a totally different culture and climate and it certainly is that with 35c weather every day. Thailand is heavily trafficked by foreigners though and Thai people are incredibly nice and speak decent English in many cases so it is a really welcoming and easy country to go to. The beaches, the prices, the food could go on and on. Just go there!
My book "Crushing the Microstakes" has continued to receive a lot of great comments on 2+2 and elsewhere in the 5 months or so now that it has been released. I really had no idea what to expect when I wrote the thing so I am extremely grateful to all those who took the time. The success stories of people who turned their winrates and graphs around because of it are especially awesome. While no author writes a book without some financial interests in mind I am very happy to know that it has helped so many people. That really makes makes the time and effort that I spent working on it worth it.
So in order to increase the exposure of my book besides putting it on Amazon (still up in there air) I have been meaning to create an Affiliate Program for a long time. It is done now and anyone who signs up may begin promoting my book and earning a 50% commission on each sale. I have had some additional offers and requests to have the book translated into a bunch of different languages but I am not sure about the feasability of that still. I am working on it and will keep you posted.
I have also received many requests for the availability of the book in the Kindle format. This is absolutely on my to do list and I am actively working on trying to figure out how to get this done as well. I don't have any new news on the physical copy front. This involves a lot of time and costs and all I can say is maybe one day but probably not soon.
Lastly, I wanted to mention that I am writing a series of beginner level articles for Pokerlistings.com. The first one can be found Here and the second one should be released shortly. Thanks for all the continued support and well wishes and all the best at the tables.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
When to Double Barrel
Aggression in itself is never a bad thing in poker but when you are being aggressive just because you don't know what else to do, it is very easy to see through and counter. Versus habitual barrelers I will sometimes just take a hand that has some equity, call the flop and raise them on the turn. You won't face this very often at the micros but much more often you will be barreling in a spot where your opponent can only continue with better (versus a nit for instance) and so you are burning money just the same.
I figured that I would just toss out a couple of examples here and try to generate some discussion on it in the comments. But before I do that I just want to list a few of the factors that I think we should be thinking about when choosing whether or not to double barrel:
- our hand value
- our position
- villain's player type
- the turn card
Our position is important because when they check to us it tells us a lot about the strength of their hand. When we are out of position we are just kind of playing the guessing game.
Villain's player type and the turn card might be the most important factors of all though. Versus nits who have a very narrow continuance range on the flop we should really only be double barreling with strong hands most of the time because they almost always have a big hand themselves. Versus all other player types their range can be quite a bit wider. Although some moreso than others. Your 65/5 drooler fish can have half the deck for instance, all sorts of ace highs, totally ridiculous draws etc. A TAG won't have nearly as wide of a range.
And lastly, the turn card is a huge factor. In general big cards (broadways) will be good for us and low cards will be bad for us. And this is just because when we raise preflop big cards are what we are representing. So oftentimes barreling versus a stationy reg for instance on 9974 is bad because if he called the flop with his 88 why would he fold when the turn is a meaningless 4? If the turn was a T, J, Q, K or A it is a much more difficult spot for 88 to continue however.
So with all of that said I am going to list a bunch of examples and ask you to please leave your comments below. Double barrel or not? I won't leave my response for a few days.
1)
Hero is dealt K♥Q♦ in MP, raises and gets called by an SLP (semi-loose passive) in the SB.
The flop comes,
J♠A♣6♦
Villain check/calls our cbet.
The turn comes,
8♥
What should hero do?
2)
Hero is dealt 4♦4♣ in EP, raises and gets called by a TAG in LP.
The flop comes,
8♣3♠Q♥
Villain check/calls our cbet.
The turn comes,
A♣
What should hero do?
3)
Hero is dealt 8♥9♥ in LP, raises and gets called by a fish in the BB.
The flop comes,
6♦9♠3♥
Villain check/calls our cbet.
The turn comes,
7♣
What should hero do?
4)
Hero is dealt 8♥9♥ in LP, raises and gets called by a nit in the BB.
The flop comes,
6♦9♠3♥
Villain check/calls our cbet.
The turn comes,
7♣
What should hero do?
5)
Hero is dealt A♠K♠ in LP, raises and gets called by a fish in the SB.
The flop comes,
8♠5♣6♥
Villain check/calls our cbet.
The turn comes,
Q♦
What should hero do?
Monday, March 12, 2012
How to Play From the Blinds
So how should we approach playing out of the blinds?
Blind play is really tricky because it so often depends on how the action plays out before us. Since the blinds act last preflop we will be reacting to others a lot of the time. So the range of hands that I will play (and how I choose to play them: complete, raise, check or fold) will almost always depend on factors such as
- did someone raise before me?
- what position were they in?
- what type of player are they?
- what is their stack size?
- were there multiple players?
- what is my hand strength?
- what is my image at the table?
- how much will I need to make my raise?
- or should I just complete or check?
So fair warning: this blog post will be lengthy
Having checked my stats I can see that I am playing about 16% of my hands from the SB and about 11% from the BB. Now keep in mind that these stats are for full ring and mostly mass multi-tabling. And also keep in mind that I advocate a pretty tight approach to blind play overall. My stats for 6max will probably be something like 20% and 15% repsectively.
Why do I advocate a tight approach to blind play?
Because you lose so much from these positions duh! Well that would be the simple answer anyways. And really I guess that is also most of the answer. If you simply choose not to play that many marginal hands from these positions, then you can't lose nearly as much. I think one of the first things that a lot of people need to get over is this idea of fiercely defending their blinds.
The old saying "some battles just aren't worth fighting" really applies here. And I should be clear that I am talking about the micros here and especially NL2-NL10. Very few people are really going to notice that you are playing super tight from these positions and furthermore have the know-how to take advantage of it. I certainly don't think it has affected my results.
Now I am not saying that you should fold every time somebody raises your blind and you don't have a premium hand. But you definitely don't want to be calling a bunch "because you have an ace" or "because you have pot odds." These are misnomers that cost people a lot of money. Until you really look at the numbers in HEM or PT over a big sample it is hard to really understand just how important position is in poker. And the same thing goes for initiative (i.e., being the preflop raiser). It is very important to learn to approach poker as a long run pursuit and try your best to stop focusing on particular situations.
We can easily trick ourselves into thinking that a bad play is actually a good play because we happened to flop well and win a couple big pots recently. Position and initiative are the two most important keys to success in poker and that is why I begin my book by talking about them at length. But this is unfortunately a lesson that it takes many newer players a long time to learn. I know it did with me. It is only in the past couple years that I have really began to develop a total commitment to being aggressive and trying to have position a large amount of the time.
Drills and experimenting
What I have learned especially is that even if you think you are aggressive and use position well there is probably a lot further that you can take it. I made some videos recently for this blog about abusing late position (Part 1 and Part 2). I was playing around 50% of my hands from the button and cutoff. I didn't really do this on purpose but trying some of these "drills" so to speak at low limits might be a good exercise in pushing your boundaries and experimenting.
Just go to 1c/2c and literally raise or re-raise every time you are in late position and try to severely limit your play from most other positions. Watch how others react to you. See how much easier every decision you have to make is when you have position. Stretch your mind to a new level with regards to position and initiative and your regular game will adjust a little bit in this direction as well.
Anyways back to the topic at hand here of blind play. So my main approach to playing the blinds is to play a fairly conservative range in most situations but not quite as tight as from early or middle position. And the reason is that you have already put a little bit of money in the pot and you should fight for it in some instances. Also, often it will be a steal situation where you know your opponent's range is pretty wide. So a hand like AJ or AT might be played for value versus them.
However as I already mentioned the twin pillars of success in poker are position and initiative. The first one we cannot change. We are in the blinds. It sucks. It is what it is.
But the second one (initiative) we can change. And we will of course do this by 3betting. When called we will still be fighting uphill a little bit postflop due to our positional disadvantage. However by having the initiative we will be able to take down many more pots with a simple cbet. Or even just take it down preflop. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that!
So I think what I am going to try and do here is go over a couple of common situations in the blinds with examples rather than just toss out some completely random scenarios. Because like I said before the blinds are by far the trickiest positions to play at the tables and cannot be easily discussed in a vacuum.
Limped pots
Limped pots will happen quite a bit at the micros, especially the lower sections such as NL2-NL10. And there is even a difference between these limits these days. Every time I play NL2 it still blows my mind how much limping goes on, even in 6max! And it is like an epidemic once somebody does it. Then the whole table gets involved like a domino effect.
As I often preach on about, limping is bad in almost all situations. And in a 6max game I would go so far as to say that you should never limp. Even at full ring there will be very few situations where I would advocate it.
So how do we react when these spots arise and we are in the blinds? In these situations I like to open up my range a bit and take advantage of all this weakness. That is what limping is. It is weakness. I can't count the amount of times just in one session especially at NL2 where I will see a bunch of limpers, notice that I have a reasonably decent hand, raise it up and just take down an easy 3 or 4 big blinds uncontested. Either that or one of them calls, I fire a cbet and usually take down an even bigger pot. Win/win. A lot of people will just limp along here instead. I believe this is a pretty big mistake.
Versus a single limper
But it depends on the number of limpers of course as well. With just 1 limper I am going to be pretty liberal in the amount of hands that I choose to attack with. Obviously all of my premiums (TT+ and AK), all of my pairs and any ace or suited ace above A8 or so. I will probably also raise a bunch of suited connectors. Especially the decent ones like 78, 89 and JT. And I will raise with most broadways as well.
In the case when somebody open limps from the SB and I am in the BB I will raise about 50% of my hands. This is an incredibly weak play on their part and they will fold a large majority of the time. And when they do call we still have position and initiative, the two keys to success in poker.
Multiple limpers
Versus multiple limpers I will tighten up my range a bit and maybe ditch some of the weaker aces and get rid of all the suited connectors from the SB. And by get rid of I mean just fold them for the most part. I think the whole complete the SB for "pot odds" idea simply does not stand up to the mathematical data. I will discuss this more in a bit however. The only time that I will just complete is when I have a small pocket pair just because sets are so valuable and I want to always see the flop with them if I can. These hands can be difficult to play OOP unimproved and so just completing can be ok. But even then, I sometimes still just raise them.
How much should you raise it?
This is an area of concern that I often see with students of mine and players at these limits. And the concern is almost always that they do not raise a big enough amount.
You always want to put someone to a choice when you make a raise. If they feel 50/50 about calling or folding then you have made it the right amount.
If they insta-fold or insta-call then you have made it the wrong amount. Most of the time people make it too little and their opponent insta-calls. While this isn't the end of the world as you still have the initiative you want to let people know that there is a premium to pay if they want to try and limp your blind. By making your raise too small you are really just encouraging action and building a bigger pot when OOP with a hand that isn't always amazing.
In general I advocate raising 3x (where x is the big blind) in all situations. However you should add 1 big blind per limper. And you should also add one more additional big blind per limper if you are out of position. So here are a few examples of this.
Example:
In the big blind you are dealt,
A♠T♦
There is a single limper from middle position and the small blind folds.
You should raise it to 5x. 3x as your standard. 1x for the limper. 1x for your positional disadvantage. As an aside, if the small blind had of limped as well I would have made it 6x.
Example:
In the small blind you are dealt,
Q♣J♣
There are two limpers from middle and late position. The small blind also limps.
You should raise it to 9x. 3x as your standard. 3x for the three limpers. 3x for your positional disadvantage.
Don't worry too much about getting all of these numbers correct in every situation. The truth is that I don't count every limper or always make it the same. Just remember to increase your raise size if there are limpers (and depending on the amount) and also if you are out of position. Your raise size from the blinds should always be quite a bit bigger than your raise size from the other positions at the table.
And lastly don't worry about raising it up with some sort of marginal hands like these. Like I said before, you will be amazed at how often they simply fold. But secondly, remember what I said about limpers being weak. Usually these players are fish or SLP (semi-loose passive). They are bad players who just like to limp and fold a lot. You should be taking advantage of this. If they have something they will let you know.
Facing an early position raise
Another scenario that you may encounter is when somebody raises from early position (EP). In this spot your range should be a lot tighter than in the limped pots we talked about above. The reason for this is that a raise from EP usually represents the strongest range for a someone regardless of their player type. While it is true that the majority of opponents that you will play against at the micros will not be positionally aware, I believe that people will just naturally or instinctively play less hands from these positions. So you should respect these raises some more.
Versus an EP raise you should be 3betting with the upper end of your premium range QQ+ and AK and calling to set mine with all your other pairs. I would fold everything else. A few examples.
Example:
In the small blind you are dealt,
3♦3♥
A nit raises in EP.
You should call.
Example:
In the small blind you are dealt,
A♠J♠
A TAG raises in EP.
You should fold.
Example:
In the big blind you are dealt,
A♦K♥
An SLP raises in EP.
You should 3bet.
Example:
In the big blind you are dealt,
J♣J♦
A TAG raises in EP.
You should call.
Facing a middle position raise
Middle position (MP) ranges will generally be a little bit wider than EP raises so we should adjust our play towards them a bit as well. You should 3bet a little bit wider especially against opponents who have a decently wide opening range such as TAG's and some fish. A hand that we folded above like A♠J♠ for instance I might 3bet now from time to time against these player types. But for the most part my strategy is pretty similar to when facing an EP raise in these spots. That is I am mostly just set mining with my pairs, 3betting most of my premiums and folding everything else.
Facing a late position raise
When facing a late position (LP) raise things change a fair bit. I think from these positions people generally have a lot wider range. You will find many 10/8 nits these days who even know that they should be stealing from the cutoff and button with some pretty light holdings. So I will be 3betting quite a bit more in these spots. But as I said before, my range is still pretty tight overall. We don't want to be going nuts here.
So I may add a few more aces and broadways to my range (as compared with my versus EP and MP raises range) and simply 3bet them. I may 3bet some suited connectors as well. Mostly just the good ones like 78, 89 and JT. I will muck the smaller ones. And lastly, instead of calling to set mine with my small pocket pairs I will often 3bet with them as well.
I should note that I will still just call with a lot of my middle pairs (77-TT). I don't often want to 3bet with these hands specifically because they hold so much value and can't stand a 4bet. However, I won't be playing them strictly as a set mine either (i.e., folding if I miss my set).
The reason for this slightly wider range and increased 3betting versus LP raises is really simple. Like we said before, having the initiative in the hand is of vital importance in poker. Since we know that our opponent likely has a very wide range we can 3bet him and get away with taking it down or at the very least wrestling back the control a lot more of the time.
The reason we should just call and try to set mine most of the time versus EP and MP raises is because those are versus tighter opening ranges and we will likely have a lot of implied odds. But also our 3bet isn't nearly as likely to work. We will get played back at more often due to their stronger range.
Lastly, one of the biggest reasons to 3bet more versus LP raises is because we do not have anywhere near the implied odds that we think we do. A lot of players at these limits make the mistake of thinking that they can set mine and call with a whole bunch of other speculative hands here, try to flop a monster and win a big pot.
What they fail to consider is that a lot of the time their opponent will have absolutely nothing to pay them off with. If you saw those abusing the button videos that I mentioned earlier you will know that I was in there raising with beauties like K3s, T5s. Even if you finally hit your set or big hand versus me it is very unlikely that I will have anything to give you any action with.
Example:
In the big blind you are dealt,
A♥T♥
A TAG raises from LP.
You should 3bet.
Example:
In the small blind you are dealt,
8♣8♥
A nit raises from LP.
You should just call.
Example:
In the small blind you are dealt,
J♦T♦
A TAG raises from LP.
You should 3bet.
Example:
In the big blind you are dealt,
2♠2♣
A nit raises from LP.
You should 3bet
Versus a raise and caller(s)
The last situation that I want to talk about is when somebody raises and there are one or more callers. This is a spot where you could consider squeezing and taking down some of the dead money. We touched on this during the limped pot section. Preflop callers are usually weak and can't stand a 3bet so the logic goes that if we can make the original raiser fold, then the others will usually be easy folds as well.
I should mention that I have not included 3bet sizes in this article. The reason is that I don't want to make this thing any longer! But similar to what I discussed before, you should always try and make your raise sizes enough so that it puts your opponent(s) to a real decision of whether to call or fold.
Usually the standards sizings that will get this done with 3bets are 3x the original raise when you are IP and 3.5x or 4x the original raise when you are OOP. Similar to the discussion in the limped pot section though you will need to add more when their are other people in the pot and you are thus "squeezing." And similarly adjust upwards depending on the number of them.
Back to our range in these spots however. For the most part I do not advocate a wide squeeze range at the micros. I think you should experiment in a couple spots but don't go overboard. Similar to our approach before of basing our range on the position of the preflop raiser that should be the main factor when squeezing as well. We don't want to be squeezing versus EP openers very often and only sometimes versus MP ones. It should mostly be versus LP raises.
And lastly, as I mentioned earlier a big problem that I see among players at these limits is "calling for pot odds" in these situations. It really is a big mistake to call with suited aces and connectors and such here just because there is a raise and three callers. You will not hit the flop anywhere near enough of the time and even when you do it will be difficult to extract due to your having to act first on every street. Also you can get yourself into plenty of bad spots where you hit a pair with a not so great kicker and you end up spewing off some money.
You should be folding in these spots for the most part. If you want to call for pot odds do it when you are IP, not when OOP. There is an enormous difference in your profitability in these two situations. With that said there are of course always some "it depends" situations in every poker spot. If it is a mini-raise that you are facing (which will happen frequently at the micros) then it can be ok to call from time to time with a few speculative hands. But even further to this try and base your play on who is in the pot. If there is a big fish and especially if you might have position on him (i.e., he is in the SB and you are in the BB) then it can be a call. In general I see people calling too often in these spots though.
Example:
In the big blind you are dealt,
A♦Q♠
A TAG raises from MP and picks up a caller.
You should squeeze.
Example:
In the small blind you are dealt,
7♣8♣
A nit raises from EP and picks up two callers.
You should fold.
Example:
In the big blind you are dealt,
5♥5♣
A nit raises from LP and picks up a caller.
You should squeeze.
Example:
In the small blind you are dealt,
6♠6♦
A fish raises from MP and picks up two callers.
You should call.
I hope this discussion proves useful for you all. Blind situations are not easy and I should also mention that when I say "You should do X" above there are other options which are sometimes close or just as good as well. This may come down to player type, specific stats, recent history, your image and a whole other list of variables. But I don't want to write another book with this blog post. I hope this post gives you guys a sort of survey of my approach to playing from the blinds.
As always if you have any questions or comments please leave them below. And if you enjoyed this article please like, tweet or share it with your friends by clicking the buttons below as well.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
How to Approach Donk Bets
So a lot going on but I wanted to try and post some more strategy related stuff on here from time to time as well as make it more interactive. More on that in a bit. I have a big list of topics that I would like to get to and several of them were user requested. I actually have a whole section in my forum dedicated to stuff that you want to see me blogging about. So head on over there if you have any suggestions.
Oh by the way, like a complete donkey I managed to totally miss the WBCOOP entry on Stars. It's been on my to do list for a week. I just found out that there is a $5k prize for being voted the best blogger or something as well! When I finally got to it today it said that the final date to enter was yesterday. Sick beat.
However I am officially backing EVhero. I just met this fellow Canadian blogger and poker player recently. He is funny as hell and I love his videos on Youtube (even though he recently misclick deleted them all! haha). So go vote for him.
Back to this blog entry. In this post I wanted to talk about what to do when you get donked into. This is something that happens a lot at the micros. It is a play that is really popular with bad players and of course the micros is full of them!
What is a donk bet?
A donk bet is a bet (often small, half pot or less) that goes against the flow of the action. Usually when somebody raises preflop it is assumed that they have a strong hand. And it is further assumed that they will follow up on that with a continuation bet. So when somebody bets into them it kind of throws a wrench into things.
What do donk bets mean?
This depends on the player type. As I said before, donk bets are usually made by bad players. With bad players (high VPIP and big separation between VPIP and PFR) donk bets can mean a lot of different things. They can be anything from a draw, an overpair, middle pair, the nuts or complete air. With tighter players or regulars (low VPIP and not much separation between VPIP and PFR) a donk bet will often mean one of two things: a weak overpair/top pair type hand or the nuts.
So it is important to have a look at the player type before you make your decision on how to react versus these types of bets. While it is a good idea to look at the donk bet stat on your HUD I am just going to work off the previous assumptions here in the following examples. I am going to list a bunch of common spots and ask you guys what you would do. I will give my answers later.
They really are just completely random. I made them up and have no clue what I would do yet. I don't think the stakes really matter. Just assume microstakes (NL50 or less) and little or no history between hero and villain.
1)
Hero is dealt A♥K♦ in MP, raises 3x, and gets called by a nit in the SB.
The flop comes,
T♠A♣6♦
The nit donks for 1/2 pot.
What should hero do?
2)
Hero is dealt 8♣9♣ in LP, raises 3x, and gets called by a fish in the BB.
The flop comes,
3♣7♥K♣
The fish donk bets 1/3 pot.
What should hero do?
3)
Hero is dealt J♦T♦ in LP and 3bets an MP TAG opener.
The flop comes,
7♦T♠9♠
The TAG donks 3/4 pot.
What should hero do?
4)
Hero is dealt A♠Q♦ in the BB. An SLP (semi-loose passive) limps the SB. Hero raises 4x.
The flop comes,
3♣5♣7♥
The SLP donks 1/3 pot.
What should hero do?
5)
Hero is dealt A♠2♠ in LP, raises 3x, and gets called by a nit in the SB.
The flop comes,
2♥2♦8♥
The nit donks 1/2 pot.
What should hero do?
Please leave your comments below.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Interview: Andrewabc
I think the people who grind these stakes come from all walks of life and have all sorts of different reasons for playing. They also come from all over the world as well. Here is a breakdown of the data regarding the top 10 countries that visit this blog.
| 1. |  USA | 18.33% | ||
| 2. | UK | 14.25% | ||
| 3. | Canada | 11.18% | ||
| 4. | Poland | 7.57% | ||
| 5. | Germany | 5.20% | ||
| 6. | Australia | 4.11% | ||
| 7. | Romania | 3.41% | ||
| 8. | France | 2.82% | ||
| 9. | Denmark | 2.32% | ||
| 10. | Russia | 2.24% |
And the biggest section on the pie chart (the gray section), representing nearly 1/3 of all traffic, is the rest of the world. Were all in this crazy game together. I think that telling the stories of some of these people might help personalize the very impersonal world that online poker can seem at times.
I decided to start with the following person because he is the first one to show me undeniable evidence that my book, Crushing the Microstakes, really works. So this will be a solid brag imo!
I get quite a few emails and pm's from people saying nice things about my book but this guy was the first one to show me a 100k hand graph. That is the minimum amount of hands that I believe is a statistically reliable sample size in poker. And his results are certainly quite impressive.
But I also wanted to interview this guy because I don't know him very well at all (basically just the brief email exchange that we had last week). However we have played a pretty insane amount of hands against each other at NL2 and NL5 I am sure. I remember him well as a solid dedicated grinder.
One final note. Andrew's English is admittedly "terrible" in his own words. I have touched it up where ever necessary at his suggestion.
Interview
Name, age and location?
My name is Andrew. I am 43 years old and I am from Ukraine. I am known as "andrewabc" on Pokerstars. If someone says it's too late to play poker at this age don't believe it. You can draw from live experience with reading your opponents. So if you are 40+ welcome to online poker!
History of your poker playing career?
The first time I saw poker was on TV. It seemed pretty boring at first. But soon I learned more and it interested me so I decided to try playing online. I made my first deposit on Pokerstars and played NL10 and NL25. Predictably I lost all my money in a couple of days. It wasn't such as easy game as I had thought.
So I decided to try again at NL5. I played for several months and was still losing money however. It wasn't the progress that I had hoped for! But I didn't like all these river coolers and bad beats so I decided to go play at Party Poker for awhile. Once I lost my bankroll there I finally realized that it wasn't the site that I was playing on that was the problem, it was my game.
So I decided to start all over again at NL2 and really learn poker.
How many tables do you play at once?
These days I am playing 20-22 full ring tables but normal speed ones only. Pokerstars has an enormous selection so it is pretty easy.
Do you play for fun? Side income? Full income?
I'd like to become a poker pro one day. Can I or not? That is the question!
How many hands have you played in total?
I have played a total of 723k hands at NL2 and NL5 according to my Hold'em Manager data.
What made you decide to purchase Crushing the Microstakes?
When I began to learn poker I asked myself which book should I read. There are tons of good books out there but when a NL200 pro writes about how to play the lowest limits it doesn't always work out very well. I knew about the outstanding results of BlackRain79 at these limits so I couldn't pass up on getting this book.
How has it helped your game?
I bought the book in December and read it twice. January 2012 is the first full month of putting it into practice. I have had my best month ever in more than a year of poker. Last year my best month was 5.8bb/100. My winrate has doubled! I know everything in this book works. My graph and stats prove it.
Click to view
What are your future plans in poker?
This year I would like to get to NL25. As Nathan said "moving up in stakes can be a big deal." I will move up to the next level when I am crushing my current one. I think I still make a lot of mistakes and want to improve more. And maybe some day I will be able to go for SNE at NL200-NL600. Who knows?
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I would like to thank Andrew for taking the time to do this interview and congratulate him on the outstanding improvements to his game.
I hope you all enjoyed this. I have never conducted an interview before. I plan to be more in depth in future ones. I think there are many more interesting questions that I could have asked. If you have any comments or suggestions on who you would like to see in future interviews please let me know below.
And if you have any questions for Andrew I am sure that he would be happy to answer them below. Ask soon though because he told me he is going on vacation in two days!
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Poker Math: Pot Odds, Hand Odds and Implied Odds
I have never thought that success in no limit hold'em cash games truly requires that much in depth knowledge of the math though. I think that as long as you understand a few of the basics such as pot odds, implied odds and hand odds, you will be fine. And the easiest player for me to point to to prove my case is Dusty "Leatherass" Schmidt. He has famously made millions grinding online mid and high stakes cash games. He has said on numerous occasions that he doesn't really approach the game from a mathematical perspective either. He made these comments for instance a little over a year ago on his Cardplayer blog,
"I am a very intuitive player. I have only on and off used a HUD when playing and make a lot more plays by feel more so than by numbers."
Now I wouldn't go that far. I use my HUD all the time. Keep in mind though that he plays high stakes cash games where the player pool is much smaller than in the microstakes games that I play in. Therefore it is much easier to just go off memory. I don't really use my HUD with the regulars that I have plenty of history with at the micros either. So I can understand where he is coming from.
Basically what I am trying to say here though is that you don't need to get bogged down with stats and odds and percentages to be successful at this game. It works for some people and that is fine. Some people love to Pokerstove huge ranges and use all sorts of equity analysis tools. There is nothing wrong with that. But in my opinion you will be fine if you just stick to the basics as well.
I don't want to talk about HUD setup in this blog entry. Yes I am a minimalist but I absolutely think that you should use one and make frequent reference to it at the micros. For more information on the stats that I use and how to set up your HUD please refer to a pair of articles that I wrote on this subject last year (Part 1 and Part 2).
So I already mentioned above that I think that you should know some basics about pot odds, implied odds and hand odds. Where did I learn about this stuff? I ordered The Theory of Poker by David Sklansky from the Pokerstars FPP Store when I was first starting out. It was so long ago that I read this book that I hardly even remember much of it but from what I hear it is actually mostly about limit hold'em! As if I knew any difference back then. I think I might have actually been playing limit hold'em at the time though (yes I had a brief career in it lol). But also I have heard that it is actually a very difficult book for beginners.
So I am not specifically recommending that everyone goes out and buys it. I do think it is a legendary book in the poker world, and that is why it is one of the few that I recommend. However a lot of the information might be dated now and frankly a lot of the math in that book you could learn from a simple google search and a couple hours of reading. But it covers the basics well and organizes it nicely. So let's talk about some of the ideas that it covers.
Pot Odds
What are they? Pot odds are basically the price that you are getting on the pot. Poker is often referred to as gambling of course and that is because there is both risk and reward in almost every action that you take. When the pot has a certain amount of money in it and you are calling a bet often it is with an inferior hand which you hope will be a superior hand should the right cards come your way on future streets. So you look at the current size of the pot plus the bet in front of you (always remember that once somebody makes a bet in poker it is part of the pot) and determine if it is worth your while to call. That is, do you have the correct mathematical odds to call.
Example #1:
There is $1 in the middle and your opponent has bet $1. You have to call $1 in order to win a $2 pot ($1 in the middle plus his $1 bet). In order to get your pot odds you simply take the size of the pot and divide it by what you have to call. In this case 2 to 1.
Example #2:
There is $3 in the middle and your opponent bets $1.50.
$3 + $1.50 = $4.50,
$4.50/ $1.50 = 3 to 1 pot odds.
Hand Odds
So how do these pot odds relate to our decisions at the poker table? Well you take those pot odds (2 to 1, 3 to 1 etc) and compare them to your odds to make your hand. Now there is an important point to be aware of here. Should you make you hand you need to be highly certain that it will be the best hand. This is why for instance you should always try and make sure that your draw is to the nuts or near it.
There is a whole other type of odds in poker referred to as reverse implied odds which while outside the scope of this article basically refers to getting yourself into a situation where should you make your hand, it will be second best. Therefore your "prize" for making your hand is to lose a big pot. Fish are experts at this.
Back to hand odds however. So the easiest way to find out what your hand odds are is to find a chart on the internet. I just did a simple google search for "poker outs" and found this one,
http://casinogambling.about.com/library/weekly/aa050103.htm
What this chart will tell you is what your odds against hitting your hand are on the flop and turn depending on the number of outs that you have. Now an in depth discussion of counting outs will also be outside the scope of this article but it basically just refers to finding the number of cards remaining in the deck that will improve your hand to the best one.
You should spend some time and commit all of the outs and percentages with various draws to memory. So for instance a gutshot always has 4 outs, an open ended straight draw has 8 etc. And then make sure you roughly memorize the percentages to hit. Make sure that you remember that there is a big difference between 2 cards to come (the flop) and 1 card to come (the turn). Many people make the mistake of forgetting just how much their equity decreases on the turn as compared to the flop. This is why it is often much better to play your draw in an aggressive manner on the flop than on the turn.
So how do we tie all of this together? Well we can make a simple comparison of our pot odds as compared to our hand odds and make some easy decisions.
Example #1:
You have a flush draw on the flop and your pot odds are 4 to 1. Since we know that a flush draw on the flop is roughly only a 3 to 1 dog to get there by the river we can profitably call in this spot because we are getting better than those odds on the pot.
Example #2:
You have bottom pair and a flush draw on the turn and your pot odds are 2 to 1. Since we know that our hand has roughly 30% equity or is a nearly 3 to 1 dog versus a top pair type hand we know that we cannot profitably continue in this spot. The price that we are getting on the pot just isn't good enough when compared to the odds of making our hand.
Implied Odds
Now if we were playing limit hold'em this article would basically be over at this point. But the great thing about no limit hold'em is that the stacks are often really deep and of course you can bet as much as you have in front of you at any given time. So while it is not an exact science we need to roughly ask ourselves how much we think we can get out of our opponent should we hit our hand. Is this the type of opponent that is a strong player who is capable of making the tough fold when the obvious draw comes in? Or is it a recreational player who will perhaps moan and complain but pay you off in the end?
If it is the latter we can probably depend on getting a big bet out of him on the river which might change our decision in example #2 above from a fold to a call. However versus the disciplined regular who will not pay us off, we should still fold.
Implied odds are a difficult thing to quantify like pot odds and hand odds because there are so many different factors involved. For instance a big consideration is the likely strength of your opponent's hand. If you are up against the type of opponent that only bets when they have an extremely strong hand, then maybe you can make a fairly loose call with a longshot draw because you know that they will be in a very difficult situation (and likely to make the crying call) should you hit.
On the flip side, a big mistake that I see a lot of players at the micros making is misjudging their implied odds against aggressive opponents. For instance I am a big advocate of raising a ton of hands from late position. I just made two videos for my blog about it in fact (Part 1 and Part 2). I am raising upwards of 50% of my hands in some cases from the cutoff and button positions. Set-mining me out of the blinds would not make much sense because the vast majority of the time I will have absolutely nothing to pay you off with when you finally hit.
Lastly, there are considerations with implied odds to be made concerning the deceptiveness and strength of your draw.
If you have,
K5
for instance on a board like,
346A
probably even the greenest of villains isn't likely to pay you off much because the draw is so obvious when it comes in. Also your draw is not to the nuts. Somebody could have 58 and you will lose a big pot should you hit.
However if you have a hand like,
KJ
on a board like,
TQ83
your draw is much stronger because it is far better hidden when it comes in. You always want to consider what your opponent can have as well. In this case there are many more likely two pair hands that he could have or will make should the 9 or A come (people just play big cards more often than small cards).
Finally, our draw is to the nuts both ways. And we have a chance to cooler somebody that has a jack by making a higher straight should the 9 come.
I hope this discussion has been helpful for you all. As you can see I am no math expert. I consider myself around average in my knowledge of it. And at the poker table I use it sparingly. However it is important to know a few of the fundamental principles. And you should try your best to know them by memory. If you are off by a little bit don't worry about it though. A flush draw will roughly hit 1 in 3 times from the flop and 1 in 5 times from the turn. See that chart that I linked above if you are a true nerd and want to know the exact values!
Please leave your comments or questions below. Let me know how badly I suck at the maths. Also please hit the like or tweet buttons to share it with others. It really helps me out :)
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