MIDSTAKES LOL

In the last 35 days, I've played under 5k hands. Since I play a pretty significant amount of tables, you can tell I'm really not putting in the hours.

It's not that I feel like I've hit a wall, in fact I'm really confident in my game. I just don't really have the desire to grind out the hands. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely LOVE talking about poker. I'm constantly on LP throwing in my two cents on every thread that opens up, and the UIUC poker club is starting at the end of this month. I've even bought the domain and hosting for www.illinipokerclub.com. It's up and running, but it's just got an open source template up right now.

Lately I've been researching e-commerce and starting up a business. I believe this is something I can be really successful in, so I'm definitely going to give this a shot. I think it's pretty clear that if I could either go down a path of poker or business, the latter has much more opportunity.

I'm not leaving though! Sorry, but you guys are going to have to deal with me until I get on the wrong side of a mod .

0 votes

Comments (10)

You can walk down a block and buy a double combo plate of gyros.



Envy me!

0 votes

Comments (10)

0 votes

Comments (7)

+ Show Spoiler +

So since I'm going to be running a poker club soon and I have to write stuff out, I've been writing some articles more so to keep track of my thoughts.

I've already made a thread in Main Poker about this, so sorry that I'm reposting the same thing. I think it's better suited to put this stuff in my blog, though. I would end up cluttering the main poker thread .

Any comments are appreciated.

Don’t be a nit! How to approach poker
edzwoo

Think back to when you first started playing poker seriously. What was the first thing you learned? It might not be the same for you, but the first thing I learned was what types of starting hands to play. I started off crushing the penny games simply by following a little chart and some restriction rules, such as not calling raises with AJ because it’s an easily dominated hand. We all had some sort of starting hand chart memorized at some point, and for good reason. Newer or bad players that don’t have this basic guidance are generally crushed in the long run by those who do.

This is something everybody can understand on a basic level. It’s pretty clear that if one person plays better hands than the other, the player with the better cards has an advantage. Many people will get mathematical and say a range of AQ+, 22+ has 67% equity against a range of any two cards.

Stop!

If you think that said equity advantage is the main reason why beginners must follow starting hand charts, then you are wrong. In fact, if you still follow a starting hand chart because of this reasoning, then you are severely limiting your winrate.

All poker players have to understand that there are three advantages that we can have in poker: skill, cards, and position. Having a skill advantage is BY FAR the most complex and important advantage we can have. Positional advantage and card advantage are both very simple to understand. Having position gives us more information of our opponent and allows us to close the betting (assuming heads up), and having better cards will allow us to win more often at showdown. It’s important that I reiterate this: the reason why beginners must follow starting hand charts and play only good hands is NOT because of the additional equity (card advantage). It is actually because they lack any skill.

To explain this further, a beginner without guidance will make MANY –EV decisions. Starting hand charts and restriction rules drastically reduce a beginner from making –EV decisions. Note that I didn’t say ‘mistakes’, but –EV decisions. A –EV decision is always a mistake, but a mistake can still be neutral or +EV, such as missing a valuebet or valuebetting too small. When a beginner is playing the penny games and is dealt AA, to nearly any action on any flop, turn or river, it is VERY HARD to make a –EV play. AA on the vast majority of the boards against the vast majority of players in the penny games will be the best hand. When we tell a beginner to see a flop cheaply with a hand like 55, we tell him he must shut down if he doesn’t hit a set. This restriction is in place because if he continues, he is very likely to make a –EV decision. In the end, when we grind into the beginner’s head that –EV decisions are bad, he will dodge them all be faced with only neutral and +EV decisions. This beginner is now… a huge nit!

You’ve probably heard the term before, but here’s my definition. A nit is somebody who is so scared of making a –EV decision that they pass up on many +EV spots. Nits pass up thin valuebets and fold many hands preflop because they’ve been taught the world will explode if they get anywhere near something that can be –EV. They still cling onto their starting hand charts and rules. This is where most people get stuck, and it’s because they’ve been winning money for a while and are afraid to change what they already know. In order to play the best poker we can, it isn’t a matter of simply avoiding –EV spots. It is just as important to make the best +EV decision possible when we can. For example, say our opponent is willing to call $50 on the river with a worse holding. If we make a valuebet of $20, we just lost $30 on a mistake. If we check, we just made a $50 mistake. Even though we did not make a –EV decision, we made a mistake equally as bad as making a –EV call for $30 or $50. It is very easy for us move on and forget these mistakes simply because we’re usually content that we won money in the end.

So knowing all this, how can you apply it? Here are several tips that will help you improve your game:

1. Eliminate the idea of a starting hand chart from your game. For those of you who use a heads-up display to play online poker, this means approaching a poker game thinking you’re going to play your 15/11 game. Your VPIP/PFR should NOT be a static number. Let’s say you are in the big blind and it is folded around to the small blind who completes. This player is a weak player who folds to any half-pot continuation bet when he doesn’t hit a pair, and when he does, he leads into your strongly. Knowing all this, with your skill and positional advantage is so huge that you should be raising without even looking at your cards. In fact, your PFR should probably be greater than or equal to how often this player limps in. Beginner hand charts are used to prevent us from making –EV decisions. The actual hands you play should be dependent upon if there are any +EV spots available. And there are a LOT.

2. Do not limit yourself to certain rules you have learned in poker. This is often referred to as ‘standard’ play. For example, say you backdoor the nuts against a bad player who you suspect has a holding he really likes. The pot is $30 and you both have $90 behind. Many players will not even consider making a 3x pot shove here even though it is clearly the best play, simply because overbetting is not ‘standard’.

3. If you are going to make a bet or raise for value, start with the maximum and work your way down. Remember, the maximum is whatever is left in your stack, not the size of the pot. As ridiculous as it might sound, if you are dealt AA and there is a limper, first think about the merits of shoving on his limp, because sometimes it’s actually the most profitable play. DO NOT start off thinking you are going to isolate him with your 4 big blind plus 1 big blind limp system.

4. Do not ‘auto pilot’. Auto piloting is when you make a decision without giving it any thought. In any given spot, you must first assess if you can make +EV decisions. Folding should only be done when you go through every situation and realize they are all –EV. This is crucial to improving as a poker player, because you are constantly trying to push all your edges, and will learn more in the process. Auto piloting will not help you learn.

0 votes

Comments (13)

NL100 MONSTARRRR


NL200 DEAD MONIEEEEEES


FPP PRO!!!!!

Will keep doing this until NL200 graph becomes upside down!

0 votes

Comments (2)

0 votes

Comments (5)

I love NL100.

0 votes

Comments (6)

THERE WAS A BIG BUG ABOVE MY BED.

I WENT TO GET SOMETHING TO GO KILL IT.

NOW IT'S GONE.

0 votes

Comments (8)

Can somebody explain this to me:




All signs are pointing that I'm not good enough to beat NL200, but I don't actually believe that? This is my fourth failed shot, and I think I've had only 2 winning sessions over 11k hands.

Here's lifetime:



There's no way I'm this bad? Anyways, gotta go back to grinding NL100 again.

0 votes

Comments (11)

So I was hanging out with my older brother back at home today, and we went to another person's house to chill. At midnight, my phone was vibrating but I missed the phone call. The call log said my girlfriend called me 3 times in a row, so at this point I'm a little worried. The phone started vibrating again, and I walked away from the people we were with and answered. "Hello?"

"Happy birthday!"

0 votes

Comments (12)