Wake Up!! and smell the monies
Where is your Edge? Is it real? Do You Even Know?
You should know. You have to know. If you don’t know exactly where your edge lies you don’t have one.
Poker is a game. Games change and play within the game adapts. If you are still playing the way you did a year ago you are headed down the drain with a one way ticket.
I haven’t used a HUD in 40,000 hands. Using one gave me an excuse to be lazy and laziness sucks on so many levels. My play has improved 10 fold.
If you want to beat the game you absolutely need to be looking for opportunities on every hand you play. I am not taking about being a winning rake back player or winning 1.5 PTBB over 50K hands. I am talking about beating the game for a fair clip, 5 PTBB or better. This is not only doable in the micros, it is a reasonable expectation if you are willing to work on your skills and bring your A game to the table.
I play 6 max NL. This post is based around that game.
When you open a table look for a seat with fish on your right. An ideal table has 2 full stacked fish on your right and 2 multi-tabing regs downwind. You get to play against the fish in position simply enough. The regs are going to nit it up and stay the hell out of the way. They don’t have the time or the creativity to consistently play pots with you while consistently OOP. If they try you can thank them by pwning the hell out of them. Usually they will continue to fold while you open every button. Those blinds add nicely to your winrate so if the players to the left don’t want to adjust keep scooping those blinds into your bankroll.
Every table should have some opportunities for you. Blinds are too tight. Blinds are too loose. Player on your right folds to 3 bets too often? calls too many 3 bets, fires c-bets all the time and check/folds the turn. Maybe he always believes you when you raise the turn. Maybe he always bets a half pot on the river for thin value and will fold to a shove. Maybe he stations you too much and bluffs all the scare cards.
My point is this: You don’t find these things out by playing YOUR cards. If you are only opening JJ+ from UTG and 3 betting QQ+ from the button or the blinds you are doing it wrong. Be aggressive and put decisions to your opponents. Force them to make decisions and remember how they react so you can find ways to exploit them.
Always look for optimal bet sizes. Will 60% of the pot do the same thing for you as 80%? Will 30% of the pot on the turn leave you a Pot Sized Bet on the river? Will an over bet induce your Table Cop to stack off light? Every bet, play, bet size even timing should serve you a purpose.
Look for optimal strategy at every table against every opponent. One night this week I played 3 tables and at the end of the session and 500ish hands my stats looked like this:
Table 1: VPIP 34 PFR 26
Table 2 VPIP 25 PFR 17
Table 3 VPIP 17 PFR 15
Coles notes: Get aggressive with your villains. Watch their reactions. Formulate a specific strategy. Attack.
MOST MICRO-LIMIT PLAYERS DO NOT ADJUST
So adjust and pwn.
MOST MICRO-LIMIT PLAYERS DO NOT ADJUST
So adjust and pwn.
You should know. You have to know. If you don’t know exactly where your edge lies you don’t have one.
Poker is a game. Games change and play within the game adapts. If you are still playing the way you did a year ago you are headed down the drain with a one way ticket.
I haven’t used a HUD in 40,000 hands. Using one gave me an excuse to be lazy and laziness sucks on so many levels. My play has improved 10 fold.
If you want to beat the game you absolutely need to be looking for opportunities on every hand you play. I am not taking about being a winning rake back player or winning 1.5 PTBB over 50K hands. I am talking about beating the game for a fair clip, 5 PTBB or better. This is not only doable in the micros, it is a reasonable expectation if you are willing to work on your skills and bring your A game to the table.
I play 6 max NL. This post is based around that game.
When you open a table look for a seat with fish on your right. An ideal table has 2 full stacked fish on your right and 2 multi-tabing regs downwind. You get to play against the fish in position simply enough. The regs are going to nit it up and stay the hell out of the way. They don’t have the time or the creativity to consistently play pots with you while consistently OOP. If they try you can thank them by pwning the hell out of them. Usually they will continue to fold while you open every button. Those blinds add nicely to your winrate so if the players to the left don’t want to adjust keep scooping those blinds into your bankroll.
Every table should have some opportunities for you. Blinds are too tight. Blinds are too loose. Player on your right folds to 3 bets too often? calls too many 3 bets, fires c-bets all the time and check/folds the turn. Maybe he always believes you when you raise the turn. Maybe he always bets a half pot on the river for thin value and will fold to a shove. Maybe he stations you too much and bluffs all the scare cards.
My point is this: You don’t find these things out by playing YOUR cards. If you are only opening JJ+ from UTG and 3 betting QQ+ from the button or the blinds you are doing it wrong. Be aggressive and put decisions to your opponents. Force them to make decisions and remember how they react so you can find ways to exploit them.
Always look for optimal bet sizes. Will 60% of the pot do the same thing for you as 80%? Will 30% of the pot on the turn leave you a Pot Sized Bet on the river? Will an over bet induce your Table Cop to stack off light? Every bet, play, bet size even timing should serve you a purpose.
Look for optimal strategy at every table against every opponent. One night this week I played 3 tables and at the end of the session and 500ish hands my stats looked like this:
Table 1: VPIP 34 PFR 26
Table 2 VPIP 25 PFR 17
Table 3 VPIP 17 PFR 15
Coles notes: Get aggressive with your villains. Watch their reactions. Formulate a specific strategy. Attack.
MOST MICRO-LIMIT PLAYERS DO NOT ADJUST
So adjust and pwn.
MOST MICRO-LIMIT PLAYERS DO NOT ADJUST
So adjust and pwn.
Comments
Thanks.
I have found sometimes stats have been a little skewed in the fact that someone could be playing very aggro based on stats but it may just be because he has a had a rush of cards and the deck is hitting him. It's tough to decipher that sometimes while multitabling because you aren't necessarily focusing on every hand, rather looking at your cards, position, other stats, etc...
Once again quality post. It's a refreshing change that in the past 3-4 months we have gotten good discussions and quality posts here again. I felt it was dead for a while...
Hats off to all who participate and give a value add to the community.
I haven't played alot, but I think Stars disabling the usage of a HUD has actually helped my game more than a HUD ever would. I've discovered new things and ways to think about hands that using a HUD never would.
Tournament play is a different story though.
Say you have a bunch of hands on a player..if you double click a players stats on the table it will give you his sessions stats and not his overall stats. Don't rely on these overall stats too much or at least check his session stats after he's been at the table for a while. He could play so much different one day than the next so his overall stats are going to mislead you if you do use a HUD. Also a lot of the hands you have on him could be 2 months old for example and in 2 months a players game can and usually will change a ton unless they are a total donk that don't try to learn and just donk around.
You need to look for situations to exploit. Not just statistics. If you can pinpoint some exact tendencies of your villain you will be able to figure out a strategy to be the most profitable against them. The easiest way to do this IMO is to keep constant pressure on them so that they are always making difficult decisions against you.
I found myself and I know many others who will not actively look for the situations when they have the HUD right there and handy.
I also find too many PT users who try and emulate others stats when they play their game. Your stats should change depending on your opponents. Don't fall into the trap of always playing a set range of hands depending on your position.
A lot of excellent players I know reccommend playing like one session a week without a HUD or something along those lines. It's not really about whether to use a HUD or not, I think it's about learning to use it the right way, and playing sessions without a HUD is a great way to practice.
Good post Cadillac. Are you going to use a HUD in the future though? By now you should know what a HUD is for and be able to use it more profitably in my opinion.