During any poker session, most of our profit and loss comes from our decisions to fold, check, call, bet, or raise. This blog post is going to deal with the other decisions that impact how much money we make. I started writing all this down just for myself, as a reminder to my future self, but it seemed like a nice thing to share. Some of them are kind of specifically just for me and will apply less to some people, but I think in general they might be helpful. If anyone wants to add anything to the list, please leave it in the comments.

Sleep!!



Sleep is the most crucial thing for me.
Sleep contributes so many important things to a playing session
-Alertness (not auto piloting)
-ability to think critically in short amounts of times
-mood/tiltiness or proneness to tilt

I've gone through periods where I tried to wake up to an alarm or limit my sleep in some way so that I wasnt sleeping 9-10 hours. I think that has definitely negatively affected my poker playing for that day. I generally play much better when I just allow myself to sleep in as long as I want. Obviously if you are getting to the point where you sleep 12+hours a day, something is probably wrong. But I dont worry so much about the days where I go to bed at 2am and sleep until noon. I try to just let my body regulate its sleep schedule as it sees fit with no interference from my conscious mind.

If I don't feel rested when I wake up, then I either shouldn't play that day, or try to take a nap(s) until I do feel rested. Otherwise, I try to take advantage of my time by doing other productive activities that day that don't involve me risking thousands of dollars on a day when I don't feel alert. I might use my time to do extra analysis on my poker game, get an extra workout in during the day (this might help you sleep better the next night), read a book I've been meaning to get to, do errands that I normally do another day, etc. You can usually make good use of a day off.




addendum to sleep:
General Mood:



If you can recognize before you load up tables that you have been having a shitty day or are in a shitty mood, for whatever reason it may be, don't play until that legitimately changes. Sometimes for me, I can be in a shitty mood for almost no reason, although I think it correlates highly to not getting enough sleep, another reason to get more sleep.




Food:



I’ve found that playing on both an empty stomach that wants to eat, or a stomach that just overstuffed itself are both suboptimal for my playing sessions. The best situation is to make sure to eat meals that are not too large, and have just a bit of spacing in between when you finish eating and when you start playing your session. Obviously meals stuffed with fruits, veges, lean meats, whole grains are great for you. I am aware of some studies that say that eating sugar is also good for you in terms of allowing your brain to work at a higher level during intense decision making, but personally, I view sugar as basically poison to my body and limit it at all costs (nobody is perfect obviously though). I also remember watching mynameisgreg's fitness video way back when and he mentioned that drinking water during sessions is important because it has positive effects on your ability to think well. I always try to keep some water at my desk during the day. Only downside is you might have to pee during the middle of a session which sucks whether you decide to hold it or get up and go to the bathroom (Sorry I cant imagine pissing in a bottle at my desk, although I do admire the dedication)





Scheduling:



Ive tried sticking to a preset schedule for both my day and for my play. For whatever reason I just absolutely detest it. About the most scheduling I can put up with is a schedule for coaching, which may require 2 or 3 1-2 hour blocks set during the week. I’ve found that for me its best to keep my daily schedule completely flexible to allow me to engage in activities at the optimal time. If I don't really feel like playing poker after I worked out, then I do something else. During the times that I do feel like playing poker, I try to maximize my use of that time. Attitude and mental outlook when I start a session is very important to how well I play and concentrate during my session, so I cant have the feeling that I am forcing myself to play when I don't actually want to. (same could apply to any other activity really)





Time of Day:



If I plan on being awake 15-17 hours each day, I’ve found that playing poker during the first 3-4 hours or the last 3-4 hours of the day isnt optimal for me. During both these periods of the day I think my brain isnt working quite as fast as I would like. I think trying to use these times to do things like analyzing your game or game situations (probably better in the morning to get your brain warmed up), working on other activites (for me this would be stuff like reading economic blogs, or reading up on value investing), or relaxing/leisure/working out. I find when I play mostly during the middle part of my day I do a lot better. That will shorten my time period for playing considerably, but I think it works out ok. If I take advantage of the early morning to do stuff like analyzing my game and/or working out, assuming I got a good nights sleep, that usually motivates me to start playing, either because I want to put something to use that I just learned or because I was dreading another minute doing ev calcs!




Hours per day:



For me, I find that its important to hit a sweet spot for hours I play per day, and I would say this is 3-5 hours for me. If I play less than 3 hours, I feel unproductive on the day. I also think playing atleast 3 hours keeps your poker mind/decisions sharp, where as if you have a few days in a row where you play 0-2 hours, my decisions usually start getting a bit more sloppy. On the other hand, I also find that playing more than about 5 hours in a day usually causes me to play less or worse the next day. I find that after about 5 hours my brain starts to feel fried a bit the next day causing me to either sit out from playing, or not play as well. Obviously, playing your 6th or 7th hour may be +EV, but is it +EV to do it day after day? For me I have decided that it is not. Continual overload of my brain day after day eventually leads to me playing poorly. Finding the sweet spot is really important for me.





Session Length:


For me I also want to find...

Hey guys, did this flop analysis for myself and some students and thought I would post it here since I hadnt done anything in a while. The file is really big so I cant put a picture of the whole thing. Basically for those who are familiar with CREV, I layered the turn cards, and then used the board texture function on the postflop condition menu for the river to account for turn/river card run outs. This is not perfect, but MUCH more accurate than using checkdowns.


All numbers are using 5/10 as the stakes, so an EV of 50= EV of 5bbs




Ok so first, villains btn range is 90% of hands, and our flatting range for the sim is





Villains Flop Strategy

Villains betting range is a bit complicated to describe here because I used a ton of variables, but basically hes betting any JT+, FD, oesd, and then varying %s of 8x, 2x, 33-77, high cards with backdoor FDs, high cards without backdoor FDs

His overall betting range is 53.4% on the flop= his cbet %.

Vs a checkraise to 14bbs, he 3bet/calls the flop with
2pair+
any KT+ without a backdoor flush draws
25% of his KT+ that do have a backdoor flush draw (the rest he calls)
any nut flush draw,
any flush draw that has a gutshot or OESD as well as atleast 1 overcard
flushdraws with two overcards,

and he 3bet/folds the flop with
any gutshot with a backdoor FD
50% of his hands that have As with no pair (backdoor nut flush draw)


That means vs a shove, he calls with 75% of his 3betting range.


Vs a Checkraise, Villain folds 50% of his range (3bet 17%, call 33%)



Villains Turn/River strategy


Again, impossible to describe in totality here, but basically I gave him what I think an aggro guy would play like, with very high turn/river barrel %s (Turn cbet ~68%, river cbet ~52%)
and a strategy that isnt super exploitable in any significant area in terms of folding too often to bets or whatever.




Heros Flop Strategy

OK so given all that, heres the maximally exploitative strategy for hero on the flop



Check Call





Check Raise





Flop Shove Range vs flop 3bet




Ok so from that, the main things to remember is that whenever a decision is very close- so in this case we'll say check calling Q9o, 44-77 (ev of ~.1-.2bb) is a very close decision) its probably better to err on the option that puts the least amount of money in when applying this analysis to your own game since it is just a model, and its best to use the model conservatively.

What I think is interesting though are several things- We can see that since villain barrels so frequently, and likely stacks off incorrectly on rivers when we hit a flush, check calling almost all flush draws is optimal given that he has a fairly tight betting range on the flop.

We can also see because of the frequency that we get barreled, we prefer to c/c hands as strong as AT. Its also interesting to see the effect of backdoor FDs. Theres the obvious cases like in our checkraising ranges, how we checkraise bluff with hands with backdoor spades. But then also in our c/c range we can see a hand like J9dd becomes better to call when a hand like J9o is a checkraise because of its added equity with backdoor diamonds.





New Set of Assumptions

Given a slightly less aggro turn barreling strategy for SB, heres our MES, fairly similar


Check/Call



Check/Raise



Shove vs flop 3bet




I onyl adjusted the turn barreling %s downward by about 10%, so not a huge difference. I left everything else the same. You can see the BB checkraises a little wider for value, and a few more strong draws, but still check calls a lot of FDs and TP hands


Given this strategy we checkraise 17%, and shove over a flop 3bet 31% of that range. We c/c an additonal 56.5% of our range, check folding ~26.7%



Last Set of Assumptions

Ok so this time I gave villain a flop cbet of 62%, with a lower turn cbet of 45-50%, and lower river cbet of 45-50%. Vs a flop checkraise, he 3bets 15.5% of his betting range, and of that stacks off 68% of the time he 3bets the flop. He calls the checkraise 33.8% of the time, and folds 51% of the time. Here is our MES:


Check Call ~72.7% (adjusted for neutral EV decisions, becomes 53%)




Checkraise ~13.7%



Shove over flop 3bet ~58.1% of c/r range





Conclusions:

Note: Remember the decisions that are nearly neutral EV like c/cing 33-77 or K9o etc would be better off folded in game. (these represent 64 of our 235 flop c/c combos so our flop c/c becomes 53%, and our fold to cbet becomes 33%)

Interesting though that we still check call a lot of flush draws including nut flush draws even though villain is pot controlling on turn/river a lot more in the last sim. The reasons check calling FDs is in each sim is because villain incorrectly pays off too widely when the board 3 flushes (note that I didnt make him just pay off with everything, but definitely looser than GTO). And in the case of the first two simulations, villain is betting too widely for value and as a bluff on spade turns and rivers (although he wouldnt necessarily be if we didnt have any FDs in our c/c range), increasing our implied odds on those cards


Also interesting is that we checkraise for value but then fold to the flop 3bet with QT, JT, and T9 in the last sim

Hi Guys,

I made it to Vancouver! I've moved into an apartment and opened bank accounts and have MB up and running, although not verified yet as that takes a few days and I just opened MB yesterday. But hopefully by the end of the week my limits will actually be halfway decent and I can get onto some sites. Im hoping by the end of the month I can have stars unlocked and get MB VIP.

I am pretty happy with my apartment. Its a little pricy but its worth it to be comfortable when you work from home. Heres a pic from my balcony overlooking downtown/yaletown




So right now I really dont have much to do. Just an odd errand here or there to help things move along with banking/pokersites. Other than that I've just been coaching, working on my game away from the tables, and reading Game of Thrones. Ive made it through the first book and a little ways into the second. The first book got a little bit boring for me in the middle, because I knew what was going to happen from watching the TV series, so the lead up just became a bit of a snooze. But the second book has been really entertaining so far.

On that note, since I have very little to do, I have a lot of extra time for coaching, so I am opening it back up a bit earlier than I had anticipated. Heres a link to my coaching page with info on my approach to poker and coaching as well as pricing and reviews


I think I am only going to try to stay in Vancouver for a couple months till Xmas/New years and then travel somewhere warmer. Vancouver is an amazing city but I figure I might as well come back when its less cold. I guess the main warm spots would be Asia/Thailand/Australia area or maybe south America, although I dont know much about either climate yet. Poker has turned out to be much more of a life adventure than I anticipated when I decided I wanted to pursue it rather than a normal job. Even though the circumstances surrounding it suck, I'm actually enjoying this aspect of it quite a bit.

Hey guys,

Just wanted to update this since I hadnt in so long. I really dont like posting anything too personal on here anymore so I kinda just reserve this for poker related content, but I havent had enough time to post anything here since my last blog. I never ended up finishing up my last blog "article". I just got sidetracked with a lot of more important stuff and at this point I am not motivated enough to finish it.. But I will write more blogs like it or like the StoxEV ones in the future.

I just got my passport in the mail today, and in about 3.5 weeks will be driving up to Vancouver to move there hopefully until April/May, whenever my 180 days is up. Right now I am planning on living alone, but if anyone needs a roomate for the time period I'll be living there, let me know, I may be interested if it seems like a decent fit personality wise.

Just a heads up as well- I anticipate having coaching spots open within a couple months. I still have some people waiting that I will work with first, but likely around the first of the year I'll start taking students on again. Right now I am only coaching HU NL and PLO but will likely open up some 6max NL and PLO coaching at some point in the future, probably next year sometime.

Edit: I explain below, but just so its clear, the analysis here is from Villians Perspective vs a hypothetical BB (Not hero) who is an aggro reg with the stats I posted below

$1/$2 PL Omaha Cash Game, 2 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

BTN: $531.60
Hero (BB): $327

Pre-Flop: Q T Q K dealt to Hero (BB)
BTN raises to $6, Hero raises to $18, BTN calls $12

Flop: ($36) K 6 T (2 Players)
Hero bets $26, BTN calls $26

Turn: ($88) 3 (2 Players)
Hero bets $68, BTN raises to $292, Hero calls $215 and is All-In

River: ($654) 2 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: $654 Pot
BTN showed T 8 2 6 and WON $9 (-$317 NET)
Hero showed Q T Q K and WON $653 (+$328 NET)

***
For the purposes of this hand I am going to assume that the BB has a 3bet % of 25% (in PPT sims I will use "& 35%" at the end of the ranges because a 25% 3bet range isnt necessarily a linear range of the top 25% of hands), and will cbet this board with a frequency of 90% (Id say avg cbet in 3bet pots for aggro regs is going to be 70-80% across all boards, and given this board connects really well with a preflop 3bet range, and it is also a drier board than average I think 90% is reasonable.


From my perspective this hand isnt interesting, but I want to look at it from villains perspective. On the flop he has the option of calling or raise/calling. With 36% equity on the flop vs BB's shoving range (image directly below), BTN would have to raise to 75 or less to avoid calling a shove.









Ok so now I will analyze raise/calling. A preflop range of 25% of hands translates to roughly 14% of hands given card removal. 90% betting range of 14% of hands translates to a betting range of 12.6% of hands







His shoving range is 6.2% of hands or 49% of his betting range






His overall continuing range is 8.74% of hands which is 69% of his overall betting range, which means we get a fold 31% of the time, a shove 49% of the time, and a call 20% of the time







OK so the next thing to do is to choose a raise size. If we make it 91 on the flop then we will have exactly a PSB left when he calls. I think this should be our minimum raise size with our range here. I think since we wont be raise/folding very often and protecting our equity is a major concern with the majority our raising range, it is best to turn it into a 2 street game. I think raising to 91 gives us the most flexibility while also allowing us to turn this hand into a 2 street game. So we will analyze a raise to $91. Now onto the EV calcs


So 31% of the time we risk 91 to win the $36 in the pot + the $26 bet.

.31( $36+$26)= 19.22$



49% of the time we get in 309$ with 36% equity with an overlay of 36$ in the pot. So our share of the pot is:

.36(309+309+26)= $235.44 which is -73.56 less than the $309 we are risking, so we are losing
-$73.56 when we get shoved on

.49(-73.56)= $-36.04



Last, we get called 20% of the time, and have 54% equity vs his bet/call range in a pot of (91+91+36= 218), and we have position and one PSB left (Equity sim below)






Now obviously its basically impossible to calculate how turn/river play out when we are called. But we can make estimates. First take a look at this graph of our hands equity on Turns vs his bet/call range



Once we raise to 91 and get called we need 33% equity to continue with the hand on the turn if we got shoved into. This only seems to be a problem on 5% of turns (I believe only on K turns). Now, if we get shoved into on the turn he may not be shoving his entire range, so our equity might be lower and we might have to fold on some cards. But I think on most cards we are going to be ok to get it in if he shoves. Also, I expect him to check a lot on the turn, and we can make a good decision on whether we should shove to protect our equity or if we should check behind because enough of his range improved. In essence, I am arguing that when we get called, we will be able to realize atleast 100% of our equity and might have a slight advantage over that from being IP, and being the aggressor on the flop with a nutted, wide, balanced range, where as his range for flatting our raise is non nutty, and very drawy and/or medium made hands.


So we risk 91 to win 62$ on the flop, and 20% of the time we arrive at the turn with a pot of $218$ and an equity of 54% with position. For simplicity sake we will assume we realize 110% of our equity on the turn, to account for our positional and range advantage, but also the difficulty of playing a hand like bottom two pair on various straight completing turns.

.54 (110%)( $218)= $129.49

20%($129.49)= $25.90


So now we have all of our inputs for our EV equation. We have the EV of the 3 outcomes when we raise (19.22, -36.04, 25.90)

Adding them up, we get an EV of $9.08$ for raise/calling. Im going to guess that calling and/or raise folding is going to be better than that, but who knows. Next blog will cover Raise/folding

Alright, so last blog I went over all the possible flop actions. If I was going really indepth on the flop, I would have gone back and adjusted some of the checkdown %'s I used because usually it takes a little tinkering to get them right. They were close enough for the purpose of the blog though, and I think we would have come to the same conclusion which was we should cbet every part of our range, and call almost all hands if raised. The main reasons behind this were two things: (1) I was 3betting a top heavy range because villain was not folding to 3bets very much (2) Villain was raising weak made hands on the flop sometimes so our unpaired hands had more equity than usual vs a raise on this textured flop

So now, we will move on to the turn. I am going to delete all actions that didnt happen in the actual hand, and put in the turn card and possible actions, given the revised game tree




Alright next we, put in our assumptions about villains play on the turn. To save time I am just going to put in the checkdown %'s right now as well as run the MES feature.



For his betting range when we check I have him betting TP or better, 50% of his gutshots/oesds that have A or K high with them, all other gutshots/oesds, and 50% of his complete air, which is all Ace Highs

I have him shoving Q8 or better on the turn, as well as any strong draws (gutshot or better+FD), and calling any Jack or better, any gutshot or more, and any flush draw, and any 5 or better as well

Finally, I thought it would be worthwhile to look at the option of shoving turn for 1.5x pot. I have him calling the shove with TT or better (I really wasnt sure how often a player like this would be calling 5x-Jx here, so I gave him all Jx and TT to reflect the likely hood that his strategy is either really tight or really loose vs a turn shove)

The checkdown %s are fairly straight forward, just take a sec to look them over.


The results we get look pretty normal I think, but still interesting

Betting Range



Bet/call range



Checking Range (stoxev wants us to call all of our checking range)



Shoving Range



From here, what I would do is start messing with my assumtions for villains turn strategy. Increase more hands from him shoving/calling turn, or betting turn, or decrease the hands, etc, etc. Just fool around with his strategies, and re-run the MES feature. Keep doing this untill you are bored and/or get a good feel for what adjustments should be made for different opponent strategies

**This is the crux of using stoxev imo. Put in villain strategies, figure out the best counter, change his strategies, rinse repeat. From there then you can make guesses about ways you can counter potential opponent strategies w/o them catching on. Meaning, the stoxev strategies that are perfect counters, are often very overt, and your opponent may catch on and counteradjust. The best way to do it is to come up with strategies that are exploiting what they are doing w/o making it blatantly obvious.


Alright lets go to the river given that I bet.

So on the river I show up in the actual hand with AK. What went through my head at the time was
(1) I thought he would shove most of his Qx on the turn, but I figured sometimes he would call either with weak Qx hands or just because sometimes a donk calls and sometimes he shoves with the same hand
(2) I actually had a pretty good grasp on the number of hands he could have double floated with. I didnt think he would fold turn with any gutshot or better, and I really didnt think he would have shoved any of those draws on the turn either. I thought he would mostly check back A high, and shove all his K high and worse draws
(3) I figured he would snap any Jx if I bet, but wasnt sure if I could get him off 66-TT or 5x/2x. I felt like he would probably fold but I wasnt sure
(4) at the time I didnt think he would value shove Jx on the river. But looking back I think he would have definitely shoved Jx for value. But anything worse like 5x I thought and still think he would check back
(5) small chance i get hero'ed with a worse A high, but I really didnt think this factored in too much at the time. Also small chance he turns 2x or 5x into a bluff. Again, didnt give this much weight at all in my decision


Given all this I had to choose whether it was better to shove and hope he folded 5x or 77, as well as folding out (and avoid getting bluffed off the best hand) all worse hands than my AK. Or was it better to try to induce a bluff. I thought there was a better chance he tries a desperation bluff for half pot than he folds a pair for half pot, so I checked and called.

heres my basic assumptions and the results

shoving range


checking range



Pretty interesting results, and we can see given those assumptions a river shove was better with my AK hand.

So from here, I would again go back and fool around with the assumptions about villains strategy, and keep running the MES each time and taking notes (either mental or within the program or both) about what my optimal counter strategy was.

Another thing you can do is compare EV b/w the two river strategies. For example, if I wanted to see how much worse my c/c was with AK than shoving it, I could input an additional condition for c/c with AK, and see what the ev was.

Alright, hope some people enjoyed reading these last two blogs. This is all stuff I will be covering in some of my future videos more indepthly, and ofcourse I offer private coaching on this stuff for anybody interested.


**btw if you guys notice, especially in the river simulations, theres some pretty cool peculiarities in our strategy because of card removal. The program does a great job of showcasing these differences in many different instances, as you will see the more situations you analyze

What up guys. Some of you know that I have a current video series on how to use StoxEV (first part is here http://www.leggopoker.com/forums/vid...1-a-15449.html). The series is mostly on all the features of the program and how to use them to make sure the game trees you are making are working correctly. However, there was a lot of interest in a more advanced video with some real application of how one might use StoxEV to do some meaningful analysis that will translate into an improved winrate. So far I have made one video which does just that, but since it probably wont be out for a little while, I thought I'd try my best to make a blog entry about how to do this, using a lot of pictures. This wont be ideal, but I think it will help some people out there


First thing I do when I start using StoxEV is either pick an actual hand I played or pick a situation I make up in my mind (often times based on a recent situation that came up). For this blog, I am just going to take a hand I played about a week ago, and then extrapolate that into an entire range vs range situation, instead of hand vs range.

$2/$4 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 2 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

BTN: $364
Hero (BB): $737.20

Pre-Flop: K A dealt to Hero (BB)
BTN raises to $12, Hero raises to $40, BTN calls $28

Flop: ($80) Q 5 2 (2 Players)
Hero bets $44, BTN calls $44

Turn: ($168) J (2 Players)
Hero bets $92, BTN calls $92

River: ($352) Q (2 Players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $188 and is All-In, Hero calls $188

Results: $728 Pot ($1 Rake)
BTN showed 4 3 and LOST (-$362 NET)
Hero showed K A and WON $727 (+$367 NET)


Theres tons of things to look at in this hand. The 3bet is standard and is not worth looking at. But Id say every other action in the hand is worth some analysis, with each street getting more interesting.

Before we get into the analysis, lets go over the relevant factors and stats going into the hand. Villain was pretty fishy. He was playing 69/69 from the button and hadnt folded to a 3bet yet (this hand was my 3rd 3bet) and 64% vpip from the BB with 16% 3bet. He also had shown a tendency to not be terribly aggressive postflop, although we are working with an extremely small sample here so all the stats need to be taken into context. But at the time I had adjusted my assumptions to be that this guy was a splashy, mostly passive, but occasionally spazzy fish (although not a complete mouth breather).

Ok so first thing to do is set up the tree so that we are on the flop...



I gave myself a very top heavy 3bet range of ~14% with few bluffs in it AA-77,AKs-A9s,KQs-KTs,QJs-QTs,75s,65s-64s,54s,AKo-ATo,KQo-KJo,T9o

I gave him a 70% opening range, calling roughly 45% of hands AA-22,AKs-A2s,KQs-K2s,QJs-Q2s,JTs-J6s,T9s-T6s,98s-95s,87s-84s,76s-74s,65s-63s,54s-53s,43s,AKo-A2o,KQo-K9o,QJo-Q9o,JTo-J9o,T9o,98o,87o

You can plug those text ranges into stove to take a look at the range. Next I am going to put in all possible flop actions. You can see the bet and raise sizes I chose to use for both players. Obviously I dont know to what amount villain would raise if he did raise, so I just guessed based on past experience with similar players on similar boards



Now for now, I am going to try to find out what the best flop strategy for me would be. So I am going to set up villains entire strategy on the flop and then use the Maximally Exploit Feature (from now on MES for maximally exploitative strategy)

For his raise to 108 action I gave him 20% of sets, 75% of KQ/AQ, AA, KK, and then I had him raising 33% of the time he had 66-TT because I think some fish like this will raise these hands to see where they are at even though they dont always know what they will do to a shove (same principle for the 20% of MP and Bottome pair I gave him). I also gave him a small bluff range of 10% of hands that have both cards including a 6-T. I think a player like this will occasionally bluff but not very much. I have him calling the shove with all none bluffs as I think fish will talk themselves into a call once they have raised with MP/BP

I have him calling a cbet with any pair or better he didnt raise, any gutshot or oesd, any ace high, and K9s, KT-KJ. He folds roughly 30% of his range

Vs a check I have him betting all pairs, all gs and oesds, and some air, totaling roughly 57% of hands, more than half of them pairs or better



Now I am going to hit the MES feature, the "EX" button and I am going to find the MES for the BB

Checking Range :

(Program tells me I should c/c all of those hands)

Bet/Shove range

Bet/Call range



And I should bet/fold T9o.


Now obviously if you look at this analysis it looks a little off. For example its hard to believe c/cing KTs is the best play, or that we can bet/call with 64s and A9s without a problem (these are all plausible but not really what'd you expect as being the best play.

The reason for this is that I simulated the turn/river with a checkdown which effectively eliminates any future betting, which in turns causes us not to account for implied and reverse implied odds which are obviously important. So my options at this point are to adjust the %s for the checkdown or put in some turn actions. For this I am going to choose to adjust the checkdown %s to save time and make this simpler, and maybe so people can see how to do that a little bit since its an arbitrary, and experienced based task

The checkdowns I put in are fairly straight forward. I gave us slightly higher %s with the same subsets of hands for the times we are betting because of our added fold equity and increased ability to actively hand read as opposed to when we are checking and deciding



Heres what comes out when I re run the MES feature




So we see when I put in all the new checkdown features that we should bet all of our range and basically call all of it to a raise as well. This definitely makes some sense given I gave us higher checkdown...

What up guys-

I am back and will be makin videos for leggo again and need some leakfinders since I cant record myself playin right now. If you play HUNL from 50nl-400nl, or HUPLO from 50PLO-200 PLO and want some free coaching then this is for you. Just record yourself playing at your normal limits without any sound (including all the poker sounds, especially the beeps!) for about 30 minutes. You should be playing atleast 2 tables, and no more than 4 (I'd prefer 3-4 tables). You can play all different opponents or the same opponent on all the tables. I also prefer it that you are running a detailed HUD, as I think thats extremely important to playing HU. Make sure to not have any overlap on your tables, or have them in weird positions. Just keep them tiled while you are playing. Once you are done recording, you should PM me so that I can get the recording from you. I have no idea how many people will want to send me a vid. If I get a lot, I probably wont be able to do all of them

There is also going to be a 3 part series coming out by me on how to use StoxEV. I have already recorded the first two parts, and will be recording the last part today sometime. I think they are going to be pretty helpful to people who havent learned how to use StoxEV on their own yet. The first video goes over the basics plus how to create preflop game trees. The second video covers how to create post flop game trees with the post flop condition menu, the maximal exploit feature and more. The 3rd video is going to go over the checkdown feature which is a very key feature to know how to use properly, the graphing feature, unexploitable shoving, and a couple other small features. In upcoming videos I will be incorporating StoxEV analysis into my videos, so make sure to watch the series on how to use it if you are not familiar with it, or need a review

edit: updated September 5th 2011



Testimonials and References




















Link to my 2p2 Coaching Thread


Qualifications

I have a number of videos on LeggoPoker. My latest video series is dedicated to using CardRunnersEV, a very useful yet complex program, to its fullest potential. Heads Up No Limit and Heads Up Pot Limit Omaha are my main games. I’ve been playing HUNL for the last three years, and HUPLO for one and a half. I have a strong analytical mind and am fully versed in game theory. Creating and adjusting to various game plans is a strength of mine and is easily communicable via coaching. I place emphasis on understanding and improving the mathematical parts of poker. This type of knowledge is a lot easier to teach and understand than the psychological "feel" aspects of poker.




HU Pot Limit Omaha







HU No Limit Holdem







Recent months







Pretty Graph







Coaching Format


For HUNL, other than the few fish that are left, you must be willing to play regs who are getting better and better by the day. Because of this I strongly advocate having gameplans based around mathematical principles, namely game theory. This does not mean I preach playing perfectly balanced games- quite the opposite actually. What I like to teach is the how and why of strategy formulation, meaning how to spot subtle mistakes in opponents’ strategies and how to respond in the best way. To identify these subtle mistakes it is absolutely necessary to first realize what a perfectly optimal (or GTO) strategy probably looks like. From there we can move on to exploiting. That key step is what I believe most players lack: that is, the ability to identify what fundamental mistakes your opponents are actually making, and why they are mistakes. To facilitate this, I also encourage students to learn how to use StoxEV, a holdem analysis software that I've been using with much success for over two years. I can provide introductory, intermediate, or advanced coaching on how to use this program to help formulate strong HUNL strategies in a variety of situations.

In regard to HUPLO, the games are very soft right now. If you sit at a low- or mid-stakes table you are likely to find a recreational player sitting with you within a few minutes or less. There tend to be a few specific player types that you see over and over at these stakes. My coaching will be focused on identifying player types and proper strategy adjustments for each. Additionally, a lot of time will be spent on identifying the subtle differences in board texture between NL and PLO. That goes a long way in determining your winrate. So many facets of the game depend on these small differences- cbetting strategy, stack off ranges, reverse implied odds, when to bluff raise, when to slow play, etc. Every single NL player that I have ever played with or talked to about PLO that was new to the game (including myself) had/has a very weak understanding of these subtle differences between the two games. On a similar note, evaluating preflop hand strength- which hands are good to 3bet, which hands are better to flat in general, etc, is an area I can provide a lot of help with. And finally, I can provide insight and suggestions for dealing the swings of HUPLO. At the beginning of my PLO journey I ran ~125 BI below ev over my first 100k hands. I am not a mental game coach by any means, but I believe I can provide some help in dealing with the large swings you will inevitably face.


For both games, I can show you how to use Holdem Manager's filters for the purpose...