HawksWin

Yeah, I am perfectly happy with Version One. I simply do aggregations with it. If I was going to use a trainer, I would just use the one in Wizard I think.

I am still using PIO 1. I never did the upgrade to PIO 2. I hear there is a PIO 3 out, not sure what the cost is. I think GTO+ is under $100 USD where PIO is more expensive.

I never really liked the interface of GTO+ vs. the PIO interface. I liked the scripting/aggregation reports in PIO so I just stuck with it.

I might go with PIO 3 in the future.

My assumptions would be this:

Once we arrive at river, ranges kind of go out the window.

It is highly unlikely that we can check Q high and win since Kx and Ax will beat us at showdown.

We are risking 15 into 50 so risk/reward is 15/15+50 or 15/65 which is 23% +/-. If we get folds more than 23% of the time, we have a profitable bet. Betting, in my opinion, will be more profitable than checking, thus we bet.

What kind of tilt are we talking about here?

Are you forcing things?

Experiencing entitlement tilt?

I wish I had an answer for that @ModernGrinder.

I am sure platforms like Discord, Etc. are taking some of the attention away from here.

Forum use is not dead for sure. Just look at 2+2. Plenty of activity there. I enjoy reading there but very rarely post there. Hopefully it picks back up in here soon too.

What is your strategy in HU single raised pots where you have c bet opportunity OOP? Are you checking range in this spot? If this is the case, I would switch it up and play a sample where you start c betting TPTK+ and start figuring out what hands to bluff.

If you are c betting OOP, how often and what is going on in those pots? Are you struggling when you get raised? Are you betting flop and getting hammered by floats when you check turn?

A skill that comes with experience is to recognize when you are truly running poorly vs when you are not recognizing when you are making mistakes when you run into the top(s) of their ranges.

Example:

You get AA in vs KK and they flop 8 sets in a row. Clear Run Bad.

You get AA, take a flop and pay off when they obviously are nutted.

Always ask yourself "Is my range protected here?"

You open AA OTB and BB calls........986r board. You have 99/88/66/98s/86s/T7s/sometimes 75s/96s. Your range is well protected with a bunch of strong hands and draw (JT) that can catch up when they have flopped nutted. You face a big check raise, what are his bluffs?

Are you tracking your online hands in Poker Tracker or Holdem Manager? If you are, we can certainly give you some advice based on some stats.

Theory is extremely important. If you don't know they theory, how do you deploy an exploit?

Simple example is this:

You see a spot in the solver where it is folding 50% of the time. You play a sample and notice that they are folding that spot 62% of the time. How would you exploit that? A very simple exploit would be to keep your value range intact and start adding bluffs. I might even tighten up my value range a bit but I would keep adding bluffs. I want to put myself in a position where I can stack off with the vast majority of my value range when facing resistance and simply fold the garbage vs resistance. Less Grey Areas. You can take comfort in knowing they are folding 12% more than optimal.

But, of course, if someone picks up on what you are doing, they are going to adjust.

Without theory, there is no way to determine if a spot is being played unbalanced or not.

tbeckett I don't know if you have ever studied Economics, but some of the concepts are very important in poker too. Break Even Point being the most important IMO. Once you determine the BE point, many of your decision will be much clearer. Pot Odds and Equity are what you have to use to determine where you will break even.

You will often see people say something like "raising 65s from UTG is 0 ev". The breakeven EV is 0 since you can simply fold. You don't lose or gain anything when you fold (I am not including opportunity cost).

In the blinds, we start at 1/2 a chip disadvantage in the SB and a full chip disadvantage in the BB. The EV of 65s in the SB vs the BB with a RFi situation might be different. Our EV of folding the SB is -.5bb/100 or 1/2 a chip. You then have to ask yourself "Do I do better than -.5b/100 if I Steal here"?

tbeckett I am not sure if you are familiar with the "Rule of 2/Rule of 4". A quick way to estimate your equity from flop to turn or turn to river is to multiply your "outs" by 2. So, if you are on the flop, estimate you have 11 outs to a winner, you have roughly 22% equity from flop to turn or you estimate you have 8 outs to a winner from turn to river. You have roughly 16% equity.

Conversely, when you get all in on the flop and are guaranteed to see the turn AND river, you would multiply your outs by 4. So, AKs on a board where you have two over cards AND the nut flush draw, I would estimate I have 9 flush outs (ignoring the problem of board pairing cards) and a few outs to TPTK. I usually use 11 outs in this spot because sometimes our outs are tainted (TPTK doesn't always help us, like when they have a set, the TP outs don't help us at all. if our only outs are the 9 flush cards, we have around 36% equity (9 x 4). If all of our flush outs and TP outs are clean, we have 9 flush cards and 6 TPTK cards. Now we have 15 outs twice (turn and river). 15 x 4 = 60% equity.

Here is a concrete example and the logic behind it:

You have 87s, the board is 652 rainbow (no flush draws possible). Your opponent has a set (66/55/22). If you put this in Equilab or Flopzilla, it will show you have 27% equity. The equity calculator is considering both turn and rvier. You need to divide this number by 2 to get your equity from flop to turn. Here, your equity would be 13.5% flop to turn. But you have 8 outs (the rule of 2 states that you should have 16% equity. What is the difference? Say you make your straight on a turn 9. Now your opponent has picked up 3 more full house outs.

Now, compare the same flop (652 rainbow) but now your opponent has TT. The equity calculator will show 36% equity for your 87s. Again, the calculator is considering both the turn and rvier. Your flop to turn equity is 18% and your turn to river equity is 18%. Together they equal the 36%. Why is your equity so much better when he has TT?

Take it one step further. Same flop, but your opponent has A6 for TPTK. Now, the equity calculator is going to show you have 50% equity. 25% flop to turn and 25% turn to river or 50% flop to river. Why is this? In the above 2 examples, you making a pair does nothing for you. Making a pair vs sets is useless, making a pair vs TT is mostly useless (unless you hit runner runner 2 pair or trips). With A6, you can make a pair with the 8 or the 7 AND you still have the 8 straight outs.

Now, take the 1st example:

You have the straight draw and your opponent has a set.
The Pot is 10bb (for the ease of math)

#1-He bets 1bb into the 10bb pot. There is now 11bb in the pot and you have to call 1bb to continue to turn. Your pot odds are 11:1 or, expressed as the pot odds formula (1bb/10bb + 1bb his bet + 1bb your call) which = 1/12 or 8.33%. We know we have 8 outs. We have 16% equity from flop to turn. We would always make this call.

#2-He bets 2bb into the 10bb pot. There is now 12bb in the pot and you have to call 2bb to continue to turn. Your pot odds are 6:1 (12:2) or, expressed as the pot odds formula (2bb/10bb + 2bb his bet + 2bb your call) which = 2/14 or 14.28%. We Know we have 8 outs. We have 16% equity from flop to turn. We would always make this call.

#3-He bets 10bb into the 10bb pot. There is now 20bb in the pot and you have to call 10bb to continue to turn. Your pot odds are 2:1 or, expressed as the pot odds formula (10bb/10bb + 10bb his bet + 10bb your call). which = 10bb/30bb or 33%. We know we have 8 outs. We have 16% equity from flop to turn. We are now making a losing call.

In the first two examples, due to the bet sizing, our equity was higher than the required break even equity. In the third example, your equity was lower than the required break even equity.

Based on the bet sizing, the break even size we can call is going to be between 2bb and 3bb (assuming the 10bb pot). Any bet bigger than 3bb, we are making a slightly losing call and most any bet under 3bb, we are making a break even or slightly winning call.

Sometimes, we can make a losing call based on something called Implied Odds. We assume that, even though we are making a losing call on the flop, we will make more money later that will make up for that losing call. Some of the highest implied odds hands are double gutshot straight draws. Some of the lower implied odds hands are Flush Draws. The double gutshot draws are more hidden when we make our straight. In contrast, when we make a flush, our hand is easier to spot thus we will usually make less money.

An abstract way to think about stuff like this is to imagine a coin flop. If you flip a coin, you are going to land on heads 50% of the time and tails 50% of the time. 1,000,000 coin flips, you will hit heads 500,000 times and tails 500,000 times. Of course, there will be variance, but the bigger the sample gets, the closer to 50/50 it will be.

Now, say you and a friend bet 1bb each on every coin flip, you are never going to make money. He will win 1/2 the time and you will win 1/2 the time.

Now, you figure out how to make it so you win 52% of the time and he/she wins 48% of the time. You are each still wagering 1bb each, but now you have the advantage. So, in order for him to break even against your advantage, his needs to risk less than 1bb. Otherwise, over time, he will always lose.

Hopefully this helps you see the correlation between bet sizing (pot odds) and equities.

If you are playing online, I would make a cheat sheet for odds and equity needed.

vs 1/2 pot, you need 25% equity vs his range to call
vs pot, you need 33% equity vs his range to call
vs 2x pot, you need 40% equity vs his range to call.

Raising flop is probably fine at some frequency. Mostly calling, the K is kind of a bad blocker, we want them to fully loaded with KQ/KK here (when we hold trips of course). Pot is limped so we literally have every 4x combo in our range.

Turn I like raising more than raising flop. This turn brings a ton of draw and TP+FD combos. We block flush completion. Calling turn is also fine at some frequency. Before I call turn, I am planning on check/deciding on any Q or club river. Most other rivers I can get behind a leading strategy.

As played, check/decide.

Yeah, so this is why I look to zoom out and look at the big picture. 100bb/100 Raising First In from SB is extremely high. I would expect it to converge to somewhere between 20 to 40bb/100 as your sample gets bigger.

Your overall winrate in SB is quite good. Well done.

BB (you) vs BTN or SB is a very good place to focus. Look at how you are doing when facing a RFI when in BB. Look at how you are doing when you call a RFI. Look at how you are doing when you 3b. Find spots where you call a 2b and can check raise more often on certain textures.

Good to hear, keep up the good work!!!!

I would zoom out and start there.

What is your winrate when you steal from SB? Overall BB/100 and what is sample size?

You are likely paying 10bb/100 in rake at 2NL. Usually, that will continue through 5NL and 10NL. 25NL is where rake starts to become less of an impact. Usually rake at 25 and 50NL is going to be somewhere around 8bb/100. This is 2 bb better than the 2-
10NL rake.

Based on your winrate (@ 3bb/100), you are taking 13bb out of the game. 3bb winrate + the rake you have paid.

Say, hypothetically, you played the above sample with the exact same results but only at 25NL. Your winrate would be 2bb/100 higher since the rake is lower. You would be flirting with a 5bb/100 winrate.

A good way to visualize it is this:

In a 10bb/100 environment, you are paying 100% of a stack in rake every 1000 raked hands you play in (usually does not include preflop).

In a 8bb/100 environment, you are paying 80% of a stack in rake every 1000 rakes hands you play in.

In a 4bb/100 environment, you are paying 40% of a stack in rake every 1000 raked hands you play in.

Rake plays a huge part and that is why you will often see people saying "get out of the micros as soon as possible".

As for the games, I don't think you are going to see much difference between 2NL to 5NL. 10NL will be a bit tougher. Part of the problem with moving up is the psychology (mental part of it). Losing a stack at 10NL is 5x more costly than at 2NL, etc. etc.

I don't know how many tables you are playing, but I would shot take 5NL right now. If you 2 table, open one 5NL and one 2NL. If you 4 table, open 1-2 5NL and 2-3 2NL and give it a shot. Try not to get discouraged by short term results.

Your sample is quite small, so your positional winrates are likely a little out of whack. You will likely start winning from UTG as your sample gets bigger. Your BB and SB winrates will likely change to where you are winning more (losing less) in the SB than you do from the BB. Again, it is a product of the sample size.

Graphs look fine. You are running fairly pure (green and yellow lines close together). You are losing redline and winning big with blue line. This is fairly standard. You can see the effect the blinds have on things when you compare the two graphs.

Without an understanding of pot odds, how are you making calling decisions? How are you making bet sizing decisions? How are you estimating fold equity?

I don't think you need to make too many major adjustments. It sounds like they are not elastic in their approach to your RFI range expanding. If I was BB and had stats that you are raising that often, I am going to 3b you to death (I would expand value slightly and start adding bluffs. I would not expand so much linearly since I hate to get 4b when I 3b something like 77 or 66). But, from the sounds of it, the pool/player is still 3 betting the same way.

If they are not adjusting, I would not change too much really. I would, however, look at how often my 4 bets are working against them and consider adding a few more 4b bluffs here and there.

4 betting 88-JJ at the microstakes seems too merged to me. They simply don't 3b/4b/5b anywhere near what charts will tell you. I would look to start polarizing my 4b range more. That way I have simple decisions.

How often are you getting folds when you 4b?

I thought FTGU was very good. I don't really watch many videos anymore.

The site I play on has range clairvoyance after 24 hours. Players on Bovada/Ignition all have this feature available. We get to see all hole cards after 24 hours so I focus all of my attention on the data I have available to me.

You will get a better opinion on videos from others more than likely. I always liked Steve Paul and Shawn Pauwels, Nachos, Tyler Forester.

Some of the best advice I have received is to get really good at the basic stuff. Very simple but very true. Kobe Bryant could dribble and shoot free throws well, yet, he still spent countless hours working on keeping the muscle memory.

From this, looks pretty solid.

Squeeze could be a bit high.

WTSD% is a little low (range of 29 to 33%) is the range I recommend. Usually this indicates too much folding which you obviously aren't doing. My guess would be you are getting a bunch of bluffs through but are getting looked up quite a bit also (slowing down losing hands). This is likely reflected in the blue line.

WSD is on the high side but still ok.

Sample is tiny in the grand scheme of things. You are winning at 6bb/100 currently which is pretty darn good when you consider you are getting raked at about 10bb/100.

Keep up the good work.

You will probably get better advice if you list out some of the more common stats from your database. VPIP/PFR/3b/4b/Call 3b/Cbet Flop/C bet Turn/C bet River/Went To Showdown/Won $$$ at Showdown/Fold to Flop c bet/Fold to turn c bet/Fold to River c bet.

A few guesses can be made from the above graph:

#1-Blue line being affected by Yellow Line. You are clearly getting money in good and getting stomped at showdown.
#2-Showing down poorly. Could be from value betting thin and value cutting yourself. Could be from too much bluff catching/light calls.
#3-There was clearly something going on during that first 1600 hands that changed when you dropped stakes. What change did you make?
#4-You could be checking/trapping too much and missing out on value bets (biggest contributor to blue line). This is a big one. You become easy to play against if you are simply bluffing off with air and checking your good hands. This is not necessarily going on but it is something to investigate. Imagine when you bet a draw on the flop, get called, fill the draw on the turn and check, opponent checks back, you get to river and take the b/x/b line and are constantly getting folds. Red line gain and blue line sacrifice (missing value).

That being said, sample is quite small. I myself played 4000+ hands just last night on Zone/Zoom.

Curious what your Went To Showdown and your Won $ at Showdown are.

In my opinion, you made roughly a break even call and now have a very solid read. I would get him noted up and color coded so I am triggered to check the note(s) when he is at my table.

I am not the biggest fan of smaller bets IP on the river but it could make sense here. If we plan to bet fold, maybe consider 14 to 16bb sizing. I just don't think the call range, that we beat, is very wide. However, his raising range is likely to obliterate us.

Spots ugly for sure. As played, I guess bet/fold is right here. Tons of Ts and then KT/T8 has flopped nutted. I would think 99 would raise this dry turn so I would discount it somewhat from his river raise range.

I am curious about the flop check. What is your thought process?

Formation is wildly important. Compare UTG vs MP. MP never 3b 66. Mostly going with TT+, sometimes 99. We simply won't have 66/77/88/most 99 in our 3b range to begin with. Now look at BTN 3b vs CO. We are now mixing 66-TT and likely going pure with JJ+. Now we have decisions. Not in love with calling any 66-99 vs 4b and I honestly am not in love with calling TT.

IP vs OOP is wildly important. I would simplify to rarely ever call 4 bets. IP (see formation).

Stack Sizes? Deeper the more you can speculate. But, keep in mind, calling sometime like 77 150bb deep comes with the danger of always being on the bad end of set over set situations. They rarely will have 66-22 in the 4b line so getting into set over set situations where we win is very rare.

4 bet sizing? Very important, this goes without questions.

SPR? Call less vs shorties and call more when deeper with the range in question. Again, pretty darn important.

Pool and/or players 4b % and 4b range. Again, super important. Most pools/player 4b 15% of their range or less. UTG is the tightest RFI/4b range. Typical 17% RFI from UTG is 225 combos. 15% of that is @ 34 combos. QQ+ and AK is 34 combos.

In general, the simple fix is to really look at what is going on when you 3b with 66, then check 77, then check 88, etc. etc. Are you winning when you 3b these hands? Also, check what is going on when you have 5b opportunity (faced 4b). I think you will be surprised (sample size can skew results, you could have run hot after a bad preflop choice or you could have been cold decked when you made a good preflop choice).

https://gyazo.com/33aee4e3a57c9c722f50c400d561cf40

Don't fold ^^^^^. This range does not include KK. Line seems odd for KK but not out of the question. KK is one combo and changes our equity to @ 42%.

This is boats and top 2 pair as the only bets. Add one bluff and/or add A7s in there (no reason he can't be going for max value/protection) and it becomes a very easy call. You do have AQo sometimes, AJ/AT/pair+FD and not to mention a ton of FD's.

The interesting situation that arises is that hands like Q3/trips become better calls since you unblock combos of AK. See Below:

https://gyazo.com/ea351c39d0f793f32d31f00cb70ea233

Do you have history with the guy? How big is your sample vs his profile?

You have a rock solid read that he will use the bet size = hand strength strategy vs you in the medium/big/big line IP. Pretend, for a second, that you had that read on this guy, then I think it is much more reasonable to consider folding.

What formation?

IP or OOP?

Stack sizes?

SPR?

Pools/Players 4b % and/or 4b Range?

Sure thing.

Happy to see some activity in here.

I usually base my work around "typical" RFI ranges. I use Upswings personally, but there are a ton available. A lot of the RFI ranges you will find have parameters like 2.5bb sizing (aside from SB opens) and lower rake environments.

HJ looks good, usually high 80's is the goal. CO is quite low (could be a sample size thing), BTN looks fine.

This is just a check and balance process I use to make sure I am not opening up too many hands from UTG/MP/CO.

To me, the best place to start when leak finding is to start with the basics and nothing is more basic than RFI. It is simple to fix and it lays the foundation.

The bigger leaks start to creep in when guys are cold calling too much or folding too much (often from the blinds).

Just for reference, a crusher's winrate by position is going to look similar to this (this is overall winrate, not RFI winrate):

BB @ -30bb/100
SB @ -12bb/100
UTG @ 12bb/100
MP @ 18bb/100
CO @ 25bb/100
BTN @ 35bb/100

A breakeven player's winrate by position is going to look similar to this:

BB @ -44bb/100
SB @ -21bb/100
UTG @ 10bb/100
MP @ 15bb/100
CO @ 18bb/100
BTN @ 28bb/100

You mentioned you have a 68bb/100 when you RFI the SB. This is quite high, so my 1st thought would be that you are opening too tightly, thus you go in with a stronger range, thus your win rate is higher than standard. I would expect a win rate in the 30's when RFI from SB. The other factor in play, when in the SB, is if you are tight to open, you will be folding more often and the folds might be where a leak could be found.

Examples of the low hanging fruit (easier to fix leaks):

-RFI ranges
-3b ranges (too tight/too loose)
-RFI Face 3b (calling too many 3b, especially OOP)
-Cold Calling (this is a big one in high rake environments, and it gets magnified by the blue line nature of micro/low stakes)
-BB play (not check raising enough vs BTN in single raised pots, folding too much vs RFI, not stabbing enough turns/rivers, etc.)