yys1980-blog

[yys1980-blog]

Before you act

There are times when the action is so clear that you just went on autoreflex mode and do what you need to do. Your mind gave a resounding yes, just shove. But think again always, is that really the best move given the situation. 

- Who are the people left who may call your shove. 

- Did you underestimated the chances of being called

- Is it a good risk to take the shove

- Is there a better way to extract better value or avoid going bust

- Did you underestimated your chance of getting through with a wider range given the stage of the tournament

Always think again and again before committing. 

[yys1980-blog]

Against Good Players

The best way to approach playing with good players is to reduce their post flop advantage. And bring the battle to preflop and bring their battle to making Nash decisions. 

The Nash answers are the best answers to battle the good players. 

But against players weaker than you, playing Nash is a disaster for sure. 

[yys1980-blog]

Nash; Game Theory Optimal

Nash can be quite a liability in lower stakes games. Remember that Nash teaches you how to play optimally but optimally doesn’t necessarily means the highest EV or the highest profit.

There is always a better way than Nash after you factor in all info as accurately as possible. 

[yys1980-blog]

Satellite Poker : My Thoughts

So recently, I have been playing some poker satellites online. I didn’t really count my success rate, but I do gain tickets way more than the amount of buy in I have used. I have also won a handful of live satellites too. So perhaps I am doing something right. First, I may have less leaks playing short stack poker. Second, I understand better the intricacies of satellites to gain a bit more edge than the average population. 

I spent some time these few days doing 2 things. First i started to do some practice on the ICMIZER and also the SNG Coach on it. And I watched a few youtube videos from a poker pro name Dara O’Kearney who is good at poker satellites. 

Below are some of the take away points that i would like to share

Satellites are generally soft

Usually amateurs like to make of use sattys to take shot at bigger tourneys. Tourneys that is not within their bankroll to play. And this also simply means not within their skill level to manage. So if you are semi serious about poker, satty may easily be a good way for you to pick up some equity for a chance at bigger equity. 

Many people still cannot grasp the intricacies of sattys

In sattys we no longer play for a top heavy prize. Our equity is capped at the prize of one ticket. We are just essentially playing for a min cash to put it into perspective. So we should not be incentivized to accumulate all the chips. Our new goal should be getting enough chips value for 1 ticket and thread water to stay afloat above a comfortable cushion. Because of such nature, it thwarts the way should approach the middle and late game strategy.

Upward reward versus downward risk is highly biased

We should be trained to be more aware of the risk we are taking in the process of chipping up. And we should make use of this fact to play against our opponent (who may know or may not know this). This is where the edge of the game lies. 

Stack size determines the players’ tendencies to a big extend

Big stacks usually shuts down. Small stacks over folds to shoves, but generously open shoves close to Nash. Middle stacks, are the worst. They tend to overfold and undershove. So attack the middle stacks hard. Call off short stacks wider. Steal big stacks blinds aggressively. 

Late reg into satellites are profitable

If your short stack game is great. There is no shame to play these late with max rebuys. 

In short, satellites is just a different format to master. There are certainly very interesting spots to be mastered to crush this format. And given that amateurs will continue to see this as a quick and cheap way to gamble into a dream main event. This will continue to be a fun and profitable format of poker. 

[yys1980-blog]

To Exploit ; you need to first be Exploitable

Have you ever tried to react differently to someone in return expecting a different response just for the sake of breaking out of the usual chain reactions? I am sure you have tried with the person you quarreled the most. Maybe for a start, when you wanted to shout at someone, you chose to keep quiet just to expect a different reaction.

We can apply this to everything status quo and reap better and overwhelming results. 

Example : 

You open UTG with AA and gets 3-bet. You can do one of the below 3

a) 4 bet NAI

b) Flat

c) 4 bet All in

Optimally, you have one aim and only one aim, that is to get the opponent to put in more money before the flop and grow the pot. Logically, we naturally want to give him a good odd to call us by 4 bet NAI. This will induce him to call due to the good odds. The best way ? Or is this the clearest way to play our cards face up ?

If we flat, we do cap our range. And sometimes if SPR allows, it does make sense to just flat. But if we are deeper, maybe we can try to 4 bet all in, because this also cap our range. It will effectively remove AA and KK from our all in range. And biased it towards AK heavy. This will induce a call from every AK, KK, QQ and maybe some JJ all of which we dominate. 

Yes, we do fold out all the AJ, 88, 99, TT, AQ. But even if they call our 4 bet NAI, we are allowing them to play perfect post flop anyways. The upside post flop is capped. 

With all these consideration, maybe we can take a page out of this wisdom. To exploit, first we need to be exploitable.  

This play has serious future implications. When you crush your opponent’s all in with his QQ, he would be devastated. The rest of the table, would also be devastated. Suddenly, your next all in put them in a very difficult spot, and you will gain the extra fold equity for those who folded their JJ or QQ to you when you really have that AK. And perhaps, even getting away with AQ. last but not least, your 4 bet NAI, becomes harder to quantify too, simply because they saw how you stole a stack with a very well hidden AA. 

We can find other less extreme ways to apply this too. For example, limping at the button with during a shorter stack play. or limping from early position, or open raising unconventional sizes. 

[yys1980-blog]

My Family

[yys1980-blog]

What the game means to you

The week long 2017 Poker Masters event just ended. Somehow even though there are many good professionals playing the event, but the field is so small that I felt that it didn’t fully justify crowning a “poker master”.

The event is fun to watch on PokerGo. And I particularly find the chats between the players very insightful and enriching. It not only allowed us to take an inside peep on what each player is up to, their views on certain hot topics, it also allowed us to understand how a poker professional thinks.

Many of these professional players at the highest level do think of the game as part of their long term grind. So this means that the result of this series constitutes only a small part of their long term journey in this profession. That is actually how a proper poker professional approach their game.

At the same time, these two weeks I am also playing some online tournament poker. And often find myself switching on to PokerGo while playing into the late nights. It allowed me to think about some topics that I can probably want to write down with the aim of building some literature on the topic of poker.

It all boils down to what the game means to you. This determines how you will proceed with any poker game. At different point in time, poker takes on a different meaning. We all can say that everyone wants to win in poker. I think that is generally true. But whether they conduct themselves towards that goal is a totally different matter. And most of the time, that is not true at all.

Just like any other thing that we do, practice and study is always required to improve our skills. Poker is no exception. And in this day and age when poker has evolved to a stage where the gap between amateur and professional players is no longer as mouth watering as before, even more so one has to keep improving to stay at front of the pack.

During one of the games at Poker Masters, Phil Hellmuth said that he would play the young players as much as he can as he found them playing so badly. Fedor Holz did needle back saying that he would love to play him too. Clearly there is a different approach between the top players now versus the so called old school players like Phil Hellmuth. I would think that the younger generation players have got it all sorted out. The term GTO has popped up in recent years indicating a huge leap towards game optimal. So we are indeed moving towards playing a more perfect game now. Rewinding back to 20 years back where effective tools are not available to do help players, the new generation players are blessed (or cursed) with the availability of such powerful programs to help them become a great player.

So does this mean that Phil Hellmuth’s approach to the game is wrong ? If we look strictly at an Expected Value approach, then yes Phil is playing a losing game against the best players. But if the subject is just a recreational player, then we can argue that with the aim of playing only for that “one time”, this approach may just be a great way of increasing his entertainment value whilst having a shot at that “one time”. So why not.

In the journey of learning the game, I find myself weighing out the game with more and more variables. When I just started playing poker, it was just for the thrill of winning, catching good cards, trapping people. But as I grow my knowledge along the way, I realize there is a academic path to success in this game. And I have always been an advocate of approach the game theoretically, mathematically and logically. Then I started to include the non-theory aspects when evaluating the game. Things like what the game means to an individual. There are so many other aspects of the game other than pure financials. Some play for fame, some play as an addiction, some play for the social bonding, some play as an escape etc etc. When we start to weigh these in, the game may have taken a different light to that person, so vastly different from the way a German young professional poker player sees it.

This brings my attention back to a phrase I used to use as a word of wisdom in poker. That is ” to exploit, you need to be exploitable”.  I asked myself, how can excel against a table of professionals online or in live. How do I avoid being bad beat by a professional who shoves or call me unexploitably. With that I actually made a considerable change in my tournament game now. I am taking a few steps back from GTO, but concentrate more on grasping the table better in aspects often which other weaker players fail to notice. Stack size, card ranges, game stages etc etc which I feel it is an area that I do excel in keep an eye on.

I am perhaps a more Phil Hellmuth kind of player rather than a Fedor Holz kind of player. When you play GTO by open raise any Ax hands, you are living on the knife edge. You need to be way sharper than the other GTO guy to compound that thin edge into a tournament win. Where as if you have played it like Hellmuth, you don’t dance around with your chips spilling due to uncertain folds. You build your stack with a confident bet, knowing that you are very often good to win or get through. That is what I call comfortable poker. Poker can be comfortable yet with a good chance of a one time. I have personally enjoyed that run. As an informed amateur player, I think that is the sweet spot that I enjoy being in.

You are what the game means to you. It is all a reflection of yourself.