Analyzing for a Beginner

As in everything there is both.


Here's a question-- If I get pokerstove and go through my HHs and form ranges for villains and then calculate EVs, will I start to get an intuitive feel for EVs?


I feel like I pretty much answered that one for myself

I'm reading SSHE again. This book is holding together extremely well compared to the Jones book. Considering how often this book is open I'm actually VERY srprised its still together.

On my next list of things to be doing --> The list of things to do when observing and getting an intuitive feel for EVs using pokerstove and my hand histories. These are things that very good players do without thinking, and right now I have to REMIND myself to THINK about it and then THINK about it before it even starts to happen. I know people don't calculate EV in their head, but they still have a good idea of what's going on. Second is I'm going to start analyzing sessions more often instead of just hands, including other peoples sessions. Analyzing individual hands will only show me one situation at a time, but if I sit down and review a whole session, patterns in my play (or whoever's play) become FAR more apparent.

what's less EV-- check a flop with 2 to a flush to avoid giving odds to a draw, or putting money in to bet and giving them good odds?

Even after reading SSHE what seems like a million times, I still feel like I should go back and read every possible strategy article on this site.

I think somewhere else I read that "Betting might give them good odds to call (say 6:1), but checking gives them INFINITELY better odds (6:0)"


So I guess it depends what you hold. Because if they only have 20% pot equity in a pot of 8 people/bets they would always be correct to call, but YOU might have the rest of the equity because of your sweet 2 pair/set, so it's obviously correct for you to bet, and for them to call, but if you only have a weak top pair (say T) then your equity is a lot less because any JQKA will kill you too.


Interesting.

So in these situations, you BOTH have +EV. I was forgetting to consider that if they had +EV by getting correct odds, YOU could still have +EV too, because it's your 5 villains that are making mistakes.

Thanks Fpau

My pleasure.

People will NEVER stop hitting the river!Poker is, afterall, not only a game of skill, which comes in time, but one of LUCK! Some people were lucky along the Mississippi, and some weren't!

Soo....

Just an update...

c9 convinced me to play a micro SnG. With his help I placed 3rd in an 18 man 1.75 winning 5.70. I played another and won 1st winning 10.70.


So I rule at SnGs and so does c9. Mostly him, I played one without him and only got 6th.


My bankroll is back in action baby!

I lost liek 4 SnG's after that. I lost one earlier today, and I hit money 2 times in a row just now. This is addicting.

I played 2 after that and broke completely even now.

Now I'm 3 tabling limit and making BANK. Multitabling seems a lot easier than single tabling because I can only focus on the most pertinent details of the hand (position, pot size, limpers).

Very interesting thread.

From reading your first posts and how you've absorbed FP's wisdom which has had a great impact on your skill has got to be an inspiration to all of the new players. Just a few posts back you were a bit afraid of trying multitabling and now you're suceeding!

Whle playing 1 table helps you get completely involved with every single move made in the game, multi-tabling forces one to only play better quality hands and not mess around when you're in a hand. Next thing ya know we'll be reading about you 16 tabling!

Congrat's on your achievements Shag! Just remember that as with life, Poker is a game where learning is a life long persuit. (and FP is one hell of a good teacher!)

haha well that's exactly why I think I'm doing better on multiple tables. If you read my sessions it was obvious I had a problem laying hands down when they were clearly beat. Now I get AA like every 5 minutes so when the board comes up 678 suited it's easy to fold.

Basically it forces me to make quicker more efficient decisions instead of subconsciously just wanting to play or thinking I can make a move.


PokerStars thanks for the complement, i think it's great that there's such a supportive board.

Oh god but I still call down with 2 pair and see better 2 pairs and runner runner straights hahaha

Alright so I went out and bought a book on SnG's by Collin Moshman after c9 piqued my interest in them. Unfortunately I quickly realized that after ONLY playing LHE for so long I really have no fundamentals in NLHE.

Which book is best to start there? I was thinking HoH but that's even tournament play specific.... Is there something that just discusses the theories of NLHE?

I'm whimsical.

I finished Moshman's book with a study guide, and bought Theory of Poker. Will spend a long time grinding micro limits until I've really got a solid background there.

On another note, my success at multitabling makes me think that all SSHE taught me was to be a real nit post flop....

Thank you eaglezoner for your explanation of position. This is the first time I have understood exactly what it means with relationship to my hands.

I feel like a big part of my improvement was noticing that I'm not supposed to just follow what position to play what blindly because that's not the point. some hands are profitable IN POSITION for certain reasons that would make them unprofitable IN POSITION if you didn't notice. Like playing a small pocket pair in late position still sucks if no one else is in the pot. But playing it from late position also sucks if everyone in the pot is cold calling the capped bets.



Okay so I'm now grinding away and seeing big profits/improvement. I just went 150 hands and I'm up like 40BBs and on my bad runs I'm only down MAYBE 10 BBs.

How many BBs/hands should I be looking at as a target? My BR is $44 and I'm looking to hit $60 before I move to the next limit, .1/.2

Learning that the hand chart is not set in stone is like the first big milestone. Congrats on attaining profitability.

Okay so I'm starting to set goals for different areas in my life, and here's my goal plan for poker.


5,000 hands per month minimum. So by New Years I'll be grinding the profit in on .5/1 stakes. I've got like 25 thousand hands by then if I start in september, but I can do WAY more than 5k/mo. until september so I'm getting a head start. AND that's just the minimum. That means I need a $300 BR by then too, so maybe a $600 BR is possible by March, and $1k by next June? If I hit $1k I'm done with LHE and I'm going to start playing real poker lolz



Does that sound like a realistic pace? I haven't actually crunched the numbers on BB/hands to see if I can make the BR fit like that though. What's a decent/possible BB/hands for micro stakes LHE?

I wanted to revise my plan to something more specific and quantifiable.

Hands Goal: 5,000 per month minimum, 25,000 by New Years.
Bankroll Goal: $300 by New Year's.

Reading Goals: Monthly read through of SSHE, and monthly read through of Theory of Poker. That should really be kind of easy once I've gotten through ToP for the first time.

Analysis Goals: Analyze a session (300 hands dealt) at LEAST once every two weeks, preferably once a week.


I'm not positive that $300 is realistic in this time frame. It seems like I could once I start moving up limits but this first stepping stone past .5/.1 is taking a long time hahaha.

If I can maintain this schedule until New Year's and reach those goals, I'm going to treat myself to NLHTAP and PNLHE and get back to work

Okay so I just ground out about 650 hands over 3 tables and broke about 3 or 4 BB's less than even after starting out very very poorly and bringing it back in the final 50 or so.

On one table (meaning maybe 200ish hands) I saw a guy make 80 BB's, from $6 to $14 + with plays like this---

- cold calls against 3 people with 92s
- limping/calling raise with 45o
- betting an under pair all the way to the river
- calling a PF raiser all the way to river with KTo and middle pair (the T)
- cold calls 67o
- playing literally any ace
- limping with J9o in middle position
- raising J9o


It's pretty discouraging to see someone playing like this make so much money in a sitting. It makes me second-guess everything I've learned about playing low-limits, because there really doesn't seem to be a reliable strategy. Obviously that's results-oriented but that's how it FEELS

Oh well. Will post a session analysis hopefully int he next couple days (650 hands... lol).

A bit of a milestone-->

I'm officially "making money" in the sense that I'm now above my original deposit. I'm still in the middle of a session but I'm up a dollar at about $51 compared to my original deposit of.... $50.

Still important!!

[congratulations]Well done![/congratualtions]

I'm on a sick heater right now, I was at $51 at the start of this session, lost $1.50 immediately, and now I'm up over 60 BBs, I think somewhere around $59.

That means I'm SO close to being officially bankrolled for the next level, FINALLY.

Yes I do sit and read through my hands. I copy and paste/screenshot alot. I agree with dorkus. Placing the 1,2,3 comments on your post will help seasoned vetrans comment. Which inturn will help. Grat post
Peace

Oh my god. I hit $60, strted playing .1/.2 and now I'm almost back down to $50.

The skill difference is just ridiculous between different players. Now there are players that are way better than in the .05/.1 but there are players that are SO much worse than anyone I've played against. It makes it REALLY hard to use any kind of read, instead I'm trying to just play EXTREMELY nitty.

$75!!!


my bankroll has officially increased by %50 of my original deposit

Back down to $60. Crying myself to sleep at night.

Is there a book that has a comprehensive list of common pot equities/odds?

No need to worry about being down a little, overall you're ahead of the game. Maybe tighten up a little and don't fret about the maniac players too much. They will always be around, just bide your time for the right hands and they will pay you well.

Keep posting and reading FP's articles, (priceless info, imho)

Good god I'm just getting slaughtered every time I sit down. How big of downswing do you guys take before you think MAYBE you're doing something wrong?


I'm about THIS close to taking 3 or 4 days off to reread SSHE again and analyze 3 or 4 thousand hands. It's been a couple weeks.

Down significantly more. Went down to .05/.1 to see how I fared, a little below break even over a few hours time.

Will take tomorrow off to re-read SSHE. Then will decide next course of action. I think I need to go back and try playing a lot looser PF but nittier post flop. Playing too tight pre AND post flop gets me nowhere, playing too loose post flop gets me nowhere. Playing looser preflop seems like an option....

Stop being results oriented.

Damn! You're right!

It's hard to see how I could be doing everything right when I'm losing this much money. On one hand, I understand why results oriented thinking is a problem, because you play QQ and lose one time and you think queens suck. On the other hand, results are what we want, so I think if we go long enough without results we have to question our process to MAKE SURE we are doing it right. Maybe if I was phil ivey I'd know that my process was good, but since I'm still a beginner it makes sense that maybe something in my process is no good.

I'm going to go through a couple hand histories and see what I think. I'm almost finished re-reading SSHE (it's a breeze after this many times through). Plus I'm about to finish ToP as well.

Sure, a downswing is a good spot to pause & study your game for a bit, but its not a good time to be making drastic changes to it. Your confidence is usually shot, and your poker judgment is usually impaired. You should be reading up and refining your game as a consistent, on-going process.

I took a look through some hand histories for the past couple days. Seems like this downswing is more like a REALLY tough run of luck. I'll go a hundred hands without anything playable, get queens and and raise/reraise PF, only to have a king and an ace come. So my confidence is restored a little because it seems like I'm not making too many errors as much as just getting unlucky. Like the pot will reach 15 or 20 BBs and the river puts 4 to a straight giving the gutshot his card when I had a set or something.

I'm STILL taking today off to re-read SSHE and patrol the strategy articles here. And of course continuing to look through hand histories for any sign of weakness.