Grinderella's Leak Series

Grinderella

Grinderella

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Dear Cardschat,


I’m writing this post to inspire beginners and struggling players to think about Poker in a different way. I’ve recently seen a huge improvement in my game and win rate. Not because of playing more hands or getting better at any particular skill, but because of taking the time out to study myself as a player, being on the rail and standing back to watch the action. Recently I decided to take a whole week off from playing at the tables. I did this because I wanted to spend the time studying my play (Instead of grinding away the day with the same leaks and bad habits). So I self excluded for 1 week and got started. I sat down with a pen/pad, with the hand history replayer open and the HUD stats I had collected over a sample of 50,000 hands. I began looking into which hand types/categories were bleeding off my bb/100 and in which situations I was losing the most chips. What I found really surprised me, and I can guarantee that if you decide to do your own review and watch yourself playing, you will 100% improve as a player. You will at the very least get a good laugh out of watching yourself donking off stacks needlessly cause you were (Tired, Sick, Tilting, Angry, Suckout Steamed & Spewing, Depressed, Under Rolled, Underskilled, Entitled to the pot, playing too many tables … whatever) The list of excuses is infinite, your bankroll is not.


So here it is, the results of my week long hand history review. I hope that these leaks that I found in my game will help you to identify similar issues in your own game (assuming you haven’t plugged them already). I don't want to drown the forum in a massive amount of info so I am going to post ONE leak every day on this thread for the next month and maybe longer and I hope that reading about them will help you as much as it has helped me.


One last note before I get started, it is important especially for beginners to understand how I was able to get this information. So here is a very quick 5 step leak busting guide.



  • Open your HUD (Holdem Manager or Poker Tracker etc)
  • Go to the reports section and bring up the entire list of hand histories.
  • Filter by hands where money was lost and list in decreasing order (Worst losses at the top).
  • Filter by hand types (E.g Suited Connectors, Premiums, Gappers, Big Ace Hands etc etc) and list these in order of largest losses*.
  • Study each hand category carefully and make notes as you watch hands unfold. In these notes, write down what you think you did wrong and ask yourself: “In what table positions have I been losing money? With what kinds of hands have I been losing it? How can I use this knowledge to become a stronger player?” Once you have identified WHERE the leaks are, then you can begin to use books, forums and videos to learn HOW to plug them.


*The key thing here is knowing which kinds of hands that are causing you the most problems. This is crucial knowledge and will help you to decide which hands you need to trim from your ranges. Improving your pre-flop hand selections based on position will do wonders for your winrate.





DO YOU HAVE THIS LEAK?




Leak 1 - “Calling too many raises with suited 1,2 or 3 gappers”

Yes these hands can be monsters when they smash the flop, but they don’t hit often enough to make frequent calls worth it. Also, wider gaps between ranks means less chance that the gaps will fill draws. My advice is to stick with suited connectors and dump the rest. I was playing way too many of these kinds of spec hands and they were bleeding me dry. But maybe throw in the odd 1-2 gapper every so often to balance your range and throw off hand readers.






See you tomorrow for Leak 2.
 
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IPlay

IPlay

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Nice, I'm planning on some review the next few days. I'll try out this method and see what I can dig up. I'll be following along
 
Grinderella

Grinderella

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Leak 2 - “Failing to interpret opponent ranges properly before acting”

There were many times during hands where I made dumb raises against players whose ranges were absolutely crushing mine. For example: In one particular hand I watched myself 3Bet a Nitty-ish UTG raiser from the BTN because “I had position, and he had a high Foldto3bet stat”. However, I failed to notice that his “High” Foldto3bet stat was only high when he was in late position. This was because his opening range had widened towards the button and now contained more junk. But his EP PFR was still only 3%, and I missed this because I was so focused on his Foldto3bet. On several occasions I would get 4Bet and then I would 5bet shove “Cause I was bluff catching” …. Only to get absolutely crushed by {AA KK}. Be careful reading your stats! A big thanks to IPlay & Braveslice for their help on this topic.


Position,Position, Position! ….. Range, Range, Range!
 
Grinderella

Grinderella

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Leak 3 - “Playing above my bankroll”

Leak 3 - “Playing above my bankroll”

During my hand history review, I found hands from tables that I should never have been at to begin with. After a bad session of NL2 mixed with NL5, I was on tilt and sitting down at NL25/NL50 (trying to get a Quick bankroll Fix)... very silly behaviour. Needless to say, this was a disaster and I almost wiped out my roll. Just for any beginners reading, this is a major leak. I should have logged off as soon as I felt the first wave of tilt but we live and learn.
I would not recommend sitting down at a cash table with less than 20x buy-ins for that limit. Poker is a game of high variance and ‘cheating on your bankroll’ as they say is the easiest way to lose it. Here are some numbers to look at but as always, decide what’s right for you. The following image is the number of buy-ins that I personally feel comfortable at. I make better decisions that are based on correct strategy and not on bankroll protection. Observant opponents will sniff out loss prevention fear and will begin raising you with impunity. I’ve learned now that the best defence is a big bankroll, and a “Log-off” plan ready for when tilt comes knocking.


Cash Game Players Minimum Bankroll Recommended 20x Buy Ins
SNG* PlayersMinimum Bankroll Recommended 40x Buy Ins
MTT* PlayersMinimum Bankroll Recommended 80x Buy Ins


* SNG/MTT Variance is much higher due to the size of the fields in play, and rising blinds/antes forcing players to take more chances.


Final Notes: If you multi-table cash games, I would recommend at least 20 Buy Ins for each table you play. E.g If you 4-table at NL2, then I suggest at least 80 Buyins behind or (4 x 20 x $2) = $160 Bankroll (or $240 with the 30x system). But it’s totally up to you! Every player is different. If you’re a loose aggressive style player then your variance is going to be much higher on average, and I recommend you double the above guidelines. If you’re more passive, nitty or Tag then you should be fine.

Cash Game Bankrolls
(See Attached Image)
 

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midni7e7oker

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Helpful, straightforward. I give it 3 thumbs up.
 
Grinderella

Grinderella

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Leak 4

Leak 4 - “Hero Calling the River too much”

The next big leak I found in my hand history review was a ridiculously high frequency of large river bet calls. We’ve all been there. You’re coasting along through the hand with your two pair or turned straight. The River seems to brick off and you make a final value bet to finish the hand off nicely. All of a sudden the other guy jams on you, and this is where the trouble begins. We stare at the screen in disbelief and tell ourselves ... “no way man! This is my pot, it’s hero time! … justice must be restored to the galaxy” ... We refuse to believe that we have been outdrawn and just HAVE to make the big call. Well I analysed this exact situation over 50,000 hands. About 80% of the time when I made the call, I got crushed, and the other 20% of the time I caught some bluffs and fishy play. That’s a lot of times being wrong and not enough being right. Let’s look at a simple and very familiar example. Cards are not revealed as they are not important here. We will assume a standard cbet size of 0.66x on all streets and both players start with 100bb.

Hero Stack (100bb)
Villain Stack (100bb)
Blinds Posted (1bb + 0.5bb)
Hero UTG Open Raises 3bb with XX
Villain BTN Flat Calls (3bb) with YY
Hero Stack (97bb)
Villain Stack (97bb)

Pot on the Flop
= 1bb + 0.5bb + 3bb + 3bb
= 7.5bb

Hero makes a standard cbet of 5bb
Villain Calls
Hero Stack (92bb)
Villain Stack (92bb)
Pot on the Turn
= 7.5bb + 5bb + 5bb = 17.5bb

Hero continues again 12bb
Villain Calls
Hero Stack (80bb)
Villain Stack (80bb)

Pot on the River
= 17.5bb + 12bb + 12bb
= 41.5bb

Now here’s where it gets interesting
Hero makes the final cbet of 27bb
Villain out of nowhere jams in his last 80bb.

Hero Stack (53bb)
Villain Stack (0bb)
Pot = 41.5bb + 27bb + 80bb = 148.6bb


In terms of equity? The call is 53bb and the reward is 148.6bb so often times I said to myself in these spots … “Ok I need (53/148.6) or 35% equity to make this call and my hand strength is enough here, so I’m going for it”. BUT what I FAILED to ask myself was: “Do I really have the equity I need I here, based on my opponent’s actions? A sudden river shove after previous streets of passive actions just screams strength but I just had to keep making the big calls. Most of the time running into sets, stronger two pairs and concealed gutshots that filled on the last card. Each time grossly over-estimating my equity.

Looking at this purely from an EV perspective:

We were wrong 80% of the time
We were right 20% of the time
When we were right, we won 148.5bb
When we were wrong, we lost* 53bb


Calculating the EV:


EV (Call) = (%Right)*(bb gained) + (%Wrong)*(-bb Lost)
EV (Call) = (0.20)*(148.5bb) + (0.80)*(53bb)
EV(Call) = 29.7bb - 42.4bb
EV(Call) = -12.7bb


It's not difficult to see that in my particular case, I should have been folding a lot more than I was. And it all comes down to getting to know yourself and your habits/tendencies. There's a great podcast available from 'SmartPokerStudy' that deals with the topic of facing large river bets and jams and I recommend you check that out. The take home message is this: Most of the time, when a sudden big bet happens on the river, you're beaten and you should fold (Unless you know 100% that you have the nuts). If you always call these bets then you are going to be bleeding off your bankroll.


So if you have this leak too, then start folding your way to a higher winrate. See you tomorrow for Leak 5.


G

 
O

Orin

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Thanks for posting this man! Leak #4 really hit me where it hurts - I'm definitely guilty of this one but was justifying it on the basis that I hate to get bluffed off the pot. need to think about this one and go calculate my own stats here...
 
IPlay

IPlay

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I'd recommend 20 buy ins for taking a shot, closer to 30+ buy ins for grinding any certain stake.
 
Grinderella

Grinderella

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Leak 5

Leak 5 - “Calling Gutshots with the intention of folding when we miss”

This “One and done” leak stood out like a sore thumb in my hand history review. In many situations where I lost a significant number of bets, I had a gutshot draw and felt that it had the potential to improve to monster on a later street. There’s no better feeling postflop than having an unlikely draw that fills, and gutshots are a good example. We know that there’s 4 cards left out of an available 47 which will fill our concealed monster and get us paid off (if Villain hasn't already got one of them, or a card we need was folded). We almost begin visualising that next magic card coming as the one we want it to be, and oftentimes pay too much for the privilege. The probability of hitting a gutshot on the turn = (4/47) = 8.5%


Recall from Leak 4 - “Hero Calling the River too much” we worked out a pot size on the flop of about 7.5 big blinds which is often the case with 2 players to the flop. A 0.66x cbet on the flop is then 5bb, and so the pot is giving us (5/12.5) or 40% Equity needed for a call. The 8.5% chance of us hitting our gutshot (plus any potential pair/two pair equity) is not enough to reach 40% and our call is not profitable.


Pot Size on Flop = 7.5bb


Potental Winnings if we hit - River pot size (Assuming 0.66x cbets) = 41bb
(We know that if we shove, most good regs will smell a set or made draw and fold the river but if we value bet they might call to catch a bluff and we can pick up one more bet)




If the Villain calls our 3rd bullet of 0.66x then:
Our Potential Winnings = River Pot Size + Cbet Size*(River Pot Size)
= 41bb + (0.66)*(41bb) = 68bb




Amount lost by calling the Flop and Folding the Turn = (0.66)(7.5bb) = 5bb


Chance of Hitting Gutshot = 0.085 (8.5%)

Chance of Not Hitting Gutshot = 0.915 (91.5%)



EV of Drawing to a Gutshot Vs. Good Regs
EV = (%Hit)*(bb won) + (%Miss)*(bb lost)
EV = (0.085)*(68bb) + (0.915)*(-5bb)


EV (Flop Call) = 5.78bb -4.575bb = About 1bb



Sounds ok right? But there's a problem. This answer assumes they will fire 3 bullets in a row which is a stretch to hope for. Most Good players will be checking at least one street to control the pot, and check-folding to multiple calls. After a flop and turn call they will suspect a monster hand is letting them hang themselves, and therefore the amount we can potentially win here is less than we think. This pushes our flop call into -EV.




SO! Summing it all up. Against good regs, we are approximately break even at best or in negative EV land in drawing to our gutshot When we are on the flop and faced with a strong bet, we know that it is mathematically incorrect to call and we should fold. We also know that the “Implied Odds” which we think we have, are not as high as we pretend they are. Good players will be reading our ranges and examining board textures and so are unlikely to pay off the amounts that make drawing correct.




To draw profitably we need villains to either check or make tiny cbets, say 1bb into a pot of 10bb. Therfore we can play gutshots in position against fish, check raisers and bad regs who size their bets too small to deny draws. Against regs, just fold! You know that the chance of it hitting is ridiculous. Don’t get led astray by thoughts like “His range is so tight, Imagine the implied odds I have here, if it hits I’m gonna bust him”. No. Stop that. Just fold.





Stay tuned for Leak 6.
 
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T

Tricky123bet

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Really good thread. You show some real dedication to the game of poker and will become a lot better at it a lot faster for doing this.
I recognise a lot of these leaks from my own game and you are not only doing yourself a favour, but also others who are eager to learn from their mistakes. Now we can also learn from yours :)
Subbed.
 
Grinderella

Grinderella

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Thank You

Thanks for the comments guys. Always great to get some feedback. Next leak is in progress.

G
 
Grinderella

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Leak 6

Leak 6 - Taking draws too far - Part 1 of 4 - “Open Ended Straight Draws”

The next 4 posts will be dedicated to the other kinds of ‘Come from behind’ hands which we face every day and give way too much action with. In addition to gutshots on the flop, we can also have (Open ended straight draws, backdoor flush and straight draws, straight flush draws, a weak pair trying to hit a set or two pair drawing to a full house). Looking at each of these different categories in my hand history I was able to identify 4 basic flop situations.


1. You’re behind. You can overtake them.
2. You’re behind. You’re unlikely to overtake them.
3. You’re ahead. They can overtake you.
4. You’re ahead. They’re unlikely to overtake you.




In each of these 4 different situations, we are essentially playing a guessing game. If we’re paying as much attention as we should be, then we have a decent idea of our opponent’s range by position and how the flop has hit them. Each time we go to the flop we will have some idea of which situation (1-4) we are in and try to plan our lines effectively. Over the next 4 days I’ll be looking at each of these situations separately and describing the types of draws involved.


1. You’re behind. You can overtake them.


The flop has just arrived and we have an OESD (Open Ended Straight Draw). We’ve been dealt {7c 8c} and the board has come {9d Ts Ah}. Let’s say in this case we called a standard raise on the button from a Nit in EP with a 3% EP opening range (JJ+ AKo AQs+, 44 Combos}. This range would normally contain 26 combos of Ace-Hands, but we can reduce this to 18 as the Ace of hearts is accounted for. The missing Ah has also reduced the total combos in the range from 44 to 36. So there’s about an (18/36) or 50% chance that the board Ace hit our opponent’s range. We can therefore reasonably guess that we’re in Situation 1. We’re behind now but we can overtake later in the hand. Our Villain likes their Ace on board and value bets 0.66x (5bb into a pot of 7.5bb). There are 8 cards in the deck which will complete our straight {6h 6c 6s 6d Jh J c Js Jd} and we have 47 unseen cards. The probability of us hitting our draw is therefore (8/47) or 17%. His flop bet size of 0.66x requires us to have 40% equity to continue (See Leak 5 for detailed Math on this).




Most players (including me) in this situation can get hypnotised by the implied odds of hitting a straight vs. a strong Ace, and make a flop call they really shouldn’t. In Leak 5 we were drawing to hit a gutshot which was a silly idea given the narrow odds of hitting (8.5%). Yes with an OESD, we have double those odds (17%) but this is still not enough to justify making a call that needs 40% equity to continue. We can’t use “Implied Odds” as our reason to call, because how are we going to make money? Our opponent is a good reg who is reading the board and analysing our depolarised range. He/she knows that we are a good player who is balancing our hands well, and will proceed carefully when a straight making card hits the board. This makes it difficult to extract value, and makes the decision to draw incorrect from an EV perspective.




A better adjustment is to fold these weak draws to their cbet and wait for a situation where the board has two clubs on it in addition to our straight outs. E.g. {7c 8c} on a board of {9c Ts Ac}. In this case we would have 6 outs to hit a straight {6h 6s 6d Jh Js Jd} and 9 additional flush outs {2c 3c 4c 5c 6c Tc Jc Qc Kc} giving us a total of 15 outs on the turn and river to hit a hand that crushes our opponent’s A-x. In this situation we would now have approximately 32% equity which makes an implied odds call a lot more attractive than the 17% we had before.



So! Here’s the take home lesson for today. In plugging the OESD leak you need to take two specific actions.




  • Remove all non-suited connectors from your range (Except broadways). Non-suited connectors are weak because they do not have the “backup equity” of suited connectors. When we flop an open ended draw, we would also like to have the possibility of hitting a flush in case the straight misses. Why would you go to any flop without this extra equity? Stay suited!



  • Don’t play suited connectors below 54s. The reason for this is mathematically very simple.



A2s has only 1 way to complete a straight


A 2 3 4 5


32s only has 2 ways to complete a straight

A 2 3 4 5
2 3 4 5 6


43s only has 3 ways to complete a straight

A 2 3 4 5
2 3 4 5 6
3 4 5 6 7


54s and any small connectors above this always have at least 4 ways to complete a straight.

A 2 3 4 5
2 3 4 5 6
3 4 5 6 7
4 5 6 7 8

65s

2 3 4 5 6
3 4 5 6 7
4 5 6 7 8
5 6 7 8 9

76s

3 4 5 6 7
4 5 6 7 8
5 6 7 8 9
6 7 8 9 T

Etc etc

So by staying at 54s and above, we ensure that we are always hitting the flop with maximum straight and flush equity. The only exception really is A2s which can make top pair or the nut flush, but you can use this hand to tune your range and add/remove it as you see fit.



Hope you enjoyed reading and got something out of it. Any questions, please post them below. See you tomorrow for Leak 7.




G
 
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Trillian

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Great thread. I had definitely fallen to #4 and #5. Thanks for your time and efforts. I'll stay tuned.
 
B

braveslice

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Great topic, and very well made arguments.
Unfortunately like a true lurker, my first post on the topic is a small eew?

Leak 6 - 1. You’re behind. You can overtake them.
I got your post right? It’s against common thinking that folding to simple CB from villain while having OESD is right, instead you should be pondering between raising or calling.

I suggest you first count EV for the call, then this number tells you how much you need to win on later streets to make it break even.

Also OESD is not a weak draw by default, it’s only weak if completing the draw gives opponent better hands.
 
Grinderella

Grinderella

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Thank you guys for your support. Due to tiredness after overgrinding this week, I made some small errors in the math above. Very minor and shouldn't affect the outcomes too much but I will be doing a 'correction' post on it soon. Stand by.

G
 
D

davidhoyle107

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Great thread. I bet I'd probably find 3 betting and calling 3 bets too often to be a leak in my game.
 
Grinderella

Grinderella

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Thanks David. Yes your hand histories will reveal all of those issues. Just filter by Hero 3Bet > Lost pot, and Called Villain 3Bet > Lost Pot (Whatever way you can do that on your HUD software). I'll have the next leaks up soon. I've been getting some great questions and helpful messages from other players which i'm working through. There will be a short delay while I check over a few things. Really glad to be here on CC. Incredible people and expertise. Thank you all.
 
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