Duggs 1000th Post

duggs

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Figured a synopsis of the major points iv learned would be useful for the (few) keen tournament players out there.

DISCLAIMER: alot of the below is my personal opinion and may be grossly incorrect/outdated/misguided.

Anyway this is just the first post and ill probably post my musings and thoughts in here in future.

HAND RANGING
the easiest way to start learning to do this is to assign a preflop range based on opponents aggressiveness, stats, position, stack size, stage of tournament into account preflop. and on the flop we want to look at the flop texture, bet sizing, tendencies of our opponents, and any relevant history between us.

The biggest step to beginning to do this more accurately is to start preflop and have a range going to the flop as the cards come out, and so on for the turn and river. so that each street we only consider hands that make sense up until that point, ie he cant suddenly have a rivered set in his range if he never calls the turn with 33 on a AK78r board.

The final step is to understand the number of combinations of hands that a player has for each hand, for example with AA on a 247 flop and assuming opponent flats our raise with all pairs up to JJ and raise/gets it in with 88-JJ and sets in on this flop.
then we beat 88, 99, 1010 and JJ, and lose to 22 44 77. which looks slightly ahead of their range. however in actuality we lose to 3 combos of each set (there are 6 ways for a pp to be dealt with 4 cards and only 3 ways with 3 cards) so 9 combos we lose to and 24 combos we beat, so getting it in becomes a much more favourable situation than first thought.


BET SIZING,
its important to understand why we adjust our bet sizing to be smaller as our stack depths grow shallower, it allows us to steal more effectively (as our success rate can be significantly lower with smaller sizing) it allows us more maneuverability post flop as it allows our cbet and turn sizing to be smaller.

the most useful thing I have found with bet sizing is to remember it is exponential and that we can manipulate our bet sizing to create awkward stack sizes or get max value or fold equity.

as a general rule of thumb i start at 3x pre and move closer to eventually minraising as the tournament progresses. in terms of flop cbet sizing i start around 1/2 to 55% pot and towards the end stages of final table may be cbetting as low as 30% to 33% pot.

against opponents who dont really pay attention or notice things, you can adjust your sizing to achieve the desired result of maximizing value or achieving fold equity with minimum expense, however vs more difficult opponents its important to keep our bet sizing consistent.

3BETTING

Generally speaking i dont 3bet much until antes come in, but in later stages i 3bet alot (probably too much), I like to 3bet alot of Ax and Kx blockers and other garbage hands that i dont think play well postflop. the range and times i 3bet is very opponent dependent,

if villians raise a wide range and will flat most of it too a 3bet and fold play fit/fold post flop. then 3betting a wide value range aswell as hands that flop well but arent necessarily ahead of his opening range like 78s 89s works well as the times he doesnt fold flop we see 4 cards to gain some equity or draws.

If villain raises a wide range and only flats IP and only 4bets a small value range, then i 3bet light quite liberally IP with most Ax and Kx blockers and will flat hands like KQs and JJ+ AJ+ that play better v his opening range and sucky v his 4betting range.

I tend to 3bet light a relatively large amount from SB and BB facing mp/lp openers as we cant play very well oop v them and our range looks very strong given positions.

4BETTING

cold 4bets are great v an active opener and someone that you perceive as having both the ability to 3bet light, and the ability to 3bet/fold. for example
you all have 50bb and it is post ante, Button is opening any two and folds to 3bets a huge % of the time, active 3bettor 2.5x it. this is an ideal time to put in a light cold 4bet (assuming you dont give enough credit or history to the button or sb to give you a light range here) since stacks are easily deep enough for both to fold the hand comfortably. also, SB cant just flat your raise as he will be playing the hand out of position against your polarised (or perceived as nutted) range.

putting in 4bets is quite read dependent as some players will only 3bet hands that they have no intention of ever folding, but vs competent opponents 4betting can be a good counter to aggressive 3betting as they will be forced to fold without more information on your ability to do this light.

Finally one of the biggest quotes regarding tournament poker is that if you arent capable of 3/4/5/6 betting light when you think the situation calls for, then you arent cut out for poker.


Anyway thats all for now ill add some more stuff later.
Big thanks to everyone at CC for posting all the interesting stuff (especially the cash guys iv been lurking your threads for a year now)
 
Debi

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Congrats on 1k posts! I don't have time for a lengthy review of your post now but will take a look at it later!
 
talking2rocks911

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That is funny, the congrats comes from someone with 34k posts... lol we'll my post number should make you feel quite good about your 1k posts
 
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Interesting post duggs. Good to see another tourney player around here. Like your comments about bet sizing. It's probably the biggest improvement I've made in the past year. 3 and 4 betting is something I definitely don't do enough of so will have to try and bring it into my game.

Congrats on the 1k.
 
Worak

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Congrats on 1K and at first glance I can't find any major faults in your post (but that's just me e.g. that means nothing :rolleyes: ).
 
Daniel72

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Nice post, congratulation ! The bet sizing is one of the most important topics in poker. I would add that it also depends on the opponent. For instance, if you know he calls anyway you can overbet the pot, if you know he folds anyway you can underbet the pot and so on....
 
Charade You Are

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Congrats on 1k posts! I don't have time for a lengthy review of your post now but will take a look at it later!

That is funny, the congrats comes from someone with 34k posts... lol we'll my post number should make you feel quite good about your 1k posts

She spams a lot. :p

congratulations.jpg
Gratz on a great 1K post, duggs. Even I understood it.
 
duggs

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Iv gone over alot of my study notes and formed them into a TLDR which ill post soon
 
duggs

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My Crash Course in becoming a tournament player. I write notes whenever im studying poker so i thought id post them since I just rewrote them, massively TLDR for most by meh.

Mind set:
Tournaments are all about variance, if you aren’t going to embrace variance and playing for 6 hours and bubbling everything, go play cash.

There is an awesome article by http://www.philgalfond.com/it-always-comes-back-to-balance-doesnt-it/. That was a real eye opener for me, when your life is balanced and you are healthy and happy you play your best poker.

A good attitude on poker is essential

tilt is unacceptable, tilt is literally setting money

poker is a game of logic and deduction, it is not a game of luck, luck has no effect on any of our decisions

Improvement
:
-How to become a better player, I think you should join a training site or get in touch with a group of good players whom you can discuss hands with.
-Notepad your mistakes everytime you make an error so you can catergorize your errors and better address your leaks.
-look at hands you felt lost in or were unsure of the correct line and post them.
-download pokerstove
-put types of hands v different ranges (narrow/wide/weak/polarized/capped) and see how each hand fares. (baudib1 posted a cool thread about how suited connectors and small pairs fare against different ranges.)Lightbulb moments.
- colour code HUD so that we immediately tell which opponents have which obvious leaks. be sure to check sample size to be sure that hands have converged.

Plan for hands:
we need to have a general plan for each postflop play we make,
there are times that we must check/fold flops/turns/rivers as the cards hurts our range to much compared to theirs, if we bet a profitable flop and double barrel a profitable turn, it can be optimal to check/fold a bad river card if we were planning on tripling good ones. equally as important as 'pulling the trigger' is sticking to the plan where we pull out and don't stick around in unprofitable spots.

when you expect a player to play back at you a high % of time, look for optimum line given his expected play "safe looking boards etc".
especially relevant when we have been running over someone/table, expect them to play back light we must open a wider value range and be prepared to play back at them, similarly if we expect them to tighten up and only play back with value we should tighten our value range and virtually remove our bluff range.

We shouldn’t be looking at streets in isolation but at the hand as a whole as a marginal cbet can be made profitable by a a lot of good barrel cards and the ability to turn more equity


when being 3bet light, tighten up opening range, widen 4bet freq
plan to 4bet before opening. if we are opening/3betting/4betting without a clear plan if we get flatted/played back at, this is a massive leak.
also applies to cbetting/barreling and check/raising aswell



Shallow Stack Play:


When we are playing with a shallow stack we need to drastically alter our strategy and ranges, the degree to which we adjust depends on.

-stack sizes (smaller stack sizes indicate weaker shoving ranges but can often change opening ranges, good players will not have many small pairs in steal range with 16-30bb)
-positions (relative positions change our fold equity greatly, also change the likelihood of being called)
-opening and calling ranges of opponent
-bubble factors, bubble aware opponents loosen considerably to take advantage of opponents, weak players do the opposite. 3bet both types light, especially aware opponents.
-game flow and table dynamics
often left out as we consider hands in a vacuum, it is often correct to fold what is a 'correct' shove due to shoving the last 3 hands or based on our loose image, equally we can open wider when we have a tighter image.
flatting to induce a squeeze and other plays postflop are highly reliant on table dynamics, other opponents will often fail to adjust which means we can exploit them.
-its also important to be aware of the pot odds being offered for a call and whether being

Basic Cbetting

Purely as a bluff
Pot size=success rate to be profitable
1/2=33% t
2/3=40%
pot=50%
3/4=43%
all dependent on the prospective calling ranges of opponents

as a general rule we will get less value from our cbets from EP and get less folds from LP so we should adjust our frequencies accordingly

we will get floated on a lot more flops BvB so therefore
we should be double barreling more often BvB

cbetting then always check/folding turn is a massive leak
there is a tendency of opponents to float more and more often to exploit weak players inability postflop, double barreling will almost always get regs to fold worse.

Situations we should strive for
which is where we expect them to fold a profitable portion of their range, or fold hands that have good equity against ours, or fold better hands than our own.
Or where we will get calls from hands we have good equity against, or hands we can make fold on later streets, or hands that we can extract value from that are unlikely to improve.

eg
you don't get looked up by much when cbetting into more players
A99 board
(best done with air or aces/nines ie a polarized range)
AK on JQ3 board, better to cbet with some equity since this board hits their ranges
(opponents continuing range is likely ahead of us and we only really fold out hands that completely whiffed.

Spots where we are unsure and feel the spot is marginal:

Factors we want to consider
-remaining stack size, if we are well below/above the average we can adjust considering the actions of the remaining stacks, taking a marginal shove when there will be clear 3bet shoving spots,

-awkward open spots with 18-20bb can often be avoided if opponents are active and we are intending to raise/fold as it is better to prefer chips for greater fold equity to 3bet shove

-tendencies of opponent, also if opponent is a winner as most losers don't adjust properly and will fold too much/too little/open too little and affects our profitable playing ranges

-when the blinds are due to increase, changes our marginal situation into a clear one as our actual stack size is shallower than our opponents are aware of.

-the general ability of those on our table, if we have a tough table draw or our utility is constrained taken marginal spots in order to force dynamic changes is often a better idea than passing on it, equally weaker tables that we are running over is better to avoid marginal 3b/4b and postflop situations.

Heads Up Dynamics:
-3bet light first time with dynamics
-3bet often and light
-can expect good players to bluff often and get to showdown with meduim strength hands, weaker players will often be too tight pre or flop and overvalue A high
-everything is meta
-balance ranges by being aggressive with air
-note player tendencies
-take lines that are similar to previous action in order to prevent opponent from narrowing your range
-when opponents enters push fold at 30bb we can on pen every button and 3bet often
-have to 3bet someone to let them know they cant steal our blinds every time

Deriving information on opponents without SD:
-pay attention to unusual actions post flop as they offer very exploitable leaks.

-flat/folding with inappropriate stack sizes
-take notes of actions with possible ranges on certain action and flops

-check calls followed by fold indicate parts of his range we can fold out

-what people do in 3bet pots is really important.
-donk/fold means that they will donk with air on wet boards and we can show opens less respect

When we are betting as a bluff:
-our perceived range matters
-barreling looks strong
-hands with equity but no SDV should be c/r or bet if we have fold equity
we can and should 3bet/4bet/5bet light when the situation is profitable to do so.
-leading out after cbet, can often force a fold from wide ranges that may be ahead of yours
-consider how opponent will view bet sizing

When we are considering how to play the river:
-remember previous action
-range on each street to deduce possible hands
-look at our action and what it indicates our range is, overrepped, underrepped?
-Being out of position makes it so much harder
-effective stacks dictate pre flop play and effect ranges
-every hand is like a story and you have to figure out if it makes sense
-do we have showdown value
-are we ahead of his range?
-can we fold better
-can worse call
-what are we doing if he raises
-do we close the action
-is he capable of bluffing

Opponents Tendencies and how to exploit them:
Villain: Not opening enough
We: call less pre-flop, 3bet bluff less, slowplay less, call less postflop. adjustments are dynamic so adjust according to how much they vary from expected. if they barrel off a ton then slowplaying is good.

Villain: opening too much
We: 3bet bluff a lot more, call more preflop, slowplay more if they are too lag, call more postflop. if they are capable of 4bet bluffing then 3betting and shoving ranges should be depolarized valuey
early stages 3bets unlikely to get action so flatting is often best option

Villian: not 3betting enough
We: open more, fold to more of his 3bets, 4bet bluff less, 4bet for value with a stronger range, slow play less.

Villain: 3betting too much
We: open less, fold less to 3bets
4bet bluff more, 4bet for value wider range, slowplay more as they will attack stack

Villain: doesn't 4bet enough
We: 3bet more as a bluff
3bet with a stronger range for value
fold more to his 4bets
3bet wider range if he is raise/calling too wide a range as we will have position and initiative

Villain:4bet too much
We: 3bet less as a bluff
3bet with a weaker range for value (weak pair type hand 3bet with the intention to 5bet) negative ev 3bet made up for with 5bet.
fold less to his 4bets


Villian:3betting too narrow value range (flatting with value hands when he should be 3betting them not flatting 9s, 10s etc). this effectively increases ratio of bluffs to value hands.
We: 4bet with a stronger value range, (4bet/call rather than 4bet shoving as fold equity is so much stronger)
4bet bluff more, as 5bet bluffs are going to be so uncommon (noone 5bets air enough)
call 3bet more pre, narrower value range means we can stack them when deep.
bluff more postflop, they will get to there with a weaker range as they aren't 3betting weaker part of value range.doesn’t apply if they are stationy or super aggro
betting stronger range for value post flop (they will have a more polarized 3betting and flatting range. so unlikely to lose value since their bluffs fold anyway and their weaker value hands aren’t in range.
60bb stacks people don't 3bet for value unless they are willing to get it in (polarized range)

Villain:3betting with a wide value range
We: 4betting with a narrower range for value
4bet bluff less (less effective as more value in range than bluff)
call 3bet less preflop (higher ratio of strong to weak hands)
fold more postflop (more strong hands than air)
bluff less postflop (more hands that can hero)
value bet thinner postflop (less polarized range)


Villian: calling 3bets too light
We: 3bet bluff less (unless they fold a ton to cbets)
3bet a wider range for value (more equity than you normally would against his range)
bet flop more as their range is weaker (wider range means he is missing flop more and shouldn't be able to find float spots etc)
barrel turn and river more (getting to turn and river with a weaker range)
vbet thinner postflop ( will end up with more marginal hands to call with)(doesn't apply if they are folding flop a ton)
fold less postflop (weaker range, likely to have more weaker calls in their range)
slowplay more postflop (not as important, missing flop more often, can allow them to bluff of)(doesn't apply to stationy players)

Villain: folds to cbet too much
We: open more pre
cbet bluff more
slowplay more
fold to resistance more (check/raise)
fold more on future streets
bluff less on the turn/river
value bet narrower range on all streets

Villain: check raises cbet too much
We: open less
value bet a narrower range
call his c/r with weaker hands and fold less on future streets (assuming he continues to showdown with that weaker range) (dryer board narrows our range to very strong rather than draws)
cbet less with air (unless he folds a lot as he only c/r or folds)
3bet bluff flop more
slowly less
 
D

deeshark420

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tournament players

being a good tournament player does matter to alot of people im one of those too.Thank you for posting, very useful, thats alot of note taking, and mine are quite this good thanks again.good luck in your tournament play.:)
 
Worak

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This follow up needs much much more love.
 
duggs

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interested in feedback if anyone thinks anything iv written is wrong etc
 
twoturntablez

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Yeah great 1000th and very very good follow up. Loads of interesting things to digest there.
 
MasterOfDisaster

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Duggs you are totally wrong on this one, lol just kidding. Going to read this when I have some more time!
 
duggs

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if anyone bothers to watch interested in some criticism of both the hands/my thought process/general demeanour
 
D

doomasiggy

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I'll watch in a bit. How did you make the vid btw?
 
duggs

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camtasia+skype+teamviewer+universal replayer
it was done on his computer
 
AlfieAA

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next time you should be the 'main host'....your mates voice is a drone....
 
duggs

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its because NZ>AUS
 
duggs

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other than that alfie what did you think?
 
D

doomasiggy

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I agree with pretty much everything you guys said except that QQ UTG+1 hand. Don't like c-betting there oop in a 4-way pot. We don't have enough equity imo. Lots of turn cards that make it impossible to play on and we just end up bleeding chips in the early stages of the mtt.
 
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