Grinderella
Enthusiast
Silver Level
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 list of leaks I found in my week long hand history review. I hope that these 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 will be posting leaks gradually when I am able to. I would rather they are more accurate than more frequent.
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.
*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/completes 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 gapped 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 shrewd hand readers.
Just to cement what I am saying about playing gapper hands. I am not telling you to NEVER play them. I'm just highlighting how they could be signficantly leaking your bankroll if you're playing them too much. Here is a quick analysis I have made of gapper hands in general. My recommendations are as follows:
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. This advice does not apply to low M tourny situations or shortstacked bubble spots. In those cases you may have to move in vs. nitty blinds if your stack has fallen below critical (Even with suited gappers). They still have some equity vs. a strong range. With a healthy stack of 10bb+, you can be more selective.
Hope you enjoyed reading this leak and got something out of it. Any questions, please post them below.
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 list of leaks I found in my week long hand history review. I hope that these 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 will be posting leaks gradually when I am able to. I would rather they are more accurate than more frequent.
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/completes 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 gapped 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 shrewd hand readers.
Just to cement what I am saying about playing gapper hands. I am not telling you to NEVER play them. I'm just highlighting how they could be signficantly leaking your bankroll if you're playing them too much. Here is a quick analysis I have made of gapper hands in general. My recommendations are as follows:
- You could remove all the 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. It makes it easier to call cbets from aggressive opponent's when we can add extra outs for backdoor draws.
- You could avoid playing suited connectors below 54s. The reason for this is mathematically very simple. See below.
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. This advice does not apply to low M tourny situations or shortstacked bubble spots. In those cases you may have to move in vs. nitty blinds if your stack has fallen below critical (Even with suited gappers). They still have some equity vs. a strong range. With a healthy stack of 10bb+, you can be more selective.
Hope you enjoyed reading this leak and got something out of it. Any questions, please post them below.