Thinking about streets as accounting time periods for analysis and reporting purposes

This is a thought I've had about pot management, or how to think about streets conceptually from a betting POV. From my accounting classes I remember a key point my tutor made about the importance of accounting periods as a key concept in accounting. Combining poker and accounting thinking I can see how the same concept of accounting periods can be applied to poker across the streets - and in fact poker could be divided into four such periods; preflop, flop, turn and river. 


A key concept in poker is the idea of polarized hand ranges; hands that could be either big or pure bluff. Another concept is the idea of non-polarized hand ranges, where someone playing in a straight forward manner can be read as holding a strong hand. That is they go to showdown betting strongly with hands that are most always with strong showdown value, without bluff value.


Now if we combine the two ideas; polarized and non-polarized hand ranges with the idea of accounting periods for the purposes of reporting we come up with a strategy of being able to think about poker from an accounting point of view for reporting and analytic purposes. I have no idea if this idea has already been discussed or thought about elsewhere as I've not read about it anywhere but it is merely common sense - the combination of an important accounting concept of dividing time into periods for the purposes of analysis and reporting and applying it to poker. 

SNG ICM strategy - is there value in it?

So I've been watching one of the deucescracked coaches review a video of a tournament he played in back 2009 in which he got his first big break. He uses the term ICM quite a lot but I wasn't convinced that his understanding ICM bought anything of value to the game review. 


It's like what this other deucescracked coach says about the use of HUD play - too many people want a blueprint for all their moves - they want to know what course of action to take in each specific given; the stats of their opponents, when a particular flop peels. 


I feel that the use of ICM can also distract from value added play - in the end a player wants to have their focus entirely dedicated to the table, what's going on at hand - by dedicating too many brain cycles to calculating ICM odds, or by over reliance on HUD stats a player will only hog-tie themselves, and forget that the actual game taking place in front of them is where it's at. 


HUDs and ICM odds should be used to support but not be the deciding factor in your decisions. 

Strategic value in the lower end range

I like the strategic value in calling polarized and bottom ended non suited 3 gapped cards - as well as typical nitty premium cards.


a) It makes my calls more difficult to pin down 
b) the lower end of the range - the 3 gapper non suited's are what I describe as a free channel to run through, where the gap is and where value can be found. 


If the call price is reasonable, and if the flop falls for a set or two pair then that's great value. If I can get it in against someone who has a made pair, and if the board texture doesn't support their hand for a set then I'll slow play it and go all in on the turn, but before the river for fear of their hand turning into a bigger set.

More patience required

I've become slightly impatient playing in recent SNG's to my detriment. Ride out the variance, stop pushing the edges so much at least for now. Fold when required. That's all.

Villain made straight on the river

OK so I drew a pair of tens and the flop was KsKh9h so far so good, and I C-bet the pot and pot again on the turn which drew an 8h - a potential flush draw for someone. At this point in retrospect I should have gone all in pushing the flush draw off, but I didn't. The river drew a 4h and the player two seats to my right raised for 2 times pot $16,000 - a call which I promptly folded to realizing he'd river'd the flush. 


Lesson learned - when I flop the nuts I need to be aware of flush and straight draws - and if the turn puts a flush or straight draw on board I need to go all-in or at least make calling negative EV; putting my certain nuts hand against a potential draw putting villain to a decision for their stack at the most.

LAP loose and passive beats loose aggressive LAG

My current phase is the loose and passive style especially as a strategy for beating the loose and aggressive - LAG. Why does this work for me? Well, the analogy I use is hitching a ride on the hurricane. 


That is the LAG range is as wide as mine but prone to greater variance. I on the other hand can minimize variance, albeit I may not enjoy the benefits of winning bigger pots. However, by hooking onto the LAG's crazy rush, not letting go and calling them down all the way, I am in essence taking advantage of the positive benefits of the LAG strategy using their aggression against them WHEN I have value in my hands.


LAP beats LAG at their game.

RaNT: JUST FUCKING DO IT

I love this entry. Credit to: citizenwind’s Blog on www.CardRunners.com– December 18 2009

Some people don’t make it at poker. Who knows why. Tilt? Neurosis? Lack of ingenuity? Mathematical phobia? Inability to calculate? To apply common sense? No. This isn’t the case. There are smart, talented players who are not making it. Some of my students are clearly smarter and more naturally talented than I am, but are huge losers. But why? Why are people not beating 100nl? Or 200nl? It seriously requires common sense and a basic understanding. Not hard. You want a hard game? Learn chess. The amount of memorization and calculation requires for chess is totally mind-boggling compared to enumerative analysis. I bet if chess players played poker, they’d shit on people all the time. Like crawl up on their chests and take dumps on them. Poker isn’t that hard. It’s not even as hard as say, Street Fighter. You want to talk about leveling? Wait until Blanka is chewing on your face for the third tick throw in a row. Yeah, I’m a nerd, wanna fight about it?

If you’re hoping to go pro at 50-100nl, but you’re failing at it, stop failing. Do whatever it takes. Get coaching. Read. Study ferociously. Watch a video and force yourself to leave the session with 4-6 pages of notes. Don’t know something? Then go find the answer. Ask. Post in forums. There are 10k CR members and maybe two dozen regulars posters in each forum. Surely there are more full-time grinders than that.

Look. You could make six-figures in 2010. I came from a broke family. 100k is an outrageous amount of money. 250k is unimaginable. We’re talking about life-changing amounts of dough. You could make this. Easily. If you’re into material things, next year you could be driving an Audi and have a lot of TVs. You could pop bottles and do other rapper-ly activites. If you’re just into living free (aka hippie), you could have an extremely high paying job and unlimited freedom. I’ve never had a 9-5 and never will, all because I decided to spend a year really learning how to play some fucking poker.

Stop dicking around. Stop being a tilting monkey. Four year olds throw tantrums. You’re an adult. Get over it. If you don’t know the math, learn it right now and don’t step onto a table until you know it back and forth. Buckle down. Play less tables. Turn off the TV. Don’t watch videos in the background while you play, make it part of your daily routine to watch a Myth or CTS video and take a notes on all the plays and thoughts that you would not have emulated. Take notes. WHATEVER IT TAKES. In one year, you’ll look back at the moment you decided to take it really, really seriously and realized that it was way easier than you thought.

Facebook Sit-n-go's and Deucescracked

I've joined  www.deucescracked.com  poker training site and the first series I have begun watching is Andrew "BelugaWhale" Seidman coaching the lovely Cristy Arnett who's blog is www.snaptress.com and who works for www.Pokernews.com. Andrew's first goal for Kristy is to instill in her an ABC solid poker mindset. He questions a number of Kristy's open raise calls such as 76o and K8o. It's interesting because a number of her open calls are similar to my range. What's difficult is that I'm not sure of the balance I need to attain. Do I become tighter, or do I stay somewhat loose. It's particularly when I fold out a speculative hand only to see the flop give me a set and the winning hand was a pair, or to see my mucked hand flop two pair, again higher than the winning hand. Sometimes my intuition is correct, at least most of the time, but on occasions I've seen about three folded hands of mine flop a monster winning hand and the pot has been stacked multi-ways. It's frustrating when this happens.


I'm developing my reads playing sit-n-goes which I like playing, especially at the end stages where only two or three remain, typically the better players whom I'm getting better practice against. There are so many loose players at the beginning stages who go all in with crazy crap holdings like J8o. Just stupid calls.


Anyway my reads are getting better. I look at the board and compare their play to pre-flop calls raises and so for example against a rainbow polarized boards I know they've either flopped a high KQ or a pair, or possibly even a speculative suited connector, but when contrasted with the board I know more or less where I stand and can play accordingly. 


My recent leak where I was knowingly giving away hands whilst knowing what my opponent was holding has been reduced. I know it has something to do with fear of competing and winning. This is irrational and I know I have no need to be so fearful of winning against others. 


Another reaction I've felt is that when I start winning hands and when sit-n-go's reach the end stages my heart starts thumping and get an almighty adrenaline rush. This is another symptom I believe of being fearful of winning. It's probably been a long time since I have truly been competitive against others, and so I simply need to become more used to winning again and enjoying the competitive nature of the game. It will come with time. At least I'm aware of my reactions and can track my progress.

SNG straight on board, holding J-4

Quick lesson learned: when on the first hand of an SNG and holding J4 with AKQ on board, the chances of someone else holding a J10 are likely - do not go all in. I just did this and bumped out first round. 

Facebook Zynga poker and hand reading practise

Have been playing some Facebook Zynga poker (don't laugh) every day so as to practice my hand reading and apply what I've been studying in the various books and forums.


Have played some sit-n-go's and I've found a weakness in my game play - as I near the end where only 1 or 2 other players remain, I have noticed a tendency I have to give a hand away, knowing the card they're holding beats mine, and yet doing it all the same. A weak killer instinct and lack of applying myself to follow through with the coup d'etat. I did it once yesterday when I and  other were the two remaining players, and again today where I knew I had the 2nd best hand yet still gave it away. It's something I'm gonna have to close, this leak. I must learn to focus through for the win till the end. My sit-n--go stats are at 10% win rate, and I know I can improve if I tighten up my focus onto winning the hand and not knowingly giving hands away. Whether I'm being 'nice' to the other player or what I'm not sure yet - I think I will work on closing this leak up for sure though. It can't be knowingly allowed to continue.


Have finished reading Ed Miller's How to read hands at NLHM for the second time - after this time through somewhat more of what went right over the top of my head is starting to make sense. I believe this book is probably aimed at someone with somewhat more practical poker experience - in other words it helps to have played poker. I also purchased Flopzilla and have been using it in conjunction with the exercises in Ed's eBook and it's been an enlightening piece of software to use. Both Ed's book and Flopzilla highly recommended.

Started using Flopzilla

At the recommendation of Ed Miller's book How to read hand's at no-limit hold-em I purchased Flopzilla for the purpose of understanding reading hand-ranges.


I started as Ed suggested by inputting and saving ranges for various player types such as Nit, Regular and Fish into Flopzilla and using Flopzilla to show how various combinations of ranges result from different flops for each player type.


The idea of understanding ranges and combinations is to be able to perform real-time estimations of good fit and bad fit combinations against players ranges for specific flops, then call or raise positive Equity Value decisions or fold negative Equity Value decisions.


If it sounds complicated to a n00b like myself then I hope it becomes second nature eventually, especially the real-time decision making part. I can only put in the work and practice with Flopzilla so as to better familiarize myself with understanding ranges and combinations. Ed states that in order to make the real-time decision making easier, he simply thinks in terms of good fit/bad fit combinations and the ratio of each - so if during play I estimate that villain has more bad fit combinations that good fit combinations I would continuance bet or 3-bet raise and maybe get them to fold their weaker fit combinations. 


Anyway this is a work in progress I've only just begin with - it's been a month of beginning to learn poker from absolutely zero and my strategy is to continue to learn the rudiments of poker, progressively increasing in complexity, so that when I eventually make my start for real, I'll be in a better position than if I had of just jumped in with both feet fresh. I do want action and it is a struggle to resist the desire to just start playing but I believe I'll be all the more stronger for it doing it the way I am.

Poker Academy Pro learning from bot decisions

Bear in mind I've never played poker apart from some casual Facebook poker and the scope of this blog is a record of the process an absolute poker beginner goes through from whoa to go.


I've purchased a poker simulation program called Poker Academy Pro which I've been playing most days since and what I've found interesting is the decision making process of some of my bot opponents. To facilitate my learning process I have chosen to play with my bot opponents cards face up. 


One example I just observed was a turn card which gave a backdoor straight to one of the bots who raised. However he was pushed off his backdoor straight by another bot who had flopped a 3 pair. I can relate this scenario in some of my live play when drawing a backdoor flush or straight only to be raised gave me pause for thought. 


The solution is to calculate pot odds / implied odds to help in deciding the call. Obviously a straight beats a single or two pair and if the odds are in +EV in your favor then make the call. Short term losses from these types of decisions don't alter that a +EV call will always be in your favor long-term according to probability.