Small 50 hand session recording, your thoughts.

[AAroddersAA]

Brendan/Mike, been trying to compose a good response to this for a while.

Some interesting thoughts there. I will add to them.

Your 3-bet pure bluffing range needs to be based almost entirely on your opponent. I do see Brendans point about needing to regulate your 3-betting percentage. Rag Aces and Kings and card removal OOP seems sensible. I would base it a lot more on my opponent though. The card removal is a factor, my opponents PFR and 3-Bet stats are far more so. If I find somebody who is opening wide, more than 25% of hands ideally, if I can get positional stats that is even better. I would then look at how often they fold to 3-bets more than 80% is ideal. Now lets say this player is cut off to my button and I have two tight players behind me then I will consider this a very good 3-betting opportunity and take advantage of it a lot (regardless of cards, also I am not too worried about the players behind, people rarely cold 4-bet light). To regulate it I just don"t do it every time, I do keep doing it on a pretty regular basis until there is some kind of sign that he has made an adjustment, the amount of times they don"t is quite amazing. So I just rely on myself to be able to regulate the frequency of my 3-bets and try to keep my percentage below 15%. If it goes above this I am not likely to be 3-bet bluffing as often unless I see an excellent spot, kind of like the one in my example in which case I will let it go higher. We should not assume players will adjust until we see that they can. Even when they do adjust they often do it badly and start to call the 3-bets rather than raise them so we can still often win the pot post flop. In this case my bluff % will be higher than my value bet percentage as I can get away with it.

I am not going to be worrying about if my hand is ahead of my opponents range either. I am just going to think about his calling range and 4-betting range. It rarely matters if you have A2s or 72os (other than the card removal) in that spot, you are bluffing and if you get 4-bet or called you are likely to be well behind. Sometimes the better hand can actually get you into more trouble but you should be able to play the streets well enough to avoid this but none of us are perfect players.

Hope this makes sense as it is quite hard to describe how I personally do this, I suppose I am sort of just saying I make sure I don"t 3-bet too much but that does not sound like a very good explanation.

[AAroddersAA]

OK, here is a new one of just one table not Zoom, it is longer though, about 50 minutes. I did post one in my thread but it did not come out that well as far as quality went. This one is a bit better though. It"s probably not the best session I have ever played in terms of the standard of poker but that might help create a better strategy discussion. Feel free to throw some comments in. Where am I not playing an optimal strategy, where am I not getting enough value and where am I doing OK?

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42FwdX4FAGo[/youtube]

[TheSnapper]

A few quick points before I hit the nest.

I suggest your notes may reread easier/quicker if you format as...

villain 3x btn, we 3b to 11x in sb and fold to 30x 4b
not a biggie but worth a try.

Don"t 3b bluff a 6% pfr.

3b sizing to 11x is fine oop but you can consider 8.5x to 9.5x when in position.

Table select, no fish at your table and when 2 of 6 players are sat out, time to find a better table.

You never once mentioned fold to cb tendencies of opponents. This is critical in choosing whether to cb and in choosing how wide we can isolate limpers. Since most of our action versus fish will be when they limp call, we can iso raise wider versus those that fold to cb"s too often and vice versa.

Finally, though I know you were deliberately playing too many hands, just a mention of a hard learnt lesson.

When we play too many hands we are hugely likely to be in the pot when someone has a monster, also, we get in so much action that we get the adrenaline flowing, it can be very subtle and often creep up on us unnoticed but we end up fighting bravely for pots well beyond where logic based thinking would allow.

Fair play for the courage to put this up, I don"t think I"d have the balls for it

[Sillbags]

A few quick points before I hit the nest.

I suggest your notes may reread easier/quicker if you format as...

villain 3x btn, we 3b to 11x in sb and fold to 30x 4b
not a biggie but worth a try.

Don"t 3b bluff a 6% pfr.

3b sizing to 11x is fine oop but you can consider 8.5x to 9.5x when in position.

Table select, no fish at your table and when 2 of 6 players are sat out, time to find a better table.

You never once mentioned fold to cb tendencies of opponents. This is critical in choosing whether to cb and in choosing how wide we can isolate limpers. Since most of our action versus fish will be when they limp call, we can iso raise wider versus those that fold to cb"s too often and vice versa.

Finally, though I know you were deliberately playing too many hands, just a mention of a hard learnt lesson.

When we play too many hands we are hugely likely to be in the pot when someone has a monster, also, we get in so much action that we get the adrenaline flowing, it can be very subtle and often creep up on us unnoticed but we end up fighting bravely for pots well beyond where logic based thinking would allow.

Fair play for the courage to put this up, I don"t think I"d have the balls for it

Haven"t watched the vid yet, but some very good points here Brendan.
I wouldn"t mind posting one of these myself Rodders, what recording software and equipment are you using?

[hi_am_chris]

Camtasia is pretty good

[Sillbags]

Camtasia is pretty good

Thanks Chris

[noble1]

Feel free to throw some comments in.

just look back at Simeon and how he played his JJ plus his river action, add 20/10 plus watch the other board textures he played before the JJ...
and you thought he was playing a draw quick in a 3bet pot and would bluff the river? [edit ref - when you have AQ in the sb about 31mins in]

thoughts Rodders ?

[AAroddersAA]

Camtasia is pretty good

Thanks Chris

AGree with this but I used Snagit, Camtasia is better though, would be great to see one from Neil imo

[AAroddersAA]

Feel free to throw some comments in.

just look back at Simeon and how he played his JJ plus his river action, add 20/10 plus watch the other board textures he played before the JJ...
and you thought he was playing a draw quick in a 3bet pot and would bluff the river? [edit ref - when you have AQ in the sb about 31mins in]

thoughts Rodders ?

The hand is obviously played badly against that player, not a lot I can say to defend it, the river is a clear fold. The 3-bet in itself is actually not great either with AQ there. I over thought the situation due to the check on the turn, can I fold the flop? It"s possible I should. His bet size is really too large for it to be a bluff, all good though we learn most by our mistakes and all that.

Can"t find a spoon anywhere, does anybody know why?  

[Fatcatstu]

Feel free to throw some comments in.

just look back at Simeon and how he played his JJ plus his river action, add 20/10 plus watch the other board textures he played before the JJ...
and you thought he was playing a draw quick in a 3bet pot and would bluff the river? [edit ref - when you have AQ in the sb about 31mins in]

thoughts Rodders ?

The hand is obviously played badly against that player, not a lot I can say to defend it, the river is a clear fold. The 3-bet in itself is actually not great either with AQ there. I over thought the situation due to the check on the turn, can I fold the flop? It"s possible I should. His bet size is really too large for it to be a bluff, all good though we learn most by our mistakes and all that.

Can"t find a spoon anywhere, does anybody know why?  

There is no spoon!!!

[Sillbags]

Camtasia is pretty good

Thanks Chris

AGree with this but I used Snagit, Camtasia is better though, would be great to see one from Neil imo

Did you use a mic, or just the pc"s built in mic?

[AAroddersAA]

Camtasia is pretty good

Thanks Chris

AGree with this but I used Snagit, Camtasia is better though, would be great to see one from Neil imo

Did you use a mic, or just the pc"s built in mic?

I just used my laptop which has a Mic built in. Seems to work OK. Most laptops will have built in mics which are up to the job.

[TheSnapper]

Feel free to throw some comments in.

just look back at Simeon and how he played his JJ plus his river action, add 20/10 plus watch the other board textures he played before the JJ...
and you thought he was playing a draw quick in a 3bet pot and would bluff the river? [edit ref - when you have AQ in the sb about 31mins in]

thoughts Rodders ?

Not sure we learn much from the JJ hand tbh or how it is in any way similar to the AQ 3b pot, would be happy to hear your thoughts though?

It"s very easy to see folds in these spots when we know results, in the heat of the moment it"s a lot tougher. Rodders had been playing pretty manic and given those circumstances doesn"t TPTK hold significant value?

With hindsight we can look back and be very sure Simeon"s flop raise is for value and yes he"s a passive"ish player in a 3b pot (they tend to play more honestly) so his raise is super strong but imho this is not a trivial fold.

There is a lot of advanced learning to be had reviewing the spot though and you may even call flop and river in a similar spot again but with time and liberal use of a baseball bat the key points will become second nature.

Disclaimer: Baseball bat analogy may be lost in translation

[noble1]

there are no results orientated thinking here Bren, u can get off that horse fella

like i said watch his previous hands before he played the JJ add in how he reacted to the 40c river bet into a $7 king river, and you think thats not something worth noting regarding his style?
now add in the notes Rodders had on him - flatted 3bet from sb from the btn with AA and raised cbet on wet flop... [at about 9min35secs Rodders refers to Simeon being capable of flatting big pairs when he has the J8s on the btn also]
even the the way he played 55 after hitting a set oop gives extra clues... [btw Rodders i"d note the flop texture he did that on]
there are no notes on seeing bluffs or semi bluffs... [plus on the video i can"t see him even possibly semi bluffing/bluff, like you refer to also Bren, all i see are predictable straight forward abc types]

plus at these limits post flop with a opponent with stats like this, plus what notes Rodders has, can Rodders improve upon his thought process ""i think i"ll just call and go from there"" [didn"t even check previous notes, plus he didn"t start putting Simeon on a range in which he"d raise call pre with or raise on the flop]
turn thoughts?
river thoughts? still no reason to expect him to bluff 100% all missed draws imho, we know he"ll bet for value 100%...
is his river bet sizing worth noting?
river - no thoughts at the time except for ""thats a big bet"" - pot odds, i"d like to see Rodders go through how often he thinks Simeon will bluff before he checks to him, as played i"d like to see Rodders go back through the hand quick and think how its played out etc [we use our extra time bank]
plus Rodders could of thought about bet folding as an option also [remember how villain reacted to that ridiculous 40c bet only moments earlier]

i think thats enough for now, Rodders i tip my hat to you sir for having the stones to put this up... regarding the video, maybe you can record first then add audio later on what you were thinking about at the time.. [just in case i"m doing you a dis-service and you actually thought about a lot more things but didn"t express them at the time of the making of the vid]

[AAroddersAA]

Excellent post"s as usual both Noble and Brendan (and the earlier one by Brendan that I have not yet responded too but will).

The AQ hand. I think Nobles points are good ones and his posts demonstrate why I think posting the video was good as it is better than posting one hand in isolation to think about how you played it, I should have been using the info from the previous hand where I 3-bet him with J8s OTB and that I had seen him flat AA then raise the flop. I could do the audio later but I wanted to do it live as it will best show my thought processes as I go along, Noble is right that I didn"t make all of my thoughts during the hand clear and did have stuff going through my head I don"t mention. A lot of his points about the hands are valid and I should have thought back through that hand more including thinking about his pre flop range and asked the question what am I actually beating (the answer is not a lot so given the bet size I can fold the river in that hand), it should be easier to do this in a 3-bet pot and I should have noted this to be honest. The JJ hand is not that relevant is it, he has the betting lead through that hand until the river where he calls the tiny with showdown value where as I check to him on turn and river in this pot. The JJ hand looks standard but it does show a slightly passive side on the river although don"t see what else he does in that spot. Overall though yes I could have though this spot through better, I sort of put him on a draw on the flop and went with that which was not the right thing to do in that spot.

Brendan is right that in game this is a lot harder but I wanted to look at spots where I get it wrong in game so that I can try and do better in such spots in the future. It"s quite easy to be able to look through hands and get them right in retrospect but doing this does help you in game as it becomes more second nature to you.

The whole thing helps with the continuous effort to keep getting better and to increase win rate. I don"t worry about constructive critisim. Having people like Brendan and Noble taking the time to view this and pick spots where I could have played better by improving my thought processes is a good thing and the debate it creates on the forum is a good thing too.

Think I will do another one if people do not mind. I may try and do what Noble said and add the sound later. Thanks for all the contributions on this though, it is useful and hopefully is good for the strategy section too.