Hola!
My name is Hawkins and I am getting back into poker. Playing mostly HUSNG's and trying more and more to play ONLY husng's because I spew money elsewhere. Currently play on bovada and do the 3.15 regular speed husng's.
Current results are 26 total 3.15s with a profit of $14.10 for an roi of 17.21% if my math is right.
How do you like the anonymous format of Bovada?
ummm... At the moment I am kind of indifferent with regards to it at the reg speed 3.15s. You have so much time on the deep end of stack sizes that you get a read eventually. The real test would be higher limit turbos where you would be bumping into certain people much more often and past info on their ranges would be golden. If you are a player who adjusts quickly it might be the hot ticket because aside from rematches, every match is a new ballgame.
It is a bummer on cash games and MTT's because everyone just blends together especially when multi-tabling.
The worst with bovada is the time inbetween hands. If you fold in HU, it is around 8 seconds before you get another hand. This is assuming both players have on auto muck! If they don't the time could easily go over 10 seconds per hand. That drags out the matches something fierce.
Update: 35 matches @ reg 3.15s, $21.75 profit, 19.72 roi
Well, did a little parlay this morning...
I played a 2.20 sat on bovada and won a seat into any 11 dollar tournament. Took the sat seat and registered for a 11 dollar 4 man husng and won! wheeeeeeeee!
So that was a 40 dollar uptick at a cost of 2.20. As it sits, I have 25 bi for the 5.25s so I am going to move up. The increased rake will also help clear out the initial deposit bonus quicker. I was somewhat worried that my volume at the 3.15s would end up not clearing it out in time but if I can make it at the 5.25s I should get it all cleared.
I have also been playing 1.10 turbos and 2 tabling them (I only single table the reg speeds). This is just practice and I use the turbo format because the decisions are less apt to get hairy. I am not sure where I will go with this long term. For now I am mainly focused on improving my single table reg speed game.
results...
48 games at the 3.15s for 28.80 in profit, roi of 19.04%
9 games at the 1.10s for 2.10 in profit, roi of 21.21%
and won a 11 4 man for 40!
some good and bad to report.
Yesterday I jacked around in other formats which ultimately left me poorer by 10-15 dollars. I do feel like I will make money long term in satellites where 1/5 get a ticket, but the emotional aspect of the game is too much for me. I ran hot first game of the day in a 2.20 sat only to lose 4 spots away from the prizes. While not a huge deal financially, it affected me all day long. I had little motivation to play HU and instead spend time jacking around in random games.
Sooooo, going to try to avoid that from now on. It is fun to break up the HU games with other stuff but at this point, I need to focus on becoming decent at one game.
Today was much different. Didn't play any other stuff (though I do have a freeroll tournament that is about to start) and got in a few good games at the 5.25 turbos. I was not feeling the reg speed games today so played turbos. So far at the 5.25s, both reg and turbo, I am up 17.50 over 10 games.
On another note, America's Cardroom gave me a free 5$! I won a 2 buck turbo and did a little .01-.02 nl full ring and now I have 7 something bucks. I will probably just play the 2 dollar reg speed games until I get a bankroll or bust. I have plenty of work to do on bovada with clearing my bonus that I can't be jacking around too much on the other sites. I do like ACR so far though.
That is about it. Total results are...
78 tournaments and 50.30 dollars in profit.
Not much to update as I have played very little. Went home for thanksgiving and been seeing family and friends.
Had a bit of a downswing at the 5.25s that could of been mainly poor play by me. I am currently up about 10 bucks at them over 35 games. I started keeping the NASH charts up when I get to the short stack portion and referencing them. There is no telling how poor I was playing short stacks before. I am constantly shocked that this is a call, that is a shove, ect. I know that strictly following NASH is not viable long term, but it does seem like a logical step in my learning process.
Still, the bankroll is hovering at around 25+ BI for 5.25s. I am at a crossroads as far as what to do next. On the one hand, I could begin learning to multi-table and stick to the 5s or I could start taking shots at the 10s when I get past 30bi for the 5s. I have seen good players argue for learning to multi-table early and putting it off until your BI is higher. I think in an ideal world I would put it off until the 30s but there is life roll issues with that.
Namely, I don't have a lot of money as a college student and even 500 dollars on a poker site that I know could disappear tomorrow is somewhat irresponsible. I say somewhat because if that 500 dollars was generating income that could be taken off then that is a different animal. If I were to wait to multi-table till the 30s I would need over 1k on bovada so that I would have 30BI plus extra to ride out the cost of the learning process. That just isn't something that I can do given my current (lack of) net worth. I just read about Jungleman saying he had 80% of his net worth on FTP at black friday and that is insane. It is just as insane on my small scale. (Not that one must massively diversify with your net worth, but we are talking about online poker and not a duplex or startup).
So my plan is to play the 5.25s and once the roll gets past 30 BI for the 5.25s I will start 1) single tabling 10s when feeling good and 2) two tabling the 5.25s. Which one I do will depend on my mood at the time. This will let me work on my game in both aspects while I build a solid roll for making the 10s my main stake. Once at the 10$ stake I will start withdrawing winnings to build up the life roll a bit so that I can responsibly move up in limits. A decent rule of thumb I am thinking about is having an equal amount of physical cash on hand as I have money online. If I could get to the 10s by January I would have a good chunk of free time before classes began and might could knock out around a thousand games.
ramble ramble... The big picture of this is that I want to build a nice foundation to make poker a viable part time income. I know that life roll emotions can be rough so I want to be in a solid spot so money issues do not drain anything from my emotional tank. Also, I want to take a semester or two off from college to live in South America to learn spanish and online poker could play a part in making that happen. The thing is that it will be more of a matter of having cash savings on hand rather than theoretical income from poker. I would hate to be in Uruguay and have a cash crunch because bovada didn't send a check (guess in South America I would be playing on stars and not have to deal with such silliness but you get the point). I guess that is a hint to one of my 3-4 month goals which is getting to take at least the summer off from school to live in South America, study spanish, eat massive amounts to tasty food, and get a much needed break from college.
Play will be sporadic with the holiday because I adore my family and time will be mostly spent with them. I will try to update the graph on excel and learn how to post it. I want to see the 40 dollar uptick from winning that 4 man!
well I am running into some variance at the 5's.
I think I ran up to around 150 in the account but have since gone down to 105. I feel like my play was much improved over my time at the 3.15s, my end game especially, but still not getting traction. I know my sample size isn't even 100 so I should take it with a grain of salt. It is a bummer though.
Given my short roll, I am going to drop down to the 3.15s and two table. Despite what others have suggested, I think I might learn to two table and do that from now on. The in-game speed on bovada is so slow that two tables probably equals the speed on 1.2 tables on merge/ACR. If one villain has the dang auto-muck turned off it takes 8+ seconds once a hand is over to get another. All this time just drags out the variance in a lot of ways. It stings way worse to grind some villain down for 25 mins only for them to win a few hands and smoke you. I know it is just normal variance but when you invest that much time it is frustrating.
I'm obviously a little tilty at the moment ;)
On a more fun note, I got Table Tamer set up! Also set up the hotkeys so that I can use my xbox 360 controller to play with. I did some test runs 2 tabling and it was much easier.
As far as studying goes, just trying to get NASH memorized. I feel there isn't much need in doing anything else 8bbs deep at the low levels I am at. I do vary the ranges when there is a clear read on villain being too tight or loose. I really think ABC poker (but always studying/improving) should be enough to get me to my short-term goal of 4 tabling the 10s.
NASH CALL STATS
these should ONLY be used if the villain is actually shoving at nash values
if the villain is shoving tighter than nash (which is most villains espiecially rec players) then your call range should be tighter, while a villains tighter than nash shove range gives u an edge in the fact they they fold (or just limp) too much giving u free flops or free chips, calling at a nash range v someone who is tight just gives back alot of your edge (not all of it but alot) to be optimal u should be calling tighter than nash unless u have seen them push wide. use a preflop push fold calculator like ICMIZER or coffeecalcs to experiment with villain push ranges which gives u the optimal call ranges
if villain shoves Wider than nash then the call range can be wider than nash
Appreciate the reply Brett!
I hadn't thought of that at all. I had only figured on adjusting my shoves and nothing else. You posting this makes me think back to lots of villains who seemed tighter than NASH but I never thought to adjust my calling ranges off of NASH. Great info! Appreciate it a lot.
Well, after a busy weekend with family and finishing up school, I am all geared up for putting in some volume. BR is sitting at 92 on bovada :( A far cry from the 150 but I am thankful to be able to grind the 3's and have 20bi before I would have to drop to the 1's. I will probably single table until I get around 120ish/get some confidence back. Hope to get in 10+ games per day for the rest of December. Not a lot but those regular speeds on bovada can take 45 mins easy. I am very motivated to play well so that I can "beat" the 3 dollar level and be done with it for good.
in what way are you adjusting your nash shove ranges ?
also at what depth are you shoving your entire range according to the nash charts ?
I haven't had a chance to tinker with the calling side of it since I haven't played much since your posted about not calling with strict nash. My plan is (by all means correct me if this is silly) is when we get shallow and villain shoves, I will check my hand according to nash, then widen a bit if villain seems to be shoving wider than average/tighten up if they are shoving tighter than what I feel like "average" is.
With shoving, I tend to go strict nash at under 8bbs, exceptions made for AA, KK, if I feel like I could do something different with the particular villain. I am shoving my A-rag, K2-K9, 22-88 ish hands probably around 12 bbs for the sake of simplicity.
Any thoughts?
i only start shove or fold @ 8BB or less
almost always wider than nash
if they call wider than nash i can shove wider than nash and be in front often enough to be profitable
if they call tighter than nash i can shove nash or wider and take advantage of them folding to much
above 10 BB i try to balance my ranges but it also depend on what villain seems to do if i can limp trap them more then i expand my limp trap range etc
check the mercenarry ebook for his ROFL chart its a decent start for ,raise, open shove,fold and limp, ranges for between 10-14 BB but its old and has been around awile most regs know it and can beat it but at micros it will help u alot
oh and below 8 BB i can still limp trap or raise call a fairly wide range villain dependant if i think they are likely to attack a limp at short stacks then i can limp trap a wider range
Thanks for the reply! I completely forgot about the ROFL chart.
just a question, I thought if villain is calling wider than nash we tighten up our shoves? I could be totally wrong on that so don't feel like I am correcting you or anything. I am new to this so I truly don't know. Appreciate your input on the thread!
u should never really be shoving tighter than nash unless your post flop edge is so great that u are giving up ev not seeing more flops but that is so rare at such short stacks u dont need to worry about it
lets discuss nash
1st a basic fundamental of poker
calling hands range should be tighter than a raising range
nash shove is wider @ 10 BB than nash call ranges (things can get a bit different at 1-2BB because we often only need 33% equity to call so a calling range might be wider than a villains pushing range)
Villain shoving nash we must call nash or we get exploited
villain calling nash we should be shoving nash or we can be exploited
infact if 1 player plays the nash call and shove ranges then the player who deviates from nash gets exploited.
nash ranges when played by both are 0EV
ok villain shove range tighter than nash
here we gain +EV from the villain open folding too much as a result a nash calling range will not always have the required equity to call. lets take it to extreme to show the concept, if villain @ 10 BB only shoves AA and folds everything else then we should never call we should even fold AA our selves (EXTREME EXAMPLE) why take a 50/50 shot when u know every other hand he folds to you. so therefore if villain shoves tighter than nash we should call tighter, infact we should only call with hands that have a positive expectation (+ev) v that villains range this will maximise our edge by gaining ev from all his extra folds and making sure we have the correct hand range when calling (a calling range tighter than the raising range basic fundamental).
Villain shove range wider than nash
a little bit tricker to understand but ill try my best to explain
we should be calling a wider than nash range but it can be skewed toward slightly more High card hands, lets consider an extreme example to explain, consider villain is shoving any two cards (ATC) while we dont pick up any ev from folds there is so many bad hands in the villains range that if we adapt our ranges to hold more high card starters and less low cards we can do quite well, ie we cant call with 34s or 56s because we will be behind even an ATC hand range to often but we can call with Q2o because it will be infront often enough of anyone pushing ATC @ 10 |BB thus we should be calling wider than nash with more of the high card hands added to our range
now lets look at villain calling ranges
villain calls tighter than nash
we pick up alot of +ev from the villain folding to much, extreme example villain only calls AA if that was the case we could shove ATC and will win so often @ 10 BB that even when villain calls and we lose we have won so many times that we are still in front. so when villain calls to tight we can start to widen our push range to take advantage of the extra folds (usually better to use connected and suited connected cards rather than high card hands high card hands when actually called stand to be more often dominated by villains calling range)
villain calls wider than nash
hardest to understand but ill do my best to explain
we should be shoving wider than nash (remember when villain shoves tighter than nash we gain +EV from folds, so therefore if we for any reason shove tighter than nash then villains gains +ev (only if we can get extra +EV post flop should we do this but at 8BB or less its almost never going to happen)), Extreme example villain calls ATC @ 10 bb if villain does that then we can shove hands like J6o and T7o which are wider than nash but we should actually fold T4s which is shove for 10.5 BB in the nash charts (how is this therefore wider than nash taking out T4 s takes out 4 hands out of our total hand combination but adding in j6o adds 12 hands to our hand combination so we are Shoving a wider % than nash but this % is not just nash + more hands it should be skewed toward more high card hands, but our lower suited hands that took advantage of fold equity and when called were less likely to be dominated need to taken out because we get no fold equity
there i hope i explained it well enough for you
on the last one, your example might be right if you play with more than 10bb and you only push or fold and villain even calls with 32o then you can maybe push a little bit wider than normal, but in general if villain is folding alot vs push you should push wider than normal, and if he's calling more you should be pushing a little bit tighter.
pretty sure thats wrong
when i use any pre flop equity calculator like ICMIZER or Coffee Calcs whenever i make the villains calling range wider then my profitable shove range gets wider
and shoving tighter than nash gives the villain +ev from us now folding more sure he gives it back by calling too wide but like i said any equity calculator says shove wider when called wider
What numbers did you put in icmizer? I tried with 7bb, nash shove range is 67%, call range is 48%. For a call range between 55% and 84% I get a shove range of around 55%. For higher than 84% the push range increases a little, for 100% call range the push range is 60%, so still smaller than nash.
In your example with 10,5bb maybe you are right that icmizer will show you that it is +EV to push j6o vs a 100% calling range, I still think pushing is the worst thing you can do here, Even if you only options are to push or fold. Yes you do get a slight +EV by pushing but vs this big fish you can afford to wait. This is -EV for the hand, but you will most likely get a hand that gives you more +EV than what you are loosing here if you wait a couple of hands.
Thanks for the replies everyone! Things are making more and more sense.
Waiting on a phone call so figured I'd write a little update rather than be stuck in a game while chatting.
Played 10 regular speed 3s yesterday and 5 already this morning. Won 6/10 yesterday and 4/5 today so that is nice. Also getting use to playing regular speeds again after my time at the turbo 5s. I kind of become a baby with how long regulars take, especially when I am down. I want to get it all back ASAP! But alas, got to stick to some good bankroll management.
I also played a few 1$ hypers on merge. I have <20 bucks on there that I ran up from a free 5$ the gave me. I hope to sprinkle in the 1$ hypers to work on my shallow game and possibly build up a roll on merge. I understand that <20 bi will give a decent chance of busting but it is not a big deal. 90% of my time will be on bovada so the merge stuff is just for practice with the added benefit of possibly making some money.
I will probably start playing more hypers once I purchase PT4. As it sits now, I have no way of knowing if I am playing/running good or bad. This is a bummer with hypers where so often you get it in while only ahead a bit. I think the ev graphs would be a great addition because I could know if I was just playing poorly or was unlucky. I get all kiiiinds of butt hurt when I lose at hypers so I don't play them but for fun.
That is about it... Still wanting to get around 10 regular speeds per day, 6 days a week, until I get the roll back above 150 then it is to the turbo 5s.
Well, college has fired up again. Taking spanish during the winter break like a maniac. Going to be busy with that until after the 1st.
BR is sitting around 100 bucks. Ran hot at 3.15s, moved up to 5s reg speeds, ran hot, took shot at 10 reg speed and got beat to deafff. Was pretty butt hurt about it and lost a bit afterwards at the 5s. Lesson learned! From now on, if I take a shot at a higher buy in, it will be my last SNG of the day. This way if I lose, I'll be over it by morning. It has happened multiple times now that I took a shot/got deep in a donkament, lost, tilted the rest of the day. I'm fine with taking an aggressive approach to my roll, but I can't be tilting like this.
I am still only a few months back into poker, so I am feeling out how I should operate my roll. I tend to change my mind a lot just because I am finding out what works with every game. I think I have come up with a decent approach. I will give it a good run over the holidays and then write about it afterwards. I feel like I am filling up this thread with my wishy-washy ideas on bankroll management/game selection. Going to try to clean it up and mostly have results and reflections about past games, not random plans for the future.
So it is slaving away at Spanish and tossing in the occasional regular speed HUSNG. Hopefully I can run hot to make up for my lack of volume.