It's time for a complete mental reset

That would be a question for you, since you played with them. Have they been calling flop bets with draws when in position, or have they been raising? Have they been trapping preflop in position with big hands? They have you massively outchipped.

You're asking us to analyze a single hand in a vacuum. You had the actual experience of playing with them, we didn't.

What about your betting style? You're betting slightly less than even thousand chip amounts. Do you do that when you are strong and weak and middling?

I remember watching a quasi-famous "internet poker personality" playing on Party Poker back in the day. When he raised preflop with air he would raise to like 16584, usually an amount that would make his remaining chip stack have a bunch of 0's at the end. But when he had a good hand he would do exactly 3x. Needless to say, he got reraised almost every time he bet those odd amounts.

I don't have that kind of info. This is a site that doesn't allow trackers (hence the random names) and between table moves, I simply don't have enough experience to make an exploitative decision here.

I use pre-selected bet percentage buttons and will sometimes scroll up or down a touch depending on the situation. In this case I'm using my pre-selected 40% bet size on both streets. That's my standard "small size" postflop, though it is larger than what solvers use.

That's fair. I doubt you would find anyone here that would be highly critical of how you played the hand. There are plenty of hands that the BB could reasonably have that beat you, and planning to check-call nets you bonus chips when the BB either "value-bets" with AJ, or bets some sort of missed draw/complete air.

After you see the cards turn over, it's of course easy to second guess every decision.

If you are paying attention while you are playing, and understand solver-based strategy, you should quickly understand how the field you are playing in is making errors (in general) and be able to formulate exploits against it.

If you aren't playing to exploit, and you aren't playing based on a solver-based range/size, then you're just clicking buttons, right? Like, your guess as to how to play a hand can't be much better than a random player you're playing againsts guess, right?

If you don't have enough experience to make exploits, why are you sizing larger than solver?

I have a good sense of population tendencies, I don't don't have information about this particular player's tendencies. Which is what he asked.

Population tends to lean towards poor preflop range selection (far too wide) and passivity postflop. Typical for lower stakes.

I started using larger sizes than solver for this reason: so I can get more value when I'm ahead, and put more pressure on passive players when I'm bluffing. My other rationale for using larger sizes is to confuse players who mess around with solvers and expect other players to use solver sizes. At these stakes most players who mess around with solvers are likely doing so at a very superficial level and won't understand how to adapt when their opponents are using non-solver sizing.

This feels somewhat contradictory to what you wrote in an earlier post:

If you believe the typical player is too passive, wouldn't you be inclined to rather 3-barrel more often than taking the check-call line? Obv. a passive player would call more marginal holdings that he mostly would check behind OTR. And at least to me a passive player is also a player who is going to underbluff in general. Which means you would probably check/fold more rivers instead of calling when he actually bets IP.

It's difficult though, because those kind of river situations will always be marginal and difficult to decide in game which line is best. And it will always be a guessing game. But if I go to myself, this type of inconsisent reasoning as well as inconsisten actions at the table are probably one of the bigger leaks in my game right now.

You are correct, this has been a leak in my game too. Which is why I decided to include triple-barrels on my scoresheet - I have a tendency to avoid them out of caution, so I want to force myself to look for triple-barrel spots.

I used to be a very weak-tight player and worked very hard on adding aggression to my game. I've improved A LOT in that area, but there are still some spots that make me uncomfortable.

But you've made a very astute observation here. If population is more passive and deviates from equilibrium in the way I described, I should be barreling way more often than I am.

It seems we have a number of things in common. I'm also a 50+ guy with grownup kids who study at the university right now. Working full time, have a social life and try to find time for my playing. I "restarted" my poker career around last christmas (2023) after an almost complete break for almost a decade. Playing on the international Pokerstars (most players come from european countries and Brazil).

I was a winning player mostly at SnG:s, earning a number of $ K then. But around 2011-2012 competition became more and more tough (I knew that many players in various types of games who had been living on their poker incomes had to quit during this years because of that). I also got into a long downswing that finally made me feel so fed up with the whole thing that I quit and started pursueing other interests instead.

Since I restarted I've been studying quite a lot: Books, forums, podcasts, building P/F-ranges with the help of HRC. And since this autumn also more and more solver work. I have to admit though that so far my results hasn't been impressive. I have a slightly positive winning rate in terms of bb/100. But not in $. Like almost every poker player except for perhaps the very best I believe I've experienced more bad luck so far than sunrun. But to be honest I'm not sure where I really stand. The most realistic conclusion is that I'm probably break-evenish at best.

I have a couple of thoughts, based on my own experiences and what you have been writing in this topic so far. They're in no particular order of importance.

1) You have a very low volume MTT-wise. I'm not sure if you are fully aware of how big the effect of variance is, especially in larger fields tournaments. It's not uncommon even for solidly winning players to have BE-stretches over 1 or 2 K games. They might even have losing streaks that big. The nature of MTT:s are that most of the profit will come from a very few very deep runs. Like ending up top 3-4, and preferably binking the tourney. If you play MTT:s with say around 500 players on average and play 200-250 per year, you will often experience year long streaks without any such top scores, and would do that even if your true ROI is real great

2) This means that it's somewhat illogical that you prefer MTT:s over Cashgame because you say you are risk-averse. The nature of MTT:s in fact results in an even greater variance than CG:s. You will play short-stacked a lot of the time and being forced to gamble by taking flips over and over again. Any successful pots early on in the tournament will often be completely erased when you later on loose most of or all of your stack in an unavoidable confrontation. And to be able to grab the bigger prizes in the top heavy structure you have to be really, really lucky in a number of hands in a row. Something that rarely happens, even for the most lucky players. In fact: Even if you're very good you will mostly (around 4 times out of 5) lose all the money you invested

3) You say that you've improved your game over the years and I don't doubt that for a minute. But I'm not sure if you're fully acknowledging to yourself that the same is true for a big chunk of the player pool. On of the first things I noticed when I made my comeback was how relatively few reel fishes there were left. Not many players anymore who plays stats like 49/4/0 (VPIP/PFR/3b) and fold 80% of the time to your continuation bets. Or stack of 100bb with a top pair when you hit your nut flush. I play with a HUD, and on a normal 8-player table in my $5-$30 games there will on avg 6 of 7 of my villains who plays with reasonably good PF-stats, like 21/18 or 24/17 and have a 3-bet frequenzy of say 5-6. And most of them won't be either very weak or over aggressive postflop. Now: This doesn't mean they're really good players. Most of them are in fact probably losing. But they're competent and aware enough that it will be difficult for you or any other rec player like myself to really outplay them.

Poker always was - like a wise man said - a game of pushing small edges. But the solvers have made it even more so. Because it's way easier than before to get a grasp of the fundamentals of the game and play accordingly.

Also - as I'm sure you know - most of us humans tend to overvalue our own skills in various areas. Like way more than 50% when asked thinks they are a better car driver than the average car driver. I know that I'm for sure an overconfident person in a number of areas. And during those 16 months of play I gradually have arrived at the conclusion that the combination of my studying, my insights and my analytical skills doesn't give me such an edge over such a big part of the player pool in those stakes as I were hoping for. And one part of it is that when I study and develop, so does many other players. And others pick up on new and better ways of playing from what they observe at the tables.

4) This brings us to the topic of solvers. You don't state explicitly if you use any or not, but I sense an animosity against them from you. And I think that might be a problem. The fact that you dislike some of the results of them (like strategic podcasts disappearing) won't change the fact that the game as a whole has evolved due to the conclusions that can be drawn from how the solvers play or not play hands. Like that smaller suited connectors in fact mostly aren't that good candidate for 3-betting than many players - even experts - once believed. Virtually ignoring this most likely isn't a way to success. Solvers as I've understood it also made it even more clear that a solid strategy involves both aggressive and passive lines in the right mix and depends on how your and your opponents ranges interacts with the cards on the board.

Now I mostly don't find it that exciting either to study solver outputs. But I realize I learn from them and I can't see any other conclusion than that they are necessary today if you want to improve your game and be able to keep up with how my competitors develop and get better.

5) I'm afraid your idea of making odd bet sizes post flop to confuse other players, thereby outplaying them, won't benefit you. Solvers have shown that in many situations the ev of different bet sizes or even between checking and betting will be almost identical. Betting smaller will make your winnings smaller when you have your opponent beaten. But in the same way the will also make your losses smaller when villain has you beaten. Bigger bluffs will succeed more often, but also make you loose more when they are called. But there will also be many situation when the bet size does matter. Taking odd lines will I believe increase the risk of making mistakes. And if you also underestimate other players skill level (see above) you can make the situation even worse. And in the end it depends on mathematics and probability. You bet small either to minimize the risk or to increase the chance of villain calling (when they have a weak range). You bet big when you have a real good hand with good chances to get called. Or to push your opponent of their marginal holdings. Oversimplified of course, but the idea a rec player could get an advantage by making non-solver approved bet sizes... Sorry man, but I doubt this will prove a great strategy.

6) Like me and so many others (most) pokerplayers you have obvious problems dealing with negative variance. When I check what really happened during a session I almost always find that I wasn't that unlucky as I thought. My mind "forgot" a couple of hands I won, often even those when I actually was then one who won a hand where I was an underdog from the beginning. Losing hands where you started as a favourite is also a completely normal and unavoidable part of playing poker. But for some reason or minds seem to think that we are expected and entitled to win many more hands than we actually should. Of course we know in theory that we are supposed to loose many hands when we're a 70-30 favourite (like AK against AJ allin pre) we're often hurt when we loose them. And it leaves us with a sense of unfairness that often builds up to frustration when more hands are lost. Sometimes resulting in tilt in some form.

I get a sense - maybe wrong - that at least emotionally you're hoping for more or less consistent success in your MTT-playing in the future. But that's for sure not going to happen. If playing poker really will add quality to your life (And I can say the exact same thing to myself as I'm struggling with this such a big part of the time) I think you will have to find a better and more realistic mindset in those aspects. This probably also will have at least some +ev effect on your results.

Greetings from Sweden! I can assure you that a huge majority of us are admiring the way Canada and their people have met and stood up against Trump and his disgusting regime!

Greetings from Canada! This is a very thoughtful response, and the kind of engagement I was really hoping for when I started this thread. So much to discuss here so let's get into it.

I am aware but I kind of refuse to accept it. Not because I disagree but because I'm stuck where I am. I can't play more volume without it negatively impacting my life, but I also don't want to give up and quit. That being said, variance also impacts people in different ways and at different times. Poker is full of pros who are only pros because they benefited from variance early in their careers and built a bankroll. There's a huge survivor bias in poker - people who make money early stick around (until they lose it), while people who start off losing are driven out of the game. So while you're right in terms of the big picture that variance will impact me more because I'm playing low volume, there's also no reason why I couldn't benefit from variance at any point in time and go on a nice run.

The advantage of MTTs is that I can control my risk more than I can in cash. Yes there is more variance in MTTs, but they also provide a better risk/reward ratio. I just find cash games mind-numbingly boring because it feels like I'm on a hamster wheel. And I do think the overall skill level of the player pool is higher in cash games.

Maybe it's related to our different player pools, but I don't see that with the games I play. First of all, online poker was just regulated in my Province 6 or 7 years ago and our legal sites are ring-fenced, so a lot of new people have joined the game in that time. Only one of the two sites I play on allows trackers, and on that site I see a lot of very loose/passive players. I think you might overestimate how many people actually study. Especially at low stakes.

I use the free version of GTO Wizard to learn ranges and occasionally run hands through, but that's the limit of my solver use. I wouldn't describe my attitude towards them as animosity, more that I think their value has been way oversold for the average player. As Andrew Brokos says, for the average player most of the value in solvers comes from using them to understand equilibrium so you can identify when and how your opponents are deviating and, therefore, exploit effectively.

That's interesting, I didn't realize that.

I'll disagree with you here. The "odd lines" are designed to exploit how opponents deviate from equilibrium. If my opponents are generally playing wider ranges than they should, and calling wider than they should postflop, the most profitable way to exploit this postflop is to value bet more often for a larger size. For example, let's take a typical spot: you raise AT in the CO and the BB defends. Flop comes J66. The solver would have you bet this flop for a very small size, possibly even a minbet. But let's say you know the BB is a very loose player who always calls at least one continuation bet. Against this player you shouldn't take the solver line. The way to exploit him would be to bet large on the flop because you know he'll call.

Not at all. All I'm hoping for is some positive variance - it would be nice to run good over a period of time so I can feel what that's like. I'm just tired of the long stretches of nothing with the occasional deep run.

I missed another value bet here, which seems to be popping up as a leak.

PokerStars, $27.30 + $2.70 - Hold'em No Limit - 30/60 (6 ante) - 7 players
Hand delivered by Pokeit

UTG: 9,988 (166 bb)
MP: 9,651 (161 bb)
MP+1: 12,477 (208 bb)
CO: 9,274 (155 bb)
BU: 11,438 (191 bb)
SB: 7,557 (126 bb)
BB (Hero): 10,041 (167 bb)

Pre-Flop: (132) Hero is BB with 8♥ 7♥
2 players fold, MP+1 raises to 132, 2 players fold, SB calls 102, Hero calls 72

Flop: (438) A♣ 7♠ 9♥ (3 players)
SB checks, Hero checks, MP+1 bets 145, SB calls 145, Hero calls 145

Bottom pair with backdoor FD in a multiway pot and he's giving me juicy odds with deep stacks, so I think the only play is call and see a turn.

Turn: (873) 8♦ (3 players)
SB checks, Hero bets 760, MP+1 calls 760, SB folds

Great turn card? Gives me two pair but a very vulnerable one. And the turn card completes both the JT and 65 straights. HJ has all sets and SB at least has 77-99, along with some better 2P. However, both can have Ax along with other pairs and pair+draw combos (JJ/TT, T9/T8/T7, 76, 55). So I opt to lead for a large size to get value from this part of their ranges and to deny equity with such a vulnerable 2P. If either of them have a strong hand, they'll let me know.

River: (2,393) 2♣ (2 players)
Hero checks, MP+1 checks

I got scared by villain's call and shut down, when I should have interpreted his call as representing a condensed range. Similar to the other hand I posted, I missed a bet here to get value from all his marginal made hands.

Total pot: 2,393

Showdown:
BB (Hero) shows 8♥ 7♥ (two pair, Eights and Sevens)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 41%, Flop: 26%, Turn: 73%, River: 100%)

MP+1 mucks J♣ A♦ (a pair of Aces)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 59%, Flop: 74%, Turn: 27%, River: 0%)

BB (Hero) wins 2,393

Happy to report some real progress in my session yesterday. Played 5 MTTs yesterday and final-tabled one of them, 8th of 133 in a $30 8-max. But more importantly, I felt like I was playing much better. Some general reflections before I run through my hand histories:

1) I didn't make explicit use of the scoresheet but I had it in the back of my mind to remind me to look for creative spots. I think I might change how I use the scoresheet, using it to evaluate my play when I review my hand histories. For example, I can use it to give myself a percentage score for how accurate I am at following GTO opening and 3bet ranges.

2) I spent some time this week making a Google slides with opening and 3bet ranges at different stack sizes and it really helped me tighten up my ranges. I noticed, for example, that there were spots below 20bb that I was playing much higher variance than the solver suggests. I was a bit surprised to find that the solver does very little shoving at 17bb.

3) Since I discovered recently that I seem to be missing some value on rivers, I really focused on finding those spots. I recall a couple of spots where I got a river value bet in when I might have been inclined to check in the past.

Haven't posted in a while because I didn't have a chance to play last weekend, so I've just been focused on study. I decided to go back to basics and use GTOW to develop a slide deck of preflop ranges that I can have open while I play to really solidify my preflop play. I have noticed that my opening ranges have been too wide in some spots, so it was good to identify that leak.

But this work with GTOW has gotten me thinking a lot about how someone like me can use the software effectively to study. I've been thinking, for example, about developing a study framework based on the following steps:

1) Run a hand through GTOW
2) Make a note of how the solver plays each part of its range
3) Identify the underlying assumptions behind the solver's recommended play
4) Ask: How would the solver's strategy differ if my opponent deviated from equilibrium in different ways? For example, what if villain opens much tighter from that position? Or overfolds on the flop? Or never x/raises flop? And so on.

Now I know that GTOW has this ability with nodelocking and stuff, but I'm limited both in the fact that I only use the free version and I don't have hours and hours to spend on this. So I might start to incorporate this thought process into my hand analysis when I post hands for discussion. Quite frankly, I think that's what we should all be doing anyway, rather than just using the solver output as THE answer. This way I can train my own thought process and tap others for input.

Can you delete that sh-t please?

I don't really understand why you would post a hand for discussion if you've already found the optimal/max exploit answer. It's like asking someone to look over your test after you've already gotten 100 on it.

It seems like your mindset is that using tools to essentially do math for you is cheating somehow or makes you less of a poker player. That asking people who have just as many leaks as you do, if not more, for assistance is noble or virtuous. Or maybe it's just nostalgia, like that's how we did it in 2007 so doing it now makes you feel like you did back then? Either way, your idea of finding the gto line and then node locking to find the max exploit line vs a player/meta is a good one, go with that. I would also suggest working on opening ranges/3b ranges/cbet ranges to start with because as you mentioned, there are probably a ton of spots where you're just a little off and it's dropping your ROI, and also it's impossible to evaluate other's play if you don't know what you're looking for.

I respect the hustle and the grind, and the transparency. Hopefully you'll find some more time to play in the bear future.

Solvers don't give you the max exploit answer, they give you the equilibrium answer.

And no, I don't think using tools is cheating or anything like that. I just think most people use them incorrectly.

What happens when you nodelock opponent's/field's specific mistakes and then solve?

I guess you missed the part of my post where I said I use the free version of GTOW so I can't node lock.

I hope you can appreciate the irony.

How'd your Sunday sesh go?

Yes, but at least I recognize the limits of what I can do with it. I don't think that's even the case for the average player, who plays around with GTOW or watches videos and takes the outputs as universal answers.

Didn't play much Sunday but did mincash a tourney for 2x. Played more yesterday with the long weekend and finished second in a small MTT, so that was nice. I feel like I'm really solidifying my preflop ranges, which is good. But the big difference between this tourney and most others I've played is that my hands held up when I got my money in. It's amazing what a difference that makes, lol.

The other thing I noticed was how big a factor luck is in running deep. The hand below is one that took place with 2 tables left and it rocketed me into a big chip lead at a key moment in the tourney. But it was a hand I shouldn't have even been playing. I had the PT4 replayer open to review a previous hand and the windows overlapped, which resulted in a misclick preflop.

PokerStars, $18.20 + $1.80 - Hold'em No Limit - 400/800 (100 ante) - 7 players
Hand delivered by Pokeit

UTG: 3,328 (4 bb)
MP: 51,980 (65 bb)
MP+1: 29,696 (37 bb)
CO: 16,460 (21 bb)
BU: 5,419 (7 bb)
SB (Hero): 67,355 (84 bb)
BB: 44,136 (55 bb)

Pre-Flop: (1,900) Hero is SB with 8♣ 4♣
UTG raises to 3,228 (all-in), MP calls 3,228, 3 players fold, Hero 3-bets to 5,656, 1 fold, MP calls 2,428

Flop: (16,040) K♣ J♣ 7♥ (3 players, 1 all-in)
Hero checks, MP bets 8,020, Hero calls 8,020

Turn: (32,080) 5♣ (3 players, 1 all-in)
Hero checks, MP bets 16,040, Hero raises to 53,579 (all-in), MP calls 22,164 (all-in)

River: (108,488) 5♠ (3 players, 3 all-in)

Total pot: 108,488

Showdown:
SB (Hero) shows 8♣ 4♣ (a flush, King high)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 31%, Flop: 36%, Turn: 93%, River: 100%)

MP shows J♠ K♠ (two pair, Kings and Jacks)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 25%, Flop: 51%, Turn: 7%, River: 0%)

UTG shows K♥ Q♥ (two pair, Kings and Fives)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 44%, Flop: 13%, Turn: <1%, River: 0%)

SB (Hero) wins 108,488

Thanks to this hand I had a commanding chip lead on the final table, but then I went card dead and eventually lost the lead. The poker gods giveth and taketh away, I suppose. But it is kind of stupid and discouraging that I can play well and repeatedly bust, and then my deepest run comes after a misclick that resulted in a double-knockout for a big chip lead right before the final table.

Feels like things might be turning around. Played a small session yesterday, just 3 tourneys. Won a small $15 turbo and cashed in a $30 PKO.

My hands are holding up, which obviously makes a huge difference, but I've also been noticing in my last couple of sessions that I'm not running into the problem of hitting hands and running into better hands. That must have a lot to do with the effort I've put into cleaning up my preflop ranges. I've realized that I've been playing too loose in early/middle positions. The other difference is that I'm doing a lot less shoving with <20bb stacks than I was before, which is reducing the variance and keeping me in tourneys longer to find better spots.

That will be my last session for a few weeks as I'll be heading overseas for vacation for two weeks, and then the weekend I get back will be busy with getting settled back home and celebrating Father's Day. I'm going to bring some study material with me on my trip. I'm going to go through all my recent hand histories, pick out some hands to review, and collect them all in a document I can print and bring with me. I also picked up DOK's "Beyond GTO" book. I really wanted to get Brokos' POP 2 but it is really expensive.

Finally got back to the virtual tables after a month off. Min-cashed a phased Summer Stacks event but not much else other than that. Played a couple of hands poorly in two different tourneys that cost me.

While I was overseas on vacation I did a bunch of reading and I think the problem was that I was antsy to play after a month and had a bunch of new concepts running around in my head, so I was a bit all over the place mentally. Hoping to get back to more regular weekly play now.

Played a brief session on the Canada Day holiday this week and had some good results. Played 3 tourneys: cashed in a $21 PKO and had a deep run in a $25 deepstack. Both smaller tourneys because they were earlier in the day, which I much prefer at my age.

I think I'm coming to terms with the fact that it is probably more profitable for me to reduce my volume and focus on quality rather than quantity. Since I typically play once/week, I've been trying to cram as many tourneys as I can into that one day to make up for the lack of volume overall. It usually means running 3 or sometimes 4 tourneys at a time, and when I bust one I immediately look for the next one to join. I've noticed the quality of my play suffers a lot when I do that. When I limit myself to 2 tourneys at a time and make an effort to concentrate on those games, I play much smarter. I don't feel rushed to make decisions and I can actually watch both tables to pick up on tendencies that is harder to do with 3 or 4 tables. But more than that, it shifts my mental approach to the tourneys. When I try to maximize my volume, I'm not as mentally invested in each individual tourney. I'm thinking about the session as a whole and in the back of my mind I know that if I bust out of one, I'll have another one to join soon. So I think that has made me subconsciously less diligent and thoughtful when I play. When I play a smaller session and decide to focus on one or two at a time, I can approach it mentally more like a live tourney. That likely explains why I've noticed that when I play a big volume session, any good results tend to come later in the day - often in one of the final two tourneys I reg.

So from now on I'm going to focus on quality rather than quantity and see what it does for my results.

I think there's a general agreement that quality of play decreases for every table you add to your session. For a winning player it's not relevant in itself though: They should - in theory - play the number of tables that gives them the best $/hour. At least if the goal is maximizing the profit.

If your goal is to play as optimal poker as you can, you should probably stick to 1-2 tables. I still feel though (see my last post) that you have some problems admitting the very big variance factor of the game to yourself. There's no way you'll be able to find out if playing fewer tables will give you better results in the tournaments you play for a very long time. Your results the next 6 months if you play say 100 MTT:s during that time doesn't say much in a game where even winning players should expect downswings of at least 100 buy-ins if playing in average sized MTT-fields! I play about 100 MTT:s a month and it's completely crazy how much the results are shifting from month to month, even when you look at bb/100! A fact that doesn't stop some part of me from believing I've now improved for real every time I hit an upswing for weeks or a month or two! But the grim reality of MTT-poker is that you need samples in at least 4-digit numbers to be able to draw some more reliable conclusions.

True, but the objective is to make money and getting better at the game is a means to accomplishing that goal. The mathematics are such that a sufficient sample size is a lifetime of playing high volume, so one could argue that nobody really knows how good they actually are at the game. Perhaps everybody just experiences positive variance at different times and for different stretches of time. As the old saying goes, "I'd rather be lucky than good." It doesn't really matter how good I get at the game if it never translates into results.

You're right in theory that if I had good results over the next six months, that doesn't necessarily indicate I'm playing better because it could just be positive variance. But if I've been playing poker for 20 years with no sustained success, and then I make a specific change to how I'm playing and good results follow, it seems awfully coincidental. It might actually indicate an improvement in my play that directly impacts my results.