blonde poker forum

It has been said, I know not by whom, that the best players are those who have people with whom they can talk strategy too and bounce ideas off.

Now is the cliched time for resolutions and stuff, and one of mine in the new year is to spend some time talking STT strategy over the internet-phone with other players interested in the finer points of the game.

So this post is an open invitation to anyone interested in the odd 30-45 minute conversation. I was thinking the form it could take is we both observe the same game while talking on Skype or something similar and critique the play as it happens.

Players of any ability may apply, stronger players than myself are welcome (ldo) but also newer players to the game interested in getting better.
I don't profess to being some kind of guru, but they say the best way to learn is to teach.

Basically anyone interested in becoming better at playing STTs.


Post on the thread if you're up for giving this a try. I'm going to try and do a 30-45 minute conversation at least once a week. If there's lots of interest in this sort of thing, (like if 3 people want to do it) I won't be able to talk to everyone right away, but maybe you can set something up with each other.

So go on then, who's serious about getting better at STTs in 2009?

This looks like a great idea, I would be very interested but am not playing many STT's at the moment, I will be returning to the tables in the new year and at that point would love to get involved in this.

Cool.

I am happy to get involved. If there is enough interest we could have a study group of sorts.

Sounds good.

I'm mostly playing cash now but would still be interested to do this if it gets going

I have recently gone back to STTs on a part time basis and will be putting in some serious volume in 09 so am definitely interested.

ya I would be interested, sounds like a good idea

This.

I might be interested in this too.

What about if i'm watching Easteneders at the same time and keep randomly shouting things like: "OH MY DAYS she just slapped him in the face"!!!! and "aaahhhhh she's such a slag, he's gonna find out you know"!!

will you kick me out the club?

This sounds like a great idea.


If only I know what Skype was and how it works.

Tis easy, even I worked it out.

Yes for watching Eastenders.

This sounds like a really gd idea. I prefer the idea for cash games tho if anyone is interested in that.

totally intrested in it for cash stt and mtts and all dicplines of poker

Yep i'd be interested

i think id go one stage further, why dont we use the internet, set up some sort of conversation online?

dont let flushy in, he'll start heavy breathing and ask you what you're wearing.

+1. We could even have a forum, like some kind of poker-based forum.

Great idea

I dont like the sound of that...

Sounds like a great idea.

I spent the 2nd half of 2008 moving up through the limits playing STT's, but do feel like my game is stagnating a bit at the moment. Something like this sounds ideal.


P

lol Bolt 

What is the difference between a $10, $20, $30, $50 and $100 STT? Apart from the obvious.

imo it's the aggression and use of icm in the latter stages

In general people just make less hideous mistakes the further you move up, in the 10's you still get a couple of idiots getting it in 1st hand aj vs 55 or folding getting unbelievable odds in the bb etc. At the 100's there are quite a few regs who are ICM proficient and others who get the basics like play tight early, shove loose late.

As you move up you get less of the former and more of the latter, not to say there aren't some very reasonable low stakes grinders and some high stakes donktards.

Okay, I've sent a bunch of you some info on this regarding the orgainsational mumbo jumbo. Two seperate pms, one about general guff, the other about booking a time slot.

Some of you won't have recieved the pm about time slots yet because I am limited to 15 pms/hour
Fret not, I will send you it later on this morning.

If anyone who hasn't recieved either pm but is interested in a 30-45 minutes Skype call about STT strategy in January, get in contact with me. Maybe you were making a funny and expressing interest at the same time, I'm not bright enough to pick up on such nuance. :)

Hi, I doubt i could make this but any chance you could record it and podcast it?
I have no idea how but would be good to listen back too.

Just realised this wont work as we cant see what your talking about....Video it?

That's an idea, although not sure I want to do that straight away in case they're shit. :)

edit : probably wouldn't do this myself, but would watch/listen if someone else did.

Everyone should have both messages now.

If you don't have two, I've ballsed up somehow.

Cooler/should have passed pre?

Full Tilt Poker Game #9831307636: $20 + $2 Sit & Go (74798291), Table 1 - 100/200 - No Limit Hold'em - 7:25:41 ET - 2009/01/03
Seat 1: MastaM86 (1,580)
Seat 3: sovietsong (2,205)
Seat 5: crt1477 (2,975)
Seat 6: dimdimdimdim (2,240)
sovietsong posts the small blind of 100
crt1477 posts the big blind of 200
The button is in seat #1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to sovietsong [8h Td]
dimdimdimdim calls 200
MastaM86 folds
sovietsong calls 100
crt1477 checks
*** FLOP *** [8s Tc Qd]
sovietsong bets 400
crt1477 folds
dimdimdimdim calls 400
*** TURN *** [8s Tc Qd] [5h]
sovietsong bets 1,605, and is all in
dimdimdimdim calls 1,605
sovietsong shows [8h Td]
dimdimdimdim shows [9s Js]
*** RIVER *** [8s Tc Qd 5h] [Qs]
sovietsong shows two pair, Queens and Tens
dimdimdimdim shows a straight, Queen high
dimdimdimdim wins the pot (4,610) with a straight, Queen high
sovietsong stands up
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 4,610 | Rake 0
Board: [8s Tc Qd 5h Qs]
Seat 1: MastaM86 (button) didn't bet (folded)
Seat 3: sovietsong (small blind) showed [8h Td] and lost with two pair, Queens and Tens
Seat 5: crt1477 (big blind) folded on the Flop
Seat 6: dimdimdimdim showed [9s Js] and won (4,610) with a straight, Queen high

I assume this is a 6-max game?

Call seems fine.

6 Max is correct. I was doubting myself there! 

No escape, so many other hands that you crush are calling the all-in as well, so playing it differently is probably -EV for your stack.
I would probably play it differently if I had 3,500 chips tho.

1st session today, myself and tank had a 45 minute chat whilst watching a $38 stt on stars. while it was useful we thought it wasn't the ideal format for a few reasons

-so few hands go to showdown early on so you don't get to see what people are playing
-we wanted to do a bit of hand reading but it's difficult at the speed a tourney moves at plus as above you don't get to see what they're playing
-our game selection was most unfortunate. after the first hand which went limp, raise, call, call, call pf it looked like there might be a lot of action but from hand 2 onwards it turned into the tightest game ever until the blinds had got quite high so we didn't have 2 much to discuss early on

we did get some good discussions going towards the end, from about 6 handed, about our own ranges in certain positions compared to the players we were watching. it's good to get someone elses opinion on decisions that you normally make automatically

3 particularly interesting points were

- the play of seat 1 who was superb while 6 and 5 handed, shoving at all the right moments, before completely shutting up shop on the bubble and finally finishing 4th. a textbook example of why laddering is bad. wish I'd got the hh. do you remember the tourney no. tank?
-just how bad people's bubble play is in general. the amount of standard 3x raises being made when everyone was at 10-12bb was amazing. even more amazing was that they were 3xing and then passing to shoves
-the number of atc shoves that people pass up

so as I said, while this was useful it's not the ideal format.

tank and longy also had a convo earlier which hopefully one of them will tell you about. they went for the format of running through a tournament history that they'd both had time to study. this looks like being the way forward if we continue with this, running through a tourney in a replayer allows you to spend the right amount of time discussing each hand, an option you don't have when working in real time, and allows you to see more cards.

it would be good to get more people involved, I can see this being very useful

nice post


they should just be pushing, exerting maximum pressure, in my quoted exercpt of your post?

it was interesting that the player making these 3x raises the most was a profitable supernova. the first couple of times we were wondering if it was to induce a shove but when the next couple of times they passed to a shove we figured they were just bad

I'm interested in getting involved in this

cool, I'll send you a copy of the pm tank sent out with details

Nice post there gatso, I'm afraid I don't remember the number of the tournament in question, sorry

Yeah, from today I've found that the hand history review format seemed to be more beneficial.

I would agree that the problem lies in the pacing of the observed tournament. Things happen way too slowly, and then things happen way too quickly. I might miss what happened in a given hand that gatso wanted to talk about because I was busy talking about the last hand, etc etc. It's difficult for both parties to concentrate their thoughts on the same hand at the same time.



Longy was talking about the possibility of group sessions, as well as a kind of round robin 1 on 1 discussion group. Both really good ideas as far as I'm concerned.

Group sessions would probably work well if chaired by someone who could move the discussion on to the next hand when necessary.

I'm pretty hot for the group sessions idea coz they can be a bit more casual. You can show up or not to a group session and it's not a big deal, the show goes on without you whereas it kinda doesn't in a 1 on 1 discussion.

should mention that although pm mentions two options,  review of a hand history or observing a tournament in progress, I've kinda gone cold on the observing tournament idea after seeing the other way work so much better.

You also may prefer to wait for a group discussion that I'll be getting around to organizing a pilot for very soon.

I wouldnt mind checking this out.

Cheers

Also very interested, if I can fit my odd working hours around you. Any chance of the PMs please?

I should probably work something up on the thread, rather than keep sending out these mad pms.

The beurocracy of it all, I'm going to have a pack of Quavers and a think for a minute.

In STTs, no-one should raise for 1/4 of their stack with the intention of folding to a reraise. It has been drummed into me that that is always bad.

If you are going to call the reraise, the problems don't end there.
Your opponents range will for shoving over you will be wider than the range he would have called with had you simply shoved. The reason being, he thinks he has fold equity.

The bubble of an STT is a place where a good lot of hands do not welcome this extra action. Even when it is profitable, it may not be by as much as if we had simply shoved pre.

Some hands do fair better against an opponents wider range (AA for example :) ) but only raising when you want someone to come over you can be pretty exploitable.

Today's 45 min session (actually make that 35mins cos i forgot) with Tank was really good. As mentioned earlier we went through one of my recent hhs and picked out 5 or 6 interesting spots and discussed various concepts. It allowed us to focus on the strategy side without feeling under time pressure and the other advantage over the hhs is that you see every hand 1 player is dealt, often in sngs it is the hands that don't go to showdown which are more important.

I am definitely on board for future sessions like the one above, using a round robin timetable and also having group discussions. I think using teamviewer might be something useful to incorporate into the mix.

Are you still thinking about recording some conversations podcastesc? Would be interested in listening to some of those. I don't really have a game i'm good at atm (sharkscope graph is pretty nuts) so would be good to work on stts.