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No guest this week, just thorough strategy talk. Andrew brags about a deep run in a free poker tournament, we break down a hand from a 6-handed WSOP prelim event, and we discuss the first third of Tommy Angelo’s Elements of Poker. Tommy also provided the music this week.
Strategy
This week’s hand has actually been on the blog before, in Sylvain’s WSOP Trip Report. Here’s Sylvain’s description of the hand and relevant history:
The day started out pretty well. The table was not easy, as it would be expected early on in the series in a 6 max tournament, but also was not impossible to navigate. I promptly established a very aggressive image and was able to work my stack up from 4500 chips to 14k by the 3rd level when poker pro and amazing player Justin Bonomo sits down two seats to my left. At that point, it is me against 5 pros and I admittedly get a bit nervous and decide to nit up and tighten up my game. That plan quickly goes out of the window when I notice that Justin is running over the table. I decide it is only fair that I give him a bit of resistance and the following few hands happen:
Blinds are 75/150 and Justin opens UTG to 350, btn flats and I decide to 3bet KQo to 950 from the SB. With 8k behind, Justin asks if I have him covered then shoves after looking at my stack and realizing that I don’t. I fold. I really didn’t like the idea of playing KQo with him OOP. So either I take it down pre or fold to his 4bet like I did.
Still at 75/150 He opens UTG to 350, it folds around to me and I 3bet AQo from the SB to 925. He folds.
At this point, I would say we have a little bit of history, and Justin and I are both sitting on 14k. Still at 75/150 It folds around to me on the btn and I open KJo to 300. Justin 3bets to 950. His 3 betting range here is very wide imo. He’s seen me be pretty aggressive even against other players at the table so could really do this with lots of different things. I also have blockers to his value range so decide for a small 4bet to 2025. Obviously ready to fold if he 5bets. He flats. Flop comes J107r and he checks to me. Given the flop texture decide for a rather large bet and cbet to 3625. He jams with A10 for middle pair, we hold and double up and bust him in the process.
Book Club
We discuss Part 1 of Elements of Poker, from page 1 to 84. A few people sent questions and comments after we’d recorded – we’ll discuss those next week, along with pages 85 – 174 (Parts II – V). For more of Andrew’s thoughts on how to read the book, check out Idealistic Extremes.
Timestamps
1:02 Hello and Welcome. Andrew is still in the WRGPT.
5:22 Strategy: WSOP 6-Max hand
38:22 Book Club: Part I of Elements of Poker
Love your piece in the 2+2 magazine. I never thought about mimicking the superusers as a way to strive for perfect poker, but it does feel similar to a lot of the strategies I have been learning recently.
Thanks, Carlos. I’m curious – what are the other strategies you’re referring to here?
Good show, thanks.
I’ve not read Elements of Poker, but I have listened to the Tommy Angelo series on Deuces Cracked (the 8fold path to poker enlightenment) and it sounds like it’s broadly comparable. One of the things that struck me about Tommy’s work is that, although (as I think one of you said) many of the ideas are things that I’ve either consciously thought or had washing about my head in a less formed way, he’s got a great way of articulating ideas in ways which a) stick with me and b) have me revisiting them and finding new aspects to them over time. I can totally understand Nate’s statement that dipping into Tommy’s work can make you play better *next session* – that mindfulness is at the heart of it, after all.
I thought Nate’s idea that winrates are potentially higher is really interesting. The thing that has always struck me how low average winrates are and how crushed they are by the size of variance – 5 to 10bb/100 or whatever is 1 big blind per orbit, which is dwarfed by the size of the bets that you’re regularly making – you only have to miss one value bet on a river, or make one sloppy decision every session or so to make a huge dent in it. In a sense it feeds back into Tommy’s idea of reciprocality – it’s that constant striving to make bets that our opponents will check back, or make folds that everyone else pays off.
And finally – about the discussion of the guy who played the 1-Drop all on his own roll: if only it were all that way. I find the idea of people selling off huge chunks of themselves in big games really kills my interest in the games. I understand why they do it, but I hate anything that detracts from poker being just a table of people playing their own bankrolls against the rest of the world. I guess I’m just an old romantic.
Thanks, Ian, glad you enjoyed it. You can expect more discussion about staking/swapping in high buy-in events on our next show!