Update etc
by LearnedfromTV on 11/20/08
Update on a few things, along with some strategy ideas that I haven't developed in writing and organized into an article. Unfortunately, writing articles can't be a priority right now because of Elite and putting my coaching program together. Regarding elite, I passed 800k yesterday so I'm in comfortable range but it won't be easy. 5k vpp/day the rest of the way. Since I started playing the 225-335 sngs I can do 1k+/hour so it isn't that tough. I wish I could play more plo though.
Between a marathon Sunday (from the warmup to the horse with tons of sngs all day) and a sick latenight 5/10 plo session Monday after I thought I was done for the day, I did 18k vpp in two days. So I've taken it relatively easy yesterday and today, made a hu plo video for Pokersavvy, and am working on my plo coaching program, which I am aiming to have ready for new students in January. I've been working through the first few lessons with current students and am pleased with the results, as well as the tweaks I'm able to make as a result of the sessions.
The rough sketch of the program as it is today:
Each Unit is 4 lessons long, comes with an outline for each lesson and other supplementary material; a starting hands spreadsheet, a flop textures spreadsheet, etc. The full program is 30 lessons and is designed as a whole, but the units can be stand-alone too so people can choose to skip parts or to just do one unit or to choose a few. I'm also planning supplementary units on headsup play and shortstacking/tournament play/cap game play, and students usuallysupplement the program with sweat sessions and hh reviews.
Intro Lesson - three goals; to introduce my approach to thinking about poker and plo, partly because it explains why the program is structured as it is, to go over the outline of the program, and to cover several core PLO concepts.
Unit 1 Preflop: sets/flushes/straights/big draws are the target hands, so we evaluate starting hands in terms of their connectedness, suitedness, and “high card strength” in order to organize sensible hand categories/rankings, discuss the conditions under which to play different hand types and the situations to encourage with different hand types, and conclude with a workbook-style lesson covering common situations.
Unit 2 Flop Texture: Organize flops first into connectedness groups (based on the number and type of wraps and straights possible) and then into more functional categories that account for suitedness, high-card strength, and paired boards, and conclude with a workbook-style practical lesson.
Unit 3 Math: Twofold purpose: One, to supply the combinatorics of the interaction of preflop hand and flop; that is, how often does stuff flop stuff? Two, to provide core equity math in a easy reference format, including basic hand versus hand and hand versus range matchups, as well as the stack-size-dependent math of reraised pots, including versus likely AAxx. Also includes a bit of implied odds math (e.g. calling a flush turn with a set to fillup, how often does he need to payoff?).
Unit 4 Game Theory: Lessons build from toy game examples to generalized plo situations (such as naked ace lines) to situational analyses using complex ranges.
Units 5-7 Postflop Each Unit “Flop” “Turn” and “River” splits into three pieces, an introductory lesson defining the general parameters of play on that street, two lessons covering the meat of the (pieces) of lines to be discussed, and one workbook-style lesson heavy with examples. Each unit contains some emphasis on transitional ideas (flop-turn combinations, turn-river combinations)
Wrap-up/Opponent Profiling – review core concepts, a bit of game theory (strategy/counterstrategy), use pokertracker stats and other information to review exploiting opponent tendencies.
Pricing starts at $250/lesson but there's volume discounts built in for people buying the whole program or multiple units. Exact details still uncertain.
Pieces of it are completed, but I'm about two months away from having the whole thing done, at which point I'll advertise on 2p2 coaching forum and start in with new students (post-PCA, probably) If things continue to go well with the coaching, I'll look into refining the material into an audiobook/ebook combo later next year.
It's a big project, which means it's basically the only project I have right now besides chasing elite, and making a video here and there, best case, one/week.
-------------------------------------------
And for anyone who does read here for strategy content (or at all!), I'll throw out a couple important ideas worth thinking about.
1. In PLO, the most important piece of information regarding how strong a starting hands is, and more importantly, how to play it, is the distribution of equities that it flops. Some hands, like dry AA/KK (KK73r) flop the very strong set occasionally, and the uncomfortably mediocre unimproved (and unimproving, due to crap sidecards) overpair. There's a huge separation; if the word didn't already mean something else, you might say KK73s equity over the range of flops is "polarized." QJT9ds, on the other hands, flops a very smooth distribution of equities. From flopped straight with redraws to monster combo draws to two-pair+openender to the medium draws to the variety of one pair+ hands. A QJT9ds yields a lot of postflop flexibility across a wide range of flops.
2. Whether to call a 4 bet preflop (presumably AAxx who will shove any flop) is a function of two factors related to the note above: how often do you flop good enough equity to stack off, and what is your average equity against AAxx when you do. Those two %s together are what matter, not preflop equity. The action will happen on the flop, so the flop equities are what matters. You are calling the 4bet not based on your odds of beating aces, nor on your odds of outflopping aces, in the strict sense. You are calling in order to be placed in the situation where face a shove you can call x% of the time, of which times you'll win the pot y%. If the value of that situation is greater than the cost of calling the 4 bet, call; if not fold. If this seems basic, good, because it is. But a lot of people don't play like they understand it.
Between a marathon Sunday (from the warmup to the horse with tons of sngs all day) and a sick latenight 5/10 plo session Monday after I thought I was done for the day, I did 18k vpp in two days. So I've taken it relatively easy yesterday and today, made a hu plo video for Pokersavvy, and am working on my plo coaching program, which I am aiming to have ready for new students in January. I've been working through the first few lessons with current students and am pleased with the results, as well as the tweaks I'm able to make as a result of the sessions.
The rough sketch of the program as it is today:
Each Unit is 4 lessons long, comes with an outline for each lesson and other supplementary material; a starting hands spreadsheet, a flop textures spreadsheet, etc. The full program is 30 lessons and is designed as a whole, but the units can be stand-alone too so people can choose to skip parts or to just do one unit or to choose a few. I'm also planning supplementary units on headsup play and shortstacking/tournament play/cap game play, and students usuallysupplement the program with sweat sessions and hh reviews.
Intro Lesson - three goals; to introduce my approach to thinking about poker and plo, partly because it explains why the program is structured as it is, to go over the outline of the program, and to cover several core PLO concepts.
Unit 1 Preflop: sets/flushes/straights/big draws are the target hands, so we evaluate starting hands in terms of their connectedness, suitedness, and “high card strength” in order to organize sensible hand categories/rankings, discuss the conditions under which to play different hand types and the situations to encourage with different hand types, and conclude with a workbook-style lesson covering common situations.
Unit 2 Flop Texture: Organize flops first into connectedness groups (based on the number and type of wraps and straights possible) and then into more functional categories that account for suitedness, high-card strength, and paired boards, and conclude with a workbook-style practical lesson.
Unit 3 Math: Twofold purpose: One, to supply the combinatorics of the interaction of preflop hand and flop; that is, how often does stuff flop stuff? Two, to provide core equity math in a easy reference format, including basic hand versus hand and hand versus range matchups, as well as the stack-size-dependent math of reraised pots, including versus likely AAxx. Also includes a bit of implied odds math (e.g. calling a flush turn with a set to fillup, how often does he need to payoff?).
Unit 4 Game Theory: Lessons build from toy game examples to generalized plo situations (such as naked ace lines) to situational analyses using complex ranges.
Units 5-7 Postflop Each Unit “Flop” “Turn” and “River” splits into three pieces, an introductory lesson defining the general parameters of play on that street, two lessons covering the meat of the (pieces) of lines to be discussed, and one workbook-style lesson heavy with examples. Each unit contains some emphasis on transitional ideas (flop-turn combinations, turn-river combinations)
Wrap-up/Opponent Profiling – review core concepts, a bit of game theory (strategy/counterstrategy), use pokertracker stats and other information to review exploiting opponent tendencies.
Pricing starts at $250/lesson but there's volume discounts built in for people buying the whole program or multiple units. Exact details still uncertain.
Pieces of it are completed, but I'm about two months away from having the whole thing done, at which point I'll advertise on 2p2 coaching forum and start in with new students (post-PCA, probably) If things continue to go well with the coaching, I'll look into refining the material into an audiobook/ebook combo later next year.
It's a big project, which means it's basically the only project I have right now besides chasing elite, and making a video here and there, best case, one/week.
-------------------------------------------
And for anyone who does read here for strategy content (or at all!), I'll throw out a couple important ideas worth thinking about.
1. In PLO, the most important piece of information regarding how strong a starting hands is, and more importantly, how to play it, is the distribution of equities that it flops. Some hands, like dry AA/KK (KK73r) flop the very strong set occasionally, and the uncomfortably mediocre unimproved (and unimproving, due to crap sidecards) overpair. There's a huge separation; if the word didn't already mean something else, you might say KK73s equity over the range of flops is "polarized." QJT9ds, on the other hands, flops a very smooth distribution of equities. From flopped straight with redraws to monster combo draws to two-pair+openender to the medium draws to the variety of one pair+ hands. A QJT9ds yields a lot of postflop flexibility across a wide range of flops.
2. Whether to call a 4 bet preflop (presumably AAxx who will shove any flop) is a function of two factors related to the note above: how often do you flop good enough equity to stack off, and what is your average equity against AAxx when you do. Those two %s together are what matter, not preflop equity. The action will happen on the flop, so the flop equities are what matters. You are calling the 4bet not based on your odds of beating aces, nor on your odds of outflopping aces, in the strict sense. You are calling in order to be placed in the situation where face a shove you can call x% of the time, of which times you'll win the pot y%. If the value of that situation is greater than the cost of calling the 4 bet, call; if not fold. If this seems basic, good, because it is. But a lot of people don't play like they understand it.
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