Does anyone fancy forming a 'mastermind' group? :) 

For players looking to take their games to the next level. 

I joined acehigh of course since finding ranking hero, and it's awesome - but this will be a different kind of group. This is for focussed group study / peer support. This is a smaller group which will be very focussed on getting through the microstakes and beyond. 

I'm thinking to have a skype group  - where the group members can chat amongst themselves every day to share hands and motivate each other, share insight etc. 

 - Requirements would be you currently play anything from 2nl -  50/100nl online, and are looking to improve. 

 - You will play poker at least 3/7 days a week online. 

 - You have skype 

 - You are committed to improviing and moving up out of micro limits

 - I don't think the current stake you are on is that important, the main thing is you want to improve, help others improve, and take your game to the next level, and are committed to all of that stuff. 

 - You are positive

i think together we could form a powerful resource for each other to take our games to the next level.

Let me know if you're interested! Depending on interest I'll set something up!!

UNIBETBUBBLE! Decision numero quatro!

Top of 'da morning ta ya! On a beautiful sunny Thursday morning!

I can't help but think how awesome it is that my life is moving towards the place I want it to be at finally! I am still working on my small business and have been working on a small piece of work for a customer this week, being self-employed right now I make my own hours which is pretty amazing. I may be earning less right now than I was before but it feels great. The independence, sense of being captain of your own ship, and passion I have for what i'm doing now more than makes up for it. 

I worked on my business relatied stuff for 18 hours straight a day or so ago! Then had a good 9 hours sleep and am feeling fresh as a daisy right now :) It wasn't so long ago I'd be crammed into a packed train at this time of the morning on my way into a 9am-5pm job...

Instead I'm able to enjoy a sunny morning here in the UK, while I consider our actions for the next decision in UnibetBubble. 

For anyone thinking of doing something similar ... 

Here's some advice

On with the hand!

4th decision:

 OK my usual strategy for these decisions is to try and get my head around what is going on in the hand! 

(Seems like a fairly sensible plan right?!) 

Thanks Oprah!

I find it helps if I get things down on paper - here's my map of what we've got going on

So at the top left of the page in a little rectangle we have the blinds (very important to consider the blinds in a tournmanet hand) 

We are told in the hand that "The blinds are still 500/1000". 

Second I like to look at our stack and position to immerse myself in the hand.

Which I do by figuring out where I would be at the table and what my stack is looking like, that's the circle i've put on the top right hand side of the page... so I'm in the big-blind.

Sitting in the blinds I am waiting for these guys to act and I have 34bbs! "You have.. 34BB. In the BB position,"

Next lets take a look at the action

Reading the page from top to bottom from 'prelop' down to the squigly border.

We have

UTG+1 (who has 30k stack) - and "likes to see alot of flops" Opens for 2.2k. 

UTG+2 (who has 90k stack) - Calls 2.2k

ME! in the bb (who has 34k stack) - Calls (an additional 1.1k).

So just before we're going to the flop the pot looks like this...

So there's 7.1k out there. 

How about we look at what's going on post flop 

Post flop... UTG+1 bets 5k leaving him with 27.8k behind. 

we have 32.9k left in our stack after our call pre-flop. 

Which means... the UTG+1 guy has the effective stack here, which is the smaller of our two stacks (22.8k after his bet) 

So with this handy bit of game-flow in mind and the maths put to bed:

POT = 12.1k ; 

EFFECTIVE STACK = 22.8K

IMEDIATE POT ODDS = 12,100 / 5,000 = 2.42:1

Let's look at the the strength of our hand vs our villians possible holdings.

"You call with J♦8♦. " 

FLOP:

10♠3♦Q♦

You check.

Villain UTG+1 bets 5,000 chips.

We are told that UTG+1 likes to see alot of flops. How do we convert this info into something that we can meaningfuly use? Well we have to make some assumptions (we are ALWAYS making assumptions when playing poker) but the important thing is that our assumptions are the best we can make with the data available to us.

So a regular guy or girl, would be opening tight UTG 

AJ+ 22+ KQs, and this is if they are on the looser side of a 'regular' UTG open, some don't play anything worse than AK off UTG, and only raise medium pocket pairs plus 77+ish.

However our villian likes to see flops, lets open his range up a bit. 

A2-A5S, AT+ ; 22+ TQs+ ; 89s+ 

So we've made an assumption as to his range but we are likely in the right direction. 

Now let's look at the action and see if this tells us anything that we can use to refine our ranging. He's opened for 2.2k and with no previous history with this villian we can't read too much in to that, so our ranging is still the same. Post flop he's continued the story of having a decent hand by betting 5k into a 7.1k pot, after we checked to him being the pre-flop aggressor. This is a big bet almost 3/4 pot. 

A2d-A5d are a possibilitty here (some players like playing their flush draws aggressively, and this would be a great spot for him to do just that). We'd expect AT to bet less that 3/4 pot with second pair after we check to him on this flop. 

10♠3♦Q♦

22-JJ are unlikely to bet this flop anywhere near as strong as he has, because the only hands that call this bet are hands that beat those hands, orhave good equity vs them (flush/straight draws with an overcard sometimes for instance.) If he had a weaker draw I'd also expect him to bet less perhaps 2/3 or even a little over 1/2 pot.

So with this info in mind, lets refine our ranging a bit. 

Drawing Hands: A2-A5s+ ; TQ+ ; TQ(d)s+, JK, KT(d)s+

Made hands: QQ OR TT (unliely but still a small possibility) ; AA, KK,  

What do we have?

 J♦8♦.

We have a gutshot and a flush draw. Giving us

9 outs to the flush ; and 3 outs to the gutshot, so 12 outs (being careful not to double count 9d as we've already counted it in our flush outs!). 

Using the rule of 2 and 4 - we can estimate we'll hit our hand about 48% of the time by the time we get to the river. This is assuming we get to the river though, and we need to bear this in mind, if we face further aggression on the turn we may not get to the river. This is why position is so important we also have another reason to tread carefully here

We have Reverse Implied Odds to consider here. 

Implied odds are odds we can give ourselves when we assume if we hit our hand our opponent will put more money into the pot than the immediate odds we are being granted. Reverse implied odds factor into our decision when there is a risk we can lose more than the price we are paying the pot on this street now to continue. 

A jack high flush isn't great. We have to be careful if we continue here, as the hand plays out that we don't get it in with a jack high flush when our oponnent could well have a higher flush. 

This is why playing out of position is...

So what do we do? Well we've flatted pre-flop getting a great price with a weak drawing hand 3way. We had just 34bbs pre-flop and were getting 6:1 on our call preflop with a 2gap SC. This was a close spot even though we were getting such a good price, because we are not deep. Not being deep has impacted us twice here. 

First - if we hit post flop very strong, we were unlikely to win a very big pot (34bb effective stack preflop). 

Second - the stack:pot ratio after the flop was going to be dangerously low, meaning we are commiting ourselves to the hand with every future street we see, and worse still doing this will be risking our tournament life. 

Let's assume we make the call on the flop there will be 17.1k in the pot on the turn, and the effective stack will be just 22.8k. What do we do if he overbet shoves the turn? What if he even bets half pot on the turn? If we are faced with a bet on the turn, chances are we could find ourselves all in by the river. With just two players left to bust until the bubble!

For these reasons as nitty as it sounds with 13 outs here , given the reverse implied odds and the fact I'm out of position. 

I FOLD!!!!!!!!!! 

I think the only decent alternative here (given our villian likes to see alot of flops) is to raise big and never fold after that action. If we do this we risk getting it in with 30bbs for our tournament life with a jack high flush draw and a gutshot, here on the flop - or worse still on the turn. Perhaps not a terrible spot on the flop given this opponent and that we are this close to the bubble (assume we have alot of fold equity) but not a spot I like, I'm sure we'll get better spots. 

So I FOLD!!!!!! 

Time for a coffee 

As @Jennifer Tilly said a few days ago in her WSOP campaign

" 'Retreat! Retreat!' Sometimes folding is winning but it sure doesn't feel that way" 

https://twitter.com/Jtillathekilla2/status/612427432289660928

Jennifer Tilly sur Twitter“Bet&fold,bet&fold! I feel like a General screaming "Retreat! Retreat!" Sometimes folding is winning but it sure doesn't feel that way. #WSOP”twitter.com

Have a great day everyone!

#unibetbubble #decision4

We are on the river in a fantasy hand we've been playing all week :) what will we do!!

3rd decision:

The blinds are 500/1000.

A player just sat at the table with a 43 BB stack. In middle position, he limps in.

Everyone else folds to you, in the cut-off.

You have 37 BB in front of you and A♣7♠ in your hands.

You raise 2.6BB.

Villain calls.

Flop:

J♦ K♥ J♠

You both check.

Turn:

A♥

Villain checks.

When you put 3,000 chips in the middle, villain instantly calls.

River:

9♦

And again, villain checks.

AHA We are at the... 

Are we going to drown??? Or float along the surface like a beautiful little piece of nature gliding all over the river?

Only our decisions here will determine this result!

At the outset of this hand we were set the challenge of arriving at the bubble comfortably. This means we need to take every reasonable spot to accumulate chips, given that we are near the bubble, i.e. we don't take any close spots or spots where we don't think our ability to outplay our opponents will give us a real and considerable edge. 

The decision we are now faced with on the river is...

now one of the easiest we have had across all the streets. 

We originally put this guy on a hand like K9 OR KT, 56s+, 22-77 Axs, hands that want to see a flop but dont want to commit too many chips close to the bubble. A real art of poker (cash poker or tournament poker) is being able to refine our ranging of our opponents hand based on their actions, relative to the flop, turn and river, and relative to our own actions. 

The flop is dry so we don't gain a massive amount of information about the villian's hand when he checked the flop. On average we would expect a jack to bet, and probabally expect a weak king to check this near to the bubble looking to pot control their hand out of position on a dry flop. So we figure he's a bit less likely to have a jack when he checks the flop, but we can't even guarantee that. 

The turn however told us quite a bit more about his, hand. 

The turn brought a Ace of hearts and he checked again. This really makes the value part of the initial range we put him on less likely as any decent thinking player would likely bet (a) for value on the turn, and (b) for protection as the board is now quite draw heavy (with straight and flush draws being put out there on the turn). 

The 9 on the river for all intents and purposes is a ...

Because although it connects with the straight heavyish board, TQ already got there on the turn, so the fact there's now a King high straight for TQ makes no difference, as there was an ace high straight for the same hand on the turn. 

The instacall on the turn is a bit of a timing tell and this could well be a drawing hand, perhaps he had a straight draw or a flush draw on the turn. If that's the case then this player isn't going to call a bet from us on this river if we choose to bet. 

We know nothing about this player, we don't know if he's capable of laying down trip jacks, to a possible straight if we shove here - so it's definately not even worth considering a shove here to represent the straight against an unknown player. That would also really be some kind of overbet shove. If we were to bet a more standard amount 3/4 pot for instance, there's no way at all he's even thinking of folding a hand that beats us. We have top pair, and a reasonable chance of winning at showdown verse a weak king, or a missed draw. 

If this player has a hand that beats us it's unlikely we are going to get him to fold, if we bet. 

Providing we are in front we've picked up almost 10bbs from this marginal hand, close to the bubble, great stuff! 

If for some reason we are behind and our opponent was slowplaying us, we've still got a great stack to contest our way through the bubble and into pole position. 

With those factors considered I'd say this is a decision even this little guy could make

Yeah! I think we've milked this hand for all we can...

I check! 

What have you got mr limper??

#unibetbubble #decision3

If you like can you click like tnx! :)

2nd decision:

The blinds are 500/1000.

A player just sat at the table with a 43 BB stack. In middle position, he limps in.

Everyone else folds to you, in the cut-off.

You have 37 BB in front of you and A♣7♠ in your hands.

You raise 2.6BB.

Villain calls.

Flop:

J♦ K♥ J♠

You both check.

Turn:

A♥

Villain checks.

What do you do?

So I've raised this guy pre-flop and he's called, we made it 2.6k which was a great size against this limper to fold out those behind us, but also not bloat the pot too much as we were likely going to the flop with a good but not great hand.

Here's a reminder of what the pot was like pre-flop when we raised

We expected a call preflop as we thought he more than likely had a marginal hand that he wanted to see a cheapish flop with so far so good.

Then this flop comes

J♦ K♥ J♠

We have got an overcard to the flop which is nice, but when we think of the hands he's calling with preflop we either have them pretty much beat now (smaller sc's) as there's no flush draw here and the cards are high - and these hands are not going to call a bet. Or we are beat, by some weak kings in his range (KT, K9 maybe), very very rarely KJ... and weak pairs that he had preflop 22-66, which we are also fairing badly against now.

(even if we discount him having a pair of 7's meaning our 7 still has potential of improving us we are a 39% dog to 22-66!)

When we consider his potential hands versus this flop and that he only calls with hands that beat us on the flop there's no real value in betting here, so we check!

The turn

A♥

Is a good card for us obviously as we now have top pair. If he had a jack we would have expected a bet definately here on the turn, because we  checked the flop and he's going to want to get some value from a possible weak king that we decided to pot control with on the flop, and also protect his hand against draws but he checks. There are now more draws on the board as the turn has put three to a straight out there, and a flush draw, so we definately want to bet to get value from a weak king, a flush draw or a straight draw. So I decide to bet.

The pot is 6.7k, i've got 34.4k behind and he has 40.4k behind.

I make it 4.4k (2/3 pot) because we don't need to bet anything more to accomplish what we want to here. Get value from worse hands and protect our hand.

There's another great reason for betting here, if we check there are a number of river cards that damage our perceived holdings. He could be tempted to take a stab on the river, and if it's a large bet and the river is scary we will be faced with a tough decision.

This is something @Andrew Brokos speaks about quite well.

"Even in no-limit hold ‘em, there are situations where betting for protection is appropriate... The central consideration is whether the turn and river action is more likely to favor you or your opponent. If your hand is vulnerable, [and you bet] your opponents are unlikely to bluff... it is often worth betting simply to take down the pot and avoid giving a free card."

You can read the full article here if you're interested!

When I make my bet he winces and then looks like he's kinda mad

Well haha looks like our bet had the desired effect!

He's now in the can in Cannes :)

Now he's got a decision to make!

#unibetbubble #decision2