Become a Winning Online Poker Player in 30 Days - Week 4

Day 22 - Unpredictable Play (The Strategy in Reraising 57s)

Why Play Unpredictably?

• Prevent Goodd Players from taking advantage of predictable tendencies
• Makes you tougher to play against
• Exploitive Play: How do I play the best against this specific opponent?
• GTO: What is the best overall strategy to have?

Blockers Definition

1. Cards you hold that are significant only because it means your opponent cannot be holding onto them.

Light 3-betting

1. Target players capable of folding to aggression
2. Pick hands you can easily fold to 4-bet that play well postflop or have blockers

Bonus GTO

1. Bluff the river if you are at the bottom of your range.
2. Bluff catch the river if you are at the top of your range. - If fold, what to call?

Day 23 - Heads Up (The Perfect Excuse to play every hands)

Short-Handed Adjustments

1. Play same hands from 3-max to full ring, all else equal.
2. Any leaks get dramatically magnified when switching table sizes.

Heads-Up Button Strategy

1. Raise every hands besides junk
2. Attack your opponent post-flop with multi-street bluffs and thin value bets

Heads-up Big Blind Strategy

1. Jam wide over raises with 20bb or less effective stack.
2. Defend pre-flop with a wide range and call your opponent down stubbornly.

Sample Shoving Ranges

1. Button with 10bb: 22, K2, Q6, Q2s, J7, J2s, T7, T4s, 97, 94s, 87, 84s, 74s
2. Big Blind with 20bb: 22, A2, K5, K2s, Q8, Q2s, J9, J5s, T8, T6s, 98, 95s

Day 24 - Mentality (The single most important non-playing skill)

Game Grade

1. A-Game: The best you can play
2. B-Game: Play well but making some mistakes
3. C-Game: Making Clear mistakes relative t o your best possible games
4. Less skilled player can win more than top-player if constant A-Game
5. Relastic Goal: A-game vast majority of the time and occasional B-Game

Key Mental Game Concept

1. Verbalize your thoughts process.
2. Play Tighter.
3. End the session.
4. Take a break.
5. Study and Regroup.

Mike Caro’s Genie

1. Genie: Win 10k more in up session or lose $10k less in down session?
2. Limiting loss is just as good as increasing wins.

Day 25 - More ICM (Generating Pre-Flop Ranges)

Software to Generate Ranges

1. Open-Shove and calling ranges are free at Holdem Resources
2. Ranges involving raise

Two important rules

1. 15bb effective stack in small blind, non-junk hand.
2. Profitable (or at least close) to shove magic range if playing shove-fold.
3. Don’t worry about memorizing exact ranges.
4. Call in big blind facing an all-in with better than 2:1 pot odds.

Factors impacting ranges

1. Payout Structure
2. Stacks and Players Remaining
3. Opponent Reads
4. Ante Size

An important Calling Range

1. We are big blind and button shoves 10bb
2. Our Calling Range: 22, A2, K4s, K7o, Q8s, Q9o, J9s, JTo

Day 26: Defending the Big Blinds (How to play poker’s trickiest position)

Defense Range Factor

1. Raise Size
2. Position of Raiser
3. State of Tournament
4. Ante

Pre-Flop Action

3-bet hands

1. 99+, AQo, AJs and occasional 53s, 63s, 84s, 73s.

3-bet shove

1. Shove if effective stack under 25bb
2. Shove if facing multiple raises with 20% of the effective stack in the middle.

3-bet small

1. Usually better to defend by calling because we’re out of position.
2. Good move to apply tournament pressure against a mid stack.

Attack Small Blind Limps

1. Raise most good/playable hands when the small blind limps.
2. Shove with a very wide range if the effective stack is 15bb or less.

Post Flop Action

1. Remember to plan your hands early, such as calling down with top pair
2. If you’ve missed the flop: Default play is to check-fold.

Day 27 - Check-Raising (Vital Weapon for Playing without Position)

Why Check-Raise

1. Makes you unpredictable and difficult to play against.
2. Lets youw in more against a likely c-bettor with both made hands and draw hands.

Key Factors for Effective Check-Raising

1. Board is coordinated.
2. Hero has either a strong made hand or a draw with little showdown value.
3. Villain likely to bet, otherwise there is no check-raise happening.

Bonus Check-Raising Spot

1. Hero has a draw.
2. Villain will often not bet if we check, but in the words of the mowglis: I’m good. I’m good. I’m good.

Important Spot to check-Call Instead.

1. We have decent showdown value but don’t want to play a large pot.
2. Applies with draws or made hands.

And Lastly

1. Check-Fold if you don’t have the betting leads and miss the flop entirely.

Day 28 - Risk Aversion (It depends on the state of the tournament)

Tournament State 1: Normal

1. Play similar to a cash game.
2. Occurs in MTT or MTTSNG in the early stages.

Tournament state 2: Some Risk Aversion

1. ICM is important but most decisions aren’t heavily impacted yet.
2. Start of a 9-man SNG or final tables of a 45-man.

Tournament State 3: Extreme Risk Aversion

1. ICM influences most or all decisions.
2. Bubble of a 9-man or final table of an MTT.

Playing the Short Stack

1. The short stack is the least affected.
2. Play similarly to your normal game with tighter calling.

Playing the mid stack

1. Extreme gap between calling and shoving.
2. Need a very large edge to call it off.
3. Must play tighter.

Playing the big stack

1. Play looser and more aggressive.
2. Incredibly profitable to pressure opponent during this stage.

Shove/Fold Ranges

1. Adjust shove/fold ranges just like normal opening ranges.
2. Big Stack can sometimes shove ATC into multiple players.

Bonus Concept: Chip Utility

1. Mid stack will continue to have unprofitable spots.
2. Big stack will have more and more profitable spots.
3. Top players go after the chip lead position.
4. Example: take close shove as 2nd CL if pot gets you in contention for CL.

Day 29 - Floating (Poker’s True Passive-Aggressive Play)

Factors Favorable to Floating

1. In position.
2. Opponent on wide range.
3. Small bet sizing.
4. You can improve.
5. Bonus: ICM Pressure.

Most common time to float

1. Big blind in a heads-up pot vs small blind.
2. Facing a donk bet at the flop.

Benefits of Floating to Bluff Raising

1. Better risk-reward ratio.
2. Gives you balanced calling range.
3. Take advantage of position.

Disadvantage of floating

1. NO FOLD EQUITY.

DON’t FLOAT

1. Facing a 75% pot bet with 7 high from the CL on the bubble.

• large size
• no improve
• expensive
• lose chips

Definitely Float

1. Facing a min-bet in a raised pot with backdoor straight flush draw.