Ed Miller's 'The Course'

‘Poker’s 1%’ by Ed Miller | Podcast #232

By Sky Matsuhashi on April 23, 2019

I review the GTO related book, ‘Poker’s 1%’ by Ed Miller. I don’t necessarily recommend the book to my audience, but there are plenty of good strategy takeaways I got from it.

In case you missed episode 231, I reviewed ‘Exploitative Play in LIVE Poker’ by Alex Fitzgerald.

Get Poker’s 1%.

Poker’s 1% Review (2:45)

This book was written in 2014, which is probably before GTO ideas really took off.

In the introduction to the book, he makes a promise that he’s going to show you how to do this work that he speaks about, and I’m happy to report, he does. Throughout the book he tells and shows you how he does the work for himself. And, in one of the final chapters he gives an 8-step process for doing the frequency work he discusses

The Frequency Game

This is a game of frequencies.

“Get your frequencies close to right, and you can play 48 tables like a robot and print.”

KEY IDEA: Find situations where opponents will fold too frequently then bet.

Most players fold too frequently on the turn and river. This is a logical spot to attack. We need to learn to identify the spots and how to attack them properly.

He says that basic math dictates these 2 rules that hold true in most situations:

If your opponent bets or raises, you should usually call.
If you bet one street and your opponent calls, you should usually bed again on the next card.

Build Your Pyramids from the Ground Up

In the book, he says that “usually” is “roughly 70% of the time”. If somebody bets into you, you can call or raise, but altogether that continuation frequency is 70%.

If that sounds like a lot to you, then we’re on the same wavelength. As soon as I read that, it felt so wrong. If my gut is telling me it’s wrong, I have to trust it. I’d like to think that all of my poker study and play have developed good numerical intuition.

Here’s an email from a listener named Chris Baltzer:

I heard you are working on reviewing Poker 1% for next week. I just completed a 11 Part Series on Red Chip Poker by James Sweeney covering it in detail.

Another video released after the series is titled Questioning Pokers 1%. In the Video Doug Hull (Who worked extensively with Ed Miller on the book) talks about how when Pokers 1% came out modern solvers were not readily available and therefor the theories laid out in the book couldn’t be thoroughly analyzed.

He goes on to run several scenarios which were laid out in the book that are not the most profitable. I’m sure your familiar with the “70% Model” the book outlines. But according to the solver this number was off by 20-40% in many scenarios.

This is pretty interesting and it’s good to hear this confirmation on what my gut told me was incorrect. I’m not going to strive for 70% continuance like Ed Miller discusses in the book.

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Frequency Pyramids

The pyramid below shows a player who folds too much of their preflop range on the flop (easy to bluff on the flop):

I like the frequency pyramid as an easy to understand visual representations of a player’s continuation frequency, and I like how he includes lots oddly shaped pyramids that visually demonstrate “bad” frequencies. The idea is that you do not want to have any pyramids with jagged edges (above). Your frequency pyramid should have smooth sides that show you don’t fold, call or bet too frequently on a given street. If you’re doing something too often, that’s where opponents can attack you.

If your preflop ranges are too large, “This is an unfixable problem. Fundamentally, you have too much junk in your pyramid. The junk has to go somewhere, and wherever you put it, it hurts you.” A player like this beats himself if you simply follow your rules.

I like his idea of drawing frequency pyramids for your opponents. This will help you visualize where they bet or raise too often or not frequently enough (Study with Purpose below).

Putting These Ideas Into Practice

“If your frequencies are close to correct, then when your opponents play with incorrect frequencies they will effectively beat themselves against your proper actions.”

He says that once you understand this and implement it, you can just play your hand and ignore what your opponent may have. It’s a “set it and forget it” strategy.

I DO NOT like this idea at all. Telling you that you can play great poker without thinking and without hand reading and without understanding the other players is kind of like telling you there’s a magic pill that will buff up your muscles and reduce any excess fat without any work from you.

Magic pills like this are just a bunch of bull.

In this same chapter he thinks that HUD use is overrated. I take a completely opposite stance. Using a HUD lets you see where your opponent’s frequencies are incorrect and allows you to take advantage of that. You can draw your opponent’s frequency pyramids much easier with a HUD and a database of their hands to draw from.

Is it our job to make their plays unprofitable?

He seems to think that it’s our job to make it so their bluffs are not automatically profitable. I’ve got to once again disagree with that. I think it’s our job to make the most +EV decision at any one time. I don’t think it’s +EV to prevent a player from making easy and successful bluffs. What’s most +EV is to fold hands that aren’t worth continuing with (an most of the time it won’t be at a 70% continuance frequency). Save your chips for more +EV situations later on.

Good Events, Bad Events, and Non-events

This whole chapter is basically, “you should follow the frequencies unless something bad happens.”

He’s using “bad events” to allow you to not follow the frequencies. So this tells me that there are so many “what if’s” and “but’s” to this frequency based strategy that I don’t know how useful it really is.

Recommendation

I don’t recommend this book to most of my audience. If you’ve been listening to me for a while, you know I’m all about exploiting opponents and factoring your opponents into your decisions. I’ve never been a proponent of GTO play, and that’s what this book is all about.

Some of the strategies he recommends are good, like exploiting your opponent’s misuse of frequencies. The general rule of barreling because opponents fold too often is a good idea. It’s also generally good to call especially against players who can barrel bluff frequently. But there’s no way I would recommend the 70% continuation rule that this book outlines.

Splitsuit made a full course based on this book: The One Percent

My Favorite Quote (11:15)

“You train your brain in practice, and then in the heat of the moment it gives you instant feedback. The more you train, the more sharply accurate the message from your brain.”

I love this. Hand reading and frequency work are very difficult to do in the heat of the moment, so off-the-felt work is necessary to develop an intuitive feel for how to approach differing situations.

Start your audiobook learning by picking up ‘Preflop Online Poker’ through Audible.com. Click the pic above to begin your free 30-day trial (your first book is free) or to purchase the audiobook version if you’re already a member.

My 3 Favorite Strategies and Action Steps (15:25)

1. Study with Purpose: “What’s your plan with that hand?” (15:25)

This is a great question Ed Miller asked and it spurred me to create this first task:

In your next study session, filter in your database for hands that you limped with. Review each of these hands and ask yourself the question, “What’s my plan with that hand?” Try to answer it as logically as you can. If you don’t have a good answer for it, maybe something like “I don’t know, I just want to get lucky on the flop”, then that is probably a hand you should strike from your preflop VPIP’ing range (along with limping into pots).

In the study session following this one, filter in your database for hands where you called a preflop raise. Ask yourself that same question and if you can’t answer it logically, consider striking that hand as well from your preflop calling range.

Finally, in your 3rd study session, filter for open-raising hands. Ask and answer the question, “What’s my plan with that hand?” If no good answer comes, maybe you shouldn’t have opened with it.

You’ve got to realize why you’re playing certain hands. The more frivolous or “hopeful” your reason, the less reason to play the hand.

If you’re entering because of the hand’s value or the opponents are easy to exploit or everyone is folding to your steal, great! But, if you’re entering just to strike it big with a flush, straight or a set, then you likely shouldn’t play the hand.

2. Study with Purpose: Draw your tough opponent’s calling frequency pyramid and betting frequency pyramid (17:00)

Pictures often tell us more than #’s or words do. So, I like this pyramid drawing exercise to help you understand where your opponent’s frequencies are messed up, which should help you exploit them better.

You know many LAG and TAG players that give you a hard time at the tables. Think about their style of play if you are a LIVE player and try to draw their frequency pyramids for both betting and calling.

And if you are an online player, pull up their stats in your database and utilize those to draw their pyramids.

Where do they have obvious frequency issues? How can you exploit them?

Draw the pyramid in your poker journal and list out your exploits so you can use it the next time you play a session with this player.

3. Play with Purpose: Exploit your opponent’s frequency issues (18:00)

This task goes right along with the prior pyramid drawing task #2 above:

The next time you face one of the opponents you drew pyramids for, look for every opportunity to exploit their frequency issues. You should’ve written down at least 2 different things that you can do against them.

Now, pay attention to the action and if you enter a pot with them, look at your list of exploits and figure out which ones you could potentially use right now.

Also, try to put yourself into situations where you can use the exploits you came up with.

Tag and review each hand where you try to exploit your opponent’s frequencies.

Challenge (18:40)

Here’s my challenge to you for this episode: Choose one of the 3 action steps I gave you today and take action with it. If you find it helpful to your game and you’re looking for GTO strategies, pickup Ed Miller’s book, Poker’s 1%.

Now it’s your turn to pull the trigger and do something positive for your poker game.

Support the Show

Fredric Hammar decided to improve his online poker play by getting the #1 software: PokerTracker 4 through my affiliate link (at no additional cost to him and he supported the show). In appreciation of his support, I sent him the Smart HUD to aid in exploiting every opponent he faces and in making more +EV decisions. Plus, that database of hands to study is pretty nifty.

John Sanford purchased my Smart HUD (now with a 1-hour webinar!) for PokerTracker 4. The HUD comes with 16 stats and 6 custom popups along with specialized color coding for the most useful stats. It’s perfect for getting the most from PokerTracker 4 and your online play.

Nyll purchased both How to Study Poker Volume 1 and Volume 2 in PDF form directly through me. Thanks for your support, Nyll, and send any Q’s my way.

Torsten Rauen just upped his poker game by getting the Effective HUD Use Webinar. You’ve got your work cut out for you when learning to use your HUD, but this webinar will set you on the right path.

‘Taking on the Pros’ | ‘The Course’ Skill #10 | Podcast #35

By Sky Matsuhashi on February 16, 2016

Poker pros (and poker regs) have weaknesses and leaks like any other players, and it’s our duty to find and exploit these for maximum profits. This also strengthens our game and prepares us for higher stakes.

In case you missed it, in episode #34 I discussed fear in poker and how you can work to get beyond your fear through skill #9 in Ed Miller’s book ‘The Course.’

‘Taking on the Pros’ and Poker Regs

Podcast Mission

My mission for today is to teach you how to go about exploiting the weaknesses of the regs you encounter at your stakes which will better prepare you when you move up in stakes.

7 Step Process for getting the most from Skill #10: ‘Taking on the Pros’

Skim

Title: Skill #10. Taking on the Pros
Good chapter; 10 pages long. Says that at the $5/$10 level you’ll always have some pros at the table. Mentions there’s two ways to get an edge on the pros.
Headers:
- Reversing Live Reads
- Finding Their Leaks
- Game-Theory Optimal Play

Set a Goal

Now that we have a basic understanding of the chapter, we want to read productively and effectively. To do this, I’ve devised 3 questions, and finding the answers to these is our goal while reading.

What skills can I learn from this chapter? We’ll learn how we can try to outplay and take advantage of some of the leaks that pros have.
Why are these skills important or relevant to my game? Anything that helps me beat the pros and the regs in my games will only serve to make me a better player.
How can I implement these skills in my game? Let’s read and find out how we can exploit the pros.

Read

Another great chapter. Ed Miller gives one simple way to give off fake live reads to the pros. He also gives some ideas into dissecting the leaks that pros have.

The ideas presented in this chapter feel quite beyond me and this podcast, chiefly the idea that I’ll be playing against pros any time soon. But, what we all encounter, no matter the level, are reg players. Poker regs are the ones like us, that are at the tables looking to exploit the fish, they have stats like 21/16 and 18/14 and play a mostly TAG game. Like us, they try to avoid other regs and zone in on isolating the fish that limp into pots or try to iso the fish in the blinds.

With the idea of regs in mind, I’d like to focus on one thing that Ed Miller said (and I quote):

Ultimately, if you want to maximize your potential at 5-10, and give yourself the chance to move even higher, you must learn to take on the pros.

Summarize and Analyze

Summarize:

For us to be winners at any stake and to move up with greater skills, we’ve got to take on the poker regs, and not just take them on. We need to be able to figure out how to exploit the regs at our stakes.

Analyze:

Why should we learn how to play against poker regs?

By learning to beat the poker regs at our stakes, we’re learning how we can be beaten b/c we’re regs ourselves. Figuring out the common leaks of regs will give us insights into our own game and will spur us into creating defenses for these exploitations we’ll be making against the regs.
Learning to beat the regs will force us to add skills and fix leaks, which will only serve to make our overall game even stronger and better prepare us for moving up in levels.
Regs are just like any other player in that everyone is exploitable, and if we view them as something to totally stay away from, we’re just missing an opportunity to make $.
As we know from that question from LTUMaximus I answered back in episode #31, sometimes the tables are full of regs and we don’t want to always avoid playing these situations. We occasionally want to challenge them to see if we can take their money. And there are some regs who will take on you just as soon as they’d take on any fish, so we’ve got to be ready to fight back.

How do we exploit poker regs?

Take a look at your leaks, label them, and figure out ways to exploit that leak. When you encounter a reg with that leak, use your list of exploitations on them one at a time.

For example, let’s say they have a one and done leak: they only fire cbets when bluffing on the flop and shut down on the turn. Well, if you’re IP, then just call w/ATC and when they check the turn fire that half pot bet. If you’re OOP, c/c the flop and when they ckb the turn, fire at any river card that likely didn’t help their range. And, whether IP or OOP, when you’ve got a marginal hand like mid-pp or 2^nd pair or TPWK, you can call any flop and if he fires the turn, just fold your hand. Yes, folding is an exploitative play when you know that your opp is only firing with a strong hand.
So an entry in your poker journal might look like this:
- Leak: One and done
- Exploitation: IP call the flop, fire on checked turns
- Exploitation: OOP check/call the flop, fire on blank rivers after checked turns
- Exploitation: Marginal hand, fold to a double-barrel

2. Dedicated study into the hands you have on one opponent.

If you’ve got a big sample size on an opponent, you can look at all the hands this guy has played and try to find leaks in his game and his stats. Go back to episode 18 where I gave you a list of common poker leaks and see if your opponent is suffering from any of these. Take the list of your own weaknesses/leaks that I helped you make back in episode 16 and see if this reg opponent is likely suffering these same weaknesses.
Now that you’ve figured out his particular leaks/weaknesses, make a plan to exploit them.
This entire approach is great b/c now you’ve got a list of exploits to make based on lots of different weaknesses that you can use over and over against other regs.

How much time to devote to exploiting poker regs?

I’ve said before that we want to stay away from poker regs and target the fish at the tables, and I still believe this is true. The fish are your easiest source of income, so most of your study time should be dedicated to this. But, you can incorporate some reg study time into your own time fixing leaks and tackling your weaknesses.
If for every leak or weakness you’re working on, you dedicated 30 minutes to finding ways to exploit that leak, you’d be a reg killer.
So if you’re tackling one leak or weakness of your own per week, then 30 minutes per week should be put into exploiting that same leak in your opp’s.

Take Action

Now that we’ve done some analyzing, it’s time for step 5, the most important step: taking action on what we’ve learned.

I want you to take whatever leak you’re working on, and figuring out three ways to exploit that leak. Review these in your next warm-up before you play, and as you play try to spot this leak in others, both poker regs and fish. Try your list of exploitations when you find this leak, and make sure you’re taking notes on all instances and marking hands for later assessment.

At the end of your session, answer the following Q’s:

How do I feel about the session played?
How did I like employing the skills learned?
Do I think this skill has some value and does it merit further review before fully integrating it into my repertoire?

Assessment

The next day you’ll do an assessment of your session in a HH review. Filter for the applicable hands and determine how well you played them. Whip out your notes and review them.

Did your exploits work against both poker regs and fish? Did you make any mistakes in your assessment of your opponents? Were the spots you chose to use the exploits profitable and well-reasoned? How did your IP play differ from your OOP play, and was one more successful than the other?

Send any questionable hands to friends or post them in forums, or even send them to me for my opinion and maybe I’ll use it in a future Q&A. Take notes on all you learned in your session and in the assessment so you can refine your skills and continue to work on exploiting regs in future sessions.

Rinse, Repeat, Review

Now that you’ve taken action and made this initial assessment, it’s time to take action again in another session and work on exploiting aggression. Just repeat steps 5-7 here for as long as it takes until you feel you’ve got a great grasp on this concept.

Challenge

Here’s my challenge to you for this episode: Take the current leak you’re working on and write out three different ways to exploit it. Use those exploits in the next session you play against anyone with the same leak. Review any applicable hands in your assessment of the session, refine your exploitations, and put ‘em to work again in the next session.

Purchase your own copy of ‘The Course’.

Check out the rest of the episodes in this 11-part series:

‘Playing Deep’ | ‘The Course’ Skill #9 | Podcast #34

By Sky Matsuhashi on February 15, 2016

Playing deep leads to a common fear that many poker players face: the fear of losing. I help you figure out what’s causing your fear at the tables.

In case you missed it, in episode #33 I dissected how to recognize when an opponent is likely making predictably aggressive plays and gave you ways to exploit them through skill #8 in Ed Miller’s book ‘The Course.’

‘Playing Deep’ and Fear in Poker

Podcast Mission

My mission for today is to give you strategies to avoid fear or to deal with fear while you’re playing so it doesn’t negatively impact your decisions.

7 Step Process for getting the most from Skill #9: ‘Playing Deep’

Skim

Title: Skill #9. Playing Deep
Great chapter; 9 pages long. No strategy but some important considerations for when you’re playing deep or when you’re up against a table of deep stacked opp’s. Ed Miller considers deep stacked being 300 BB’s or more. He also dispels some deep stacked myths that people believe.
Headers:
- Not a Totally Different Game
- Deep Stacks, In Practice
- Final Thoughts – sums it up with, “the way to win deep-stacked is to be “better at poker” than other players.” Good 5 point summary of deep stack considerations.

Set a Goal

What skills can I learn from this chapter? We’ll learn some consideration when playing with and against big stacks, which is a great cash game skill.
Why are these skills important or relevant to my game? As a cash game player, I’m always hoping to be up 3-4 bi’s on any one table, so learning how to play when I get there will help.
How can I implement these skills in my game? Let’s read and find out how we can exploit aggression at the tables.

Read

Another great Ed Miller chapter. He discusses lots of big stack considerations and he dispels many of the myths surrounding deep stack play.

I’d like to focus on one thing that Ed Miller said:

If you’re afraid of getting stacked, you won’t succeed. Do not play deep unless you’re comfortable with the idea of getting stacked two or three times, even. Of course, no one wants to lose. But you can’t play in fear of it. Even a whiff of fear will come through, and you’ll make exactly the errors your opponents expect you to make, which is obviously a bad situation.

That’s such a great point about fear. Let’s dive into this and look into fear at the poker tables.

Summarize and Analyze

Summarize:

Fear leads to loss.
To expand this a bit: Fear leads to bad decisions which lead to loss which leads to tilt which leads to more loss.

Analyze:

Why does fear lead to loss? Before we answer this, think about your own play.

We’ve all encountered spots where fear of loss, fear of looking stupid, fear of making a mistake, or a fear of losing a tourney stopped you from making plays you knew were +EV.

One spot where fear has led me astray many times is when I’m OTB in a tourney with sub 15bb’s. A LAG big stack opens from the HJ, CO or BTN, and I look down to see A-rag off-suit. I know that my Ace blocker along with my 3bet shove will get him to fold most of the time and I’ll just add his bet, the blinds and antes to my stack. But then I start thinking about the fact that I’m so close to the money, that this guy might fold but anyone else yet to act might wake up with a big hand and KO me from the tourney. So then I start rationalizing something like, “I’ll just wait for a better hand and even if I don’t catch one I should be able to squeak into the money.” I’ve worked hard to ditch this fear in these spots, but occasionally it comes back and hits me when I least expect it.

So, why does fear lead to loss?

Fear overrides your logic centers and emotion starts to take control of your decision making. Your mind can just go blank and all you think about is what will happen if you lose this hand, stack, tourney, whatever. The fear can be debilitating as well and you begin to feel weakened, like you aren’t the player you should be, like everyone at the table is better than you, they’ve got it all under control, and that the decisions you make are all incorrect.

This loss of logic and feeling weakened or inferior to your opp’s will lead to bad decisions. You’ll play hands you shouldn’t, throw away hands you should, play in spots where every move you make choreographs your exact hand strength to your opponents, and even play hopeful poker. This is where you only think about hitting the flop, turn or river and that’s all you’re concerned with: your cards and the board. You forget to think about your opp’s range, bet sizing, the action on each street, the opp’s you’re up against, everything. You just know your cards and the board, and this leads to big mistakes, which leads to losing pots.

How can we stop this fear from taking over?

The first step to this is figuring out what we’re afraid of, and why we’re afraid of it. We need to break it down to its simplest form. To do this, we need to play the why game.

I said earlier that I sometimes get fearful of busting out of tourneys OTB.

Why is that? Because I want to win money.

Why? Because I don’t want to lose my buy-in.

Why? Because it’s a big portion of my bankroll and to win back that buy-in will take a lot of work.

Do you feel this way about smaller bi’s? No.

Why? Because losing those is no big deal as it’s such a small part of my bankroll.

Bingo!

So for me, the bigger the stakes, the more fearful I am of losing that part of my bankroll.

Resolution to Fear

There are three ways to deal with this:

Make a Change – it can be as simple as just making a change in the stakes I play. If higher bi’s are causing the fear, then maybe I should only play lower bi’s until my bankroll is enough to make me feel comfortable. I feel this is only a short-term fix, but it could lead to a better understanding of the fear so that it will have less of a hold on me later as I move up in stakes.
Dive Right In at Lower Stakes – The plan here would be to put yourself in these fearful situations at lower stakes and remind yourself that this is the same as at the higher stakes. For my fear of bubbling, it would be to remind myself, every time I’m on the bubble at the comfortable stakes, that this is exactly like at the higher stakes. I’m still playing against other players, we have X number of BB’s, the logistics of poker still remain the same, I know the math and the best plays, and we’re so many spots away from the money. Those circumstances never change based on the buy-in.
Fight Through the Fear – be prepared for the fear. Stay at the same stakes and don’t make any changes, but prepare for these spots in your warm-ups and have some logic statements or affirmations at the ready to help you think calmly through the fear. Here’s a few for you to use:
- What’s the worst that can happen, I lose a buy-in?
- Without some failure, you can’t learn what’s needed to achieve greater success.
- Real failure only happens when you give up.
- I guarantee Ivey or Negreanu wouldn’t feel fear in this spot.

Here are some other common fears that players face:

Fear of Failure
Mistakes
Bad Run
Losing Money
Going busto
Looking like a blockhead

Take Action

Now that we’ve done some analyzing, it’s time for step 5, the most important step: taking action on what we’ve learned.

During your next warm-up before you play, be aware that your fear will strike at some point. Actually, count on the fear hitting you. Have a plan to deal with it, and this could include playing lower stakes or using affirmations and logic statements to control your thinking. Have a notepad in front of you to take notes on any fear you experience.

At the end of your session, answer the following Q’s:

How do I feel about the session played?
How did I like employing the skills learned?
Do I think this skill has some value and does it merit further review before fully integrating it into my repertoire?

Assessment

When it comes to working on any aspect of your mental game, and fear is definitely a part of this, you shouldn’t wait until the next day. Write your thoughts in your poker journal as journaling helps to crystallize them and allows you an additional way to reflect on what you’re working on. It’s interesting, but writing keeps the left side of your brain occupied, so the right side is more free to think random thoughts and make associations you never thought were there. In your journal you can write down how the fear came about, how it manifested itself in your game, what you did to overcome the fear and how successful you were.

Rinse, Repeat, Review

Use your journal entry in your next session’s warm-up to help you prepare, once again, for that unavoidable fear that will pop-up. If you do this enough, you’ll work through the fear, I guarantee it.

Challenge

Here’s my challenge to you for this episode: Figure out what your own fears are at the table. Play the why game and get to the bottom of it. Make a plan and review your plan in your next warm-up before you begin your session.

Purchase your own copy of ‘The Course’.

Check out the rest of the episodes in this 11-part series:

‘Exploiting Aggression’ | ‘The Course’ Skill #8 | Podcast #33

By Sky Matsuhashi on February 14, 2016

Exploiting aggression is super important in today’s poker games. You can take advantage of many predictable betting spots your opponents put themselves in.

In case you missed it, in episode #32 I showed you how to control your emotions at the tables through skill #7 in Ed Miller’s book ‘The Course.’

‘Exploiting Aggression’ | Podcast #33

Podcast Mission

My mission for today is to teach you how to recognize when your opponent is making predictable and exploitable aggressive plays and give you some ways to take advantage of this.

7 Step Process for getting the most from Skill #8: ‘Exploiting Aggression’

Skim

Title: Skill #8. Exploiting Aggression. Some great stuff here. We’re always playing against aggressive opponents, and learning how to spot and exploit this will really improve our game
13 pages long – Great stuff and he recommends reading another of his books, “Poker’s 1%.”
Headers:
- Bloated Betting Frequencies
- The Give Up
- The Last-Ditch Effort
- The Bully

Set a Goal

What skills can I learn from this chapter? We’ll learn how we can practice exploiting aggression.
Why are these skills important or relevant to my game? We’re constantly facing aggression or using aggression in our games, and learning more of the nuances behind aggression will help us in both regards.
How can I implement these skills in my game? Let’s read and find out how exploiting aggression will help us at the tables.

Read

One thing that Ed Miller said that I’d like to focus on for the rest of this episode is:

Certain bets you can easily predict. He’s betting the flop because he raised pre-flop. He’s betting the button because everyone checked to him. He’s betting the turn because she just called the flop. Whenever your opponents make predictable bets, they’re also exploitable.

That’s a great point. Let’s see what we can get out of this.

Summarize and Analyze

Summarize:

“Predictable bets are exploitable bets.” (taken directly from the book)

Analyze:

This makes total sense. Let’s analyze this with the idea of the predictable cbet that we and our opp’s often make.

How often does a 20% opening range hit something on the flop that’s worth making a cbet for value? How often does it hit at least a good draw or better?

Let’s choose a standard 20% opening range. Using Flopzilla, this range hits the flop for value only 27.5% of the time. Hitting the flop “for value” consists of any TP+ hand. That’s not so often at all with this normal opening range:

And, it hits with a good draw or better only 35.6% of the time:

Predictable = Exploitable

So, getting back to the idea of predictable bets are exploitable bets. A lot of our opp’s are cbetting 65-85% of the time, this means that upwards of 50% of the time a cbet is just a complete bluff or something not exactly good enough to stand up to some push-back. This is such an exploitable part of our opp’s game that we need to make sure we’re using a HUD and that we have Cbet as one of our stats.

So, we know that our opp’s high cbetting frequencies are simple, predictable bluffs. Then the next question is, how can we exploit this? There’s a few ways that we can fight back against these bluffs:

Check-Raise (or raise if IP)
Check/call (or Call if IP) then get aggressive on the next street
Donk lead on any street to stymie his bluffing efforts, showing strength can get lots of marginal hands to fold

In that quote I read from Ed Miller, there are many more predictable betting spots that you can take advantage of and it’s up to you to start analyzing these spots individually. Tackle one at a time and make a plan for each.

Besides the ones that I’ve already mentioned, you can find these predictable betting spots by just examining your own play and being present in the moment in each session. Whenever the action is on you and you have the thought, “I should bet or raise here b/c everyone will likely fold”, then you’ve found one of these predictable betting spots. Note these situations then take time to study and analyze each of them later when away from the tables.

Take Action

Step #5 is the most important part, taking action on what we’ve learned.

In the next session you play, pay individual attention to whichever predictable bet you’d like to practice exploiting. If it’s the cbet, then get super familiar with your cbet stats and try the c/r, c/c then get aggressive, or donk leads to exploit his aggression with weak ranges.

If it’s battling against the pf steal, get familiar with these stats in your HUD then fight back when appropriate with 3bets or flop donk leads and check/raises

If it’s an opp betting when everyone checks to him, get familiar with the AFq and street by street betting stats in your HUD then practice your c/r or calling then leading or c/r the turn.

There are so many instances where your opp’s will make predictable bets, and it’s your goal to find ‘em and exploit ‘em.

At the end of your session, answer the following Q’s:

How do I feel about the session played?
How did I like employing the skills learned? (in this case it’s your skill of folding when likely beat)
Do I think this skill has some value and does it merit further review before fully integrating it into my repertoire?

Assessment

The next day you’ll do an assessment of your session in a HH review. Filter for the applicable hands and determine how well you played them. Did you do a good job interpreting your opp’s stats? Were the spots you chose to fight back good and well-reasoned? Was your bet sizing good enough to get these likely bluffs to lay down? How did your IP play differ from your OOP play, and was one more successful than the other?

Send any questionable hands to friends or post them in forums, or even send them to me for my opinion and maybe I’ll use it in a future Q&A. Take notes on all you learned in your session and in the assessment so you can refine your skills and continue to work on exploiting aggression in future sessions.

Rinse, Repeat, Review

Challenge

Here’s my challenge to you for this episode: Figure out on your own how to filter your poker database for instances where you faced a predictable bet of your choice. Also, figure out exactly where within your HUD you can find the stats that help you exploit this predictable bet, and color code the stat font so it stands out to you, so it’s easier or quicker to find while in-game. Preparing now will allow for better exploits in your sessions.

Purchase your own copy of ‘The Course’.

Check out the rest of the episodes in this 11-part series:

‘The Course’ Skill #7 ‘Emotional Numbing’ #32

By Sky Matsuhashi on February 13, 2016

Emotional numbing in poker is super important: don’t let the emotional lows destroy your bankroll nor the highs kill your profits.

In case you missed it, in episode #21 I showed you how to get the most out of every poker strategy book you read and to ensure you put to use the valuable lessons contained within each.

‘Emotional Numbing’ | Podcast #32

Podcast Mission

My mission for today is to show you how to work on preventing emotional swings from negatively affecting your game at the tables.

7 Step Process for getting the most from Skill #7: ‘Emotional Numbing’

Skim

Title: Skill #7. Emotional Numbing; The title alone tells us we are working on our emotional game here. No math, no stats, no complicated hand ranging, just the mental game.
23 pages long
Headers:
- The Pitfalls of Running Good
- The Pitfalls of Running Bad
- Measuring Success
- Final Thoughts

Set a Goal

What skills can I learn from this chapter? We’ll learn how to handle the emotional swings that come from playing poker, which will definitely help to improve our play at the tables.
Why are these skills important or relevant to my game? The mental aspects of poker are very important to our overall performance and to our longevity in poker.
How can I implement these skills in my game? Let’s read and find out how we can control our emotions at the tables.

Read

Another great chapter. No technical poker stuff at all, just all mental game. To get the most out of this chapter you’ve got to read it for yourself. I recommend picking-up up this book as there’s too much for me to unpack for you in this one episode.

One thing that Ed Miller said that I’d like to focus on for the rest of the show is:

Once you’re playing consistently at the $2/5 level or higher, you absolutely have to find a way to deal with the game’s emotional ups and downs. You need to find a way to numb yourself emotionally to a lot of the day-to-day noise in your results.

Great point. Poker has its ups and downs, and they can often swing back and forth day-to-day. Many of us, and of course I include myself in this, allow the swings to affect us too much. I know that for myself tilt used to be a huge part of my game, and I’ve worked hard to get this under control. I still work on tilt before, during and after every session I play.

Summarize and Analyze

Summarize:

Finding a way to deal with the emotional ups and downs will improve our play at the tables in every session we play.

Analyze:

Understanding when our emotions run high is the first step to controlling them. The more you understand, the better position you’ll be in to stop these emotions from ruining a session or ruining your bankroll or the profits you’ve made.

So let’s get to work and analyze our game on an emotional level. Answer the following questions and keep the sheet for future use (in tonight’s poker session).

What is the cause of negative emotions while you play? >> Bad beats, losing to certain opp’s, a mistake, getting drawn out on

What is your history with this? >> Knowing the history of your negative emotions helps you to realize how damaging these are to your game and to your bankroll. What are the terrible things that have happened b/c of negative emotions and tilt?

What are the first effects of negative emotions taking over? >> As you’re playing, you need to recognize when things are starting to get out of control… hands clenched into fists, yelling at the screen, your body suddenly slumps into your chair, mouse throwing, are you barely breathing, does your face get all red and hot

How does it escalate and when do you decide to finally quit a session? >> What do these initial effects lead into if you don’t quit playing and your tilt gets worse? Clenched fists start pounding on the disk, you’re banging your mouse as you move it around on the mouse pad, maybe you throw things across the room.

What C-game effects do these emotions have? >> So how does your skill or technical game change while tilting? Knowing this gives you concrete ways to counter your natural instinct when going on tilt. For example, when I get beat in a hand by a fish sucking out on my AA’s, I can start to get really vengeful and try to play more pots than I should against that same player to try and win my money back. So now that I know how this tilt affects my game, I can focus on not allowing my game to change in this way. This becomes a thing that I can focus on correcting while I’m suffering these emotions. So, I might still be in some emotional turmoil, but at least I’m recognizing its effects on my game and I’m working to keep my game on point.

What are some logic statements that can help you deal with emotional turmoil at the tables? >> Logic statements help you think through a problem as you’re facing it. In the case of my problem of getting vengeful, a logic statement I use is, “Revenge is irrational, use your anger to spur you to play better.” I say a logic statement to myself in every warm-up and it’s close at hand while I’m playing so I can refer to it as necessary. So, write down a logic statement to help you think through whatever negative emotion you’ve been writing about so far.

Take Action

Now for the most important part in this whole process – taking action on what we’ve learned.

Use this piece of paper in your next session. You’ll use it in your warm-up, while you play and during your cool down. For more info on warm-ups and cool-downs, listen to episode 5.

As you play, be aware of your emotions and at the first sign of some inner turmoil, whip out this paper, read your logic statement and the effects of these emotions on your technical game and prepare yourself to fight it. This is an internal struggle with yourself, and I know that you’ve got it in you to get past it.

At the end of your session, add any details about your emotions to this sheet of paper. Maybe you experienced nothing, and that’s great. Or maybe your emotions manifested themselves in a new way or your technical game changed in some other way than expected. Add these to the sheet so you can be better prepared for it next time.

At the end of your session, answer the following Q’s:

How do I feel about the session played?
How did I like employing the skills learned?
Do I think this skill has some value and does it merit further review before fully integrating it into my repertoire?

Assessment

When it comes to working on your mental game, you don’t need to wait until the next day, and in fact working on it just after your session is key. Like already mentioned, add details to the sheet your working on and assess how your emotions effected your session.

Rinse, Repeat, Review

Now that you’ve taken action and made this initial assessment, it’s time to take action again in another session and work on controlling our emotions. Just repeat steps 5-7 here for as long as it takes until you feel this emotional state is under control.

A really important aspect to the mental game is that it’s ever changing. You can suffer from revenge tilt one month, then once fixed maybe a new tilt like entitlement tilt will emerge. Now you can go through the same steps you just took to fix any new emotional swings you encounter.

Challenge

Here’s my challenge to you for this episode: Do everything I just discussed for your next few sessions. Pick one mental game issue you’ve got, and put everything you can towards getting past it. Answer all the questions, refer to the sheet in your warm-up, keep it in front of you as you play, and say your own logic statements to get you through any emotional swings. This can only strengthen your game.

Purchase your own copy of ‘The Course’.

And you may as well get ‘The Mental Game of Poker’, too.

Check out the rest of the episodes in this 11-part series:

‘The Course’ Skill #6 ‘Making Live Reads’ #30

By Sky Matsuhashi on February 11, 2016

Bet sizing is such an important part of live reads that we need to practice it as much as possible so we can exploit our opponent’s tendencies.

In case you missed it, in episode #21 I showed you how to get the most out of every poker strategy book you read and to ensure you put to use the valuable lessons contained within each.

‘Making Live Reads’ | Podcast #30

Podcast Mission

My mission for today is to show you how to look for bet sizing tells from your opponents.

7 Step Process for getting the most from Skill #6: ‘Making Live Reads’

Skim

Title: Skill #6. Making Live Reads; Starts off discussing the previous skills and how they lead to this one. He says here: “The most important live read is the bet sizing tell.”
22 pages long
Headers:
- Bet Sizing Tells – this is the meat of the chapter, goes on for many pages and talks about lots of opp bet sizing tells as well as dissecting your own bet sizing tells.
- Physical Appearance
- Betting Fashions
- Physical Tells
- Final Thoughts

Set a Goal

What skills can I learn from this chapter? I’m so pumped to learn about bet sizing tells, not only to exploit my opp’s but to learn what tells I might be giving off myself.
Why are these skills important or relevant to my game? The more of our opp’s mistakes that we pick-up on, the more we can exploit ‘em. And when playing online, like I mostly do, I don’t have a lot of the physical appearance or micro-tells that LIVE pros talk about. Bet sizing is one of the best tells I’ve got to work with online.
How can I implement these skills in my game? Let’s read and find out how we can practice our bet size reading skills.

Read

Great chapter. I fully recommend pickup up this book as there’s so much here I can dedicate 4 episodes to the topic of bet sizing tells, but I’m only doing this one. One thing that Ed Miller said that I’d like to focus on is:

If you’re the one betting or raising, then you’re the one potentially giving off bet-sizing tells, and your opponents have no opportunity to give them to you.

Until I read this chapter this is an idea I’ve never thought about. I often try to take the initiative in every hand I play to either get value when I’ve got a strong hand, or to blow him off his hand when he’s weak. With this new way of thinking, we let the opp take initiative (not always) and based on his bet sizings we can determine if a call is in order, a fold or a bluff raise.

Summarize and Analyze

Summarize:

If you’re doing all the betting, you’re limiting the info you can gain from your opp’s.
No bet sizing tells = less info for you to exploit.
We need to be patient and play out hands through the turn and river to catch our opp making bet-sizing errors.
Sometimes it’s a good idea to just flat call the flop to see what your opp does on the turn. Raising to gain the initiative isn’t always the best play.

Analyze:

So to examine bet-sizing tells, we really only need to look at one thing: hands that went to SD. We’ve got to see what our opp’s had to know what their sizings meant on each street.

So choose a date and filter for SD hands. As we review the hands while looking specifically for bet sizing tells, make a list of the different sizings along with what they meant.

I suggest looking at these sizings: minbet, minraise, 1/2pot, 2/3pot, 3/4pot, psb and more than a psb

I also suggest recording the reasons you think they had for whatever bet-size they used: value, bluff, weak and scared. The reason for using a sheet like this during your studies is it helps you spot patterns and keeps you focused on the task at hand which is examining bet-sizing tells. Example:

Take Action

Now for the most important part in this whole process – taking action on what we’ve learned.

So now that we’ve done some analyzing of bet sizings our opp’s use, it’s time to put our ideas to the test and practice reading bet sizes in a few FOCUS sessions. And seeing as how every hand contains betting at some point, we should have plenty to think about.

I suggest playing just 2 tables and watch every hand while paying particular attention to your opp’s bet sizings. Whether your involved in a hand or not, when it gets to SD you should hit the replayer and see if his bet sizings made sense to you. Mark any interesting or confusing hands in your poker tracking software for you to really dissect in tomorrow’s HH review.

If you have no idea of the strength of an opponent’s hand, consider checking and allow him to take the lead. See if he does, and if so, what does his bet-sizing tell you?

When you see obvious bet sizing tells, make very specific notes on opp’s. Some notes I’ve taken before are “minopens w/ premium hands looking for a raise” and “bets psb on river for value to look bluffy.”

Pay attention to your own bet sizing as well and try not to give off tells of your own.

At the end of your session, answer the following Q’s:

How do I feel about the session played?
How did I like employing the skills learned?
Do I think this skill has some value and does it merit further review before fully integrating it into my repertoire?

Assessment

The next day you’ll do an assessment of your session in a HH review. Filter for all hands that went to SD, and pay particular attention to any hands that you marked for review. Continue to track the bet sizes and reasons for bets as you see them on your note sheet.

Rinse, Repeat, Review

Now that you’ve made the initial assessment, it’s time to take action again in another session and try to read the strength of your opp’s hands through their bet sizings. Just repeat steps 5-7 here for a few more sessions until you feel you’ve got a good grasp of the bet sizings your opp’s use.

And, this is the kind of thing you’ll want to do every time you move up in levels or if you play at different sites. People often follow the crowd so bets can be differ based on stakes and site you play.

Challenge

Here’s my challenge to you for this episode: Purposely play at least 3 sessions where your focus is on reading your opp’s bet sizes. Keep a note sheet in front of you and make a tick mark every time you’re correct on your read, and another tick mark for every time you read the bet incorrectly. See how you progress in this regard over these three sessions and use your daily study time effectively by filtering for SD hands and spending the entire time analyzing bet sizes.

Purchase your own copy of ‘The Course’.

Check out the rest of the episodes in this 11-part series: