turtleknife_poker_blog

MZoneReport Videos Series

Hello, i just wanted to send you some feedback on your forth video from MzoneReport.com. This was a great video loved it for two main reasons. One you don't beat around the bush you get right to the point and teach. You really try to help people your not just in it for the money. I know you have a video pack that people do have to pay for but i do believe that you offer all the videos to just right out help people. The second is the length you don't spend 5min record a video and say here you go. You make them very long and full of content and then take those hours of work and say "here take this for no charge" which tells me your not in this for the money you really are just trying to help people and for that i thank you. Anyways just wanted to tell you how i felt about it and two thumbs up! :)

________________

Hi Marty,

First, let me say great video series!! They have helped me a lot. I think right now, my biggest leak is letting my emotions take over my game in big decisions and busting out when I should have folded a hand.

Judging from his tournament record, and the fact that he makes a lot of final tables, I doubt he would try to bluff this early in the tournament.
Given the information you supplied on him from the pokerdb.com I'd most likely fold the Q's. I'm thinking he either has AA, KK, or a set.

However, knowing myself as I do. If I did not know his tourney record, I would have re-raised him all-in taking him for a typical internet player over playing KA, KQ, KJ or any other mediocre hand and most likely busted out of the tourney.  :P

-
Ted

______________

Thanks for the videos using tournament Indicator. I see improvement in my game already. It's even helped me get more comfortable in my reads of other players and not get pushed off of the best hand.

Thanks Marty and keep up the good work.

______________

Hi Marty,

 

These videos are great and very informative, since I have bought the tournament indicator ive been cashing far more often.

 

I was cashing around 33% of the time in sit and go tourneys, but since ive been watching your videos and using the tournament indicator ive been cashing around 55 - 60& of the time

 

Video 4 was very helpful, I will try to wait for big hands early on and double up through the people who play far too often

 

Cant wait for your next video

 

Cheers

Ben

____________

Hi Marty,


Thank you for creating such a valuable and helpfull website. I have subscribed to get your free strategy videos and you have sent me a link for the first one. At the end of the first video it says next we will look at hand rankings form Skalansky etc. How do i get the second and third and fourth videos?

____________

Hi,

Thanks a lot for sharing such great information on your poker strategy videos!
I'm following your tutorial and I'm improving my poker skills for real.

I totally agree with you that bankroll management has a critical importance.
Even though a player has top notch poker skills, like accurate player profiling,
outs and pot odds awareness, considering M-Zone factors, ICM, etc..and etc..all these
informations and abilities are useless without bankroll management!

I also like your tight playing style guidance, mainly on early stages!
It's turned out more profitable for me. Especially when I play against "fishes",
I can easily double or triple-up on tournaments.
That's why a lot of people play a wide, very wide hand range, I mean they have a
high Voluntary Put Money In The Pot percentage.

That's why I rely on EV and Sklansky hand group measures to choose my hands.
Only with Tournament Indicator I can evaluate these factors at real time!
That's great! I'm glad to have the poker software, which is helping me to play
mathematically correct.

Thank you,

Pedro Monteiro

Chatting too much can be costly

I am not one to chat much when playing online poker tournaments. I do however go out of my way to say hi if somebody makes an effort and recognizes my player ID. Overall though, you will never hurt your game or your chances by never uttering a word in the chat box.

Chatters tend to get distracted, emotionally involved, and open themselves up to ridicule and arguments with others who are willing to participate. What you should be using the chat box for is monitoring your opponents, not engaging them. By not participating in chat you accomplish many positive things. Not the least of which will be that you will always have your opponents guessing no matter how hard they try. Silence will also keep you focused on your game, while others waste time trying to divulge information from you.

Even the best of players with subdued temperaments can be tempted to get involved in conversations that will likely become aggravated exchanges. You have to admit yourself that most conversations just turned ugly when it comes to online poker. Most players that participate in these types of exchanges are angry, jealous, and heading for tilted landscapes. You're just not going to feel any better arguing with them, even if you are right. And what would that help anyway? By arguing something that is so right in poker, are you not just giving free tournament training to your weaker opponents?

Negative words can affect your play, no matter what type of idiot in its shooting them do you in the chat box. But they will only affect your play if you get involved. By choosing to not respond to chat, you are more likely to send your opponent to the rail by encouraging his poor play, and holding your head above the fray. If you engage in vicious online chat with these players, you may actually be giving them some advantage over you, while distracting you from your own poker game.

Chat box silence, you may find will be a very calm in fact upon you are decisions during the game. Next time you play a sit and go tournament, try restricting your total comments to "gg" after your last hand of the game, whether you win or lose.

Avoiding bad beats in MTT`s

From JP in the forum who plays on Full Tilt.

I read this today by Nenad Medic, (FT pro), and found it interesting.

His first thought is make the money then go for the win. Concentrate on getting past the bubble. Then he went on to the final table aspect and that is where this hit me:

A hand from Event #1 of this year's WSOP illustrates my point. We had reached four-handed play where the difference in finishing first and fourth was more than $500,000 when I got involved in a pot with Andy Bloch. I was holding pocket 7s and led out at a flop of Q-Q-3 only to have Andy make a pot-sized raise behind me. Though I don't know what Andy was holding, I'm guessing that he may have had over-cards and, possibly, a flush draw. While my two pair of 7s and Queens may have very well been good, it would cost me my entire stack on what was essentially a coin flip in order to find out. In the end, I laid my hand down and looked for a better spot.

All too often my read is dead on, I know exactyl what they have sometimes and once called it out down to the suit and cards held! Yet I am constantly losing to being outdrawn, luckouts, suckouts, etc... Granted, both of us in with AK and losing to flush, ok, bad luck. KK losing to JJ flopping a set, yeah, bad luck. But the suckouts with them playing J4s or o and ending up with a drawn flush, sheesh, very bad beat. But then it dawned on me in the next paragraph!

First, I had a big enough stack at this point that I wasn't committed to continuing with the hand and, while folding to Andy cost me some chips, I could still fold and sit comfortably in second chip position at the table. Secondly, and even more importantly, even if I was ahead of Andy on the flop, my read gave him 13 outs (approximately, a 40% chance) to make his hand. With my tournament life on the line if I called, I just wasn't getting the odds to gamble.

I AM looking at the read and what he has but too often I am not looking at HIS outs. Only mine and if I'm ahead or not. The ONLY time I look to their outs is in the flop with an obvious flush or str8 draw. I know they have a lot of outs and if my hand is great like AA or AK and flop is AKx, then I am betting that flop hard with an overbet to make sure they have not odds to call for the fool running with 84s or 35s for example. But if it's the turn and say a str8 isn't obvious I'm still running my 2 pair or TPTK without considering the percent of chance THEY can hit. I am still looking at my percent to improve. If I put them on flush draw still, I do figure their odds and compare them to mine and the pot odds to stay involved. But I am not doing it on all their hands.

I think that MAYBE, if I start counting their outs I might be able to make some better laydowns. I layed down QQ, set 2's and TPTK post flop yesterday. The end result was I lasted longer though it didn't do much else for me. Still, it was the point that I found something missing in my hand analysis/decision making process and that was including their outs ALL the time in any equation, not just some of the time. Long term this may yield decent results. If I can avoid a GCI and losing to yet another suckout. My friend/mentor has been telling me he don't understand it but I have GOT to be doing something wrong to lose so much and losing with good hands usually. Well, this MIGHT be what I have been doing wrong. Only time will tell.

Marty`s side note: GCI is a definition of a tournament hand that essentially represents a big decision in for a big chunk of chips in your stack. It is short for Game Critical Intersect where if you are green or yellow mzoned and the result of the hand you are participating will bring you to Orange, red, Grey or eliminated if you lose.

Getting OFF Full Tilt!

You may have seen me playing more and more $2 heads up sit and go tournaments at Full Tilt Poker. I started playing them for the very simple reason of getting OFF the TILT ranking that Sharkscope anoints me when I lose 4 or more sngs in succession.

I hate seeing that there, and really it doesn`t mean much, but I suppose it`s just a personal thing. However, my win rate in those $2 HU-SNG`s is very high, maybe about 75% (just a guess). The competition, as you`d quite imagine is very, very weak, - sometimes to the point where I can dust`em up in less than 5 hands! I noticed my overall profit on Sharkscope shows that I only win $1 per every sng tournament I enter anyway, so it really isn`t cutting into my stats at all.

Given that though, I wonder if this strategy could be good for doubling a bankroll, $1.85 at a time? Let`s say you deposit $50 and you really want to double that. I can bet that after 75 sit an go HU matches, you could very well have your $100, then be on your way to OPM.

Just a thought.

Bankroll Advice from the Forum

Sun137 has generally provided a well-designed course for understanding bankroll management in poker. Here is an excerpt for your benefit. If you want to see the whole series go to www.TournamentIndicatorForum.com and look for the Bankroll section.

The great Gary Player, when called a lucky player at one of the major golf events, smiled as he turned to his (idiot) accuser and said 'it's funny, the more I practice the luckier I get' and went on to win another major title.

Poker is the same (as is anything competitive). There may currently be legal challenges (in the UK) to decide if Poker is a game of skill or luck, but in reality, for the individual, it is far more than that.

It is a continuous path of application and learning, combined with an ability to master our emotions in the face of misfortune and maintain a cool head to allow a proper analysis of the next hand - because we only have about 5 seconds to pull ourselves together before the cards are dealt and making good decisions on a consistent basis is the NUMBER ONE factor that produces a growing bankroll with (ultimately) a successful poker career.

But how do we reach this point?

I stated in part 3 you are on a poker degree course. Some of us will come out with 1st class honours, some with 2nd class, some with 3rd class and some with a pass. The level is not important, as long as you pass - because a pass means you are a profitable poker player. You are maybe not as profitable as the 1st class honours guy, but so what? You are profitable, and 95% - yes 95% of poker players online are not. For a huge number of reasons, but mainly because they do not apply themselves, do not take the time to 'learn, play, review, repeat'. There is a huge amount of information available to learn the game properly, online, in forums, in poker books, videos, lots of sites to practice at with little or no risk - but there are probably 10 times the number of poor players (fish, hare, gifthorse, call them what you will) out there than when there was limited information available. The current release of the Dan Harrington Cash game books will not help them, because by their nature, poor players will not read them.

Learn, play, review, repeat. Forever. That is now you do it, for it is a process of continuous improvement.

In part 1 I showed you the basic model/guideline for a cash game bankroll builder.

In part 2 I outlined the many elements required to build a proper structure for a multigame bankroll.

In part 3 I showed you how to put it all together with examples and identified the cut off point for moving from a 'training stage' poker player with no bankroll to a profitable player with a new 'starting' bankroll.

Now we look at training and analysis in more detail.

The training period, IMHO, is a minimum of 6 months. If it takes you longer, that's ok. we are all different. When you start to become consistently profitable and build a BR (as advised in part 3) your training period is over. But if you, later on, bust your BR, you are BACK in training mode - because if you are rigidly following the BR guidelines you should NEVER (well 95% of the time) totally bust out.

What is included in the training period and how much does it cost?

I take it for granted you have computer, printer and internet connection. We use these items for our everyday life, so they are not part of the cost. However the following ARE all included:

Books...............$200 (not all at once)

As you learn different aspects of the game (and different games), you need a book (or books) for reference. Yes, you can browse the internet, but you do need about 3/4 books per type of game during this period. I have about 20 I still use as core reference and I will buy any new books that I perceive will help me improve my game. But $200 over 6+ months is a good starting point. Marty has a very good book review site, so I will not compete with his listing here (there are some I have he doesn't list).

A training site............$100

Every poker site has play games. Don't waste your time, it bears no relation to real poker. You need somewhere to practice that will give you advice and as near a real life game as possible. Poker School online is good, Turbo Texas Holdem is another simulation option, but there is only one place to go (IMHO) and that is Poker Academy. It is the most advanced simulation software on the market, light years ahead of the market and has a 'real' feel to it with online advise as you play. If you watch Marty's poker strategy videos and want to try out some moves, PA is the play to do it. They have a downloadable version 2 for around $100.

Software....................$300

Before you go into the competitive poker world with your 'new' bankroll, following successful training, only a player who is going to lose does so without any software. There are a huge number of poker calculator software aids out there (Marty has another site reviewing them) but not all are any good. But what do you need? There are 4 areas:

Statistical assistance for Cash games
Statistical assistance for SNG/MTT
A database to record all your hands and provide analysis of play
A specialist database to analyse specific areas of your game.

I have used a number of aids over the years, but currently the following mix is by far the best (again IMHO):

Holdem Indicator (for statistical assistance in cash games)
Tournament Indicator (for statistical assistance in SNG/MTT)
Poker Tracker (a database/analysis tool - records all your hands)
PAHud (on screen statistical display linked to Poker Tracker)
Prospector (a top of the range specialist database to analyse your game).

(Poker Office 2 is a database/statistical aid I did use but it has too many crashes after updates)

I have provided a detailed description of how I use these software aids elsewhere, but basically I use PAHUD/PT/HI for my cash games and PAHUD/PT/TI for my SNG/MTT. I use PT as my main database and export areas I wish to analyse to Prospector (part of the Poker Academy software family) for detailed review.

All the above programs can be purchased within the $300 budget. I recommend using them during the training period, as you will be fully experienced using them when you go 'live' with your new BR and they will also improve your skills/ability during training.

Poker Videos.................$400

I only recommend this towards the end of your training and beyond. Sign up to one of the numerous training sites (Marty has a site recommended) only when you have a broad understanding of the game, its terms, style of play etc. Otherwise your money will be wasted. poker Videos build on existing knowledge gained by your own hard work and research, they are not an easy route to learn quickly and bypass the hard graft. During my maths degree, the tutor would give us printed notes to learn, but make us write them out, because when you do that it stays in your mind as you are thinking as you write. If we just read the notes, a lot of the information would drift. So do the hard graft, then sign up to the site, because by then you will have a solid foundation and know what they are talking about.

It is a nice round number ($1000) but I believe it to be a good estimate of the money required to learn the game during the initial stages of your poker career. There are always offers linked to software (usually to sign up to sites) and that is fine, as you are usually on limited funds at this stage, so take advantage of the offers - but choose your site/games carefully to tie in with the type of practice you want.

You have (as defined in part 3), a minimum of 200 hours training to undertake. This is a slight understatement as the 200 hours refer to gameplay only. There is another guideline here:

For every hour at the tables during training, equal time should be allocated to reading/research, practice and review. (Play on Poker Academy is part of this element, as the 200 hours at the tables only refers to live tables).

Therefore the training total is 400 hours. If it seems a lot, it isn't. This is a poker degree. It is real money you want to play with. If you do not want to put in the time, go to the bookies, give your money to charity or (worse ) your partner to spend. The 800 hours can be as long as you want. 6 months (30 hours a week), 1 year or more.

Now you know why 6 months is the minimum time period..................

I hope this is of help to you. In part 5, I will look as some of the key elements we use to analyse our game and make the right decision regarding the game you should be playing.

Arnold Snyder where are you?

Whatever happened to Arnold Snyder?

Somebody asked on the forum if anybody had read "The Poker Tournament Formula" by Arnold Snyder. Of course BaddBeatBobb and myself participated in Arnold's forum and were initially excited about how he was playing live tournaments. We really wanted to know if the strategy could be translated to low limit online poker and after several attempts to get data, we surmised it would not be successful. Arnold himself came back and basically said that he had no experience online with this system so couldn't verify it as a winning strategy online.

I would have really liked to devise an aggressive strategy for Full Tilt tournaments, but in trying so, it was more like smashing your forehead against a brick wall.

Here is BBB's response:

Ahh, Poker Tournament Formula, one of my favorite and enduring hobby-horses.

I really like the book, and think it emphasizes a few important ideas. If you find it startling and new, as I did when i first read it, then it may be the case for you, as it *certainly* was for me, that I simply hadn't played enough tournaments, nor thought about tournament strategy in enough depth to put Arnold's ideas into a bigger context.

The book is a bit like handing matches and gasoline to eight year old boys. They'll have great fun right up to the point where they set their own clothes on fire.

In a nutshell, the strategy is to break into unopened pots from position (hijack, cutoff, button) to try and steal. If you don't get the steal, then fire off a c-bet on the flop. If that doesn't get it done, jam the turn and pray.

Ok, obviously I'm being far too simplistic here. Arnold's a very good writer, and the book explores a great many lines of play, introduces the theoretical notion of speed of a tournament (rate of change of M, or the first derivative of M, dM/dt if you prefer a more formal expression), and it emphasizes that you have to stop being a timid weenie and start betting.

The main problem is, for all its elegance, it simply lacks empirical data of success. No one has actually come out and put their poker winnings record up for public scrutiny and said, "I did this all with the Snyder method." Marty, by contrast, has been very open about his own record (see tournament results) and the method he used to achieve the win-rate: mousie, patient, TAG.

Marty in fact asked right on Snyder's own forum for anybody to actually share some numbers and he attempted to collaborate with Arnold to adapt the PTF to small buyin tournaments where players are far too sticky to let anybody get away with a position-based steal strategy.

As for me, I attempted to formalize the mathematics in the PTF, to precisely describe dM/dt, and I discovered that the formulae break down in field sizes above about 300 players, when you need to shift from Arnold's (basically) quadratic equations to exponential equations. I'm referring specifically to his field factor equation. I asked about this on his forum and got no useful replies. So, since his strategy relies explicitly on tournament speed, which relies implicitly on field factor, and since many online tournaments have fields larger than 300, there's a pretty big problem here. The problem, to my knowledge, remains unacknowledged and hence un-addressed to this day.

Formalisms aside, the more basic issue is "Put up or shut up," and nobody has yet been willing to display their tournament success record while claiming it is based on a fundamentally PTF-based strategy.