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Q&A Podcast #448 – Preflop Ranges Challenge, Moving Up, Tournament Tracking, Red Line

Listen to Q&A Podcast #448 as you follow along below:

Question 1 – Preflop Ranges Challenge

I enjoyed your challenge from last week (Episode #446 – Steal, Steal, Steal! Challenge), and I’m looking to do more. What challenge do you think I should do? – JD

I wasn’t going to do another challenge again so soon, but JD’s question inspired me!

I was in my Poker Forge Discord group and I saw a post from Roy. He’s crushing it with over 25,000 hands played while strictly using the KISS Cash Game Ranges at 5nl, 10nl and 25nl. So, I’m going to do what he’s doing!

I’m going to play 5,000 hands at each of these stakes on Ignition Poker and see what results I can achieve. It’s been a long time since I tried to play strictly KISS Ranges, and I’m hoping it will be fun doing so on Ignition Poker.

I think this is a really good challenge for players who are having a hard time playing profitably up through 100nl. These ranges will have you playing a tight-aggressive style, which is going to give you a mathematical advantage against your looser opponents at the microstakes.

Challenge Goal: Profitably play 5,000 hands of 5nl in one week using the KISS Cash Game Ranges.

I’ll be 4-tabling 6max and it should take about 15 hours to get there. Eeek! That’s a lot of poker in one week, and it’s tough for me to play that much.

After 5nl, I’ll repeat for 10nl and for 25nl. I’ll report back later on the podcast with my results and tips for using the KISS Cash Game Ranges.

The KISS Cash Game Ranges (get ’em above) are the same ranges from my Preflop Online Poker book and I’ve given them out on the podcast before and they’re the same ranges that I give to my poker for students.

Question 2 – Moving Up In Stakes

My question to you… what is it like going up in stakes in online cash games? I’m guessing there’s an overlap in skill between all the stakes and that it’s not a straight line of skill increase along the way. Any advice for moving up? – Darren

When moving up, you’re generally going to find a greater proportion of aggressive and competent players. However, there are still plenty of players making mistakes that you can exploit, and even the good players are exploitable.

From 2nl to 10nl, the player pool is basically the same and full of fish, but progressively you’ll find more regs as you go.

Starting at 25nl you’ll find professional players making a living from poker. These players probably live in low cost of living countries.

Tips for Moving Up

Keep looking for the fish! They’re the ones who make poker profitable. So table selection is still a valuable strategy for making money.

Take stabs at the next stake gradually, just one table at a time.

• When you feel ready to move up, cut your tables to 2 or 3 with just one of them being the higher stake.
• So, you might play 2 tables of 5nl and 1 table at 10nl. Or just one of each if you’re going to play on 2 tables.
• If the software allows, view chip stacks in BB’s, not $’s. That way, you don’t see the amount of money at risk, everything is just in BB’s.

Follow the 40x buy-in rule for your bankroll.

• At 5nl ($5 buy-ins), you should have 40x in your bankroll, so $200.
• For 10nl, have $400.
• When you get near $400, maybe like $350+, take a stab at 10nl 1 table at a time.

Continue playing just one table at a time of the higher stake. Review your hands and learn how they play. When comfortable, add a second table.

When you reach 40x buy-ins, and if you want to, make the complete move up to the higher stake. But, be ready to go back down as necessary if you get hit by a string of bad results and you drop down to 35x buy-ins.

Question 3 – Tournament Tracking

I play on Ignition (with the PokerTracker 4 “Hand Grabber” – affiliate link), but mostly tournaments. I’ve been doing very well in PKOs. However, I find the actual bounties are not imported to PT4 and credited as cash won. I know you play mostly cash, but have you come across this issue before? Also, any $25 or above tournament is not recorded at all. I know this relates to the “version” or either PT4 that I bought, or the hand grabber I bought. Do you know which one, or is it both? – John C.

I think the hand grabber grabs all hands, but you need to have the full version of PT4 to get all the higher buy-in tourneys recorded.

I don’t think it’s PT4’s fault when bounties/results aren’t tracked properly. Sometimes the sites don’t record that important information in the hand history files, so PT4 has no way of gathering it.

I recommend that you manually track your buy-ins and bounties and payouts won with a piece of paper as you play. I record the buy-in, the rake, my finishing position and any payouts manually.

Let’s imagine you play a PKO and end up collecting 3 bounties: $10, $20 and a $30. And, you win $80 upon getting KO’d.

Go into PT4 and find the tournament. Right-click and “Edit Tournament”. Make sure all the details are recorded properly.

Garbage In, Garbage Out

You want to know how profitable you truly are. Of course, your online bankroll will tell you how much money you won or lost this month. Maybe at the start of the month you had $1000 in your account, and at the end of the month you have $1,200. Great, you have $200 profit right there.

But, you want to see on a tourney-by-tourney basis how profitable you are. Maybe you’re losing a ton of money in all the $10 tournaments you play, but you had a super big score in a $50 tournament. But because the software isn’t recording all of this, you could be deluded into thinking you’re doing great in these $10 tournaments.

Accurate results allows you to analyze them to find areas of opportunity for you to work on.

Question 4 – Red Line

I want to ask, about fixing the Red Line, I know it’s very vast topic, but what do you think is the number one factor that can affect the Red Line? – Nektarios

Yep, vast topic for sure.

The Red Line is a graph in PokerTracker 4 that shows your non-Showdown winnings. If you win a lot of pots without showdown (by betting or raising and getting them to fold) then you have a positive red line. If you lose a lot of pots by folding early, you’ll have a negative red line.

The #1 factor that can affect the red line is entering a hand pre-flop with a plan for how to steal it post-flop.

Whether calling or raising preflop, our ranges don’t hit a pair or better 65% of the time. This means that the most likely way to win will be to successfully bluff at some point.

That’s why I did the Steal, Steal, Steal! Challenge two weeks ago.  I wanted to build my preflop and post-flop stealing skills. By doing so, I’m winning more pots and my red line will be positive for it.

Depending on how you enter the hand preflop, make a plan:

• Before calling, know the raiser’s cbet tendencies. What street is he honest on? Does he fold to donk bets? Is he a one-and-done cbettor?
• Before raising, know who the likely callers will be. Do they fold a lot on the flop or turn? Are they sticky with any draw and any pair? Can they use their position against you?

The more thought you put into how you can steal the pot, and if you’re able to pull the trigger on steals, the more non-showdown pots you’ll win and the better your red line will be.

Q&A Podcast #514 – Bluff-raising, Multi-tabling Tips, Anonymous Player Reads & More!

Listen to Q&A Podcast #514 as you follow along below:

Question 1 – Flop Raises

I know I need to work more check-raises and raising their bets IP but I always seem to talk myself out of it and go for the turn raise instead as I think they will just fold to raises on the flop or call with better. But I realize that if I increase my value raise frequency on the flop, I can work more bluffs into my strategy. What do you think? – Daniel

Yes, you can value raise flops probably much more often than you do currently. When IP, raise with TP+ hands to get value from players who can’t fold. Most of the time, you want a board that will allow you to barrel the turn, so dry or semi-wet boards are good. Like AT4r and you hold AJ. Make larger value raise sizes if they can give you value with many weaker hands and draws.

Beware of raising on wet boards if you don’t like a lot of turn cards. Maybe the board is Ts 9s 6c. You hold KTo, no spades. You could raise, but if he calls, there are lots of turn cards you hate because they hit his flop calling range. Cards like Q, J, T, 9, 8, 7 and spades all help his flop bet/calling range. You may want to just call to keep the pot small.

You don’t really have to value raise more in order to bluff raise more. If you think they’re bet/folding, make the raise. And, bluff-raising on the flop is usually cheaper than the turn.

Example:

• They bet 5bb on flop, you xr to 12.5bb. They fold and don’t get to see the turn. Total risk = 12.5bb.
• They bet 5bb, you call. They get to see the turn card. The pot is now 17bb and they bet 10bb. Raising now = 25bb. Total risk = 30bb.

Experiment with more bluff-raises on hard-to-hit flops and when IP and vs small cbets.

Question 2 – HUD Site vs Fishy Non-HUD Site

Another question related to GG poker and HUDs. I have been debating switching over to PokerStars to be able to use a HUD but the games on GG just seem too fishy to pass up. For a newer player would you recommend playing on the fishier site (PS may also be fishy I just haven’t played on the site) or the one that allows HUDs? – Daniel

I think you should play on both. More fish = more fun and profits. HUD = statistics training, spotting tendencies and exploiting them. Play a week on and a week off, or every other day, or whichever you feel like that session.

Question 3 – Anonymous Site Player Reads

On Ignition poker when you are dealing with unknown players, how many hand histories should I consider before I start to really make a judgment call on the players skill? – Garett

I think you can do it with the very first hand you see them play, and definitely by 20 hands at the table. Some easy/quick reads:

• Fish = limping, tiny 3bet sizing, calling every street with a weak hand at showdown, calling 2bets and cold calling 3bets, 30bb buy-in; unnecessary hand reveals.
• TAG = good sizing, attacking weakness, checking post-flop instead of barreling, folding vs steals and 3bets.
• LAG = lots of 3bets, raising a lot, cbetting and barreling, seems to bet when others check to him.
• Maniac/Gambler = seems to play any hand, shows J4s at showdown.

You have to be willing to adjust your read as more info comes in, though. Somebody can appear LAG at first but they simmer down to TAG. Or, they start like a nit folding every hand because they want to build stats on opponents. Then they get a read and start playing their normal style.

There are some videos in the Poker Forge you should watch:

• Exploit Your Opponents Course, “Exploiting on Ignition Without a HUD”
• Ignition Demonstrations x19 in Extra Items >>> Game Tape – Ignition

Question 4 – Multi-tabling Tips

Looking for best practices on playing multiple table, I saw in one of your prior coaching sessions you place hero in upper left corner to make it easier to see all tables, so little easy to implement stuff like that. – Mike Lehner

Use 2 monitors.

Test tiling and cascading.

Test different seats to see what you like.

Resize the windows.

Set it to popup with action.

Start with 1-2 tables, feel good? Add more.

Question 5 – VPIP Too Low?

I was thinking that maybe I attract too much attention with my vpip stats because 95% of the field is a lot looser than me. Furthermore, maybe I think I could squeeze more money by playing more hands. What do you think? – Simon

If they pay attention, you’re a TAG. Use this to bluff more and stick around more with showdown worthy hands vs LAG’s.

More hands = more profits. Play more hands aggressively (2bet and 3bet) in position (BTN, CO, MP)

Question 6 – Keep On Keeping On!

I took you up on yesterday’s challenge and focused on barreling the turn. I played about 90 minutes/115 hands and only had two instances where the above applied. Will this work for the challenge going forward or should I perhaps identify a different area where I had more opportunities during last night’s session? – Ross

Keep at it.

My play from yesterday: 2 hours, 264 hands with 7 opportunities to barrel after 14 flop cbets

Maybe it’s your other decisions that give you few opportunities to barrel:

• Why did I not have more opportunities to barrel?
• Am I not open-raising enough?
• Am I rarely flop cbetting, so I rarely get the chance to barrel?
• Are they all folding to my flop cbets?
• Are they raising my flop cbets and I fold, giving up on my chance to barrel?

Also, practice when you’re not involved:

• Would I barrel for value here? What size would he call?
• Would I barrel bluff here? What size would win the pot?
• What’s the caller’s range and can he fold here?