The Upper Hand #8

The way I study in Poker has dramatically evolved over the years.

When I first fell in love with the game, I read every Poker book I could get my hands on.

Then training videos were my jam - shout out Tony Dunst - if you know you know.

Before moving on to actual study tools.

My first years as a professional Poker player, I grinded 180 man and 18 man SitN’Gos, which meant that my the majority of my study was using ICM tools - ALTHOUGH YOU WOULDN’T THINK IT WITH THE WAY I PLAY FINAL TABLES TO THIS DAY!

Transitioning into MTTs, PIO Solver was the cool kid on the block.

To this day, it’s amazing tool but I used it HORRENDOUSLY.

Not only would I use it to exclusively line check, I would check out the rarest of hands, UTG vs BTN 150 blinds deep, 555 flop, triple check raised - WHAT DO WE DO ON THE RIVER?

Utter nonsense.

The tools have improved at a frightening rate in the past number of years.

With that, it’s natural for there to be concerns BUT it also means that you can begin to deeply understand Poker.

Back in my day - yes I’m old - it could take one hour + for a sim to run but these days you can get solutions in a matter of seconds.

This gives us the ability to be far more methodical in our approach.

For the past 3 months, I’ve rotated weekly between a common spot (BTN vs BB, CO vs BTN, LJ vs BTN etc etc) and a slightly less common spot (BB vs BTN 3b, CO vs SB vs BB 3 handed etc etc).

This week I’m going to be looking at LJ vs BB.

Monday to Friday I’ll spend 60-90 minutes studying a different stack size, varying from 15bb to 60bb.

There’s no doubt value learning how to play deeper stacks but the vast majority of MTT play is covered this way.

Then I will set up the spot in DTO, go over the ranges, check out the aggerate reports, note any obvious patterns before deeply thinking about every action I make AND the bot makes.

When the bot makes a play that I would NEVER make, I stop and try and work out what’s going on.

I’ll run some sims and try to get to the bottom of why it’s happening, the answer is always staring you in the face but it’s not always easy to find.

Then I’ll decide if I’m capable of incorpating the play into my game and does it even make sense to.

There’s plenty of spots, ESPECIALLY in live Poker where attempting to play like a bot is the dumbest thing you can do.

“I’m at the top of my range I have to call” as you face a triple check-raise 150bbs deep on 555 in level one of the Main Event and you’ve got Kings vs Bob from Idaho.

GROW UP!

Next Monday, I will share some of my findings in the LJ vs BB spot.

Let me know if anyone else decides to jump into this with me.

Talk tomorrow you beautiful fucks!

<3