Ask A Pro: heybude/Mirttinur

"HU sng against a calling station.

I know the general answer is "wait until you get a hand and value bet the life out of them!"

But what if you don't get a hand?

What if you only get 32o, 84o, 72s, etc for the whole session?

They don't fold to bluffs, so what do you do?

Do you just give up on the session and say "oh well"?

How do you fight back?

I haven't seen this addressed anywhere, just the general answer is given.

Thanks!"

You lose the match in all likelyhood. You don't give up though.

Wait til you get a hand and valuebet the life out of them isn't the best strategy to employ. The best strategy will be much more specific and complex than that. Saying someone is a calling station is an unhelpful generalization. For example, are you saying this player never ever folds? He always calls to the river no matter what? Obviously in 99.99% of cases not. The best way to beat anyone is to figure out exactly how they play, and not generally how they play. I have played tons of stationy players who I have bluffed a lot, because there are always spots where a player will fold enough to make bluffing (with a weaker equity hand) profitable.

When figuring out how to beat anyone you have to figure out in what ways they are playing exploitably and how to adjust to that correctly. Specifically when playing a player who seems to call too often in many spots, there are a few important drivers of your EV.

1. Find the exact spots where he doesn't fold much, and don't bluff him there.

2. With weak equity hands, align them in lines where your opponent is going to play passively. Without bluffing equity, you simply want to see as many cards as possible.

3. With strong hands, align them in lines where your opponent is going to call the most in the biggest pots.

I could seriously go on forever about theory but to make it simpler those are the important points.

Try 5:30 to 5:30.

It took awhile for me to get used to. I felt like total death every morning for two months but now it's not too bad. It's much harder working this job than poker. That being said, I enjoy my time at work a lot, and I'd prefer this job to playing poker despite how passionate I am about poker. It's a transition but it's a refreshing one, at least for me.

"is your preference for the current job over poker not just based on it being newer/less repetitive as of now etc? and how strongly do you feel about whatever you answer to this question."

That may be part of it. It's not that I strongly prefer doing trading as a living over poker, although I do find trading just as stimulating as poker. I freaking love poker. I was mostly referring to the career of trading. I like having a stable income, I really like the company I work for, and I like the upside and future prospects. And yes, I enjoy the newness of the job. I also like my mind not being in the poker world all the time. I have a real seperation of work and down time now which I didn't have as a poker player. That has a lot to do with my own discipline though.

"describe your typical day at work."

I basically sit in front of a computer all day long and trade. I will go around the office and talk to other people about trading strategy. This is one of those things that I can't go into detail about.

"do you make a investment decisions on your own brokerage account (something similar to poker). or you can't have your own brokerage account if you work in financial institution?"

I work for a market maker, not an investment bank. Proprietary trading firms do not invest other peoples money for the most part. So I make my own investment decisions.

"Do you want to become an independent investor?"

Maybe eventually down the roan.

"do you improve your knowledge about technical analysis or simply you don't need it at work?"

Again, can't answer this. I don't feel comfortable revealing anything about the innerworkings of my company. I apologize. 

"as a market maker do you do any discretionary trading at all? can your job only be done at a firm than at home cause of the technology of the firm? do you have to be good at math or probabilities to be a market maker? are you paid by salary and bonus or can you also get paid by percentage of what you make for the firm?

thanks"

I'd like to answer all your questions but this is all information I can't share. Sorry :(.

"Thanks for doing this."

NP, I enjoy talking about this stuff.

"What types of ways did you study to become so good theoretically? Do you have an education background in game theory/statistics/etc? "

I do not have a background in math whatsoever. I was good at math in high school and was good at logic in college. I don't claim to have the self awareness to know exactly why I grasp theory so well. I best guess would be thinking from the right perspective. The biggest shift in perspective I had is when I realized how interesting the game was without seeing anyones cards. The single moment was when I thought about if I was watching two people play, I could predict who was more likely to win the hand even without seeing their cards. That just opened up an entirely different game to play in a sense.

"In your profile, you mention being obsessed with optimal play. What is the best way for a player without a strong or deep math background to work on this?"

Try to figure out what your exact ranges should be in every spot. See above as well.

"I really envy the mathematical knowledge base guys like you, your bro, Mers, and Skates have. I was a History major in college...was always pretty good at math, but never thought I would want to make a career out of it - wish I knew 10 years ago what I'd be doing for a living today. It's never too late to learn new things though, and I've considered going back to school and studying statistics/game theory.

Considering the high cost of education and the time I would spend doing this, it's probably not +EV for my poker career - plenty of guys do great in this game without a really sick mathematical understanding. I have developed a lot of skills (calculated risk-taking, money management, self-awareness/mental game) that I think would be complemented well by a much more solid mathematical mindset and would make me a better poker player, and possibly improve my EV in other future ventures as well (real estate investing, stock market, etc...not sure yet).

I would really appreciate your opinion on this."

There's nothing complicated about the mathematical calculations done in poker. No one is doing calculus here. While it can be hard to grasp the idea of optimal play, the actual factors driving it aren't complex. I would not get an education in Math, my understanding is there is not practical applications to what you learn, but I don't know for sure.

These questions are good but are also hard to answer. I don't really know why I understand theory, I just know that I understand it. I don't believe I have ever successfully coached anyone into thinking theoretically. Something that may help is a thread regarding a triple barrel bluff hand on twoplustwo that a poster named MDMA posted in a lot. He explains theory very well there. If anyone can find that, I'd appreciate you posting it.

"I might have some ability in husng's but I need an honest opinion about my graph.

My sn is neveragain39 on pstars.

Simple question, have I just been running above average, or is everyone horribly bad in micro levels? or with some coaching

would I be able to successfully move up levels and make the investment pay-off?

k thanks."

Brain Townsend once said that he thought if a player didn't get to high stakes in 6 months they never would. This is basically a load of horse shit. It took me 4 years to get to high stakes and it was a slow process of moving up the levels. 

Look at a post I made on this website, I'm Iowaskinsfan. http://www.flopturnriver.com/pokerforum/beginners-circle/over-betting-big-slick-93507.html

Does that look like someone who has to potential to move up levels in poker? Probably freaking not. But guess what?

I think without a doubt you will be able to successfully move up the levels. Everyone is terrible at micros and i'm sure you are running well.

The most important thing to me is are you passionate about the game and do you strive to be great? Those are qualities that are going to take you far.

"did you use cardrunnersEV/flopzilla to analyze play (or any similar programs)? i don't really know any husng regs that use programs like this to study. i don't see why not though, unless there is some cash-specific aspect about these programs that i don't know of.

did you watch many HU cash videos coming up? if so, who made the best vids? (i have a bluefire membership)"

StoxEV is now CREV right? If so, yes, I've used it, and it is awesome. I didn't use it nearly as much as I should. Analyzing and understanding optimal solutions is integral to becoming a great player.

I didn't watch many videos. Haseeb Qureshi did the best videos online, it's too bad what happened to him. I'd definitely suggest wtahcing all his videos. Rich Lyndker, in my own biased opinion, is the best NL player in the world so any videos he has ever made I'd watch. 

"can you describe what traits you developed from poker that really helps you in trading?"

Honestly, I think the most important traits was assuming people were not doing things perfectly or well for the matter before I went to my firm. It's easier to see deficiencies in peoples strategies as long as you don't assume their strategies aren't perfect. I am not an experienced trader though yet.

"First off thanks for doing this, I think it's a great idea. I have sort of an abstract question, but if there isn't a direct answer I'd love to just hear your thoughts on the matter. When I was recording my video series with Skates I noticed that he talked a lot about framing a player's game "into a box". Basically, if I wasn't misunderstanding, he was saying that if you use static strategies in basic (or even complex) situations, he can calculate the optimal counterstrategy and exploit you. 

To what extent and in what situations do you think this happens in the tougher high stakes matches now? Are you starting a match looking for edges where villain's range is fixed or are you also looking for edges in his perceived future adjustments? I think a lot of people use static ranges in simple preflop spots at 20bb and lower but theoretically that static range could be very close to GTO and you still wouldn't be able to exploit it dramatically unless he was braindead. Another spot might be minraising 100% at full stacks, this is a static strategy but also one that can't really get you into trouble regardless of who you're playing. Personally I find myself trying to break down someone's thought process rather than their exact ranges, because over the course of a match (4 tabling cash for example) those ranges are going to change on the fly. Basically I'm curious if you can think of a spot or two where most good players' ranges are static and a few spots where most good players' ranges are dynamic, and how you might go about exploiting both cases."

Really great question.

My personal experience is unless you're playing a very good player, most of their betting and raising ranges are going to be pretty static. I'm surprised to hear you say people adjust ranges on the fly, most of my experience has been people who do not adjust much. This is especially true in HU SNGs, less true in cash but still true. Although, as far as calling ranges go, you will see people change how tight or stationy they get based on the history of the match, and that is something I tried to be very keen about predicting. But I was always surprised about how long it takes for someone to adjust when you're exploiting the bejesus out of them and how they will adjust too exploitably. A good example is 3betting preflop a lot. A lot of people when you 3bet them really exploitably will start opening less. But it's so obvious when this happens and so obviously giving away their thought process (they clearly think you have a wide 3betting range) that you can just own them by then 3betting exploitably less and possibly cold calling with some of the non nut hands you're 3betting with.

I always played with very malleable ranges, although I tended to fall into the habits of playing exploitably aggressive and tight. However, I think it's best to try to be dynamic in all aspects of your ranges and see if you can get your opponent to make a mistake. If you never try 3betting preflop exploitably loose or tight vs someone you may never figure out that, i.e., they play very badly against exploitably loose 3betting.

At the same time, I think this tended to bite me in the ass when I played elite players. I think it's best vs a player you know is very good to start with close to GTO strategy and play slightly exploitably from there.

Woah weird apparently I have two accounts here and didn't know it. The redgrape posts were me.

"Do you think a good poker player has high probability to make a good (private) trader?

I´ve never tried trading (only long term investing), but the problem is that trading is about finding patterns (I guess) and the human is a pattern seeking creature, we think we see pattern when there isn´t. If I toss a coin and it lands heads 10 times in a row some people think "it can´t happen one more time" while other think "it has happened 10 times i a row, it must happen again". It seems to be very hard to find out if the patterns I find is something I can use or if it´s just random.

And also, you´re competing agains everyone at the same time, the markets sets the price. In poker you need to be better than your opponent, in trading you have to beat evreryone."

I think a good poker will be good at trading or be able to become good at trading. I really wouldn't say it's about discovering patterns, it's more about how to decipher unclear information correctly, and how to use that information to your advantage. Poker players do that all the time with reading opponents hands, figuring out how they play, and adjusting to their play. My guess would be HU cash players would fare best.