Una breve introducción de la vida y obra de Rómulo Gallegos

(PART I)

Hi. I normally play 5/10 NL and higher. I don't post often in MHNL because at that level, some of the advanced concepts and thought processes are better left unsaid since some people still don't understand them. Many other posters hold back their thought processes to a certain degree as well. However, I have gained some knowledge from 2+2 and would like to repay by helping out some Small Stakes players. I will try to post one solid piece of advice for SS play each week. If I forget, someone send me a PM.

1) Isolate against the fish VERY FREQUENTLY

I see this mistake made very often. A donkey, lets say VPIP over 50 limps. Our 2+2'er limps behind. This is very bad. Your range of hands for raising the weak limper with position on him should include AT LEAST the following and probably more if you play halfway decent postflop: AA-77, AK, AQ, AJ, AT, Axs, KQ, KJ, KT, QJ, QT, JT, Q9s, J9s, K9s, 9Ts....

The amount you raise can vary, but a general rule is 3.5BB + 1 per limper (pot size raise).

If you get HU with the fish, and he checks the flop, you should be betting almost 100%

of the time. Bet your monsters and bet your crap. Your bet amount should vary between 1/2 the pot and the full pot. Mix up the bet amount so no one can read your hand.

However, use some common sense.

If the flop is A55 rainbow, a half pot bet probably makes the same hands fold as a pot bet...etc.

Think about it from a game theory perspective. If you bet the full pot every time, he will have to fold LESS than 50% or you show an automatic profit. Since most HE hands miss more than 50% of flops, unless the fish can adjust to your strategy, you will show an automatic profit.

Additionally, even if does call once in a while, you will have a hand once in a while so he'll have to be calling/raising not just 50% of the time, but way more.

Furthermore, if he does start raising and playing back at you, he is bad, so you should be able to outplay him.

Bottom Line - Start Isolating.

There is one situation where you should not isolate. This is if you have someone who is VERY loose in calling raises to your left. If this is the case, you won't be able to isolate that effectively. Naturally, the closer you are to the button, the more frequently you should be isolating.

You should be looking to sit to the direct left of the very loose players. You should pound on them. Attack them relentlessly. I've actually heard it debated whether you would rather sit to the left of a very loose player or the TAG so to avoid him having position on you. Let me put an end to this debate. Sit to the left of the loose player. It's not even close.

If you have a 6 handed table with 3 average players, 1 very loose player, and one very

solid TAG and you have to sandwhich yourself between the TAG and the loose player, I would estimate your BB/100 will be DRAMATICALLY higher sitting to the left of the loose player with the TAG to your left. The reasons for this should be obvious.

I'll try to think of another important concept for next week.

Enjoy!

(PART II)

Hi. I normally play 5/10 NL and higher. I don't post often in MHNL because at that level, some of the advanced concepts and thought processes are better left unsaid since some people still don't understand them. Many other posters hold back their thought processes to a certain degree as well. However, I have gained some knowledge from 2+2 and would like to repay by helping out some Small Stakes players. I will try to post one solid piece of advice for SS play each week. If I forget, someone send me a PM.

2) VERY VERY rarely is slowplaying correct

This goes not only for postflop play, but preflop play as well. First I'll discuss the simpler preflop play.

Every time you smooth call a raise preflop with AA or KK

There is one common condition smooth calling preflop is correct. This is against a player who is recklessly aggressive postflop, but will fold to a reraise preflop. Note that just being recklessly aggressive postflop is not enough to warrant a smooth call. If he is willing to call a pot size reraise preflop, he has very slim implied odds regardless of his holding. Factor in that he will often incorrectly put money in the pot postflop as a big underdog and slowplaying becomes very incorrect.

There is a second minor reason to slowplay preflop and this is for deception purposes.

This, however, is the most overrated reason at almost any limit. This is because it takes a ridiculous number of table hours against a particular opponent to deduce that he will NEVER slowplay AA/KK.

If you still like to slowplay your AA/KK, make sure you do it against an opponent whose PFR is small enough to the point where you know the range of hands you are trapping. If you smooth call a loose raiser and see a Q44 flop, you'll only end up trapping yourself when he shows you a 45 which you could've either pushed out preflop, or forced to make an incorrect call preflop.

Preflop slowplaying is bad, but postflop slowplaying is usually much worse.

I call the following "The Idiot's Monster"

Call Preflop with a drawing hand (pocket pair, suited connector) Call raiser's flop bet when you hit your monster.

Raise the turn small (whether it's minraise or raise f/ $200 to $500).

Value bet the river.

I'm not saying to get rid of this line completely, however, pick your spots. Against most thinking players, you will not take their stack this way against an overpair. However,

against some loose calling station whose entire thought process is "he bets more so he has a better hand", use this line (raising the flop is still superior) and value bet him into submission. He will never fold his TPGK.

Reasons slowplaying is bad:

1) Fastplaying is deceptive, slowplaying is not (against thinking players). You heard right.

Because the overwhelming majority of players online slowplay their very strong hands, most thinking players will never see what hit them when you fastplay yours.

2) Fastplaying builds pots. This one should be obvious. You don't want streets checked when you have a very strong hand. You want the maximum amount going in on every street. When you flop a set and sense that your opponent has an overpair, pound him.

Don't plan on taking half his stack. Go for it all. He probably isn't folding unless...

3) a scare card hits. I'm going to use a simple example to illustrate this point. You have 77 OOP against a preflop raiser. The flop comes T74 with a heart flush draw. You check call the flop. Think about how many turn cards could potentially kill your action. Any heart, T, J,6,3 could result in your opponent not willing to go to the felt with his overpair.

Check-raising and leading out are both acceptable options. Check-calling is pretty bad.

Here is another example from a hand that I played recently:

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $ BB (6 max, 6 handed) converter BB ($949)

Hero ($1342) MP ($286.12) CO ($992)

Button ($704.35) SB ($769.75)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with 6, 5. SB posts a blind of $5.

Hero raises to $35, 3 folds, SB (poster) calls $30, BB calls $25.

Flop: ($105) K, 6, 6 (3 players)

SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets $70, SB calls $70, BB folds.

Turn: ($245) 6 (2 players)

SB checks, Hero bets $175, SB calls $175.

River: ($595) A (2 players) SB checks, Hero ???

So many players will check the turn. Checking the turn is 100% wrong. It allows your opponent to play a small pot in a hand where he is either way ahead or way behind.

Betting it also disguises your hand and most probably stacks Villain if he holds Kx.

However, I forgot that an A could hit the river and potentially kill my action. The correct play in this situation is not only to bet the turn, but to bet all-in. This assures that you disguise your quads, get 95%+'s opponent's stacks all-in with Kx, and prevent a scare card (Ace) from killing your action on the river. This example illustrates how much can go wrong when you try to slowplay.

4) Your opponent doesn't bet! In the previous 77 example, I stated that check-raising and leading are both good options. The reason check-raising is equally good is because your opponent will often make a continuation bet when he misses which you would not gain if you lead. However, you should be wary of the fact that any time you check

intending to trap, your opponent may check also.

Disclaimer: Don't take what I write as black and white, wrong and right. Whether I state them as absolutes or not, they are my opinions. However, the important thing you should be taking in from this is the thought process involved in making decisions. In this case, the decision is whether to slowplay or not. Sure there are times when you should be slowplaying. The important thing is that you have the thought process to recognize when those situations arise and why slowplaying is more profitable than fastplaying in those situations.

For my third post next week, I have an idea, but it is more of a profitability discussion, rather than a pure strategy discussion. Anyone opposed to this?

Enjoy.

(PART III) Hi,

Sorry it took me so long to get this one out. I've been busy lately, but a bunch of you bombarded me w/ PM's so here goes:

The first two posts focused specifically on poker strategy while this one will deal with profitability. Here are a few specific ways to improve your profitability (roughly in order of importance)

1) Game Selection: This is by far the most important thing you can do to improve your winrate. If your game selection consists solely of putting yourself on the waitlists of the tables with the biggest avg pots/highest% to the flop, your game selection sucks.

First, think about how important game selection is. At small stakes, if you are a good player, chances are there might be 4 or 5 tables out of 100 that you are unable to sustain a positive winrate. However, there is a big difference between winning 2BB/100 on a certain table as opposed to 15BB/100. Think about the times where you sat down with a fish on your table playing 70-100% of his hands. How quickly on average does he go broke? 30 hands? 50 hands? 70 hands? If you are on his table, sometimes you'll be the one taking his stack, sometimes you won't. However, the bottom line is, on average you will take x% of that player's stack. If you follow most of the following advice, x will be around 30%. Depending on how much he bought in for, this may average out to around 9-12BB's. If we take a conservative estimate and say he lasts 70 hands, that's a ridiculous 9-12BB/HR raise on your winrate.

I don't think there are many doubters to the fact that game selection is important so I won't spend much more time on it. Rather, let's move on to how you go about picking good games....

2) Identifying Fish

If you are to exercise good game selection, obviously you have to know what a good game is. Since most of you are probably multitablers, the easiest way to do it is to use PokerTracker and an add-on which superimposes everyone's stats onto the table. When you aren't playing, you should leave your computer on and datamine. Within a few days you can easily recognize the regular, winning players, and the regular, losing players.

Be warned that you shouldn't automatically assume that because a certain player's VPIP is over 30, he is a fish. There is a wide range of styles with which people can play

profitably. Believe it or not, there are 50/20's who are winning players at 5/10NL and 10/20NL. However, like most things, you are playing the numbers game. Chances are that a player with a VPIP of 50 is much more likely to be a loser than a player with a VPIP of 15.

The next way to identify the fish is to observe how they play particular hands. TAKE NOTES. When you see someone check-call the KQ4 flop OOP w/ A7o, no draws, you can be pretty sure that he is a losing player. It's important that you note specifics of how the weak player plays, and ways for you to exploit that. For example, don't write "donkey" as your note. Sure this tells you he sucks, but what good is that if you are unsure of how to exploit it. Instead, write "calling station". Now you know not to bluff him. Or write

"doesn't extract proper value from strong hands". Now you know that you should just check-call him down with your top pair type hand. Or write "fires three barrels with overcards". Now you know to just check-call him down to the river.

Once you are able to identify the fish, you need to learn how to take advantage of them.

3) Play more hands with the fish and less with the sharks

This should be obvious, but it is amazing how many players play on complete auto-pilot and disregard for who they are playing the hand against.

Here's an example. Standard starting stacks. You have 55 in the SB. Solid player raises 4-5x from middle position. All folds around to you. A lot of players will call and take a flop to try and flop a set. However, this is incorrect for a number of reasons.

First of all, a solid player's opening range is going to be such that every time you flop your set, he will not necessarily have a strong enough hand to pay you off. Say he raises KQ and the flop comes J75. You aren't going to win much off him. Remember, that you have to plan on getting 50 big blinds worth of his stack in the middle just to BREAK EVEN on your small pocket pair.

Next, because this player is good, there's no guarantee that he will even go broke with an overpair or top pair. Maybe a scare card hits on the turn to kill your action. Maybe he reads your hand well and can get away quickly.

The bottom line is that speculative hands fluctuate in value depending on the player you are playing them against.

Here is another example. Very bad player minraises UTG. One caller. You have 46s on the button. Standard stack sizes. You should be seeing a flop here every single time.

Playing 46s profitably against a very bad player in this situation should be pretty easy if you know what his leaks are and how to properly exploit them.

Other than widening your range of hands you will play against a weak player, how else can you increase the number of hands you play against him...

4) Learn to play short-handed

This is probably one of the biggest fears of a lot of small stakes full ring players. I know when I first started out, I was scared to death of SH play. Now, I'd have to play postflop and not just win exclusively on the strength of solid starting hands. However, I can honestly say that after 2 or 3 days of playing 6 MAX, my winrate was significantly higher than what i was earning at full ring. This isn't because I improved my postflop play that quickly but rather because there are more fish on the 6 MAX tables, and I am now playing more hands against each fish.

I think that every player takes a progression throughout their poker careers from full ring to 6 max, to 3 handed and HU play. The fewer the number of players, the more potential the game has for profitability. The reasons for this are fairly obvious.

5) Seat Selection Issues

It is often argued whether it is better to sit to the left of the players who play well, or the players who play poorly. The overwhelmingly correct answer is the players who play poorly. Think about it. Not only are you now able to isolate against that player at will, but now when you raise, you don't risk getting 4 callers behind you. Even if once in a while you have to play a hand out of position against a tough player, you should be playing 4-5 times as many hands against the weaker player. If a seat to the direct left of a loose, weak player opens up, CHANGE YOUR SEAT.

Now what happens if you aren't able to move to the left of the weaker player. Let's say you are to his direct right.

This is what is going to happen. You are going to have to significantly tighten up your preflop raising. You can't open JTo anymore because the loose player will call, and this will entice others after him to follow. Who wants to play a 4 handed pot out of position with hands like that? Furthermore, every time you are in a pot against the player you are trying to play as many pots with as possible, you are out of position. You'll have to

control your continuation betting because that player is probably a calling station. The bottom line is that because that player is so bad, the game will still be profitable.

However, if possible, you should definitely look for another table where you can get more favorable seating.

6) Psychology

How psychology applies to poker is something a lot of people don't properly understand.

One of the important aspects of any hand is how your opponent perceives you. Unless you have a long history with the opponent, this usually involves how you've been playing for the past 40-50 hands.

Here is an example:

Say you've been making a lot of continuation bets after PF raises, and C/F turns when you miss.

You raise xy. Flop comes 982. One caller.

Check, Bet, Call.

Turn is a 2. In this situation, sometimes if you don't have a piece you might give up.

However, given your table image, it might be very profitable for you to fire a second barrel as your opponent probably thinks you only fire 2nd barrels with legit hands.

The point of this example is that your table image can greatly influence certain decisions.

One of the reasons it's so difficult to comment on HU NL hands is because a lot of that depends on the previous hands that you've played with the opponent.

Let's say an average player opens from the button. You reraise AQo from the big blind and he folds. Very next hand you are dealt AA. He opens from the cutoff. You should very seriously consider making an abnormal size raise. If he raises 4 times the blind, maybe you should consider reraising him 20 times the blind. This is especially the case

Let's say an average player opens from the button. You reraise AQo from the big blind and he folds. Very next hand you are dealt AA. He opens from the cutoff. You should very seriously consider making an abnormal size raise. If he raises 4 times the blind, maybe you should consider reraising him 20 times the blind. This is especially the case