Phil Galfond

"I don't try to put my opponent in spots where he can't make a right decision vs. my range. I try to get him to make the wrong decision for my hand." - Phil Galfond

I'm putting this as a blog post so i can think about it more later.

This week has been really busy for me with essays, college apps, etc, and thankfully Albert and I cancelled the prop bet for this month. It's a bit disappointing, but college apps are something I really can't fuck up, and having poker out of the way just for this month is a huge burden lifted off my shoulders.

Hopefully next month I'll be able to get back into the groove. I'm pretty excited to be moving up really soon and hopefully I'll run well so I won't need to move back down. I feel that my stay at 100NL has been long overdue, since I am very confident that I'm +EV in the games by quite a decent margin.

Can't stop, won't stop

Jesus, my killer sessions do not seem to end. I played just 1.6k hands today and was up over 5 BI's. I flopped so many sets it was getting ridiculous, I was even contemplating set mining OOP in a 3bet pot. That's when you know you're getting a little too results oriented. My session was so awesome in the sense that I had very few tough decisions. It felt like a nice little grind, stick in some thin value bets, and I found some good spots to delayed cbet as opposed to cbetting outright. The james theorem says that when an opponent checks to you twice OOP, they're check/folding the turn. The power of the delayed cbet is that you know you can barrel a very small bet (just shy of half pot) and it has an immense amount of fold equity. I think i'm 6 for 6 in delayed cbets.

Why delay a cbet and not just cbet the flop? Some boards are a little "close" as Albert and I would say, and if their fold to cbet isn't drastically high at 65%+ then I'll opt for a check back and try to peel the pot off of them on the turn. Not only do I get a better price on a bluff since I can bet less, but it works far more often. Many players will make very speculative peels and bet the river when you check the turn back, but when you bet the turn theres only one more card to come. If they have a weak draw it looks a lot less appealing to them and they'll just muck it. In addition, the delayed cbet is balanced since you're checking back medium strength hands.

Cbet sizing is also something that comes up very often in poker, but we kind of don't really think too much about it because the sizing is second nature. However when I cbet 2.5 into 4.25 on Q66 against a fish, I really was thinking to myself how bad it was. Against a fish we don't need to balance our ranges, so it's fine to tailor our bet sizing to our goal for the hand and board texture. When cbetting Q66 as a bluff, we should be betting 2.5 because it gives us a better price on our bluff and has similar fold equity to a pot sized bet. When cbetting Q66 for value, we should be betting 3-4. He's folding out his air anyways regardless of what we bet, so we might as well get maximum extraction from the range that is going to continue.

It sounds a little nit picky trying to fiddle with the sizing on the flop, but how much you bet on the flop dictates how big the pot is going to get by the river. The size of the pot and the size of future bets increases exponentially. We want stacks in by the river without having to overbet because that move significantly tightens his calling range and looks incredibly strong. In the hand below, I used my small "standard" flop sizing and the pot was only $23 by the river. Just by increasing our flop bet to a thicker size, we could've gotten a $32 pot and gotten all of it. Instead, he got away with top pair without losing his entire stack.

$0.25/$0.50 No Limit Holdem • 8 Players

Generated by weaktight.com.

UTG	Bergson80	$50.45
UTG+1	NeedLamborghini	$50.70
MP1	Happles	$50.75
MP2	AFchung X	$94.45
CO	Im a Rainbow 2	$50.50
BTN	n-i-s-w-e-s 23	$55.20
SB	duff24	$48.25
BB	sanjusto77	$50

• Pre-Flop ($0.75, 8 players)Hero is MP2
• 

3 folds, AFchung X raises to $1.75, 1 fold, n-i-s-w-e-s 23 calls $1.75, 2 folds

• Flop ($4.25, 2 players)
• 

AFchung X bets $2.50, n-i-s-w-e-s 23 calls $2.50

• Turn ($9.25, 2 players)
• 

AFchung X bets $7, n-i-s-w-e-s 23 calls $7

• River ($23.25, 2 players)
• 

AFchung X bets $21, n-i-s-w-e-s 23 calls $21

• Final Pot: $65.25

• AFchung X shows two pair, Aces and Sixes
• 

• n-i-s-w-e-s 23 shows
• 

• AFchung X wins $62.25 (net +$30)
• n-i-s-w-e-s 23 lost $32.25

Good and bad variance

When I first started playing and I'd get it in good and lose or get owned by AA with KK, I'd throw a tantrum, cuss at the screen, and slam my mouse around. This negative behavior really messed with my poker sessions and my overall mood even outside from the virtual felt. I've gotten a lot better at not caring about the beats (by playing overrolled) but I've got a long long long way to go. Not to sound like a dwan fan boy, but when you watch the videos where dwan gets sucked out on he just gives a blank indifferent stare. I would love to have that discipline but I know in reality I'm quite far from it.

Lately I've been running so damn hot. My bluffs all seem to be working, my cbets generally work, and I've had a few coolers going my way. Add in some very thin value betting and tight (but correct) folds, you can see that I've had a killer October so far. I know my winrate is unsustainable over a larger sample, but hopefully this run-good can continue because if I want to jump into 100NL then I'm definitely going to need the confidence. As of right now I feel that I can beat 100NL pretty handily, I just need to make sure that the variance doesn't get to my head especially if I run bad for my first few sessions there. I'd love to be able to just sit comfortably at 100NL for just 2 months maybe even 3 months just making a ton of money. Albert has tried moving up to 1/2 but he's been getting crushed. The competitive part of me wants to take a shot so i can be a 200NL reg, but the realistic part of me wants to stay at 100NL, build a bankroll, then figure out my long term goals from there.

Anyways, I posted my October graph so far. 20 buyins in 8k+ hands is so sick. So so sick. I'm glad school is done for the week so hopefully tables will look good tomorrow so I can put in a ton of volume. Albert put in 2k+ hands today which I have trouble doing since my sessions are only 1-1.5k hands. If the tables stay soft I'll be able to play longer... And I'm definitely going to put in some serious lockdown sessions on Friday and Saturday night. Come to me fishies :)

Can't run good forever

Put in a huge session because I was tilted and seemed to get owned in every b/f spot. It's pretty frustrating but I'm reviewing the hands I play and posting on the forums so at least there's something to take away from it.

I guess this is the part where my winrate slowly starts to even out. It's nice to have a 15 ptbb heater for like 3k hands, but it's starting to slow down a little bit. At least I'm reviewing the hand histories and thinking about the lines I take. I think a problem I'm having is b/fing too small on the turn. The reason I bet smaller is because I'm scared to get pot committed, and these mother fuckers keep c/cing flop, c/cing turn, and donking for 2/3rds into me on the river. And all i have is top pair, so I can't really snap it off especially when the board runs out unfavorably. Fucking donkeys taking bullshit ass lines are tilting the shit out of me

But then again I can't really check the turn and give them a free card. So much value to be had....

Anyways, I'll try to put in a session but right now the tables are really bad. So many orange stickers :(

In the middle of another killer session

Decided to log in another session Sunday night before bed, and once again I had a monsterrrrr session. I have no idea how much I'm up right now because I'm playing down on all my really good tables. I just flopped quads and someone bluffed a ton of money into me :) It's actually really tricky to play quads (I had TT on TT5) because no one can have jack shit. So essentially you need to check back/slowplay the flop and hope they catch a piece on the turn, because there's no way they can have anything there. However, whats interesting about that spot is you could possibly raise there which accomplishes two things. First it looks like you're full of shit (to some people) and also if they have 66-99 you can get a lot of money in on the flop instead of having a scare card hit the turn. Generally I would much rather just slowplay the flop and let them hit a piece, but if someone nittyish called out of the blinds, their hand is so faceup. You can probalby bet/raise the flop and inflate the pot.

Anyways, enough of the quad value extraction theory talk, I never flop quads anyways. I got bigger leaks to talk about and fix.

Something that albert has been doing that I've been thinking about is isoing players really light. It looks really stupid when you watch him do it, and I didn't think i was missing much value (if any at all) by just folding the raggy hands. Today during my session I tried isoing a lot lighter since I was running so good. After a few fails I was like wtf is going on, and I think I found several important factors when it comes to isoing that light. Just isoing + cbetting in general is borderline profitable even if you do it blindly, but you can save yourself a lot of trouble by finding the "right" spots. I thought about it a lot more, and I think the textbook "iso" spot contains most if not all of the following elements: a) 1-2 fish who limp and have a 60%+ fold to cbet b) straightforward regs, nits, or fish (who fit #a) in the blinds. Notice how I purposely did not include your hand, because your holdings are pretty negligible here. I think it's fine to do it with K6s, 45o, J8, etc etc, but I would definitely limp behind 22-77 if it was multiway and iso if it was one person. When we have air, we want a heads up pot so we have a higher cbet success rate. When we have 22-77, a hand that flops well multiway, we want lots of people in the hand to have a higher stack-a-donk rate. For lack of a better term.

I just finished the session and it looks like I'm up +$217 over 1k hands. Jesus I am running hotter than the sun 8-) I'm running like $30 above EV now which is a very nice change for once. That allin pre with KK vs JTs really had me sweating. Albert said he would sweat but he didn't get the chance to so that kind of sucks, but oh well. Crushing still feels good when I'm crushing alone hehe

Huge starting session

Started my October with an amazing 50NL session. I played a little bit of rush and lost almost a buyin so I'm kind of giving up on rush for now. It's fun to put in hands through rush, but the game is completely different. It's not even about cards anymore, its about re-restealing and redline poker. I'd rather flop sets all day and get paid. More importantly, I like being able to play against players where I can identify their player type and make the best decision based off reads.

Anyways, my session was +300 which is 6 buyins. I played over a span of 3 hours and obviously ran really well. I lost a really big pot with KK vs AK, but I coolered someone with AA vs KK so that made up for it. My allin EV is looking good this month and it's nice and even where it should be. Hopefully I won't run like ass like back in September, but its only the start of the month and anything can happen.

Albert and I finalized our prop bets and its going as follows. 30k hands by 12 AM November 1st, his 240 to my 200. I'm getting 1.2:1 because he's more of a grinder than I am and its my second month back at poker. Next month we'll kick up the volume and put it at even odds. I wanted to do 35k hands because 30k sounds really do-able and I like having a challenge, but I guess 35k will have to wait til next month.

Albert and I did a hand history review and those are pretty fun, but I wish I could sweat him or vice versa. Those sweats are also really helpful in improving my game in the more standard spots. I had one really crazy hand where I folded a straight bvb. Villain is like 12/4 here and I don't think hes ever bluffing river. Albert and I both agreed it was a fold, but jesus... try folding a straight mid session especially blind vs blind. It's the right thing to do in this spot, but still it hurt me pressing that fold button.

$0.25/$0.50 No Limit Holdem • 6 Players

Generated by weaktight.com.

UTG	sojackso	$104.05
UTG+1	mex_pauer	$17.50
CO	nicodelvalle	$50
BTN	TonyMontana766	$74
SB	AFchung X	$50
BB	NITTYOLDMAN	$50.65

• Pre-Flop ($0.75, 6 players)Hero is SB
• 

4 folds, AFchung X raises to $1.50, NITTYOLDMAN calls $1

• Flop ($3, 2 players)
• 

AFchung X bets $2, NITTYOLDMAN calls $2

• Turn ($7, 2 players)
• 

AFchung X bets $5, NITTYOLDMAN calls $5

• River ($17, 2 players)
• 

AFchung X bets $12, NITTYOLDMAN goes all-in $42.15, AFchung X folds

• Final Pot: $71.15

• NITTYOLDMAN wins $69.10 (net +$18.45)
• AFchung X lost $20.50

Goodbye September

September is finally over, and it's been a very trying month. My return to poker hasn't been as great as I hoped and I feel like I ran very poorly. Usually when people say that it's because they remember the bad and completely forget about the good, but I've tried to remember the good spots I've been in as well, and they definitely don't outweigh the bad. My graph definitely shows this

I'm at 2.45 ptbb but it would be 4+ ptbb if you adjust allinev. I think that's a fair adjustment to make, so I feel that I'm ready for 50NL. The cbetting exercises I've done with Albert has helped me a lot too, so i'm cbetting a lot more confidently. I've subscribed to deuces cracked and I'm going to download all the full ring videos before my subscription ends. Hopefully they'll be some nice videos that can help me out with my game, but when i PTR a lot of the coaches they have like 1 ptbb win rates or they're even losing at the game. Where the fuck are they getting their coaches from? Lol

Goals from September:
[x] 18k hands
[x] Beat 25NL
[x] Move up to 50NL

Goals for october
[ ] 30k hands - Prop bet
[ ] 35k hands - Personal goal
[ ] Put in more volume than albert
[ ] Beat 50NL
[?] Move up to 100NL?
[ ] Watch a ton of DC videos

Wish me luck!