Secret HQ Poker Forums

is admitting THEY have a problem.

The old thread was stale, and not getting much traffic. We have an official name now, so I thought I'd throw it up there.

The minutes from the sign-up thread are as follows:

We assembled the following group:
DeepSquat1
Nfinity
PsychoBingo
PygmyHero
VUcats
jaybeastie-available after February
fnupple
Hypnotic
golden dorado
fourscoreseven
Sirocko

A strong showing to be sure.

Most (not all) players typed up a little about themselves, and I decided to preserve the most relevant information up here for a little Team Member Roll Call

VUcats
Strengths: Probably hand reading/thought processes. I don't necessarily think I'm an expert or specialist in any aspect of the game, but I'd like to think that I'm solid in most of them.

Weaknesses: Finding that line between calling down with ace high/weak pairs and pitching them. I'm slowly getting better at this, but I still think I make some pretty poor calldowns.

fnupple
Strengths: HUHU ldo. As a corollary in 6max I'm feeling quite comfortable in the spots where ranges are wide, ie HU blind stealing hands.
Although there's obv room for improvement, I'm quite happy with my overall HU game atm, so my plan right now is to get better at 6max.

Weaknesses: I'm having trouble adjusting to the tighter ranges in 6max, both pre and postflop.
Everything PH listed as a strength of his :-(, at least with regards to 6max. I'm having trouble paying attention to my opponents' tendencies (always seems there's too many of them ;-)) and I get distracted too easily while not in a hand.

PygmyHero
Strengths: I believe I am very thorough and meticulous, with excellent attention to detail. At the tables I believe this translates to good note taking and awareness of table dynamics, image, and personal history. I also believe my ability to articulate thoughts and ideas exceeds that of the average poker player (ldo, obv imo).

Weaknesses: I play relatively few hands. I have trouble maintaining my A game when I play multiple tables. I suck at HUHU.

golden dorado
Strengths: No clue on this really. I guess I would say that I'm not afraid to attack.

Weaknesses: Sometimes can't help playing too many hours/too many tables and trying to dig out of a hole when I'm overtired. Weakness #2: I don't know all my weaknesses.

fourscoreseven
Strengths: Complete Fearlessness. If the play is out there - I'll try it. (Unfortunately this is as well a weakness.)
Good feel for the game and the game flow. Hard worker.

Weaknesses: Too many showdowns: I know that they're all out there to bluff me and I don't let it happen :-D
Often tilting: mostly when I misplay hands and hate myself for it after the fact.
Possibly a lot more - one major weakness is not knowing all my weaknesses.

Sirocko
I think I´m a fairly good hand reader, lay a lot importans of table and seat selection. My main goal is to develop a stratey that on it´s on have a strong foundation and really to find the best line as a balanced strategy both against weak opponents and regulars.

This might even be my weakness, that I lay such a responsibilty on the basic stratgy that I don´t differ from it when I should.

Nfinity
Strengths: I've been playing for a long time, so I have a decent grasp on theory and a ton of experience. I think I'm better than average at HUHU and I have that to bring to the table as well. I also have tons of insight on Tilt, poker psychology, and how other thinking players think and react.

What I would like to work on: My game has recently developed into a very aggressive animal, and I'm here to tweak it so that I don't develop into a spew monkey.

It was also decided that Teamviewer and Skype would be the programs of choice for the team, so if you don't have them already use the following links to download them and get yourself up to speed.
Skype

Teamviewer

also it's been suggested that videos be produced in .wmv format to facilitate faster downloads.


Current(incomplete) list of Skype names:
DeepSquat1- deepsquat1980
Nfinity- Nfinity1414
PygmyHero- pygmyhero
VUcats- vucats

We still need Skype names from the following people:
PsychoBingo
fnupple
Hypnotic
golden dorado
fourscoreseven
Sirocko


We have had 2 Members submit videos so far:

[url=http://www.megaupload.com/?d=Y77NZJYL ]VUcats[/url

[url=http://www.megaupload.com/?d=BBUDLDYH]Deepsquat1[/url

Finally we have had a significant number of ideas and suggestions:

Nfinity
-One idea I had is a recorded sweat session, where 2 players sweat a 3rd player in real time, while the player can't hear the audio. Similar to what we see in Jeckyl & Hyde or Parallels. This leaves the player to play "his" game without being influenced by the people sweating him, as well as more honest dialogue because nobody is pandering to the player playing.

Nfinity
-Another idea is to solicit videos from other non-team members and give our commentary on them, that way we always have something fresh to comment on. I think the Micro-Limit team would also be a good candidate to grab vids from.

Deepsquat1
-Once this is a regular thing and we have a few numbers in the group we will organise themes such as blind play, button steals, small pots oop etc etc.

VUcats
-I think it would be good if we had a "home game" style session every so often. While sweat sessions and whatnot are great for improvement, I think nothing would prepare us for higher stakes/tougher competition better than playing against a table full of solid regs.

Deepsquat1
-I was thinking the same things or maybe a rotating group that swaps with a different partner each time perhaps.. But so far no-one is interested lol. After holidays im sure we will see some interest

Sirocko
-One idea that I use is work on one aspect of my game at the time. Could be a series part. For instance only analys my BB defense vs steal and then pick all these hands from my PT-database and just run through all of them and analyse them to find a way to play them so all my possible hands make sense not only in a vaccum, but also in the bigger picture.

Entity
-Recommendation for a pretty good (not as good as DC but pretty good) headset for y'all, for Skype or for recording:
Koss SB49

PygmyHero
Hey guys, I'm all for inclusion but at some point we may want to consider either splitting into two teams or designing some sort of structure so that the number of players isn't unwieldy (as I feel it may potentially be if everyone who's expressed interest right now were all involved).

fnupple
-Regarding HH swaps: I think I prefer it to be based on session instead of themes.

fnupple
-And a more general remark/request: I would find it helpful if people posting a video could post the HH file as well. Imo that makes it easier to analyze specific hands that come up.

Discuss or expand upon them at your leisure.

fnupple
Strengths: HUHU ldo. As a corollary in 6max I'm feeling quite comfortable in the spots where ranges are wide, ie HU blind stealing hands.
Although there's obv room for improvement, I'm quite happy with my overall HU game atm, so my plan right now is to get better at 6max.

Weaknesses: I'm having trouble adjusting to the tighter ranges in 6max, both pre and postflop.
Everything PH listed as a strength of his :-(, at least with regards to 6max. I'm having trouble paying attention to my opponents' tendencies (always seems there's too many of them ;-)) and I get distracted too easily while not in a hand.

and

PygmyHero
Strengths: I believe I am very thorough and meticulous, with excellent attention to detail. At the tables I believe this translates to good note taking and awareness of table dynamics, image, and personal history. I also believe my ability to articulate thoughts and ideas exceeds that of the average poker player (ldo, obv imo).

Weaknesses: I play relatively few hands. I have trouble maintaining my A game when I play multiple tables. I suck at HUHU.

You should both work extensively together imo. There is a good deal of synergy between your proposed strengths and weaknesses.

golden dorado

Weaknesses: Sometimes can't help playing too many hours/too many tables and trying to dig out of a hole when I'm overtired. Weakness #2: I don't know all my weaknesses

fourscoreseven

Often tilting: mostly when I misplay hands and hate myself for it after the fact.

I'd be happy to discuss tiltless strategy with you guys. Hit me up sometime.

we will organise themes such as blind play, button steals, small pots oop etc etc.

and

-One idea that I use is work on one aspect of my game at the time. Could be a series part. For instance only analys my BB defense vs steal and then pick all these hands from my PT-database and just run through all of them and analyse them to find a way to play them so all my possible hands make sense not only in a vaccum, but also in the bigger picture.

I think we can combine this into something. Considering fnupple would rather have his HH swaps based on themes, I suggest someone head a sub-group for discussing certain aspects of the game.

Someone could organize it announce what the topic of the week (or bi-week, whatever) and announce a specific time. Those that want to participate can not only comb their database for specific hands dealing with the topic, but voice any abstract questions or concerns they might have. It would be like a book discussion group, except for
playskill.

PygmyHero
Hey guys, I'm all for inclusion but at some point we may want to consider either splitting into two teams or designing some sort of structure so that the number of players isn't unwieldy (as I feel it may potentially be if everyone who's expressed interest right now were all involved).

I partially agree, partially disagree here. I think the current group we have now is fine, considering not ALL of us will be working together ALL of the time. That being said, I think the sign-up/start-up thread has been up long enough so that those people who are really want to be here are here. I propose at this point we close close off membership to this particular study group, for a little while anyway. Give us time to get a bit of structure going.

As a maxbetter I can't really offer any advice, but I just wanted to step in and say that this looks awesome! You guys rule!

great post nfinity, we needed this! Oh yeah, just realized i havent posted my strength/weaknesses. Gimme 5mins to think about them

I hope you don't mind if we Micro guys use some of these ideas. These are awesome!

Deepsquat Strengths:

- Game selection,
- Valuebetting well on the riv in thin spots,
- Experience at $30/$60 which may help some other members prepare for these stakes.
- I feel that im very good at explaining/teaching poker concepts to others so they can understand.
- Im extremely committed to improving my game

Deepsquat Weaknesses

- Calldown too much
- Not good at BVB or playing OOP in limped pots
- Need to better understand when to play draws and marginal pairs more or less aggressively

great post nfinity, we needed this! Oh yeah, just realized i havent posted my strength/weaknesses. Gimme 5mins to think about them

You should hop on skype sometime soon, I've been wanting to discuss BB play vs. SB Open limper w/ you since you posted your video.

Strengths

Game Selection
BvB and HUHU
Tilt control and Quitting

Leaks

Playing too fast
Picking bad spots to make moves
Calling down too much
Cashing out too much

ps my skype is jrockeffinrad

thanks Nfinity - and yes, you're a demon at the tables - i love it.

skype name is Brett Christenson.

fyi, I played my first 30/60 over the holidays. I thought it was a good table, but 30 minutes later I was down $1300. those bastards.

Also, I guess I should mention that play a lot of HU too, but only 3/6 right now and pretty decent but mainly b/c the players tyhat visit me are so bad

Is anybody interested in setting up some sort of activity this week? Sometime over the next few days?

We can do a homegame type thing if we have enough interest, if not we can do Nfinity's idea with two people sweating a third. I'm really just interested in getting the ball rolling on stuff ASAP.

I would really be up for a homegame type of thing to get this thing started.
Could we get 4 more intrested in this?

Also, I guess I should mention that play a lot of HU too, but only 3/6 right now and pretty decent but mainly b/c the players tyhat visit me are so bad

eww...

3$/6$ is a decent limit for learning because the fish/TAG ratio is in your favor, but the rake is SOOO high compared to $5/$10 that I strongly suggest you play there if you are rolled for it.

numbers fwiw

5/10- 1.86BB/100 hands (26,994 hand sample)
3/6- 2.88BB/100 hands (8,533 hand sample)

those are from FTP, stars tables below $5/$10 have a higher rake IIRC.

Is anybody interested in setting up some sort of activity this week? Sometime over the next few days?

We can do a homegame type thing if we have enough interest, if not we can do Nfinity's idea with two people sweating a third. I'm really just interested in getting the ball rolling on stuff ASAP.

Deepsquat and I are gonna be whipping up a little something on friday night, my new senheisser microphone should come in right on time for that

Barring anything in that time frame, I'm up for a home game (if it's on Stars I might need a transfer) or any sort of audio commentary.

Nfinity, thanks for doing all this work. Good job man!

Re; Home Game or similar - I will definitely participate, schedule permitting. I can also record if we need someone to do that.

Nfinity, I can take care of a Stars transfer if you need one.

put me in for a homegame guys