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Poker Video: Misc/Other by WiltOnTilt (Micro/Small Stakes)

5 stars
Best episode yet of Pokersense. Keep them coming.

Time Link to 00:16:26

Aron,

great content as usual !!! But I need to disagree here. I believe one of the bests way to learn is "pattering yourself after the best people in the business" in any endeauveour in life. Then follows trial and error. Applied to Poker - do what the best do and try to incorporate their lines in your reportoire like three betting massively. Doing so needs awareness why the coach on the video is doing the three-betting. So in my opinion having the underlying reasons (Why) and the technique(how to) would be a perfect combination.

Time Link to 00:19:17

I like that you constantly make us aware of the problems coming along with stats. But what is your take on the leakfinder videos/ articles in Holdem Manager, where they have taken winning players as role models and we are supposed to manipulate as you call it your stats to patterns theirs? What are the pros and cons of these i believe helpful articles ?

Time Link to 00:45:28

Good ideas about poker forums and the personalities within them Aron: maybe the most common and yet least visibile is the one taking information and not providing any - you could call them the " grazers" or bandwagoners. My estimation - even though am i fairly inactive on forums - is the good old pareto-principle: 20 % of member contribute 80% of the contents. Conversely 80% of the membersonly graze the information. Like on DC - you always have the same guys contributing the good stuff like the coaches, Tecmosuperbowl and other very active members running the forums. Great exception is the Secret HQ.

Time Link to 00:25:31

But what is one to do? I sit alone at a 6max table waiting for action, you do too and get your fish. Do I just wait until the table fills with another player until I can finally sit down? Why do you get to have the right to the fish if all you did was get lucky that the fish sat down at your table? Furthermore, I know of many regs that deny me action to start 6max tables (sitting opposite), but get all flustered when I sit down on their game with the fish. It's not your right! Wanna play HU with a fish, go to HU tables!

Time Link to 00:11:54

is it the case sometimes that certain notes may not be very reliable? for example, say you see another reg play a hand with another reg in some strange way and you note it. what if they played that hand like that because of some history with that reg that we are not aware of, but they wouldnt play it like that against you? so isnt it kind of hard to know how reliable the information is when you see someone play a hand against another player other than yourself?

Time Link to 00:50:33

I think this is a very slippery slope here. Where does the line stop? I could just turn it around and say, just because something isn't enforcable doesn't mean you should do it. Some examples:
a) buying HHs from PTR
b) multiaccounting (for bonuses and RB, not with same person under 2 accounts at a table)
c) 2 players playing on one account (VPP accumulation)
d) sharing DBs with your buddies

All these are very grey areas and not enforcable, but shouldn't be allowed imo.

Aron,

great content as usual !!! But I need to disagree here. I believe one of the bests way to learn is "pattering yourself after the best people in the business" in any endeauveour in life. Then follows trial and error. Applied to Poker - do what the best do and try to incorporate their lines in your reportoire like three betting massively. Doing so needs awareness why the coach on the video is doing the three-betting. So in my opinion having the underlying reasons (Why) and the technique(how to) would be a perfect combination.

it's a patchwork solution and not nearly as effective as learning the hows and whys and the theory and the math analysis like the two buffalo series jk3a and I did together. If you understand the variables and the responses to those variables, your stats will take care of themselves. If you want to try to mimic stats, it will almost always be an incomplete solution (if a solution at all).

Certainly there are some stats where it's more reasonable than others. For example, vpip utg is something you could simply mimic with reasonable success because the scope of the important variables is very small. Something like cbet % is a little closer but still not quite as complete because more variables exist. Something like checkraise % is worse yet to mimic because of board textures, bet sizes, and hand range balance of us and our opponents. Lastly went to showdown %, as I mentioned in the video, is one of the WORST to try to mimic because every single action and bet size of every single street plays an important role. It just is so meaningless without context. This idea is what I was trying to get across. People generally are not very good students of the game, partially by their fault and partially not (more on this in a later episode). People want a magic formula for poker and it doesn't exist, except for perhaps a short stacking bot type style. Poker is so dynamic that learning the "why" is sooooo much more important than knowing the result of the why, which the stats provide.

Every piece of the puzzle is important of course, and as i've said in many videos, there is more than 1 way to skin this poker cat, but for the vast majority of people that want to try to mimic stats to reach success, they are putting the horse before the cart, so to speak. What happens when the games change? Do we constantly look up to see the stats of the latest guy to run hot for the last 100k hands to find out?

Hope that makes sense

WoT

I like that you constantly make us aware of the problems coming along with stats. But what is your take on the leakfinder videos/ articles in Holdem Manager, where they have taken winning players as role models and we are supposed to manipulate as you call it your stats to patterns theirs? What are the pros and cons of these i believe helpful articles ?

I haven't seen these so I'm not aware of what it is they do or provide (i will try to look at them at some point) however I will say that they could be useful if you are starting from complete scratch and have no idea what reasonable ranges of stats could be, but as my response above indicates, it's much better to learn why and how that lead to the statistical result.

For example, if you had no idea that more players playing 25% vpip are winning than players who play 50% vpip, that could be useful information if you didn't know any better. Knowing which % vpip in each position is more helpful yet. Knowing exactly which hands a person is playing in each position at the table is better yet. Even that is still not a complete solution because you have to know how to play postflop, etc.

It just depends on where you draw that line to where something is useful or not useful. If you are a complete novice, certainly there is value to each of those steps. The more advanced you get, the less and less important each layer gets.

WoT

But what is one to do? I sit alone at a 6max table waiting for action, you do too and get your fish. Do I just wait until the table fills with another player until I can finally sit down? Why do you get to have the right to the fish if all you did was get lucky that the fish sat down at your table? Furthermore, I know of many regs that deny me action to start 6max tables (sitting opposite), but get all flustered when I sit down on their game with the fish. It's not your right! Wanna play HU with a fish, go to HU tables!

I think it's plenty reasonable for people who are willing to start games to be able to jump in games that are running. I think it's unreasonable (but not illegal or against TOS or anything) for people to simply keep tables open of other players who are trying to start games, then only jump in once they can get premium seating on the weakest player at the table...then subsequently and instantaneousness quit when that player busts. It's just a clown move made by people i consider clowns. People are allowed to do as they please, but I think it makes an already cut throat environment even more negative and hostile.

It would be a different story if these people were willing to play regardless, or hell, even if they were willing to play a couple rounds after to not make it completely obvious what's going on.

Also, many of the players who do this are not trying to start other tables. They just scalp my tables. If they were willing to start their own tables and not constantly deny action, it's more reasonable. What if I (or other good regs) were not trying to start these tables. Where would the fish go? some might go to wait lists, but some wouldn't. My willingness to play a variety of opponents is being capitalized on by these table scalpers.

The moral of the story is people can do what they want, but i'm going to call them a clown for it if they are being a clown.

is it the case sometimes that certain notes may not be very reliable? for example, say you see another reg play a hand with another reg in some strange way and you note it. what if they played that hand like that because of some history with that reg that we are not aware of, but they wouldnt play it like that against you? so isnt it kind of hard to know how reliable the information is when you see someone play a hand against another player other than yourself?

Like everything in poker, it's all about the expected value. While what you say certainly could happen, it's far less likely to happen then simply gaining valuable reads.

Even if the notes sometimes fail you because you are misapplying the read you get, it's my contention that overall learning how someone else thinks in various situations will lead to overall better decisions by us against them. Finding the differences in how you think vs how others think is so important both from a learning perspective and an exploitation perspective.

It's also important to point out (can't remember if I did in the video) but with the nature of multitabling and fast action, people tend to fall into patterns and standard lines. Figuring out these patterns and standard lines of your opponents can make huge differences in your edge.

Also nothing says that we can't note the player table he played the hand against, even if it's something simple as fish, lag, tag, short stacker, etc.

Use all the info you have at your disposal, and realize that all info you have is incomplete information. We use all types of this incomplete information with our understanding of poker to get our edge and crush!!!!!


WoT

I think this is a very slippery slope here. Where does the line stop? I could just turn it around and say, just because something isn't enforcable doesn't mean you should do it. Some examples:
a) buying HHs from PTR
b) multiaccounting (for bonuses and RB, not with same person under 2 accounts at a table)
c) 2 players playing on one account (VPP accumulation)
d) sharing DBs with your buddies

All these are very grey areas and not enforcable, but shouldn't be allowed imo.

I think a) and d) definitely fall under unenforceable and therefore should not be against the TOS and therefore are fine imo. it's just part of the deal with online poker. The information is out there, it's up to us to adjust. I don't like the HH being available for PTR for reasons I mentioned in that segment. If the sites want to take measures to actually enforce it, like having changeable screen names etc, that's would certainly be a more reasonable solution than saying "don't do it please" and have the people who follow the rules be at a disadvantage vs those who do not, without having any repercussions involved.

I'm pretty sure even accessing the PTR site (player searches) is against the rules for many of the poker sites, but i don't know of a single person who has actually followed that rule.

b) - not sure if you are talking about different skins of a network or on one site. If it's multiple skins to bonus whore, I dont see a problem. If it's the same site, it is enforceable by things like login patterns, statistical play patterns, p2p transfers, ip address, etc. There are ways to stop it and control it, therefore it being against the TOS is fine.

c) - Many of the same measures in b) can be used to counter this one.

I agree with your statement that just because something isn't against the rules, doesn't mean you should do it. For example, I haven't shared a DB with a friend to gain stats etc, but not because of some moral code or because the TOS say not to. If it was OK with the TOS I still wouldn't have done it. I just don't think any of these issues you pulled up here apply. There could be a situation that does come up at some point that should be a rule and isn't enforceable, I just haven't come across one yet.

Obv these are all my opinions and I encourage everyone to think about where their opinions fall regardless of what I say. Ideally what I am saying will at least induce some thought though

WoT

Good ideas about poker forums and the personalities within them Aron: maybe the most common and yet least visibile is the one taking information and not providing any - you could call them the " grazers" or bandwagoners. My estimation - even though am i fairly inactive on forums - is the good old pareto-principle: 20 % of member contribute 80% of the contents. Conversely 80% of the membersonly graze the information. Like on DC - you always have the same guys contributing the good stuff like the coaches, Tecmosuperbowl and other very active members running the forums. Great exception is the Secret HQ.

Yea I tend to agree with you. Good thing for DC and for the 80% grazers, the 20% who participate/contribute are pretty ballin' members and coaches!

WoT

I'm really enjoying the series, thanks Aaron.

This may have been covered, I haven't read the entire thread, but one thing about watching higher stakes players do X and Y that I think is beneficial is if instead of just doing X and Y, taking the concept of X and Y and asking better players about why that player might be doing that, thus improving our own thinking. This relies on us having friends who are better poker players than us, and most of us do, but that's the only downside I see.