We Need a Little Help!

Le Monsieur and I are making good progress with the training material. In fact, we're closing in on completing the last few of the so-called "level-1" lessons, and now we're exploring how best to implement this powerful thing we've created. And part of that implementation is the selection of a product/domain name...

...which brings us to you, dear trusted reader. We're soliciting ideas and feedback on potential names for this beast. We not only want your input, we need it. So, with that in mind:

What do you suggest as a name for this poker training product and domain?

The quick background/story on what we've been creating is this: a series of sequential, step-by-step lessons geared toward a new player who already understand the basic mechanics of playing a poker hand, including hand rankings, etc. The lessons will take him from raw beginner to a solid winning low-stakes player. It's based around the mastery of Level-1 thinking, and focuses on the core concepts and skills needed to beat micro-to-low stakes NLHE. These of course include the fundamentals of understanding basic villain types and tendencies, knowing simple poker math/odds/outs/probabilities, using position, exercising solid preflop hand selection (with recommended starting hand charts), knowing how to steal and defend your blinds, sizing bets, simplified post-flop continuation betting, and so on.

Each lesson has multiple parts, but you can think of it as being in two primary sections: a) the lesson itself, which explains and teaches the idea; and 2) a set of quiz questions the student has to take (and pass!) before moving on to the next lesson in the series. Each lesson builds upon the previous one, and the student is required to demonstrate understanding of the previous material before moving to the next lesson in the progression. By the time he/she is finished with the L1 lessons, they should have enough knowledge to readily beat a $.10/$.25 online game or a live $1/2 game at their local casino.

After we complete the L1 lessons, the next step for us is to, well, step up a level and create similar L2 training material, introducing and teaching the whole process of REDi to the L1 graduates, etc.

So what do you think? And, just as importantly, what are your suggestions for domain and product names? Feedback, comments, and ideas are absolutely welcome.

Click here to email us with your input!

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts and ideas!

All-in for now...
-Bug

A little method to the madness...a.k.a. syllabus creation.

Bear with me, as this is a little complicated, but I needed to create a syllabus, or lesson plan, for taking a newbie from the very basic concepts up through poker mastery. And as I mentioned in my previous post (here), it all springs from the concept of gambling and expected value.

Once we've gotten the concept of EV across to our new student, we can then easily demonstrate that the profit we make (or the money we lose) is just the EV of each hand decision, multiplied by the number of hands we play. Roy Cooke talked a lot about this concept in days of yore, but it's still really important because it shows us where our money in poker comes from. Said another way, we have to play a lot of hands where we have positive expectation. But how do we maximize our positive expectation (and minimize our negative expectation)? The key to this is recalling the equation for EV, which really boils down into two parts: 1) maximizing the chance our hand is going to win and maximizing how much $ we win when we do; and 2) minimizing the chance our hand is going to lose and minimizing the amount of $ we lose when we do.

EV = (%Chance We Win x $ Amount Won) - (%Chance We Lose x $ Amount We Lose)

and

Profit = EV x Volume

My take on these equations is that there are three things that allow us to maximize profit:

1. First, we need to make better decisions that our opponents. This can be anything from deciding what games to play in, to making complex line decisions, to even knowing when to quit.
2. Second, we need to maximize the benefit of those decisions, or said another way: act more profitably on our decisions. For instance, if you've decided your on a value line, but have high fold equity, the most profitable thing to do might be to bet smaller because it makes it more likely that your opponent will call.
3. And thirdly, we need to learn to completely and totally ignore the results of individual hands, because this allows us to keep doing the first and second things correctly.

Okay, then what? Well, it's not a great leap to subdivide these three things into individual specific teachable skills. Long time readers of this blog know that I am a believer in the three key edges of Off-Table Prep, In-Game Tactics and Techniques, and Emotional Control. Taking the individual skills, I can easily slot them into one of these three edge categories. Here's a somewhat confusing, rough picture of what I mean by this:

I also believe that you really, truly, absolutely need to master all three of these edge categories. It's not enough to be technically savvy and skilled, and do great table selection, for instance, but be tilt prone and lose all your money when the results start coming in bad and you're not emotionally prepared to accept it. The key is being good at each.

But what does "be good at each" mean? For me, it means mastering the subset of skills in each of the three edge categories, but focusing on the simpler things first. Once that's done, it's a matter of building upon those skills as the student learns and progresses. To try to make this clearer, here's a picture of my pyramid of poker skills I showed a while back. It's arranged bottom to top in different levels of skill. Also, I've arranged the pyramid so that the off-table stuff is on the left, the tactics and strategies are in the middle, and the emotional control skills are on the right. A new player to the game needs to master each level before moving up to the next level. And this basically is my syllabus in graphical format:

Now, each of these blocks may be a single lesson, or it may be multiple lessons. For instance, bankroll management is pretty straightforward and can be covered in one or two short presentations. Other things, like R-is-for-Reading will require multiple lessons that build upon each other.

And that's it for now, as I'm out of time. I'm about to drive to the airport, strap myself into another big aluminum tube, and jet back across the ocean. Wonderful. And it's a red eye flight, to boot. Ugh.

On to the next bit of rambling on this poker training subject...

All-in for now...
-Bug

Jane Doe, Revisited

So I went and knocked on Jane Doe's door. Told her that pinochle was for silly little children and seriously cranky old men. Poker was much better. Much, much better. It's what the cool people play.

Jane shook her head and frowned. She reminded me of all the trials and tribulations she faced the first time she tried to learn even a little bit about poker. "Not gonna do that again," she said, "It's way too frustrating."

No worries, I replied. I'll teach you all about poker. From the most basic basics, to the most advanced concepts. I've been through it before myself and learned the hard way. I am now kind of an expert at the low-stakes poker tables. I can teach you how to win.

"It's too complicated," she said, the frown still on her face. "How can you possibly teach me everything I need to know without my head exploding?"

Easy, I said. I have a system. A step-by-step, logical progression of lessons to teach a new player how to master the game.

The frown was gone, but she still seemed skeptical. "How does it work?"

It's based on a couple of key ideas, but everything stems from the basic gambler's concept of expected value. Then it's just a series of lessons, each of which builds upon the previous lesson.

"That sounds fishy," she said. "How do I know this isn't some kind of scam?"

It's not, I said. Trust me. Just give it a try. What do you have to lose?

The frown was gone, replaced with the hint of a smile. "You really will teach me?" she asked.

Yes, I said. I will.

"Really?"

Really, I repeated.

"Bug, you're my hero!"

I touch the brim of my white Stetson. Just doing my job, ma'am. Now let's get started.

Onward and upward...

All-in for now...
-Bug

Walking Before You Immelmann

From a conceptual point of view, learning how to crush poker isn't particularly difficult, but it does take work, and it needs to be done in a logical progression of steps. You can't jump right into applying advanced reading, estimating, deciding, and implementing tactics, for instance, until you've mastered some of the more mundane skills of poker. And once you've learned something like REDi, you have the whole next layer of deception and adjustment to add. Poker is learned step by step, piece by piece, beginning with the basics. Said another way: you have to learn to crawl before you can dogfight an F15 Eagle.

I've been giving this some (sporadic) thought while I've continued working (sporadically) on a long-standing poker tutorial project. If a complete newbie in poker came to me and said that he or she wanted to learn how to crush NL cash games within 12 months, how would I go about teaching them? There's a ton of information to convey, so where would I start? And then how would I add to the basic knowledge in a logical progression?

Every poker coach goes about this their own way, some good, some bad. I'm an engineer by training and vocation, so I tend to think in a linear fashion. You don't learn how to draw the letter D until you've mastered A, B, and C. In poker, the standard linear school of thought is that of "levels," so that's how I've addressed the problem (and consequently organized my tutorial series).

Most poker players start out playing a Level-1 style of poker, in which their own cards are almost entirely what matters. How strong is their hand? How likely is it to improve? Are the getting the right odds to draw to their hand? And so on. In a sense, L1 poker is mostly about showing down the best hand... and learning to fold before you get to showdown if your hand probably won't be best.

As they move up in skills and stakes, players transition from L1 to L2 thought. It is here at Level-2 that a player really begins to understand that their own cards don't matter nearly as much as they thought. What matters more is what their opponents' cards likely are. At this level of thought, poker transitions from a showdown-only affair into a combination of both showdown and bluffing.

Then, at the L3 and above, poker gets incredibly deep and complex. Here a player realizes that the strength of their own cards is probably the least important thing they have to factor into a decision. What matters much, much more is what range their opponent holds, what range of cards the opponent is putting the hero on, and what the villain is trying to do with this knowledge. At the L3 level of thought, poker is almost entirely about deception and playing-the-player.

With all of this in mind, here are the topics and concepts that I believe a player needs to master on his or her way to poker dominance. Consider this Bug's poker training syllabus:

Level-0 Poker

"How do I play this crazy game?"

• General Concepts: How Profit Comes from Exploiting Edges
• Basic Skills: How the Game of Hold'em is Played, Key Terminology

Level-1 Poker

"What are my cards, and how strong are they?"

• General Concepts: Starting Hand Selection, The Importance of Position, Stealing I, Gap Concept, Expected Value, Introductory REDi
• Preparation Skills: Bankroll Management, Game Selection, Record Keeping, Studying Methods and Habits, Leak and Plugs
• Psychological Skills: The Concept of Results Don't Matter, Dealing with Bad Beats
• Level 1 REDi:
• Reading Skills: Board Texture, Game Type and Texture
• Estimating Skills: Calculating Pot Odds, Outs, Equity, EV, 2/4 Rule, 10/20/30 Rule
• Deciding Skills: Choosing a Line: Value or Bluff, Why We Bet, Big Pairs, Small + Medium Pairs/Mining, SCs
• Implementation Skills: ABC Poker vs. FPS, Bet Sizing I

Level-2 Poker

"What cards does my opponent have, and how strong am I against that range?"

• General Concepts: Advanced REDi, Range vs Specific Hand, Continuation Betting, Blind Play, Minimax Philosophy
• Preparation Skills: Pregame Warm-ups, Check-lists, Hand and Session Reviews, Outside Advice
• Psychological Skills: Anti-Tilt, Downswings, Variance
• Level 2 REDi:
• Reading Skills: Opponent Types/Stats/Tendencies/Notes/Tells/Level/Position/Stack, Combinatorics, Table Sizes Factors
• Estimating Skills: SPR + Commitment, Fold Equity, Implied + RI Odds, Discounted Outs
• Deciding Skills: Advanced Line Decisions: Value, SDV + Pot Control, Semi-Bluffs + Draws, Bluffs, Folds, Isolating, Continuation Betting, Stealing II and Reverse Steals
• Implementation Skills: Bet Sizing II, Check-raising

Level-3 Poker

"What cards does my opponent think I have?"

• General Concepts: Deception, Adjustment, 3- and 4-Betting
• Prep Skills: Health + Mind, Treating Poker as a Business
• Psychological Skills: Inducing and Taking Advantage of Tilt
• Level 3 REDi:
• Reading Skills: Villain's Perception of Hero, Table Dynamics, Meta-Game
• Estimating Skills: Villain's Perception of Commitment, Manipulating the Odds
• Deciding Skills: Merging and Balancing, Bet/Fold and Raise/Fold Lines, Squeezing, Turning Made Hands Into Bluffs
• Implementation Skills: Bluff Catching, Inducing Bluffs, Multiple Barrels

Level-X Poker

"I want to get even better!"

• Live vs. Online Poker: Understanding and Exploiting The Differences
• Tournaments: MTT, SnG
• Other Varieties of Poker: PLO, O8+, Stud, Stud hi/lo
• Etcetera...

And that's all there is to mastering poker. Easy game, right?


Right...

In all seriousness, in the coming weeks and months, I'm going expand a little bit on many (if not all) of these concepts and topics. My plan is to use blog posts as a sounding board and outline of sorts for my poker tutorial. (I also intend to use it as a psychological lever to help focus this blog a little more tightly and get me working more seriously on the tutorial project...) I may start out basic and simple minded with the posts, but (hopefully) by the time I'm finished, your afterburners will be fully on and your air-to-air missiles seeking targets. Hell, we might even have you doing REDi Immelmanns before we're through.

All-in for now...
-Bug
PS. I welcome any and all feedback on this syllabus. What am I missing? What is out of sequence? What can be added, dropped, or expanded upon? Feel free to drop me an email with your thoughts, suggestions, likes or dislikes.