hey, will you keep up those posts?
I personally have been a semi-professionell poker player and grinded NL200 on stars. I stopped playing in 2015 to finish my studies and having a more valuable life. I also played some EPT's and smaller tourneys, but the most profit was done in CG.
I would like to answer some questions and explain some things I understand in a completely different way:
- The best player in the world is obviously the one with the best decisions. But this doesn't mean the player is winning most of his hands and folds the ones he is not winning. The best player would be someone who is very much unpredictable. Someone who is able to change his playstyle. In MTTs this means to lose up on stages ( like the bubble ) to get chips going. This also might lead to having more chips on later stages and pressure the table even more. Many decisions snowball and are thus very important. Money is nothing to care about in poker. Even with the best decisions you can be a losing player on high levels. Every poker player will go through rough downswings and you have to start thinking in Blinds and not dollars. Losing 1 buy-in is not as hard as losing 200$ on one click, even though it might be the same.
- Money in poker is earned by folding at right spots ( calculated foldequity ) and getting the most out of strong hands. Forcing your opponents to lay down their hand is close to nothing. You might turn your line into a bluff, but never pressure someone with air to lay down their hand. Bluffs are many times pretty much -EV and I recommend every beginner to stop bluffing, unless you are playing NL50 or higher.
- You should never try to get a pot immediately with "vulnerable" hands. If your odds don't fit to the potratio, you just lay down the hand. If you are able to pressure with good (implied) odds, go on. But keep in mind that turning your busted draws into bluffs is really obvious and good players will adept it.
- Indeed: Calculating hand ranges is the best way to evaluate the chances of winning for a specific hand. Can you highlight some handranges on your next post?