21 replies to this topic

[Sheiky]

http://www.pocketfives.com/1DF7A469-77DE-4...07BD630541.aspx

This is a thread from pocket 5s where online tournament genius Kevin 'Belowab0ve' Saul posts interesting hands and his reasoning behind them from his 17 hour MTT session. It really is an awesome read as some of the stuff he does is just ridiculous(he open raisies 23o UTG, and laters calls a min raise with 23o in position), reading this will open your eyes up to how deeply professional players can think about the game.

[outsider13]

Thanks for the share. Some pretty sick poker right there.

[BeaverStyle]

Obviously a sick player... must be nice to make moves from EP and flop straights, though.

[X] Thread delivers

[simo_8ball]

Quote from BKiCe
"below is a donkey, calling station, most likely breakeven player"

[Sheiky]

Quote from me:

http://officialpokerrankings.com/pokerstar...3EF5BF.html?t=2
http://officialpokerrankings.com/pokerstar...960D97.html?t=2

[Buckeye Hughes]

Thanks for the link Sheiky. Below is obv an absolute sicko. Pretty cool of him to share his line of thinking.

[jmbreslin]

Honestly, I don't get it. I've scrolled through half the thread so far and all I see is (1) high-variance, hyper-aggressive play where he gets his money in well behind and relies on a suckout to win or semi-bluffs with a draw and hits it to win; or (2) making crazy calls based on a "sick" read. If you were playing against this guy and he was a no-name player instead of an internet pro, would you be complimenting him on the depth of his thinking or fighting the urge to vent about his donkish plays through chat?

[Sheiky]

Honestly, I don't get it. I've scrolled through half the thread so far and all I see is (1) high-variance, hyper-aggressive play where he gets his money in well behind and relies on a suckout to win or semi-bluffs with a draw and hits it to win; or (2) making crazy calls based on a "sick" read. If you were playing against this guy and he was a no-name player instead of an internet pro, would you be complimenting him on the depth of his thinking or fighting the urge to vent about his donkish plays through chat?

I'd check out his statistics and say to myself 'i've been playing this all wrong'

I get your point, but however odd it seems, this guy has won a shit lot of money, there's reasoning to the madness.

[outsider13]

I'd check out his statistics and say to myself 'i've been playing this all wrong'

I get your point, but however odd it seems, this guy has won a shit lot of money, there's reasoning to the madness.

When I get this deep into a tournament, I like to steal and be aggressive, but this is borderline ridiculous some of the stuff he does. The bottom line is that in most cases he was leading the way and setting the pace. I think the JTo hand (flopping top 2 vs. QQ) and the 23o hands were by far the most ridiculous, but they were successful because of his aggressive preflop play, followed by a favorable flop.

Obviously he was a bit of a luckbox this tournament. I always think that if you are going to win a tournament, you have to get lucky at some point along the way. He got lucky more than once, but again, his luck was set up by his strong and unpredictable play.

[throwemaway]

I'd check out his statistics and say to myself 'i've been playing this all wrong'

I get your point, but however odd it seems, this guy has won a shit lot of money, there's reasoning to the madness.

Superuser
That is all

[copernicus]

wow, he runs good

[StupidKid]

wow, he runs good

QQFFTTT.
I don't get why this is so awesome.
A much better resource than this is bond18's series of articles on MTTs.
I'll try and find the link

[copernicus]

QQFFTTT.
I don't get why this is so awesome.
A much better resource than this is bond18's series of articles on MTTs.
I'll try and find the link

It might actually have more value if you saw the hands he didnt play. As it is, it reads like one long brag post and the thinking doesnt seem all that deep, unless its one of the later hands, I didnt read the whole thing.

I watched a lot of his play in a PS Milliion and he never got quite as far out of line as he does here. He may have actually have posted this as meta-game advertising because his reputation was having people play too tight against him.

[StupidKid]

It might actually have more value if you saw the hands he didnt play. As it is, it reads like one long brag post and the thinking doesnt seem all that deep, unless its one of the later hands, I didnt read the whole thing.

I watched a lot of his play in a PS Milliion and he never got quite as far out of line as he does here. He may have actually have posted this as meta-game advertising because his reputation was having people play too tight against him.

Ja I understand what you're saying and pretty much agrizzle.

I was gonna make a new post but hopefully enough people will see it here
http://www.tworags.com/ - Scroll to the bottom of the page and read through Bond's 'Things it took me a while to learn', I think this is ridiculously more helpful than the p5s belowabove thing.

[Sheiky]

^Thanks a lot for the link, i'm not gonna play another tourney till i read all of those, awesome.

[four10 lkc]

I don't get it... looking at his pokerrankings... he has <0 profit over the last 120 days, I didn't check back any further, is he just having a bad couple of months? I can see that he made a few good plays, some of them actually being terrible plays that just happened to work out. I just don't know if I understand why everyone is saying he is so good?

[outsider13]

I don't get it... looking at his pokerrankings... he has <0 profit over the last 120 days, I didn't check back any further, is he just having a bad couple of months? I can see that he made a few good plays, some of them actually being terrible plays that just happened to work out. I just don't know if I understand why everyone is saying he is so good?

Variance is a bitch, but it looks like he needs some holes fixed as of late. He still has a 45% overall roi, which is pretty darn good considering the levels he plays at. ($380,000 profit in 2 years).

[jmbreslin]

I was gonna make a new post but hopefully enough people will see it here
http://www.tworags.com/ - Scroll to the bottom of the page and read through Bond's 'Things it took me a while to learn', I think this is ridiculously more helpful than the p5s belowabove thing.

Now this is a great resource. I especially liked the first few entries on having the right stack size for different moves. It has helped me discover some leaks in my game (like open-raising to steal and folding to a reraise with 14-21BB) and I think it will help me bring my game to the next level. I'm about half way through and looking forward to reading the rest.

[copernicus]

Now this is a great resource. I especially liked the first few entries on having the right stack size for different moves. It has helped me discover some leaks in my game (like open-raising to steal and folding to a reraise with 14-21BB) and I think it will help me bring my game to the next level. I'm about half way through and looking forward to reading the rest.

No doubt this is much more valuable than belowabove's thread. Bond18 is much more active at 2+2 and his posts are well thought out. The first one is probably the best of this group, although most of it should be fairly obvious if youve read HoH. Most helpful to me is the one on the notes he keeps and how specific they are. They are, of course, more valuable at his buyins, because you see the same players more frequently then at the lower buyins, where you might only see one or two players twice in a month.

[jmbreslin]

No doubt this is much more valuable than belowabove's thread. Bond18 is much more active at 2+2 and his posts are well thought out. The first one is probably the best of this group, although most of it should be fairly obvious if youve read HoH.

I found that it made some of the general concepts in HoH more concrete. Although HoH is probably the best overall tourney strategy resource out there, the strategy is written at a pretty high-level (by high level I mean general principles rather than specifics). There is also stuff in Bond's blog that goes beyond HoH, such as his recommendations for playing as a bigstack at different stages of a tourney, and his distinction between 3-betting for value and 3-betting as a resteal bluff. It's also the first time I've heard someone articulate the "go and go" as a move to use with an awkward stack.