Poker school is in

Quick last night update - I didn't play last night.  My wife wanted to hang out instead.  Works for me.  I'm going to try to treat this as a marathon instead of a sprint.  Even a marathon is a bad analogy because that's like 4 hours.  :P   But you get it, I am thinking super long term at this point.  I am planning on playing the nightly Aria $125 tournament tonight.  Tomorrow night we're going out with friends but maybe I can get up early and squeeze a couple hours of cash in.  It's all about making progress and getting hours in when I can.

Back to learning.

Combinatorics.  I think this is the first big poker thing that I'm going to focus on.  I know it's out there and when I started reading The Poker Blueprint again, it was one of the first topics he covers.  I have tried to apply this in the past, but it's typically after the fact.  It takes me FOREVER and it's super difficult for me.

Combinatorics is basically the combinations of hands that are possible.  So for example, let's say you flop bottom set.  The board is 8h 5s 2c.  You think the other guy is going all in with 76s, 43s, and bigger sets.  One way to look at it is "I beat 2 hands and am beaten by 2 hands" but that is not accurate because there are multiple combinations of each of those hands.  There are 4 combinations of 76s, 4 combinations of 43s, 3 combinations of 88, and 3 combinations of 55.  So you actually currently are beating 8 possible hands, and losing to 6 possible hands.  Of course this is not a good situation for you because the hands you are "beating" will draw out a large percentage of the time too.  And there is no way to say you should call/fold/raise based on the information above because there's no stack size, pot size, etc information to go on.  But knowing the combinations is an important first step in understanding what you should do.

I would like to get to a point where I fully understand this topic and I can apply it reasonably well at the poker table.  I think the most obvious point where you can apply this is on the river when you are facing a bet.  You have something like AA on the river and you think a guy will only be betting sets, straights, and busted flush draws.  It's a solvable problem based on the bet size and pot size whether you should call or not if you think he has those hands.  But can I arrive at a good answer for that question today?  No.

As far as The Mental Game of Poker's inchworm model, this is the first thing I'm going to try to do to stretch the front of the inchworm.  I have plenty of weaknesses I can think about when I'm playing as well to move the back half.  But this is a very concrete and important skill that I can pick up and learn.

What I'm doing today at lunch is writing down a bunch of problems (I'll post them below).  These are things that I think I should know or should be able to figure out given some time.  Ideally what I'd REALLY like to do is write a program that auto-generates scenarios and asks you to solve them.  That would be the holy grail of being able to figure this out.  Ideally I would be able to take a reasonably complex problem and solve it within 1 minute (including pot odds).  That should be enough time in a live poker environment to be able to think about it and make the right decision.

I'm going to continue on that effort (writing down problems to solve) over the next 20 minutes or so and I'll post them here.

I think this is a good start (below).  I'll start here and continue reading that section of the book.  I anticipate it will take me a long time to get good at this - at least a month, but we'll see.  Maybe less if I'm working on it a lot.

• How many combos are possible for:
• a pocket pair?
• an unpaired hand?
• an unpaired suited hand?
• a set?
• a flush draw with a suited connector on the flop, with various flops?
• TT+?
• JTs+?
• AQ+?
• AQs+?
• On a KhQh4s board, how many combos of AK are possible?
• On a KhQh4s board, how many combos of AK and KQ are possible?
• On a KhQh4s board, how many combos of AK are possible if I am holding AA?
• On a KhQh4s board, how many combos of AK are possible if I am holding AK?
• On a KhQh4s board, how many combos of AK and KQ are possible if I am holding KQ?
• On a 7h4sJc board, if I have AA and I think the other guy has open ended straight draws and sets, how many combos do I beat / lose to?
• On a 7h6h2s board, if I have AA and I think the other guy has open ended straight draws, flush draws with suited connectors and JTs+, and sets, how many combos do I beat / lose to?
• On a Kh7d2s board, if I think someone has AK, KK, 77, 22 and I have AA, how many combinations do I beat / lose to?
• On a Th4c2s board, if I think the guy has sets and overpairs, what combos am I ahead/behind against with KK?
• On the river the board is 7h4h2sJc8s.  I have 88.  I think the other guy is betting AA, KK, QQ, JJ, 77, 44, 65s, T9hh, and busted heart draws with all suited connectors and JThh+.  I am not considering a raise (for whatever reason).  I want to call if I have over 50% chance to win.  Should I call?
• On the river the board is JcTc5s4s2d.  I have TT.  My opponent would bet all flopped sets, KQ, Q9s, 76s, QJ, JT, 54s, and missed flush draws (both clubs and spades).  How many combos do I beat and lose to?
• On the flop the board is 9c8c2s.  I have AcAd.  My opponent goes all in for $100.  The pot is $220 including his bet.  His range is JTcc+, JT, 76, and sets.  Should I call?