Week In Review #53 April 5th-April 11th
This week's final post.
This post is this week’s final post because I did not receive a Sunday Special submission for this week. The Sunday Special is always one of the most read posts of the week and is something I always enjoy doing. Most Sunday Special submissions I receive begin with a self-deprecating plea something like “I am sure Sam would not be interested in writing about such a boring hand, but I figured I’d ask …”. Here is where I tell you, there is no need to be self-deprecating in your messages to me or to be shy about submitting. There are boring poker hands, but I trust my readership will not be sending me hands where they raise AJo on the button and the blinds fold. If I wanted to only write about the most technical poker hands I could play around with a trainer and find a bunch of obscure spots to do deep dives on, that is generally not what I am looking for with the Sunday Special.
Poker remains a human game and what I am looking for in a Sunday Special is not complex technical poker spots or hands played by experts, but submitters that clearly articulate their thought process. Sometimes submitters will write things like “I had a range advantage, so I bet” and I can pick apart that faulty logic, sometimes they will write “I think this player type never bets top pair here” and I can dissect whether or not I think that assumption is valid. What matters is that I’m reading your honest-to-god thoughts about the hand you played. There will always be surprising tidbits in anyone’s analysis that are worth exploring. An unvarnished look into a submitter’s thought process as you are playing the hand such that readers of POTD and myself can learn from it is more than sufficient.
When I was on the Double Pivot Podcast with Sunday Specialist Mike Goodman and his co-host Michael Caley they mentioned that when they read POTD, I will occasionally teach them something in an aside. I’ll write something like “well normally this board is big bet or check, but I decided to bet small as an exploit” and they’ll learn that that “normally this board is big bet or check”. There is a similar dynamic when I read Sunday Special submissions, people will articulate something that contradicts a bit of poker wisdom I took for granted. This allows me to write about things that I otherwise would not even consider. As long as a Sunday Special submission is sincere, it is something I and POTD subscribers can learn from. It’s not boring to get a look into what someone is thinking and even if you might think a hand is standard, I assure you there will be details that are not. I wrote about check-folding a gutshot to one bet in a three bet pot this week. I relish testing my readers’ boredom thresholds. If you are one of the thousands of people reading this and would like to send in a Sunday Special, don’t be shy, your hand will not be boring, I promise you.
If you are one of the thousands of people reading this post, you are likely a POTD subscriber, but if you are not and would like to become one or would like to upgrade from paid to unpaid, you can do so by clicking the button below.
Additional Sims For Premium Subscribers
Premium Subscribers are given access to a Google Drive folder where they will also be able to download the raw files of sims I used to write my POTDs, sims that are more accurate and appropriate than equivalent sims in the big public libraries. This week I uploaded
A PIO sim testing different c-bet sizes for POTD #264
A Rocket Solver flop sim and PIO turn and river sims for POTD #265
A Rocket Solver sim for the flop, turn and river for POTD #266
Additional Analysis for Premium Subscribers
Everyday Premium Subscribers get an extra bit of analysis not included on Substack. Today, I’ll share #onemorething from POTD #265, where I wrote about how I created the sim to solve Robl’s big fold.
POTD #265 onemorething
So the solver analysis I used today is admittedly a bit of a Frankenstein solution. The hand is CO vs SB vs BB, but given QJo and Q7s are supposed to pure fold preflop and these games play very loose preflop. I made it BTN vs SB vs BB so we’d get something a little closer to the actual ranges being used in the hand. I still don’t think these are close to the “correct” ranges in the hand, but it’s closer. Even shifting preflop positions one spot over, Q7s does ’t sneak into Robl’s range, but I added a little bit of it to see how the solver would want to play it. The solver plays it very aggressively, but this is in part because it’s such a low reach hand for Robl. If I gave him all the Q7,Q8 and Q9s combos I suspect we would see some overcalling on the flop with Qh7h.
To make the tree smaller, I only ran the flop with the sizes actually used, which I felt were incorrect. I thought that Gavri would have a small c-bet size, but upon further reflection it makes more sense he c-bets rarely and pretty polar. This is not like a PFR vs SB vs BB hand, but closer to PFR vs SB vs SB. Robl isn’t peeling J2s here preflop. Gavri has position and a range advantage, but he’s against two pretty specific ranges and can’t just auto bet. So it makes sense he’d bet rarely and pick a larger c-bet size. When Gavri bets 2/3rds pot, Tilt starts folding a lot of top pair in the SB. I didn’t test to see if Gavri would want to bet bigger, but getting top pair to fold to one bet is very nice.
Similarly, I thought Robl’s checkraise size was too large, but upon further reflection it makes a lot of sense. His bluffs are gutshots, flush draws and Tx, his value range is two pair and sets. He wants to pick a size that is big enough that it can get hands like flush draws and top pair to fold right away. A polar check-raise that targets top pair, should be on the big size. The turn and river solve did not require nearly as much guess work, but the outputs are only as good as preflop and flop ranges. I entered the Rocket Solver ranges into PIO and ran a vanilla turn sim, I suspect if Gavri is c-betting too much top pair on the flop and calling a checkraise with it too often that betting the turn works out very well for Robl. On the river, I needed to run a sim where I only give Robl one size to force some volume into that size that isn’t just nuts or nut blocker, but the general shape of the solution remains the same, Robl only gets shoved on by the nuts and nut blockers, but still needs to call a jam with a flush because he blocks too much value.
Media
I’ve been watching two Bill Lawrence shows, Rooster on HBO and the reboot of Scrubs. They are both pretty good, they’re watchable and have good jokes and likable actors. I am not even watching his third show airing new episodes Shrinking. Sometimes when I watch a late period Eastwood or Scorsese movie, I like them just okay, but I am mostly impressed by the display of human accomplishment. This guy is in his eighties and is making a movie better than other people’s passion projects. I feel similarly about the Bill Lawrence shows, he’s making three pretty good shows at the same time. Give him some sort of medal and let him take a nap. May his work ethic and competency be an inspiration to us all.
As always, I can be reached on
You have inspired me to write one in!
I'm always an advocate for basic hands that come up often and therefore have a much bigger impact on our win rate than some fancy c/r, c/r. So I strongly support that you wrote about a gutshot in a 3-bet pot this week!
As todays focus is guided by addicting algorithms and attention is gained by the next extreme, I do think you need to be one of the forerunners that shares & posts what helps our game and not just what looks flashy but isn't helpful.
That being said where can I share a Sunday Special submission?
Was pretty surprised that people don't spam you with their hands ^^