Great read...

I have played almost 6000 hands since my last update and have won a paltry $16.85...just normal variance with poker. The first two weeks of the month were great and including my rakeback I'm ahead a little over $750 this month. That is about 6.25ptbb/100. My rate was probably over 15/100 two weeks ago. Bankroll at $7506.88



My move up to 100nl an 200nl will be coming after my work season slows unless I hit another heater in the next month. I'm also experimenting with multi-tabling 10+ tables while still maintaining good positive results. I also datamine the 100nl and 200nl games to give some knowledge of the players. One of my weaknesses has been table selection and this will be more important as I move up in limits.























Funny picture I copied from http://www.tristancre8ive.blogspot.com/ A very good online tournament player, Tristan "cre8tive" Wade. It's a funny picture, but sometimes I wish a select few individuals would wake up to a world like this...Nothing applies to them as they are above the law, too good or whatever!!!


Reading a great article by Justin Bonomo in the July issue of Bluff Magazine he talks about the math behind semi-bluffing, and how few times the opponent has to fold to make most plays +EV longterm. Basicly always applying pressure to your opponents giving you the added win % of making your opponent fold. With the semi-bluff you also add the amount of equity you have in the hand which hopefully would add to 50+%.

Poker is a risk/reward game where to generalize things we can risk $ to win $. For example we bet the pot($100) to win the pot($100)...with zero equity in the hand, we would need our opponent to fold (fold equity) more than call (call equity) to make the bet profitable.

SO here goes my attempt at his math...(C)all = (F)old by using the $100 example above and I have 0% equity in the hand...if I bet $100 to win the $100 pot...I win $100 when my opponent folds (100F) and I lose $100 when my opponent calls (100C)... 100F=100C...F=C

So again with 100% (E)quity between my opponent and myself E(1)=F+C... now we have two variables and we can express C in terms of F by (C=1-F) and combining the two equations we get F=1-f or 2F=1...F=.5 or Fold Equity is 50%. So by getting our opponent to fold 50 % of the time we break even...we win $ if the % is higher.

Now lets add some hand equity to the equation (Semi-bluff) of 25% and this translates into us winning $200 (pot + his stack) 25% of the time and losing $100 (my stack) 75% of the time.
Ce=(.75)(100)-(.25)(200)
Ce=75-50=25
100(F)olds-Cequity=0
100F-Ce=0
100F-25=0
100F=25
F=.25
25% opponent fold makes this bet a positive play

He calls it 8th grade algebra, but it shows how bet/raise is the best play even when we may have less than 50% equity in the hand...