Poker Out Loud: Episode 1

This post was originally published on January 19, 2020, on my personal website, Lukich.io. I have since consolidated all of my poker-related content by reposting it onto Solver School.

That was an anxiety-filled, yet awesome experience to watch. About a year ago, I had first come across the Solve for Why guys. At the time, I was hovering between $1/$3 and $2/$5. I was a winning player but struggled to break through against the tougher $2/$5 regs. I had previously tried a couple of training sites, but I struggled to connect the concepts explored to an overall strategy. The S4Y approach resonated with me. I have already studied the mechanics of the game. S4Y has helped me start to put everything together.

In September, Berkey sent me a note that simply said, “Want to be on Poker Out Loud?” He explained the concept, but that wasn’t really necessary. I booked a flight and hotel that night. It’s great playing with that group of guys. Chris Konvalinka, Chris Price, and Fausto are really good poker players that play professionally or semi-professionally. They have played in bigger games. It’s also validating in the approach I’ve been taking that I’m able to compete with these guys.

The 1st of an 8-episode season dropped last night and I’m excited with how it turned out. The series will run weekly on YouTube on the S4Y channel. I’ll write comments about the overall filming experience throughout the season and recap thoughts on that specific episode.

Here’s episode 1:

This week kicked off the season and - action-wise - things started slowly. I watched the first 3 seasons of POL to prep, and everyone had widened their normal ranges, leading to more action. So I was prepared for the fireworks to happen early. But it didn’t happen this week. It definitely doesn’t help that no one really had significant value in any of the hands. But I also felt a vibe throughout that first orbit, as everyone was feeling each other out, trying to figure out what the dynamic would be. As a result, everyone played more cautiously and waited for good opportunities to attack.

My early plan was to simulate and extend the freshness I feel in the first couple of hours at a new table. Since this didn’t play like a normal game and we had a lot of down time, that meant upbeat music to keep me moving and motivated. I am pretty sure the microphones picked up the music from my headphones. I was blasting an eclectic mix of upbeat songs that featured Queen, Led Zeppelin, Foo Fighters, Violent Femmes, Broken Bells, and more.

Despite the good music, it was hard to get into that rhythm in this game. Each hand took anywhere from 5-20 minutes. When I was involved in a hand, I became mentally exhausted quickly. Before this experience, I had just taken for granted how much we auto-process in our brains. Articulating my thoughts in a linear fashion was insanely challenging and draining. Even if I knew a play was the right one, trying to explain all the reasons why was hard to put into words in the moment. As a result, I wish I said a couple of things more clearly.

The first was in the only hand I played. It was a completely routine and ordinary situation. With the action folded to me, I opened K6o on the button against Chris K’s SB and Berkey’s BB. I think the open is completely fine, and I did accurately say that I’d be wide. But I don’t think it’s a completely standard play and warrants an explanation. How widely would I open? If I am choosing a normal 50% range, K6o is a cusp hand that could be a raise or fold. My plan was to err on the looser side during this season to try to get myself into interesting spots. But I should have elaborated as to my decision instead of just qualifying that it’s “not the best hand”. Also, why did I open to 4x? Berkey’s reasoning was exactly right - I want to go larger with all of my raises from the button to dissuade Berkey from calling widely. That would have been a good analysis to explain in real-time.

The second was a positional comment I made that the CO would be my most favorable position for the day. The entire table was insanely tough - by far, the most difficult table of players I’ve ever sat with. I had never played a live hand against anybody in the lineup, but I have seen lots of hands from Berkey and Chin on streams. I had an opportunity to develop a general strategy against them. Against Price, Chris, and Fausto, I began with a default strategy to see how they played before I could deviate.

I knew my most favorable positions would be when I was in position vs Berkey and Chin - my CO and BTN. My button is against Berkey’s BB. He’s going to defend widely. While I’m ok playing a pot in position against a wide range, Berkey plays well in wide-range situations where he’s fighting for pots. My clarity within the hand will be less clear and put me in a lot of difficult spots. Berkey likely plays more straightforwardly from the SB. He has a BB yet to act and will likely be fairly linear with his 3-bet range. Because of this, I can have much more clarity over his SB continue range when he does so. Chin acts before me, so I’m always going to have position on him unless I’m in the SB (wait for a good spot later in the season in this formation). I can articulate all of that now, but I struggled to find the words in real time.

When I wasn’t in a hand, it was difficult to keep myself in the right mindset. I’m not seeing 25-30 hands an hour as I do at the casino. Instead, we play more like 5-10 hands per hour. This gave us a lot of downtime between spots. At a normal table, we can also socialize. I sometimes find that’s helpful to keep me focused on the game when I’m starting to fade. But we don’t have an opportunity to do that in this game. That meant staring at our phones for 15 minutes before the next hand. Shifting gears from low to high mental energy was really challenging.

Overall, I loved this week’s episode. I took a back seat this week in the gameplay. I didn’t have any good spots pop up. But some of the spots that came up were interesting. I’m excited to see the rest of the season. I remember a few significant hands clearly, but a lot of the night was a blur. So I’ll be reliving spots again, which will be fun to do. Maybe I’ll even take one of my hands and build a video analyzing it within Pio.

To catch the latest episodes, subscribe to the S4Y channel.

If you have any thoughts, please feel free to leave any below. You can also contact me at [email protected] or reach me on Twitter or YouTube through the links in the footer below. Thanks for watching.

-Lukich