“I Like The Pain What Can I Say”: Alex Theologis Answers Questions on Reddit

Most enjoyable I’d say PKOs. Biggest edge, probably in mystery bounties, which happen to be the least enjoyable.

I wouldn’t necessarily tie it with a buy-in level but with the opponents we play against. I would assume that generic population tendencies won’t apply to the best regs, so I’d avoid trying to exploit them.

Tough question to answer, there are so many things but not all of them have to apply to everyone. Study time, work ethic, instinct, talent, mentality, being smart, perceptive, competitive, curious, open-minded and the list goes on. So I would say it’s a long list of traits that having some of which can push a great player into elite.

I would say the main thing is being able to remain completely calm and emotionless under pressure. Whether that is during a hand or after the outcome of the hand. Online you can be as expressive as you like, but live you have to keep every emotion and feeling under control for very long stretches of time.

My study/playing ratio has changed a lot over time. When I first decided to take poker seriously, I took a full 3 month break where I only studied and understood game theory, basic maths, ranges etc. Then, as my career progressed, the ratio had to swift more towards playing as studying tends to have diminishing returns, since the better you get at the game, the more minor your mistakes become. Now I’d estimate I study 3 hours a day on average, but it’s more so that I have full study days and full playing days.

I see that very often, even in high stakes. Generally a good solution would be to bluff catch less and generally give higher priority on linearly strong range instead of blockers. Meaning that in practice it might be better to bluffcatch say bottom 2 pair instead of top pair + straight blocker if our opponent ends up valuebetting too wide.

Yeah, definitely. The variance in poker helps you understand all the hidden variance in life, and how success or failure is influenced by luck (of course not exclusively, but more than people can tell).

For sure! Every so often I will look at a solution for a hand, have to triple check I didn’t mess up any of the settings, then dive into a wormhole as to why I was so clueless about that spot.

Spend less time calculating bubble factors and the value of chips with pen and paper, haha. We didn’t have HRC and GTOW back in the day!

I always approach things with an open mind, so I’d say yes, especially with regards to future game. Like them making a call that was losing a decent amount on the pure solver output but could be justified by the future EV gain.

In terms of $ probably some hand from a WSOP Main Event FT. In terms of recurring scenarios, jamming vs very tight ranges. People also tend to either massively over or under estimate ICM in bounties and do not take the payout structure and how much money is left in the bounty prize pool into account.

I think it is hard to be completely sure about the effects of future game EV, especially since the solver isn’t very effective for deep stacked play, so I’d say mostly related to that.

Solvers allow us to nodelock how we believe our opponents play and then give us the optimal exploits against that. Of course, our confidence level will never be high, so we should look to avoid some of the more extreme adjustments. As for an ICM spot where my approach has changed, I think it’s for these very big jams you are supposed to make as chipleader (for 40+bb effective, when you jam into mid stacks), because they end up being very poor risk:reward and if our opponent ends up calling even a couple of hands wider than the solver, it can end up being a very costly mistake.

Multiway hands don’t occur that often under ICM, but basically, the bigger portion of our stack that gets invested in the pot, the higher our RP becomes. So if it is let’s say a bet for about half of our stack, I’d estimate I have about 40% of my full RP on that bet

I think yes. We can already solve for 4-5 hands ahead (albeit only push or fold) but as processing power etc improves, being able to solve deepstacked FGS seems like the next step.

Try and picture how my future EV will look like if I take a close spot, but making sure this is an adjustment only for somewhat marginal spots and not an excuse to punt it off.

This is always a rough situation to be in, whether you are a full time pro for decades or only now getting into the game, but it is the unfortunate reality of MTTs. Variance can be very brutal but the best thing one can do is to try and remain objective about their own game and focus on the things that can be controlled. Whether your AK beats your opponent’s QQ is completely outside your reach, but making sure you are constantly improving and playing your best game is.

I would say the main thing is being able to be objective, for example: some are too tight with BRM, others too careless. Some people think every bad outcome is their fault, others think it’s always bad variance. Some people think everyone they play against is a poker god, others think everyone else is terrible at the game, etc. Finding the right balance and being honest with yourself is tough, but necessary.

Yeah that sucks when it happens as you feel quite helpless and that there was nothing you could have done. Unfortunately it is part of the game and sometimes you aren’t meant to win but getting 11th being the best possible outcome.

Oh, for sure! Mainly the concept of EV is very rarely considered by people outside of poker, but I think about it very often in day to day life. Then also being able to remain calm under hardships and think things through without being impulsive, among other concepts.

I assume by 4-handed you mean 4 left and it’s a final table, and not just a 4-handed format. While there is no definite answer to this as it depends on the payouts, but something along the lines of 99, AQ makes sense?

The problem with betting such a small portion is that we can then allow opponents to call with hands that would fold vs a jam, especially if the big blind is a bigger stack.

I think with the added risk premium (extra equity we need to call off because of ICM pressure) this could be close, but, we have to take into account our future EV of winning and doubling up and becoming the new chip leader. It becomes much closer once the chip leader has 100,000 chips instead of 45,000 because then winning means nothing. In a first place takes all situation, we would have 0 ICM, so happy call. In a satellite where top 3 get a seat, this has to be a very clear fold because gaining chips doesn’t really matter at this point, we just have to outlast one of the other 2 shortstacks.

Quickly flip one over and ask for a new card.