Goals:
1. Look for more places to bet rather than call down. Try to understand the difference between betting and calling down
2. Look more for player tendancies in between pots
How do I feel:
Pretty good right now.
Results:
1. Yes, I did a lot more of this. ie in this hand, he likely has a weak pair or strong draw and isn't aggressive enough to just fire away with weak pairs or a missed turn. So raise it up with the intention of getting it in against what would be very unlikely a set given the board.
2. Doing this a little more. Still needs more work, even though I am only two tabling I still slack off too much.
I didn't like my session at all. I pretty much got given 2 pots early and felt like just walking away with the 3/4 BI, but really felt like I needed to get some hands in to be satisfied. Of course that amount went up and down a bit until an aggro sat on my right. This guy was good. He managed to fold every time I had it and raise every time I didn't. I knew to leave, but couldn't. I just wanted to win that one pot on him, but didn't. When I finally left I'd just lost a medium sized pot on my good table, and was down $55 on the bad table, to be almost down a BI, which was depressing as it was mostly from me trying to play back at a bully, which I know not to do. I kept on with my good table and fired up another juicy spot. I regained my profits on the good table, and just went on a 20 hand run on the new table to finish up 1 BI for the session. Nice.
Morale of the story is, if you are feeling uncomfortable on a table for whatever reason, be it aggro opponents, passive opponents, short stacks or even just running bad, then get out. There is almost surely a better spot at another table, so rather than losing 3 BI's to prove how big your balls are, go where the easy money is.
Do you see the theme? Don't play drunk, don't play bad tables, don't play game you aren't good at... Your winrate has a DIRECT correlation to each of these things. If you play average poker but table select well, play when you are in a good mind frame and stick to just games you know, you are going to beat some good players who play drunk, gamble a lot and like to brag about beating up the bully rather than finding better spots. Winrate is key to me now in poker, I can't survive without it. If I find myself having two lousy months and think about how I played drunk or badly causing a big chunk of that lacking winrate, I'll be furious with myself.
On a side note, the link on the side to PSO is why I rejoined the OnGame network. I cleared the 15000 PSO points in about 5000 hands of NL50, or 20 days. That also helped clear $100 worth of deposit bonus. That means I have 19000 PSO points, which is equal to $190 worth of gift certificates, which can be poker $'s. 1 problem is most sites bar Absolute only allow 5000 point = $50 clearances, so it's only $150. So I think I'm going to aim to play the bare minimum at Absolute, which will get me a 9000 point bonus, making it 26,000 points, or $260 worth. I will then cash in that for $260 on Absolute, and in the mean time clear their deposit bonus. So that should be around $300 worth of upcoming bonuses to collect. Add to that the pokerstars $80 which I am about to start clearing from next week, and it's $380. Add to that the rest of the bwin deposit bonus and it's in total around $630. It will take me a few weeks to achieve this, maybe 6 to 8, but I will be very happy to see this much cash flow into my bankroll once it's all finished. All I have to do is win at a marginal rate in the mean time and I'll be on track towards NL100.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Monday, December 22, 2008
And a few days pass
I haven't blogged again for a few days, but mainly because not much interesting has happened. I played a decent session of NL50 over at OnGame again, and finished up playing some Badugi that night, a little tipsy too. Horrible mistake. I won a little and decided to move up. Firstly to start getting some VPP's flowing in, and secondly to see if the players at the higher level were all that good. I pretty quickly dumped an amount of money just never being good, 3 different ways. Either chasing a Badugi with a A23r or 245r type of hand against someone standing pat or drawing and hitting and seeing villains J or K high at the end, holding a fairly bad Badugi against a drawing player and having them hit at the end, or just holding a good badugi and getting coolered by a better one. The funds they disappeared, $120 into $6 in no time. The next night I was too tired to grind NLHE properly, so decided to re-invest in the lowest Badugi game, and ran the opposite to get up to $30 and quit it, instead deciding to player some NLHE on pokerstars. An hour or two later I'd doubled that and felt pretty good about how things went. Then Friday, with some drinks behind, I busted the account. I again ran like shit playing Badugi. It's an extremely hot or cold game I've come to realise. I think my strategy is actually firming up quite a bit, but there is nothing you can do if people draw two cards and hit an A345r on your 2456r or if your opponents are standing pat and you never hit your draws. However, this time I couldn't be saved in NLHE either, getting sucked out on for a big pot with KK vs Q9s AIPF, and getting coolered to empty my account. I'm very disappointed, as I wasn't playing seriously, but still managed to lose more than I won playing serious NLHE during that week (maybe not quite), so what's the point? I've decided playing while drunk for fun is not only -EV, but it's also a waste of time. I have fun playing and winning, whether I'm drinking or not, so why not play when I'm more likely to win, and not play when I'm drinking and relaxing?
So the weekend was a huge blast, but nothing poker related. I ended up having about 1 hour I could have played, but wasn't in the mood, so happily decided not to.
Last night I grinded again, and ran like crap. QQ was no good against AKo pre flop, I got sucked out on after the money went in against a short stack, and then got runner runnered twice by two aggressive opponents when I'd decided to hand control over to them and called down 2 or 3 streets with TPTK (should have raised the flop and been done with it probably). I also got absolutely brilliant starting hands or flops and was forced to fold turns or rivers, when the pressure was just too much and there was nothing I could really beat. I was making a lot more by not hitting, because at least I could just cbet and be done with it if I faced resistance. I ended up forcing a big bluff out of someone against my trips and finally won a couple of pots to come back to pretty much even, but it felt like a cursed night overall, and I'm not even that proud of how I plaed my biggest winning pot.
Oh well, probably have one more crack at poker before Christmas tonight, and then let the festivities commence!
So the weekend was a huge blast, but nothing poker related. I ended up having about 1 hour I could have played, but wasn't in the mood, so happily decided not to.
Last night I grinded again, and ran like crap. QQ was no good against AKo pre flop, I got sucked out on after the money went in against a short stack, and then got runner runnered twice by two aggressive opponents when I'd decided to hand control over to them and called down 2 or 3 streets with TPTK (should have raised the flop and been done with it probably). I also got absolutely brilliant starting hands or flops and was forced to fold turns or rivers, when the pressure was just too much and there was nothing I could really beat. I was making a lot more by not hitting, because at least I could just cbet and be done with it if I faced resistance. I ended up forcing a big bluff out of someone against my trips and finally won a couple of pots to come back to pretty much even, but it felt like a cursed night overall, and I'm not even that proud of how I plaed my biggest winning pot.
Oh well, probably have one more crack at poker before Christmas tonight, and then let the festivities commence!
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Am I high or low?
Goals:
1. Look for spots where to get the money in good, keep the other pots smaller
2. Analyse more what flops are good to us versus players. Keep position in mind too.
3. Give 3 bettors credit against all but very strong hands
4. Fold more PF to min 3 bets unless you think it can flop BIG without being 2nd best hand
How do I feel?
Very good, keep at 2 tables of NL50, see how long it lasts.
1. I'm actually really pleased about this. Not just getting money in, but not overplaying hands when obvious scare cards come in. Hand 1 I had him smashed with KK on a 962r, and he raises my cbet. I decide it's an easy stackoff and just call to call a turn shove with position. It's a T and my life sucks, he had it, but I didn't pay him off when he checked to me and bet medium on the river. Other hand a $2 stacks gets it in, I have QQ and raise, and same guy calls a now big pot. I cbet pretty big with overpair and he calls, and given our history, I thought I had him smashed. Turn is an ace (did I mention my life sucks) and I check, he bets pot. It's a big bet given the preflop and flop dynamic and I just fold, he shows AK up against the $2 stack. I would never fold there given history usually, but now I am thinking much more about what am I ever beating when he shows turn aggression, and it comes down to bluffs, as even weaker aces aren't thrilled at this stage often.
2. I cbet pretty well last night. I very rarely call in position, so it's mainly about the cbet, and I think I have a pretty clear understanding of how often to apply it. In fact I may be cbetting too little if anything (not my previous problems)
3. I folded to 3 bets with decent but not great hands last night
4. Don't remember being min 3 bet
Well last night was good, but not as good as it once was. I ran over a table picking up unwanted pots with cbets and donk leads on turns, and just generally played a fairly unexploitable preflop and flop game (at least at this level). Then a new player stacks off to me when I flop the nut flush, for a reverse cooler where he flopped a Jack high flush. So I'm up almost 2 BI's between this table and the other, and then I run like shit. The two hands in point 1 happen where I lose a bit of my stack when I get sucked out on with turn cards. Then I get it in against a short stack with A9s vs K9 AIPF and he spikes a king, I spike a flush draw, but he hangs on. Then I get it in on a flop in a 100BB pot with overpair and gutshot to the other guys top pair no kicker, only for him to spike a two pair after the money is in. Then I get it in on a turn with top pair versus a flush draw against another short stack and he hits. Fuck me, what did I do to you poker gods? There were even one or two more overpair or top pairs that I had to fold. Eventually I ran OK for a bit and salvaged a 1 BI profit, but I could have quit an hour earlier to be up more. Oh well.
I started to wind down and thought about my new friend Badugi. That's right, play money Badugi for another huge profit, and I said fuck this, I have to get money onto Pokerstars to play this shit for real. I took out loose change on Full Tilt (had about $119) and deposited on stars. I must say this was the best transfer experience I've ever had. I clicked withdrawal on Full Tilt, then within about 3 minutes had the money on a Badugi table on Pokerstars, I'm not lying. It's all instant with these sites as opposed to OnGame or other sites where it takes a couple of days to clear funds. The support on these sites remains first class. I must mention Neteller in there too, as they played middle man in this transfer.
Anyway, I found real money Badugi to be much more challenging. People fold, WTF? I stole a couple of pots pre flop!!! I also lost about $4 in the first hand I played, trying to build up the pot for my upcoming nutz, which never eventuated, only to see my opponent standing pat with a 6 high Badugi, I was drawing to only 2 outs!!! I expected at least T or Q high. But I managed to run good for a bit and won about $9 there in the end. It's a boat load of fun, but is also pretty average for bonus clearing, and I can imagine would be very swingy when you keep finding your 8 high Badugi's being crushed by 6's or 7's, or having your A23r hitting nothing on 3 streets. Still it makes me want to look at the mixed games with a bit more passion, as it really is just another form of poker where once you understand when it's important to bet and when to fold, you gain a real edge. I saw someone sitting with a $55 stack on a table where the max bet for a hand is $6 (I think), so you can imagine how well he's played or run to get a stack that big. I really am enjoying 6 max NLHE right now so I'll keep grinding that for money reasons, but will definitely spend a bit of fun time mucking around in mixed games. I even enjoy playing for no money in new games like this (especially when I run good).
Oh and I'm basically up to my aim of profiting enough to pull up a 3rd table, so I might start trying to add that table when I get the chance the next night or two.
1. Look for spots where to get the money in good, keep the other pots smaller
2. Analyse more what flops are good to us versus players. Keep position in mind too.
3. Give 3 bettors credit against all but very strong hands
4. Fold more PF to min 3 bets unless you think it can flop BIG without being 2nd best hand
How do I feel?
Very good, keep at 2 tables of NL50, see how long it lasts.
1. I'm actually really pleased about this. Not just getting money in, but not overplaying hands when obvious scare cards come in. Hand 1 I had him smashed with KK on a 962r, and he raises my cbet. I decide it's an easy stackoff and just call to call a turn shove with position. It's a T and my life sucks, he had it, but I didn't pay him off when he checked to me and bet medium on the river. Other hand a $2 stacks gets it in, I have QQ and raise, and same guy calls a now big pot. I cbet pretty big with overpair and he calls, and given our history, I thought I had him smashed. Turn is an ace (did I mention my life sucks) and I check, he bets pot. It's a big bet given the preflop and flop dynamic and I just fold, he shows AK up against the $2 stack. I would never fold there given history usually, but now I am thinking much more about what am I ever beating when he shows turn aggression, and it comes down to bluffs, as even weaker aces aren't thrilled at this stage often.
2. I cbet pretty well last night. I very rarely call in position, so it's mainly about the cbet, and I think I have a pretty clear understanding of how often to apply it. In fact I may be cbetting too little if anything (not my previous problems)
3. I folded to 3 bets with decent but not great hands last night
4. Don't remember being min 3 bet
Well last night was good, but not as good as it once was. I ran over a table picking up unwanted pots with cbets and donk leads on turns, and just generally played a fairly unexploitable preflop and flop game (at least at this level). Then a new player stacks off to me when I flop the nut flush, for a reverse cooler where he flopped a Jack high flush. So I'm up almost 2 BI's between this table and the other, and then I run like shit. The two hands in point 1 happen where I lose a bit of my stack when I get sucked out on with turn cards. Then I get it in against a short stack with A9s vs K9 AIPF and he spikes a king, I spike a flush draw, but he hangs on. Then I get it in on a flop in a 100BB pot with overpair and gutshot to the other guys top pair no kicker, only for him to spike a two pair after the money is in. Then I get it in on a turn with top pair versus a flush draw against another short stack and he hits. Fuck me, what did I do to you poker gods? There were even one or two more overpair or top pairs that I had to fold. Eventually I ran OK for a bit and salvaged a 1 BI profit, but I could have quit an hour earlier to be up more. Oh well.
I started to wind down and thought about my new friend Badugi. That's right, play money Badugi for another huge profit, and I said fuck this, I have to get money onto Pokerstars to play this shit for real. I took out loose change on Full Tilt (had about $119) and deposited on stars. I must say this was the best transfer experience I've ever had. I clicked withdrawal on Full Tilt, then within about 3 minutes had the money on a Badugi table on Pokerstars, I'm not lying. It's all instant with these sites as opposed to OnGame or other sites where it takes a couple of days to clear funds. The support on these sites remains first class. I must mention Neteller in there too, as they played middle man in this transfer.
Anyway, I found real money Badugi to be much more challenging. People fold, WTF? I stole a couple of pots pre flop!!! I also lost about $4 in the first hand I played, trying to build up the pot for my upcoming nutz, which never eventuated, only to see my opponent standing pat with a 6 high Badugi, I was drawing to only 2 outs!!! I expected at least T or Q high. But I managed to run good for a bit and won about $9 there in the end. It's a boat load of fun, but is also pretty average for bonus clearing, and I can imagine would be very swingy when you keep finding your 8 high Badugi's being crushed by 6's or 7's, or having your A23r hitting nothing on 3 streets. Still it makes me want to look at the mixed games with a bit more passion, as it really is just another form of poker where once you understand when it's important to bet and when to fold, you gain a real edge. I saw someone sitting with a $55 stack on a table where the max bet for a hand is $6 (I think), so you can imagine how well he's played or run to get a stack that big. I really am enjoying 6 max NLHE right now so I'll keep grinding that for money reasons, but will definitely spend a bit of fun time mucking around in mixed games. I even enjoy playing for no money in new games like this (especially when I run good).
Oh and I'm basically up to my aim of profiting enough to pull up a 3rd table, so I might start trying to add that table when I get the chance the next night or two.
Monday, December 15, 2008
I'm a slack ass
Well, I've been really slack the last couple of weeks. I mean my outside life has been hectic, but I feel a worrying sign of lack of work ethic with my poker the last couple of weeks. I haven't really stopped playing all that much, just stopped blogging, training, forum posting, video watching and skyping to the point where my poker is all about playing. I haven't been playing bad fortunately, and would in fact say I'm running really well right now, but I get this shaky feeling about other blogs I've read in the past. You know the kind that talks about how awful this downswing has been and that they have to get back to forums, videos, coaches etc. Back to basics! Call this point the preventative step in that happening. I want any downswing to be purely downswing related, not related to completely controllable circumstances.
So that's out of the way, and I have gotten back into videos, forums and thinking more about poker the last couple of days, so I feel like I'm getting back on track. Performance wise I've been relatively happy. I'm sure I'm still full of leaks, but I'm at least ahead of the OnGame player pool, who mostly make the mistakes I rarely make now, like overplaying their hands when it's obviously no good anymore, or just not thinking out a players range properly (ie shoving over a cbet on a low board with 99 after you've been 3 bet PF for 100BB's. You are called by what that you beat?). Anyway, I feel like I have many things going for me, and just need to keep on a track of improving and I'll be NL100 in no time. Well not no time, as my bankroll needs boosting, but over time it could well happen.
I will be playing a little more before jumping on Pokerstars to clear a bonus and check out the fields. I haven't played seriously there for... well forever really, so I'd like to 3 table NL50 there and just see how it goes. I contemplated grinding for supernova, but since realised I'd need a crazy amount of hands per month at any level I could be playing anytime soon, so unlikely. However, I love the site, and love the idea of grinding for profit rather than for rakeback. Either way I have to move to that mentality, but this way I can do that easier. I also found Badugi over there and love it. I will definitely put some money on the real tables, as the play money tables are horrendous and I have a feeling the bottom couple of levels could be almost as bad.
Other than that I'm really enjoying poker right now. I feel like I have a real identifiable edge over most of the players in most of the games I play right now, and that leaves me thinking that I am at most a winning micro player in the long run. Now with some extra work, coaching and skyping I hope that becomes a winning low stakes player. I certainly look forward to a big 2009 with lots of money splashing about, and hopefully bouncing back into my pockets.
I will keep my blog up to date from now on and maybe start introducing a worst played pots, and why I thought they were so bad. A feature like that might help me understand my game all the more.
So that's out of the way, and I have gotten back into videos, forums and thinking more about poker the last couple of days, so I feel like I'm getting back on track. Performance wise I've been relatively happy. I'm sure I'm still full of leaks, but I'm at least ahead of the OnGame player pool, who mostly make the mistakes I rarely make now, like overplaying their hands when it's obviously no good anymore, or just not thinking out a players range properly (ie shoving over a cbet on a low board with 99 after you've been 3 bet PF for 100BB's. You are called by what that you beat?). Anyway, I feel like I have many things going for me, and just need to keep on a track of improving and I'll be NL100 in no time. Well not no time, as my bankroll needs boosting, but over time it could well happen.
I will be playing a little more before jumping on Pokerstars to clear a bonus and check out the fields. I haven't played seriously there for... well forever really, so I'd like to 3 table NL50 there and just see how it goes. I contemplated grinding for supernova, but since realised I'd need a crazy amount of hands per month at any level I could be playing anytime soon, so unlikely. However, I love the site, and love the idea of grinding for profit rather than for rakeback. Either way I have to move to that mentality, but this way I can do that easier. I also found Badugi over there and love it. I will definitely put some money on the real tables, as the play money tables are horrendous and I have a feeling the bottom couple of levels could be almost as bad.
Other than that I'm really enjoying poker right now. I feel like I have a real identifiable edge over most of the players in most of the games I play right now, and that leaves me thinking that I am at most a winning micro player in the long run. Now with some extra work, coaching and skyping I hope that becomes a winning low stakes player. I certainly look forward to a big 2009 with lots of money splashing about, and hopefully bouncing back into my pockets.
I will keep my blog up to date from now on and maybe start introducing a worst played pots, and why I thought they were so bad. A feature like that might help me understand my game all the more.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Please river me once more, just once more
Goals:
1. Try to work realistic hand ranges into opponents range by the turn to allow for the best decision based on that range
2. Fold hands that only beat bluffs when opponent hasn't shown bluff tendancies
3. Keep close eye on opponents to allow for best decision making
How do I feel?
A little short tempered, but OK now. A little tired/sick, keep it short, but have a go at NL50. Keep close eye on how I'm going on each table.
1. Ranging improving. I am definitely matching up boards to villains especially for cbets or double barrells. Like if I cbet a Qxx and the turn is a king or ace, I double barrell much more often than if it's a 7. If the flop is T97, I'm not cbetting with hardly any hand unless I have something I want to showdown.
2. This part of my game is getting much better. I feel like I am folding earlier and earlier on pots I don't want a part in. I still have to go one step further sometimes I think.
3. Felt good about this. Opponents are fucktastic spewtards. All of them!!!!
OK, so the last comment gave it away, I ran bad the last 2 sessions. I was busy writing them out here, got to about number 13, and I hadn't finished. I'm not kidding, the list was endless of people calling me down with air, or getting it in with the worst hand and sucking out constantly. I'm seriously looking through pokertracker with amazement at what people could call with on the flop or turn, and by the river suddenly have the best hand through either runner runner or some 2 or 4 outer hitting when they were behind all hand.
Even better I only lost a couple of BI's, because people were occasionally not sucking out on me. In all honesty I misplayed a few hands too, but the level of spew these players produced was exceptional. I just couldn't stop the turn and river from smacking me down.
I was happy enough with how I played, but there is certainly room for improvement in some hands.
1. Try to work realistic hand ranges into opponents range by the turn to allow for the best decision based on that range
2. Fold hands that only beat bluffs when opponent hasn't shown bluff tendancies
3. Keep close eye on opponents to allow for best decision making
How do I feel?
A little short tempered, but OK now. A little tired/sick, keep it short, but have a go at NL50. Keep close eye on how I'm going on each table.
1. Ranging improving. I am definitely matching up boards to villains especially for cbets or double barrells. Like if I cbet a Qxx and the turn is a king or ace, I double barrell much more often than if it's a 7. If the flop is T97, I'm not cbetting with hardly any hand unless I have something I want to showdown.
2. This part of my game is getting much better. I feel like I am folding earlier and earlier on pots I don't want a part in. I still have to go one step further sometimes I think.
3. Felt good about this. Opponents are fucktastic spewtards. All of them!!!!
OK, so the last comment gave it away, I ran bad the last 2 sessions. I was busy writing them out here, got to about number 13, and I hadn't finished. I'm not kidding, the list was endless of people calling me down with air, or getting it in with the worst hand and sucking out constantly. I'm seriously looking through pokertracker with amazement at what people could call with on the flop or turn, and by the river suddenly have the best hand through either runner runner or some 2 or 4 outer hitting when they were behind all hand.
Even better I only lost a couple of BI's, because people were occasionally not sucking out on me. In all honesty I misplayed a few hands too, but the level of spew these players produced was exceptional. I just couldn't stop the turn and river from smacking me down.
I was happy enough with how I played, but there is certainly room for improvement in some hands.
Monday, December 1, 2008
November results and December goals
November results
Well, it really was a great month of poker for me. I got some confidence through thinking hard about the game, skyping, forums and coaching. It's all new to me, but I'm feeling good about where I'm going. My stats reading and player reading has gone through the roof, and I still think this is where the biggest gains are to be made next month.
$ wise, I had an upswing for once on FTP. 8ptbb/100 over a small sample at NL25, so nothing to really get excited about, I still need to play more hands. Still can't be upset with that result.
December:
Christmas is around the corner, and I want a big fat poker bankroll Santa. I'm going to have a crack at NL50 OnGame where the games are soft and see how I go. Will mostly 2 table NL50 until my BR is above 30BI's, or until I drop down to 20 BI's. If my BR goes up I'll 3 table, if it goes down I'll retreat to NL30 again. I haven't worked out how long til I clear my OnGame bonus, but I aim to do the two bonuses I have line up before leaving this site, if I leave this site.
Some game goals to work on:
* Work hard at getting reads on OnGame villains, work out where the money is here
* Work hard at optimising some postflop plays. Like understand when a raise only gets worse to fold, better to call, and where to fold a big pair
* Work more at getting questions together about different plays
* 3 bet more and work out where it's a good move.
Well, it really was a great month of poker for me. I got some confidence through thinking hard about the game, skyping, forums and coaching. It's all new to me, but I'm feeling good about where I'm going. My stats reading and player reading has gone through the roof, and I still think this is where the biggest gains are to be made next month.
$ wise, I had an upswing for once on FTP. 8ptbb/100 over a small sample at NL25, so nothing to really get excited about, I still need to play more hands. Still can't be upset with that result.
December:
Christmas is around the corner, and I want a big fat poker bankroll Santa. I'm going to have a crack at NL50 OnGame where the games are soft and see how I go. Will mostly 2 table NL50 until my BR is above 30BI's, or until I drop down to 20 BI's. If my BR goes up I'll 3 table, if it goes down I'll retreat to NL30 again. I haven't worked out how long til I clear my OnGame bonus, but I aim to do the two bonuses I have line up before leaving this site, if I leave this site.
Some game goals to work on:
* Work hard at getting reads on OnGame villains, work out where the money is here
* Work hard at optimising some postflop plays. Like understand when a raise only gets worse to fold, better to call, and where to fold a big pair
* Work more at getting questions together about different plays
* 3 bet more and work out where it's a good move.
Ahhh OnGame
Goals:
1. Get comfortable on OnGame again.
2. work on table selection given stack sizes and player types.
3. Work hard at playing optimal preflop and flop strategy based on reads
How do I feel:
A little sick, just be two tabling at most
1. Best describes OnGame: WOW, fuck me, WOW, WTF is going on??? Amazingly bad players, but tough night due to variance.
2. Table selection wasn't perfect as I had loose players on my left, but then they were bad, and I had even looser LAG's on my right, so not terrible table selection
3. This had me playing very face up, as most people don't believe you have a hand. Played fairly tight pre flop, didn't try many bluffs. Need to 3 bet more still.
Nothing too much to report, it's been very quiet poker wise the last few days. I joined up OnGame to clear a big bonus. That will commit me to OnGame most of this month I think. The games were scarily bad. 30 VPIP was considered tight, 4% 3 bets were considered aggro tilt monkeys, and anything above 1.2% AF was a maniac basically. One player resembled TAG/LAG stats and even he was 30/18 rather than 20/18.
As it stands if the players are really this bad here, I have to jump up and take a shot at NL50. Not because I'm really that confident at this site yet, but if there are players like this giving their moeny away at higher levels I need to know, and not leave that level. If it's not the case, then that's OK, I'll drop down.
I'll blog November results and December goals soon.
1. Get comfortable on OnGame again.
2. work on table selection given stack sizes and player types.
3. Work hard at playing optimal preflop and flop strategy based on reads
How do I feel:
A little sick, just be two tabling at most
1. Best describes OnGame: WOW, fuck me, WOW, WTF is going on??? Amazingly bad players, but tough night due to variance.
2. Table selection wasn't perfect as I had loose players on my left, but then they were bad, and I had even looser LAG's on my right, so not terrible table selection
3. This had me playing very face up, as most people don't believe you have a hand. Played fairly tight pre flop, didn't try many bluffs. Need to 3 bet more still.
Nothing too much to report, it's been very quiet poker wise the last few days. I joined up OnGame to clear a big bonus. That will commit me to OnGame most of this month I think. The games were scarily bad. 30 VPIP was considered tight, 4% 3 bets were considered aggro tilt monkeys, and anything above 1.2% AF was a maniac basically. One player resembled TAG/LAG stats and even he was 30/18 rather than 20/18.
As it stands if the players are really this bad here, I have to jump up and take a shot at NL50. Not because I'm really that confident at this site yet, but if there are players like this giving their moeny away at higher levels I need to know, and not leave that level. If it's not the case, then that's OK, I'll drop down.
I'll blog November results and December goals soon.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Do you know this guy?
I had a fairly plain couple of nights, with the exception of playing a little while drunk... that was interesting, but still not worth blogging about. All up I think I'm playing well, but also running fairly well right now I guess. In the last week I can only remember two spots where I lost big pots to suckouts, and I seem to be on the dishing side of coolers in big pots I get into.
I subscribed to a few more CR blogs based on highest CR ratings, and read through a bit of good content. One in particular that opened my eyes to important poker concepts was elletse. His latest 2 blogs goes into good detail about what it takes to be a NL1000 regular. He explains the NL1000 regular TAG as a technically unexploitable player. Like, all their stats are too tight to exploit like their 3 bet %, cbet %, fold to cbet, etc etc. That is, if you were to profile the player, you'd find no easy money spots, so realistically a bad player to play against.
Firstly, thinking about this at NL25, I'd say every player has problems with their basic stats, probably still true at NL100. It really is worth thinking of every player as someone with a lot of leaks, and making it a mission to find those leaks, and of course exploit them. Also understand what they do well, as that can help you get paid too. On the other hand, the most frustrating players I face now tend to be those that balance up quite well. I can't easily cbet them, or float them or even 3 bet them, as they have solid enough answers to those easy attempts to make money without a hand. It's not that they always react to being 3 bet, it's that they react just enough to make it uncomfortable to 3 bet them light.
He went on to saying that this shouldn't be the ultimate answer, but knowing the perfect mix of everything and being able to play that way is important.
The more and more I uncover recently, the more I think that poker is all about those that you choose to sit with, and knowing how they operate.
I subscribed to a few more CR blogs based on highest CR ratings, and read through a bit of good content. One in particular that opened my eyes to important poker concepts was elletse. His latest 2 blogs goes into good detail about what it takes to be a NL1000 regular. He explains the NL1000 regular TAG as a technically unexploitable player. Like, all their stats are too tight to exploit like their 3 bet %, cbet %, fold to cbet, etc etc. That is, if you were to profile the player, you'd find no easy money spots, so realistically a bad player to play against.
Firstly, thinking about this at NL25, I'd say every player has problems with their basic stats, probably still true at NL100. It really is worth thinking of every player as someone with a lot of leaks, and making it a mission to find those leaks, and of course exploit them. Also understand what they do well, as that can help you get paid too. On the other hand, the most frustrating players I face now tend to be those that balance up quite well. I can't easily cbet them, or float them or even 3 bet them, as they have solid enough answers to those easy attempts to make money without a hand. It's not that they always react to being 3 bet, it's that they react just enough to make it uncomfortable to 3 bet them light.
He went on to saying that this shouldn't be the ultimate answer, but knowing the perfect mix of everything and being able to play that way is important.
The more and more I uncover recently, the more I think that poker is all about those that you choose to sit with, and knowing how they operate.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Lesson 1 finished
Goals:
1. Pay much closer attention to stats before playing a hand and try to work out whether that hand works well against ranges, and likeliness for people to call/fold up to turn
2. watch other hands, tendancies
3. think about post flop betting chances when boards come down
How do I feel?
Very good, looking forward to paying more attention, will two table and table select (datamining)
Results:
1. Tick. I datamined a lot of tables before playing, and when I sat down had two aggro monkeys on my direct right, so life was good. But I labelled each player on my table looking at how much they might 3 bet or call if they had position on me, and how much they would fold to cbets or turn cbets, trying to profile how profitable they would be for easy bet/cbet poker. Looking at players on my right, I looked at how profitable they would be to set mine or how dominated my AJ type hands would be from their EP raises. I felt very comfortable with my play after doing a bit of this, and kept it up pretty well for the whole session.
2. Did this pretty well. I don't miss too much on the tables now while 2 tabling. If I miss a big pot I go the HH to find out more. Whether they were betting for value, thin betting or bluffing a lot is still a big focus. Looking to focus more on floating and how they handle 3 bet pots too.
3. What I mean by this is try to think more before betting. How does this board interact with villains range? How much value would this villain give me with my hand? So am I betting for value here or betting to bluff/semi bluff. And if it's a bluff/semi-bluff how likely am I to get it to work. If it's for value, how much value would I expect from this hand?
Overall, felt like I played well, probably the best I have before given new levels of attention. I also tightened up a lot in marginal spots like holding A3s from CO with a looser button, or betting the SB when checked to. And definitely if you find fishy tables, there is absolutely no need to try to force people off pots or play too much OOP, as you get paid a lot more often with big hands, which is what happened.
I also finished off the video coaching, which went make a video, get feedback notes then have a live Q+A session. While I wouldn't say my idea of poker was turned upside down, I definitely found out a lot about my game from doing this session, and confirmed things I don't understand so well. It really comes down to doing ALL the little things, and never leaving anything for chance. If a spot comes up where you think, "I'll just try to cbet here" without having valid reasons to do so, then you are allowing yourself to burn money and this lead to tilt. Assessing a situation and being wrong is a good thing, as it shows you can improve your game and winrate still. So I'm going to tilt a lot more if I bet without a reason than if I had the wrong read or reason.
Understand simple poker concepts, get reads on players, play accordingly, it's that easy.
OK, so where to from here? I will be focusing on mainly the stats and reads for the next little while. I need to start gettting this in my head, but when the opportunities come up I'll be adding a 3rd table to the mix. This will be when I'm comfortable at two tables, and I'm feeling switched on, not when I'm tired or tilted. My short term goal is to get to a point where I'm back up to 4 tables, but not losing much of my reads. I think this is very achievable, and like anything will take some work, which I'm prepared to do. Once I'm comfortable 4 tabling again, I will work at improving my game again, and start grinding towards NL50. The beauty of 4 tabling is I can get a winrate together that coupled with 350 hands an hour will mean I can start making some plans to move up to the next level, as long as I'm winning and not losing. My aim is to not give up any edge playing these tables, and still be table selecting, hand reading and player reading well with all 4 tables I'm playing on.
1. Pay much closer attention to stats before playing a hand and try to work out whether that hand works well against ranges, and likeliness for people to call/fold up to turn
2. watch other hands, tendancies
3. think about post flop betting chances when boards come down
How do I feel?
Very good, looking forward to paying more attention, will two table and table select (datamining)
Results:
1. Tick. I datamined a lot of tables before playing, and when I sat down had two aggro monkeys on my direct right, so life was good. But I labelled each player on my table looking at how much they might 3 bet or call if they had position on me, and how much they would fold to cbets or turn cbets, trying to profile how profitable they would be for easy bet/cbet poker. Looking at players on my right, I looked at how profitable they would be to set mine or how dominated my AJ type hands would be from their EP raises. I felt very comfortable with my play after doing a bit of this, and kept it up pretty well for the whole session.
2. Did this pretty well. I don't miss too much on the tables now while 2 tabling. If I miss a big pot I go the HH to find out more. Whether they were betting for value, thin betting or bluffing a lot is still a big focus. Looking to focus more on floating and how they handle 3 bet pots too.
3. What I mean by this is try to think more before betting. How does this board interact with villains range? How much value would this villain give me with my hand? So am I betting for value here or betting to bluff/semi bluff. And if it's a bluff/semi-bluff how likely am I to get it to work. If it's for value, how much value would I expect from this hand?
Overall, felt like I played well, probably the best I have before given new levels of attention. I also tightened up a lot in marginal spots like holding A3s from CO with a looser button, or betting the SB when checked to. And definitely if you find fishy tables, there is absolutely no need to try to force people off pots or play too much OOP, as you get paid a lot more often with big hands, which is what happened.
I also finished off the video coaching, which went make a video, get feedback notes then have a live Q+A session. While I wouldn't say my idea of poker was turned upside down, I definitely found out a lot about my game from doing this session, and confirmed things I don't understand so well. It really comes down to doing ALL the little things, and never leaving anything for chance. If a spot comes up where you think, "I'll just try to cbet here" without having valid reasons to do so, then you are allowing yourself to burn money and this lead to tilt. Assessing a situation and being wrong is a good thing, as it shows you can improve your game and winrate still. So I'm going to tilt a lot more if I bet without a reason than if I had the wrong read or reason.
Understand simple poker concepts, get reads on players, play accordingly, it's that easy.
OK, so where to from here? I will be focusing on mainly the stats and reads for the next little while. I need to start gettting this in my head, but when the opportunities come up I'll be adding a 3rd table to the mix. This will be when I'm comfortable at two tables, and I'm feeling switched on, not when I'm tired or tilted. My short term goal is to get to a point where I'm back up to 4 tables, but not losing much of my reads. I think this is very achievable, and like anything will take some work, which I'm prepared to do. Once I'm comfortable 4 tabling again, I will work at improving my game again, and start grinding towards NL50. The beauty of 4 tabling is I can get a winrate together that coupled with 350 hands an hour will mean I can start making some plans to move up to the next level, as long as I'm winning and not losing. My aim is to not give up any edge playing these tables, and still be table selecting, hand reading and player reading well with all 4 tables I'm playing on.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Video done, some thoughts
I finished my video (I think), and some interesting things came out of it. When I was doing the video, I didn't want to do the audio, because I thought it would be a mess, even though Joseph suggested putting the audio on after. Last night I put the audio over the top as suggested, and had a pretty decent insight into my game. I made the moves I pretty much would have except a couple given the hands and reads I had, which suggests my B game isn't far off my A game, as I definitely felt B. It also suggests my feelings of playing bad are probably more about not having the skill, than not being able to apply that skill. I mean, there is definitely game time room for improvement, like getting more solid reads, and using some pre flop and flop stats and stack sizes a bit more, and table selecting harder, but overall, a lot of the things I'm doing wrong there are due to the skills I bring to the table.
One thing that keeps bugging me is thinking about some hands I've had recently (and over time) is having way too many all in hands where I'm nearly drawing dead or am drawing dead, like he has KK vs QQ overpairs, or I have nut flush/straight on a paired board and he has a boat, I have two pair, he's completed a straight, etc etc. I find myself overplaying some marginal hands for stacks. So at times that's OK, and I get on an upswing, other times it's very dangerous. I would like to get a video done where more of these type of hands happen, so I could go over them in more detail with peers.
The one that did happen was AJ from the button. An aggro BB 3 bet, which he would do a lot if I had more button raises. I figure my AJ is ahead of his range by a bit and call, to see J88 flop. I just never put a huge part of his range on a JJ+, so when he cbets, I minraise, which I planned to do if I missed the board too a lot of the time. He miraises back, almost getting it in anyway, and I have no trouble getting it in, he has 86s. So i figured my Ace outs were good as well as J outs, and I might even have him crushed with him drawing to a K or Q or 2 outs to his lower pair. Reality was I'm drawing to 2 outs or a runner runner Aces :) This is really where I get myself into trouble, with no easy way out and it's frustrating. I maybe have to re-evaluate hands where I hold a normally strong hand that is now drawing dead or almost dead to some obvious hands, when players make what I'd consider a strong move.
I'm probably just rambling, but overall I'm excited to be getting coached right now, and I really feel like by the end of the month I will be a "better player without question", not just a "better player I hope" like my normal development goes.
One thing that keeps bugging me is thinking about some hands I've had recently (and over time) is having way too many all in hands where I'm nearly drawing dead or am drawing dead, like he has KK vs QQ overpairs, or I have nut flush/straight on a paired board and he has a boat, I have two pair, he's completed a straight, etc etc. I find myself overplaying some marginal hands for stacks. So at times that's OK, and I get on an upswing, other times it's very dangerous. I would like to get a video done where more of these type of hands happen, so I could go over them in more detail with peers.
The one that did happen was AJ from the button. An aggro BB 3 bet, which he would do a lot if I had more button raises. I figure my AJ is ahead of his range by a bit and call, to see J88 flop. I just never put a huge part of his range on a JJ+, so when he cbets, I minraise, which I planned to do if I missed the board too a lot of the time. He miraises back, almost getting it in anyway, and I have no trouble getting it in, he has 86s. So i figured my Ace outs were good as well as J outs, and I might even have him crushed with him drawing to a K or Q or 2 outs to his lower pair. Reality was I'm drawing to 2 outs or a runner runner Aces :) This is really where I get myself into trouble, with no easy way out and it's frustrating. I maybe have to re-evaluate hands where I hold a normally strong hand that is now drawing dead or almost dead to some obvious hands, when players make what I'd consider a strong move.
I'm probably just rambling, but overall I'm excited to be getting coached right now, and I really feel like by the end of the month I will be a "better player without question", not just a "better player I hope" like my normal development goes.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Made my first vid
Goals:
1. Get 40 minutes of 2 tables done.
2. Play with some thoughts, maybe note down key pots
3. Work out those villains that can fold medium hands, those that can bet thinly, and those that bluff a lot, and those that play purely for value
How do I feel:
kind of tired, a bit off
How did I do:
1. yep, roughly
2. Not much of this, where did my thoughts go?
3. I was doing this on and off. I don't think I clearly got the answers I should have, and the information was there I think.
goheels (Joseph) from CR is going to assist in my learning curve. So last night I recorded a video, which I'll put audio over and send to him (or anyone else if they care for it). A little tiredness and tilt came along with the vid, but more than anything some nasty spots. If I was to analyse my plays now, there were a few too many loose bets/bluffs, but overall I think it's a great indication of where my mind is at with relation to poker right now, and since a lot of those bluffs worked, it can't all be bad. My only hesitation is that in a couple of spots, even though it worked, I risked money without "knowing" my opponent would have to fold, which is where it gets very dangerous.
If there was one positive to take out of the session, it was that I was at least thinking more about bet sizing. It's probably something I should keep fairly simple for now, but for some reason I saw value in trying some weird bets to throw my opponents off which worked OK.
Just before starting the video recording I got sucked out on with 2 pair and the flush draw versus a better flush draw on the turn. That plus the fact my computer was using 100% CPU the whole time the video was going (unrelated to Camtasia in the end) had me slightly tilted all session.
So I have to say, I have no clear goals in poker right now until I get advice from Joseph on where to focus most of my attention. I'm really pumped about putting the extra boost into my learning, but based on some of my plays last night, I can see I still have a lot of basic things like calling people down too light, calling 3 bets or opening bad hands at bad times that creep into my game when I'm not trusting/applying my reads. So in my opinion, some advice coming back will probably be, keep learning some ABC tactics. Still it should be good to hear that from a good player, and not just assume I know the answers, and always be 2nd guessing theories.
1. Get 40 minutes of 2 tables done.
2. Play with some thoughts, maybe note down key pots
3. Work out those villains that can fold medium hands, those that can bet thinly, and those that bluff a lot, and those that play purely for value
How do I feel:
kind of tired, a bit off
How did I do:
1. yep, roughly
2. Not much of this, where did my thoughts go?
3. I was doing this on and off. I don't think I clearly got the answers I should have, and the information was there I think.
goheels (Joseph) from CR is going to assist in my learning curve. So last night I recorded a video, which I'll put audio over and send to him (or anyone else if they care for it). A little tiredness and tilt came along with the vid, but more than anything some nasty spots. If I was to analyse my plays now, there were a few too many loose bets/bluffs, but overall I think it's a great indication of where my mind is at with relation to poker right now, and since a lot of those bluffs worked, it can't all be bad. My only hesitation is that in a couple of spots, even though it worked, I risked money without "knowing" my opponent would have to fold, which is where it gets very dangerous.
If there was one positive to take out of the session, it was that I was at least thinking more about bet sizing. It's probably something I should keep fairly simple for now, but for some reason I saw value in trying some weird bets to throw my opponents off which worked OK.
Just before starting the video recording I got sucked out on with 2 pair and the flush draw versus a better flush draw on the turn. That plus the fact my computer was using 100% CPU the whole time the video was going (unrelated to Camtasia in the end) had me slightly tilted all session.
So I have to say, I have no clear goals in poker right now until I get advice from Joseph on where to focus most of my attention. I'm really pumped about putting the extra boost into my learning, but based on some of my plays last night, I can see I still have a lot of basic things like calling people down too light, calling 3 bets or opening bad hands at bad times that creep into my game when I'm not trusting/applying my reads. So in my opinion, some advice coming back will probably be, keep learning some ABC tactics. Still it should be good to hear that from a good player, and not just assume I know the answers, and always be 2nd guessing theories.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
I'm Conciously Incompetent
Kirsty call George
I'm not setting goals just yet...
2 reasons. 1 is that I'm not feeling up to the grind right now. Secondly, I really feel like sorting something out after watching a Jared Tendler video. The video was his first I think, and I think he qualified by the end not to play thinking about what he said, and I agree, so I'll blog it out of my system, and see if I want to play afterwards.
So the idea was an old golf lesson I learned. Easy enough to understand, it's the 4 levels of skills, unconcious incompetence, concious incompetence, concious competence and inconcious competence. Now the idea is at first you totally don't have a skill, but don't know it, like spelling unconcious (yes I used a spell checker). You'd so far be unconcious incompetent. Next you are told it's spelt wrong, so you know you are wrong, but you know you aren't good at it. That is concious incompetent, you are aware, but know you aren't good. Next you get to concious competent, meaning you've studied, practiced and now you feel confident. In this case it's checking the spell checker and now understanding the spelling, but still having to think about it when typing. Finally, you don't even have to think about it. You are typing unconcious into a sentance and do so without thinking about the spelling at all.
Now obviously the above has one great place to be, and 3 terrible places for different reasons. Inconcious incompetent is bad because you won't even know you have an issue, however in certain circumstances, like a lot of poker skills, it's not dangerous to not know. Like not knowing about blind stealing isn't dangerous. Concious incompetent is dangerous because you know you should occasionally steal blinds but don't know when. So you can cost yourself more money trial and erroring this. However, it's also good, because you know it's something you need to learn more about. Concious competent is OK, but at high emotional times you really need things to just happen, and if they aren't inconcious yet, you may fall into trouble under pressures. So you may think you know something very well, but still fall to the negatives behind not knowing it sometimes.
Now Jared said not to apply this directly to your play. I think he's aiming to come back to this in later videos, but there is one really interesting point about this concept and poker. Now you don't know about stealing blinds, but now find an article or forum post about stealing blinds, and suddenly know it :) So you try it a lot, and wonder why you are no good at it after a while. So you finally decide it's a leak, and come back to learning more about blind stealing. Suddenly a few concepts about blind stealing click into place. So you go back to a "concious competent" phase now, knowing your blind stealing is good. It eventually becomes unconcious, only you still may not know it properly. So it becomes obvious that doing anything without understanding it first is vitally dangerous. This is so true of so many things in life, yet people love to just get stuck in and do something rather than learning first, then applying. Wow, it's so obvious, yet so me!!!
Because of the dangers of consious incompetent, I want to do Jareds idea of writing a list of what I think my 4 skill sets are in poker. Unconcious incompetent will obviously be hard, but I'm sure I can think of plenty for the other categories. I figure this list to almost be a long term goal list, but we'll see how good it is first. The idea being to have a lot in the concious incompetent (only has to be partially incompetent) list and working hard to understand what I don't already.
I'm actually getting a bit poker hungry so will come back to this, but this list will likely be kept locally anyway, and I'll see if I want to publish it to the blog or not.
I'm not setting goals just yet...
2 reasons. 1 is that I'm not feeling up to the grind right now. Secondly, I really feel like sorting something out after watching a Jared Tendler video. The video was his first I think, and I think he qualified by the end not to play thinking about what he said, and I agree, so I'll blog it out of my system, and see if I want to play afterwards.
So the idea was an old golf lesson I learned. Easy enough to understand, it's the 4 levels of skills, unconcious incompetence, concious incompetence, concious competence and inconcious competence. Now the idea is at first you totally don't have a skill, but don't know it, like spelling unconcious (yes I used a spell checker). You'd so far be unconcious incompetent. Next you are told it's spelt wrong, so you know you are wrong, but you know you aren't good at it. That is concious incompetent, you are aware, but know you aren't good. Next you get to concious competent, meaning you've studied, practiced and now you feel confident. In this case it's checking the spell checker and now understanding the spelling, but still having to think about it when typing. Finally, you don't even have to think about it. You are typing unconcious into a sentance and do so without thinking about the spelling at all.
Now obviously the above has one great place to be, and 3 terrible places for different reasons. Inconcious incompetent is bad because you won't even know you have an issue, however in certain circumstances, like a lot of poker skills, it's not dangerous to not know. Like not knowing about blind stealing isn't dangerous. Concious incompetent is dangerous because you know you should occasionally steal blinds but don't know when. So you can cost yourself more money trial and erroring this. However, it's also good, because you know it's something you need to learn more about. Concious competent is OK, but at high emotional times you really need things to just happen, and if they aren't inconcious yet, you may fall into trouble under pressures. So you may think you know something very well, but still fall to the negatives behind not knowing it sometimes.
Now Jared said not to apply this directly to your play. I think he's aiming to come back to this in later videos, but there is one really interesting point about this concept and poker. Now you don't know about stealing blinds, but now find an article or forum post about stealing blinds, and suddenly know it :) So you try it a lot, and wonder why you are no good at it after a while. So you finally decide it's a leak, and come back to learning more about blind stealing. Suddenly a few concepts about blind stealing click into place. So you go back to a "concious competent" phase now, knowing your blind stealing is good. It eventually becomes unconcious, only you still may not know it properly. So it becomes obvious that doing anything without understanding it first is vitally dangerous. This is so true of so many things in life, yet people love to just get stuck in and do something rather than learning first, then applying. Wow, it's so obvious, yet so me!!!
Because of the dangers of consious incompetent, I want to do Jareds idea of writing a list of what I think my 4 skill sets are in poker. Unconcious incompetent will obviously be hard, but I'm sure I can think of plenty for the other categories. I figure this list to almost be a long term goal list, but we'll see how good it is first. The idea being to have a lot in the concious incompetent (only has to be partially incompetent) list and working hard to understand what I don't already.
I'm actually getting a bit poker hungry so will come back to this, but this list will likely be kept locally anyway, and I'll see if I want to publish it to the blog or not.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
2, count that 2 tables
Goals:
1. Get some reads on a table, feel happy to play there
2. Start up another, try to balance the reads on two tables
3. Work on keeping reads and keeping up with the table changes
How do I feel:
OK, not tired, but a little distracted/work tilted.
Results of goals:
1. Had this early. Saw some weird looking bets and had two tight players on my left
2. Again, good early. Got the reads on both tables, saw and noted lots of interesting things
3. Somewhat good. I was getting tired after an hour of play, and really had gone into auto mode apart from getting reads from a couple of spewtards (I've always noticed spewtards). I did notice having one spewtard (actually a TAG tilting I think) did make it much harder to read other tables.
Again I feel I played pretty well. I have a little "monsters under the bed" sometimes, and don't 3 bet enough. Still I haven't felt like I've had a lot to 3 bet with, but oh well. ran pretty well on the flop again, and ran up a nice little 2 BI.
There were two near identical spots where I "ran well", but do feel like the way I played made the hand insanely easy, however it may not be ideal. I called 99 after being 3 bet, by a fairly TAG/LAG player and flopped T66, so raised his cbet. Flop is terrible for his range, but I feel I'm only folding worse, and getting called by better. Next was calling AT after a TAG (tilting a bit though) 3 bet. Flop is A73, he cbets big, I raise, he insta folds. Two spots where I had way ahead or way behind. Now the idea is to call here and let him spew off. Only in both situations, I feel like he might double/triple barrell as a bluff, and in both cases, I'm not happy to call down with the hand I have. Again in both cases, I'm not even turning my hand into a bluff, as AK never folds there, and even JJ never folds on the T66 board. Don't know, might post somewhere.
Two biggest losses were hitting KJ top pair and getting forced off it by the river, and strangest first hand ever, having a squeeze happen in front of me when I held QQ. Wasn't sure whether to call/fold/raise/shove without any reads or stats, but called to evaluate. Folded to Kxx insta cbet, and later found him to be quite tight, so maybe made a good fold.
The whole US poker thing is horrible, WTF is Bush up to? You have 10 days, retire (or rest) in peace and leave us chronic gamblers alone!!! I'm glad I'm not American, but can just imagine the entire poker culture dying off if poker is banned in the US properly. Some nervous puppies out there right now I presume.
1. Get some reads on a table, feel happy to play there
2. Start up another, try to balance the reads on two tables
3. Work on keeping reads and keeping up with the table changes
How do I feel:
OK, not tired, but a little distracted/work tilted.
Results of goals:
1. Had this early. Saw some weird looking bets and had two tight players on my left
2. Again, good early. Got the reads on both tables, saw and noted lots of interesting things
3. Somewhat good. I was getting tired after an hour of play, and really had gone into auto mode apart from getting reads from a couple of spewtards (I've always noticed spewtards). I did notice having one spewtard (actually a TAG tilting I think) did make it much harder to read other tables.
Again I feel I played pretty well. I have a little "monsters under the bed" sometimes, and don't 3 bet enough. Still I haven't felt like I've had a lot to 3 bet with, but oh well. ran pretty well on the flop again, and ran up a nice little 2 BI.
There were two near identical spots where I "ran well", but do feel like the way I played made the hand insanely easy, however it may not be ideal. I called 99 after being 3 bet, by a fairly TAG/LAG player and flopped T66, so raised his cbet. Flop is terrible for his range, but I feel I'm only folding worse, and getting called by better. Next was calling AT after a TAG (tilting a bit though) 3 bet. Flop is A73, he cbets big, I raise, he insta folds. Two spots where I had way ahead or way behind. Now the idea is to call here and let him spew off. Only in both situations, I feel like he might double/triple barrell as a bluff, and in both cases, I'm not happy to call down with the hand I have. Again in both cases, I'm not even turning my hand into a bluff, as AK never folds there, and even JJ never folds on the T66 board. Don't know, might post somewhere.
Two biggest losses were hitting KJ top pair and getting forced off it by the river, and strangest first hand ever, having a squeeze happen in front of me when I held QQ. Wasn't sure whether to call/fold/raise/shove without any reads or stats, but called to evaluate. Folded to Kxx insta cbet, and later found him to be quite tight, so maybe made a good fold.
The whole US poker thing is horrible, WTF is Bush up to? You have 10 days, retire (or rest) in peace and leave us chronic gamblers alone!!! I'm glad I'm not American, but can just imagine the entire poker culture dying off if poker is banned in the US properly. Some nervous puppies out there right now I presume.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Session review
Goals for this session:
1. COntinue to dig at player types as quickly as possible
2. Identify points where I'm falling into B or C game traps
3. Review the session
How do I feel:
Pretty great, I could grind NL50 tonight.
Time: 8:20pm
1. Not bad. Getting good early reads on some occasions
2. I didn't feel like I played any B or C game tonight
3. Reviewed some hands, really nothing interesting, except for a couple of read based call downs which where both correct calls.
Played some NL50 after feeling good. I ended up playing well I thought, but hitting very little. At one point I had to fold 99 to a big 3 bet (he had AA, but I would have flopped a 9 and won a big 3 way pot), next hand flopped a full house versus a donk who raised everyhing but folded, then would have hit top two pair, but again had to fold PF and the donk and solid player got it in with worse. Then I hit nothing for 2 hours :) Fortunately had 2 players spaz off rivers to me, otherwise it would have been a breakeven nigh with no pot over nearly anything. Overall though my hand reading was going well, situation reading seemed quite solid, and I was getting a pretty good impression of who were the big donks and who were the solid regs 3 betting for value or double barrelling with top pair etc.
I just don't really feel scared about any situation right now, because if it's bad for me I can quit the game, but usually I understand it, even if I don't like it. Like basically, you can almost categorise people into post flop bettors that bet only for value, bet too thinly or bluff too much. Apart from that preflop and cbets are all in the stats, so it's just a case of watching later streets to see how people play certain hands after the flop is seen.
Anyway, eventually I'll feel confident enough in how it's all going to add table 2 to the mix. I'll probably just play NL50 when I'm feeling very solid and not tired.
1. COntinue to dig at player types as quickly as possible
2. Identify points where I'm falling into B or C game traps
3. Review the session
How do I feel:
Pretty great, I could grind NL50 tonight.
Time: 8:20pm
1. Not bad. Getting good early reads on some occasions
2. I didn't feel like I played any B or C game tonight
3. Reviewed some hands, really nothing interesting, except for a couple of read based call downs which where both correct calls.
Played some NL50 after feeling good. I ended up playing well I thought, but hitting very little. At one point I had to fold 99 to a big 3 bet (he had AA, but I would have flopped a 9 and won a big 3 way pot), next hand flopped a full house versus a donk who raised everyhing but folded, then would have hit top two pair, but again had to fold PF and the donk and solid player got it in with worse. Then I hit nothing for 2 hours :) Fortunately had 2 players spaz off rivers to me, otherwise it would have been a breakeven nigh with no pot over nearly anything. Overall though my hand reading was going well, situation reading seemed quite solid, and I was getting a pretty good impression of who were the big donks and who were the solid regs 3 betting for value or double barrelling with top pair etc.
I just don't really feel scared about any situation right now, because if it's bad for me I can quit the game, but usually I understand it, even if I don't like it. Like basically, you can almost categorise people into post flop bettors that bet only for value, bet too thinly or bluff too much. Apart from that preflop and cbets are all in the stats, so it's just a case of watching later streets to see how people play certain hands after the flop is seen.
Anyway, eventually I'll feel confident enough in how it's all going to add table 2 to the mix. I'll probably just play NL50 when I'm feeling very solid and not tired.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Some video thoughts
Couple of interesting tid bits to talk about before discussing boring results. First of all videos. In general I bet I can't think of much I've ever learned from videos. That doesn't mean I haven't learned anything, it's more that I'm not giving myself the best chance to learn I don't think. I sit and listen to a video, agree with a concept and move on. I think just the act of writing down interesting points is a real addition to watching a video. I know Leatherass said he would constantly watch Stox videos and write down on a notepad everthing interesting. So I'm going to do the same, and put those notes in this blog. I hope to:
1. Learn a little more
2. Learn to question why more often
3. Learn to thrash out ideas away from the video.
The last is especially useful. Like someone says this is a good spot to raise, I can write it down, and start to see why that is.
I'm also going to do a little more outside of the tables. Like if I see a datamined history, without many notes, I will write down the username and research them outside the game. It's likely I'll bump into them again, so may as well get prepared, and may even find out some interesting things when doing this.
So a few notes on two videos I saw. First was VitalMyth 3 Exploitation series. Magician of a poker player, and I'm pretty sure this video was a little too high stakes for me, but this is my previous blog to a tee. He is able to read players like crazy, and this is poker. I want to aim to be like this guy, I'll be watching and rewatching every video he does. That said my note taking was awful here, but here we go:
Limping pre flop - as a way to stop a very aggro player on your left from taking away good isolating spots. Like a fish limps and we want to play a pot, but then the aggro player 3 bets after we isolate. Now we face a 3 bet pot against a reg, and lost the fish anyway. By limping along, the aggro player might still isolate, but with the fish in the hand, and us having position with plenty of stack to play with, we now have a more profitable situation. I like it, but fairly specific and not very NL25/NL50 friendly.
Minbetting - against the same aggro players, you'll get a lot of action with this move, so do it for value. It also helps confuse players who might see you as a regular rather than a fish. Anything to confuse someone has to be good. Some examples showed a really small turn bet after a bet/cbet. Personally I faced this yesterday with 2nd pair. I think the guy thought I was holding something that would call with hands he beat (he had 3rd pair), or get raised by hands that beat him. I just called, and checked behind on the river, but it was a good way for him to get a free card, or get to showdown cheap, but very exploitable for next time I see it (as I pay attention now).
Donk leading - again aggro players love to raise donk leads, so do it for value against these guys. Other players will fold too much, so pick out those guys and use it to win pots with no equity. You can also start to see where people call it very light. I like the idea behind donk leads, but really don't feel I'm ready to experiment just yet.
2nd video was Jared Tendler on how to learn more effectively. Very important right now. I think I'll watch all of Jared's video pretty soon, because this is sort of the ABC to learning anything, and any info to help do that will only help in the long run. So some things he has as important is to write down what splits apart the A game, B game and C game. So here it is for me (this will change over time):
A game - paying full attention to all players. Things like "he has the queen, and will fold if I call here and bet the river" enter your mind. Can quit bad situations. Making decisions that show everything I've learned, maybe even adding a new learning while playing. Making solid notes on players, and writing down interesting things. Maintaining focus throughout a session. Not tilting when a rough hand comes up or I get my money in bad. Losing a small pot when I could have easily lost a bigger one. Getting good value for my good hands.
B game - All of above, except some of the following may be happening. Not reading players that well. Making vague notes or noting unimportant things. Tilting, but not continuing on with that tilt. Moving into auto pilot. Not making notes outside the tables. Getting distracted by TV or other things. Getting frustrated by situations a little easy. Feeling tired.
C game - Not worth mentioning the above, because they mostly aren't happening. Making moves without reads or reasons to. Playing tilted. Folding the best hand because I'm playing scared. Getting my money in too light. Playing way too tired. Not preparing for hands. Not quitting bad situations, like getting 3 bet a lot from the blinds or playing a table without any weak players.
Other parts of this video:
Apparently thinking through things or writing down situations helps take emotion out of the situation, where emotion clouds judgement of course. So you get into a cooler situation, and write it down. Instantly, the tilt becomes less, as what you write down is more about what you did rather than what happened. I have really just noticed this before hearing Jared say it, but I agree 100%.
Also he said tilting shouldn't happen if you made a big mistake. You've either made it for one of two reasons. 1, you didn't better, or 2 you didn't implement what you knew. Now 1 is fine. As long as you are actively seeking out what you did wrong, it's fine to make a mistake. Now go and learn that thing, and you won't make the mistake again (perhaps). The second is also OK. You thought you'd learned something, but by proving you hadn't learned it, you can try to understand why, which most likely means you won't make that mistake next time.
A couple of smaller things. Don't over analyse pots at the tables, leave that until you are finished the session and have a clearer mind. What felt like a terrible move maybe was correct, and what felt great maybe was horrible, but leave that until the end to decide. Just take out of that, what your opponent did, and try to analyse that at the tables. Also some good points about breathing. Making a deep long breath to relax, and a quicker more intense breath to get focused. So when you have a big decision to make, start by putting in a real focus breath, to really make sure you are giving yourself the best chance.
OK, just a couple more concepts from podcasts I heard on the weekend (OMFG this is long). Firstly Jared Tendler again. He discussed his training and videos on 2+2 podcast and one thing really caught my attention. He said you don't need confidence to drive your game. Confidence when you don't have the skills is just dillusional. Skill should be driving the confidence, so that when you have the skill, you know you have the skill and you therefore have the confidence. Of course other factors can crush confidence even if you have skill, but that's a different issue. The main thing is to not try to convince yourself of being confident, try to get your skill level to such a point you don't have to convince yourself. Also he mentioned that heightened emotions actually forces the brain to think less, as does being too relaxed. So trying to avoid tilt by thinking things through is actually not going to work if the tilt is stopping you thinking :)
Far from this was the Bart Hansen show about what to look for at the tables. His podcast again is purely about what I am right in the middle of learning. He pointed out some things I'm thinking about right now. I mean it's OK to watch every move someone makes, but realistically going through 40 notes on every move someone made is not helping. He has pointed out some key things to analyse, like what they bet the river with. Do they bet as a bluff a lot, thinly value bet one pair hands, or only bet monsters? Very much what I've been focusing on. If they check raise a flop, is it likely they have 2 pair or a bluff always, or do they do this with sets/draws. Are they cbetting too much, do they always cbet then shut down on dry boards OOP, etc etc. I'll have to listen to the end of this, but so far, it's a very good episode about exactly what I've been talking about, which is watching what goes on rather than autopiloting based on your cards. All good.
OK, so that's chapters 2, 3 and 4 of my novel :) Incidentally I played poker last night. It was far less exciting than the Friday session, grinding NL25 one table on Full Tilt. MY bankroll is still marginal, but has improved over the last couple of weeks, and I do feel like my edge at 6 max is growing bigger and bigger with my new ideas and focus. I should have doubled up reasonably early against a very aggro player when I got it in with TT vs 55 pre flop, but he spiked (Fuck you full tilt). I then made a player bluff off half a stack versus my AA (where I wouldn't have been happy to get it in), and doubled up on a deep stacked table when I flopped a set versus a very weak hand going way too aggro at everything. I also had to lay down some fairly big hands, but figure them all to be good laydowns. I finished up just a little, but definitley felt like I lost focus 3/4 through the session, and was happy that I'd realised this. I couldn't however overcome this totally fo rsome reason, and quit at an appropriate time. Maybe I was a little tired, needed a break, but as it was, it was a good time for sleep, so I quit the session, didn't really warm down, and went to bed. A goal for my next session will be to finish off a session properly by reviewing hands and going over my game notes I've made. Other than that I was happy with my play, and thought fairly solidly throughout.
So back to the drawing board, my 6 max inspiration was resparked and now I'm looking at grinding these stakes once again, starting with 1 table, but aiming for 2 tables reasonably soon. No real money goals or rakeback goals in the short term, but I would like to grind up to at least the $1K mark and move up to NL50 at some point in the future.
1. Learn a little more
2. Learn to question why more often
3. Learn to thrash out ideas away from the video.
The last is especially useful. Like someone says this is a good spot to raise, I can write it down, and start to see why that is.
I'm also going to do a little more outside of the tables. Like if I see a datamined history, without many notes, I will write down the username and research them outside the game. It's likely I'll bump into them again, so may as well get prepared, and may even find out some interesting things when doing this.
So a few notes on two videos I saw. First was VitalMyth 3 Exploitation series. Magician of a poker player, and I'm pretty sure this video was a little too high stakes for me, but this is my previous blog to a tee. He is able to read players like crazy, and this is poker. I want to aim to be like this guy, I'll be watching and rewatching every video he does. That said my note taking was awful here, but here we go:
Limping pre flop - as a way to stop a very aggro player on your left from taking away good isolating spots. Like a fish limps and we want to play a pot, but then the aggro player 3 bets after we isolate. Now we face a 3 bet pot against a reg, and lost the fish anyway. By limping along, the aggro player might still isolate, but with the fish in the hand, and us having position with plenty of stack to play with, we now have a more profitable situation. I like it, but fairly specific and not very NL25/NL50 friendly.
Minbetting - against the same aggro players, you'll get a lot of action with this move, so do it for value. It also helps confuse players who might see you as a regular rather than a fish. Anything to confuse someone has to be good. Some examples showed a really small turn bet after a bet/cbet. Personally I faced this yesterday with 2nd pair. I think the guy thought I was holding something that would call with hands he beat (he had 3rd pair), or get raised by hands that beat him. I just called, and checked behind on the river, but it was a good way for him to get a free card, or get to showdown cheap, but very exploitable for next time I see it (as I pay attention now).
Donk leading - again aggro players love to raise donk leads, so do it for value against these guys. Other players will fold too much, so pick out those guys and use it to win pots with no equity. You can also start to see where people call it very light. I like the idea behind donk leads, but really don't feel I'm ready to experiment just yet.
2nd video was Jared Tendler on how to learn more effectively. Very important right now. I think I'll watch all of Jared's video pretty soon, because this is sort of the ABC to learning anything, and any info to help do that will only help in the long run. So some things he has as important is to write down what splits apart the A game, B game and C game. So here it is for me (this will change over time):
A game - paying full attention to all players. Things like "he has the queen, and will fold if I call here and bet the river" enter your mind. Can quit bad situations. Making decisions that show everything I've learned, maybe even adding a new learning while playing. Making solid notes on players, and writing down interesting things. Maintaining focus throughout a session. Not tilting when a rough hand comes up or I get my money in bad. Losing a small pot when I could have easily lost a bigger one. Getting good value for my good hands.
B game - All of above, except some of the following may be happening. Not reading players that well. Making vague notes or noting unimportant things. Tilting, but not continuing on with that tilt. Moving into auto pilot. Not making notes outside the tables. Getting distracted by TV or other things. Getting frustrated by situations a little easy. Feeling tired.
C game - Not worth mentioning the above, because they mostly aren't happening. Making moves without reads or reasons to. Playing tilted. Folding the best hand because I'm playing scared. Getting my money in too light. Playing way too tired. Not preparing for hands. Not quitting bad situations, like getting 3 bet a lot from the blinds or playing a table without any weak players.
Other parts of this video:
Apparently thinking through things or writing down situations helps take emotion out of the situation, where emotion clouds judgement of course. So you get into a cooler situation, and write it down. Instantly, the tilt becomes less, as what you write down is more about what you did rather than what happened. I have really just noticed this before hearing Jared say it, but I agree 100%.
Also he said tilting shouldn't happen if you made a big mistake. You've either made it for one of two reasons. 1, you didn't better, or 2 you didn't implement what you knew. Now 1 is fine. As long as you are actively seeking out what you did wrong, it's fine to make a mistake. Now go and learn that thing, and you won't make the mistake again (perhaps). The second is also OK. You thought you'd learned something, but by proving you hadn't learned it, you can try to understand why, which most likely means you won't make that mistake next time.
A couple of smaller things. Don't over analyse pots at the tables, leave that until you are finished the session and have a clearer mind. What felt like a terrible move maybe was correct, and what felt great maybe was horrible, but leave that until the end to decide. Just take out of that, what your opponent did, and try to analyse that at the tables. Also some good points about breathing. Making a deep long breath to relax, and a quicker more intense breath to get focused. So when you have a big decision to make, start by putting in a real focus breath, to really make sure you are giving yourself the best chance.
OK, just a couple more concepts from podcasts I heard on the weekend (OMFG this is long). Firstly Jared Tendler again. He discussed his training and videos on 2+2 podcast and one thing really caught my attention. He said you don't need confidence to drive your game. Confidence when you don't have the skills is just dillusional. Skill should be driving the confidence, so that when you have the skill, you know you have the skill and you therefore have the confidence. Of course other factors can crush confidence even if you have skill, but that's a different issue. The main thing is to not try to convince yourself of being confident, try to get your skill level to such a point you don't have to convince yourself. Also he mentioned that heightened emotions actually forces the brain to think less, as does being too relaxed. So trying to avoid tilt by thinking things through is actually not going to work if the tilt is stopping you thinking :)
Far from this was the Bart Hansen show about what to look for at the tables. His podcast again is purely about what I am right in the middle of learning. He pointed out some things I'm thinking about right now. I mean it's OK to watch every move someone makes, but realistically going through 40 notes on every move someone made is not helping. He has pointed out some key things to analyse, like what they bet the river with. Do they bet as a bluff a lot, thinly value bet one pair hands, or only bet monsters? Very much what I've been focusing on. If they check raise a flop, is it likely they have 2 pair or a bluff always, or do they do this with sets/draws. Are they cbetting too much, do they always cbet then shut down on dry boards OOP, etc etc. I'll have to listen to the end of this, but so far, it's a very good episode about exactly what I've been talking about, which is watching what goes on rather than autopiloting based on your cards. All good.
OK, so that's chapters 2, 3 and 4 of my novel :) Incidentally I played poker last night. It was far less exciting than the Friday session, grinding NL25 one table on Full Tilt. MY bankroll is still marginal, but has improved over the last couple of weeks, and I do feel like my edge at 6 max is growing bigger and bigger with my new ideas and focus. I should have doubled up reasonably early against a very aggro player when I got it in with TT vs 55 pre flop, but he spiked (Fuck you full tilt). I then made a player bluff off half a stack versus my AA (where I wouldn't have been happy to get it in), and doubled up on a deep stacked table when I flopped a set versus a very weak hand going way too aggro at everything. I also had to lay down some fairly big hands, but figure them all to be good laydowns. I finished up just a little, but definitley felt like I lost focus 3/4 through the session, and was happy that I'd realised this. I couldn't however overcome this totally fo rsome reason, and quit at an appropriate time. Maybe I was a little tired, needed a break, but as it was, it was a good time for sleep, so I quit the session, didn't really warm down, and went to bed. A goal for my next session will be to finish off a session properly by reviewing hands and going over my game notes I've made. Other than that I was happy with my play, and thought fairly solidly throughout.
So back to the drawing board, my 6 max inspiration was resparked and now I'm looking at grinding these stakes once again, starting with 1 table, but aiming for 2 tables reasonably soon. No real money goals or rakeback goals in the short term, but I would like to grind up to at least the $1K mark and move up to NL50 at some point in the future.
Learned what ??? is
Well, it's been an interesting couple of sessions. Friday has been an interesting night for me. My wife gives me a sleep in on Saturday, so I use it as an excuse to stay up way too late. In more recent times I play poker and drink. Now this has been a horrible combination, and I've probably lost 1000's doing this, but I worked out the drinking isn't the problem :)
The problem is much bigger poker wise, and I was able to experience this Sunday night. You see I've finally cracked poker. I am now able to generate extra income and keep my mortgage from killing my family, I kid you not.
You see before my goals to success went:
1. Learn poker
2. ???
3. Get rich
Now I've finally realised what number 2 is and why it's so important. It's "PAY FUCKING ATTENTION YOU SNOBBY DICKHEAD"!!!! Seriously. If I bump into someone who says they are learning poker, I would absolutely 100% of the time tell them to watch the other players 100%, don't take anything for granted, pay 100% attention.
So I go back a bit. I think I learned 1 pretty well before grinding a few months, 3-4 tabling at a small profit. The problem always came when I got minraised, or was floated, or faced a big river bet and didn't know what to do. I've played 85 hands against this guy and my notes are zilch, now I'm facing a river bet with top pair. This isn't poker anymore. This is playing your hands only, or level 1 thinking. How can you bluff a river or get a player to call your value bet when you don't even know how they play? Stats are important, but 19/16/3 tells me nothing about whether someone will thinly value bet the river.
What's more how can you call yourself a poker player if you are playing your hands. 4 tabling purely stats is fucking boring. It's not that it's not profitable, it's just that it's not poker and it's not interesting. The whole point is to beat your opponents, and over time they'll get the same cards as you. You are relying on them making bigger mistakes, which they do usually, but in the end this is still just a very small part of a successful players range, and I think the good (not great, just the good) players are able to take solid lines in every situation, because they can make assumptions about who they are playing, based on things they've seen.
OK, so back to playing drunk. My problem was I wasn't reading players well, then playing drunk. So I'm already a breakeven player by purely hoping stats will help, now add some drinks. Now I'm a losing player at any session. Now factor in that tilt is much more likely when you make stupid mistakes, and stupid mistakes are likely to get you more upset when drunk, and being drunk stops you from making a sensible decision, like quitting a session when down and playing bad. Now that's not good.
So on Friday I was about to play, then I remembered the warm up routine, and stopped and did that. It was great. I had a couple of drinks down, but it cleared up my mind setting some goals and I had a pretty dodgy plan based on the previous nights play. Get a profit, move up a level, and so on, until I go broke. That's right, if I'm playing $25/$50 by the end so be it. If I go broke playing 25c/50c so be it. The intention was always to buy in short too. So I started NL25 with $15. It was a grind to be honest, but made it up to $45, so bought into NL50 for $30. I played roughly 43/38/3 style all night, On this table, it didn't take long, with a few players trying to take me on and playing way too predictably. It's fair to say I was reading players magically this night.
So NL100 and $50 on the table. Again I started getting action, and even comments at this table. I always seemed to be able to bluff effectively, until I ran AK on AKxx into AQ, and he thought I was bluffing :) Up to $250 on the table after that hand, so it's up to NL200. It's very safe to say the tables had played very tight weak up until this point and this is where I expected some real aggro grinders, but no. Again my 43/38 style seemed to keep everyone guessing and folding. In this whole run I don't remember losing a 3 bet pot! I doubled up when AQ shoved me preflop and I had AK and held on. Eventually I grinded up to $450 on that table. Now at this point I looked at a very pretty figure in my Cashier, and really should have stopped. Why? Because I'm results oriented? No, because I was getting very tired and was starting to lose my focus big time. Like I was drastically tired. I opened up $2/$4, and showed down the 2nd best hand 4 times in a row here. Not so much coolers, more the minimum hand someone could have and still call and be good against my hand. But again this was readless, and I was trying too quickly to run over players, which without reads against good players, mainly because I was tired. I lost all my profits, but was really happy to have run over every table up to NL400 :)
Really happy with my play that night, because I was playing poker. I was reading players and putting players on exact hands on turns and rivers, which feels brilliant. "A game" while drunk? Pretty much.
Anyway, inspired a real look into grinding 6 max again.
The problem is much bigger poker wise, and I was able to experience this Sunday night. You see I've finally cracked poker. I am now able to generate extra income and keep my mortgage from killing my family, I kid you not.
You see before my goals to success went:
1. Learn poker
2. ???
3. Get rich
Now I've finally realised what number 2 is and why it's so important. It's "PAY FUCKING ATTENTION YOU SNOBBY DICKHEAD"!!!! Seriously. If I bump into someone who says they are learning poker, I would absolutely 100% of the time tell them to watch the other players 100%, don't take anything for granted, pay 100% attention.
So I go back a bit. I think I learned 1 pretty well before grinding a few months, 3-4 tabling at a small profit. The problem always came when I got minraised, or was floated, or faced a big river bet and didn't know what to do. I've played 85 hands against this guy and my notes are zilch, now I'm facing a river bet with top pair. This isn't poker anymore. This is playing your hands only, or level 1 thinking. How can you bluff a river or get a player to call your value bet when you don't even know how they play? Stats are important, but 19/16/3 tells me nothing about whether someone will thinly value bet the river.
What's more how can you call yourself a poker player if you are playing your hands. 4 tabling purely stats is fucking boring. It's not that it's not profitable, it's just that it's not poker and it's not interesting. The whole point is to beat your opponents, and over time they'll get the same cards as you. You are relying on them making bigger mistakes, which they do usually, but in the end this is still just a very small part of a successful players range, and I think the good (not great, just the good) players are able to take solid lines in every situation, because they can make assumptions about who they are playing, based on things they've seen.
OK, so back to playing drunk. My problem was I wasn't reading players well, then playing drunk. So I'm already a breakeven player by purely hoping stats will help, now add some drinks. Now I'm a losing player at any session. Now factor in that tilt is much more likely when you make stupid mistakes, and stupid mistakes are likely to get you more upset when drunk, and being drunk stops you from making a sensible decision, like quitting a session when down and playing bad. Now that's not good.
So on Friday I was about to play, then I remembered the warm up routine, and stopped and did that. It was great. I had a couple of drinks down, but it cleared up my mind setting some goals and I had a pretty dodgy plan based on the previous nights play. Get a profit, move up a level, and so on, until I go broke. That's right, if I'm playing $25/$50 by the end so be it. If I go broke playing 25c/50c so be it. The intention was always to buy in short too. So I started NL25 with $15. It was a grind to be honest, but made it up to $45, so bought into NL50 for $30. I played roughly 43/38/3 style all night, On this table, it didn't take long, with a few players trying to take me on and playing way too predictably. It's fair to say I was reading players magically this night.
So NL100 and $50 on the table. Again I started getting action, and even comments at this table. I always seemed to be able to bluff effectively, until I ran AK on AKxx into AQ, and he thought I was bluffing :) Up to $250 on the table after that hand, so it's up to NL200. It's very safe to say the tables had played very tight weak up until this point and this is where I expected some real aggro grinders, but no. Again my 43/38 style seemed to keep everyone guessing and folding. In this whole run I don't remember losing a 3 bet pot! I doubled up when AQ shoved me preflop and I had AK and held on. Eventually I grinded up to $450 on that table. Now at this point I looked at a very pretty figure in my Cashier, and really should have stopped. Why? Because I'm results oriented? No, because I was getting very tired and was starting to lose my focus big time. Like I was drastically tired. I opened up $2/$4, and showed down the 2nd best hand 4 times in a row here. Not so much coolers, more the minimum hand someone could have and still call and be good against my hand. But again this was readless, and I was trying too quickly to run over players, which without reads against good players, mainly because I was tired. I lost all my profits, but was really happy to have run over every table up to NL400 :)
Really happy with my play that night, because I was playing poker. I was reading players and putting players on exact hands on turns and rivers, which feels brilliant. "A game" while drunk? Pretty much.
Anyway, inspired a real look into grinding 6 max again.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
How donks survive
Well, last night was another example of when bad moves work out.
It started off normal, here are my days goals:
1. Get stats on HUD like 3 bet, fold 3 bet, cbet, fold cbet,
2. Get more involved in thinking situations through. Is a bluff for big profit, or just something to do?
3. Work on maximising value
I was feeling pretty good, a little tired.
I started up a $2 HU SNG to fix up my HUD, which worked great. It's good to see a few more stats, and actually use them. As an aside, I find myself using stats much more often, although playing 1 table, I'm reading players much better without the stats anyway.
Point 2 is a good one. I play "solid" and end up bluffing half my chips. Sometimes it works, sometimes not, but I often don't thoroughly think it through, although I'll admit I'm getting much better at this.
I didn't focus much on 3, it really is about getting a hand when someone else has a slightly worse hand in HU. I can let people bluff off a few chips, but it doesn't happen too much at the $11 level.
Anyway, had an epic starter. Blinds ended up 150/300 and at one point there we were both still even :) I just needed to have the best hand hold up in a couple of places, but actually sucked out badly to win it, in the most rediculous hand ever (well almost). Blinds where so high I just had to shove Q8o, and he insta calls with AA. Flop is Q84r, lol, gg. But wait, Q turn. He still has 2 outs, but can no longer pair the board (with a lower card) to win. River is another Queen, for quads versus his full house, nice. This was the highlight unfortunately, and I tilted a few games later. Mostly because of a couple of suckouts and coolers, then the final straw was someone calling his stack off with bottom pair against my big combo draw (which included 2 overs in the end) and him holding on. For some reason this tilted me. I spewed off another couple of BI's, and shut down the software and instead fired up a drink. And then fired up Pokerstars. Now stars was talking about a server shut down, so no SNG's were running, so I decided a good time to donk at NL10. Another suckout later (he got 2/3rds of his stack in with worse and hit two pair on the river), and I decided to short stack NL25 at $15 buy in. I pretty quickly flopped the nutz and made it to full stack, where I went up and down, playing aggro. I then got an OESD, and hit the nutz on the turn. Rather than raise his double barrell, I called again, hoping he'd put me on the flush draw, and he insta-shoved the river for 1.5x pot, which I called with the nutz, and he showed 2nd pair :)
Up on cash and confidence, I short stacked NL50 now for $30. Again, I played pretty well and ran up a small gain after a cooler brought me down from being way up. I decided these guys were too easy, so bought into a NL100 game for $50. To me this table felt way too easy. Cbets worked incredibly well, and basically even the 23/21 players seemed scared to get into pots without flopping the nutz? I ran up to about $115 without really hitting a hand, then stars lost their server.
I decided to keep the run going on Full Tilt, and get dealt two coolers in the first orbit to be down $60 on NL50. I bought in for $30, but 2nd hand it auto refreshed me to $50 and I get dealt AQs, flopping TPTK, and having to fold when the board comes out QT9J and he shoves. Then lost a few dollars with an overpair when he flopped trips on a 994 board with A9! Tilted again I run up and down, but finish up a little, and go back to stars (it's up again). Sufficed to say I'm getting tipsy by now too.
I also had interuptions at this point when kids woke up. My wife got the shits, mainly because I can't put these monsters back in bed...ever. They just won't take it for some reason. Anyway, NL100 was a success before, so bought in for $50 again. Took a hit when AK missed everything and I got played back at, but then went on a run. I was playing 43/41/5 and just running over the tight weak table. Didn't need to hit anything to get my stack up to $100, then hit a decent pot to make it to $145, when the other $170 stack decided it was time to make a stand, I have KK! I 4 bet, he ships it. I consider that's it's likely AA, but can't fold and he has AK and hits nothing, huge pot! So I'm over $300 on a table, after starting the night with about $60 in the whole account, crazy. A couple of bad players leave, and so do I. I take a break, then come back, only to lose some coolers and go down $80. I then RUN over a table, 48/43/6 with around 17% 3 bets too. Crazy stats, and people just sit back and take it!!! I run up from $50 to $210 without hitting anything at all, and in fact having to fold starting hands like QQ and AK. For some reason nobody can hit anything post flop against me, and I'm winning by the turn 95% of the time with two bets. I quit and go to bed, up to about $340 on Pokerstars, what a crazy night.
Now this is all fun and games, but it's outside of what I should be happy to do, so I'm supposed to be disappointed with what I did, but it's hard to feel that way. It all started with good intentions of course :)
It started off normal, here are my days goals:
1. Get stats on HUD like 3 bet, fold 3 bet, cbet, fold cbet,
2. Get more involved in thinking situations through. Is a bluff for big profit, or just something to do?
3. Work on maximising value
I was feeling pretty good, a little tired.
I started up a $2 HU SNG to fix up my HUD, which worked great. It's good to see a few more stats, and actually use them. As an aside, I find myself using stats much more often, although playing 1 table, I'm reading players much better without the stats anyway.
Point 2 is a good one. I play "solid" and end up bluffing half my chips. Sometimes it works, sometimes not, but I often don't thoroughly think it through, although I'll admit I'm getting much better at this.
I didn't focus much on 3, it really is about getting a hand when someone else has a slightly worse hand in HU. I can let people bluff off a few chips, but it doesn't happen too much at the $11 level.
Anyway, had an epic starter. Blinds ended up 150/300 and at one point there we were both still even :) I just needed to have the best hand hold up in a couple of places, but actually sucked out badly to win it, in the most rediculous hand ever (well almost). Blinds where so high I just had to shove Q8o, and he insta calls with AA. Flop is Q84r, lol, gg. But wait, Q turn. He still has 2 outs, but can no longer pair the board (with a lower card) to win. River is another Queen, for quads versus his full house, nice. This was the highlight unfortunately, and I tilted a few games later. Mostly because of a couple of suckouts and coolers, then the final straw was someone calling his stack off with bottom pair against my big combo draw (which included 2 overs in the end) and him holding on. For some reason this tilted me. I spewed off another couple of BI's, and shut down the software and instead fired up a drink. And then fired up Pokerstars. Now stars was talking about a server shut down, so no SNG's were running, so I decided a good time to donk at NL10. Another suckout later (he got 2/3rds of his stack in with worse and hit two pair on the river), and I decided to short stack NL25 at $15 buy in. I pretty quickly flopped the nutz and made it to full stack, where I went up and down, playing aggro. I then got an OESD, and hit the nutz on the turn. Rather than raise his double barrell, I called again, hoping he'd put me on the flush draw, and he insta-shoved the river for 1.5x pot, which I called with the nutz, and he showed 2nd pair :)
Up on cash and confidence, I short stacked NL50 now for $30. Again, I played pretty well and ran up a small gain after a cooler brought me down from being way up. I decided these guys were too easy, so bought into a NL100 game for $50. To me this table felt way too easy. Cbets worked incredibly well, and basically even the 23/21 players seemed scared to get into pots without flopping the nutz? I ran up to about $115 without really hitting a hand, then stars lost their server.
I decided to keep the run going on Full Tilt, and get dealt two coolers in the first orbit to be down $60 on NL50. I bought in for $30, but 2nd hand it auto refreshed me to $50 and I get dealt AQs, flopping TPTK, and having to fold when the board comes out QT9J and he shoves. Then lost a few dollars with an overpair when he flopped trips on a 994 board with A9! Tilted again I run up and down, but finish up a little, and go back to stars (it's up again). Sufficed to say I'm getting tipsy by now too.
I also had interuptions at this point when kids woke up. My wife got the shits, mainly because I can't put these monsters back in bed...ever. They just won't take it for some reason. Anyway, NL100 was a success before, so bought in for $50 again. Took a hit when AK missed everything and I got played back at, but then went on a run. I was playing 43/41/5 and just running over the tight weak table. Didn't need to hit anything to get my stack up to $100, then hit a decent pot to make it to $145, when the other $170 stack decided it was time to make a stand, I have KK! I 4 bet, he ships it. I consider that's it's likely AA, but can't fold and he has AK and hits nothing, huge pot! So I'm over $300 on a table, after starting the night with about $60 in the whole account, crazy. A couple of bad players leave, and so do I. I take a break, then come back, only to lose some coolers and go down $80. I then RUN over a table, 48/43/6 with around 17% 3 bets too. Crazy stats, and people just sit back and take it!!! I run up from $50 to $210 without hitting anything at all, and in fact having to fold starting hands like QQ and AK. For some reason nobody can hit anything post flop against me, and I'm winning by the turn 95% of the time with two bets. I quit and go to bed, up to about $340 on Pokerstars, what a crazy night.
Now this is all fun and games, but it's outside of what I should be happy to do, so I'm supposed to be disappointed with what I did, but it's hard to feel that way. It all started with good intentions of course :)
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Back to FTP
Just when you thought they'd sucked out on you one last time...
I actually did a warm up, but my machine rebooted randomly so I lost it. Basically said about toning down the calls and relentless button betting. I've noticed even when playing tight opponents, they eventually start 3 betting or calling you more if you pound too much, and in reality I'm quite happy with folds, because later I'll need folds. So I'm milking it a bit, and it's working out OK. I thought about 3 betting more often, but to be honest at lower stakes, not much getting bet into anyway, so no need right now. Apart from that I played my cards quite a lot, but had to take a lot of stabs here and there. A good bluff situation is betting into a min donk lead. They are so often folding it's not funny, and usually you waste far less than pot to try it.
I started on Pokerstars, had my reboot and decided to check if my money had cleared. It had, so I deposited onto Full Tilt and here I am again. Made a small profit against some less than fantastic players, but with some luck could have had a big night, just running over players. But as happens sometimes, you run over someone then get it in as huge favourite AK vs J8o, lose, then you are shorter than him. Next hand is AQ which turns into a coin flip, and it's good bye. Enough of those sort of hands and it can be hard to profit, but I still did.
Can't say I learned a lot, and to be honest, I'm hoping not to learn off these players. That said, I have to try to show a profit at some point here, so I better not talk too soon. My initial aim is to reach a bankroll to be able to grind the $22 HU SNG turbos, which I'll tentatively put at $600. At least that's when I'll take a shot if I get there.
I actually did a warm up, but my machine rebooted randomly so I lost it. Basically said about toning down the calls and relentless button betting. I've noticed even when playing tight opponents, they eventually start 3 betting or calling you more if you pound too much, and in reality I'm quite happy with folds, because later I'll need folds. So I'm milking it a bit, and it's working out OK. I thought about 3 betting more often, but to be honest at lower stakes, not much getting bet into anyway, so no need right now. Apart from that I played my cards quite a lot, but had to take a lot of stabs here and there. A good bluff situation is betting into a min donk lead. They are so often folding it's not funny, and usually you waste far less than pot to try it.
I started on Pokerstars, had my reboot and decided to check if my money had cleared. It had, so I deposited onto Full Tilt and here I am again. Made a small profit against some less than fantastic players, but with some luck could have had a big night, just running over players. But as happens sometimes, you run over someone then get it in as huge favourite AK vs J8o, lose, then you are shorter than him. Next hand is AQ which turns into a coin flip, and it's good bye. Enough of those sort of hands and it can be hard to profit, but I still did.
Can't say I learned a lot, and to be honest, I'm hoping not to learn off these players. That said, I have to try to show a profit at some point here, so I better not talk too soon. My initial aim is to reach a bankroll to be able to grind the $22 HU SNG turbos, which I'll tentatively put at $600. At least that's when I'll take a shot if I get there.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
And just to clarify...
While it's on my mind I thought I'd clarify a couple of points about posts I've made.
First of all the warm up warm down and note taking. The idea is very solid and growing on me quickly. The warm up is something I've really neglected in the past. I would fire up tables, and inevitably, be down half a buyin without any real need. Or I'd be up quickly, then drop it all. Because basically I just wander straight into a situation without properly preparing my mind for it. Setting goals, getting a notepad ready, setting out a game plan is all 5-10 minutes worth of work, but in the end takes away the guesswork behind how the first 10 minutes will play. Lets think about HU SNG turbos. If you played 10 in a night, and the first 2 you aren't really mentally prepared for, that might be enough to cause your EV to go from 10% to 0% for the night.
The notetaking is the next step, and achieves a few things. Firstly, you should write down a spot, whether it's common or one off where you are unsure how to approach it. So someone is betting full pot of every river with any hand, write it down. A tight player overshoves a dry board when you have top pair, write it down. Firstly, it motivates your mind to keep ticking over. If you haven't written anything for a while, are you really paying a lot of attention still? Then it also gives you some concrete things to review later.
Finally, the warm down. Firstly, look at your warm up notes, see if you did what you wanted for the session. Easy enough. Then look at your in game notes, and give them some deep thought. You don't have time to properly analyse while playing, so use the warm down to really think about and write out the answers or assumptions etc. If you aren't clear about it, ask a poker friend or post to a forum. This should be really strong for building your game. Now review any big hands, or tough spots and again put a plan together for how to handle those in the future, or post them to a forum. Finally, let it go. This is your dedicated time for thinking hard about the game, so do that and then close your mind off to poker. Don't spend work time/girlfriend/wife/sport/etc time worrying about a hand you played earlier.
So pretty happy to have these things as part of my game.
Finally, about the HU SNG's. Before I've gone pretty gun happy, 3 betting a lot, raising a lot, bluffing a lot. My game plan was to get it in against a weaker hand due to their frustration, but I think I'd be fairly neutral EV with these plays (like A9o would be against A5/AJ/33/QQ) and against some opponents, I'd close off being able to win this way. This is because they would patiently wait to get a hand, and then just call my shoves. Now, I'm taking much more the thinking approach. I think it does come down to a general weakness poker players, and especially HU players have. You want things now. So if someone is patiently wearing you down, you start changing your game to get it ended quickly. I've noticed a lot the last few days on Pokerstars that some players just do something completely stupid once they lose patience. Like I lost a few chips early to a decent player, then tricked him into bluffing against my flopped set. At this point I was only about 1.9K to 1.1K, with relatively low blinds, but he starts shoving every hand. I wait about 3 and get it in with A9 vs T7 or something. The point is this guy was playing solid aggressive poker, and was difficult to read, once one thing went wrong he gave up and hoped to win a coin flip. gg.
I think playing this way will see me build up my bankroll quicker than any other method at the lower stakes, then I'll have to either become a very solid player at the mid stakes HU SNG's ($55+), or move over to 6 max or HU cash again. But basically I'm setting myself the goal of reaching $3K bankroll again, then deciding what my future is from there. It will probably be starting at low stakes HU SNG's (20+ BI rule) and assessing what I play once I have around $1.5K. This could be a while, but I'm willing to put in the work, and honestly think crushing low limits HU SNG's will be quite easy.
First of all the warm up warm down and note taking. The idea is very solid and growing on me quickly. The warm up is something I've really neglected in the past. I would fire up tables, and inevitably, be down half a buyin without any real need. Or I'd be up quickly, then drop it all. Because basically I just wander straight into a situation without properly preparing my mind for it. Setting goals, getting a notepad ready, setting out a game plan is all 5-10 minutes worth of work, but in the end takes away the guesswork behind how the first 10 minutes will play. Lets think about HU SNG turbos. If you played 10 in a night, and the first 2 you aren't really mentally prepared for, that might be enough to cause your EV to go from 10% to 0% for the night.
The notetaking is the next step, and achieves a few things. Firstly, you should write down a spot, whether it's common or one off where you are unsure how to approach it. So someone is betting full pot of every river with any hand, write it down. A tight player overshoves a dry board when you have top pair, write it down. Firstly, it motivates your mind to keep ticking over. If you haven't written anything for a while, are you really paying a lot of attention still? Then it also gives you some concrete things to review later.
Finally, the warm down. Firstly, look at your warm up notes, see if you did what you wanted for the session. Easy enough. Then look at your in game notes, and give them some deep thought. You don't have time to properly analyse while playing, so use the warm down to really think about and write out the answers or assumptions etc. If you aren't clear about it, ask a poker friend or post to a forum. This should be really strong for building your game. Now review any big hands, or tough spots and again put a plan together for how to handle those in the future, or post them to a forum. Finally, let it go. This is your dedicated time for thinking hard about the game, so do that and then close your mind off to poker. Don't spend work time/girlfriend/wife/sport/etc time worrying about a hand you played earlier.
So pretty happy to have these things as part of my game.
Finally, about the HU SNG's. Before I've gone pretty gun happy, 3 betting a lot, raising a lot, bluffing a lot. My game plan was to get it in against a weaker hand due to their frustration, but I think I'd be fairly neutral EV with these plays (like A9o would be against A5/AJ/33/QQ) and against some opponents, I'd close off being able to win this way. This is because they would patiently wait to get a hand, and then just call my shoves. Now, I'm taking much more the thinking approach. I think it does come down to a general weakness poker players, and especially HU players have. You want things now. So if someone is patiently wearing you down, you start changing your game to get it ended quickly. I've noticed a lot the last few days on Pokerstars that some players just do something completely stupid once they lose patience. Like I lost a few chips early to a decent player, then tricked him into bluffing against my flopped set. At this point I was only about 1.9K to 1.1K, with relatively low blinds, but he starts shoving every hand. I wait about 3 and get it in with A9 vs T7 or something. The point is this guy was playing solid aggressive poker, and was difficult to read, once one thing went wrong he gave up and hoped to win a coin flip. gg.
I think playing this way will see me build up my bankroll quicker than any other method at the lower stakes, then I'll have to either become a very solid player at the mid stakes HU SNG's ($55+), or move over to 6 max or HU cash again. But basically I'm setting myself the goal of reaching $3K bankroll again, then deciding what my future is from there. It will probably be starting at low stakes HU SNG's (20+ BI rule) and assessing what I play once I have around $1.5K. This could be a while, but I'm willing to put in the work, and honestly think crushing low limits HU SNG's will be quite easy.
Some casual HU
My bankroll is in transit, so just have my Pokerstars bankroll. Still I'm getting ready for a HU SNG grind, so took it as a deadly serious night. Won a few dollars, and felt like I played well. My highlight was losing with AQ to AJ (71% favourite) all in preflop for the SNG, and fell to 360 chips. I fought back to win, hitting some cards, but still playing a lot of hand after, so just kept patience.
Pregame Goals:
1. Work on peoples preflop/flop tendancies
2. Question what to do more in spots
Feeling: tired mainly, a little distracted.
A couple of things that sprang to mind while playing
1. A certain move is either weak, thin, value, bluff, balanced, anything.
2. Before making a bet, know what you are doing to a raise/call.
Firstly, working on preflop/flop tendancies. I'm working hard at establishing an opponents style early, and exploiting that later. An ineresting thing. When I first played $55 HU SNG's, I was happy to get it in with A5, as is stood to be the best hand in HU. Now I'd get coolered by AT or QQ occasionally, and got it in good occasionally. However, my style is massively different now. Very much a post flop game. It's slower, but I think it's where the money is. So anyway, I'm looking closely at what to do as early as button preflop bet to have a standard game plan. Like I want to find a range of hands to raise with, which I know from how ofte he folds pre flop, 3 bets pre flop, folds cbets, calls cbet etc. If he's seeing a lot of turns when I'm raising I bring back my starting range to value hands. Or if he's forcing me out of pots by the turn a lot, I go back to a value range. If he's letting me win by the turn a lot, then I will run over, and even try to exploit the BB the same way.
The question what to do is sort of point 2 of my notes, which is another podcast idea Samoleus said. It went along, most things in poker are flexible except one rule "Only bet if you know what you are doing to a raise." The idea is say you get a marginal hand and cbet it, and are called. In your mind you have a range he's on, and you think your ahead, so you cbet turn too. Now he raises. Now if you are thinking about calling or folding, you've already made a mistake. For example, if he doesn't bluff much, then it's probably a fold. But if he bluffs a lot, you have to factor that in. But you really need to factor it in before you bet. For example, a better idea might be to bet the river if it's such a hard decision after you bet the turn. Or you might want to bet the turn and call a raise, but at least if you think about it first, then you've given yourself the best chance. I'd like to have that idea as often as possible, and I certainly don't have the best plan often yet.
Note 1 was interesting. Lets say a player donk leads. You look at the dry board, and wonder what he does that with. You raise and he folds. So he was bluffing most likely. He does it again, again you raise, and again he folds. So it's clear he donks quite weak, so do what you do against a weak range when playing your hand. Another player gets to river, and bets big on river. You missed your hand and fold, he does it again, and again. Now all 3 times you couldn't call, but just by law of averages, he has to be bluffing here sometimes, so write down that it's a bluff with question marks. Basically, there are only so many set moves people like to make outside the normal, so just work out which are important, and the "frequencies" as it's been quoted. Frequencies I guess referring to low frequency meaning it's a big value bet, medium meaning it's probably a thinner value bet or value bets with more bluffs, and high frequency meaning there must be quite a lot of bluffs. It's not quite that simple, as someone donk leads just a few flops, it doesn't mean it's with a lot of value necessarily, they may just have a move they like on a certain board.
Signing off the session.
Pregame Goals:
1. Work on peoples preflop/flop tendancies
2. Question what to do more in spots
Feeling: tired mainly, a little distracted.
A couple of things that sprang to mind while playing
1. A certain move is either weak, thin, value, bluff, balanced, anything.
2. Before making a bet, know what you are doing to a raise/call.
Firstly, working on preflop/flop tendancies. I'm working hard at establishing an opponents style early, and exploiting that later. An ineresting thing. When I first played $55 HU SNG's, I was happy to get it in with A5, as is stood to be the best hand in HU. Now I'd get coolered by AT or QQ occasionally, and got it in good occasionally. However, my style is massively different now. Very much a post flop game. It's slower, but I think it's where the money is. So anyway, I'm looking closely at what to do as early as button preflop bet to have a standard game plan. Like I want to find a range of hands to raise with, which I know from how ofte he folds pre flop, 3 bets pre flop, folds cbets, calls cbet etc. If he's seeing a lot of turns when I'm raising I bring back my starting range to value hands. Or if he's forcing me out of pots by the turn a lot, I go back to a value range. If he's letting me win by the turn a lot, then I will run over, and even try to exploit the BB the same way.
The question what to do is sort of point 2 of my notes, which is another podcast idea Samoleus said. It went along, most things in poker are flexible except one rule "Only bet if you know what you are doing to a raise." The idea is say you get a marginal hand and cbet it, and are called. In your mind you have a range he's on, and you think your ahead, so you cbet turn too. Now he raises. Now if you are thinking about calling or folding, you've already made a mistake. For example, if he doesn't bluff much, then it's probably a fold. But if he bluffs a lot, you have to factor that in. But you really need to factor it in before you bet. For example, a better idea might be to bet the river if it's such a hard decision after you bet the turn. Or you might want to bet the turn and call a raise, but at least if you think about it first, then you've given yourself the best chance. I'd like to have that idea as often as possible, and I certainly don't have the best plan often yet.
Note 1 was interesting. Lets say a player donk leads. You look at the dry board, and wonder what he does that with. You raise and he folds. So he was bluffing most likely. He does it again, again you raise, and again he folds. So it's clear he donks quite weak, so do what you do against a weak range when playing your hand. Another player gets to river, and bets big on river. You missed your hand and fold, he does it again, and again. Now all 3 times you couldn't call, but just by law of averages, he has to be bluffing here sometimes, so write down that it's a bluff with question marks. Basically, there are only so many set moves people like to make outside the normal, so just work out which are important, and the "frequencies" as it's been quoted. Frequencies I guess referring to low frequency meaning it's a big value bet, medium meaning it's probably a thinner value bet or value bets with more bluffs, and high frequency meaning there must be quite a lot of bluffs. It's not quite that simple, as someone donk leads just a few flops, it doesn't mean it's with a lot of value necessarily, they may just have a move they like on a certain board.
Signing off the session.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Crash!!!!
Goals of the night:
1. Keep my mind on top of the swings, and playing styles, looking out for:
* How much someone bluffs
* How thin they value bet
* How thin they call down
* How they play draws and monsters
2. Give decisions time.
3. Look at 3 bets
1 was fine, 2 wasn't too bad, still not getting a feel for 3 bets.
But all that matters shit as I ran 5 BI's off tonight. I played average. I liked some things, but two things went against me. Firstly I was playing solid players all night in HU. So I was not running over players, and in fact getting run over in spots. But more than anything, just showing down the 2nd best hand. So often I had TT he had JJ, I had 2 pair, he flopped the flush, I had top pair, he had 2 pair, etc, etc. There is nothing wrong with this, except I still wasn't fully bankrolled for NL30 HU, and this has meant I'm way underolled now.
So I went back to pokerstars a bit tilted from the results. I grinded about 10 HU SNG's, and again ran horrible. Nothing would hold when I got it in good, see 88 vs 66 all in pre flop go sour on the river was just about the sealer. Fortunately I somehow didn't tilt, and won 4 $11 SNG's in a row, to be up at least on Pokerstars.
I'm going back to HU SNG's on Full Tilt. The cardrunners deal is good, my bankroll is no good for HU cash, and I'm just not seeing 6 max. It's a shame because I really want to grind HU cash, but it's time to grind a bankroll first. I'll be playing HU SNG's until I prove I'm crap or until I run up a bankroll for HU cash, or until I bust.
Meh.
1. Keep my mind on top of the swings, and playing styles, looking out for:
* How much someone bluffs
* How thin they value bet
* How thin they call down
* How they play draws and monsters
2. Give decisions time.
3. Look at 3 bets
1 was fine, 2 wasn't too bad, still not getting a feel for 3 bets.
But all that matters shit as I ran 5 BI's off tonight. I played average. I liked some things, but two things went against me. Firstly I was playing solid players all night in HU. So I was not running over players, and in fact getting run over in spots. But more than anything, just showing down the 2nd best hand. So often I had TT he had JJ, I had 2 pair, he flopped the flush, I had top pair, he had 2 pair, etc, etc. There is nothing wrong with this, except I still wasn't fully bankrolled for NL30 HU, and this has meant I'm way underolled now.
So I went back to pokerstars a bit tilted from the results. I grinded about 10 HU SNG's, and again ran horrible. Nothing would hold when I got it in good, see 88 vs 66 all in pre flop go sour on the river was just about the sealer. Fortunately I somehow didn't tilt, and won 4 $11 SNG's in a row, to be up at least on Pokerstars.
I'm going back to HU SNG's on Full Tilt. The cardrunners deal is good, my bankroll is no good for HU cash, and I'm just not seeing 6 max. It's a shame because I really want to grind HU cash, but it's time to grind a bankroll first. I'll be playing HU SNG's until I prove I'm crap or until I run up a bankroll for HU cash, or until I bust.
Meh.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
First warm/up/down night
Here are the goals I set:
1. Pay close attention to flop tendancies and think about how to exploit
2. 3 bet more
3. Have some fun :)
Feeling pretty tipsy, somewhat tired, fun only I'm afraid.
Enough said. Didn't really get any emotions or massively interesting pots, so I was mainly writing reads about players I was playing, which I then put into their PS notes after finishing the HU match.
I played like god! Best ever, even tipsy. Massively reading the game, knowing exactly every player type. This is why heads up is poker, because you can't just say "Oh, 68 hands in, I don't know how this guy plays, so assume standard TAG ranges and aggression." WTF, 68 hands and no reads, where is the poker? Poker is prodding and poking your opponent, learning their behaviour, then exploiting their weaknesses. That said I ran pretty poorly, and only finished up 1 BI, felt like I deserved every match :) OK, maybe not quite, but I definitely was happy with how I played.
Reviewing the bigger hands, nothing interesting to report. About 4 missed bluffs, 2 coolers, and the rest got it in very good, getting sucked out on 3 times. No big suckouts to me, but I know that will come.
Overall, my review of this session was it was very positive towards playing real poker, and overanalysing the opponents. I want to say, opponent is playing like X, so plan Y should be winning money. Along with this should be little side plans, like if villain cbets strong, then bets turn weak, raise and find out what he has, very cheap steal opportunity, and big tell if they just fold quickly. Well, exploit that outside of the core strategy which might be about getting hands and valuing to death, or pumelling.
I didn't really get to 3 betting, but I do need this in my arsenal, so maybe tomorrow I'll get more into that. Until then, this is the poker brain switching off... I hope.
1. Pay close attention to flop tendancies and think about how to exploit
2. 3 bet more
3. Have some fun :)
Feeling pretty tipsy, somewhat tired, fun only I'm afraid.
Enough said. Didn't really get any emotions or massively interesting pots, so I was mainly writing reads about players I was playing, which I then put into their PS notes after finishing the HU match.
I played like god! Best ever, even tipsy. Massively reading the game, knowing exactly every player type. This is why heads up is poker, because you can't just say "Oh, 68 hands in, I don't know how this guy plays, so assume standard TAG ranges and aggression." WTF, 68 hands and no reads, where is the poker? Poker is prodding and poking your opponent, learning their behaviour, then exploiting their weaknesses. That said I ran pretty poorly, and only finished up 1 BI, felt like I deserved every match :) OK, maybe not quite, but I definitely was happy with how I played.
Reviewing the bigger hands, nothing interesting to report. About 4 missed bluffs, 2 coolers, and the rest got it in very good, getting sucked out on 3 times. No big suckouts to me, but I know that will come.
Overall, my review of this session was it was very positive towards playing real poker, and overanalysing the opponents. I want to say, opponent is playing like X, so plan Y should be winning money. Along with this should be little side plans, like if villain cbets strong, then bets turn weak, raise and find out what he has, very cheap steal opportunity, and big tell if they just fold quickly. Well, exploit that outside of the core strategy which might be about getting hands and valuing to death, or pumelling.
I didn't really get to 3 betting, but I do need this in my arsenal, so maybe tomorrow I'll get more into that. Until then, this is the poker brain switching off... I hope.
Poker warm up and wardm down checklist
Here are some pregame things I'd like to do every time I play.
Warm up
1. Write down some goals. It could be specific poker goals, tilt goals, table goals, hand goals, whatever I'm aiming for that day.
2. Give some thought about how I'm feeling right now, then choose a game(s) to play
3. Get mentally prepared. This likely involves some positive thoughts to get my mind on the job.
4. Open up the tables and go for it.
While playing
1. Have a notepad open, and write down thoughts about the game while playing
2. Review the tables I'm on every 15 minutes, or perhaps every time I get into a big pot
Warm down
1. Look at my notepad, and work out whether I thought/wrote enough during the game play
2. Work out whether there are any leaks/positives/questions about anything I wrote
3. Look at Pokertracker for big hands, or interesting hands. Look for leaks, maybe relating to the notepad document
4. Blog my warm up, interesting in game thoughts and any warm up thoughts that were useful.
5. If necessary, mark certain hands for forum posting.
That looks like gold to me, so give it 2 days before I completely change it :)
Warm up
1. Write down some goals. It could be specific poker goals, tilt goals, table goals, hand goals, whatever I'm aiming for that day.
2. Give some thought about how I'm feeling right now, then choose a game(s) to play
3. Get mentally prepared. This likely involves some positive thoughts to get my mind on the job.
4. Open up the tables and go for it.
While playing
1. Have a notepad open, and write down thoughts about the game while playing
2. Review the tables I'm on every 15 minutes, or perhaps every time I get into a big pot
Warm down
1. Look at my notepad, and work out whether I thought/wrote enough during the game play
2. Work out whether there are any leaks/positives/questions about anything I wrote
3. Look at Pokertracker for big hands, or interesting hands. Look for leaks, maybe relating to the notepad document
4. Blog my warm up, interesting in game thoughts and any warm up thoughts that were useful.
5. If necessary, mark certain hands for forum posting.
That looks like gold to me, so give it 2 days before I completely change it :)
Pre game tips
Yep, time to make some pre game tips. Not so much now, more a mentality change (yet again). So it comes about from a very standard video on Stox from Jared Tendler (sp?) a golf mental coach. He somehow progressed into poker players, and then Stox, and is giving poker players some videos on how to approach the game better. I say standard, because nothing about what he says is very difficult to understand. It's not like when you watch a poker video and he bluff 3 bet shoves ace high, and you just sit there thinking WTF? It is very standard, very basic, very much something I will be using :) Yep, nothing interesting at all, but still points out a poker weakness and in fact I think will help eliminate/curve the self control issues I've talked about. It will do this, because it's all about setting daily goals, actually writing them down. I half got there recently when I said I'd write down how I felt before playing, but this is more concrete, as it lets me know what I want to achieve. Now when I'm drinking, I want to achieve "playing some poker", so that would be a fair first indication that I'm not in the right frame of mind to play serious poker.
Next I will write down random thoughts I have during a session. I lost a hand, how hard did I tilt, write it down. I won/lost a hand where the other player made a really weird move. Write it down. I had a huge river decision, write down what I thought while deciding whether to call/fold/raise.
Finally, set aside 10+ minutes to finish a session properly. Go over my pre game notes, go over my game notes, and review some big hands.
As I said, very standard things, but something worth doing I think. The one really interesting thing I heard was he said the warm down is designed to shut down poker for the day/night/whatever and the warm up is designed to start up the poker mind again. In between, you should be thinking very little poker, and if something does enter your mind either dismiss it, or get into a mode to make some notes about your thoughts. Good stuff.
So I'm going to go ahead and write another post in a second which details what things I should do when warming up, playing, and warming down. It will change most likely, but will be something I will review for every session. By the end of the warm up I will decide the stakes/game I want to play based on how much I think I'm focusing. If I play without reading the next blog, I will be much more upset than if I play drunk or tired. Hopefully this will help me recognise I'm drunk/tired/tilted and choose easier/no games that night.
OK, couple more things. Firstly Full Tilt changed their policy on Cardrunners free months. Previously it's been spend 4500 points, get a free month. Now it will be "earn" 4500 points, keep those points in your account and get a free month anyway. So earn 5000 points, keep the full 5000 but get a free month. Now I did some quick sums, and based on my current level I'm still short of achieving this easily (especially given warm ups and warm downs :)), but it's something to consider soon if my bankroll increases.
Last thing, my bankroll has increased :) I played a little drunk :), but just mucking about on Pokerstars, and had a real run. I'm up $50 when I decide to gamble it up and play a 4 man $30 HU SNG. I win it, and suddenly have $140 profit going. I play a $25 6 max table, and run up 2 buyins playing crazy, only to donk it off (OK, quite drunk by then). Finally I play one more $34 HU 4 man, and get down to getting it in with overpair versus 2nd pair (81% favourite in case you care) and he hits the trips and reduces me to 300 chips. I get it in good again and lose, such is life, but my $80 profit could have been $200 if my 81% held on. I honestly feel like this situation where I get it in good with overpair versus lower pair runs completely crap for me in HU SNG's. Oh well, $90 came out and will be put into my OnGame bankroll, so handy dollars. I don't want to run dollar goals, but I'm now sitting fairly comfortably with my bankroll on there, and without running bad, I'd expect to be moving into very comfortable bankrolls, and even start to make the move towards higher limits on OnGame. It's still a while away without running like god, but feels possible now.
I'll post again with my checklist, which I'm going to bookmark and read before every session.
Next I will write down random thoughts I have during a session. I lost a hand, how hard did I tilt, write it down. I won/lost a hand where the other player made a really weird move. Write it down. I had a huge river decision, write down what I thought while deciding whether to call/fold/raise.
Finally, set aside 10+ minutes to finish a session properly. Go over my pre game notes, go over my game notes, and review some big hands.
As I said, very standard things, but something worth doing I think. The one really interesting thing I heard was he said the warm down is designed to shut down poker for the day/night/whatever and the warm up is designed to start up the poker mind again. In between, you should be thinking very little poker, and if something does enter your mind either dismiss it, or get into a mode to make some notes about your thoughts. Good stuff.
So I'm going to go ahead and write another post in a second which details what things I should do when warming up, playing, and warming down. It will change most likely, but will be something I will review for every session. By the end of the warm up I will decide the stakes/game I want to play based on how much I think I'm focusing. If I play without reading the next blog, I will be much more upset than if I play drunk or tired. Hopefully this will help me recognise I'm drunk/tired/tilted and choose easier/no games that night.
OK, couple more things. Firstly Full Tilt changed their policy on Cardrunners free months. Previously it's been spend 4500 points, get a free month. Now it will be "earn" 4500 points, keep those points in your account and get a free month anyway. So earn 5000 points, keep the full 5000 but get a free month. Now I did some quick sums, and based on my current level I'm still short of achieving this easily (especially given warm ups and warm downs :)), but it's something to consider soon if my bankroll increases.
Last thing, my bankroll has increased :) I played a little drunk :), but just mucking about on Pokerstars, and had a real run. I'm up $50 when I decide to gamble it up and play a 4 man $30 HU SNG. I win it, and suddenly have $140 profit going. I play a $25 6 max table, and run up 2 buyins playing crazy, only to donk it off (OK, quite drunk by then). Finally I play one more $34 HU 4 man, and get down to getting it in with overpair versus 2nd pair (81% favourite in case you care) and he hits the trips and reduces me to 300 chips. I get it in good again and lose, such is life, but my $80 profit could have been $200 if my 81% held on. I honestly feel like this situation where I get it in good with overpair versus lower pair runs completely crap for me in HU SNG's. Oh well, $90 came out and will be put into my OnGame bankroll, so handy dollars. I don't want to run dollar goals, but I'm now sitting fairly comfortably with my bankroll on there, and without running bad, I'd expect to be moving into very comfortable bankrolls, and even start to make the move towards higher limits on OnGame. It's still a while away without running like god, but feels possible now.
I'll post again with my checklist, which I'm going to bookmark and read before every session.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
End of week
Well another week of "serious" poker is pretty much over, and I feel like I came out of it pretty healthy. I lost $50 last night, but really didn't feel bad about my play or game selection. So overall for the week, I'm up a few dollars, but mostly just have a bit more experience under my belt and have some more thoughts about poker, which is my goal right now.
I feel like my poker mind is on the freeway right now, rather than being in the parking lot 3 months ago. I'm just adding to my thought processes every day. I now feel very comfortable thinking through hands while in a hand, and even find myself doing extra analysis after the hand is over too automatically. It's a great feeling, like I am giving myself an extra chance to win at poker. I'm still not putting my opponent on hands as much as I should. By the river, I should be saying, he's played this like KQ/QJ or air, therefore... More often than not I'm just saying, I'm ahead of most hands he could hold, without really thinking about what those hands are and how to effectively bet/play against those hands.
I'm also looking at getting better at bet sizing, which is something I've never given enough thought. The new Negraneu (sp?) podcast on PokerRoad is really solid, and full of must hear advice. The current episode I'm listening to is really focusing on bet sizing, and so is VitalMyth's second video which I've been watching. I tried it a little last night, and felt confident with my opportunities to use it, and had mixed results. But again, as a decision by decision game, putting $2.20 in to win a $6.60 pot doesn't have to work every time to make you money. For example if it's unlikely I have the best hand, but don't think he'll call (don't bet just for the hell of it, must think he's missed the board), I could get called twice and take down the third pot, and I'd still have only spent $6.60 and won back $6.60. I'd like to have a better winrate than that, but definitely betting small to make a bluff more +ev is good in some spots, of course taking into account some people call down very light in HU.
But overall, I'm crushing poker right now. Maybe not results wise (although still good), and maybe not as a skill level, but more as a speed of development. I was writing a response to a forum post yesterday, and my response changed 3 times, each time giving me tips about my own game. The question was starting ranges in HU. My original response was it's player dependant, and hand ranges should change player to player, but I thought this might be a bit vague to respond with, so I started again. I then said that you should be trying things preflop to work out your opponents, and how they respond to raise/cbets/minraises/3 bets, which I realised as I was typing I don't do enough of. Then I started again and started writing it really doesn't matter what your hand is unless you are seeing a lot of showdowns, which is really correct. If you are getting people folding too much before the river, then what does it matter whether you have ATo or 52s? I took my own advice, and started looking at that last night, and will put in some effort to work out which players see a lot of showdowns and which ones chicken out once the heat is on.
Finally on last nights play. I have a couple of problems with my play right now. Firstly, I'm really only 3 betting for value, so it's too easy for people to avoid. Also where people are raising too much PF, I'm not getting enough value calling OOP, where I could be 3 betting a lot more. Plus I should just 3 bet a lot early just to see how the villain reads it. I also worked out that whenever I get my hand in as overpair to top pair, I always get sucked out on. Have to fix that leak :)
I feel like my poker mind is on the freeway right now, rather than being in the parking lot 3 months ago. I'm just adding to my thought processes every day. I now feel very comfortable thinking through hands while in a hand, and even find myself doing extra analysis after the hand is over too automatically. It's a great feeling, like I am giving myself an extra chance to win at poker. I'm still not putting my opponent on hands as much as I should. By the river, I should be saying, he's played this like KQ/QJ or air, therefore... More often than not I'm just saying, I'm ahead of most hands he could hold, without really thinking about what those hands are and how to effectively bet/play against those hands.
I'm also looking at getting better at bet sizing, which is something I've never given enough thought. The new Negraneu (sp?) podcast on PokerRoad is really solid, and full of must hear advice. The current episode I'm listening to is really focusing on bet sizing, and so is VitalMyth's second video which I've been watching. I tried it a little last night, and felt confident with my opportunities to use it, and had mixed results. But again, as a decision by decision game, putting $2.20 in to win a $6.60 pot doesn't have to work every time to make you money. For example if it's unlikely I have the best hand, but don't think he'll call (don't bet just for the hell of it, must think he's missed the board), I could get called twice and take down the third pot, and I'd still have only spent $6.60 and won back $6.60. I'd like to have a better winrate than that, but definitely betting small to make a bluff more +ev is good in some spots, of course taking into account some people call down very light in HU.
But overall, I'm crushing poker right now. Maybe not results wise (although still good), and maybe not as a skill level, but more as a speed of development. I was writing a response to a forum post yesterday, and my response changed 3 times, each time giving me tips about my own game. The question was starting ranges in HU. My original response was it's player dependant, and hand ranges should change player to player, but I thought this might be a bit vague to respond with, so I started again. I then said that you should be trying things preflop to work out your opponents, and how they respond to raise/cbets/minraises/3 bets, which I realised as I was typing I don't do enough of. Then I started again and started writing it really doesn't matter what your hand is unless you are seeing a lot of showdowns, which is really correct. If you are getting people folding too much before the river, then what does it matter whether you have ATo or 52s? I took my own advice, and started looking at that last night, and will put in some effort to work out which players see a lot of showdowns and which ones chicken out once the heat is on.
Finally on last nights play. I have a couple of problems with my play right now. Firstly, I'm really only 3 betting for value, so it's too easy for people to avoid. Also where people are raising too much PF, I'm not getting enough value calling OOP, where I could be 3 betting a lot more. Plus I should just 3 bet a lot early just to see how the villain reads it. I also worked out that whenever I get my hand in as overpair to top pair, I always get sucked out on. Have to fix that leak :)
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Lack of self control
Had a pretty rotten run of self control. I firstly played a bit of 6 max, and am very happy with how in depth I can analyse situations now. However, my notetaking needs to be refined. Firstly, I need to reduce it to only relevant points. Things like how they bluff, how they play monsters, how they play weakly made hands etc, not so much of the less important things. Also I need to think more generically. Rather than writing "Raised ATs, double barrelled K446dd, gave up on turn", I need to be more general. I need to think this through, but maybe "Double barrelled dry flop with Ace high." Then I need to cut this down in size in a way that's not to difficult to understand like "DB DF A high"?? OK, something along those lines. I was even contemplating starting every notes with a simple list of important things to help analyse, like "Slowplays monster???" where I can keep these in a low section and have a high section when I see it actually happen. Or maybe just keep a notepad open in the background which shows all the things I should be looking out for, and copy paste when I see one happen. Anyway, results wise, I took a hit to about -$15 on a loose table, but ended up profiting $5 before quitting to play HU.
HU started well, finding a real gem of a player, but I ended up just taking his small stack and not making much after rake. I then played another short stack who reloaded. We got that 2nd stack in with AK vs K4, but he sucked out and continued to run over me. I got hands, but either got insta folds, or came up 2nd best whenever he stayed on. I didn't feel outclassed, but was tilting, so I quit, down about $30 in the end to be about breakeven for the night. I then played two players I've labelled as good. One was betting over pot for everything, but I just never got there in the bigger pots. I must admit I felt a bit lost in this situation, because I'd be committing half a BI to see a river, and went that far with the worst hands, and probably folded the best hand sometimes due to extreme pressure. It took a while to quit this, as I was really hoping to just hit a hand against his aggressive bets one time, but when I did get the hand I wanted, he sucked out on the river, and I had to quit it. Down $60. The other guy played much more regular bet sizes, but was aggressive PF and on the flop, and again made it difficult to play my normal game. I ended up calling too many 3 bets, and generally making some mistakes, and quit down about $35.
All up at this stage I was sitting about $100 down for the day, and had downed a couple of beers, which had started to effect me I think. I started on a 3rd, and noticed one last player to conquer. He was sitting with $130, and I thought I'd see if that was a permanent thing, or whether he luckboxed it. I called him down early on and won, and from there he seemed to just tilt off stack after stack, until I was up to over $100 and he was below $60. From here he made a bit of a comeback, which turned into a nasty time for me. I'd had one more beer, was started to play too loose, and found my way back to $45 at one point. I decided to grind it out a bit more and eventually found my way back to about $70 which felt good, and this hand happened.
I raised with 97o. He was 3 betting a lot and I was calling a lot given the implied odds, but he flatted here. Flop is T86r, for the nutz thank you very much. I cbet as usual and he calls, very standard, we were floating each other a lot. He checks a 5, I continue with a $4, he raises to $11. I have the nutz still, and can easily put him on a hand like a set/2 pair, maybe even a 74 which I crush. I decide he's going to have to pay this time if he wants to continue, so I make it $34 and he calls. At this point I'm praying the board doesn't pair, and a Q hits. No flush, no boat. J9 got there, but I'm not checking behind here and ship for $37 more, and he calls with T5. $147 HU pot (490BB)!!!
I got him down low enough that he had to reload, after holding at least $130 stack at one point. He made a bit back before I quit, but I finished up enough to get back all my losses and a bit.
Still the lack of discipline was annoying. I figured I'd have a couple of drinks while watching some TV, but my mind slipped and I found myself playing poker instead. I don't think I played badly, but it couldn't have been as good as I could have. I hope to make some real inroads into this mentality this weekend and next couple, and will be again out of poker somewhat the weeks after that.
HU started well, finding a real gem of a player, but I ended up just taking his small stack and not making much after rake. I then played another short stack who reloaded. We got that 2nd stack in with AK vs K4, but he sucked out and continued to run over me. I got hands, but either got insta folds, or came up 2nd best whenever he stayed on. I didn't feel outclassed, but was tilting, so I quit, down about $30 in the end to be about breakeven for the night. I then played two players I've labelled as good. One was betting over pot for everything, but I just never got there in the bigger pots. I must admit I felt a bit lost in this situation, because I'd be committing half a BI to see a river, and went that far with the worst hands, and probably folded the best hand sometimes due to extreme pressure. It took a while to quit this, as I was really hoping to just hit a hand against his aggressive bets one time, but when I did get the hand I wanted, he sucked out on the river, and I had to quit it. Down $60. The other guy played much more regular bet sizes, but was aggressive PF and on the flop, and again made it difficult to play my normal game. I ended up calling too many 3 bets, and generally making some mistakes, and quit down about $35.
All up at this stage I was sitting about $100 down for the day, and had downed a couple of beers, which had started to effect me I think. I started on a 3rd, and noticed one last player to conquer. He was sitting with $130, and I thought I'd see if that was a permanent thing, or whether he luckboxed it. I called him down early on and won, and from there he seemed to just tilt off stack after stack, until I was up to over $100 and he was below $60. From here he made a bit of a comeback, which turned into a nasty time for me. I'd had one more beer, was started to play too loose, and found my way back to $45 at one point. I decided to grind it out a bit more and eventually found my way back to about $70 which felt good, and this hand happened.
I raised with 97o. He was 3 betting a lot and I was calling a lot given the implied odds, but he flatted here. Flop is T86r, for the nutz thank you very much. I cbet as usual and he calls, very standard, we were floating each other a lot. He checks a 5, I continue with a $4, he raises to $11. I have the nutz still, and can easily put him on a hand like a set/2 pair, maybe even a 74 which I crush. I decide he's going to have to pay this time if he wants to continue, so I make it $34 and he calls. At this point I'm praying the board doesn't pair, and a Q hits. No flush, no boat. J9 got there, but I'm not checking behind here and ship for $37 more, and he calls with T5. $147 HU pot (490BB)!!!
I got him down low enough that he had to reload, after holding at least $130 stack at one point. He made a bit back before I quit, but I finished up enough to get back all my losses and a bit.
Still the lack of discipline was annoying. I figured I'd have a couple of drinks while watching some TV, but my mind slipped and I found myself playing poker instead. I don't think I played badly, but it couldn't have been as good as I could have. I hope to make some real inroads into this mentality this weekend and next couple, and will be again out of poker somewhat the weeks after that.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Some OnGame results
Well, I'm pretty much stuck with 1 tabling right now. I feel it's really curing my biggest problem in poker, which has been not taking all factors into consideration. With only one table open, I'm not missing players moves, not rushing decisions, and feel like I can grind a solid session. Of course I've also been mixing in some HU, and this is pretty much always a reading game. However, I am applying those reads a lot more now. I honestly feel like I'm taking a lot of factors into consideration when making calls or raises now and even if my poker brain is still in it's infancy, I feel like at least I'm using the grey matter in my skull to play poker now, rather than looking at my cards and making bad calls/horrible bluffs.
So some things I've been paying attention to:
1. How often are people bluffing? You see it sometimes, but even if they aren't showing down bluffs, they can be betting too often to be always good hands.
2. Make notes on how they played different hand types like good one pairs, bad one pairs, two pairs, monsters, bad draws (no showdown value), good draws, combo draws.
3. What they call with pre flop? Apart from PP's and SC's in position, what other things do they show up with.
4. What leaks do they have? Always note the badly played hands, like not pot controlling, or calling gutshots, or calling a shove with top pair when an obvious draw hits etc.
5. Bet sizing. Not a bad tool, but especially on rivers, where the pot is at it's biggest, bet sizing can tell a lot about a hand, but everyone is different in how they bluff/value bet/blocker bet hands on the turn or river.
So it's working out so far, and the idea is to make it second nature of course. Once you know a players, and know how to play against those players, well poker is really pretty easy I'd say :) OK, long way to go.
So some things I've been paying attention to:
1. How often are people bluffing? You see it sometimes, but even if they aren't showing down bluffs, they can be betting too often to be always good hands.
2. Make notes on how they played different hand types like good one pairs, bad one pairs, two pairs, monsters, bad draws (no showdown value), good draws, combo draws.
3. What they call with pre flop? Apart from PP's and SC's in position, what other things do they show up with.
4. What leaks do they have? Always note the badly played hands, like not pot controlling, or calling gutshots, or calling a shove with top pair when an obvious draw hits etc.
5. Bet sizing. Not a bad tool, but especially on rivers, where the pot is at it's biggest, bet sizing can tell a lot about a hand, but everyone is different in how they bluff/value bet/blocker bet hands on the turn or river.
So it's working out so far, and the idea is to make it second nature of course. Once you know a players, and know how to play against those players, well poker is really pretty easy I'd say :) OK, long way to go.
Monday, October 27, 2008
A HU hand
I've thought more and more about a HU hand I won last night, where the result was the difference between a losing night and breakeven night. This is long by the way. First some history about villain. I looked him up very early, and surely enough he had the nutz. Now this guy was tight in the sense that, if he called a cbet/turn bet, he usually had something worth showing down. Top pair or 2nd pair, sometimes much better. In other words he folded a lot to bets. Because of this, I'd raised almost ATC from the button and cbet about 80% of my flops, checking only very average flops and the occasional top pair/2nd pair hand to balance out a range or extract value against a weaker hand. And it was profitable. I could easily release if I didn't hit and he called my cbet or raised. I didn't easily get a feel for his bets, as I rarely had something to look him up with, and he wasn't betting as much as he was calling. He did slowplay a monster though, when he raised AQs and flopped a flush (2nd time he hit the nutz on me) and got minimum value against my top pair hand. His PF betting was fairly erratic, going from limping, to minraising to 4x raising, but the 4x were more often solid hands from what I saw, so I gave his bigger PF bets more credit. Since I was pounding him from the button, I started to notice some 3 bets coming my way. I 4 bet the first one, and he folded, so I knew he wasn't always super strong, but he still kept 3 betting, to which I folded a couple of times.
So the hand comes up, and I'll try to follow through with my feelings at the time:
Stacks are about 80BB's effective, which is what he has. I raise KJs from the button, he 3 bets medium sized, like 2.5x. Now he'd most recently 3 bet about 4x, and the time I'd 4 bet and he folded, it was also 2.5x sized, so I started thinking that like his button betting, his 3 betting raise size was hand dependant as well. I figured against a 6 max TAG, KJs was crushed a lot, but in HU, KJs is much less rarely crushed IMO. It can be behind hands like AT/TT/AQ but being crushed is like a AK/KQ/AJ where you have only one good pair to hit. That is if the flop comes down A84 and he has AT, you can easily let go of KJ, but if it's J84 and he has AJ, you are set to lose money, so you want to avoid those situations as much as possible. Anyway, people don't wait for AK/KQ/AJ at HU, and he had been especially active in 3 betting lately, so I called figuring I'd continue on a couple of streets if I flopped top pair. Board comes down K64r, beautiful. He cbets about 2/3 pot. I continue on with my read that I'm probably good here most of the time, but a big raise will just scare off a worse PP or missed AT type hand, and my hand is very unlikely to be drawn out on, with only an ace to scare me, so I just call. It's mostly a blank as he didn't 3 bet K9/96, might have sucked out with 99. He bets 2/3 pot again. All my thoughts here were "does he really have a hand here AA/AK/KQ?" There was a fatal flaw with this thinking, but I'll come back to that. He'd been 3 betting me a bit, and I'm really far ahead of his range here, only his continued betting makes his range really narrow in. I called, hoping he's continuing on with a KT/QQ/JJ/TT type hand, or just bluffing, figuring I'd check behind a checked river. It's a complete blank and he bets his last $8 giving me over 4 to 1 on the call, so I have to make it and he turns over A9 and leaves the table.
Now, up until the turn, I think things are OK from both players. I'll look at things from here from both perspectives. Firstly, mine. Now I was thinking "AA/AK/AQ?", what I should be thinking is "what does he double barrell here?" I mean, lets say he had QQ, board is K64r, he cbets which is fine, but why double barrell and pot commit yourself on the turn? The board is so lacking in draws, that he can't think I'm drawing to a flush or straight, as they just aren't there, so he's either way ahead or way behind if he has QQ. So my read was I'm behind AK/KQ/AA/KK/99 now, but ahead of QQ/JJ/TT/88/77/KT/K8 made hands, and bluffs probably ace high bluffs by now, like AQ/AJ or maybe A9/A6/A4. But those QQ-TT hands have way too much showdown value to bet and pot commit themselves here. I don't know for sure he understands pot control like that, but most people do shut down on the turn even if they don't. In fact checking down the river as well with QQ, may be most profitable mover after the cbet is called. Because even though I can hold a weaker PP, I'm as likely to hold a king after calling a 3 bet and then his cbet. So my biggest mistake was not noting that some hands I had crushed will mostly be pot controlling this turn card, turning my hand into a bluff catcher. For this reason, and the fact I haven't seen him bluff much yet, this should be a fold on the turn. I should be ahead of only bluffs, and even though it's HU and top pair is the nutz, there is too much evidence now that I'm crushed.
Now from his point of view. I'd been betting too much from the button, so A9o figured to be miles ahead of my range, so a 3 bet is OK. I don't love it, as A9 can be called by dominating hands, but some players out there will call with worse aces too. He then cbets the flop. There is nothing wrong here. His hand may be the worst here, like against some smaller PP's/65s or even better aces like AJ so getting them to fold would be good. Also even the hand he does beat may bluff the turn and A9 really isn't strong enough to call a bet with, so might as well try to take it down. But either way a cbet should be profitable as a king is in his 3 bet range. Now the turn is a 9, giving him 2nd pair. Betting here was a huge mistake. I'd paid him off earlier when he hit his flush, so it's reasonable to assume I can't fold top pair. However there are no reasonable draws, and most PP's I was holding have either setted up or are crushed by his pair on 9's now. So he's putting in far too much of his stack hoping to fold ony QQ/JJ/TT, as anything else I hold is a 2-6 outer against his now relatively strong hand. I think he was either thinking my call of the cbet was with a weak king and that I'd now fold thinking he's AA or AK, or that he has me crushed now and wants extra value. Yes, the folding a king should be possible, but he has no proof I could do that here, so without that read, it's burning money. The river is neither here nor there. If he bet the turn because he thought he was ahead, then he may as well bet the river too, as he'll realistically call a river bet from me even though his hand is relatively weak.
So the hand comes up, and I'll try to follow through with my feelings at the time:
Stacks are about 80BB's effective, which is what he has. I raise KJs from the button, he 3 bets medium sized, like 2.5x. Now he'd most recently 3 bet about 4x, and the time I'd 4 bet and he folded, it was also 2.5x sized, so I started thinking that like his button betting, his 3 betting raise size was hand dependant as well. I figured against a 6 max TAG, KJs was crushed a lot, but in HU, KJs is much less rarely crushed IMO. It can be behind hands like AT/TT/AQ but being crushed is like a AK/KQ/AJ where you have only one good pair to hit. That is if the flop comes down A84 and he has AT, you can easily let go of KJ, but if it's J84 and he has AJ, you are set to lose money, so you want to avoid those situations as much as possible. Anyway, people don't wait for AK/KQ/AJ at HU, and he had been especially active in 3 betting lately, so I called figuring I'd continue on a couple of streets if I flopped top pair. Board comes down K64r, beautiful. He cbets about 2/3 pot. I continue on with my read that I'm probably good here most of the time, but a big raise will just scare off a worse PP or missed AT type hand, and my hand is very unlikely to be drawn out on, with only an ace to scare me, so I just call. It's mostly a blank as he didn't 3 bet K9/96, might have sucked out with 99. He bets 2/3 pot again. All my thoughts here were "does he really have a hand here AA/AK/KQ?" There was a fatal flaw with this thinking, but I'll come back to that. He'd been 3 betting me a bit, and I'm really far ahead of his range here, only his continued betting makes his range really narrow in. I called, hoping he's continuing on with a KT/QQ/JJ/TT type hand, or just bluffing, figuring I'd check behind a checked river. It's a complete blank and he bets his last $8 giving me over 4 to 1 on the call, so I have to make it and he turns over A9 and leaves the table.
Now, up until the turn, I think things are OK from both players. I'll look at things from here from both perspectives. Firstly, mine. Now I was thinking "AA/AK/AQ?", what I should be thinking is "what does he double barrell here?" I mean, lets say he had QQ, board is K64r, he cbets which is fine, but why double barrell and pot commit yourself on the turn? The board is so lacking in draws, that he can't think I'm drawing to a flush or straight, as they just aren't there, so he's either way ahead or way behind if he has QQ. So my read was I'm behind AK/KQ/AA/KK/99 now, but ahead of QQ/JJ/TT/88/77/KT/K8 made hands, and bluffs probably ace high bluffs by now, like AQ/AJ or maybe A9/A6/A4. But those QQ-TT hands have way too much showdown value to bet and pot commit themselves here. I don't know for sure he understands pot control like that, but most people do shut down on the turn even if they don't. In fact checking down the river as well with QQ, may be most profitable mover after the cbet is called. Because even though I can hold a weaker PP, I'm as likely to hold a king after calling a 3 bet and then his cbet. So my biggest mistake was not noting that some hands I had crushed will mostly be pot controlling this turn card, turning my hand into a bluff catcher. For this reason, and the fact I haven't seen him bluff much yet, this should be a fold on the turn. I should be ahead of only bluffs, and even though it's HU and top pair is the nutz, there is too much evidence now that I'm crushed.
Now from his point of view. I'd been betting too much from the button, so A9o figured to be miles ahead of my range, so a 3 bet is OK. I don't love it, as A9 can be called by dominating hands, but some players out there will call with worse aces too. He then cbets the flop. There is nothing wrong here. His hand may be the worst here, like against some smaller PP's/65s or even better aces like AJ so getting them to fold would be good. Also even the hand he does beat may bluff the turn and A9 really isn't strong enough to call a bet with, so might as well try to take it down. But either way a cbet should be profitable as a king is in his 3 bet range. Now the turn is a 9, giving him 2nd pair. Betting here was a huge mistake. I'd paid him off earlier when he hit his flush, so it's reasonable to assume I can't fold top pair. However there are no reasonable draws, and most PP's I was holding have either setted up or are crushed by his pair on 9's now. So he's putting in far too much of his stack hoping to fold ony QQ/JJ/TT, as anything else I hold is a 2-6 outer against his now relatively strong hand. I think he was either thinking my call of the cbet was with a weak king and that I'd now fold thinking he's AA or AK, or that he has me crushed now and wants extra value. Yes, the folding a king should be possible, but he has no proof I could do that here, so without that read, it's burning money. The river is neither here nor there. If he bet the turn because he thought he was ahead, then he may as well bet the river too, as he'll realistically call a river bet from me even though his hand is relatively weak.
Little of OnGame
Got my taste tonight. I found these players on the 6 max table so confusing that I one tabled! Stats of 73/18, 45/0, 45/33 etc etc etc. Minbets, overbets, slowplays, overplays etc, etc. I finished up a buy in but never really got much going. headed over to HU and played a grinder, hit absolutely nothing. I was down about 1.5 BI's when I got it in with 88 for a coin flip, only he had JJ, gg. I grinded most of that back against worser players, but I still could have table selected better, as most guys I played were tight if nothing else. I ended up breaking even when I called an uncallable 3 barrel bluff down. His line made perfect sense, but I just couldn't put down KJ on a Kxxxx board, and he turned over A9 for turned 2nd pair. He actually played the hand OK, he just picked the wrong opponent :)
I'm probably going to mix in some HU now. 6 max should be a lot easier to multi table, but now I'm finding the reason I miss so much action is because of the amount of tables I have open. You have 3 donks on a table and are losing/break even, why? Because you only know partial reasons why they are donks. It's hard to get a feel for a player playing 40+% of hands, without watching a lot of those hands. I'm sure I would have broken even without some reads at that 6 max table. Still I'm sure this is just a learning curve for me, and I'll be picking up reads easier once I focus on what's really important and train my brain to follow those things.
I'm probably going to mix in some HU now. 6 max should be a lot easier to multi table, but now I'm finding the reason I miss so much action is because of the amount of tables I have open. You have 3 donks on a table and are losing/break even, why? Because you only know partial reasons why they are donks. It's hard to get a feel for a player playing 40+% of hands, without watching a lot of those hands. I'm sure I would have broken even without some reads at that 6 max table. Still I'm sure this is just a learning curve for me, and I'll be picking up reads easier once I focus on what's really important and train my brain to follow those things.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
More HU details
I forgot to mention one thing about winning 5 BI's at HU last night. How I did it! I said I ran good, but feel like blogging about it now.
Well I was logging on just to get the OnGame ball rolling after not playing there since my tilty days. As I mentioned, the filter was left on micro HU cash, and I just felt like I've been playing so much HU lately that I should give it a go. I was up 30c when one guy quit on me, then another came on for $20. I lost 2 medium pots to him, but felt he was playing bad, just too loose. I stacked him pretty easily in the end and he left, but nobody joined up the table with me sitting on over $45, so I went over to another table with a $9 stack. This was the fun table.
Basically, I took half of that stack with the rivered nutz (or close to), and then he doubled up with an all in spiking against my better hand (like A9 vs K4 or something). He then insta shoves the next hand and I have A9 again, and I call again to be up against T7s and I hold, he rebuys $10. I then get dealt A9 again, 3rd time in 4 hands or something, raise it and he shoves, I have A9 and hold again. He then rebuys for $20, and raises for which I call with T9s. The flop comes down QJ8ss and it's all I can do to stop laughing when he open shoves the flop after I check to him. I call and he has Q9 and doesn't improve and he leaves.
I now have $45ish after buying in for $10 (just covering the $8 stack) and someone buys in for $30. OK, this may be more serious poker perhaps. It's fairly obvious pretty quickly that he's way too aggressive. PF is raising $1.50-$2.50 for 30c blinds, and he's 2/3rd potting every street regardless of position or board texture. I'm getting some decent top pair hands, and just calling him down and winning EVERY pot I enter. He's probably down $30 before winning a small pot. He's never letting his stack go below $30, so all I'm seeing is my stack grow and his reload. I'm up to about $60 when I get a big all in with the best of it and hold. Then the reload, and again I get a good hand and sink his stack again. Reload again, this time to only $21.38 or something random. Yep, this is his whole bankroll now. It's at this point I stop running like god, and even thought I'd buried him, but instead double him up as he has the nutz for once. Again he's just way to aggro with air though, and I get him down to $20 and I have a hand where I'm good right the way through but end up rivering the nut flush against his Q flush and straight draw. I knew he'd have a flush and overplay it, so I checked to him on the river and he 3x the pot shoves. I have the stone cold nutz and put an end to his bankroll, sorry for that. Quite a fitting end I thought.
Unfortunately, the end of the year is looking a bit slim for poker. I have just returned from holiday and have almost 3 weeks until my mum arrives now. She stays for 3 weeks, so poker will be minimal during this time. Then it's daughters birthday, Christmas, new years etc. It's unfortunate, but I'm going to have to play fairly lightly between now and then, so will work on my core problems, but not sure how much I will trully put into poker this year. I can't even give much thought into seriously improving my bankroll between now and 2009.
Next year will be big though. I plan to finish off this year with at least some big gains in my game, so that next year I can focus on grinding and working my way up the poker levels. Call this the pre-season if you will. I'll spend time looking over leaks and ways to exploit the game, and then by next year, I'll be ready to crush the game. I really look forward to this and think it's very possible for me to do.
Well I was logging on just to get the OnGame ball rolling after not playing there since my tilty days. As I mentioned, the filter was left on micro HU cash, and I just felt like I've been playing so much HU lately that I should give it a go. I was up 30c when one guy quit on me, then another came on for $20. I lost 2 medium pots to him, but felt he was playing bad, just too loose. I stacked him pretty easily in the end and he left, but nobody joined up the table with me sitting on over $45, so I went over to another table with a $9 stack. This was the fun table.
Basically, I took half of that stack with the rivered nutz (or close to), and then he doubled up with an all in spiking against my better hand (like A9 vs K4 or something). He then insta shoves the next hand and I have A9 again, and I call again to be up against T7s and I hold, he rebuys $10. I then get dealt A9 again, 3rd time in 4 hands or something, raise it and he shoves, I have A9 and hold again. He then rebuys for $20, and raises for which I call with T9s. The flop comes down QJ8ss and it's all I can do to stop laughing when he open shoves the flop after I check to him. I call and he has Q9 and doesn't improve and he leaves.
I now have $45ish after buying in for $10 (just covering the $8 stack) and someone buys in for $30. OK, this may be more serious poker perhaps. It's fairly obvious pretty quickly that he's way too aggressive. PF is raising $1.50-$2.50 for 30c blinds, and he's 2/3rd potting every street regardless of position or board texture. I'm getting some decent top pair hands, and just calling him down and winning EVERY pot I enter. He's probably down $30 before winning a small pot. He's never letting his stack go below $30, so all I'm seeing is my stack grow and his reload. I'm up to about $60 when I get a big all in with the best of it and hold. Then the reload, and again I get a good hand and sink his stack again. Reload again, this time to only $21.38 or something random. Yep, this is his whole bankroll now. It's at this point I stop running like god, and even thought I'd buried him, but instead double him up as he has the nutz for once. Again he's just way to aggro with air though, and I get him down to $20 and I have a hand where I'm good right the way through but end up rivering the nut flush against his Q flush and straight draw. I knew he'd have a flush and overplay it, so I checked to him on the river and he 3x the pot shoves. I have the stone cold nutz and put an end to his bankroll, sorry for that. Quite a fitting end I thought.
Unfortunately, the end of the year is looking a bit slim for poker. I have just returned from holiday and have almost 3 weeks until my mum arrives now. She stays for 3 weeks, so poker will be minimal during this time. Then it's daughters birthday, Christmas, new years etc. It's unfortunate, but I'm going to have to play fairly lightly between now and then, so will work on my core problems, but not sure how much I will trully put into poker this year. I can't even give much thought into seriously improving my bankroll between now and 2009.
Next year will be big though. I plan to finish off this year with at least some big gains in my game, so that next year I can focus on grinding and working my way up the poker levels. Call this the pre-season if you will. I'll spend time looking over leaks and ways to exploit the game, and then by next year, I'll be ready to crush the game. I really look forward to this and think it's very possible for me to do.
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