OK, we all know of tilt, but I want to discuss it's smaller brother, micro tilt. Micro tilt is still tilt and can affect your game in the same terrible way, but it's causes are not always as easy to determine or put behind you.
So what are we looking out for here? What we want to do is make the best decision given the situation every time. Poker isn't magic, it's just constantly making good decisions, until money comes your way. So what we do is learn the theory, watch the other players, and do our best to make the right decision each time.
Now this bit is really important. If something affects you making the best decision, you are losing in the long term. Tilt affects you making the right decision, as does stress, fatigue, alcohol etc. If you aren't playing your best game you are relying purely on luck.
So I see micro tilt as being caused by something much smaller than normal tilt, but it still affects your game, perhaps just as badly. The worst thing is micro tilt may come from you losing nothing at all, or just a few blinds. The effects can be opening up your betting/3 betting range without proper cause, floating or raising cbets in bad situations and having a stronger suspicion a player is bluffing, even though it's unlikely they are.
The way to conquer this is to identify any situations that frustrate or upset you on the tables. Every small detail. Once you can understand where they are coming from you can hopefully play your best poker all night. If you think about this, if you can play tilt free poker 100% of the time, your win rate should dramatically improve, as one bad all in call while tilting might really affect your overall rate if it happens often enough.
OK, so some of the things I've found cause these micro tilts:
* a bad run of cards
* getting caught bluffing
* folding a medium strength hand to find out they were bluffing with air
* being outplayed
* being forced to fold after raising pre flop, especially after 3 betting
* getting lots of action on your weaker starting hands and no action once you get AA/KK
* getting forced to fold AA/KK after the flop
* having a maniac or fish win a big pot or two
* being bet into or 3 bet a lot
* getting horrible flops to bet on
* have to fold a couple of medium sized pots in a row
I hope this helps to think about where a bad play might originate from. Good luck with this.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Poker mentality - Learning
OK, I've taken a big break from this blog, and have a lot to share. But this post is probably the most important tip for a player trying to work their way from the bottom up, as it gives a solid overview of what makes a good player.
First of all it's best to think about poker as being a sum of every decision you make. Every fold/call/raise you make will effect your long term earnings. There is always an optimal decision and bet size for every decision you make, which is based on many factors. That optimal decision is known to have the most expected value, which means over the long term if you make that decision you'll be set.
So there are two very important things you can do to make the most of your time in poker. Firstly, spend a lot of time learning, and improving your knowledge of poker concepts. The best players don't become the best by luck or pure skill, they work hard at improving their game, and could tell you the +ev move to make in most situations. Secondly, play in a way that maximises your potential to learn.
Here are a few tips to consider:
It's a lot to take in, I'll probably go through each one in future blogs in greater detail. The important message is the game is in the details, every extra positive factor increases your long term winrate, no matter how small it seems at the time.
I will go through these points in more details, as I do think it's that important to being a winning poker player.
First of all it's best to think about poker as being a sum of every decision you make. Every fold/call/raise you make will effect your long term earnings. There is always an optimal decision and bet size for every decision you make, which is based on many factors. That optimal decision is known to have the most expected value, which means over the long term if you make that decision you'll be set.
So there are two very important things you can do to make the most of your time in poker. Firstly, spend a lot of time learning, and improving your knowledge of poker concepts. The best players don't become the best by luck or pure skill, they work hard at improving their game, and could tell you the +ev move to make in most situations. Secondly, play in a way that maximises your potential to learn.
Here are a few tips to consider:
- Have a balance between playing and learning. Don't spend every free time playing poker. Read forums, watch videos, talking to better players, learn what you are doing on the tables.
- Focus on the process, not the result. Most people aim to be up at the end of a session. Instead aim to make every right decision while you are playing. Focus on the players tendancies and table conditions more, take time to think a decision through given all the factors you can think of.
- Spend time analysing your own game. If you have a hand history, review it after every session, focusing on the bigger pots, especially the biggest losing pots. Be honest and self assess some calls/raises/folds as terrible and learn. Look for small leaks too, try to find patterns in your smaller losing hands. If you are unsure, post a hand to the forums.
- Learn self control. Don't play when overly tired, distracted, drunk, tilted, sick etc. You'll do much better emotionally and financially to just watch some TV or do something else. You will lose money in these states and regret it later. Also learn to control your decisions. Aggressive players and marginal hands can lure you into thinking you are ahead when it's obvious you are rarely ahead given the board and the betting. Folding what's most likely not the best hand anymore can make you a lot of money.
- Respect your opponents. They aren't here to pay you, they are here to win money. Rather than reasoning that you are just better than everyone at this level, work out what mistakes other players are making that will allow you to make money off of them. Also if you are noticably getting outplayed, or the table isn't working for you, quit the table and start another. You should be assessing your table conditions very often and should try to learn when you need to move to a better table.
- Understand mistakes are a necessary evil. It's hard to swallow, but you will make a horrible mistake time to time, and in poker that could easily be the difference between having a good winning night and a poor losing night. Face your mistakes, work out what went into you making that huge call, and learn from it if it's trully a mistake. Again ask forum members if you are unsure if it was a mistake or not.
It's a lot to take in, I'll probably go through each one in future blogs in greater detail. The important message is the game is in the details, every extra positive factor increases your long term winrate, no matter how small it seems at the time.
I will go through these points in more details, as I do think it's that important to being a winning poker player.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Poker after six months (part 3)
This really inspired me to keep going with SNG's, so I joined Full Tilt (FT) with money I'd made on UB, where I'd get rakeback for playing SNG's. I started playing a lot of SNG's and studying up on them, and sometimes played some NL10 on FT too. Because my bankroll was so good on UB, I also played some NL25 on UB, but without much luck (got two absolute shocking bad beats with flopped full houses, where they improved to a better full house after the money went in) which cost me $50. SNG's started off well on FT, but soon turned sour, running into loss after loss in 50/50 situations. NL10 on FT wasn't much better, getting rivered/outplayed to the tune of $50. So, not a great few weeks late October/November after the huge freeroll result.
During this time, I'd been posting a lot of hands to PokerForums.org (PFO), which helped a lot. My game was definitely strengthening, and I bought pokertracker and used GameTime+ to help with my NL game. I decided to stick to cash games for learning better poker, and play SNG's as a bit of fun on the side. A couple of PFO members (professional poker players) decided to take on a few "students", who would be able to watch them play in exchange to playing on RedKings (PokerRoom skin). I happily became on of the students and deposited another $50 from UB to play some NL10. I had more to put on there, but they gave only one month to clear the deposit bonus, so I thought I'll put another $50 on if that $50 clears up.
So we watched a few sessions from the PFO pros, and I gained a huge insight into winning poker techniques. My RedKings account went from $50 to $250 in no time at all. At that point I decided it was time to take a shot at NL25. Again boom, up to $550 in 2 weeks. Every session went like silk, stacking people pre-flop, on the flop or anywhere else, I couldn't go wrong. Until...
I started making plans to play more than 2 tables at once. So I added a 3rd table one night, and it couldn't have gone worse, down $100 for the night. I decided it's still a good idea, so dropped down to NL10 to try 3 tables, down another $40. Another night, it was even, the next night another $40 down. OK, time to give up 3 tables. I think it would have been alright to persevere, but the RedKings software isn't really great for multitabling on my computer compared to say FT.
So I went back to 2 tables, but suddenly started getting my money in with the worst hands. It was a horrible feeling to always be one step behind when calling big bets, and while I'm sure some of them were good calls (even though I was behind, like KK preflop losing to AK etc), I had my fair share of bad calls. It's funny because only a couple of months ago I'd be unlucky to lose an entire stack over a full night, but now I can lose 4 without feeling I've done much wrong. I'm still ahead on RedKings, but it would be marginal if I hadn't cleared $110 worth of bonus.
I joined CardRunners just last week and have been watching their videos, playing a little bit of NL10 to regain confidence. I think I've learned a lot this last week, and will be sharing a lot of theories in this blog very soon. My poker earnings have been on a treadmill since the big drop down, and I think since making a lot less big calls, my earnings may stop swinging so badly either way for a while. It's now time to work hard at a lot of small areas of my game, and try to come out the other side alive. I'm really looking forward to what the next couple of months brings.
To date my overall poker winnings are $810. Which when I think about it is the $600 from UB freeroll and pretty much all the bonus $ I've cleared. Still I can't complain, as it hasn't cost me money to get here so far, and I'm aiming at making sure I make all the right decisions from here on out to give myself a better chance at making more money in the future.
During this time, I'd been posting a lot of hands to PokerForums.org (PFO), which helped a lot. My game was definitely strengthening, and I bought pokertracker and used GameTime+ to help with my NL game. I decided to stick to cash games for learning better poker, and play SNG's as a bit of fun on the side. A couple of PFO members (professional poker players) decided to take on a few "students", who would be able to watch them play in exchange to playing on RedKings (PokerRoom skin). I happily became on of the students and deposited another $50 from UB to play some NL10. I had more to put on there, but they gave only one month to clear the deposit bonus, so I thought I'll put another $50 on if that $50 clears up.
So we watched a few sessions from the PFO pros, and I gained a huge insight into winning poker techniques. My RedKings account went from $50 to $250 in no time at all. At that point I decided it was time to take a shot at NL25. Again boom, up to $550 in 2 weeks. Every session went like silk, stacking people pre-flop, on the flop or anywhere else, I couldn't go wrong. Until...
I started making plans to play more than 2 tables at once. So I added a 3rd table one night, and it couldn't have gone worse, down $100 for the night. I decided it's still a good idea, so dropped down to NL10 to try 3 tables, down another $40. Another night, it was even, the next night another $40 down. OK, time to give up 3 tables. I think it would have been alright to persevere, but the RedKings software isn't really great for multitabling on my computer compared to say FT.
So I went back to 2 tables, but suddenly started getting my money in with the worst hands. It was a horrible feeling to always be one step behind when calling big bets, and while I'm sure some of them were good calls (even though I was behind, like KK preflop losing to AK etc), I had my fair share of bad calls. It's funny because only a couple of months ago I'd be unlucky to lose an entire stack over a full night, but now I can lose 4 without feeling I've done much wrong. I'm still ahead on RedKings, but it would be marginal if I hadn't cleared $110 worth of bonus.
I joined CardRunners just last week and have been watching their videos, playing a little bit of NL10 to regain confidence. I think I've learned a lot this last week, and will be sharing a lot of theories in this blog very soon. My poker earnings have been on a treadmill since the big drop down, and I think since making a lot less big calls, my earnings may stop swinging so badly either way for a while. It's now time to work hard at a lot of small areas of my game, and try to come out the other side alive. I'm really looking forward to what the next couple of months brings.
To date my overall poker winnings are $810. Which when I think about it is the $600 from UB freeroll and pretty much all the bonus $ I've cleared. Still I can't complain, as it hasn't cost me money to get here so far, and I'm aiming at making sure I make all the right decisions from here on out to give myself a better chance at making more money in the future.
Poker after six months (part 2)
After reading more, and looking into forums I realized players could get reasonable rakeback at NL10 and deposited another $200 on Ultimate Bet (UB) due to it's generous rakeback and bonus. It's a good site for ring games, but was lacking for SNG's, so I kept my money on PS for the tournaments and SNG's. I did very well at NL10 on UB, and found myself up a little bit of money from games and rakeback after a month.
In the meantime my SNG and tournaments were bleeding money big time on PS. My bankroll had dropped to $30 when I tried one of the $11 $100,000 tournaments (and failed), and dropped to $15 when I realised I was only 16 points from making my $25 deposit bonus. I played only SNG's realising I just needed to cash in one of them to clear the bonus, but failed to the point where I had only $2 left and 4 points to clear. I came first in the last SNG I could afford to play in and played a couple more SNG's to clear my bonus, to get my BR back to $30, woohoo!!! I read up on SNG's at sitandgoplanet.com, which really showed me some stuff. My account boomed from $2 to $170 in a matter of 2 weeks, playing mostly SNG's, up to $6 ones by that point. I felt like it had really clicked, and was profitable finally in SNG's.
Another turning point, is my bankroll booster, the RakeTheRake freeroll. Basically I'd joined UB through RakeTheRake.com to get rakeback while playing, plus entry into a monthly freeroll worth $10,000. The first month went well, and I was invited to play the tournament. About 170 real players turned up, 50 got paid at least $40, so it was a great chance to add money to your account.
Well, I played fairly poorly at parts, and was lucky to make it to the bubble (just outside the money), ranked 51 of 55 left. I had to double up to stand a chance and went all in with AQ to do just that. Once I got in the money (ITM, bubble lasted forever) I threw in a few looser bets with strong hands, and found myself in the top 40. Then 20, then 10. Final table again, in fact coming 3rd at one point. A couple of high pressure situations where I folded saw me coming 4th out of the last 6, and then 6th, and then busted. I was the first player to bust in about 40 minutes of play, as it had just literally tightened up into a blind stealing match. Still I cashed $600 prize money, woohoo!!!
In the meantime my SNG and tournaments were bleeding money big time on PS. My bankroll had dropped to $30 when I tried one of the $11 $100,000 tournaments (and failed), and dropped to $15 when I realised I was only 16 points from making my $25 deposit bonus. I played only SNG's realising I just needed to cash in one of them to clear the bonus, but failed to the point where I had only $2 left and 4 points to clear. I came first in the last SNG I could afford to play in and played a couple more SNG's to clear my bonus, to get my BR back to $30, woohoo!!! I read up on SNG's at sitandgoplanet.com, which really showed me some stuff. My account boomed from $2 to $170 in a matter of 2 weeks, playing mostly SNG's, up to $6 ones by that point. I felt like it had really clicked, and was profitable finally in SNG's.
Another turning point, is my bankroll booster, the RakeTheRake freeroll. Basically I'd joined UB through RakeTheRake.com to get rakeback while playing, plus entry into a monthly freeroll worth $10,000. The first month went well, and I was invited to play the tournament. About 170 real players turned up, 50 got paid at least $40, so it was a great chance to add money to your account.
Well, I played fairly poorly at parts, and was lucky to make it to the bubble (just outside the money), ranked 51 of 55 left. I had to double up to stand a chance and went all in with AQ to do just that. Once I got in the money (ITM, bubble lasted forever) I threw in a few looser bets with strong hands, and found myself in the top 40. Then 20, then 10. Final table again, in fact coming 3rd at one point. A couple of high pressure situations where I folded saw me coming 4th out of the last 6, and then 6th, and then busted. I was the first player to bust in about 40 minutes of play, as it had just literally tightened up into a blind stealing match. Still I cashed $600 prize money, woohoo!!!
Poker after six months (part 1)
Wow, this blog was supposed to be a journal of everything I've done and acheieved, it's in fact not even been kicked off. But I never stopped playing, I pretty much acheieved what I could have hoped for when starting this blog, so it's time to start posting I think. I hope that in 6 months I'll look back at some posts I made here and laugh at how bad I was (am now), but we'll see.
So I'll kick start it off by saying why I managed to do in the first 6 months of poker.
First of all, I get a couple of hours a night where I can play poker. It's not every night of course, but many weeks has been. It's really taken a hold of my free time, and lunch hours etc. I'm just now trying to balance things out a bit, and make sure there are poker free nights spent wholely with my wife, and make sure even on nights I play poker, that 2-3 hours of playing straight is not essential. So far so good.
So I joined pokerstars (PS) as we all do, and depsosited $25. I played a few tournaments, SNG's, 1c/2c and 2c/5c ring tables (mainly 10 max). I was really a breakeven player, but most of my early winnings were from tournaments, where I'd play like a rock early, and wait for really big hands. I finished 7th in a $1 1000 man tournament, getting $25 prize money. For some reason SNG's were a drain on my money and the ring games were up and down a lot. As you do I went on tilt after a couple of nights bad play, and after a few drinks I put way too much money onto higher tables and blew my entire bankroll in one night. Not happy with ending my poker there I deposited another $25.
Now here is a turning point for me. Down a couple of dollars again, I entered a $1 1000 man tournament (I would pretty much play at least one nightly), and made the final table again, this time finishing 4th for $50. I think I realised at this point it wasn't pure luck, so I started dedicating a bit of energy into poker, looking at forum sites such as pokerforums.org and twoplustwo.com. I still lacked any real knowledge, but worked hard enough that I was competetive and 2c/5c (NL5) and could take a shot at 5c/10c (NL10).
TBC
So I'll kick start it off by saying why I managed to do in the first 6 months of poker.
First of all, I get a couple of hours a night where I can play poker. It's not every night of course, but many weeks has been. It's really taken a hold of my free time, and lunch hours etc. I'm just now trying to balance things out a bit, and make sure there are poker free nights spent wholely with my wife, and make sure even on nights I play poker, that 2-3 hours of playing straight is not essential. So far so good.
So I joined pokerstars (PS) as we all do, and depsosited $25. I played a few tournaments, SNG's, 1c/2c and 2c/5c ring tables (mainly 10 max). I was really a breakeven player, but most of my early winnings were from tournaments, where I'd play like a rock early, and wait for really big hands. I finished 7th in a $1 1000 man tournament, getting $25 prize money. For some reason SNG's were a drain on my money and the ring games were up and down a lot. As you do I went on tilt after a couple of nights bad play, and after a few drinks I put way too much money onto higher tables and blew my entire bankroll in one night. Not happy with ending my poker there I deposited another $25.
Now here is a turning point for me. Down a couple of dollars again, I entered a $1 1000 man tournament (I would pretty much play at least one nightly), and made the final table again, this time finishing 4th for $50. I think I realised at this point it wasn't pure luck, so I started dedicating a bit of energy into poker, looking at forum sites such as pokerforums.org and twoplustwo.com. I still lacked any real knowledge, but worked hard enough that I was competetive and 2c/5c (NL5) and could take a shot at 5c/10c (NL10).
TBC
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