Well, I've been more than happy with my HUSNG self control. I haven't come close to tilting this last few days, no matter how I get beat. I've also been quitting or taking breaks when too tired or not focuses, which is awesome. I have room for improvement still, but I look forward to playing a lot of A game poker this year due to how I'm approaching the game right now.
Overall, I'm pleased with my HUSNG progress too. I can see a long way to go still, and might look at specific HUSNG coaching at some point. I figure I might put in March first, and see how I feel about that month before doing anything. I'm not completely over 6 max, and still have thoughts about playing HU cash at some point, but do feel at home in the HU SNG's right now. However, I know how poker works, and I'm sure there will be times I'm ready to quit HU, but I'm hoping I'm strong enough to work through that next time.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
HU SNG's and tilt
So, my HU SNG's so far. I've played some $55 turbos, in fact they were the last thing I played before my poker meltdown last year, and I can see why. Last year, my tilt control was 0, even though I thought I was a generally tiltless player, I was very wrong. I've come to the conclusion so far that tiltless is impossible. We can only eliminate as many tilt factors as possible. And playing tilt free is the goal to good poker. Tilt happens so quickly, and takes over so unknown to us. I remember getting upset by suckouts in these things, and then playing another match without clearing out those thoughts, not pretty. You basically play the next game as your C game at best, and I also see players do that against me now. They are playing good tight aggressive, lose one pot and start calling every raise, and calling down 3 streets with bottom pair. They just stop thinking about what's going on around them, and start playing bad.
So how am I minismising tilt now? Firstly, Tommy Angelos tips on Barts show are fantastic. He talks about being in the now. If you are tilting, you are thinking of the past. How does thinking of the past help when you are dealt AK and have a J94r flop? It doesn't at all. Also thinking about "oh he'll just check raise me" is thinking about the future, and again not focusing on what to do now. What you should always be thinking is "what could he have here", "what will he do with different hands", and now "what is my best play". If you are busy thinking about him sucking out on you or unrationally thinking he'll probably just raise, you can't accurately make a good decision.
So the idea for me is simple. I am currently 2 tabling these things, and if I have a match end, I'll take a quick thought about how I'm feeling. If I'm thinking clearly, I'll fire up another, but if I'm a little tilted, or just need a break, or want to think more about this match, I won't. After the 2nd is finished, I can take a break. It can be however long I need. Often it's just a quick breather and re-focus before firing up 2 more tables. The beauty of this in relation to HU SNG's, is you can easily get to a break time if you just wait a minute.
THe ROI in HU SNG's goes up about 1.9% for each extra match you win in a 100. So if you win 54 from 100, your ROI is 3.3%. If you win 55 from 100 your ROI is 5.2%. Now lets say you play 400 $55 turbos, the difference between 3.3% and 5.2% is over $400!!!! I mean each win is literally $110 different to a loss. So tilting just one game every 4 nights can cost you $400 a month. Now do you seen the importance of staying tilt free?
So there is one more thing. You may play fairly tilt free and still get crushed, it happened to me the other night. At 10:30pm (I can go to bed 11-12 if I feel up to it) I took a quick break, and really wanted to play more to get back to even. However, I was playing a bit tilted by now, was tired and had a lack of confidence, so I quit. I felt great doing this, as I'm sure -EV matches would have followed, regardless of results. I lost money, but felt great about it overall. Last night I was up some money, and felt like quitting, however, I was avoiding tilt well, thinking the game through well, and really had no reason to stop. So I took a little breather with the intention of playing more, and sure enough I played well after the break too.
The point I'm making is in poker, there are many, many things you can control, and need to to be a winning player. What you can't control is luck, and yet so many people focus on that too much. Whether I won a bunch or lost a bunch last night, if I played A game poker, against weaker opponents, I'm a big winner in the long term, and that's all that counts. Luck can go fuck itself really, I don't need it to win at this game long term.
That's a load off, I hope that came out well, but it's probably more a mess of words than anything. Hope someone out there gets something out of this, or at least agrees.
So how am I minismising tilt now? Firstly, Tommy Angelos tips on Barts show are fantastic. He talks about being in the now. If you are tilting, you are thinking of the past. How does thinking of the past help when you are dealt AK and have a J94r flop? It doesn't at all. Also thinking about "oh he'll just check raise me" is thinking about the future, and again not focusing on what to do now. What you should always be thinking is "what could he have here", "what will he do with different hands", and now "what is my best play". If you are busy thinking about him sucking out on you or unrationally thinking he'll probably just raise, you can't accurately make a good decision.
So the idea for me is simple. I am currently 2 tabling these things, and if I have a match end, I'll take a quick thought about how I'm feeling. If I'm thinking clearly, I'll fire up another, but if I'm a little tilted, or just need a break, or want to think more about this match, I won't. After the 2nd is finished, I can take a break. It can be however long I need. Often it's just a quick breather and re-focus before firing up 2 more tables. The beauty of this in relation to HU SNG's, is you can easily get to a break time if you just wait a minute.
THe ROI in HU SNG's goes up about 1.9% for each extra match you win in a 100. So if you win 54 from 100, your ROI is 3.3%. If you win 55 from 100 your ROI is 5.2%. Now lets say you play 400 $55 turbos, the difference between 3.3% and 5.2% is over $400!!!! I mean each win is literally $110 different to a loss. So tilting just one game every 4 nights can cost you $400 a month. Now do you seen the importance of staying tilt free?
So there is one more thing. You may play fairly tilt free and still get crushed, it happened to me the other night. At 10:30pm (I can go to bed 11-12 if I feel up to it) I took a quick break, and really wanted to play more to get back to even. However, I was playing a bit tilted by now, was tired and had a lack of confidence, so I quit. I felt great doing this, as I'm sure -EV matches would have followed, regardless of results. I lost money, but felt great about it overall. Last night I was up some money, and felt like quitting, however, I was avoiding tilt well, thinking the game through well, and really had no reason to stop. So I took a little breather with the intention of playing more, and sure enough I played well after the break too.
The point I'm making is in poker, there are many, many things you can control, and need to to be a winning player. What you can't control is luck, and yet so many people focus on that too much. Whether I won a bunch or lost a bunch last night, if I played A game poker, against weaker opponents, I'm a big winner in the long term, and that's all that counts. Luck can go fuck itself really, I don't need it to win at this game long term.
That's a load off, I hope that came out well, but it's probably more a mess of words than anything. Hope someone out there gets something out of this, or at least agrees.
Goodbye 6 max
Well, it's been just a little while. I think last blog I was really getting into the idea of not being results oriented, and that's still true. I did however fail at playing 6 max. I was going OK, playing maybe a little too tight, but there were problems.
I want to first explain some issues I have with 6 max. Firstly, when you datamine a decent percentage you soon realise some spots are not so profitable. What you actually find is that restealing off stealers is profitable, set mining with SC/PP's vs EP nits is profitable, and folding medium strength hands against tight ranges or OOP is also a good idea. So that's fine, but it leaves little left. Obviously its up to you to open up some more, but I'm finding myself making most money from 3 betting loose buttons, as even when I flop big I'm either not getting paid, or still losing. So you play 4K hands, get few great spots, and when things aren't going your way, the week is spent folding, getting it in bad, or getting rivered. Not pleasant. Also when you are waiting, waiting, waiting for a good spot, get a bad beat, but have fish on the table, you feel reluctant to just get up and take a break, but it's necessary. So I find myself grinding 2 hours straight without a break, and really just playing 1 hour good and 1 hour bad because of that. And if you do take a 15 minute break to clear your head, then it's another 30 minutes of table selecting to find good spots at the table. Nothing worse than getting on the 50 VPIP table to see two nits on your right and two loose aggressive players on your left.
So lets analyse reads. You make a read a player has check raised as a bluff. The rest of the session he never check raises you. I guess the problem I'm talking about is I'm watching players, getting reads, and it rarely gives me much help, as I rarely get into pots with people. If I'm only raising 15% of hands, I'm probably playing 5% of pots postflop, so in a 100 hands might play one hand against that guy I got a read on and he doesn't check raise anyway. Then I never seem him the rest of the week. I guess what I'm saying here is not so much reads are pointless, and certainly if you are getting reads off the loose fish on your right, that's great, but overall, even if you play 22% of hands, there isn't a lot to do but fold a lot, and bet when ahead or can get folds.
It just isn't that interesting to me, and especially when "running bad", it's very hard to untilt. What I mean is you get frustrated when AA < KK PF, then QQ < 99 in a 3 bet pot on 642r, and then you get 2 nights where not much happens. It makes you not want to grind. Then as soon as you start to get tired or tilted, you are discouraged from leaving the tables for 20 minutes for several reasons.
So hello HU. Cash or SNG, doesn't really matter, this is a game I can play. Now I've chosen HU SNG's for now, as they are a little easier again to untilt. I listened to half 1 of Bart's interview with Tommy Angelo, and he talks about physically sitting up, taking some deep breaths and refocusing. This has been a HUGE problem of mine. I sink into the couch, grind, grind, grind, and my mind gets further and further away from important issues. It's been a lot better recently, but still not ideal. Now I can play a couple of SNG's, do this excersize and focus on what's important. OK, how am I feeling, do I jump right back into the games, do I need a break, am I tired, am I tilted? OK, now take appropriate action.
So for now I'm HU SNG guy, playing the $55 turbos on Full Tilt. I do wish to move into HU cash at some point, but really want to play some HU SNG's for a while, at least til the end of the month. I figure I'll have played about 4-500 SNG's by that time, so I should have a pretty fair idea of how I'm playing them by then. Already I'm about 80 SNG's in and it's been swingy as anything. I'll report on this in another blog.
I want to first explain some issues I have with 6 max. Firstly, when you datamine a decent percentage you soon realise some spots are not so profitable. What you actually find is that restealing off stealers is profitable, set mining with SC/PP's vs EP nits is profitable, and folding medium strength hands against tight ranges or OOP is also a good idea. So that's fine, but it leaves little left. Obviously its up to you to open up some more, but I'm finding myself making most money from 3 betting loose buttons, as even when I flop big I'm either not getting paid, or still losing. So you play 4K hands, get few great spots, and when things aren't going your way, the week is spent folding, getting it in bad, or getting rivered. Not pleasant. Also when you are waiting, waiting, waiting for a good spot, get a bad beat, but have fish on the table, you feel reluctant to just get up and take a break, but it's necessary. So I find myself grinding 2 hours straight without a break, and really just playing 1 hour good and 1 hour bad because of that. And if you do take a 15 minute break to clear your head, then it's another 30 minutes of table selecting to find good spots at the table. Nothing worse than getting on the 50 VPIP table to see two nits on your right and two loose aggressive players on your left.
So lets analyse reads. You make a read a player has check raised as a bluff. The rest of the session he never check raises you. I guess the problem I'm talking about is I'm watching players, getting reads, and it rarely gives me much help, as I rarely get into pots with people. If I'm only raising 15% of hands, I'm probably playing 5% of pots postflop, so in a 100 hands might play one hand against that guy I got a read on and he doesn't check raise anyway. Then I never seem him the rest of the week. I guess what I'm saying here is not so much reads are pointless, and certainly if you are getting reads off the loose fish on your right, that's great, but overall, even if you play 22% of hands, there isn't a lot to do but fold a lot, and bet when ahead or can get folds.
It just isn't that interesting to me, and especially when "running bad", it's very hard to untilt. What I mean is you get frustrated when AA < KK PF, then QQ < 99 in a 3 bet pot on 642r, and then you get 2 nights where not much happens. It makes you not want to grind. Then as soon as you start to get tired or tilted, you are discouraged from leaving the tables for 20 minutes for several reasons.
So hello HU. Cash or SNG, doesn't really matter, this is a game I can play. Now I've chosen HU SNG's for now, as they are a little easier again to untilt. I listened to half 1 of Bart's interview with Tommy Angelo, and he talks about physically sitting up, taking some deep breaths and refocusing. This has been a HUGE problem of mine. I sink into the couch, grind, grind, grind, and my mind gets further and further away from important issues. It's been a lot better recently, but still not ideal. Now I can play a couple of SNG's, do this excersize and focus on what's important. OK, how am I feeling, do I jump right back into the games, do I need a break, am I tired, am I tilted? OK, now take appropriate action.
So for now I'm HU SNG guy, playing the $55 turbos on Full Tilt. I do wish to move into HU cash at some point, but really want to play some HU SNG's for a while, at least til the end of the month. I figure I'll have played about 4-500 SNG's by that time, so I should have a pretty fair idea of how I'm playing them by then. Already I'm about 80 SNG's in and it's been swingy as anything. I'll report on this in another blog.
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